Juicing

So I’ve had a break from blogging this past week to try out Juicing. I have wanted to try a full juicing program for a while now and after an indulgent weekend away it seemed like the perfect time.

Juicing for a few days is a great way to cleanse and give your digestive organs a break. It means that your body is spending less energy breaking down food and so can use this energy elsewhere. When you drink fruit and vegetable juice, highly concentrated vitamins, minerals and enzymes rapidly enter the bloodstream which absorb all of the nutritional benefits.

The first three days are however a genuine detox. I didn’t feel great at all. I had headaches and little energy. I’m used to having coffee everyday and caffeine takes 72 hours to exit the system. However by the fourth day I was waking up feeling very energetic and really enjoying my flat stomach!

I did the ‘7lbs in 7 days’ Juice Master program by buying the app for my IPhone, which contains all the recipes and a day-by-day schedule. As I already own a juicer and am studying at home I made all the juices myself. This is a lot of work though and I think next time I will order the juices pre-made. They are delivered to you frozen so that they retain all the nutrients and you can just leave them in the freezer until needed.

What I also found tough was doing this week during mainstream life. You do not have a lot of energy so I found the days when I was out and about in London very hard – added to the fact that I had to make the juices at home so if I wasn’t at home I had to be prepared or wait until I could get juicing. There were a few irritable and frustrating moments! However if followed properly this program will ensure you are never hungry. Five juices and two hot drinks each day was totally manageable. The hardest part had to be being around food in the kitchen and not being able to eat anything.

After 7 days I really do feel amazing (and 2 kilos lighter) and am super inspired to incorporate more juicing into my diet. I don’t want this to be a quick fix so to ensure I don’t undo all the good I am going to slowly incorporate food back into my days. Starting with smoothies for breakfast and then mainly raw salads and vegetables before I get on to cooked food. After juicing for a long period of time your metabolism slows down and will not cope with big cooked unhealthy meals so it is best to ease your way back to normal food.

What I like about Jason Vale’s program is the emphasis he puts on making this healthy kick start a lifestyle choice rather than a quick fix. I believe in eating healthy food, which leaves you feeling energetic and satisfied. And on the juicing program you really get to experience what true vitality feels like and you won’t want to spoil it.

I thought I’d share my two favorite green drinks from the program. Each juice was really delicious and I loved trying them all!

Super Juice

Ingredients:

2 apples

¼ pineapple

¼ cucumber

½ lime (peeled)

¼ avocado (ripe)

1 teaspoon wheatgrass powder

1 small handful of ice

Juice the apple, pineapple, cucumber and lime. Pour the juice into a blender and add the avocado flesh, wheatgrass and ice. Blend until smooth. Pour and enjoy!

Passion 4 Juice Master

1 apple

¼ pineapple

¼ banana

200g yoghurt (I used coconut/soya yoghurt)

1 teaspoon of spirulina powder (I prefer wheatgrass)

Juice the apple and pineapple. Pour the juice into the blender along with the banana, yoghurt and spirulina. Blend until smooth. This one is like a dessert!

Chocolate & Almond stuffed Dates

This recipe (if i can even call it that!) is so simple yet so delicious I almost feel guilty about the praise I get after people try them. They are amazing on-the-go snacks to prepare for a busy week as they can just be stored in the freezer until ready to be enjoyed. 3 easy ingredients with 3 easy steps. 

Ingredients (quantity as you desire): 

Dates (preferably Medjool - they are the best) 

Almond butter

Optional: Raw cacao melted with almond milk

The optional chocolate part happened completely by accident. I thought I had bought cacao powder when in fact I'd come home with a brick of solid raw cacao. I was going to melt the cacao with almond milk to make hot chocolate until I saw the stack of dates in our fridge. And thus Chocolate & Almond stuffed dates were born! Well in our household at least. 

To start slice the dates open and remove the pip (step 1). Next stuff the dates with almond butter and - if you dare - the melted cacao as well (step 2). Pop in the freezer to set (step 3). I know they don't LOOK amazing but please trust me on the TASTE. I hope you enjoy!

Purple Pesto

I was first served this pesto as a pasta dish and was totally blown away. It looked so stunning and tasted delicious I had to beg for the recipe. I was given a rough indication of the ingredients and quantities but when I tried it at home it just didn't look the same. The taste was still great but I wasn't getting that deep purple colour. In fact my first attempt came out pink! Being obsessed with lemon, I added it to the mix and a pink burst of colour appeared. The pink pasta was delicious still, my friend and I gobbled it right up!

I have finally managed to get the recipe right so that I have pure purple pesto. This was served with spelt pasta and it went down pretty well. As I used spelt pasta the colours in the photo don't look too amazing. You should really coat the penne pasta and by using a light pasta colour, the colour is complemented best and will really wow whoever you are serving.

This pesto is also great to spread on crackers with avocado or hummus. I hope you attempt it as its super easy, different and fun to make! Here comes the recipe. 

Ingredients (serves 4): 

3 cups of penne paste (there are many wheat/gluten free options available. I used Biona Spelt Pasta)

400 grams of red cabbage

80 grams of almonds (I like to use blanched)

200 ml of extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

To start boil the cabbage for a few minutes so that it is soft. Then simply blend all the ingredients in a food processor, adding salt and pepper to taste.

After cooking and draining your pasta, add the pesto to the hot pan and mix in with the penne. Serve hot. You can make the pesto beforehand and leave it in the fridge until you want to heat it with pasta or spread it on a cracker. I hope you enjoy! 

Almond and Cacao Truffles

Nut and date truffles are my favourite snacks to make at the moment as they are so moreish and delicious from the get-go. I actually have to limit myself to how many times I make them as I always end up eating half the batch so by the end of it I'm left with like 5 balls!

These are the best I've made in a while. They are divine. They also keep really well in the freezer so why not make a batch for the week and let them be your treat everyday. If you are easing in to healthy eating then try substituting these for store-bought chocolates. They are just as tasty and won't leave you feeling sick or guilty as all the ingredients are good for you! I must mention though: everything in moderation! Dates are an amazing source of energy and fibre, however they have a high sugar content and should be limited if you are watching your weight.

Ingredients (makes around 12 balls):

1 cup of almonds (I like to use blanched almonds)

8 medjool dates (pitted)

1 tablespoon of cacao

1 and a 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of flaxseeds (optional)  

Simply add all the ingredients to your food processor and blend for 1-2 minutes. You should be left with a sticky mixture. Roll into balls or create your own shape (I did some experimenting with cookie cutters here). Pop into the freezer for 5-10 minutes to allow them to set. Enjoy!

Raw Strawberry Mini Cheesecakes

This is the exact same recipe as the Raw Blueberry Cheesecake. After the success of that cake I was waiting for another opportunity to make it, so thank you dad for being born this month! I decided to try the cake as cupcakes which actually worked out really well. I lined the cupcake tin with olive oil (you could use coconut oil as well but we had run out - in fact lately so has Waitrose, it is definitely becoming a more popular alternative to cook with)! 

Follow this link for the recipe, I just added an extra half a cup of strawberries to the top layer to make the colour come out a bit more. 

Happy birthday daddy!

This is my brother below who was very excited to be eating a massive avocado and would love his picture to therefore be documented here :) These avocados were amazing, we bought them from a farm shop in Lyne and their origin is South Africa, my home! I am so jealous as Avo's are now in season in SA and so delicious! It is getting harder to find ripe avo's in the UK, such a shame. Also how awesome are these tomatoes!? They were so yummy chopped up with a generous amount of himalayan salt. 

Black rice, Quinoa & Vegetables

I never really set out to make this dish, it sort of evolved as I got going! It may seem like a lot of ingredients and therefore a lot of work but if you can be flexible and work with what you have it is really easy. It is also a great dish to entertain with as it makes a lot of food. We had left overs for lunch and dinner the next day!

Ingredients (Serves 8):

1 cup of black rice (I use Biona)

2 cups of coconut water

1 cup of quinoa

2 leeks

2 courgettes

200 grams of broccoli

1 bottle of chickpeas (try avoid the tins but also ok! Or even better soak and boil your own)

1 bottle of butter beans 

4 lemons

olive oil 

1 lime

Salt to taste (I love Himalayan or Maldon)

Start with making the quinoa. Boil the quinoa in water and half a teaspoon of salt (1 cup quinoa to 2 cups of water) and then in a separate pot bring the coconut water to the boil and add the black rice. Turn down to a medium heat and leave for around an hour or until the rice has soaked up all the coconut water. This way of cooking black rice is a favourite of mine at the moment, nicked from Gwyneth Paltrow's book It's All Good. 

While the quinoa and black rice is cooking away prepare the veggies (make sure to wash leeks especially well) and add to boiling water. Bring down to a medium heat and cook until they are soft.

Bring out a massive platter to spread the veggies on, add generous amounts of olive oil, lemon juice and salt.

When the black rice and quinoa is cooked, mix the two in a bowl and add lime juice over and some salt if needed.

Toss the grains and veggies together. Drain the chick peas and butter beans and add to the mix. Squeeze lemon over and add salt to taste. 

Chocolate Cheesecake brownies

Last night my mom and I hosted a girls dinner at home. I thought this would be a great opportunity to try out a vegan dessert and see the reaction from some of the sophisticated ladies of Wentworth... I didn't quite expect the reviews to be as mixed as they were! After learning there were avocados in the brownies, one of the lady's wouldn't even taste them! Two others were not keen on walnuts which is fair enough - the choice of nuts can be up to you. The rest however loved them. I love them. 

The recipe is super easy, all you need is a blender, lots of nuts, dates, avo's and agave nectar. The agave nectar also created some speculation, the bottle being passed around to analyse. So I've done some research on this sweet alternative. 

Agave nectar is commercially produced from various species of agave, most of which coming form Mexico (Blue Agaves) and South Africa! It is also well known as the plant from which tequila is made..! The plant is large and spiky resembling a cactus in both form and habitat, but is actually a succulent similar to Aloe Vera. 

You can buy light and dark agave. The light provides a milder taste as it undergoes less heating and is the preferred use in the kitchen, compared mostly to honey. The darker syrup is filtered less leaving a much stronger taste compared more to maple syrup. Agave is less refined than many sweeteners and so considered more natural, also with a lower glycemic sweetener therefore potentially healthier. It is one and a half times sweeter than table sugar so to achieve the weight benefits if using as a substitute for sugar you should use less than you would normal sugar. 

My overall verdict is that this is the lesser of all evils in the sugar and sweetener substitute market. If you do need to sweeten up a dish or are battling to let go of your sugar kick this is a good transition. I wouldn't necessarily introduce it into my diet just to get the "health benefits". In these brownies the agave is great although I may try the recipe again without it just to see :)

Ingredients (makes about 20 squares):

For the bottom brownie layer:

1 cup of walnuts (or pecans)

1/2 a cup of cashews

1 and a 1/2 cups of medjool dates (pitted)

1/2 a cup of almonds

2 tablespoons of agave

2 tablespoons of raw cacao

For the top cheesecake layer:

5 avocados

4 dessert spoons of raw agave syrup

8 medjool dates (pitted)

2 and a 1/2 heaped tablespoons of raw cacao powder

1 tablespoon of coconut oil

1 tablespoon of water

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

To make the brownie layer add all ingredients to your food processor and blend for 2-3 minutes, so that the mixture is sticky and nutty. Depending on your blender you may need to do this is batches. 

Place the mixture into a deep cake dish and push down with the back of a spoon or spatula. Set to one side.

For the cheesecake layer simply blend all the ingredients until thick, smooth and creamy. Pour this over the brownie base and sprinkle with some nuts of your choice before placing in the freezer. Freeze for an hour and a half and then move to the fridge. I did cut my squares at this point as I couldn't wait to try them! But for best results leave them in the fridge for a few more hours to set properly. 

Enjoy and be careful who you share them with ;)