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!

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!

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" :)

Doubly fruity!

Blueberry and Shannon fruit porridge

This is the result of the Shannon fruit left over from the other day, turns out I used slightly more then half, so I chucked in some lovely blueberries from the freezer. Add some coconut and the result was this lovely sweet porridge, with bursts of hot berries every few mouthfuls! If you don't like coconut try sprinkling with ground almonds or seeds.

Recipe—serves 1

• 1/2 cup oats
• 1/2 cup milk
• small handful blueberries
• 1/4-1/2 shannon fruit (peeled and chopped)
• 15(ish)g coconut

Method

1. Pour milk over the oats
2. Top with fruit.
3. Microwave for 2-3 mins
4. Top with coconut
5. Mix in the fruit and coconut or enjoy in layers!

Sunny Mango Porridge

Sunny Mango Porridge

Not feeling well for 5 days reached its peak this morning and what better than a lovely mango to give a vitamin C hit and shine through the illness!

I decided to make it all tropical with Brazil nuts (what else!) and a sprinkling of coconut. After I tucked in I remembered I don’t really like Brazil nuts (they taste like grass) but despite this it was still unbelievably yummy and just looking at the sunny bright mango made me feel better. If you chop half the mango, and slice half it adds a bit more interest and I think they actually taste different!

Recipe--for 1

• ½ Mango (80g and you have 1 of your five a day)
• 25g Brazil nuts
• 1 Serving of porridge oats
• 1 portion of  Milk
• A little desiccated Coconut

Method

1. Chop 3/4 of the mango into cubes and slice the rest.
2. Chop the nuts, then mix the mango, oats and nuts together
3. Pour over the milk, and then arrange slices of mango on top.
4. Sprinkle with coconut
5. Pop in the microwave for 2-3mins (or longer if you have lots of milk)
6. Enjoy!