Tag: fibre

Vitamin Packed Berry Smoothie Bowl

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Berry Smoothie Bowl

Ice cream for breakfast?? Who says you can’t be healthy and have fun! Smoothie bowls are one of my favourite breakfasts. You can literally put anything you want in or on them and you can pack them with vitamins and nutrients which is what I’ve done here. Once again, vitamins C & K and antioxidants are what I’m looking to increase right now as well as omega 3, as I approach the last few weeks of pregnancy, so I took this all into account by using blueberries (vitamins c and antioxidants), mulberries (vitamin k), acai berries (antioxidants) and flax seeds (omega 3), when making this simple, quick, delicious breakfast.

Ingredients

1 frozen banana
A large handful of frozen blueberries
2 dates
1 tbsp almond butter
2 acai berry capsules (sprinkled in)
A splash of almond milk

Toppings:
1 tbsp flax seeds
Handful organic dried white mulberries
Tbsp sunflower seeds
Handful fresh blueberries

Method

Simply put all the ingredients (except the toppings) into a high-speed blender and blend until a smooth, ice cream forms. The blueberries and banana being frozen will cause the blender to turn it to ice cream.

Spoon into a bowl and add the toppings.

Enjoy!

Love,
Lauren

Carrot & Coriander Soup

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cc1

Autumn is now upon us in London, and I’m feeling the drop in temperature instantly. I tend to make heaps of soups during the winter months. They are great for lunch as they fill you up but are super nutritious also, if you use the right ingredients. Carrots are a great source of fibre and are also high in vitamins C & K, and once again, here I am trying to increase my vitamin K levels in the lead up to my birth. They are also a good natural source of iron and folate, important not just during pregnancy.

Ingredients

Drizzle of coconut oil
About 8 large carrots
2 potatoes
1 onion
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp organic vegetable stock in 1.5 Litres boiling water
Salt & Pepper
Large handful fresh coriander

Method

Peel and chop all the veg then heat the oil in a large saucepan. Once hot, add the onion and cook for a minute, then add the potato, cook for a further minute, stirring a lot. Finally add the carrots, followed by the ground coriander, then add your stock and mix well.

Add a little pepper, wait until it just starts to boil then turn down, put the lid on and leave it to simmer for about half an hour.

Once all the veg is soft, either use a handheld blender if you have one, or put it all in a food processor, along with the fresh coriander, and blend. Taste to see if it needs any salt and as add required.

Enjoy!

Love,
Lauren

Chocolate Maca Chia Pudding

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Chocolate Chia Maca Pudding

People are constantly looking for healthy and easy to make alternatives to artificial, cardboard-like breakfast ‘cereals’ and toast. We are the biggest lovers of breakfast here at Two Kitchens! We have more breakfast recipes on our site than any other recipes.

This one is amazing for the whole family. It is packed with chia so it is full of bioavailable plant-based, organic protein, has maca powder in it so gives instant but long-lasting natural energy, the raw cacao is another source of plant-based protein, the almonds in the almond milk add calcium and you can add whatever fruit you like to it for more fibre and fruit intake. I added bananas but you can add strawberries or other berries too. The kids will honestly love this, you can send them off to school knowing they have been given the best start to the day and if you make enough, you can save some as a snack or even dessert for after dinner – so versatile!

Ingredients

1 cup almond milk
3 tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp maca powder (I use Organic Burst)
1 heaped tbsp raw cacao powder
1 tsp organic maple syrup or other natural sweetener of choice
1 banana, sliced
Small handful organic vegan chocolate chips (optional)

Method

Put all the ingredients except the banana and chocolate chips into a saucepan and heat gently over a low heat. It will seem dry at the beginning but eventually it will all melt into itself, just keep stirring. You want it to heat but not boil as boiling chia seeds will take the goodness out of them but we still want them to soften and swell.

Once it’s ready, transfer to a bowl, wait for it to cool then leave in the fridge for half an hour. Alternatively you can make it the night before and leave in the fridge overnight. The chia will then swell even more and be softer.

Transfer to a glass or any bowl of choice and top with your favourite toppings.

Enjoy!

Love,
Lauren

White Chocolate Mulberry Fudge

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White Chocolate Mulberry Bars

This is such a simple recipe and so healthy. Dried white mulberries contain less than half the natural sugar of raisins and other dried fruits. They are high in fibre and in protein – just 1/3 cup contains 4 grams of protein and 20% of your daily fibre needs. They also contain powerful antioxidants which help to protect your heart from damage from some toxins. Raw cacao butter is a source of healthy fats, which optimise organ function.

I’ve added no sweetener as the natural sweetness of the mulberries is enough for me. However if you would prefer it slightly sweeter you could add a bit of raw honey or organic maple syrup.

Ingredients:

100g raw cacao butter
100g organic dried white mulberries
1/8 tsp Oryx Desert Salt
1/4 tsp organic vanilla powder
2 tbsp almond butter

Method:

Gently melt the cacao butter over a very low heat. Be careful not to raise the temperature too much as this will destroy the nutrients found in raw cacao products. I normally turn the stove on for a few minutes, then turn it off and put the saucepan on the plate – the residual heat is enough to melt the cacao butter.

Place the mulberries in a food processor and process until they are broken up into a meal. Alternatively you could grind them in a coffee or spice grinder. Add the remaining ingredients and process to combine.

Spread into a dish lined with baking paper or clingfilm and allow to set, then cut up into blocks. It can be kept at room temperature if it’s not too hot – you might want to put it in the fridge if you have temperatures over 30 C.

Health & happiness!

Love,
Raine

Lauren’s Favourite Avocado Salad

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Avocado Salad

Avocados are one of my favourite foods. They’re so rich in fibre and mono-unsaturated fatty acids that keep the heart healthy and you can do so much with them… I have them on their own, cut in half with a little bit of balsamic vinegar and scoop it out with a spoon, or spread on Biona gluten free bread with some lime juice and salt or in a salad like this…

Ingredients

2 ripe organic avocados
1 hard-boiled egg
2 spring onions
Juice of one lemon
Drizzle of olive oil
Himalayan salt & black pepper to taste

Method

Make sure you pre boil your egg so it’s ready. Get a medium sized bowl as it’s quite messy so you don’t want to prepare this in the same bowl that you will be serving it from and mash your egg into really small pieces with a fork.

Then add the avocado and mash that too, followed by the rest of the ingredients until it’s all mashed in together. Serve with other salads or with a bread or cracker of your choice.

Enjoy!

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

Baobab & Melon Nice Cream (African Superfoods Part 1)

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Baobab & Melon Ice Cream

There’s a lot of hype about Central and South American superfoods, but here in Africa we have some amazing plants too! I think it’s important to both be proud of your country & heritage, as well as to support locally grown and manufactured products. Over the next few weeks I want to do a series of posts on various African superfoods. For those of you in other parts of the world, I hope it will be interesting and informative (most of them are becoming more well known and popular in health circles so you should be able to get hold of them.) For fellow South Africans, I hope this will encourage you to make use of our beautiful continent’s bounty 🙂

baobab tree copy

According to African legend, long, long ago the first baobab tree sprouted beside a lake. As it grew, it surveyed the other trees and admired their colourful flowers, their tall, straight trunks and their beautiful green foliage. One day the little tree was tall enough to see its own reflection in the lake. It was dismayed at the sight! Its trunk was short and fat, its leaves were sparse and dull and its bark looked like the wrinkled hide of an elephant. The tree implored the Creator to change its appearance, but its request was ignored. Day after day, it watched the beautiful trees, compared them to its own reflection, and cried to the heavens. One day the Creator had had enough, reached down and unearthed the tree. Turning it upside down, the Creator replanted the tree with its branches in the earth, and its roots in the sky. From that day on the baobab tree was silenced, and as penance has served animals and humans with good deeds ever since.
Source: http://www.ecoproducts.co.za

These beautiful trees are grown in 32 African countries, and are revered by many tribes, even worshipped by some. The fruit is a highly nutritious food source, the seeds provide oil (I used baobab oil during and after my pregnancy to prevent stretch marks) and the fibre in the bark is used to make fishnets, cord and clothing. The trunks are a good source of timber and are often hollowed out and used for shelter, grain storage or as water reservoirs.

Baobab powder has recently become a very popular superfood, and for good reason. The powdered fruit contains 3 times more calcium than milk, 4 times more vitamin C then oranges, 6 times more potassium then bananas, 5 times more anti-oxidants than blueberries, a whopping 16 times more fibre than pears, and 5 times more magnesium than avocados. Its sweet-tart flavour makes the perfect addition to this quick and easy vegan “nice cream.”

Ingredients

350g melon, weighed without skin or seeds
2 bananas
3 tbsp baobab powder (I use EcoProducts)
1 – 2 tbsp raw honey
1/2 cup almond milk

Method

This requires some forethought, in that you have to freeze the melon and banana overnight (or you could freeze when you have it and use whenever!) I used canary melon, but you could also use spanspek (aka cantaloupe) or honeydew (aka musk melon.)

Place all the ingredients in your blender and blend until smooth and creamy, using your tamper to mix as you blend. The amount of honey required depends on the sweetness of the melon. I had a melon that was not very sweet, which is why I decided to freeze it and turn it into ice cream. You may have a melon so sweet that you won’t need any honey at all, so sweeten to taste.

This will serve 2 people as breakfast or 4 people as dessert. If you have any left over you can freeze it again. It won’t be quite as smooth and creamy, more like a sorbet, but still delicious.

Health & happiness!

Love,
Raine

Simple Chia Pudding with Berry Compote

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Chia pudding

I keep trying to spread a message about breakfast… it really isn’t very hard to make nutritious, delicious, simple breakfasts for the whole family in order to be able to bin the horrible processed cereals. It can be very daunting when embarking upon this lifestyle, we think it’s going to be really hard but making this chia pudding was no harder than making a bowl of cereal or porridge. If you just change one thing at a time, make breakfast your first change, the kids will love these ideas – just check out all our other breakfast options!

It isn’t baby led weaning-friendly but if you’re happy with spoon feeding your baby / toddler, this really makes such a nutritious breakfast.

“Chia” is the ancient Mayan word for “strength” and these little seeds were prized for their ability to provide long-lasting energy. They provide high nutrition for low calories (almost all of their carbohydrates are in the form of fibre) so this is a great food if you’re trying to lose weight. They are high in protein, fibre, Omega 3 fatty acids, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and antioxidants.

You can sprinkle chia seeds over your breakfast or add them to smoothies, but this is just another great way to eat them. When you soak these little nutritional powerhouses in liquid, they swell and absorb the liquid. The result is a creamy and delicious pudding. Great for breakfast or dessert… and who doesn’t love dessert for breakfast?!

Ingredients (one portion)

2-3 tbsp chia seeds
1 small cup almond milk
1 tsp organic natural maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla essence

For the compote (completely optional as you can top the pudding with whatever you like):
4 strawberries
4 raspberries
6 blueberries

Method

The night before you want to eat this, simply mix the chia seeds in a bowl or glass or jar with the almond milk, maple and vanilla (both the latter are optional also, but nice for a bit of sweetness and flavour), cover and leave in the fridge overnight. When you first mix it, it will look like it isn’t absorbing but in the morning you’ll see how the seeds have swelled to look almost like passion fruit seeds (don’t worry, they’re much softer than passion fruit seeds).

Add the fruit to the blender and blend until smooth. Top the pudding with this and add any nuts, seeds or fruit you fancy!

You can also try Raine’s Chai Chia Pudding (a mouthful yes but the pudding works so well with the chai spice flavours)

Health and Happiness,
Love,
Lauren