Topping Up On Nutrients | Raaw Juice Powder

Green smoothies are the perfect start to any day in my mind, but sometimes they get a bit dull and need a bit of extra zing to keep your taste buds interested. This pack of Raaw Juice Go Green sachets really hit the spot. They're crammed full of nutrients, and make the smoothie a little sweeter, which is great for someone who's got a bit of a sweet tooth (whoops!). Plus, the powder is great for making cute little pictures with, like the bunny I did above during Easter.  Here's what each sachet contains: Apple Pineapple Wheatgrass Barleygrass Coconut Milk Chlorella Kale  Spinach Coconut Water Stevia Silica As I'm lactose intolerant and my boyfriend is allergic to nuts (not the best combination, I know), I'm always on the lookout for things that avoid both, and this Raaw juice powder manages to do. Plus, not only is it dairy and nut free, but also gluten, egg, soya, wheat and mustard free as well as being suitable for vegans. Although it comes at quite a hefty price for seven sachets - £9.99, Holland and Barratt (where I purchased it from) have such frequent sales it is often available for a lot cheaper. What is your favourite supplement to put in smoothies?

Baked Chicken in Tomato Sauce

This is going to be an uber quick post as this is such a simple dish. BUT it is packed with flavour, so don't worry about it tasting simple too. 

Ingredients (makes 1 serving):

1 chicken leg or breast

1 serving of my chunky tomato, onion & carrot soup (here)

Black pepper

Salt

1.) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

2.) Season the chicken with salt and pepper. Place on a large sheet of foil. 

3.) Pour the sauce over the chicken. Loosely wrap the foil up around the both of them. Cook for 45 minutes.

Any comments or questions are always welcome :)

Love and Light

Steph

Favourite Detox Tea

I've tried quite a number of detox teas over the last couple of years, and my main reaction to all of them has been effectively "ew". If you're interested in looking at a kind of detox tea "programme", however, you might want to try Bootea, which I've reviewed here. 

This Clipper's Organic Detox Infusion tea is so good that I was actually sad when I realised that my box was running empty and I wouldn't be able to continue having them. Whereas a great deal of detox teas taste horrendous in my experience (somewhere between piles of Autumn leaves on the ground and gingerbread men), this tastes of berries and leaves your mouth feeling cleansed.

As you all know, I'm a great fan of nourishing your body in order to nourish your mind, I think health teas are quite important. This one helped to get rid of bloating, which in my experience always makes me feel a lot happier and less uncomfortable. Plus, taking time out of my day to sit down with a cup of this had a really calming effect on me, and re-energised me to keep me going throughout the day.

What are your favourite teas?

Love and Light

Steph

Mango Madness Vegan Smoothie

This smoothie came  out a glorious golden colour and is perfect in this lead up to summer. Here in England the weather is pretty unpredictable, and almost always contains a seemingly endless amount of drizzle. So, this is a good way to start off your day, or relax int he afternoon whatever the weather to bring a little bit of sunshine into your life.

Ingredients: 

1 banana

3 small / 2 medium sized apples

handful of raspberries

200ml rice milk

1 mango

handful of flaxseeds

handful of spinach

1.) Peel and chop the apples, mango and banana. Place in a blender.

2.) Add the rice milk, spinach, raspberries and flax seeds. Blend for two minutes. If you leave out the spinach you end up with a bright pink smoothie, which can be great for kids (or if you're just a fan!).

3.) Enjoy. Top with honey, oats, and chia seeds if you wish.

Love and Light

Steph

Any comments/questions are always appreciated

Back to Basics | Day Two

Yesterday's lack of negative food's really helped me to restore my energy and I managed to get up and shower at half 6 - something I haven't done in months! Today has been a day for productivity and for once I don't feel exhausted.

I started the day off with my blueberry and spinach antioxidant smoothie which I haven't had in a few weeks. This is a great boost to the morning, especially as I was feeling rather sniffly and under the weather. I also started a course of homeopathic remedy to help rid me of my allergies to dust, pollen and animal fur. This was kindly given to me by my boyfriend's mum (here's her website), so we'll see how it goes!

Finally, my mum and sister came up today, which is something I've been greatly looking forward to. After having a light lunch of organic hummus and rosemary breadsticks, which was DIVINE, I decided to splash out this evening with a lamb roast. Although during detoxing I usually keep to lean meats, this roast was a lot more minimal than one I would usually make, as I only cook them on special occasions. Instead, it was packed with organic veggies and home seasoned roast potatoes. I'm always tempted to buy pre-seasoned frozen roasties, but during a detox I like to know exactly what is going into my food, and looking at the ingredients on one of these packets might horrify me!

Tomorrow I'm looking forward to getting back to yoga as I had no time for it today, but made up for it in a frenzy of cleaning before my guests arrived!

Love and Light

Steph

Baked Cod on a Bed of Sweet Potato Mash

I'm not the greatest fan of the 'fruits of the sea', but I try to sneak a little bit into my diet here and there. This is probably one of my simplest dinner recipes to make that is up on the blog, and incredibly easy to present. Which means that if you're not the greatest cook, or want to show your parents/other half that cooking healthy dinners can be easy and delicious, then this is a pretty good meal to hit them with. I paired it with a side of kale (every food blogger's go-to), but you could very easily add a side salad, other dark greens, or a medley of roasted vegetables. 

Ingredients (makes 1 serving):

1 cod fillet

1 small sweet potato (or half a large one) 

1 teaspoon coconut oil/extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons tomato puree 

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Salt

Pepper

Parsley

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees (electric oven). 

2.) Peel and chop the sweet potato. Place in a pan of water and cook for 20 minutes after the water has started to boil.

3.) Season the cod with the olive oil, sea salt, ground black pepper and parsley. Place in the oven and cook for 20 minutes.

4.) Once the sweet potato is soft, mash it with a little bit of coconut oil - this keeps the recipe dairy free and adds a little extra flavour to it. Add some black pepper. If you want, you can add a little cheese to make the mash really gooey!

5.) Place the cod on the potato. Mix the tomato puree with the lemon juice and drizzle over the top, or around the cod. Et voila, it's ready to eat!

Any comments/questions are always welcome

Love and Light

Steph

Antioxidant Green Smoothie

This smoothie and my Candy Cane Lane Yankee candle have been getting me through the gloomy start to 2015 that we seem to have been having here in the UK. I'm renowned amongst my friends and family as being someone who perpetually has a cold, however, having a smoothie like this everyday seems to have kept things down to a minor sniffle here and there. Anyway, with kiwi, spinach and blueberries packed into this smoothie (amongst other things), this is absolutely brilliant on topping you up with some much needed antioxidants, as well as sneaking 5 fruits and vegetables into one handy drink that you can take on-the-go!

Ingredients: 

1 banana

3 apples

1 kiwi

Handful of blueberries

Handful of spinach

150ml rice/almond/soya milk

Sprinkling of flaxseeds

1.) Peel and slice the banana, kiwi and apples and put in a blender. My apple chopping device seen below is definitely one of my top favourites when it comes to manual kitchen appliances!

2.) Place the spinach, rice milk, blueberries and flaxseeds in the blender.

3.) Blend for 2-3 minutes. I always like to add a drizzle of honey, but chia seeds, oats and ground almonds can be a great topping too!

Any comments/questions are always appreciated

Love and Light

Stephanie

Adaptation of Jess My Clean Treats' Clean Double Chocolate and Banana Brownies

This brownies are delicious beyond words - and ridiculously simple to make dairy free (woo!). I've borrowed and slightly adapted this recipe from the wonderful Jess over at My Clean Treats - check her out for a whole wealth of delicious, healthy sweet snacks! You can find the original recipe here. My housemates, who seem to view clean eating as some kind of dirty phrase, instead loving a good ol' portion of cheesy chips and kebab ~ sigh ~ , couldn't tell the difference between these and normal calorie and fat laden ones! These are definitely my favourite treat at the moment, and are perfect for Spring-time picnics, or a little pick-me-up to keep you going until the weather improves. 

Ingredients: 

256 grams wholewheat plain flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 heaped tablespoons cacao powder

350g Sweet Freedom natural syrup from fruit

1.5 tablespoons coconut oil

3 mashed bananas

235ml rice milk

2 eggs

100g vegan/dark chocolate

Handful of chia seeds

1.) Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

2.) Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cacao into a bowl and add the chia seeds. Stir.

3.) Pour the rice milk and syrup into a bowl and mix as well as possible.

4.) Place the coconut oil and the dark chocolate block (broken up) into a saucepan and melt together. Add to the second bowl (wet ingredients bowl). 

5.) Mash the banana and add to the wet ingredients bowl. Stir well.

6.) Combine the wet and dry mixtures. Stir until they are thoroughly mixed. 

7.) Place baking paper into a baking tray and pour the mixture in.

8.) Cook for 25 minutes. Enjoy whilst still warm - this is my favourite way!

Love and Light

Steph

Holland and Barratt Haul

Cacao Powder

Dr Stuart's Liver Detox Tea

Dr Stuart's Detox Tea

Sweet Freedom Syrup

Holland and Barratt is one of my favourite places to go for supplements and healthy cooking ingredients that are hard to find in your everyday store. Today I popped in for some syrup and caco powder for a little baking experiment, but ended up with a little bit extra!

They've always got sales on, and right now Dr Stuart's tea is 20% off - I've heard a lot of good reviews, so I've been looking to try it out for ages. I'm trying to detox at the moment as I'm going alcohol free for the next few months, so I chose these. Having tried the detox tea whilst catching up on some reading (Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston - it's brilliant!), I can say it's actually really nice for a detox tea. Hopefully I'll do a proper review soon.

Where do you go for your supplements?

Love and Light

Steph

Festive Healthy(ish) Mini Apple Tarts

This post may seem a tad late, BUT Christmas is not over yet (at least the holiday season isn't!). So, these are the perfect nifty little snack for a buffet table or light pudding - you could even add a dab of natural yogurt if you feel like it.

Ingredients (makes 12 tarts):

2 cooking apples (should weigh roughly 1lb)

75g demerara sugar

100g wholemeal flour

50g butter 

Pinch of salt

250ml water

1.) Peel and chop the cooking apples. 

2.) Put the apples in a pan. Add the sugar and the water. Put on to stew for 25 minutes.

(This is not the prettiest of pictures, but trust me when I say it tastes nice!)

3.) Cut the butter up into chunks. Rub into the flour with your fingers in a bowl until it reaches a breadcrumb consistency.

4.) Add a little bit of water, and with the blade of a knife mix it in. Continue to do so until you have created a dough. Tip: add in small chunks so it doesn't get too wet too quickly!

5.) Leave dough to chill in the fridge for 15 minutes.

6.) Roll out the dough - use a cookie cutter to make 12 circles. Press into a cupcake tin.

7.) Put a teaspoon full of apple in each tartlet.

8.) Cut out a small shape from pastry to place on top of each one - I chose holly leaves, but anything works!

9.) Place one on top of each tartlet.

10.) Cook in the oven for 20-25 minutes. Enjoy!

Hope you all had wonderful Christmasses!

Love and Light,

Steph

**All photos are property of Sophie Hartley**

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Simple Spinach and Goat's Cheese Salad

So, we all know Christmas is a time for indulgence, but this really easy salad could make the perfect starter, or simple Christmas evening meal when you want to reduce the roast-induced bloating. This salad is a great winter one as it's warm and very filling, for the simple ingredients it contains. 

Ingredients (makes 1 serving): 

30g Goat's cheese

7 Baby plum tomatoes

30g Spinach

Balsamic Vinegar

1.) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

2.) Cut the baby plum tomatoes in half lengthways. Sprinkle a little bit of balsamic vinegar over them - it's easiest to do this by first pouring a bit into the cap of the bottle, otherwise it often ends up splashing out. 

3.) Place on an oven tray and cook for 20 minutes. This may not look like the neatest thing, but believe me, it tastes divine!

4.) Whilst this is cooking, place the spinach leaves on your plate. Cut up the goat's cheese into small squares and sprinkle over the spinach.

5.) Once the tomatoes are cooked, place them on top. Enjoy!

Any comments are always welcome :)

Love and Light,

Steph