Tag: gluten free

Easy Blueberry Breakfast Muffins

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Looking for on-the-go snacks for those mornings when you wake up late and don’t want to feel guilty about sending the kids off without a good breakfast ? This is what you need! These muffins are a great way to start the morning as they are gluten free, wheat free, grain free, refined sugar free, dairy free and egg free. They are full of yummy plant-based goodness and slow-releasing energy, and they’re also great for baby-led weaning. Oh, and they’re super easy to make!

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Ingredients: (makes around 7 muffins – if you need more, just double the mixture)

3 small ripe bananas (2 if large)
¼ cup maple syrup
3 tbsp coco palm sugar
2 generous tbsp. peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup almond milk
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch Himalayan salt
Big handful of blueberries

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Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a muffin tin with about 7/8 muffin cases.

Mix all the wet ingredients in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix well.

Once mixed, add the blueberries and mix, distributing them evently.

Spoon mixture into the prepared muffin cases, about 2/3 of the way up.

Bake in the oven for around 18 minutes or until the tops are golden and a fork comes out clean.

Love & health,
Lauren

Classic (But Healthy) Banana Bread

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Happy new year everyone! Kicking off the very cold new year with a hearty banana bread – the best comfort food for cold days. This is my classic banana bread recipe but I had loads of bananas leftover that I needed to use up so I decided to stick on in the middle (coated in chocolate of course) and see how it comes out! It was yummy 🙂

Wishing all my followers a very happy and healthy new year. Let this be the year that we respect our bodies for all that they do. We need to stop putting pressure on ourselves to look a certain way and just eat and live healthily to give our bodies the best chance. Lots of love ❤

Ingredients

3 large very ripe bananas, mashed (if they are small, use 4)
1 whole banana for the middle (optional)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 heaped tbsp. coconut oil, melted
1 tbsp flax seeds
4 tbsp filtered water
1 cup buckwheat flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ tsp ground cinnamon

Chocolate sauce to coat the banana in (optional):
2 tbsp cacao powder
2 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp tsp cashew butter

Method

(Quick note: if you want this to  be quick and simple, just leave out the optional chocolate-covered banana in the middle, the cake will be just as nice!)

Preheat the oven to 180° and line a loaf tin with baking paper and grease with coconut oil.

Make the chocolate sauce by melting all the sauce ingredients on a gentle heat in a saucepan. Coat the whole banana in the chocolate sauce and leave in the fridge to set.

Mix the flax seeds in a small bowl with the water and set aside so it can set. (this is a flax ‘egg’ and used instead of eggs.)

Mash the other 3 bananas in a large bowl and add the coconut oil and maple, then add the flax mix and mix well.

Now add the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon.

Move just under half the batter into the loaf tin then put the chocolate-covered banana on top. Now add the rest of the mix on top of the banana.

Put it in the oven for around 25–30 minutes, or until a fork comes out clean. My oven tends to cook things much quicker than most so it’s been a bit of a learning curve, your oven may need more time.

Leave on a wire rack to cool then turn out of the loaf tin onto a plate.

Delicious served with peanut or almond butter!

Enjoy!

Love and health,
Lauren

Coconut Superfood Porridge

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My poor bubba isn’t feeling too well today and has gone off his food. We do a superfood smoothie every morning but thought I’d try and give him something warmer to see if he liked it and although porridge is a funny old texture, especially if you’re not feeling well, he really enjoyed it.

I just shoved a load of superfoods in there to help his immune system (and mine), and I also heated the blueberries a bit so they were warm and squidgy, and for someone who isn’t the biggest porridge fan, I was pleasantly surprised!

Ingredients

1/3 cup organic rolled oats
2/3 cup purified water
5-6 tbsp almond milk
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 banana, sliced
1 tbsp almond or hazelnut butter
Desiccated coconut
Hemp powder
Maca powder
Handful blueberries
Pumpkin seeds
Acacia honey or maple (optional)

Method

Add the oats, water, almond milk, coconut oil and half the sliced banana to a saucepan and heat gently, until it goes creamy.

At the same time, put the blueberries in a small saucepan with a tablespoon or two of water and heat gently.

Back to the oats; add the nut butter and stir until it is incorporated.

Once ready, after around 5-7 mins, transfer to a bowl.

Top with the rest of the banana, spoonful of maca, spoonful of hemp, sprinkling of pumpkin seeds, sprinkling of desiccated coconut and the blueberries and if you like it sweet, drizzle some maple or honey over the top.

Love & health,
Lauren

 

Beetroot Mash

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beetroot-mash

How gorgeous and bright does this look for a dull winter’s day? I just love the colours of nature and colours are a great way to entice children to eat vegetables. Beetroots are full of nutrients and are such an important vegetable.

Beetroots are an excellent source of folte so a great food to eat when pregnant or trying to conceive. They are also high in iron, potassium and fibre and are great for the heart. Generally an all-round wonderful vegetable.

I had a bunch of fresh beets in the fridge and juiced a few but wanted something warm so I decided to make this beetroot mash. It’s more like a beetroot puree really as I blended it. So creamy and soft and moreish.

I made something very similar a while back and added horseradish, so if you like a kick to your mash, try that one out!

Ingredients

2 beetroot
5 white potatoes
Quarter cup almond milk
Quarter cup vegetable stock
Himalayan salt & black pepper to taste

Method

Peel and chop the beetroots and potatoes.

Put the potatoes in a saucepan with boiling water and boil. If you have a steamer saucepan, put this over the top of the potatoes and put the lid on so they can steam and boil together. If you don’t, boil or steam the beets separately.

When they are both soft, mash the potatoes with a masher.

Add the beets to the blender and blend until smooth, then add the potatoes, stock, almond milk, salt and pepper and blend until puree-like.

Add more stock or almond milk if you need.

Love & health,
Lauren

Cacao & Cashew Oaty Bites

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I may even go as far as to say that these are the tastiest things I’ve ever made…

I have to be honest, I wasn’t sure if it would even work but oh dear lord they do! So simple; literally took 5 minutes, 1 spoon, 1 saucepan and a cup, and to make it even more exciting, there is no refined sugar, dairy or gluten and totally vegan. It makes giving sweet treats to kids easier. Braxton is 13 months and has never had refined sugar and I want to keep it like that. If he always has treats that taste this good, hopefully he’ll never feel the need to binge on the rubbish stuff 🙂

Cacao is also a great plant-based protein which is essential for babies, as well as the essential fatty acids in the coconut oil.

Basically, MAKE THESE!

I used Biona coconut oil, coconut palm sugar and cashew butter as I prefer their ingredients so use them wherever I can ❤

Ingredients

3 tbsp coconut oil
1 tbsp coconut palm sugar
3 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp almond milk
1.5 tbsp cacao powder
4 tbsp cashew butter
1 cup organic rolled oats

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Method

Heat all the ingredients except the cashew butter and oats in a pan, on a low heat, very gently until combined.

Once melted, turn off the heat and stir in the cashew butter and keep stirring until fully incorporated.

Now add the oats and stir until totally mixed into the mixture.

Wait until it’s cooler, then spoon a tbsp. full onto a plate that has baking paper on and press into cookie shapes.

Leave to cool then once cool put in the fridge for an hour until set.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.

Love and health,
Lauren

 

Roasted Vegetable Pasta (Gluten Free) with RawSpiceBar Chipotle Spice Mix

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I was recently sent this month’s spice collection by RawSpiceBar. I’d never tried their spice mixes before so thought I’d give this one a go and added their Chipotle Salt spice mix to a roasted vegetable pasta, to make a normal everyday meal a bit more exciting.

It tasted amazing and what I love about it is that all the spices are organic, ethically sourced, sugar-free, gluten-free, paleo and vegan.

If you like flavour but are not too sure how to incorporate it into every day cooking, head over to RawSpiceBar and sign up to their monthly spice box and receive 3 freshly ground, recipe-ready flavour kits, direct to your door each month.

Ingredients

Brown rice pasta (enough for however many people you’re cooking for)
1 courgette
1 red pepper
2 red onions
Extra virgin olive oil
Half a tin of tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 sachet RawSpiceBar Chipotle Salt mix
2 cloves garlic, sliced
Half tsp paprika
Half tsp cumin
Himalayan salt & black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Chop the vegetables and add them to a large bowl and drizzle the olive oil over, then pour the RawSpiceBar mix over and mix well.

Put onto a baking tray and bake for around half an hour.

In a small saucepan add the tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika and cumin and leave on a low light, stirring quite often. Season more as needed. You’ll want to leave this on the heat for about the same amount of time that the vegetables are in the over, around half an hour, so don’t cook the pasta until the end.

When the sauce has thickened and looks ready, boil the pasta as per the packet instructions.

Once ready, drain the pasta in a colander, preserving a smidgen of water back.

Add the tomato sauce to the saucepan and mix well, then add the vegetables and mix.

Serve immediately.

Love & health,
Lauren

 

 

Creamy Vegan Mash

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Mashed potatoes have to be creamy. No use having dry, lumpy mashed potatoes – it’s just not worth it! I was just using almond milk and dairy-free spread but I’ve now found a way to make it even creamier – by adding stock!

Braxton has been a little bit unwell and didn’t want to eat anything that he had to chew so I added my homemade stock to this and it really made him happy. See what you think…

Ingredients

About 7 white potatoes
125ml low sodium or homemade vegetable stock
Half a cup almond milk
2 tbsp dairy free non-hydrogenated spread / ‘margarine’
1 tsp dried parsley
Himalayan salt & black pepper

Method

Peel and chop the potatoes and put them in a pan of boiling water and bring to the boil.

Once soft, drain in a colander, holding a tiny smidgen of water back, then transfer all back to the pan.

Use a potato masher to mash the potatoes and once they are as smooth as you can get them, add the stock, almond milk and margarine and mix well.

Now add the parsley and salt and pepper to taste.

Add more stock if it is not creamy enough and just keep adding to your desired creaminess!

Love & health,
Lauren

 

Vegan Pumpkin Donuts

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Yup, so this actually happened in my kitchen today!! I’d been seeing a lot of pictures of donuts around and my friend Deepa at GirlBoyFoodBaby made some healthy donuts also, so I decided to give it a go.

I wanted to make them using pumpkin (had a bee in my bonnet) so that they were autumnal (best word) and obviously now it’s made from a vegetable it’s basically like eating a salad so I can have as many as I want, right??

I found an organic pumpkin puree at Ocado which worked great. I could have pureed my own of course but these are so time consuming that I thought I’d buy the tinned one seeing as it was organic! This is the pumpkin puree I used…

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Speaking of time consumption, this deserves a warning… the donuts themselves do not take long to make at all. About 10 minutes prep and 7 minutes in the oven, but the toppings take a while. That is if you want to do different kinds like I did. If you just do one kind, you can whip it up while the donuts are in the oven and cooling and it won’t take too long at all. As usual, it’s really just the clearing up that takes up most of the time with baking… Surely I deserve to have someone to wash my dishes for me by now right?? 🙂

Anyway time-consuming toppings aside, does it really matter? I mean look how awesome they look! And they taste awesome too. Of course they taste nothing like a Krispy Kreme, but then again, I wouldn’t want it to. I want Braxton to grow up appreciating natural sweetness and natural flavours, not artificial rubbish filled with sugar and preservatives. Speaking of which, I used a lot of Biona products for these. Including their coconut palm sugar and coconut oil. I love how natural and organic their products are. Great for our health and for the environment.

You’ll need a donut tin for this, I got mine on Amazon and it looks like this…

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We took these with to our sister-in-law for dinner and everyone seemed to really enjoy them. We’ve saved one over for Braxton for a snack later (well, he’ll have a quarter) I hope you enjoy them xx

Ingredients (ingredients for toppings below at bottom of method)

1 flax egg: 1 tbsp ground flax seeds mixed with 1.5 tbsp water
1 heaped cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
Pinch Himalayan salt
1/3 cup Biona coconut palm sugar
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1/4 cup almond milk
2 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp coconut oil, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and lightly grease the holes of the donut tin with coconut oil.

First, make the flax ‘egg’ by mixing the flax seeds with the water in a very small bowl and set aside.

Now mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl: buckwheat, baking powder, bicarb, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.

In another bowl mix the coconut palm sugar, pumpkin puree, almond milk, maple, coconut oil, vanilla and then add the flax ‘egg’. Whisk with a fork or balloon whisk until smooth.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula until totally incorporated.

Put the mixture into the prepared holes in the tin using your hands and smoothing them out on the top.

Place in oven and bake for about 7 minutes or until a fork comes out clean. They should still be moist.

Turn out onto a wire rack and leave to cool fully before adding the toppings.

Topping choices:
Cinnamon vanilla glaze: In a small bowl mix 3 tbsp Natvia icing sugar, 1 tbsp warm water, quarter tsp vanilla extract. Spoon unevenly over the top of the donuts, then sprinkle with cinnamon.
Cashew cream: In a small bowl mix 2 tbsp cashew butter, 1 tsp melted coconut oil, half tsp vanilla, half tsp maple syrup. Spoon all over the tops and sides of donut and top with crushed cashews.
Chocolate: 1 tbsp cacao butter, 1 tbsp coconut oil, 1 tbsp cacao powder, 1 tsp maple. Heat gently in a saucepan and once ready, add to the top of the donuts. You can cover it then top with pistachios or almonds or you could drizzle it with a spoon.

Hope you enjoy these as much as we did!

Love & health,
Lauren

Rose, Cardamom & Pecan Breakfast Muffins

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I know the title might suggest that there are a lot of ingredients in these that you may not have and that they are hard to make but they are super easy and also, you don’t even need to use rose and cardamom if you don’t want… you could just have them plain, they would be just as tasty. I just loved the rose and cardamom combination that Raine and I made for our original honey cakes, flavours inspired by my Moroccan upbringing, so thought I’d try them in the muffins.

These are gluten free, dairy free and refined-sugar free so totally perfect as a snack for your little ones. Braxton LOVED these when they came out the oven this morning!

Ingredients

2 ripe bananas
2 eggs, free-range organic
5 tbsp coconut oil, melted
150ml water, room temperature
Quarter cup almond milk (or oat, rice, coconut or any other nut milk)
250g maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
130g buckwheat flour
130g brown rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
Pinch Himalayan salt
The seeds from 10 cardamom pods
1 tbsp rose water
Pecans to top

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a muffin tin with 12 muffin cases.

Mash the bananas in a large bowl.

Whisk the eggs with a fork in a separate bowl then add this to the bananas.

Add the water, maple, almond milk and vanilla and whisk with a fork until smooth.

Sift both flours, baking powder and bicarb into the big bowl, followed by the cinnamon and salt and mix until totally incorporated.

De-seed the cardamoms and add the seeds to the mixture, followed by the rose water.

Mix well then add the mixture to each individual muffin case, about 3/4 of the way to leave room for rising. Top with a pecan if desired.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the tops are golden and a fork comes out clean.

Love & health,
Lauren

Blueberry Coconut Oat Bars

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This morning I had a bee in my bonnet about wanting to make a less stodgy version of my blueberry porridge bars (not that stodge is bad, I just wanted something a bit crunchier this time!) and I happened to stumble across a recipe for exactly what I was looking for when I was scrolling through my Instagram (@theorganicspoon) courtesy of Baby Led Feeding.

They have more ingredients than the porridge bars but they are a bit more like flapjacks of some sort and made a nice change. Great to take out as a snack for the kids. Have packaged mine up ready to take out to the park with us this morning.

Ingredients

180g oats
140g buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
40g desiccated coconut
120g coconut oil
2 bananas mashed
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

280g blueberries
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon chia seeds

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180ºC
  2. Heat the coconut oil gently in a saucepan and leave to cool.
  3. Add the oats, flour, baking powder and 3/4 of the desiccated coconut to a bowl. Give it a good stir then make a well in the middle and add in the coconut oil, bananas, maple syrup, egg and vanilla. Make sure the coconut oil is cooled first otherwise it will cook the egg. Stir well until it is fully combined and has formed into a dough.
  4. Line a square silicone baking tin with parchment paper then pour in 3/4’s of the mixture, then press it down with a spoon.
  5. Make the blueberry compote by adding the blueberries and water to a saucepan. Bring to the boil then turn the heat down to low and using a wooden spoon or masher, mash until they have broken apart, then add the chia seeds and give it a good stir.
  6. Pour the blueberry compote over the oat mixture, then dollop over the remaining mixture in small clumps until it is gone.
  7. Sprinkle over the remaining desiccated coconut then bake for 15 minutes.
  8. Cool fully before removing from the oven then slice into small baby bites and serve.

Love & health,
Lauren & Braxton