nutrition

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.

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

Steps to follow for this healthy goodness:

First of all preheat your oven at 175 degrees C and carefully arrange all the ingredients so that you can take loads of pictures.
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.
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.
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.
Carefully mix in the frozen berries and pour everything into a bread tray.
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)!

November 16, 2016

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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.

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!

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

240 g wholegrain flour
2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt (not too much)
1 tbsp coconut oil (melted)
2 large egg whites (no yolk)
1 tbsp vanilla extract
125 g plain yoghurt
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)
1 cup milk
240 g red berries (I only had frozen at hand but you can use fresh)

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!

October 27, 2016

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4-5 days per week…

…more like 4 days per week, but hey, I try… Most weeks I manage to go up to four days per week of eating healthy and keeping my cravings in place, but I confess that there are some weeks when I don’t even make it to three days without craving something sugary or fatty. As for the other two to three remaining days of the week, well, since recently I have become able to ingest some meat, I try and incorporate it into my diet because I feel that animal protein is important during pregnancy and my baby should not miss any nutrients because of my eating choices – this does not mean that I am a vegetarian or a vegan in my day-to-day normal non-pregnancy life, but usually I only eat meat once per week at best because of some digestive problems that I discovered a few years ago. That being said, as you can see I do not feel sick towards cheese hence I have to keep it under control as I do tend to over-indulge in all cheesy things. YES, I looooove cheese!!! It is the glue to my life, but I confess that cheese immediately travels on my beee-hind so no over-eating it for me!

I am the type of person that weights every single food that is on my plate, to the point where some might say that I have mental problems, but over time I have come to realise that this is the only way to know exactly what goes into my body and when. Before my pregnancy, I ate way less fruit and I think fruit is actually responsible for my weight gain so far – well, that and the fact that I am having three cheat days per week as opposed to 1 1\2 before. Since I am not allowed to go to the gym, I have to keep everything in check hence the 1200-1300 kcal per day and the abundance of small snacks (that are actually not so small). Before, I ate my last meal of the day at 5 p.m. and then off I was at the gym for two hours and by the time I got home there was absolutely no way I was prepping a meal, no, my only goal was to reach my bed as fast as possible, but now, I feel hunger striking as late as 9 or 10 in the evening so I always keep cucumbers at hand as they seem to not disturb my sleep much.

These photos represent my actual situation and they were taken on Tuesday. While I try and keep everything as easy as I can, both the calorie count as well as the food options depend on the actual season I find myself in. For example all of last summer I craved garden tomatoes and watermelon and I have to tell you, the amount of watermelon that I ate on a daily basis is somewhat illegal hence I did pack a bit more calories than this autumn menu provides. Now I am currently dreaming of iceberg salad and kiwis even though iceberg salad was never my favourite, on the contrary actually, I have always hated it, but now I absolutely love it. On Tuesday I did not have any cottage cheese at hand, but I have to tell you that I try and eat one serving (175 gr) of cottage cheese – try the lighter versions – just for the high protein levels it provides. While during the summer my menu was way redder than my autumn picks (this one is mostly green), I do try as much as possible to eat all the colours of the rainbow but I do tend to listen to what my body craves right now and apparently it wants green stuff.

Breakfast:

I always try and have a healthy full breakfast and, if you look closely, this is the one meal that packs the most kcal as well as fibre and good fats and that is all thanks to the half avocado I eat daily no matter what. I always start my day with a glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice and water because I have to tell you, catching a cold during pregnancy is the worst thing that can happen to you (no nose-drops hence lack of sleep and mental sanity) and this juice provides lots of vitamin C on a empty stomach. At first I started eating avocados because of the high cholesterol levels in my blood, but now, since that is sorted out, I eat it for the all-around benefit it provides. I like to eat it raw as dessert after I indulge in two hard-boiled egg whites – great source of protein – and one yoghurt – much needed calcium. I always have a cup of coffee and my usual choice is a Nespresso capsule. This quantity is fine during pregnancy and it gives me the much-needed energy throughout the day. Since I was never one to drink my coffee black I like to top it up with coconut milk – but no sugar for me because as you’ll in the nutritional analysis at the end of this post, I get a lot of sugar from the fruits throughout the day therefore I do no add sugar in anything.

Lunch:

Lunch is probably my favourite meal because it is both sweet and hot. I like to have a cup of tomato soup and most of the time I do not make it myself but buy it ready-made from the supermarket. I will try and make some more varieties of cream soups myself – I really want to try and make a mushroom soup for a while now – as I always love a good hot soup in the middle of the day. This is the only hot meal I eat throughout a normal day and I think it is very important to not skip cooked meals. For dessert I love to eat a big bowl (about 300 gr) of seedless grapes. These are the only grapes I like and I am always quite happy during autumn the moment D starts buying them for me.

Dinner:

For dinner I usually have some sort of leafy green salad with a dash of avocado oil and a bit of cheese. I think it is important to eat your leafy greens daily as they provide lots of iron and fibre while not packing virtually any kcal and definitely no fats or other nasty stuff. I know, it would be a lot better if I replaced the iceberg salad with baby spinach, but hey, cravings are cravings! I usually put no more than a teaspoon of avocado oil in it and about 40 gr of light white cheese (calcium and proteins), but normally I use a cup of cottage cheese (it is a lot healthier!). For dessert – it seems like I can’t have one meal without something sweet and that must be curtesy of the little lady growing inside me – I like to eat a Granny Smith apple. As with the grapes, I am very strict about my apples – I only like the Granny Smith type. The apple provides lots of fibres and vitamins and is very good for the baby.

Snacks:

I usually have two snacks per day and while you might think that they are evenly distributed, they are not! Both of them are after lunch and both of them contain cheese (did I mention I love cheese?). The first snack of the day consists in a cup of cherry tomatoes – I already miss summer’s garden tomatoes – about 20 gr of cheese and a kiwi fruit. Ever since I got a cold in August and could not really treat it with anything I try and ingest as much natural vitamin C as possible and therefore kiwi is a daily must!

The second snack usually comes later – at around 9:30 in the evening hence the reason it needs to be lighter than the other – and consists of two, maybe three cucumbers, 20 gr of cheese and a kiwi fruit. This snack does not disturb my sleep at all and it is quite satisfying thanks to all the water content of the cucumbers. Usually after this snack, both D and I go out to walk our doggie (here she is) for about 30 minutes and that’s all the exercise I get during the day.

Liquids:

Before being pregnant, I usually drank 5 l of water per day, but now my usual consumption comes at about 3,5-4 l daily. I always try and listen to my body where hydration is concerned and never try and force myself to drink more or less. The glass of lemon drink in the morning is included in this quantity. I think it is very important to drink lots of water throughout the day, but mainly I trust my body to tell me when and how much water I need.

That’s it, this is what I eat during the week, from Monday to Thursday and sometimes Friday (very rarely!) during my pregnancy. These eating habits haven’t changed much, besides the extra 200-300 kcal per day and a lot more fruit, but then again, I used to go to the gym daily for about two hours, so most of the weight gain is explained solely by that. On the remaining days of the week, I try and satisfy all my cravings (see here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) as well as some other things that I never usually eat (yes, I had a bucket of KFC twice during this pregnancy – let the shaming begin!). All in all, I try and stay sane and eat whatever I like but mostly healthy, hence the 4-5/2-3 ratio. I find it a lot easier to stick to my diet for longer it we manage to do our shopping for the entire week on a Sunday. For some reason throwing food away does not sit well with me so I feel obliged to eat it. I feel lucky that my last month of pregnancy will be during Christmas as I am going to get big by then anyway and I will be able to indulge in all the Christmas goodies without feeling guilty or fat – yes tons of gingerbread and panettone included! But until then I am trying to not pack lots of kgs as I am well aware that this is not healthy for me nor for my baby.

Scroll down a bit more to see a full nutritional analysis of what I ate on Tuesday – vitamins and all – all curtesy of the new apple watch D got me and the lovely MyNetDiary app which is quite complete where nutrition is concerned.

October 21, 2016

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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!

Processed with Snapseed.

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).

Processed with Snapseed.

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!)

Processed with Snapseed.

Steps to follow:

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.
Slice the garlic, and pick the oregano leaves, arrange everything and take a few photos.
Put the pomace olive oil in a pot and let it heat up for 30 seconds than add the onions.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Put the pot back on the stove and bring to boil.
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.

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.

Processed with Snapseed.

October 5, 2016

evenlymatched2 Comments

When you only have leftovers…

Just a friendly reminder that I am not a cook, nor do I usually venture in these kind of homey activities, but I do love food (hence my multiple visits to the gym) and I am not one to starve if I don’t have certain ingredients in the house. That being said, you’ll probably see more posts from restaurants than from our kitchen in this category, but we promise we’ll give it our best whenever we’ll decide to cook our own meals.

The reason this dish is so ‘romantically’ named is because it’s literally made out of everything I could find in our fridge today. Usually we go grocery shopping on Sundays for the week to come, which means that our Sunday breakfast is assembled with whatever we have left. I have to agree that we did have a fair amount of various ingredients today (this usually doesn’t happen) because D decided to make pasta on Friday, otherwise we probably would have had yogurt for breakfast.

Since we never ever cook following a recipe, we are usually left with a weird array of ingredients because we tend to buy more than we need for two people (that’s also due to the fact that we venture into the kitchen as ‘often’ as we do).

Today’s omelette took me about 20 minutes to make, including prep-time, and we were both satisfied with the quantity, so I guess it serves two.

Ingredients (leftovers):

5 egg whites (I’m not a fan of the yolk)
Chives
1/2 cup of sliced olives (buy them ready-sliced as it saves a lot of time and they tend to be more tasty)
1 tsp olive oil (pomace olive oil for frying-don’t use virgin olive oil for cooking as it’s toxic)
1 tsp pesto (usually I like to make my own pesto, but this time, since D already brought a jar of Jamie Oliver pesto I decided to use it)
1 medium sweet red pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion (i prefer red onion as it’s sweeter)
1/4 cup whole milk (i rarely ever drink cow’s milk, so when I do I like it whole)
40 gr Parmesan cheese

Step 1 – arrange all the ingredients for a blog/Instagram-worthy picture ( I think that alone took me about 5 minutes as I’m not as talented as D when it comes to photos)

Step 2 – chop everything that can be chopped

Step 3 – mix the egg whites with the milk, 1/2 of the chopped sweet red pepper, 1/2 of the chopped onion, 1/2 of the chives, 1/2 of the sliced olives, the pesto and the Parmesan cheese

Step 4 – preheat the olive oil in the pan and fry whatever’s left of the chopped ingredients for about 3-4 minutes (basically until the onion turns golden)

Step 5 – pour the egg-combo into the pan and stir until you reach the desired consistency

Step 6 – impress D with Sunday breakfast in bed!

All the nutritional information posted here is courtesy of the Jawbone UP app. I will at some point write a post praising this amazing product that changed my life completely for the better, both health and fitness-wise.