My Favourite Juice Recipe

Seeing as it's the New Year, and pretty much everyone and their nan are trying to shift that holiday weight, I figured you'd appreciate a detoxifying juice recipe that is perfect for weight loss breakfast options.

 Ingredients: 

• Carrots 
• Celery
• Lemon
• Beetroot
• Ginger
• Coconut water

Drinking celery juice helps balance weight by helping to reduce cravings for rich or sweet foods. Celery juice also aids weight loss, reduces cellulite and puffiness by acting as a diuretic and reducing inflammation. 

It also contains many anti-cancer compounds and reduces the risk of certain cancers including colon and stomach cancer. It has also been shown to lower bad cholesterol and lower blood pressure as good or better than many prescription medications.

The healing and detoxifying properties of ginger may be due to its high concentration of gingerol and shoga, which provide anti-inflammatory and anti-spasmodic effects on the gastrointestinal system.

These properties help to sustain digestive enzymes, which neutralize acids, supporting the entire digestive process. As a result, stomach discomforts such as gas, bloating, diarrhea and constipation can be relieved.

Lemon juice contains acid that is very similar to the natural juices produced by the stomach. Ingesting fresh lemon juice will therefore help in keeping the digestive system on tract, which allows food to be digested properly (and more quickly). This is highly beneficial to those who often suffer from indigestion, bloating, and heartburn, all of which can be painful and inconvenient.

Vitamin C happens to be one of the most important components in cell regeneration, which is a necessary step in keeping the body healthy. A healthy supply of vitamin C ensures stronger bones and teeth, healthier skin, better eyesight, and better joints.

Once all the ingredients are juiced, I fill the rest of my cup with coconut water for their electrolytes and to make the drink more substantial.

Loaded Nachos & Guacamole

THESE ARE ADDICTIVE!

These were a favourite of mine over the holidays sharing with family & friends.

They are vegetarian, but absolutely fricken insane delicious.

They consist of a crunchy layer of tortilla chips, followed by meaty (meatless) chilli, flavoursome spring onions, sweet tomatoes, stringy cheese & finally, smooth guacamole.

Chilli Recipe:

Onion
Garlic
2 carrots - grated
1 courgette
2 tins chopped tomatoes
Tin baked beans
1 TBS cumin
1 TBS Ground coriander
1 TBS smoked paprika
2 tsp cacao
Rinse red kidney beans

Optional to serve:
season with salt and pepper
big bunch coriander

Cook 15-20 mins
















Guacamole recipe:

2 ripe avocados
1 small red onion
2 cloves of garlic
handful of cherry tomatoes
juice of half a lemon
salt
black pepper
pepper
cumin
paprika
(all to taste)
coriander


To assemble:

1. Pre heat grill

2. Layer oven-proof dish with tortilla chips

3. Add hot chilli mixture over the chips

4. Spinkle in spring onions and tomatoes

5. Grate cheese over the top

6. Pop over the grill till the cheese melts and starts to go golden

7. Take out, make a well and fill with guacamole

8. Sprinkle with coriander and serve!

Festive Chocolate Brownies

If you're tired from super sweet candy canes or bored to death of cinnamon spice (and all things nice) then this recipe is for you! Trust me I was so close to adding a dash of mixed spice or pumpkin pie spice, but I controlled my urges for the sake of keeping it simple and classic.

With all the unhealthy foods being digested this holiday, you'd expect this one to be too. HOWEVER, you are mistaken!  Sweet potatoes are incredible: they're bursting with nutritional goodness with all their antioxidants, and their anti-inflammatory properties, as well as being awesome blood sugar-regulators. Furthermore,  raw cacao is also a superfood as it is such an insanely rich source of antioxidants, one of the best in the world, as well as being packed with a number of other beneficial nutrients: manganese, which helps oxygenate the blood; magnesium, which helps maintain healthy bodily nerves, muscles and bones; and sulphur, which builds strong nails and hair, and promotes beautiful skin.

Not too sweet or spiced this brownie is:

• Gooey
• Soft
• Moist
• Squidgy 

*This recipe is adapted from Deliciously Ella

Ingredients: 

Mixture: 

– 2 medium to large sweet potatoes (600g)

– 2/3 of a cup of ground almonds (80g)

– 1/2 a cup of buckwheat or brown rice flour (100g)

– 14 medjool dates

– 4 tablespoons of raw cacao

– 3 tablespoons of pure maple syrup

– a pinch of salt

Optional Additions:

- Handful of chopped brazil nuts

- Handful of cranberries

- tsp of pumpkin seeds

- tsp zest of an orange

You'll also need a peeler and sharp knife. Preheat oven to 180C Fan.

Peel, chop and steam both potatoes until they're soft

In a separate bowl (while the potatoes are steaming) add the dry ingredients, then the maple syrup and mix well. 

Once the sweet potatoes are soft, add them to a food processor with the dates and blend till a smooth, rich paste is formed.

Add in the wet mixture to the dry chocolate bowl and combine together.

Add in the extras (I'd recommend) and stir in.

Add brownie mixture to a baking tray and smooth with a damp spatula. Then bake for 25-30 minutes until crisp on top. 

Once cooked, cut into 10 squares and dust with icing sugar & serve.

I found these went really well paired with some ice cream!

Hope you try out this recipe, have an amazing christmas and dig in...

Vegan Diet Meal Plans

Hi guys,

This post is full of recipes that are vegan and super healthy. My daily diet doesn't contain any meat and only small amounts of diary meaning it's not hard for me to try veganism. The benefits of trying veganism are great because you're getting loads of fruit and veggies! It also is a pretty high carb diet but I don't really mind that!

So-without- further a do here are my vegan example meals, whether you are just trying to incorporate healthier meals to your life or trying full time veganism.... ENJOY.


DAY 1

Breakfast

To start the day off right, I made my daily porridge. It is made with almond milk (recipe here) organic porridge oats, chia seeds, coconut oil, then topped with bananas, strawberries, blueberries and coconut flakes.

This is such a great breakfast as it provides you with tonnes of energy and because of the chia seeds, fills you up. The chia seeds expand in your stomach making you feel fuller.





Lunch

 For lunch i made an apple and tomato raw dip with some pita, cucumber and pepper slices. I have a major obsession over humus and so decided to try some other, homemade, healthier dips. This dip was made from a recipe book called 'The Raw Food Diet'.

Raw means that the food product hasn't been cooked over 40.6 Celsius. Once the food has been cooked over this, all it's living enzymes and nutrients have been killed. Read more about the diet.

Seeing as the dip was only blended together in a processor it is considered 'raw' and very healthy and beneficial for the body.

Dinner

 Finally I had a spinach, avocado salad with peppers, cucumber and walnuts. I personally find salads really boring without a dressing. This dressing can be found (here.) I made this dressing because it is a lot healthier than mayo or caesar dressings plus it's raw!

Salads are super healthy but not that filling so I had some dessert later on.






Dessert

 This is a super delicious but vegan, raw and healthy dessert! What more could I want??

It's a banana and walnut ice cream with strawberries, blueberries and coconut flakes. (pretty similar to my breakfast, opps)

I made the ice cream by blending 2 frozen bananas, some walnuts, agave nectar and a little bit of coconut water together. Then just topped with the fruit.





DAY 2 

Breakfast

(Sorry for the really bad photography making this look horrible) trust me, this breakfast tastes so much better than it looks. It is the 'Rawtarians breakfast bowl' (recipe here)

The Rawtarians blog is full of great raw vegan recipes from making almond milk to healthy pizza. I would really recommend it to anyone trying to eat more raw. http://www.therawtarian.com/ 






Lunch
I recently bought a vegetarian recipe book from 'The Works' which contains some vegan recipes in too. This is one of them. It is rice with green veg; the veggies are asparagus, green beans and courgette. I LOVED it. It contained Thai green curry paste which i fell in love with! I'm a lover of spice and flavour.

Anyway i used many recipes from this book throughout this post.





Dinner

My Dad is such a good curry maker! This is lentil and spinach curry with corriander and lemon. Adding corriander and lemon is the best decision you will ever make in your life! Well at least as far as curry goes. It adds a sharp and fresh taste to the mildly spicy curry.

The curry is also really light and easily digestible. I LOVED IT...






DAY 3

Breakfast

This morning I drank a green smoothie. It contained spinach, cucumber, banana, apple, maca and coconut water. This is my most simple recipe that tastes really nice. I sometimes will also add a date to make it sweeter.

Maca is a like a protein powder. It great for getting protein in this diet. Seeing as most protein comes from animal products it's important to replace the lost protein with greens and powders like Maca.







Lunch

Lunch was a mixture of pita slices, pepper and tomatoes with a spicy avocado dip. The dip came from the veggie book, it had a kick of spice from the chilli powder but the coolness of the avocado cooled it down.

I had made quiet a lot of the dip meaning i can keep it for the next couple of days in the fridge.






Dinner

This is literally the best cous cous ever! For the cous cous I just poured over enough boiling water to cover it. Then added a vegetable stock and crushed garlic. It contained roasted veggies like red onion, cherry tomatoes, butternut squash ect. Then fresh salad like cucumber, tomatoes, mint and parsley. Finally topped with toasted pine nuts and pomegranate.

I love this cous cous because it's so fresh and summery. Also because you can adapt the roasted vegetables to whatever. Sometimes I include red pepper and courgettes.

DAY 4

Breakfast

Banana buckwheat pancakes are one of my favorite breakfast treats. They can be topped with almost anything! Here i used mango, bananas, blueberries, raspberries and coconut flakes.

I got the recipe from another one of my favorite blogs. (Find it here.)

I don't have these too often but when i do, i fall in LOVE. The best thing about them is that they are healthy AND tasty.




Lunch

For lunch I had some left over cous cous, left over avocado dip, pita and crudities.

Another great thing about the cous cous is that it tastes just as great kept in the fridge for the next day.

The dip was just a delicious too!





Dinner

This is pesto pasta and salad. I really like green pesto on my pasta, it's my fave!

It's much better to use brown pasta than white pasta because it's easier for the stomach to digest.

Also try to pair meals with salad as it helps the stomach to start digesting.







DAY 5

Breakfast

Today i just had the same porridge i had earlier on in the week. Even when i'm not doing a vegan challenge i still eat this! I top it with whatever fruit i have in the house and usually adapt it it the seasons. In winter when fresh fruit isn't available i use dates, dried figs and goji berries.








Lunch

For today's lunch i had a wrap with lettuce, pepper and tomato with the last of the spicy avocado dip and Quorn chicken dippers.

This wrap tasted just as great as normal chicken wraps do! I would definitely recommend it as a substitute for them.

The avocado worked great as a sauce. I would usually have mayo, which really isn't healthy. Or vegan for that matter!





Dinner

For dinner I created something from the vegetarian book. This is a lentil bolognese. The lentils replaced the meat and went down a treat.  The spaghetti I used was spelt. Spelt is an ancient grain which is easier for the stomach to digest. Unfortunately I didn't really know whether they classed as vegan but the ingredients listed no animal product so I guessed they were.

I really enjoyed this version of the classic and would definitely eat to again.






DAY 6

Breakfast

BANANA BUCKWHEAT PANCAKE TIME! My guilty pleasure! The fruit i had with it was peaches, raspberries, strawberries and banana. I also added some coconut flakes, walnuts and almonds for a crunch with agave syrup drizzled over the top. Yum central.






Lunch

Today i made some soup. I roasted some cauliflower, aubergines, courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, onion, celery and chilli in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper. I then blitzed them together in a blender with 1 pint of vegetable stock.

It was a super creamy perfect soup! The roasting makes the veggies sweet but adding the chilli made an all-round brilliant soup!





Dinner

For dinner my dad made a curry. This used green lentils and spinach. It was SO yummy!

I love to try different things, especially when they originate from different countries... like India! 

I love to travel a lot and just can't wait until i can go travelling around the world!  For now though, while i'm stuck in England, eating different countries cuisines makes me feel like i'm there. That's what i love about the power of food. It can instantly transport you to somewhere else.

DAY 7 

Breakfast

My mum made Kate Magic's buckwheat cereal with strawberries and blueberries. It was a raw take on cereal and tasted quite nice.

I absolutely love buckwheat in breakfasts because of the crunch they give. They really masked the 'crunchy nut corn flake' texture. 

Lunch

For this delicious recipe click here as i have already done a post on my blog about how to make it!

Soup is a great way to stay vegan and healthy!











Dinner

For dinner i had another cous cous recipe. This time it had roasted fennel, courgette, pepper, cherry and salad tomatoes and red onion. I added thyme and rosemary to the vegetables for flavour which worked great!










Dessert

I had tonnes of fruit in the house and was also a bit hungry still.  

This is the frozen banana ice cream i spoke about earlier. This time i topped it with banana, peach, strawberries and blueberries.

I hope you liked my examples of vegan meals. I really enjoyed trying this diet and found loads of new recipes and ingredients to try through it.

See you soon,
Jess
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Carrot and Coriander Soup

Although it's not officially autumn yet (but this English weather seems to think it is) I just couldn't resist not making one of my favourite soups. Fresh, light and super healthy I present to you the Carrot and Coriander soup!

What you will need: 

• 1 tbsp vegetable oil (I used coconut oil because it's healthier)
• 1 onion
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1 potato
• 450g carrots
• 1l vegetable or chicken stock
• handful of fresh coriander 

Peel and chop the potatoes and the carrots. Then chop up the onion quite small. I would recommend putting a plastic bag net to you so you can quickly throw the waste into there. This was a huge time saver!

Start melting the oil in a large pan; once the oil is hot place the onions in there. I put a small amount of onions in first to see if it sizzles (if it does the pan is hot enough) Fry the onions for 5 minutes until soft.

Once the onions are soft, add the potato and ground coriander. (I forgot to photograph this)

 

After a minute, pour in the stock and carrots, then cover with a lid for 20 minutes and reduce the heat to the lowest.

After 20 minutes the carrots should be tender. Pour everything into a blender with the fresh coriander. Blitz to your preferred consistency.

Ladle some soup into a bowl with a slice of bread, I toasted mine to give the dish some crunch. Sprinkle some salt and pepper, add a leaf of fresh coriander and ENJOY!

This was my first food post, so I hoped you liked it! 

If any of you make it be sure to tweet me pictures of it @lifewithjess!

Se you soon!

Jess

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Quick & Healthy Breakfasts 2015

Stick to your news years resolution of being healthier with three of my favourite breakfasts.

Enjoy Jess
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