Healthy and Wholesome-ish

Happy Sunday! Well it's the end of another working week and I sit here wondering again how that happened. 

In fairness it was a very busy week. On top of my normal working week I made around 350/400 sausages with my second in command, took my wedding dress to get altered (an hour or so of playing dress up and standing very still with two women fussing over me in a big white dress and narrowly avoiding sticking pins in me), nearly chopped the end of my index finger off again (new knives at work) and I went to not one but two, TWO, SkinnyPigs classes which is my attempt to get slimmer, trimmer and fitter not just before the wedding which granted is a major motivation (especially after a comment about my hips during my dress fitting) but also in general. I have never been fond of exercise in fact about the only forms of exercise I was down with were Rounders at school, because I got given a hard heavy bat to hit things with and because when you weren't hitting things with that bat you could 'Go Deep' as my friends and I used to call it and essentially run off into the field and have a chat on the pretense of the slim chance of catching anything that may get hit out that far, and Swimming because you're already wet and it is impossible to tell if you sweat when swimming.

The SkinnyPigs classes, that a couple of girlfriends and I have been going to, are a combination of cardio and toning, if you believe the lovely sadist who runs the class, and has about 20 stations of activities, 10 of each, where, in pairs, one of you works for 30 seconds then 'rests' (you actually jog on the spot and you don't get away with not jogging) whilst the other has a go and then the lovely sadist blows her whistle and you move on to the next activity. You do this for about half an hour so with warm up and cool down the class is about 45 minutes. The days after the first session were agony on my legs from the jump squats, not just squatting but jumping on the way back up whilst the lovely sadist shouts 'Higher!!!'. This was particularly cruel as the fridge where most of the food for service at work is stored is under bench. I was literally pulling myself back up whilst my legs screamed in protest. It's been about three weeks now so obviously this was a fine time, when our bodies were just acclimatizing, to add another class to the mix. Over all though I think we are doing pretty well and I am slowly seeing and feeling the benefit. 

So in attempts to aid this healthier attitude I've been on the look out for healthy snacks. A big movement at the moment is the trend of raw food, basically unprocessed and generally uncooked food that centers around fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains. Now there is no chance in hell that I could ever begin to convince Monkey to go veggie and I wouldn't want too either - I love meat, but I do think that balance is important and I'm willing to try things and I don't think a meat free Monday will ever hurt anyone! However starting small and tasty I found some recipes for sweet treats that in moderation could really be considered quite good for you! So this week you have two recipes for some nibbles to keep in the fridge so you don't feel so bad when you get that craving for something sweet.

First recipe up is Blueberry Macaroons. I found this on Pinterest and tweaked it slightly by translating it out of the ruddy American cup measurements and by adding condensed milk to the mix (because I had some left in the fridge from the Kulfi's) which makes it null and void on the raw food index but super tasty. If you wanted to make it raw the original recipe called for maple syrup or agave nectar and you can see that here. 

Ingredients

The original recipe called for Gluten Free Oat Flour but I didn't have any of that to hand, in fact I looked for it in the supermarket and couldn't find any between the quinoa flour, millet flour and rice flour but I did have Oats so I just gave these a quick blitz in the food processor before I added the rest of the ingredients and they came out just fine just perhaps slightly coarser in texture than the originals. Desiccated Coconut because yum enough said. The original recipe calls for defrosted frozen Blueberries but I used fresh because I had been in the market and spotted a stall with a great big bag of them for £1 and I mean BIG bag I had enough for this recipe at least three times over and what I didn't use stayed in my fridge for snacks and to go on my granola. You couldn't find that value in the supermarkets and it goes to show folks that supporting your local market really pays off. Just google Coconut Oil for fun and about 26 million results (no really I just did it) will pop up shouting the benefits of this wonder oil that can be used for everything from cooking to moisturizing your crusty elbows to taking off your panda eyes at the end of the day. You may have heard of The Body Coach who is a big advocate of cooking with coconut oil and he's super healthy so there must be something to all the hype...mustn't there?! Salt - don't worry it's just a pinch. Condensed Milk in this recipe it's the sweet sticky binder that brings everything together and adds a rather naughty sweet creamy edge. Lastly but not least 70% Dark Chocolate, and it has to be dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa solids people because it gives you the chocolate hit that you might be craving but it's better for you than milk chocolate because it has less dairy and sugar added to it.

Blueberry Macaroons

45g Oats

85g Desiccated Coconut

105g Fresh Blueberries

2 tbsp Coconut Oil, Melted (plus 1tsp for the Chocolate)

2 tbsp Condensed Milk

Pinch of Salt

100g Dark Chocolate

• Place oats in a food processor and blitz until it's about the same size as the desiccated coconut.
• Add the other ingredients and blitz until the mix all comes together. Transfer mix into a bowl and put in the fridge for around 20 minutes to firm up.
• Form into balls (around 25/30g is a great bite size) and place on a grease proof lined tray. Put in the fridge or freezer for another 20 minutes to firm up again.
• Melt the coconut oil and chocolate in a heatproof bowl in the microwave on high in 10 second blasts stirring in between until you have a smooth liquid with no lumps. Do this slowly so that you don't seize the chocolate and end up with a inedible mass.
• Use a skewer (I used a nifty corn on the cob skewer) to dip the base of each macaroon in the chocolate and place back on the grease proof lined tray. Pop back in the fridge until the chocolate has set.
• Store in the fridge in an airtight container and they will keep at least a week although I doubt they'll last that long!

Right recipe number two. Coconut-Pistachio Dream Bites. Whilst I usually hate anything with words such as dream or magic in the title these did look rather tasty. This recipe is from Sainsbury's Magazine is inspired by/adapted from the Hemsley and Hemsley recipe for Paradise Bars which in turn is inspired by the Bounty bar. Essentially its a whole lot of people inspired by tasty coconut and chocolate.

Ingredients

For these tasty raw bars of goodness you will need THREE different types of coconut - Desiccated Coconut, Coconut Oil and Creamed Coconut. Don't ask me why I assume it's for a combination of texture, flavour and ability to set nice and firm. The recipe in the Sainsbury's Magazine called for Agave Nectar but I don't have that so I used Honey (which is actually what is used in the Hemsley and Hemsley recipe) but you could also use Maple Syrup it would change the flavour slightly though so I would stick to the Agave or Honey. The Pistachios aren't in the original H & H recipe but they really add a lovely crunch and colour to the bars. The Sainsbury's recipe uses 40g and puts half of them inside the bars I didn't do this because Monkey is not a big fan of nuts (I can only assume a weird childhood experience with a nut or aversion to the texture or him just being a contrary mofo because he loves peanut butter as long as it's smooth and nut flavour things just not the nutty crunch factor). Mine were just lovely without them, more like a Bounty and the original H & H recipe. Your choice people. If you do want to put any in the bars use an additional 25g in the coconut mix. Again last but not least 70% Dark Chocolate and yet again make sure it is at least the 70% cocoa solid stuff!

Coconut-Pistachio Dream Bites

100g Coconut Oil, plus 1 tbsp for the chocolate coating

200g Creamed Coconut, grated

125g Desiccated Coconut

3 tbsp Honey

Pinch of Salt

20g Pistachio Kernels, finely chopped

200g 70% Dark Chocolate

• Line a square or rectangle tin or dish with baking paper.
• Melt the coconut oil in a saucepan, remove from the heat and add the creamed coconut. Stir until the creamed coconut has melted then add the desiccated coconut, pinch of salt and honey.

• Pour into the tin, smooth the top down and freeze for 30-40 minutes.
• Heat 1 tablespoon of coconut oil 
• Melt the coconut oil and chocolate in a heatproof bowl in the microwave on high in 10 second blasts stirring in between until you have a smooth liquid with no lumps. Do this slowly so that you don't seize the chocolate and end up with a inedible mass. Set aside to cool.
• Turn the set block of coconut out onto a chopping board, remove the paper and cut into 36 bites.
• Add 2-3 bites to the bowl of cooled chocolate and use two forks to turn and coat in a thin layer of chocolate. Tap off any excess then put onto a grease proof paper lined tray spacing them out. Quickly sprinkle with the chopped pistachios before the chocolate sets.

• Repeat with the remaining bites until they are all coated.
• Store in an airtight container in the fridge and they will last a month (fat chance!) or you can freeze them.

NOTE: I made these two recipes on the same afternoon and made the Coconut-Pistachio Dream Bites first and used the leftover chocolate to dip the bases of the Blueberry Macaroons in. Depending on the size of the bites you make for both recipes you may not use all the chocolate coating listed in the recipes so making one and then the other may be a very efficient way of using up your leftovers......but there is no shame in eating the melted chocolate straight out the bowl stood over the sink. We've all been there.