Kiwi and Pear Vegan Smoothie Recipe

Smoothies are possibly my favourite 'everyday' breakfast. I'd love to have pancakes everyday (who wouldn't?!), but they take forever to prepare and make me feel a little groggy. I find that a good smoothie with a cup of lemon and ginger tea is the perfect remedy for turning a grumpy morning Steph into somebody who is actually a functional human being. I love experimenting with smoothie recipes, but usually end up coming back to the same basics that involve berries and salad. The recipe I have for you guys today however veers a little off of my beaten track, and is totally berry free *cue shocked face*. It's a completely green smoothie, but still contains a lot of fruit, so you can drink something sweet whilst all of your friends stare in envy at your green goddess smoothie Instagram posts. 
I love how quick and simple smoothies are for when you need to make breakfast in a rush. You can even chop everything up the night before and put it in the fridge, so that all you have to do in the morning is drop everything into your blender and hit the power button. I've actually posted a TONNE of smoothie recipes here on Nourish ME, but not in the past few months. If you're looking for more smoothie inspiration, here are just a couple more of my recipes:
- Mango vegan smoothie - Strawberry and basil smoothie (this is one of my all time favourites!) - Antioxidant green smoothie

So, without further ado, here's how to make a yummy kiwi and pear smoothie:
Ingredients:
1 kiwi 1 conference pear 1 large handful baby spinach 3 romaine lettuce leaves, or about 2 handfuls 1 small apple 150ml rice (or other alternative, e.g. almond, oat) milk
Method:
1.) Chop the kiwi, pear, apple and romaine lettuce up into small pieces. 2.) Place everything in the blender and whizz for a few minutes!
What's your go-to smoothie recipe?
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Dealing with PMT and Anxiety - Favourite Products | Nourish Yourself

I legitimately whooped when it was announced last week that Osborne is planning to axe tampon tax. I mean, we're no longer being forced to pay tax on crippling pain and bleeding, yaaaaay, thanks for being SO kind Mr Tax Man. Anyhoo, PMT really fucking sucks, and honestly anyone who's been around me in the week leading up to my period will agree. I am a MONSTER during that time.
Anxiety is similarly pretty awful, and makes me want to curl up in a ball and nap (let's face it, what doesn't?!), but when it's combined with PMT the world seems a challenge I can barely face. So, I thought I'd share with you guys some things that help get me through this each month, and I've separated them into two categories to make everything a bit more helpful:
Beauty
LUSH Cupcake fresh face mask This one is particularly fab for oily skin, which is something that makes me majorly anxious just before my period. I don't want to feel like crap AND have a massive break-out, no thank you.
LUSH Lover Lamp bath bomb As I mentioned before, I am SUCH a ball of stress when I have PMT, so a yummy bath with a softening bath bomb that makes me feel relaxed and pretty is something that makes a massive difference to me. 
The Body Shop moringa body mist Okay so we all know it's a myth that ladies get a *ahem* not so pleasant odour when they're on, but it doesn't help me at least feel less anxious. So, a little spritz of my favourite body mist can't hurt.
Lifestyle
Lamb hot water bottle Um, duh, cramps. But also, who wants an ugly water bottle? Nuh-uh.
Dream catcher: finding peace colouring book Basically adult colouring books are pretty much the best fad of 2015 and I will definitely be continuing to de-stress using mine every time I need to. Plus, these colouring pencils and this cute pencil case make me smile every time I pluck them out. It may sound odd, but who didn't love the annual pre-September school term stationary haul? Because that was the best and these remind me of that every time I reach for them, they always make me smile. 
Mini Moo vegan chocolate bars I've done a whole post about my vegan chocolate favourites so all I'm saying is every girl needs to indulge a little when she's feeling extra cranky, and chocolate is 100% my go-to for this!
What do you reach for when your PMT reaches its peak?

Nourish My Skin | Winter Hand Care

Winter is pretty tough on all of our skin, but often our hands bear the brunt of it, especially if we forget to wear gloves on cold, windy days (whoops), or perform any kind of outdoor manual labour. And yes, taking the bins out pretty much counts as the latter. 

I managed to develop eczema over the summer due to an allergy to the table sanitizer we used at a pub I worked out. Fortunately it's very localized, only present on two of my fingers. Unfortunately it's very painful and can look horrendous. Brill. So, I've been trying to keep me hands in much better condition than I have in previous years. Usually my winters are spent with knuckles that look like I;ve punched someone recently; they're so red and chapped. This year however they actually look normal (hallelujah). So I thought I'd share with you guys my favourite two hand care products this season that have been helping me keep on top of things.

LUSH's Golden Handshake. I picked this up initially for two reasons: one, it was glittery, and two, it waas a hot hand mask. I love my hair and face masks, and I've even tried a foot mask (a very odd sensation), so I thought I may as well give this a crack. You put the product in hot water and make a hot creamy, or watery, lotion as mine was and then soak your hands in it for fifteen minutes. As this is quite an intense treatment I only use it every fortnight, or less, but it works miracles. After using it my eczema cleared up completely for a couple of days, and since then it's noticeably improved.

My other favourite is The Body Shop's Hemp Hand Protector. This is something I try to remember to use every day as it just makes my hands feel so much better. It's really fab for dry skin, and keeps me from getting chapped. Also as I spend almost all of my time on a computer either blogging or working, it allows me to give my hands a gentle massage each day, to make sure that they remain cared for.

What are your favourite hand care products? 

Vegan Risi E Bisi

Risi e bisi is a Venetian dish which basically means "rice and peas", but as a literature student I love it simply because it rhymes. This is a ridiculously simple dish that you can have on its own, or as a yummy, healthy carb side with a meal. I was surprised at how tasty this ended up in the end - even my boyfriend (who hates peas) offered to swap his dinner for it! Plus, it's totally vegan and nice and creamy, so it's pretty much a win win. 

Ingredients (makes 4 servings):

125g brown rice or paella rice (I used a mixture)

Small white onion

2 garlic cloves

750ml chicken/vegetable stock

250g frozen peas

2 tablespoons coconut oil

1 tablespoon parsley

Sea salt

Ground black pepper

1.) Heat the coconut oil in a pan. Chop the onion, crush the garlic and add. Cook for 5 minutes on a medium / low heat. 

2.) Create the stock.

3.) Add the rice to the saucepan and stir for a minute, allowing it to soak up the flavour. Then add the stock and bring it to the boil.

4.) Reduce it to a simmer for 25 minutes.

5.) Add the peas and cook for a further five minutes.

And enjoy! You can freeze any leftovers for another day!

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

Getting the Chop | Summer Hair

I've had long hair for a couple of years now, so I thought it was time for a bit of a switch up. Still not entirely sure whether I'm going through some kind of quarter life crisis, I went for something a lot shorter than it was about a week ago. 

I'm a big believer in cutting your hair short and letting it grow out again to keep it healthy. This is how I've been doing it for the last decade, and I've managed to grow it out long at least three times. 

Living off of my student budget means that I only get my hair cut about every six months, but keeping good care of it means that the hairdressers always comment on how few split ends I have for the time I've left it.

Anyway, I'm trying to embrace change at the moment and this seemed like a brill way to go about it.

What are your ideas on your own hair care?

Love and Light

Steph

Back to Basics | Days 6 & 7: Ending the Week

The last few days were all about making yummy food that was still clean, as well as upping my green tea intake and remembering to take all my supplements for the first time in months. I've now made it so that I've got a little tupperware pot on the side in our kitchen next to the kettle, which has a range of three or four different healthy teas (green, strawberry green, detox, lemon and ginger etc) in it as well as my supplements to remind myself to have both with meals.

After my mammoth gym session on Day Five I was struggling with post leg day and post post leg day pain - my bed = life saving. So, Sunday morning I sorted out a bit of a mood dip with my vegan, clean pancakes, which are divine when topped with a bit of fresh lemon juice and cooked in coconut oil. I'm not the greatest coconut fan, but this really adds something to the flavour of the pancakes.

Overall my detox helped me to remind myself of where I came from on this journey, and start to remember that I can eat clean and still enjoy myself. Plus the bloating I'd gained from eating dairy products - not brilliant when you're intolerant to lactose - as a means to avoid essay stress the week before.

Thanks for sharing this journey with me!

Love and Light

Steph 

Clean Nut-Free Vegan Oat Bars

This is one of my favourite recipes I've made in a while. Recently I've felt a bit lost on the snacking front - so many shop bought snacks contain masses of sugar (hello the delicious and marketed as 'healthy' Nature Valley bars). My boyfriend is allergic to nuts, so I can't go for nakd bars or healthier options like that either. Starting to reach minor levels of insanity, and feeling myself ogling the crisps when food shopping, I decided to take matters into my own hands and home make some oat bars. A final plus is that they work out cheaper than store bought ones.

Ingredients (makes 1 batch):

300g porridge oats

2 ripe bananas

200g soft figs

50g dried cranberries

3 tablespoons honey or maple syrup
3 tablespoons coconut oil

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Handful of chia seeds

1.) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Finely chop the figs. 

 2.) Mash the bananas and mix them together with the honey, vanilla essence and figs .

(It may not look pretty now, but don't worry, they're delicious)

3.) Mix the oats, chia seeds and cranberries in a bowl. 

4.) Add the wet ingredients to the bowl and mix. 

5.) Line a baking tin with greaseproof paper or baking parchment. Press the mixture into the tin.

6.) Cook for 15-20 minutes, or until it's darkened to a golden brown a little. Cut up and serve. 

What's your go-to healthy snack?

Love and Light

Steph

LUSH Haul | Final Year Skincare

BB Seaweed Facemask 

H'Suan Wen Hua Hair Treatment

Angels on Bare Skin Facewash

Eau Roma Water Toner

I've been meaning to put this piece up since, well, New Years (hence the Christmas tree in the background of me and my mum with the facemask). We all know that I'm a bit of a LUSH fan, and when i got given some vouchers for Christmas I couldn't help but have a bit of a skincare splurge. I'm going to review them in a bit more detail at some point, but on the whole I'm really impressed with everything I bought. For once I actually headed in and got the advice of all the LUSH specialists and they gave me some really great ideas, including advising me to buy the Angels on Bare Skin facewash!

As it's final year now, my stress levels are probably at their peak - juggling two part time jobs, two blogs, an exec position on a journal, reading manuscripts for a publishing company and actually doing my degree work/attempting to keep the 4 boys I live with in line means I have hardly any time to breathe, and have to keep my energy levels up. Your skin is something which really shows the world when you're down on nutrition and energy levels - it can get grey, you start getting more spots and you lose any sense of it being toned. This is why these LUSH products have saved me over the past few months - using the BB Seaweed facemask once a week and Angels on Bare Skin + toner at least every other day means that my skin hasn't lost all of its vivacity.

What are your skincare secrets during busy/stressful times?

Love and Light,

Steph 

**All photos are property of Sophie Hartley**

150 Followers Giveaway | New Years Resolutions & Looking Back

(This looks half empty, but it's not! Body butter always shifts to one side whenever you want it to just stay flat, urgh!)

Full Bloom Lavender Round Essential Body Kit (inc. flannel, bath cream, bath crystals) |

Soap and Glory 250ml The Righteous Butter |

Boots Extracts 50ml Cocoa Butter Body Butter |

LUSH Think Pink Bath Ballistic Bomb |

So as I've reached 150 followers, I've decided to offer you guys the chance to win these goodies as a token of my gratitude! I've really enjoyed creating and improving this blog over the past four or five months and am so looking forward to the next year of more improvements and blogging! Scroll down and you'll see how to enter - UK ONLY, sorry. I will be checking to make sure that you've actually done them!

I created this blog because I believe that what you eat, and the way you treat your body has an incredible impact on your mentality. I find that on days, or weeks, when I eat junk food and don't exercise I lose motivation for uni work, looking good, socialising, and focusing on general life admin (ugh) which I really ought to keep up with. Hence "Nourish ME": to nourish oneself, in my opinion, is to give your body the ability to perform well both physically and mentally. Thus, when I started clean eating I also developed a good skincare regime (which I will get round to blogging about one day, I swear!), regularly moisturising, and switching to products that were a lot less harsh for my skin and hair. Since then, my nails have been growing like crazy, and everyone keeps commenting on how long and thick my hair has gotten! 

So, this year I really want it to get bigger and better, and to keep the goals I set up when I started blogging. I think this is the first time that I've ever made any New Years resolutions, so here goes:

1.) Keep up with regular blogging, and make a list of new recipes!

2.) Go to the gym two times a week, and exercise at home on my new yoga mat on the other days - it really gives you a lot more energy to get on with other week.

3.) Actually keep up with the reading for the final half of the final year of my English Lit degree (this one makes me chuckle thinking about it)

4.) Tackle my problems rather than avoiding them. Work on my experience and endeavour to secure a job in publishing by Summer.

5.) Avoid dairy! Being intolerant to it helps, but boy do I let myself in for it sometimes out of lack of willpower/negligence for what's good for me.

6.) Meal prep - I am so bad at this, so at the end of a long uni day I always end up on the junk trail, but NO MORE. 

What are your New Years Resolutions?

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