Healthy Baking and Craving Busters

Although I am doing a sugar free month, straight up sugar has no appeal to me, so sweets/candies aren't something I've tried to find a healthy solution for, I normally go for fruit or dried fruit when I need a 'kick'.

What I do love, though, is cake. Mmm, mm! Especially warm. The thing is, cake is basically sugar, other refined carbs and (usually saturated, or worse, trans) fat. The fat+refined carb combo is impossible to resist for a lot of people, and I am one of them! So when I want a treat, I want cake, but I want it healthy.

Here's what I've found:

• You won't miss sugar if there's plenty of flavour going on; think vanilla extract, citrus juices/zests, peppermint or other extracts, coffee, coconut, fruit, COCOA!
• You can add bulk and sweetness with fruit- notably apple and banana, but also coconut (as flour, or you can mill shredded stuff a bit finer, half way to homemade coconut butter), squash and sweet potato.
• 
• Nuts are a good sub for flour too- ground almonds or even other nuts. It's usually easier to chop the nuts up a bit first, then add to the food processor, unless you've got a Vitamix.
• Plenty of fibre will replace the satiety you would have got from the fat- oats, oat bran, nuts again, coconut, and any of the carby fruits or vegetables mentioned above (banana, sweet potato).
• Cocoa powder in baked goods is so rich and flavourful, I find when baked there's no real need for chocolate chips.
• Eggs and protein powder are another great way to add satiety and body to sugar free/refined carb free desserts.

Of course, if you have no time to bake, look no further than the humble banana when you are desperate for a fix:

Stuffed with PB, this simple combo constantly amazes me with its tastiness and craving quashing superpowers.

Banana softserve for ice-cream cravings (pink variety pictured, but I know other people have found it good with nut butter, coconut and cocoa)

What if you don't like banana?

A really lovely apple with PB or just straight up is a good way to hold off cravings.

If it has to be warm, a small bowl of oat bran or oatmeal is a great way to snack if you are peckish before bedtime, right Heather?

Not to everyone's tastes, but I find strained yogurt or cottage cheese a very filling and satisfying treat. Especially with a teaspoon of cocoa powder and/or a sliced banana.

And of course, last but not least, you can't beat a smoothie. Try adding guar and xanthan gums for a creamier drink.

Recipes to try:

Dainty Pig's Rice Cooker Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

Pure2Raw's Lemon Coconut Bars

A Spoonful of Sugar Free's Grain Free Bitter Chocolate Cake

I doubled the recipe as I had a whole sweet potato and two eggs to use, I add a teaspoon of orange extract.

Look at the lovely silky batter:

Before going into the oven:

After:

One little cake:

Chocolate Covered Katie's High Protein Chocolate Cake

Thyme Bombe's Raw Vegan Orange Pistachio Bars

Chiliflake's WILD Blueberry Chocolate Cake

Heather Eats Almond Butter's Compendium of Sugar Free Chocolate Delights

My low sugar rhubarb crumble (contains honey)

I am off today, woohoo! And again tomorrow for St Patrick's Day. I'm waiting for my dip station to be delivered then it's out into the lovely clear sunny day for a run.

I made 'nutella' for my oatbran this morning (1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts, 1 T coconut oil, 1/4 cup cocoa, splash of hazelnut liquer). Much better than the original, although it could have done with more coconut or hazelnut oil as it's a bit thick. But it has a wonderful intense flavour. Actually it was a bit rich for me, even at 9:30 in the morning. My boyfriend loved it on toast though:)

Getting into the pool again

Despite having a short break last week, I took today off, mainly to meet up with my aunt for lunch at The Parson's Nose. My mum came along too. We had a pretty good lunch, steamed mussels, haddock and peas and blackberry and apple crumble with ice-cream for me, and an espresso to wrap it up. I took advantage of my day off in other ways, as I was really tired this week, I took the chance to have a real lie in, until 9 am, then I headed to the pool for a long overdue watery workout. I got there about 10 and swam about 12 or 14 lengths (wasn't counting). It was hard! Mostly to get my breathing right. After a while though, a group of school kids arrived so I had to either decide to leave the main section of the pool and go to a sectioned off lane (where even the slowest is too fast for me) or go to the diving pool, which is about 10m squared and 4-5m deep. It's used alternatively for diving and aquajogging. I swam around a few times but got fed up trying to breathe so tried some aquajogging, but I didn't bother with the belt. It was a great workout, and combined with swimming in the diving pool, I ended up spending 55 min in there (I took a 5 min break to stew in the sauna). I really enjoyed it as I was in the water with the great resistance it offers but no impact and yet I had my head out of the water. I think this might be a good way to workout through the rest of the winter and give my dodgy right hip and left foot a rest while maintaining my running fitness. A great workout with none of the cold and wind of winter, and despite the intensity, I found it really relaxing! Next time, though, I will use the belt, as I think it's really essential for maintaining good form. I think it will be an end to my frustration with watery workouts- I love water, but I really do suck at swimming.

After the workout, I was pretty hungry, as with the lie-in, I hadn't had breakfast. So I enjoyed my huge lunch! I had no appetite for dinner later in the day, I had a bit of ginger cake with yogurt and raspberries when I got peckish this evening:

I'm now enjoying some friday night wine while catching up on blogs etc.

Here are a few random eats from earlier in the week that I didn't post about:

Homemade muesli

Rolled oats, flaked almonds, dried blueberries, vostizza raisins and banana chips. Eaten with frozen raspberries and yogurt.

Ginger cake, baked in the oven with tinned peaches and frozen raspberries as a quick fire dessert, served with Green & Black's ice-cream that I battled through rain and gale to buy.

Have a great weekend! I intend to hit up the aqua jogging pool again, and hang in my new favourite coffee shop in Belfast: Espresso Elements. Sorry Starbucks, think my coffee addiction found its true soul mate:)

Living the Gluten Free Life

Autumn is here! I harvested my buttercup squash at the weekend:

That put me in the mood for Autumn food, keep reading for squash scone and (homegrown) apple crumble.

Today was a perfect example of how eating gluten free and vegan without making bad health choices is not that easy...you really do have to prepare.
Breakfast was my usual (starting to get a tad boring) plain puffed rice with frozen berries and soya yogurt, eaten in a rush as with most Mondays. I hadn't time to make lunch, there was nothing to hand to eat my hummus with, I hadn't time to cut up a salad. So lunch today was two fruit soya yogurts and a Cocoa Orange Nakd bar mixed in, and I snacked on little apples and a banana. Even though I was hungry, I didn't fix myself a quick dinner, instead I got prepping for the next few days. First I made Gena's sunshine burgers, replacing the brown rice with brown lentils and the carrot and celery with leek. I didn't shape the mix, just stuck it in the fridge for tomorrow's dinner. I also made her foolproof tofu burgers at the weekend; so quick to throw together, super tasty, nutritious, and easy to digest. Gena, you're the Burger Queen!

Next I made my pumpkin scone, for the first time gluten free.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Scone (adapted from Nigel Slater's Tender: Volume 1- an excellent cookbook)
All quantities are double the original to fit in my big frying pan
600g steamed pumpkin (I usually use butternut squash, this is roughly a whole one)
280g flour- I used 200g brown rice flour, 50g gram flour and 30g gluten free oats)
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
50g sunflower oil (instead of butter or margarine)
1 tsp Orgran egg replacer
180g plain soya yogurt
2 tsp dried thyme leaves
lots of fresh black pepper
additions: 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
sunflower oil for the pan

Heat the oven to 200 degrees (180 for a fan oven).
Rub the sunflower oil into the flour, bicarb and salt until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Mix the soya yogurt with the squash and the egg replacer. Mix the squash mixture into the flour, grind in plenty of pepper, add in the thyme and nutritional yeast.
Spoon the mix onto a hot, preheated lightly oiled frying plan that is oven safe. Cook on a moderate heat until the underside is golden, it usually takes ten minutes. Then, with the help of an oiled dinner plate, flip the scone over and cook the other side, it will probably take slightly less than the first side.
Put the scone in the oven for ten minutes to cook through.
Serve with greens, or it's good for lunch with a dollop of hummus and some salad.

A very poor photo of what's left for my lunch tomorrow:

Another good pumpkin recipe: Pure2Raw's pumpkin socca

Once the scone was in the oven, I decided to make some dessert. It is Monday after all:)
I sliced up four of the apples from my Dad's tree, layered them with cinnamon and demerara sugar, then made this topping:
60g almond flour
40g brown rice flour
30g oats
30g sunflower oil
30g brown sugar
25g toasted pumpkin seeds
Rub the flours and oats with the sunflower oil until it's like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and seeds, and top the apples. Bake at 160 degree fan for 45 minutes, until golden brown. The apples will be nice and mushy underneath.


We ate it with Alpro soya Caramel pudding.

Before I go, I tried Oats in a Jar for the first time yesterday. A good way of using up all the PB scraps that a knife can't budge. I topped mine with more PB (as there wasn't much left in the jar) and sugar free 'jam'.



I also enjoyed a new tea, one I bought in Toulouse way back in May. It's called Mon Cherry (cherry and chocolate black tea)


Look at the lovely colours! I had mine with a splash of vanilla soya milk.

Time to get back in the kitchen to make some coco banana gluten free granola!

Cranachan

I was so hungry after work today and my tummy was quite acidy. I think it might have been the amount of soya milk I drank today, apart from some fruit and a slice of bread and vegan sausage, so yeh, my tummy was getting mostly soy. My tummy was crying out for some soothing carbs, but I couldn't resist some spice. I made lemony carrot dahl, the recipe was in the most recent edition of The Vegan (The Vegan Society's magazine). Instead of curry powder I did a tsp each of turmeric, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and fenugreek. With the dahl, I made buckwheat crepes- just buckwheat flour, soya milk (there it is again!), a little salt and 2 tsp groundnut oil. I let the batter sit while the dahl cooked. They turned out really well, I much preferred the taste to wheat pancakes and will definitely make these again. I reckon they'd be good with something chocolatey. But then again almost everything is!

Roll up, roll up! With a little sunflower oil spread.

After a little dinner, I justified dessert and made Cranachan, which is a Scottish dessert made of raspberries, cream, honey, whisky and toasted oats. So I toasted pinhead (steelcut) oats in the oven for 20 minutes with a little demarara sugar, whipped up some Cremovita and refrosted some raspberries. I layered it all with a little whisky and some maple syrup at the very top. It was very good, although there's not much getting away from the vague synthetic-yness of the vegan cream. I got three of them for half price in Sainsbury's, and have plans for the others, but I think I can wait a good while before repeating the richness.

I'm going to have to watch the soya milk thing. I plan to give it a miss tomorrow, so by consequence, I won't drink any coffee. Probably a good thing! So it'll be oatmeal for breakfast instead of muesli and soya milk, and cherry green tea instead of coffee. I'm eating out with my mum and brother, so it will be interesting to see what I can get to eat in a restaurant that specialises in seafood.