Strawberry Jam Pancakes

This is probably my proudest creation so far. I made pancakes for me and my boyfriend one lazy morning, and I had some spare strawberries that needed consuming. So I thought I would attempt to make a strawberry sauce for my pancake tower. First off I cooked up some chocolate pancakes using my usual recipe and adding cocoa powder. I then stacked them up layering peanut butter in between. For the sauce I simply microwaved 3 large strawberries in a Tupperware container for about 30 seconds. This will turn the strawberries gooey but you will need to mash them up a bit more with a fork. I then stirred in a tablespoon of Greek yoghurt and a teaspoon of Stevia for sweetness. Et voilà!  Pour over the top of your pancakes letting the sauce combine with the melted peanut butter, and there you have it; heaven on a plate!

New Overnight Oat Ideas

Over the past week or two I have had a bit of an overnight oats obsession. I have been trying everything and anything new to put in a jar with some oats, and I have come up with some pretty good results! I will post the ingredients I used for each photo so you can try them for yourself.

Chocolate Banana Oats

 Ingredients

40g thick Scottish oats

1/2 tsp cocoa powder

2 tsp stevia

1/2 chopped banana

1/2 small cup unsweetened almond milk

1 tsp organic no added sugar peanut butter

Mix the oats, cocoa powder & stevia together and add to the jar layering the sliced banana as you go. Pour over the almond milk and then spread the peanut butter over the top. Leave in the fridge overnight and heat in the microwave for roughly 2 minutes in the morning before eating.

Strawberry Protein Powder Oats

 Ingredients

40g thick Scottish oats

1 scoop Strawberry USN Pure Protein Powder

1 tbsp desiccated coconut

1 tsp stevia

Goji berries

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 tbsp organic no added sugar peanut butter

Put all ingredients in the jar, adding the almond milk and peanut butter last. Stir so all the ingredients are mixed equally and put in the fridge overnight. In the morning microwave for roughly 2 minutes.

Coffee Oats #1

This is attempt number 1 at coffee overnight oats, it did not go too well... I logically thought that by adding instant coffee granules to my oats mixture it would give me a nice coffee flavour. This was not the case. It ended up tasting really bitter and burnt. Thankfully, when I posted this picture on Instagram, one of my followers suggested I try using brewed coffee, which resulted in attempt number 2... 

Coffee Oats #2

 This is coffee overnight oats attempt number 2 - a brilliant suggestion from a follower to use brewed coffee worked fantastically.

Ingredients

40g thick Scottish oats

2 tsp stevia

1/2 sliced banana

1/2 mug of brewed coffee

2 tbsp unsweetened almond milk

1 tbsp organic no added sugar peanut butter

1 egg white

Add your oats, stevia and banana into your jar like usual. Brew a mug of coffee, (I used instant Nescafe), and use it where you would normally use the almond milk. Stir into the oat mix and then add the almond milk for a creamier flavour. Top with the peanut butter and leave in the fridge overnight. In the morning add an egg white, stir in and microwave for 3 minutes until egg is cooked through.

Fruit Explosion Oats

 Ingredients

40 g thick Scottish oats

1 scoop Strawberry USN Pure Protein Powder

1 tsp stevia

1 tbsp desiccated coconut

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

1/2 chopped banana

1 tsp organic no added sugar peanut butter

2 chopped strawberries

Raspberries

Blueberries

Add the oats, strawberry protein powder, stevia, coconut and chopped banana into your jar. Pour over the almond milk and stir well to mix all together. Spoon the peanut butter over the mixture then add the fruit on top of that. Leave in the fridge overnight and in the morning microwave the jar. The fruit will turn into a jam like consistency when microwaved, which is super tasty! You can stir it all in once cooked or it eat as it comes.

Lemon Cheesecake Oats

Ingredients

40g thick Scottish Oats

Zest and juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tsp stevia

1 tbsp desiccated coconut

75g quark

1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

1 tbsp organic no added sugar peanut butter

Add the oats, lemon, stevia, coconut and almond milk in a jar, and mix well. Stir in the quark, it should turn nice and creamy. Spoon the peanut butter over the top and leave in the fridge overnight. I actually ate this cold and it was SO nice, I just didn't think it would be right having a hot cheesecake. This is definitely my favourite combination EVER, I highly recommend you try it. It is the first time I have used quark in any of my food, I was a bit dubious as people have told me it isn't that nice, but I absolutely loved it. It gave the oats that cheescakey flavour. The tub of quark I bought only cost 85p from Tesco, but I have already run out. So next week I think I am definitely going to buy like 5 tubs haha!

Let me know if you try any of my recipes,

Lucy x

Breakfast Oat Cake

This is one of my absolute FAVOURITE things to make for breakfast, no lie. When I have time in the morning I love to bake some oats. It is so incredibly easy, it takes about 3 minutes to put the mixture together and 20 minutes to bake. Which is useful in the morning for me, as I can stick it in the oven and get some chores done in that 20 mins, like preparing my lunch boxes/watering my plants. It also makes your house smell amazing for the rest of the day! The circular/pizza looking creation above is my most recent attempt. The middle is strawberry protein oats and the outer ring is a chocolatey cinnamon flavour. I could not fit it into a bowl to eat it, so I broke it all up and topped with honey and peanut butter (below). Words cannot describe how scrumptious it was, it's like having cake for breakfast! Who'd of thought that could ever be healthy? Another great thing about it, is that I use the exact same amount of oats I would use for a bowl of porridge/over night oats (50g), it produces such a huge amount because it rises in the oven. I'm actually salivating right now just from writing about it...  

Broken up and topped with PB and honey!

I got the idea for this when I saw a recipe for mini oat cookies, I think it may have originally come from one of my favourite food blogs. I tried it out and they were delicious, so I thought that I could just scale it up to make one giant cookie for breakfast & it worked! Here is the recipe for my chocolate and strawberry ring creation...

Ingredients

Strawberry Centre

25g rolled oats

1 egg white

1/2 mashed banana

1 tsp honey

1 tsp stevia

1 tbsp desicated coconut

1 scoop strawberry USN Pure Protein Powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

Chocolate Outer Ring

25g rolled oats

1 egg white

1/2 mashed banana

1 tsp honey

1 tsp stevia

1 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp baking powder

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 deg Celsius, and grease a baking tray with butter.

1. In a bowl combine all of the ingredients for the strawberry mixture.

2. In a separate bowl combine the ingredients for the chocolate mixture. 

3. Pour the strawberry mixture into a circle in the middle of the baking tray.

4. Spoon the chocolate mixture round the edge of the strawberry circle as evenly as possible.

5. Put in the middle of the pre-heated oven and bake for 20 minutes.

6. Take out of the oven, tear up into pieces and put them into a bowl.

7. Top with peanut butter, it should melt over the top as the cake will be warm. If you have a sweet tooth like me then I would also recommend a drizzle of honey as well.

Enjoy!

Here are some other cakes I have baked:

Strawberry oat cake with strawberry protein powder & whole strawberries

Standard banana & oat cake - sometimes simple is best

Chocolate & cinnamon oat cake

Cake for breakfast is the way forward...

Lucy x 

Pink Pancakes

 Last week I had a bit of a pancake obsession and one morning I wanted to try something a little different. How cool do these pancakes look?! And no food colouring was used at all. The secret pink ingredient is a little weird... beetroot! Not enough to affect the flavour, but just enough to give the pancakes an amazing pink colour. And as they were pink, I thought what better than to make them strawberry flavoured? To get the strawberry taste I added some of the protein powder I use: USN Pure Protein. I also tried out a new yummy filling. Peanut butter is a must with pancakes, but I wanted more of a sauce for my little sandwich. So to do this I mixed PB with banana and cocoa powder, it was marvellous!

Ingredients

Pancakes

40g oat flour (blend oats in a blender)

1 whole egg  &1 egg white

3 tbsp liquid (I used unsweetened almond milk)

1 tbsp low fat cottage cheese

2 tsp stevia

2 large slices of beetroot from a jar (patted dry with kitchen roll)

1 scoop of Strawberry USN Pure Protein

1/2 tsp baking powder

Sauce

1 tbsp organic no added sugar peanut butter

1/2 mashed banana

1 tsp cocoa powder

Instructions

Pancakes

1. Put the oat flour, liquid and beetroot slices into a blender and blend until smooth. It should be nice and pink, if not then add a little more beetroot until you reach the desired colour. 

2. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the eggs, cottage cheese, stevia, baking powder, protein powder and mix until you reach a batter consistency.

3. Heat a small amount of butter in a frying pan on a low heat.

4. When the pan is nice and hot, pour the mixture into small circles in the frying pan, leaving plenty of space between each one. I usually fit about 3 pancakes in the pan at one time. 

5. Cook for about 3 minutes or until you can easily get a spatula underneath to flip them over. 

6. Flip them over and cook the second side only for around 1 minute.

7. Stack them up on a plate adding the sauce in between each layer.

8. I then topped mine with honey!

Sauce

1. Mix together the peanut butter, mashed banana and cocoa powder.

2. Microwave for about 1 minute, until nice and runny.

Be brave & add the beetroot!

Lucy x

Sweet Potato Mug Cake

Sweet Potato Mug Cake

Sweet potato truly is the god of all foods and I think everybody should be eating them. Compared to your bog standard potato, they have a much higher nutritional value, and are lower in calories per 100g. A sweet potato is high in complex carbs and dietary fibre, and provides slow release natural sugars so will keep you full for a long time. Out of all the root vegetables, they are one of the best sources of vitamin C, D and B6 as well as other minerals such as manganese, potassium and iron. So, those are the health benefits of eating them, now let me tell you another reason why you should be eating them... They are delicious!

There are numerous different ways of preparing sweet potatoes. I have tried quite a few recipes myself, but this is the first time I have tried it in a mug cake. I got the idea here. For dinner last night I knew I wanted a sweet potato as it would be easy to prepare and I did not have time to cook much else as I had to rush out to play tennis with my Mum. So I decided to bake one potato and have half for my main and half for my dessert - this shows how versatile they are. For the main I topped the sweet potato with shrimps which I seasoned with paprika, cayenne pepper, chilli powder, garlic powder and onion granules. I then topped it with some Greek yoghurt and chilli flakes. It was scrumptious! (see pic below)

Main Meal

 I then used the second half of the potato to make a yummy dessert, which satisfied the sweet craving I get sometimes after my dinner. A mug cake is a brilliant way to get your cake fix minus the gluten. I personally find that gluten does not agree too well with my tummy, so this is a saviour for me. The base ingredients for the cake are items that you probably will already have in your cupboards, and any extras you want to throw in, you can! So start off baking a whole sweet potato by microwaving it for 10 minutes on full power (make sure you spike it with a fork a few times first).... 

Ingredients

1/2 baked sweet potato, minus the skin

1/2 banana

1 egg white

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp dessicated coconut

2 tsp stevia (or other sweetener)

1 tbsp cottage cheese

2 tsp almond milk (can add more if mixture is too thick)

Suggested Toppings

handful of goji berries

drizzle of honey

1 tsp natural peanut butter

Instructions

1. Mash the sweet potato and banana together with a fork in a large mug (mug needs to be quite tall)

2. Add all other ingredients and mix until you have a smooth batter consistency

3. Microwave for 2-3 minutes depending on how soft/firm you prefer it. I did  mine for 2 minutes and it could of done with a little longer to be honest as you can see it collapsed slightly

4. Leave to cool for 1 minute after taking the mug out of the microwave

5. Turn the mug upside down onto a plate, the cake should just slide out

6. Add your toppings

Eat!

This meal kept me full up, and fueled me enough to be able to play tennis late into the night. If I hadn't of made the mug cake, then I probably would of just had the whole sweet potato for my main. So really I've not actually added a huge amount of calories but still managed to incorporate a yummy dessert into my meal. It's a win, win situation! I will definitely be making this again soon.

Lucy x

Quinoa Overnight Oats

 So I have been seeing more and more people eating Quinoa & I was intrigued as to what it was and what it tasted like, so I bought myself some! At £1.39 for a 300g bag in the Tesco Wholefood range, it is quite a cheap buy. Last night I decided to cook some up for my dinner, so I measured out 91g which is what I thought was 1 serving according to the instructions. However, after cooking it I realised that it was referring to 91g of cooked Quinoa, so I ended up with 3 servings worth! Idiot. Therefore, I thought I would save some to use for my breakfast in the morning, as I had seen people use it in sweet recipes as well as savoury.  

For my first attempt at using Quinoa in a sweet recipe, I thought I would try it with a trusty old favourite; overnight oats. It was very simple, in that I just mixed in the cooked Quinoa with my eggy overnight oats mixture. 

Ingredients

31g cooked Quinoa

20g rolled oats

1/4 cup almond milk

1/4 cup water

1 tbsp dessicated coconut

2 tsp Stevia

1 whole egg

2 egg whites

2 tsp organic peanut butter

Handful of Goji berries

Instructions

1. Stir together the cooked Quinoa and oats into a jar with a lid.

2. Pour in the almond milk and water, stir.

3. Stir in the coconut and Stevia.

4. Put the lid on the jar and leave in the fridge overnight.

5. Mix in the eggs and stir until combined well.

6. Cook in the microwave on full power for 4 minutes or until all the egg has cooked.

7. Top with peanut butter and Goji berries.

Eat!

Quinoa is classed as a superfood, this is due to it's high protein content, and it is also a good source of dietary fibre, phosphorus as well as iron and magnesium. Another plus is that it is gluten-free. But the fact that it is extremely tasty makes it even more super in my eyes. The texture is lovely, almost chewy, and the taste is slightly nutty and sweet. It is pleasant on its own, in savoury AND sweet dishes - not many foods can claim to do that. So I highly recommend you try Quinoa if you ever get the chance, and why not give it a go in your overnight oats?

Lucy x

Healthy Pancakes

Pancakes topped with peanut butter, banana and blueberries on the side

Pancakes are one of the best clean eating healthy treats in existence. They make an amazing breakfast, and can be made using basically the same ingredients you would use to make a bowl of porridge, so therefore you need not worry about the calorie content! You can whip them up in around 10 minutes, and you can go wild with toppings or extra ingredients. I have seen hundreds of different recipes and ways of making the pancakes, but I will share with you the most basic recipe I have used which works well.

Ingredients

To make 1 serving (roughly makes 6 small round pancakes)

40g oat flour (blend oats in a blender)

1 whole egg & 1 egg white, whisked

3 tbsp of liquid of your choice (almond milk, soya milk, milk, water)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

3 tsp stevia

Instructions

1. Mix together the oat flour, whisked egg and liquid until smooth. The mixture needs to be thick but runny, judge this yourself and just add more liquid if it is too thick.

2. Stir in the baking powder, cinnamon and stevia.

3. Heat a small amount of butter/oil/cooking spray in a frying pan on a low temperature.

4. Spoon in the mixture into circles on the frying pan, to whatever size you want your pancakes to be. Remember that they will rise.

5. Leave to cook for about 3/4 minutes until they are nicely browned, then flip.

6. The second side will only need about 1 minute of cooking.

7. Serve, and top with peanut butter and chopped banana, or whatever you fancy!

Done!

I initially struggled when cooking the pancakes, as the mixture always seemed to burn and stick to my frying pan, almost ruining my pan every time I tried to cook them! So I have found that cooking them on quite a low heat solves this issue, I need to learn to be a bit more patient when cooking... 

Variation: 

Chocolate pancakes topped with banana, peanut butter & honey. For chocolate pancakes, just add  1 tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder to the pancake mixture

Keep an eye out, as I am going to try some new ingredients & recipe ideas I have soon, there are so many to try. I think it is going to be pancakes for breakfast everyday for me for the foreseeable future. Nom nom nom!

Lucy x