Coconut Chia Pudding with Sour Cherries

There's nothing I like more since I switched to healthy eating as a lifestyle than breakfasts I can prepare ahead of time for the whole week. I'd read multiple recipes on overnight oats and had them before but wanted a recipe that used all chia seeds rather than oats to have more protein in my first meal.

I found Loving Earth Sour Cherries in the health food shop and thought I would try incorporating them into my breakfast. They are low in calorie and I read a recent article that said eating cherries is meant to assist you with a better sleep. Since I don't always have the greatest sleep anything that can give me a boost I'm on board with.

(Sorry for the not great photo, I promise I'm getting a better camera soon!)

Coconut Chia Pudding with Sour Cherries
Servings: 1, Serving size: all of it, Calories: 185 Calories per serve

Ingredients:
1 Tbs (15g) Chia Seeds
150g Chobani Non Fat Greek Yoghurt (or any greek yoghurt)
15g Sour Cherries
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
2 drops Liquid Stevia
1/4 Cup Water1/2 Tbs Coconut Flakes


1. Combine chia seeds and yoghurt into a small container.
2. Add sour cherries, cinnamon, stevia and water.
3. Stir well making sure chia seeds are mixed thoroughly through. The texture may be a little watery but don't worry the chia seeds will soak up the extra moisture.
4. Add coconut flakes to the top.
5. Let sit overnight, wake up and enjoy.

I usually make 4-5 of these for the week and have them in my fridge ready to go for a quick breakfast. When I eat it I give it a good mix and sometimes add another drop of stevia but it depends how sweet you like your breakfast, the cherries are quite sour so sometimes some extra sweetness helps offset this. I also usually mix the coconut flakes through when I actually eat it.

Sweet Potato and Lentil Casserole

It was a surprisingly cold day yesterday after a string of very hot days. The change of weather really put me in the mood for something hearty. I had lentils and lots of vegetables in my fridge so I decided to put together this casserole which turned out very well.

Sweet Potato and Lentil Casserole
Servings: 4, Serving size: 2 Ladels / serve, Calories: 171 Calories per serve

Ingredients:
1 Onion chopped finely
375g Sweet Potato
300g Mushrooms chopped
100g Dry Green Lentils
2 x Stock Pots (Vegetable) - You could also use stock cubes
2 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Paprika
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp Garlic
1L Boiled Water
Salt
Pepper
Oil Spray

1. Spray a pan with cooking spray and fry onion and garlic on medium-high until soft.
2. Add sweet potato and stir, let it cook for about 5 minutes
3. Add mushrooms to the pan with cumin, paprika, onion powder and pepper only. Do not add salt as salt makes lentils tough if cooked with it.
4. Add a dash of water if the pan starts to cook the vegetables too quickly.
5. Make up your stock by adding stock cubes to 1L of boiling water
6. Add dry lentils to pan and let toast in the pan for about 30 seconds. This gives them a nuttier flavour.
7. Add stock to pan.
8. Bring to the boil. Once boiled turn the heat down to low and let cook for 30-40 minutes until some of the stock has evaporated and the lentils are cooked.
9. Enjoy and add salt once served. I served mine with sprouted grain bread but it also worked well today for lunch with brown rice.

Banana Soft Serve with Cacao hot fudge sauce

I'm obsessed with banana ice cream. If you haven't heard of it before it is ice cream made out of bananas that have been chopped up and placed in the freezer and then blended with a food processor or hand stick blender. I've now taken this further and bought a Yonanas machine which makes it even better as it makes it smoother and you can add things like dates and nut butters.

I've made banana ice cream a few times before and it has always been delicious but this time I wanted to make a healthy chocolate sauce to go with it. I saw one on Powercakes blog which looked amazing and decided to adapt it.

I ended up making it twice with 2 different ingredients for the chocolate and both were good so I'll give you both recipes.

Hot Fudge sauce with Cacao
Servings: 1, Serving size: the whole batch, Calories: 40 Calories

Ingredients:
5g Raw Cacao Powder
1 Tbs Water
1-2 drops stevia

1. Combine the cacao, water and stevia in a microwave safe bowl or mug.
2. Heat for 30 secs, stir and enjoy on top of banana ice cream.
3. If the mixture isn't thick enough return to the microwave for 20 seconds.

Hot Fudge sauce with Chocolatte
Servings: 1, Serving size: the whole batch, Calories: 20 Calories

Ingredients:
5g Chocolatte (low calorie drinking chocolate)
1 Tbs Water

1. Combine the Chocolatte and water in a microwave safe bowl or mug.
2. Heat for 30 secs, stir and enjoy on top of banana ice cream. (or as I did in the picture banana and berry ice cream)
3. If the mixture isn't thick enough return to the microwave for 20 seconds.

To add some extra crunch and delicious flavour to your ice cream try adding some coconut flakes for garnish. Both are good, I preferred the chocolatte one as it is sweeter but I'm going to experiment more with the Cacao.

Microwave Nutrional Yeast Cheese Sauce for Pizza

I discovered nutrional yeast recently from reading many blogs talking about how it could be used as a healthy alternative to cheese. So when I was in the US recently I brought some home with me. You can also buy it in health stores here in Australia too.

So far I'd only used it to make salad dressing but when I had a pizza craving on the way home I had a brain wave to use nutrional yeast instead. I was initially going to just sprinkle the flakes on top until I came across two 'cheese sauce' recipes using the yeast. The original recipes are here and here. I had no corn starch on hand and didn't want to mess up a saucepan with it and also only wanted to make a small low calorie amount so I made a few adjustments and the results were pure delicious!

Microwave Nutrional Yeast Cheese Sauce
Servings: 1, Serving size: the whole batch, Calories: 40 Calories

Ingredients:
5g Nutritional Yeast
5g Wholemeal Flour
1/2 tsp Dijon Mustard
Water (approx 1/4 cup)
Salt
Pepper

1. Add yeast, flour, mustard and salt and pepper to a cup or small microwave safe bowl.
2. Add water to mixture, around a 1/4 cup but just enough to cover the ingredients.
3. Mix together well with a fork to get rid of any lumps.
4. Microwave for 1 minute (may need to adjust depending on your microwave).
5. When the sauce comes out it should be nice and thick, give it a stir when it comes out if it isn't thick enough it needs a bit more time in the microwave.
6. Drizzle over the top of your pizza.

Here was my veggie topped pizza with the sauce:

Yumm! It felt so naughty but was vegie packed and protein packed thanks to the nutritional yeast. The whole pizza was 315 calories.

Fresh Corn Fritters with Quinoa Flour with Quick Tzatziki

Apologies for the lack of recipes and posts of late, I've been slack with trying new recipes but I'm on a new health kick so I should now be on a roll and have at least 1 new recipe a week.

I bought Quinoa flour a whilst ago but hadn't thought what to do with it. The market had a sale on fresh corn on Saturday so I bought some not knowing what to do with it but then had a brainwave today and decided to make corn fritters. I've made fritters before but only ever with canned corn which you could still use for this recipe but believe me fresh tastes so much better if you can get it and the quinoa flour gave these a beautiful nuttiness to them. I served it with a very quick tzatziki that I made up a recipe for which complimented it very well.

Fresh Corn Fritters with Quinoa Flour
Servings: 2, Serving size: 3 fritters or 3/4 cup batter, Calories: 195 Calories per serve

Ingredients:
250g Corn Kernels (2 Fresh Corn Cobs with kernels chopped off)
40g Quinoa Flour
1 Egg White
1 tsp Garlic
1/4 Cup Water
Salt
Pepper

1. Cut corn kernels from corn cobs and place in a bowl.
2. Add the quinoa flour, egg white, garlic, salt and pepper and mix together.
3. Add the water and mix thoroughly ensuring the flour is well mixed in. The batter will not be very thick as it just coats the corn, it should look something like this:

3. Heat a non-stick fry pan to medium high and spray lightly with oil.
4. Add 1/4 cup of the mixture at a time to form 6 fritters. Make sure to flatten them, you may end up with a few loose corn kernels but leave them in the pan as they end up toasty and delicious.
5. Fry each fritter until golden brown on each side be careful when you turn them over.

Quick Tzatziki
Servings: 2, Serving size: 1.2 mixture, Calories: 30 Calories per serve

Ingredients:
70g Low Fat Greek Yoghurt (I'm obsessed with Chobani)
1/4 Zucchini (90g)
1 tsp Garlic
1/4 Lemon
Salt
Pepper

1. Grate the zucchini.
2. Juice the lemon.
2. Mix together yoghurt, zucchini, garlic, lemon and salt and pepper.
3. Adjust the garlic, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.

I served the fritters with roasted broccoli which I made from a recipe I adjusted from Edible Perspective, I changed the recipe to use coconut oil, garlic and lemon juice to roast the broccoli in and it worked out really well.

Total calories for the meal: 274 per serve ( 3 fritters, 1/2 Tzatziki and 100g Roasted broccoli)

Healthy hommus

I had friends coming over and needed a low calorie dip to serve with vegetables so made a classic hommus but without all the calories.

The picture isn't very good as it was so delicious it was nearly all eaten before I could get a good shot but I promise it is worth making!

Healthy hommus
Servings: 6, Serving size: 50g, Calories: 42 Calories per serve

Ingredients:
1 x 400g Can chickpeas drained
1 bunch Coriander
2 Lemons, juiced
1/2 Tbs Ground cummin
1/2 Tbs Tahini
1 Tbs Crushed garlic
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Using a food processor or hand blender as I use, blend the chickpeas and lemon juice.
2. Add the coriander and blend some more.
3. Add the tahini, cummin, garlic and salt and pepper to taste and blend further.
4. Add additional lemon/garlic to taste and if the dip is too thick you can add a bit of water depending on how thick you like it.
5. Serve with carrot sticks and vegies.

Chickpea and Broccoli Red Curry

I changed another 12WBT recipe to make it quicker and have more of the foods I enjoy that being broccoli and chickpeas. This curry is super delicious and can be cooked in 10 minutes making it a very easy dinner.

Chickpea and Broccoli Red Curry
Servings: 4, Serving size: 2 ladels, Calories: 192 Calories per serve

Ingredients:
1 Tbs Red Curry Paste
1 x 400ml Coconut Cream - Trident brand has the lowest calories
300g Broccoli, chopped
300g Mushrooms, chopped
240g Chickpeas (400g tin drained)
3 tsp Brown Sugar
1 Lime, juiced
1 Tbs Fish Sauce
2 Kaffir Lime leaves, chopped finely

1. Add curry paste to a saucepan and let it cook for about a minute, stirring as you do.
2. Add the coconut cream and stir very well, let simmer about another minute or two so it is well combined
3. Add chickpeas and leave for 5 minutes
4. Add broccoli and mushrooms and let cook for another 5 minutes or until vegetables are cooked to your liking
5. Add brown sugar, fish sauce, lime juice and lime leaves.
6. Serve and enjoy. I like to cook some brown rice to have it with, just be sure to add the extra calories if you do this.