Twice the plums

Prunes…tasty, sweet and full of goodness are your first thoughts-right? Or is it ‘old people’ and ‘fiber’? I find it strange prunes are famed for their fiber when beans are so full of it and even in the fruit world, dried figs have more fiber! Let’s go back to prunes being lovely!

Spot the prune!

This morning my plum was a little sad, it was so over ripe I had to operate on it and remove bits. In order to top up the fruit per serving I added 2 prunes, chopped and mixed through. Heated up they smelt intoxicating-kind of yeasty. That might not be the best description, and truly the photos don’t do this justice- but just try a prune chopped up as a topping and see!

Plum and Prune Porridge

Plums look a lot better before mixing! 

1 small plum

1-2 prunes

1/2 cup oats

1 cup milk

Method

1. Chop up the plums, mix with a fork in a bowl to make them really mussy.
2. Chop the prunes (its much easier with scissors).
3. Mix the plums with oats and milk
4. Top with the prunes and microwave for 2-3 mins
5. Enjoy the plummy goodness!

Pumpkin pie porridge

Pumpkin Pie Porridge
I've seen 'pumpkin pie oatmeal' for so long now, and have been longing to make my own. Every time we have any left over I mean to-last time it was used for soup and the time before bean burgers. But finally I got my hands on some. It isn't actually pumpkin, the only time pumpkin is available in the UK seems to be Halloween but butternut squash pie doesn't have quite the same ring to it. SO this is the British version... If you don't tell I wont! ;)

This tasted so yum.  I had a half day so got home early from school and had left over lasagna for lunch. Then a hot cross bun. Then butternut squash. Then   almost all of the oat/squash mix. I added more oats thinking 'oh I'll stop now' but didn't-I just kept eating. I then sat on the floor and cried and cried and then hyperventilating in a rather pathetic heap. When I stopped I rang my mum, who didn't notice anything was wrong and I wasn't brave enough to tell her. I tried the next morning, telling her I'd eaten to much and felt bad, but she didn't get what I meant. I couldn't actually eat the stuff I managed to save for breakfast (the stuff in these pictures) in the end-just looking at it makes me feel horrible.

I'm a bit stuck now. I'll try to tell her again. I don't want to make her worried and watch everything I eat or get carted off to the doctors.I'm terrified of being left alone in the house in case I just eat and eat again. This was the second day in a row I've done it. I feel completely out of control of it. I stopped eating peanut butter and other stuff and I don't want to go backwards. But at the same time I feel bad if I eat. For dinner today I felt bad for eating all my pasta. Part of that is physically feeling a bit icky to-really hope I'm not wheat intolerant..!

I feel better having written this. Brave even though I'm not really telling anyone.

Enough of my moaning and messed upness. This is the recipe  maybe one day I'l be able to make this again and actually enjoy it.

Pumpkin Pie Porridge-serves 1

1/2 cup/ 80g pumpkin or butternut squash
1 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup oats
1 cup milk

1. Roast the squash whole for 30-40 mins at 180, peel and chop. Or use left over stuff from another recipe!
2. Put the squash in a bowl, add the spices and blend with a hand blender. You may be able to mash it up it you don't have a blender.
3. add the oats and milk
4. Leave overnight in the fridge for the oats to absorb all the moisture.
5. Pop in the microwave for 2-3 mins.
6. add extra milk if required and enjoy!

Butternut pumpkin!

(pre-blending)

Something New

Passion fruit and toasted coconut porridge
I've never tried passion fruit before. As I am trying to focus on food being fun, I was excited to find out its in season now (Ok-so not in season in the UK, but available at the least). Seroisly excited, I WANTED to go food shopping. And not to ensure the right stuff was bought so I wouldn't freak out (I still get a bit panicky about food sometimes, if its out of the ordinary or 'wrong' e.g. peanut butter with added sugar), but to ensure that my passion fruit was remembered!
It's really nice, kinda sweet and sharp and very, very fruity tasting! Such a shame its so expensive-even when in season :/ I decided to stick with something safe for tring it out, a tropical fruit goes with tropical nuts so I added coconut and cashews. After the sucess the other day of toasting seeds, I tried toasting the coconut. Defiantly worth it for me- It made the whole house smell coconutty! My brother wasn't so happy though, I don't know why, its  a sweet, nutty smell.

 Ingreadents
1 tbsp dried coconut
small handuful cashew nuts
1/2 cup oats
1 cup milk
2 small passion fruit

Method

1. Heat up a small frying pan and add the nuts and coconut, stir until the coconut starts to brown and smell toasty-it changes very quickly!
2. Mix the oats, milk and toasted coconut, cashew mix (save some for the top if you like).
3. Chop the passion fruit in half, scoop out the seeds onto the oat mixture.
4. Microwave for 2-3 mins, then enjoy!

Veggie Pizza

Kale Cabbage pizza.

Normally when people give me pizza its cheese and tomato. Boring-I'm vegetarian  I still have taste buds! Occasionally I get vegetable, with maybe some murdered onions on. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, I know people find it difficult to feed me! Now I'm lactose intolerant I tend to bring my own pizza to outings anyway. This recipe is something I've been wanting to try for a while, but kept forgetting when we had kale at home (which isn't often-no one else really likes or appreciate its healthfulness . No of course, there is no kale around  so I settled on cabbage instead. I used sweetheart cabbage which was, surprisingly, lovely and sweet! Whatever you use, slicing it finely and frying are diffinalty what make this great.
Even my mum said "If I saw cabbage pizza in a recipe book, I'd never try it-but it's actually rather nice. Leeks would be good too". I nearly fainted!! It was pretty yummy though. I forgot to take a picture of the whole pizza, but heres the left overs I had with beans for lunch.

I used a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall  recipe from 'Veg every day' which is a brilliant book I got for my birthday.
But basically here is the recipe:

Cabbage Pizza   serves 2-3 people

Ingredients
1 pizza base (make your own dough-its so fab!)
1 tbsp oil
1 medium onion
1/2 cabbage
30g cheese

1. Peheat the oven to 200C
2. Roll out dough, as thinly as you like.
3. Chop up an onion and thinly Slice cabbage. 
4. In a pan heat up the oil and the fry onion until golden.
5. add the cabbage to onions, cook for arround 5 mins-until soft.
6. Top pizza with the veg mixture, sprinkle over some cheese if you like.
7. Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins.

You have what for breakfast?

Carrot and Blueberry Porridge

I promise this is not as weird as it sounds! I tell people I have carrot in my porridge and they freak out! I do not get it. Just because its a vegetable doesn't mean its not good in sweet stuff...Hello, carrot cake?! I could understand if I said 'oh yeah I put cabbage in my porridge' but not carrot! I thought combining it with blueberries would be a nice gentle introduction of carrot in porridge.  I topped it off with some ground cashew nuts I had left over. Once stirred in they make the porridge lovely and creamy, for some reason I'm not quite sure of!

 I actually made this a few weeks ago and I also added a few cranberries, because they'd been sitting there for a while and needed using up... OK I lie-I just wanted them. this bowl is about 1/3 of what I started off with. And  I didn't even feel guilty!! :D Trying to remember that now!

As It would feel dishonest of me to blog about something I didn't actually have today, I recreated it this morning. According to my grandmother it looked 'interesting' . I just smiled brightly and offered her some grated carrot...wrinkled nose and a "I'll pass". Hopefully you'll be more adventurous!?



Ingredients:

• 20g ground cashews/almonds or small handful (20g) cashew nuts
• 1/2 carrot
• 1/2 cup blueberries
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 cup milk

Method

1. If you want ground cashews, blitz them in a food processor, or with a hand blender (it works if you cover the bowl with a tea towel, else they go everywhere!!) or bash them with a pestle and mortar if you don't have a processor or blender. If you want normal cashews, feel free to chop them up or just chuck 'em in whole! (why not after all?).
2. Wash/peel the carrot, Then Grate.
3. Mix the oats, carrot, milk, blueberries and half of the nuts in a bowl.
4. Sprinkle with the rest of the nut mixture.

Apple and peanut butter

Apple and peanut butter

I love eating slices of  apple and dipping them in peanut butter. I thought it was about time I tried this on porridge. I left half of  the apple raw, so it was lovely, crisp and a little sharp which helps to tone down the richness of the peanut butter.

Recipe

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 Apple
• 1-2 tbsp peanut butter

Method

1. Mix the oats and milk
2. Chop the apple and mix half of it in with the oat mixture
3. Top with peanut butter.
4. Microwave for 2-3 mins
5. Add the rest of the apple and enjoy!

I went for this topping this morning, as I thought it would help me power through my run! I normally eat peanut-banana butter or make peanut or blended fruit nut balls for after my run to re power and give me a high enegry snack. I have to replace the calories I loose running! Todays post-run snack will be a smoothie and even though I add peanut butter, I cant taste it, so I can cope with the double peanut dose!! I have to say, running is getting tougher, not physically-but because my grandparents dont understand it! They also dont get any of my food. If I get one more that looks interesting comment about my food-I may scream. I’m sure it’ll happen to my smoothie (its going to be green and healthyful) but I don’t get how putting apple in my porridge is that different or unusual? 

Just 2 weeks left...

Pea, mint and goats cheese omelette

Pea, mint and goats cheese omelette

This was a simple Saturday lunch, with a peas for protein and they are so lovely and sweet it really helps to balance out the slightly sour goats cheese. Its really a wonderful mixture. This can be eaten straight away, or sliced up and put in a lunch box.

Recipe

• 3 cherry tomatoes
• 80g frozen peas
• 1-2 eggs
• ½ tbsp. olive oil
• 1/2 tsp dried mint
• 20g goats cheese (crumbled or grated)

Method

1. Heat up the frozen peas in the frying pan, whilst they are cooking, chop the tomatoes.
2. Once the peas start to thaw, add the tomatoes and cook for around 2 mins.
3. Mix the eggs and oil, then pour into the pan.
4. Sprinkle over the goats cheese.
5. Cook for 3-4 mins until the egg starts to set, then finish off under a grill to set the top (or if your brave-flip it!)

Ready for Easter?

Hot cross porridge


One of the things that annoys me about blogs sometimes, is that a perfect recipe/idea comes up-but its too late. Take a lovely advent calander someone put online on the 5th December. they must have made it a week before and I could have used their ideas!! By no means am I saying this recipe is perfect, but its pretty yummy and the spices and rasins do make this taste rather hotcross bun like. These pictures show my beutiful arrangement of the fruit and nuts to look like a cross. Of course this isnt nessaccary, and once I added the milk it was ruinined :( but at least my pictures prove I tried. I think this would be a perfect good friday or easter breakfast. I have to say, my personal plans for easter morning invole chocolate!

Ingreadents
1/2 cup oats
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp raisins*golden if you have them!
1 tbsp sultanas
1 tbsp currents
small handful chopped nuts/seeds

Method

1. Mix the milk, spice and oats in a bowl.
2. top with the nuts and fruit-cross pattern optional.
3. Microwave for 2-3 mins
4. Sprinkle with a little more spice and enjoy!

To anyone in the UK..how are you holding up in the cold?! Where is our spring?

Celery Salad with Jamaican Beans

Celery Salad with Jamaican Beans

Staying with my grandparents food wise is exactly how I expected it to be. So far dinner had been veggie sausages and scrabbled egg on toast and then quorn bolanase…Veggiefree meals. So I’m making lunches as vegetable packed as possible. This isn’t easy considering all I have are bags of beans, lentils some celery and spinach.   I’m finding it a bit stressful, making my lunches like this is helping-but then my grandma keeps trying to be helpful and make my lunches-cheese on toast is not what I want, but today that’s what I had to have. Great. And dinner will be vegetable less too. It makes me not want to eat.  To top it all off she said ‘are you stuffing your face again?’ when I had a snack of orange and rice pudding. I know she was joking, but I threw it away and its made me over think again. Really finding it hard right now.

This lunch is the left overs of my celery and some black beans I boiled up.Not everyone likes celery, raw and stringy I can kinda see why. This is a really different way of having celery- the spices make this lovely and frying gets rid of some of the water, but keeps the celery crunchy. The beans add protein and are always good.

Celery Salad
1/2 tbsp olive oil
2 sticks of celery
1/2 bell pepper
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Method

1. Heat up the oil in a pan, whilst chopping the celery and pepper.
2. Add the veg to the pan and heat through. The celery wont exactly go crispy, but frying evaporates some of the water off.
3. Add the ground pepper and stir for around 5 mins.
4. Put into a bowl, and keep the frying pan

Black beans

1/2 can (120g) black beans or dried beans

1/2 tsp Jamaican jerk spice (or 1/4 tsp each chili powder, cinnamon and thyme).

Method

1. Boil up the dried beans, boil for 10 mins then simmer for 30-40 mins.
2. Drain the boiled beans or the can.
3. Add the beans and spices to the pan, stir through to coat the beans.
4. Top the celery mixture with the beans

Strawberry syrup Porridge

Coconut porridge with hot strawberry sauce

My favorite thing to do with strawberries, is heat them up into a hot sauce, and pour onto yogurt. But since finding out I’m lactose intolerant and allergic to soy  there isn't really a yogurt I can eat right now. So I made a plain (but lovely) oat mix, with coconut and cashews and topped with my hot strawberry sauce. Quite nearly as lovely as with yogurt..

 Recipe

• 1 Handful of strawberries
• ½ cup oats
• ½ cup milk
• 1 tbsp dessicated coconut
• 1 palm full of cashew nuts

Method

1. Chop the strawberries into very small chunks, put in a small cup or bowl
2. Chop the cashew nuts finely
3. Mix the nuts, coconut, oats and milk
4. Put the strawberry mixture and porridge in the microwave for 2 mins.
5. Remove oats and microwave the strawberries for another 30 secs
6. Pour sauce on top of oats
7. Enjoy!



I decided to splash out and have strawberries while I can. My parents leave for a 3 week holiday tomorrow and despite being nearly 18 I have to stay with my grandparents. I don't really mind, i get on very well with them and it means I can look after my grandma. It just through up a few issues for me.
Number one is food. I think over the last month or even two months, I haven't worried about food at all. The odd wobble  (sugar encrusted dried  pineapple...my brain starts to scream "so much sugar, unnatural, colourings, CALORIES" and I just ate it anyway! I felt pretty proud for over coming that. I don't want to go backwards because I know I will have lots of ready made frozen stuff there. (My grandparents do not understand vegetarianism) I think it'll be OK though, as I cant cope with being hungry any more, and I'll just have healthy lunches-but I'm not looking forward to it. They defiantly wont be buying any strawberries, so I had them today, whilst I can still just ask my mum to buy stuff for me!
Number two on a similar point is, I wont have my scales, so for three weeks how will I check I'm not loosing weight? this I know is silly, but its taken me months to put on.
Number three is sleep. Last time I stayed down there, I didn't sleep more than 4 hours per night...and its 3 weeks.
I think that's enough of me admitting my life and silly problems to the world!

Apple and toasted seeds

Apple and toasted seeds
Yesterday was been such a lazy day for me! I spent the morning in my Pajamas, just making my lunch for today somehow took me 2 hours!! I have never bothered to toast seeds before. So when prepping my porridge last night, to combat my lazyness I tried it. I will do it again and again! It's really worth toasting them just for the smell. It really does bring out the flavor as well though, in particular sesame seeds which can be a little tasteless otherwise.
Sweet apple and a few raisins cut through the seeds bitter toastynes and make a nice balanced bowl.

Ingreadents

• 2 tbsp sunflower seeds
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds
• 1 apple
• 1 tbsp raisins
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 cup milk

Method

1. Heat up a small frying pan (no need for oil!)
2. When hot add the seeds and stir, keep an eye on them as they go from plain to toasty very quickly!
3. Chop up the apple, mix in a bowl with raisins and oats.
4. Pour over the milk.
5. Top with seeds, mix or leave as a topping.
6. Microwave for 2-3 mins
7. Enjoy!

Thinking about it, I wasnt that lazy, I did go for a run, make my lunch for today; did 45 mins of revision; Make my mum some roasted butternut squash/sage toastys and wrote up 3 blog posts... Maybe I'll say nice and relaxed day instead?!

Not the greenest day!

Butternut, Sage and goats cheese sandwich
Today is Friday  but I'm not in school! We where supposed to have mock exams, but as we've only learnt half of our topics, most of my teachers decided not to give us one. So I've had a 'day off' catching up on notes, sorting out books and tidying up! I've just got to make dinner, sort my Grandmas computer out and do some revision... Of course I have done some nice things too, I had a lie in until 7:45, went running, make some peanut butter dough biscuits (ate them all...) and whilst typing this I've watched F.r.i.e.n.d.s. Still why not treat myself on this day off..Butternut squash is my favouirte food! Its awesome in soup, salad, curry, everything! (Haven't tried it in porridge yet though). Roasting it makes it go really sweet and pumpkin like. This sandwich is actually inspired by some soup I had the other day-Butter nut squash and sage. By adding dried sage to the oil, the squash really takes on the flavour.

Ingredients
1/4 cup butternut squash (or pumpkin) (double for 2 slices worth)
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried sage
1-2 slices bread
Some goats cheese grated

Method

1. Heat the Oven up to 180C
2. Chop the squash into small pieces (the smaller they are, the faster it cooks)
3. Mix the squash, oil and sage, so the squash is well coated
4. Roast in the oven for 30ish mins. Longer if you use more squash, or large pieces.
5. Remove the squash (if soft and goldeny).Toast the bread.
6. Top the bread with the squash and cheese.
7. Grill for 2ish mins, until cheese melts
8. Enjoy!!

As well as this I had a veggies sausage sandwich, onion bhaji and an orange. So really there really wasn't a green thing in site (unless specks of sage count??)! I'll make up for it at dinner tonight!

Apple and dried fruit with a twist

Apple, current, raisins and sultanas

Today was a little different. This is a mixture of currents, raisins and sultanas. I normally don't bother with all these (I just chuck in a few raisins) but today was special. Why special? Not really sure! I just felt like splashing out. Its amazing how different they all taste, although all sweet, I think sultanas are the sweetest and currents are lovely and chewy. I just left the apple sliced, rather then chopping/dicing. This was great on top, the slices just softened slightly and heating them really made them sweet.

Recipe

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 apple
• 1 tbsp each currents, raisins and sultanas

Method

1. Mix the oats and milk and mix in the dried fruit
2. Slice the apple and put on top of oats
3. Microwave on high for 2-3 mins
4. Enjoy!

Mango and dried fruit morning starter

Mango and dried fruit porridge
 Just looking at this makes me hungry! I started off with a mango, but it was so sadly bruised I didn't feel there was enough for one portion. So I added some lovely dried fruit. Chewy natural dried apricot, dried cherries and the 'super food' gogi berries.
I drizzled with coconut milk to make this a fabulous start to the day.

Recipe

• 1/4 mango
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup milk
• Mixed dried fruit (cherries, gogi berries, apricot).
• 2 tbsp coconut milk

Method

1. Chop the mango.
2. Mix the mango, milk and oats.
3. Microwave for 2-3 mins
4. Top with dried fruit, and drizzle with coconut milk
5. Enjoy!

Unfortunately this was the only really good thing today, as my dad was taken into hospital after having chest pains on the weekend. Hopefully all will be OK.

Butter Bean and Swede salad

Bean and Swede salad

Happy Mothers day to all mothers in the UK!! and A lovely day to everyone else elsewhere too.

This is my Friday lunch. Fridays tend to be one of two things; a bit of a left overs mix, or Dahl day!  Only I couldn't be bothered to boil up any lentils and had no left over beans. I’d left it too late to do more beans (they have to soak for 8 hours and that takes forward planning).  So I splashed out and used canned. And not just any canned beans-butter beans! They were so lovely I ate the other half of the can that night… good job they are healthy! (I make my lunch the night before-mornings never have enough time in them). Not many people like swede but its so sweet and cheap! Mine had been in the fridge too long and was looking a little sad. But dicing and frying the swede but frying brought it back to an edible state. I think that when fried it tastes rather like pumpkin! (and unlike pumpkin, cheap and in season here).

I paired with some chopped pepper and mixed nuts as a snack.

Recipe:

·         100g swede

·         ½ tsp chilli powder

·         ½ tbsp olive oil

·         ½ can butter beans (or boil up 1/3 cup dried)

·         Couple of handful salad leaves

Method

1. Dice the swede into small pieces so it will cook nicely, heat up the oil in a frying pan.
2. Add the swede and chili powder and fry the swede until golden brown and smelling lovely. Then remove from heat.
3. Drain the butter beans and add to the cooling swede (the heat will remove the excess water which can make your salad limp).
4. Wash the salad and put in to bowl/container then top with the bean/swede mix once it has cooled.

Its not Terry's...its mine!

Chocolate Orange porridge

Today I knew I would need a bit of cheer. It’s a-level results day and I was pretty much convinced I’d failed chemistry at the very least, which considering I’m apply for it an university was a bit worrying. I decided to go for a ‘ Terry's chocolate orange’ inspired breakfast, quite simply chocolate orange! I always get one for Christmas, but didn't this year, so have been hankering after one since. This is pretty lovely-not as sickly and chocolaty as a real chocolate orange, but sweet, juicy and just a little chocolaty! If you want it to be really chocolaty add 2 tsp. of cocoa powder and maybe melt a little milk chocolate on top. Of course the perfect a compliment would be a real segment of Terry’s…Oh we can dream!

This lovely bowl kept me through until I got my results I ended up getting Chemistry-A, Biology-A, General studies-A and Psychology-B. Unfortunately now I've got my results and found out  got an A I almost feel worse. If I failed the pressure would be off and the decision out of my hands. I don’t want to do chemistry, and hate my lessons but I also don’t know what else to do. My back up plan is now out the window as psychology didn't go too well.

Enough of my moaning- here’s the recipe!

• 1 Orange
• ½ cup oats
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• ½ cup milk
• Milk/dark chocolate* (optional)

Method

1. Peel the orange and cut up the segments into chunks
2. Mix the oats, orange and cocoa powder in a bowl.
3. Add the milk and stir well to mix all the chocolate in
4. Microwave for 2-3 mins*

*(if adding real chocolate, take out 30 secs before the end and add, before finishing off to avoid burning)

<--Mmm...Just look at the lovely chocolaty mix (although I must say sorry about the terrible photographs, I only had my small digital camera, complete with flash).

Apple and raisin porridge

Apple and Rasin Porridge

This is one of my favorite basic breakfasts. I often chop up the apple the night before, mix with the oats to stop it going brown and save myself a bit of time in the morning. Let’s face it at 7am no one wants to be wielding a knife and my family certainly don’t want me to be doing so!

Recipe

• 1 apple
• small handful sunflower seeds
• small handful raisins
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 serving of oats (1/2 cup)
• 1 serving of milk

Method

1. Chop up the apple, small and big pieces adds texture.
2. Put the chopped apple, rasins and sunflower seeds into the bowl and sprinkle with cinnamon. Mix together. Then add the oats.
3. Pour in the milk, if leaving overnight add a little more milk then normal (just a dash) as it will absorb into the oats. Top with nuts (or mix in).
4. Microwave for 2-3mins
5. A perfect warming meal!

A special treat

Chocolate and Raspberry Porridge

 This is my all time Favorite porridge. ever. Its the best! I love raspberries  and they'd be great on their own, but combined with a chunk of  lovely dark and bitter chocolate it makes a completely irresistible bowl. I think the cashew nuts look like white chocolate chips too-which isn't a bad idea, why not double chocolate!
 Raspberries are expensive at the best of times, but right now they are 3 pound a punnet :O. Thank goodness for frozen berries! They work just as well, and once microwaved you don't notice the difference really. Normally I'd have this as a treat, but today there was no special reason-but hats no bad thing, sometimes its good to just treat yourself isn't it?!

Recipe

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup milk
• 80g/a handful of raspberries
• cashew nuts/other nut
• 1-2 squares chocolate

Method

1. Gently mix together oats, milk, nuts and raspberries.
2. Microwave for 2-2.5 mins
3. Add the chocolate and microwave for 20 seconds further  ** the chocolate wont melt fully at first, but it will do once you start eating as the oats heat it up.
4. Enjoy!

Pear and cinnamon porridge

Pear and cinnamon Porridge

Today I jut felt like a nice simple breakfast. Even simpler then normal! Probably as I was so hungry-not even sure why! Just chopped up a pear, added to oats, sprinkled with cinnamon and microwaved. I ate half of it before microwaving today-I was that hungry! It still tasted good raw though, really good.So if the bowl looks a little empty, its not because I'm down sizing portions (haa ha-that would never happen nowadays!!). I drizzled the lot with some coconut milk, which is so rich its like cream, but a bit healthier! I can hardly keep myself from drinking it straight from the can.

Recipe

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 small pear
• 1/2 tsp-1 tsp cinnamon (depends on how spicy you like it!)
• 1 tbsp coconut milk/cream

Method

1. Put oats and milk in one bowl
2. Chop up pear.
3. Mix pear and cinnamon in one bowl, then put on top of oats
4. Microwave for 2-3mins

Or..combine stage 1-3 and skip the rest and shovel raw porridge into your mouth.... (Really the whole time consuming cooked way is better even when your starving). 

Can you be ready for a test?

Double pineapple, mango and coconut

Today is the day of my driving test. I've been driving for 8 months, with 28 hrs of lessons and have been driving with my mum so i should be OK. However I'm still a bit nervous. So I wanted a brilliant, bright and tasty breakfast. Whats brighter then a tropical bowl? Yesterday my brothers had pineapple and ham pizza (the veggie had an egg Florentine pizza-nom!!), so I used the ring of pineapple that was left over. This wasn't enough for 1 portion, so used my little mix of dried mango and pineapple and sprinkled with shavings of coconut. If you don't have dried mango and pineapple, chopped apricot or dates would work nicely too.





Recipe-Serves 1

• 1/2 cup of oats
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 ring (or more) fresh/canned pineapple
• Dried mango and pineapple
• Dried/Dessicated coconut

Method

1. Chop up the pineapple
2. Mix together fresh pineapple, oats and milk.
3. Top with dried fruit.
4. Microwave for 2-3 mins
5. Enjoy!!

And If your wondering, this lovely breakfast worked!! I passed my test with 3 minors and did a three point turn I'm extremely proud of! I'm yet to drive unaccompanied on the road, but hopefully will try it out soon, before I loose my nerve. For now I feel so elated its amazing!

Feeling better Porridge?

Banana and blueberry porridge

Yesterdays post wasn't completely honest, and I've been feeling a little bad since posting! I didn't really lie, I just didn't eat it yesterday  I have been unwell with Norovirus (I'll spare you the details) so haven't eaten a proper breakfast for a few days. This morning I still feel sick but thought I ought to try and eat properly. I went for a nice healthy mix of blueberries, banana and seeds. I've been living on lemon aid  white bread, jam and crisps (all I felt like eating!) so really need to get back on to a healthy diet again! I added some of my failed coconut butter-which just turned into dried out coconut mush.

Recipe-serves 1

• 1/2 banana
• 1/3 cup blueberries
• 1 serving oats
• 1 serving milk
• Seeds/nuts/coconut

Method

The failed coconut butter :/

1. Mash banana and microwave for 20 secs to caramelize.
2. Add berries, oats and milk and mix.
3. Microwave for 2-2.5 mins
4. Add seeds/nuts/ coconut, mix in or leave.
5. Enjoy! (more the me hopefully!)

Please note my lovely 'get well soon' Winnie the pooh bowl "They sang the outdoor song for snowy weather all the way home" :)