Hey, it's Jess today!
So, in another attempt at this whole lose fat/gain muscle thing, I've started another diet. I'm on day 6 of it now and haven't yet failed - yay! This time, I'm following the LiveFit Trainer plan, created by Jamie Eason. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/jamie-easons-livefit-introduction.html Just look at her, and you'll see why this seems like a good idea. Sadly, I am going to have to start the plan again exercise wise as my back and knee have been giving me grief all week so I've had to rest early, so I will start again. But the basis of this plan as far as food goes is to eat clean, high-protein meals every 2-3 hours. Meals generally consist of a decent sized portion of lean protein, a restricted portion of clean carbs (think brown rice, sweet potato, quinoa...it does allow certain types of pitta bread etc. but we're keeping this gluten free too), and unlimited vegetables as long as they're grilled, boiled or steamed (OK, I kind of failed, I fried my broccoli last night because I couldn't face it boiled again). Oh, and you're meant to consume 10 egg whites a day. Which I am not, because that would involve spending £60+ a month on eggs which isn't feasible on my stipend. But anyway, I am trying. And clean eating feels good, I haven't been bloated for six whole days or felt guilty about anything I've put past my lips, which is always a good start :)
So one of the small meal options on this plan is homemade protein bars. A recipe for carrot cake bars is provided, as well as chocolate, lemon and pumpkin flavours, but all the recipes include sweeteners such as Stevia or Ideal, which I am really not a fan of using. So I adjusted the recipes to suit what i want to use, and went for apple blueberry flavour.
Makes 8 servings:
1 cup oat bran
2 scoops vanilla whey protein
4 egg whites
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp baking powder
125g blueberries (1/2 mashed, 1/2 whole)
1 apple, grated
1 tbsp milled flaxseed (optional)
2 tsp chia seeds (optional)
1 tsp vanilla essence (optional)
50g flaked almonds (optional)
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Combine egg whites, mashed blueberries, grated apple and a tbsp or two of water. Mix two bowls. Pour into pyrex dish and bake for 20-25 minutes at 180C.
Simple enough. Divided into eight portions, one bar provides 141 calories, 12g carbs, 11g protein and 7g fat. All the ingredients are approved for livefit, I just edited the original recipes by leaving out the unnatural sweeteners and using blueberries instead. And I added flax and chia seeds to add some omega fats and fibre, and the almonds make them a little denser and add some protein. These could easily be left out though. Mine turned out great though and will definitely be having them as small meal/snack options throughout the day.
(Sorry, I don't know how to make this vegan, when on a diet that requires you to consume 10 egg whites a day veganism isn't something I can really think about :( )
Showing posts with label almonds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label almonds. Show all posts
Saturday, 13 April 2013
Sunday, 16 December 2012
Update - Cherry Bakewell Monkey Bars
Quick one today!
Tom and I decided that as the dark chocolate and cranberry monkey bars we made were so good, it was definitely time to make them again with a variation. So I had the ingenious plan of making cherry bakewell monkey bars. And they were good - so good they deserved their own blog post.
The ingredients are pretty similar, but obviously a few changes
2 cups rolled or jumbo oats (gluten free if needed)
1/2 cup flaked almonds
1/4 cup milled flaxseed
1/4 cup oat bran
2tbsp maple syrup
2tbsp golden syrup (you can use 4 tbsp of one of these but we decided to try a bit of both)
1/2 cup almond butter
1/4 cup honey
1 large banana, very ripe and mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon almond flavouring
1/2 teaspoon salt
Glace cherries, halved
Morello cherry jam
Icing sugar and hazelnut milk (didn't measure, but make sure it's quite thick - the icing can look quite...unfortunate if it's too thin!)
So, as before ( http://twocooksoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/monkey-bars.html ) , mix the oats, almonds, flax and oat bran with the syrup and toast this mixture for 10 minutes. Mash the banana and place in a saucepan with the honey and almond butter and melt until you have a runny mixture. Add the vanilla and almond flavouring and the salt to this mixture, then add the two mixtures together. No need to wait for this one to cool down as it doesn't use chocolate so there's no risk of anything melting. However, this time, only put half of the mixture in the dish you are baking it in. Flatten this mixture out so it is a smooth covering for the bottom of the dish, then add a generous layer of morello cherry jam on top. Then layer the other half of the mixture on top and bake for 25 minutes, until golden. Then, add the halved glace cherries on top, and drizzle the icing over the top.
This makes more of a dessert than the original recipe - a bit more of a treat with the icing but it's a really good variation. The flaked almonds give it a lighter texture than the cashews did in the original, and the almond butter goes really nicely with the cherry jam. Morello cherry jam is amazing. I cannot stress to you how important it is to have a jar in your life. It also goes really well on a salted rice cake with a bit of almond butter (not that me and Tom were trying this whilst making these...).
These are becoming a bit of a favourite for us so we will let you know of more variations - and let us know what you try too!
Tom and I decided that as the dark chocolate and cranberry monkey bars we made were so good, it was definitely time to make them again with a variation. So I had the ingenious plan of making cherry bakewell monkey bars. And they were good - so good they deserved their own blog post.
The ingredients are pretty similar, but obviously a few changes
2 cups rolled or jumbo oats (gluten free if needed)
1/2 cup flaked almonds
1/4 cup milled flaxseed
1/4 cup oat bran
2tbsp maple syrup
2tbsp golden syrup (you can use 4 tbsp of one of these but we decided to try a bit of both)
1/2 cup almond butter
1/4 cup honey
1 large banana, very ripe and mashed
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 teaspoon almond flavouring
1/2 teaspoon salt
Glace cherries, halved
Morello cherry jam
Icing sugar and hazelnut milk (didn't measure, but make sure it's quite thick - the icing can look quite...unfortunate if it's too thin!)
So, as before ( http://twocooksoneblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/monkey-bars.html ) , mix the oats, almonds, flax and oat bran with the syrup and toast this mixture for 10 minutes. Mash the banana and place in a saucepan with the honey and almond butter and melt until you have a runny mixture. Add the vanilla and almond flavouring and the salt to this mixture, then add the two mixtures together. No need to wait for this one to cool down as it doesn't use chocolate so there's no risk of anything melting. However, this time, only put half of the mixture in the dish you are baking it in. Flatten this mixture out so it is a smooth covering for the bottom of the dish, then add a generous layer of morello cherry jam on top. Then layer the other half of the mixture on top and bake for 25 minutes, until golden. Then, add the halved glace cherries on top, and drizzle the icing over the top.
This makes more of a dessert than the original recipe - a bit more of a treat with the icing but it's a really good variation. The flaked almonds give it a lighter texture than the cashews did in the original, and the almond butter goes really nicely with the cherry jam. Morello cherry jam is amazing. I cannot stress to you how important it is to have a jar in your life. It also goes really well on a salted rice cake with a bit of almond butter (not that me and Tom were trying this whilst making these...).
These are becoming a bit of a favourite for us so we will let you know of more variations - and let us know what you try too!
 |
| Press the first layer down well so the jam stays on top! |
 |
| We served ours with pomegranate. Don't ask why, it just worked... |
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Christmas Butterbean Cookies
Tom again, feeling surprisingly prolific today,
...and CHRISTMASSY. Yes I know it's november. I don't know what is happening to me. I am normally a massive scrooge. Help?
Anyway, in the spirit of my want to bake and christmas spirit (and because I can use my parents' fancy food processor!), here is a recipe for christmas flavoured cookies (the smell when they bake is glorious, it's filling my kitchen as I write this). This is entirely stolen from Happy Herbivore (http://happyherbivore.com/recipe/butter-bean-cookies/), and I adapted it with christmas flavours to suit my mood.
But now, to address the elephant in the room, yes, I said butterbean. Before you run screaming and denounce me as a witch or burn me for worshiping the devil...62 calories per cookie. And 0.7g fat. That's all. Because you're using the protein from blended butterbeans (which lets face it, have no flavour) to bind these cookies together, you don't need to add any fat to it, animal or otherwise. To be fair, this recipe isn't exceptionally sweet, but that can be altered easily enough if you'd like too. Yes it sounds weird, yes it looks like babysick when blended, but hey, it's worth a try right?
Ingredients:
1 cup Rolled Oats
1 cup Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Cloves
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
3 tsp Ginger (or about an inch of grated fresh ginger)
1/2 tsp grated Nutmeg
1/2 can of Butterbeans
1/4 cup of Apple sauce (or stewed apples)
1/2 cup of Sugar
Pinch of salt
Handful of Almonds
These cookies are kind of like macaroons in texture. On a side note DO NOT COOK THESE ON BAKING PAPER. They stick. And do not peal. At all. However, despite the occasional piece of baking paper still stuck on they were still tasty (my mum would NOT leave them alone). Also this recipe needs a food processor, you can probably do it with a spoon and a hand blender but it will take a lot of elbow grease.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F, 175C or Gas Mark 4.
Pour 3/4 cup of oats into the food processor and pulse until they are lightly ground but not a powder.
Add the oats and all of the rest of the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl.
Put the butterbeans, apple sauce, vanilla and sugar in the food processor with a tbsp of water and blend until smooth.
Add the oats and stir until mixed.
Toast the almods briefly and break them up in a pestle and mortar (or with a rolling pin).
Combine the wet and dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and 1/3 of a cup of water and mix roughly (it should still be pretty lumpy, it works better that way).
Put tablespoon blobs on a greased baking tray.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden around the edges and on the bottom and solid in the centre.
Enjoy with a coffee! (I just did)
...and CHRISTMASSY. Yes I know it's november. I don't know what is happening to me. I am normally a massive scrooge. Help?
Anyway, in the spirit of my want to bake and christmas spirit (and because I can use my parents' fancy food processor!), here is a recipe for christmas flavoured cookies (the smell when they bake is glorious, it's filling my kitchen as I write this). This is entirely stolen from Happy Herbivore (http://happyherbivore.com/recipe/butter-bean-cookies/), and I adapted it with christmas flavours to suit my mood.
But now, to address the elephant in the room, yes, I said butterbean. Before you run screaming and denounce me as a witch or burn me for worshiping the devil...62 calories per cookie. And 0.7g fat. That's all. Because you're using the protein from blended butterbeans (which lets face it, have no flavour) to bind these cookies together, you don't need to add any fat to it, animal or otherwise. To be fair, this recipe isn't exceptionally sweet, but that can be altered easily enough if you'd like too. Yes it sounds weird, yes it looks like babysick when blended, but hey, it's worth a try right?
Ingredients:
1 cup Rolled Oats
1 cup Plain Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1 tsp Cloves
1 1/2 tsp Vanilla
3 tsp Ginger (or about an inch of grated fresh ginger)
1/2 tsp grated Nutmeg
1/2 can of Butterbeans
1/4 cup of Apple sauce (or stewed apples)
1/2 cup of Sugar
Pinch of salt
Handful of Almonds
These cookies are kind of like macaroons in texture. On a side note DO NOT COOK THESE ON BAKING PAPER. They stick. And do not peal. At all. However, despite the occasional piece of baking paper still stuck on they were still tasty (my mum would NOT leave them alone). Also this recipe needs a food processor, you can probably do it with a spoon and a hand blender but it will take a lot of elbow grease.
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350F, 175C or Gas Mark 4.
Pour 3/4 cup of oats into the food processor and pulse until they are lightly ground but not a powder.
Add the oats and all of the rest of the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl.
Put the butterbeans, apple sauce, vanilla and sugar in the food processor with a tbsp of water and blend until smooth.
Add the oats and stir until mixed.
Toast the almods briefly and break them up in a pestle and mortar (or with a rolling pin).
Combine the wet and dry ingredients in the mixing bowl and 1/3 of a cup of water and mix roughly (it should still be pretty lumpy, it works better that way).
Put tablespoon blobs on a greased baking tray.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden around the edges and on the bottom and solid in the centre.
Enjoy with a coffee! (I just did)
 |
| Dry ingredients |
 |
| First butterbeans... |
 |
| Now babysick. Also known as the wet ingredients. |
 |
| Combine the two. |
 |
| Add a few almonds. |
 |
| Before |
 |
| And after baking. With a nice bit of icing sugar, everything looks christmassy with icing sugar. |
As always, make any changes you come feel - I'm thinking walnuts and coffee? - and let us know what you come up with at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com
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