Souping…

I confess, lately it has been one cheat day after the other (yes, I am passed the ‘cheat-meal’ concept) and I have been eating not-really-junk-food but not as healthy as before either… It must be the fact that I am six weeks away from having to start and loose the baby weight and I honestly think that my brain just wants to be able to hold the fact that I’ve eaten all I desired against me from January onward and thus helping me either a) loose my mind or b) loose the baby-weight or both. Either way, yesterday I felt the urge to eat something green and because I am lazy af (read: I did not put any make-up on and thus I was not legally safe to get out of the house) I decided to use whatever we had left in the fridge to make something that will appeal to my very pregnant body and very rational brain.

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I did manage to make a green dish, that turned out delicious and that could’ve been even healthier than it turned out had I not decided to use crispy bacon right at the end. Damn you D for buying the food of the Devil and leaving it at my reach! To be completely honest, I think that the salty goodness and the crispy texture of the bacon made this soup irresistible so I decided to forgive D for the error in judgement. If you too are one of those people that love a good sweet-salty combo as well as (kinda) taking care of your figure than this soup is an absolute must-try. I would like to go ahead and say right from the beginning that this is a no-brainer soup and I am not trying to prove to you that I can cook through this recipe, this is just another chapter of the ‘cravings’ series and honestly, a three year old could make this easy, fast and healthy soup.

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What I found in the fridge and managed to use for this hot goodness:

  • 600 g of fine frozen peas (the small fine ones are sweeter than the regular sized ones)
  • about 50 g of leftover diced bacon (if I had more I would’ve used more)
  • 1 tsp coconut butter (any oil will do but this one brought out the sweetness of the peas)
  • 1 pot plain yoghurt
  • 1 white onion
  • 2 tsp vegetable cooking base (because I did not have any vegetable in the house)

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The simplicity of making something delicious:

  1. First of all, take pics of what you are about to cook and send to your spouse to make him come home earlier from work (if that does not work, send him naughty pics).
  2. Heat the coconut butter in the pot you will use to make your soup and add the roughly chopped onion – do not try and finely chop the onion as everything will be blended anyway.
  3. Cook the onion until it is golden and tender and then add 4 cups of water and bring to boil.
  4. Add the vegetable base and the peas and let everything boil for about 6-7 minutes.
  5. Take the pot away from the stove and blend everything really well and then add the yoghurt.
  6. After another good blend, bring everything to boil for another 3-4 minutes and that’s it.
  7. All you have to do now is fry the bacon until it is crispy, put it on top of your soup bowl and enjoy!

This is quite a healthy dish with or without the bacon and I think it is perfect for those cold days when you just need something that will make you feel good about yourself because hey, it is green and therefore healthy but also will satisfy your not so good cravings thanks to the crispy bacon. As usual, I have provided both the portion nutritional info as well as for the whole thing thanks to MyNetDiary and the app too says that this is quite a healthy meal. D can vouch for the fact that it did taste amazing despite it being vegetable based and him being the ultimate meat-lover!

L.

Purple Mash…

Back in the potato-cravings-zone, but this time on a more healthy note than before… Never did I ever liked mashed potatoes of any kind until I tried this recipe. For some reason, in my opinion, mashed potatoes were always done by those that are too lazy to actually fry them or bake them in the oven – the way potatoes are meant to be eaten – I mean, all you have to do is boil them and mash them and you end up with one of the most boring options to cook potatoes. In my opinion, no matter how much milk or butter you added to them they always ended up tasting like paper.

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Since being pregnant means that you literally go a bit insane, this weekend I was craving mashed potatoes. But not any type of mashed potatoes, blue mashed potatoes because I thought they must taste great solely based on their colour and the fact that I decided to add some of my favourite ingredients plus skipping the unhealthy butter. Obviously, blue potatoes are only called ‘blue’ to confuse the shit out of you, because in fact they are purple. Like really purple! And you do need to use gloves when you handle them raw otherwise you’ll end up with purple-stained palms for a few days – trust me, not the greatest look! While blue potatoes are a bit more expensive than plain white potatoes, they do not taste any different or make a big difference from a nutritional stand point, therefore unless you do not want to a)get your hands dirty and b)eat something a bit different in colour, you can easily swap them for plain potatoes for this recipe.

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Moving on to the recipe. Here’s what I used:

  • 1 kg blue potatoes
  • 400 gr greek yoghurt (instead of all the milk and butter – for a very creamy result)
  • 20 gr of fresh dill
  • 5 cloves of garlic
  • 150 gr shredded mozzarella (or any other shredded cheese you like – I picked mozzarella because it is lighter and has less salt)

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While making this takes about an hour, there are only a few simple steps to follow:

  1. Take pics of the lovely coloured ingredients and then start chopping everything. Peel the potatoes and cut them, chop the dill and mince the garlic.
  2. Boil the potatoes for about 40 minutes, drain them and mash them with a hand blender.
  3. Add the greek yoghurt and blend some more.
  4. The garlic and the dill are next into the blending pot.
  5. In comes the shredded mozzarella which must not be blended but mixed really well with a spoon.
  6. That’s it! All you have to do now is serve the purple mash in cups!

Besides it looking very interesting, it is very tasty thanks to the dill and the garlic while still being very satisfying to cheese lovers like me thanks to the mozzarella. This can be a side to any dish or you could consume it the way I did, on its own as it is really filling. It is a grade A food which means it is a healthy dish and it does not pack a lot of calories (only 211 per serving) while giving you a good amount of protein. All the nutritional info is courtesy of MyNetDiary app and I’ve uploaded both the serving info as well as for the whole thing. I divided the whole quantity to 8 servings. I hope you’ll enjoy my purple mash!

L.

Healthy Berry-Banana Bread

Truth be told, I am craving all Christmas-y treats – mostly sweets – if I really want to be honest… But, since it is not even December yet I have to contain my cravings and go for healthier versions of sweets therefore I give you the healthiest berry banana bread! This actually tastes better than it looks and I must say that it tastes better than those healthy berry muffins I baked a while ago (see recipe here). The thing with the colder months is that we all tend to crave hot and filling dishes, but that does not mean that they have to be calorie packed and filled with all sorts of unhealthy sugars.

A while back we both decided to try and eliminate sugar from our diet, at least when it comes to our home-made meals (no, we are not avoiding sugar at all costs and actually we do indulge in traditional desserts once a week). That made us look for ingredients that will still give our treats that lovely sweet taste without compromising on the health factor. This is why we chose raw honey, fruits and spices. With honey, a little goes a long way, while with fruits and spices, it’s more of an ‘all-you-can-add’ thing. Yesterday I was seriously craving something sweet and Christmas-y, and what better substitute to the classic Panettone than a cinnamon infused banana bread. The thing with this banana-bread is that I have never ever done one before and had no idea how it will turn out. I confess that I went a bit overboard with the frozen berries and therefore the bread was a bit more moist that I expected but it is really filling and does satisfy the sweet-tooth in a very healthy way.After all that rambling I think it is time to move along to the actual recipe.

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Ingredients:

  • 240 g whole grain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tbsp coconut butter (melted) – this again will give you a bit of sweetness and flavour
  • 2 egg-whites
  • 2 medium over-ripe bananas (mashed)
  • 1 cup of plain yoghurt
  • 2 tbsp raw honey (we used a variety that has a bit of cinnamon in it and therefore gave it even more flavour)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp cinnamon powder – for that Christmas feeling
  • 60 ml coconut-almond milk (full of aroma)
  • 200 g frozen berry mix

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Steps to follow for this healthy goodness:

  1. First of all preheat your oven at 175 degrees C and carefully arrange all the ingredients so that you can take loads of pictures.
  2. Mix together the baking powder, the baking soda and the cinnamon powder in a small bowl and then put the mixture all over the flour and stir well.
  3. Whip the egg-whites with the vanilla extract and the coconut oil and pour the mixture over the banana mash alongside the yoghurt and the honey, Make sure you mix everything really well.
  4. Now for the tricky part… You will have to incorporate the flour and the milk into the mixture carefully, just like you did for the berry muffins (see here). I did it in three parts.
  5. Carefully mix in the frozen berries and pour everything into a bread tray.
  6. Off into the oven it all goes and 50 minutes later you will indulge in the best and healthiest berry banana bread! No guilt whatsoever!

While this takes a bit more time to bake than the muffins, it is more filling and it is healthier than the muffins. If you are hungry, you can always use smaller trays or even pour the mixture in a muffin tray which will probably cut your baking time in half. I have attached the nutritional info both for a serving (one 1,5 cm thick loaf) as well as for the whole thing (10 loaves) and as you can see this is a grade A food and therefore it is very healthy. All the nutritional data is courtesy of the MyNetDiary app. I hope you will enjoy this banana bread and soon we sill start baking heathy versions of all the Christmas sweet treats (apple pie, gingerbread etc)!

L.

 

Healthiest berry muffins

These muffins are some of the healthiest sweet things you are going to find on this blog or online, for that matter. They contain absolutely no sugar or any derivates of sugar and no white flour whatsoever. And, as an added bonus they do satisfy your sweet tooth, while also giving you some healthy nutrients.I must admit that I did use some frozen berries as those were handy at the time, but they are just as healthy and tasty as fresh berries and, to be honest, it doesn’t really matter which ones you use.About a week ago, D came home with a bag of frozen mixed berries but did not hint anything, so this week I decided to take things into my own (baking) hands and surprise him with something that is both healthy (so it won’t upset my weekly diet) and tasty (to satisfy his growing sugar cravings). There are times when I think that he is the pregnant one as he seems to have all sorts of cravings lately but I think that is partly due to the fact that he, being the gentleman that he is, is trying to keep up with my weight gain so that we can loose it all together after the baby comes.

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Back to the muffins… as you’ve probably noticed, I prefer to eat savoury rather than sweet things therefore making a tray of sweet muffins is usually not my first option, but this time, I really wanted to try and make the tastiest and healthiest sweet muffins ever. They are way easier to make than it appears and only take about 40 minutes for basic ingredients to turn into perfectly moist and tasty muffins.When you think about muffin perfection, there are a few boxes that must be ticked: moisture and softness. Usually you get this by using large amounts of butter, but I did not use any here, I only used a tablespoon of coconut oil and tried to get that softness and moisture by using plain yoghurt. True, I could’ve used greek yoghurt but that would’ve just added to the fat count and I was really curious as to how these were going to turn out with simple yoghurt – they were great!

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Here’s what you’ll need for 12 muffins:

  1. 240 g wholegrain flour
  2. 2 tsp baking powder
  3. a pinch of salt (not too much)
  4. 1 tbsp coconut oil (melted)
  5. 2 large egg whites (no yolk)
  6. 1 tbsp vanilla extract
  7. 125 g plain yoghurt
  8. 2 tbsp honey (I used a mixture of cinnamon and honey as I can already feel the Christmas spirit and I need to put cinnamon in everything)
  9. 1 cup milk
  10. 240 g red berries (I only had frozen at hand but you can use fresh)

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What you need to do for the next 10 minutes:

  • Preheat the oven at 175 degrees C and mix together the baking soda and the flour in a bowl.
  • In another bowl, put the egg whites and whisk them for a couple of minutes then add the vanilla extract, the coconut oil, the yoghurt and the honey and mix it all together really good until there are no lumps left.
  • Carefully start incorporating the flour mixture and the milk – I used a spoon for each as that is going to make it easier to control the texture.
  • Sprinkle the frozen berries with flour as that way they are going to keep your batter from becoming murky-grey because of all the juices. If you are using fresh berries there is no need to do that.
  • Incorporate the berries into the muffin mixture and fill in the prepared muffin tray.
  • Put them into the oven for about 20 minutes, or until they are golden and look done. Before eating them, let them cool for 10 minutes – trust me they are better when they do not burn your taste buds!

That’s it! Healthy deliciousness on a tray that is easy to make and does not require any ‘exotic’ ingredients. All the nutritional information is from the MyNetDiary app that I totally recommend as it really helps you check everything you eat and has a huge database. I’ve put the serving information as well as the info for the entire quantity of the muffins. Hope you’ll enjoy them as much as we did!

L.

Finally craving meat!!!

As you know, I’ve been really struggling with meat these past months, meaning I could not even look at it without cringing. Therefore getting my much needed protein throughout my pregnancy has been a real struggle. I am not saying that being a vegetarian is wrong or anything, but I had a really good deal with meat before I got pregnant: I ate it once per week because I really do love a good steak, or burger. Since this has not been an option throughout the past six months, I ate lots of eggs, cottage cheese and other foods that provided the right amount of protein for me as well as for my baby.

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Last week something weird happened and I found myself craving meat. Naturally D immediately got dressed and off to the supermarket he went to cure my craving – to be honest, he always does that for me, he immediately tries and satisfy whatever craving I might have. Since I can only have well done meat my only viable choices are turkey or chicken as I can’t stand the thought of a perfectly good veal or pork meat not being medium-done (it should be illegal otherwise). For some reason, chicken seemed to be the winner option as I always found it easier to digest than turkey and so a chicken dinner it was!

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To make sure that I will not ruin my meat craving forever I tried to cook it with as many citrusy flavours I could while still taking advantage of the amazing indian seasoning we always seem to have in the house – we both love indian food so, so much! That being said, I also like my food spicy, but since heartburn has been a real bitch lately I only spiced things up at a moderate level. This dish is easy to make, but you have to take into account the time it takes the meat to marinate – in this case, I left it in the fridge for one hour, but you can leave it for as long as you’d like, even overnight.

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Here’s what I used:

  •  2 chicken breasts (no skin, boneless)
  • 1 pink grapefruit (only the juice)
  • 1 lemon (only the juice)
  • 15 gr fresh oregano leaves
  • 2 tablespoons tikka masala powder
  • 1 tablespoon hot chilli powder
  • 1 tablespoon yellow curry powder
  • 2 tablespoons dijon mustard (since I can’t drink my wine, I might as well use it in my food – or at least some variety of it)

What you need to do:

  1. Cut the chicken breasts into strips – I did that in order for the flavours to get into as much of the meat as possible, plus it’s fun to eat chicken strips.
  2. In a small bowl mix all the powder seasoning together.
  3. In a large bowl prepare your marinade: both of the citrusy juices, the powder spices, the oregano leaves and the mustard and mix everything well.
  4. Put the chicken strips making sure they are well covered in the marinade, cover the bowl with plastic foil and into the fridge it goes for as long as you want.
  5. Give the cast iron pan a light spray of avocado oil and put the chicken in for about 4-5 minutes on each side.
  6. That’s it! Mix some salad greens next to it and voila!: the perfect healthy dinner!

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Since the chicken is grilled in virtually no oil, this is quite the healthy option that still has loads of flavour and does not feel like you are eating paper. The nutritional info is for 100 gr which is more than you can see on my plate in the photos and it has a decent amount of protein as well as virtually no fats or other nasty stuff. I love the fact that you can feel the citrusy taste so much and I think that complements chicken just perfectly especially when paired with indian spices!

L.

Tomato Madness!!!

The one thing that I have been madly craving during my pregnancy so far are tomatoes! I am telling you, our kid is going to hate tomatoes as I have had them twice daily (true, in different forms): soup and salad. I just love them! But not any type of tomatoes…No, those hard to find, sweet garden tomatoes! And they need to be a certain consistency for me to be happy… Therefore, one could argue that D had it quite difficult where my cravings are concerned so far, especially since tomato season is officially over, but I am still craving them like crazy!

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The bad thing about me craving tomatoes is the fact that you can’t actually order them online, no…In order for tomatoes to be perfect and satisfy my taste buds, they need to smell a certain way (yes, I am the weird person that smells tomatoes at the market), feel a certain way and look a certain way (I generally love the pink, non-perfect looking tomatoes). That being said, most of the time D found the precious, perfect tomatoes for me, except for two days ago, when he came home with these perfectly round and red tomatoes that obviously did not do much for my salad.

Which brings us to today’s post! I decided to venture in the kitchen to cook a cream tomato soup for the first time. While I do love to cook all sorts of other things, soups are simply not my cup of tea. Until this one. Besides the fact that I documented the whole thing on Instagram’s Stories, without having the slightest clue of how things will turn out (the pot could’ve exploded for all I know) – I now realise that could’ve meant social cooking suicidal – the damn thing turned out to be even better than either me or D expected, especially since I was too lazy to go out and buy anything and was left with using whatever I already had in the fridge/house – hence no fresh basil, but I did have a bit of fresh oregano leftover form the potatoes we cooked a few days ago (recipe here). I do admit that until now, I have been getting my tomato soup in a plastic container from the supermarket (fru-fru) which was great, but from now on, I will start experimenting with home made cream soups (make way for mushrooms, bell peppers etc).

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Let’s move along to the actual recipe for today… First of all, it will only take you about 30-40 minutes to get from ingredients to final product which means that there is absolutely no excuse to not try this recipe. Here’s what I had in the fridge for this one:

  • 1300 gr tomatoes
  • 180 gr red onion (two medium onions are fine)
  • 1 small pot of plain yoghurt (you can use sour cream, but yoghurt is lighter)
  • 10 gr of fresh oregano leaves
  • 15 gr of garlic (a small garlic head)
  • 3 tsp of vegetable cooking base
  • 1 tsp (not fresh) basil – fresh is better, but I was lazy and hungry yesterday
  • 1 tsp of pomace olive oil (you do not need more than that!)

Steps to follow:

  1. Roughly cut the tomatoes and the onions – do not stress about this step too much as it’s all going to go in the blender anyway.
  2. Slice the garlic, and pick the oregano leaves, arrange everything and take a few photos.
  3. Put the pomace olive oil in a pot and let it heat up for 30 seconds than add the onions.
  4. After the onion gets semi-translucent, add the sliced garlic and half of the vegetable cooking base and let them fry stirring continuously for another minute or two.
  5. Add half of the tomatoes and the basil and mix them all together until the tomatoes start peeling by themselves and then add the remaining tomatoes and let everything come to a boil (about 4-5 minutes).
  6. Add the oregano leaves and what is left of the vegetable cooking base and let everything boil for another 5 minutes stirring from time to time.
  7. Take the pot off the stove, let everything chill for 3-4 minutes and then blend everything really well – since we do not have an actual blender, I used the smoothie maker for this step, but everything turned out lovely.
  8. Put the pot back on the stove and bring to boil.
  9. Add the yoghurt, stir well and let it boil for another few minutes. You’re done!

This is one of those soups that you can make all year round using canned tomatoes or home-made tomato juice. It is nutritious, satisfying while also being low in calories and fats. This for me is the perfect lunch and I will start experimenting with soups as well because it was fun-fun-fun making this one. I added a bit of fresh ground pepper in the end, but if you do not like a spicy dish just skip that step. The nutritional info I’ve uploaded is for the entire quantity which provided four servings, so make sure you divide everything by four.

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D was truly impressed by this soup and by the fact that I managed to cook, take pictures and live-stream everything on Instagram all by myself without actually blowing up the kitchen, so I’d say this is a recipe everyone can make without stressing too much.

L.

The best dish you’ll have all autumn long!

Yes, I know this is the second recipe in a row, but I just couldn’t let autumn come for good and not share what is in my opinion the best thing you’ll eat all autumn long. Did I just repeat the post title? Well, yes I did and that’s because this recipe is just that good. This has to be my favourite dish for autumn dinners ever! First of all, I have nothing to do with the recipe in itself, as opposed to the other recipes presented here that all have some sort of twist from yours truly that strays away from the original inspiration, this one is presented to you exactly the way my mother taught it to me.

Yes, this is a family recipe. Well, to be honest, I am the second generation in our family that knows it, so I can say that my mother invented it. A bit about mom… She is what I call an ‘intelligent cook’. Why? Because never ever have I seen that women actually follow a recipe or spend more than 2 hours in the kitchen to cook an entire dinner. She just adapts and uses whatever tricks she can to come up with the best easy recipes ever, that can make you think that she spent an entire day in the kitchen. True, she has been known from time to time to screw things up, but she always jumps right back at it and perfects the recipe so that it is easy and very tasty.

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Today’s recipe is one of those easy, hearty and amazing recipes. First of all, this stew is usually made with meat and using the traditional ways, it can take up to half a day to make. My mom intelligently removed the meat (which is great for me) and used some newly acquired tricks to have this done in less that 1 hour – it took us more because we has to take photos of every step. If you are a meat lover you can always add whatever type of meat you like next to it, but I cooked this one yesterday without it. First of all, there’s nothing that says autumn better than mushrooms in white sauce so this is best for those chilly autumn evenings, especially, as you’ll find out at the end, this is not really a heavy meal but it is quit filling.

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What you’ll need:

  • 800 gr of white large mushrooms (you can easily go for 1 kg and not mess things up – like I said, mum is not really one for measuring the ingredients)
  • 3 large white onions
  • 300 gr of full fat sour cream (if you use a lighter version you’ll need a bit more flour)
  • 2 tablespoons of white flour
  • 1 cup of fresh parsley leaves
  • 2 teaspoons of salt
  • 1 teaspoon of ground pepper
  • 1 teaspoon of vegetable base
  • 1 teaspoon of hot chilly powder
  • 2 tablespoons of pomace olive oil

What you need to do (keep in mind that although there are quite a lot of steps to follow, the stew is really easy to make and basically foul-proof):

  1. Cut the onion as finely as you can, but do not stress over that, slice the mushrooms in big chunky pieces if you want to feel their texture and chop the parsley.
  2. In a bowl mix the salt and the pepper and in another one mix the vegetable base with the chilly powder.
  3. After taking lots of pics of your ingredients (for some reason I find it extremely satisfying to take photos and edit food pics), put the oil in a saucepan and let it heat up before adding the onion.
  4. After about 5 minutes add a teaspoon of the chilly mix and half of the parsley and stir well for another 5 minutes.
  5. Add half of the mushrooms to the mix, a teaspoon of the salt and pepper mix and stir well.
  6. After abut 5 minutes add the remaining mushrooms and another teaspoon of salt and pepper mix, give it a good stir and put a lid on.
  7. When the mushrooms have left a considerable amount of water, pour the remaining chilly mix, give it a good stir and place the lid back on. Keep in mind that the entire recipe will need a moderate-low stove flame.
  8. Now for the tricky part… take the flour bowl and carefully incorporate water while stirring continuously until it reaches the consistency of sour milk (not too watery).
  9. Pour a glass of cold water to stop the boiling in the saucepan and carefully add the flour mix while stirring continuously. The cold water you just added will keep granulations at bay.
  10. Leave the stew to boil for a few minutes and then add the sour cream, the remaining parsley and what is left of the salt and pepper mix and stir well.
  11. Bring it to boil for another couple of minutes and that’s it!

Keep in mind that, if you do not like your food too spicy, you should cut in half the quantity of both the pepper and the chilly powder – my entire family enjoys spicy food, hence the spiciness of this one. I really hope you’ll love this recipe as much as I love it. As you can see from the nutritional info, this stew doesn’t go overboard on any unhealthy stuff and, as usual, the info is for the entire quantity. If you followed the recipe to a letter, you’ll end up with about 5-6 servings, depending on how hungry you are, and after dividing the numbers I’d actually say that this can be considered a light (about 170 kcal), warm dinner. If you like it, than pass it on to your friends and family!

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L.

Chocolate Dreams…

Since we haven’t cooked in a while, yesterday we decided to make something very heathy and low-calorie that is still sweet enough to call dessert. I have to mention that we haven’t attempted to bake a healthy dessert ever, so the result was a surprise for us as well. I’ve always loved a sweet treat but I hate the idea of stuffing my body with sugar, when I clearly know it does not need it, or at least not in the industrial amounts found in normal desserts.

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For these chocolate cupcakes we haven’t used any sugar, nor did we use and white flour, choosing to use wholemeal flour instead. We also chose the darkest chocolate we could find (85%), and if you want to go overboard with the healthiness, you can easily use only a quarter of the butter we used (since this was our first attempt, we didn’t really know what we were doing) and discard the egg yolks (D really likes them, so I thought I’d just use them).

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These cupcakes were really easy to make and it took us a total of 40 mins to make them, considering that they spent 20 mins in the oven. Here’s what you’ll need I order to duplicate the 12 cupcakes we made yesterday:

  • 175 wholemeal flour
  • 3 eggs
  • 4 oranges
  • 2 lemons
  • 50 gr of butter (choose the one with the most fat in it, as it’s the best for cooking)
  • 125 gr dark chocolate (at least 75% dark – we used 85%)
  • vanilla essence
  • mascarpone (this is optional and it will only be used as a topping)

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Making these cupcakes is really easy and you only need to be following a few simple steps.

  1. As usual, arrange all the ingredients in order to make this perfect photo.
  2. Cut the oranges and the lemons in perfect halves, carefully squeeze all the juice and clean all the remaining contents until you are left with clean cupcake citrus-peel holders.
  3. Put all the chocolate and the butter into a bowl and microwave it for 2 mins, then stir well until all of the content is creamy.
  4. Put the eggs over the flower (you see 6 eggs in the photo because we had to make 24 cupcakes) and stir well until you get a batter -like composition.
  5. Add the melted chocolate and carefully stir until fully incorporated.
  6. Pour a glass of orange juice over the batter and stir well with and electrical mixer.
  7. Fill the orange and lemon peels with the batter and put them in the oven for 20 minutes at 175 degrees.
  1. For the topping, which is optional, you’ll need the mascarpone cream cheese, half of glass of lemon juice and a vial of vanilla essence. Mix everything together and that is it!
  2. Once you get the cupcakes out of the oven, let them chill for 10 mins and decorate them with the mascarpone topping.

That’s it! It’s that simple to get a healthy, low-calorie dessert ready in just 40 minutes. Using the current recipe, each cupcake carries around 120 kcal, which is very good considering the fact that by using the wholemeal flour, they ended up being very satisfying and you are really full after only one eaten.

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I have a hunch that if you only use a quarter of the butter and only the egg whites, the fat as well as the cholesterol will go down a lot, making these very very healthy. We probably will try to adjust the recipe a bit next time.

I hope you’ll enjoy this recipe and find it as delicious as we did!

L. 

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