Avocado Toast

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avocado toast

Breakfast and lunch don’t have to be difficult, sometimes the best things are the most simple… I am obsessed with avocado, it is just the best fruit (yup, it’s a fruit!) as it is nutritious and filling at the same time, not like eating a bowl of lettuce! With avocado you really feel satisfied. Avocados are healthy fats. The majority of fat in avocado is oleic acid which is a monounsaturated fatty acid that has been linked to reduced inflammation and been shown to have beneficial effects on genes linked to cancer. It’s high in protein and the perfect plant-based post-workout lunch or breakfast! If you are eating well, you don’t need to stay away from healthy fats like avocados and nuts, your body will love them…

Ingredients

1 avocado
2 slices organic gluten free or granary toast
1 lime
Pinch of Himalayan salt and ground black pepper
Chilli flakes (optional)

Method

Toast your bread then mash the avocado on top of it and squeeze the lime on top. Finish off with the salt, pepper and chilli flakes if you want them. So delicious.

Happy lunching!
Love,
Lauren

Fig & Plum Smoothie

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Fig & Plum Smoothie

Figs are one of my favourite fruits, with their sweet, luscious flesh which is more desert-like than fruit-like! Figs and plums are both high in dietary fibre, antioxidants, as well as potassium, which helps to lower blood pressure. Plums also increase your body’s ability to absorb iron, due to its high vitamin C content.

The combination of fig, plum and vanilla makes for a delicious smoothie.

Ingredients

200ml almond or coconut milk
2 plums, cut up and frozen
3 figs, cut up and frozen
1/4 tsp organic vanilla powder or the seeds scraped from a vanilla pod
10ml organic virgin coconut oil
10ml raw pumpkin seeds
2 fresh medjool dates

Method

Blend all the ingredients until the desired texture is achieved. Serves 1

Health & happiness!

Love,
Raine

Choc-Chip Sweet Potato Cookies

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Sweet Potato Choc Chip Cookies 1

If you’ve read my Joburg recommendations in the “Two Kitchens Loves” page, you’ll know that I am a big fan of the Organic Emporium in Bryanston. It has replaced regular supermarkets for my day-to-day grocery shopping. The owner, Debbie, is so passionate about the work she does, it’s hard not to get caught up in her enthusiasm!

Last week I was in the store and Debbie asked me to come up with a recipe for Wensleydale’s new organic Sweet Potato Flour. I made these gluten, sugar and dairy-free choc-chip cookies. They’ve been really popular with everyone’s who’s taste-tested them for me!

Sweet potatoes are naturally gluten-free and low-GI so the flour makes a great substitute for regular wheat flour. It is quite granular, so it gives the cookies a chunky texture. If you’d prefer a smoother texture you can grind the flour more finely in a blender. In the first batch I used a combination of honey and coconut sugar to sweeten; and in the second batch I replaced the coconut sugar with organic stevia leaf powder. Both worked equally well, so it’s just a matter of preference. If you’re watching calories I would recommend using the stevia.

Ingredients (makes about 20 cookies)

1/4 cup organic virgin coconut oil
1/4 cup organic coconut sugar OR 1/2 tsp organic stevia leaf powder
2 tbsp raw honey
2 tbsp nut butter (peanut, almond, cashew etc)
2 farm-raised eggs
1/4 tsp organic vanilla powder OR 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp himalayan salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 ripe banana, finely mashed with a fork
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup rolled oats
75g Gayleen’s Decadence Raw Chocolate Baking Slab, available at the Organic Emporium
1 1/2 cup Wensleydale’s Sweet Potato Flour, available at the Organic Emporium

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Make sure that the raw chocolate is cold from the fridge. Chop it up into small pieces for your “chocolate chips” and then return to the fridge. If left at room temperature it may start to melt.

Beat together the oil, coconut sugar or stevia, honey and nut butter. Add the eggs and beat well. Stir in the vanilla, salt, bicarb, banana and water. Add the oats and chocolate chips. Now stir in the sweet potato flour. You will notice that the flour is very “thirsty” and the dough will thicken quite quickly. Stir well so that there are no dry lumps of flour.

Line a large baking tray with silicone mats or baking paper. Place a heaped tablespoon of dough onto the tray and spread out into a neat circle, about 1.5cm thick. You can wet your fingers to prevent the dough from sticking to them. Repeat till all the dough is used up. The cookies will not spread during baking, so you can place them quite close together.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes, until slightly golden and firm to the touch. Allow to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Health & happiness!

Love,
Raine

Pasta with Sweet Potato and Sage Sauce

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Sweet Potato Sage Pasta

Raine and I seem to be so in sync with each other that even though we’re on other sides of the planet, we both made a variation of the same dinner tonight! So she has posted her Butternut & Sage Pasta and here is mine, made with sweet potatoes instead…

People always ask me what can you make for dinner when you’re vegetarian, so I like to experiment with easy, tasty and healthy recipes that people love. This is one of them. The sage is probably the best part of this recipe – I just love the taste. This recipe is seriously indulgent but gluten free and dairy free as well as full of nutrients.

Ingredients

Brown rice pasta – enough for two servings
1 sweet potato
About 10 sage leaves
Handful pine nuts
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic
Half cup almond milk
Garlic salt
Himalayan salt
Black pepper

Method

Peel and chop the sweet potato then steam or boil until soft enough to mash.

While it’s boiling, heat 1 tbsp oil in a non-stick pan, then add the garlic, pine nuts and sage and cook until pine nuts are roasted and sage is cooked. Once this mix is ready, put in a bowl and set aside.

Start boiling your pasta with a pinch of Himalayan salt. Brown rice pasta usually takes around 8 minutes.

While this is boiling, drain your sweet potato and mash it. Add it to the pan (which you don’t need to wash after the sage and pine nuts) with the milk and mix on a low light until it resembles a thick sauce.

Do not over-cook the pasta. As soon as it’s ready, add it to the pan with the sweet potato and mix it all in, then add the garlic, pine nuts and sage, some garlic salt and pepper (and salt to taste if you want) and mix it all around for about a minute or two, until hot, then serve.

Have a good week everyone.

Love & health,
Lauren

Butternut & Sage Pasta

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Butternut & Sage Pasta

This is a quick and easy family dinner – I literally only had 35 minutes to get food on the table, and that included writing the recipe and taking a photo!

I am in love with sage… it’s such a versatile herb and the tangy, lemony flavour really comes out with roasting. It pairs beautifully with butternut, which is high in beta-carotene and vitamin C.

Ingredients (serves 4)

850g butternut (weighed without the skin or seeds)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus some extra
1 tsp himalayan salt
15 cloves of garlic, cut into quarters
big handful of fresh sage
250g gluten-free organic pasta (I used amaranth, but you could use buckwheat or quinoa)
1/2 lemon
2 heaped tbsp raw pumpkin seeds

Method

Cut the butternut into cubes. On a roasting tray, toss together the butternut, olive oil, salt, garlic and sage. Roast at 200 C for about 30 minutes, until tender.

Cook the pasta according to packet instructions.

Toss the butternut and pumpkin seeds through the cooked pasta. Add some more olive oil if it looks too dry. Season to taste with lemon juice, himalayan salt and freshly ground black pepper. That’s it!

Health & happiness 🙂

Love,
Raine

Tarragon & Grape Salad

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tarragon salad

Growing up my mom used to make a chicken dish with a tarragon cream sauce, using dried tarragon. It was one of my favourites, so tarragon is a familiar flavour to me. But I’ll never forget the first time I tasted fresh tarragon – it was at Angela Hartnett’s London restaurant, Murano. It took me a good few minutes to identify the salad ingredient as fresh tarragon… I couldn’t believe the intensity of the flavour which, while obviously similar to dried tarragon, had a unique note all of its own. It was a feeling of dèja vu.

I don’t often find fresh tarragon in Joburg, but much to my joy, the Organic Emporium gets in a delivery of organic fresh tarragon every now and then. The slightly liquorice flavour pairs very well with sweet, white grapes, of which we have an abundance in South Africa right now.

I had this salad with a fillet of hot-smoked salmon. A perfect hot summer’s day lunch.

Ingredients (to serve 1)

a handful of fresh tarragon
a handful of wild rocket
a few leaves of fresh basil, torn
a handful of white grapes
a handful of cocktail tomatoes, sliced in half
2 spring onions, finely sliced
a handful of sugar snap peas, sliced
1 tbsp sunflower seeds
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
extra virgin olive oil
pomegranate concentrate (or organic red wine vinegar, or fresh lemon juice)

Method

Combine all the ingredients. Dress with a drizzle of olive oil and pomegranate concentrate. Season to taste with himalayan salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Health & happiness!

Love,
Raine

Pretty in Pink Valentine’s Juice

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I felt like something pink and sweet on this Valentine’s morning so I made this beautiful juice!

Originally from Persia, the pomegranate has been revered as a symbol of health, fertility and eternal life for thousands of years. I’m always amazed at how nature gives us clues as to which fruit or vegetable is good for a certain part of our bodies. There is something heart-like about a pomegranate when you open it, with its blood-red seeds and white membranes. Pomegranate contains a unique compound called punicalagin, which is excellent for heart health. It lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, and increases the rate at which arterial blockages melt away. The antioxidants in pomegranate also help to prevent stroke and heart attack.

Radishes eliminate toxins, aid digestion and prevent viral infections.

Ingredients (serves 2)

1 pomegranate, skin and membranes discarded (you don’t have to spend half an hour picking out every little piece of membrane – just the majority of it!)
3 radishes
1 lime (you can juice the skin)
1 medium cucumber
a few sprigs of mint
1 red pepper

Method

Put everything through your juicer. Add ice if you like.

Health & happiness!

Love,
Raine

Homemade Chocolate Sauce

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Great for pancakes, baking and a million other recipes. Here is our chocolate sauce – dairy free and refined-sugar free.

Ingredients

1/4 cup  cacao butter
1/3 cup coconut oil
1/3 cup cacao powder
3 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp almond butter (optional)

Method

Put all ingredients in a saucepan and cook on a low to medium heat, stirring quite regularly. If it’s too thick, add more coconut oil, if it’s too runny, add more cacao powder, and if you like it sweeter, add more maple.

Easy as that!

Love,
Lauren

Valentine’s Pancakes

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These look like they’re filled with some sort of nasty artificial colouring, right? Wrong! Can you guess what the pink colour is? OK I’ll tell you… it’s beetroot! I love my healthy pancake recipe but I wanted to make something extra special for Valentine’s Day without using artificial colouring and all the colourings and flavours we need are already found in nature. I used my usual recipe, just added beetroot and changed it very slightly. I promise it doesn’t taste of beetroot either – they just taste like insanely yummy and fluffy pancakes. So easy to make as well, oh and they’re vegan too!

If you’re trying to be healthy but want to treat your partner to breakfast in bed this Valentine’s Day, you can’t get better than these. Yummy, nutritious – both buckwheat flour and beetroot are good for the blood and lowering cholesterol. The chocolate sauce is full of protein and is a great aphrodisiac – just what you need for Valentine’s Day!

Ingredients

Half cup buckwheat flour
1 beetroot, peeled, chopped and steamed (or ready cooked)
2 tbsp ground flax seeds
5 tbsp purified water
1 ripe banana
Half cup almond milk (or other non-dairy milk)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp maple or agave
Pinch Himalayan salt
Coconut oil for cooking

Method

First, mix the flax seeds in a bowl with the water and put in the fridge for 10 minutes to create flax ‘eggs’.

While it’s in the fridge, start preparing the rest. Add all the ingredients to the blender and blend until smooth. Once the flax eggs are ready, add this to the mix and blend until smooth.

Transfer this to a bowl so it’s easier to access with the ladle.

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Use a non-stick pan and heat some coconut oil in the middle, just a little, and when it’s hot, add a small ladle full of the mixture to the centre and spoon it over to create a pancake shape. It will only need around a minute on each side, but all hobs are different so you want it to be fluffy and cooked on the inside but not burnt on the outside. Repeat until the mixture is used up.

Top with homemade chocolate sauce or maple syrup, coconut cream or any topping of choice.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

LOVE,
Lauren

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Simple Homemade Tomato Sauce

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tomato sauce

Every freezer should be stocked with this simple and healthy tomato sauce – it can be used in a myriad of different dishes, and makes life easier for busy moms! Just got home from work and need to make dinner in under half an hour? Defrost this sauce and serve it with some buckwheat or quinoa pasta for a quick but still nutritious family meal.

Tomatoes are high in vitamin C and antioxidants, particularly lycopene. Researchers recently found a connection between tomatoes and bone health, concluding that tomatoes can help to prevent osteoporosis. They are also important for heart health, and have long been hailed as the anti-prostate cancer food of choice.

I like to make up a batch of this sauce and then freeze some of it in ice trays, so that I have small portions handy for my son’s meals (I use 2 – 3 cubes for him) and freeze the rest in one portion for a family meal.

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Ingredients

2 large onions, chopped
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
6 large cloves of garlic
1/2 cup of red wine (optional)
1.3kg fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped, including seeds
small handful of fresh thyme
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup dried dates
3/4 tsp himalayan salt
a few leaves of fresh basil

Method

Fry the onions in the olive oil until caramelised. Add the garlic and fry for 2 minutes. Add the wine. There should immediately be a cloud of steam, and a strong smell of alcohol. This is the alcohol in the wine cooking off – so don’t worry, there won’t be any alcohol left over in the sauce. You can omit the wine, but it adds depth of flavour.

Add the tomatoes, thyme, bay leaves and dates. Turn the heat down, cover with a lid and simmer for a minimum of 30 minutes. An hour or longer is better – the longer it simmers the more the flavours develop.

Remove the hard stalks of the thyme and then put the sauce in a blender or food processor. For pasta sauces I like a chunkier texture so will use a food processor. For a smoother sauce (for example, for pizza) use a blender. Add the salt and basil and blend until you have the desired consistency. Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly. Traditionally tomato sauce would have quite a bit of sugar added (you’d be mortified to learn how much sugar there is in store-bought tomato sauce or ketchup!) I avoid this by adding the dates. If you feel that it needs more sweetness, add more dates or raw honey or organic maple syrup. If you feel that it needs more acidity, use fresh lemon or organic apple cider vinegar. This all depends on the natural flavour of the tomatoes you’ve used, so just taste and see!

Use immediately or freeze for future use.

Below are examples of how I would use this sauce:

tomato sauce 2

Here I roasted some aubergine with olive oil, salt and black pepper. I added it to the sauce along with some fresh chilli and basil. Served with buckwheat pasta.

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I fried onion, garlic, carrot, red pepper, broccoli and chilli in olive oil. I added the sauce, cooked brown basmati rice, shredded poached chicken and fresh coriander.

Health & happiness!

Love,
Raine