Chocolate berry smoothie – a rich, chocolatey smoothie that feels like you are drinking dessert but it is totally healthy!
I always feel like a bit of a cheat when I post a smoothie recipe because they are so simple that it almost feels wrong to even call it a recipe; I mean, the instructions are only one line long for goodness sake! Nevertheless, I having been making this chocolate berry smoothie a lot recently so thought that I would go ahead and share it as I like it so much….
Yesterday I took a trip to London to attend the first ever Best Of PinterestUK awards as several (five!) of my recipes had been shortlisted; I didn’t win in the end but my spiralized vegetable noodle bowls did come runner up in the best healthy recipe category (beaten by a recipe by Fearne Cotton) for which I won a whole kilo of chocolate. Even better than the chocolate though was actually getting to meet a load of my fellow food bloggers, most of whom I had thus far only known online and who were all even lovelier in real life….
Not gonna lie, I chose the ingredients for this cake based on the fact that I liked the alliteration of ‘blueberry banana buckwheat’; so it’s a good job that they turned out to be delicious together! I’d had a bag of buckwheat flour sat in the cupboard for a while that I had been meaning to bake with, and a couple of over-ripe bananas in the fruit bowl just begging to be made into cake. The resulting banana buckwheat cake was delicious as is, but I couldn’t resist fancying it up a bit with the addition of vanilla mascarpone cream, jam and fruit. As mentioned above, I chose blueberries purely for the alliteration, and they worked perfectly, but strawberries, raspberries or a combination of the three would all also work just as well….
I absolutely could never, and would never, go vegan. This is for two main reasons, those being cheese, and ice cream; which are probably my favourite food groups (don’t try telling me that vegan “cheese” is any kind of substitute for the real stuff). That being said, I do occasionally make a vegan recipe, more out of necessity than on purpose – because I’ve run out of eggs for example. In the case of this vegan roasted banana ice cream, I had some bananas that needed to be used up and fancied making ice cream with them but didn’t have any cream in the house; I did however have a tin of coconut milk; so there you go, accidental vegan ice cream….
I have been on a serious pancake drive recently and have been craving them ALL THE TIME… I have pretty low willpower so needless to say I’ve been eating a lot of pancakes! I’ve been making loads of different kinds – banana spelt, apple rye and cinnamon, the classic crepes with lemon and sugar, broccoli and feta and these toasted coconut with chocolate fudge sauce and banana. I was originally just planning on making plain coconut pancakes but at the last minute decided to toast the coconut first; I am glad I did as it adds a whole extra depth of flavour. I then also decided that seeing as I was making that extra bit of effort that I needed to go the whole hog and make chocolate fudge sauce as well; again, an excellent decision….
I often buy bananas with the intention of letting them go brown and overripe as I love to bake with them; they are horrible to eat as they are, but mash them up and mix them into cake, or milkshake, or pancakes and they become something truly delicious. The smell of banana bread baking is utterly irresistible; when I don’t want to wait for banana bread to bake though, banana pancakes are the next best thing. They are super quick and easy to make, taste amazing and are much healthier than cake!…
I don’t fast. I believe that life is too short for unnecessary self-deprivation; I also have never given anything up for Lent, firstly because I am not remotely religious, secondly, because I am not dangerously addicted to anything; and if I were, I should really be giving it up for life, not for just for Lent. I am however (funnily enough…) more than happy to partake in the feasting that often precedes or follows a fast. Shrove Tuesday, or pancake day, is one of those such occasions that I am willing to revel in. Pancakes, in all of their many forms, are one of the most simple and satisfying foods you can make, and are the best way to create an impressive breakfast or brunch (or dinner!). As much as I love the classic British pancake with lemon and sugar, or a stack of fluffy American ones drizzled with maple syrup, if you want to make an impressive breakfast with minimal amount of effort (no standing at the stove flipping endless pancakes) then it’s got to be a Dutch baby. …
I don’t really do New Years resolutions and definitely don’t buy in to the whole dieting and getting fit in January thing, because quite frankly (for me at least) it is doomed to fail. January is the worst possible month to give up hearty comfort food and force yourself out into the cold to exercise…I simply try to keep up a good level of exercise and healthy eating throughout the year. Having said that, I have been craving a lot of soups and vegetables recently so clearly my body is in need of some healthier food after indulging over Christmas…so I have resolved to try and bake things over the next few weeks that contain healthy ingredients and are a bit lower in fat and sugar. …
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