Skinny lemon cupcakes with drizzly icing.

Whoever thinks you can't enjoy a spot of cake whilst on a calorie counting diet is very wrong! You can most definitely enjoy it, but in MODERATION. It also helps if you can find a low-kcal cake/cupcake recipe! Here is a lovely little recipe I have tried from my new "The Hairy Dieters" cookbook - the "Hairy Dieters" are Dave Myers & Si King (most well known for being "The Hairy Bikers"). They use to be pretty hefty blokes, but now they have slimmed right down! They've made a lovely recipe book packed full of healthy recipes (with calories per serving included - yaaay)!

These cupcakes taste gorgeous! They are very sour though, because of the lemon icing (if you don't like sour things, you can always replace the lemon juice in the icing with water). As great as these taste, try not to be tempted to sit and eat the whole batch! Remember: moderation is key.

This recipe serves 12 & is approx. 167kcal per cupcake.

Ingredients:

- 200g self-raising flour

- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

- 75g golden caster sugar

- 100g blueberries

- finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon

- 2 large eggs

- 150ml low-fat natural yoghurt

- 2 tbsp semi-skimmed milk

- 50ml sunflower oil

Lemon icing:

- 100g icing sugar

- 4-4.5 tsp fresh lemon juice

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°c/Fan 180°c/Gas 6. Line a 12-hole deep muffin tin with some non-stick paper cases or folded squares of baking parchment.

2. Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda into a large bowl and stir in the sugar, blueberries and lemon zest. Make a well in the centre.

3. Beat the eggs with a large whisk until smooth, then beat in the yoghurt, milk and oil until well combined. Stir into the flour mixture with a large  spoon until very lightly mixed.

4. Working quickly, divide the batter between the paper cases. Bake in the centre of the oven for 16-18 minutes or until the cupcakes are well risen and golden brown. Transfer them to a wire rack and leave to cool.

5. To make the icing, mix the icing sugar and lemon juice in a small bowl until smooth and runny. Using a spoon, drizzle the icing over the cupcakes and leave to set for at least 30 minutes before serving.

Low-kcal twist on the traditional English breakfast.

Everyone loves a good traditional English breakfast (also known as a "fry-up"). But they are often very fatty, greasy and full of calories.. So I thought I'd take it upon myself to try and come up with a healthy, filling version of the breakfast, with as few calories as I can possibly make it. So here it is! This breakfast serves 1 person and is approx. 200kcal (if made with the "meat" product I chose).

Ingredients:
- cooking oil spray (such as "Fry Light")
- 2 egg whites
- a dash of Worcestershire sauce
- 60g spinach, washed
- 50g mushrooms, sliced
- 105g baked beans (e.g. 1/4 of a big Heinz baked beans tin)
- pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper
- your choice of meat product*

*I chose 1/3 of a pack of "Quorn pepperoni style slices", but you could also use 1 Quorn/meat-free sausage, 1-2 rashers of Quorn/meat-free bacon, 1 lean meat sausage, 1-2 rashers of lean bacon, with the fatty bits cut off.. Whatever you want really, but remember to adjust calories accordingly!

Method:
(You will need to be good at multi-tasking, and own a lot of pans, to get everything timed just right).
1. If using sausages/bacon, stick these in the oven first, at a medium-high heat, for however long the packet says, turning over halfway through cooking.
2. In a sauce pan, pour in the baked beans and place on a low-medium heat. Stir this occasionally to be sure the beans don't stick to the bottom of the pan.
2. Meanwhile, spray a frying pan with the cooking oil spray. Place on a medium-high heat and place in the sliced mushrooms. Keep stirring these often to get them nice and evenly cooked.
3. In another sauce pan, place in a splash of water and all the spinach and put a lid on top, keep an eye on this, as once it's all wilted it will be cooked and ready.
3. In another frying pan, spray all around with the cooking oil spray and place on a high heat. Add in the egg whites and quickly add in a splash of Worcestershire sauce (this is optional, but I just think it gives it that extra something) and season with a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper. This will cook relatively quick, so be sure to turn it over once it begins to go quite white - don't let it burn!
4. With any luck this should all be cooked and ready to plate up at roughly the same time! Serve immediately with your choice of sauce (although, personally, I don't think it needs it!) and a cuppa on the side. ;)

Enjoy!

Baked fig and hazelnut salad.

This is a recipe I was eager to try! I found it in my November 2012 issue of Healthy Food Guide. It's a baked fig and hazelnut salad. I love figs, but noone else in my household does, so I invited my Nan over to enjoy it with me. It's quite an unusual, but very tasty, combination - I would have never thought of putting all these ingredients together myself, but it does work nicely! It's very sweet, but the cheese stops it from being too sickly sweet. I really love the taste of the juices with the salad leaves - yum yum! My Nan absolutely loved this meal too. As well as being a very healthy dish, it is also "diabetes-friendly" - neither of us are diabetic, but it's something that everyone can enjoy!

I switched up the recipe a bit (as you all have probably noticed I do quite often)! I halved everything on the original recipe, as instead of wanting to feed 4, I only needed 2 servings. I also swapped actual blue cheese for Dairylee light blue cheese triangles. The recipe also only used rocket, but I threw a bit of spinach in with it to bulk out the salad leaves. The recipe below serves 2 and is approx. 330kcal per serving. 

Ingredients:
- 4 ripe black or green figs
- 75g ricotta
- 2 Dairylea light blue cheese triangles
- 30ml agave syrup
- 1 tbsp ground hazelnuts
- 1/2 tsp hazelnut oil
- 25g whole hazelnuts
- salad leaves, such as rocket/spinach, to serve

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°c/fan 160c/gas 4.
2. Cut a cross into the top of each fig and squeeze between your fingers to open. In a bowl, mix the ricotta, Dairylea blue cheese triangles, half the agave syrup and the ground hazelnuts to form a thick paste, then season with a pinch of sea salt an black pepper.
3. Spoon the ricotta mix into the centre of each fig, then put them into a roasting dish just large enough to fit tightly. Drizzle over the remaining agave syrup with the hazelnut oil and roast for 20 minutes. Scatter over the hazelnuts.
4. Serve warm with the salad leaves, spooning over some of the pan juices.


I hope you enjoy this as much as my Nan and I did! :)

Lunchbox idea #4.

I haven't posted a lunchbox idea in a while, so I thought it was about time I did. So here it is:

This is a little twist on the classic sandwich filling, egg and cress - only difference is pretty much just using the egg whites instead of the whole egg and I've added in a sausage! Egg and cress tastes lovely on it's own but the sausage just gives it that extra smokey-tasting something-something. ;)

To make this, just make 3 hard-boiled eggs, boiling them in water for about 10 minutes, and meanwhile cook a Quorn sausage (doesn't have to be Quorn) in the grill for 10-12 minutes. Once the eggs are done, peel them and separate the egg whites from the yolks, throwing the yolks away. Chop up the egg whites into little bits and mix them with about 1 tbsp of low-fat mayonnaise. Then add in some fresh salad cress and mix it all together again. Once the sausage is cooked, cut it into small slices/pieces and stir it all into the egg and cress mix. Season, to taste, with freshly ground salt and pepper. And voila - it's done. Simple as that. :)

Now add it into whatever you want, such as a wrap, a salad, a sandwich, a pitta bread, a bagel, etc. All super tasty!

Leaving the egg yolks out reduces each egg's calories by about 55kcal. It takes out a lot of the protein from the egg, but then you also get protein from the sausage, which is less calories than the 3 egg yolks put together! So all together this filling is approx. 135kcal (using a Quorn sausage). Then just add the calories of whatever you put it in (I used a Weight Watcher's wrap, so I'll have to add 107kcal). Yum yum!

Homemade pumpkin & apple soup.

Lately I have been dying to try cooking with pumpkin, simply for the fact everywhere is selling them and I've never tried one before. I spent quite a while deciding what I wanted to make with my pumpkin - a pie, a cake, a soup, a salad - so many to choose from! I finally decided to make a soup as veggie soups are normally pretty healthy, everyone loves a good soup and today is definitely "soup weather" (cold and rainy).

This is the first soup I have ever made from scratch (with some help from my lovely boyfriend - thank yooou!). I always thought soup would be hard to make, but it was surprisingly easy. This soup was so delicious! The cider really gave it that kick. Such a unique taste - really hard to explain.. But trust me, it is amazing - even my boyfriend loved it!

This recipe serves 4 people and only has approx. 177kcal per serving!

Ingredients:

- 1 small pumpkin, peeled, de-seeded and cubed

- 3 small/medium apples, peeled and chopped

- 1 small/medium brown onion, diced

- 2 garlic cloves, chopped

- 500ml (1 pint) of vegetable stock

- 250ml (1/2 pint) of dry cider

- 1 tbsp olive oil

- freshly ground salt and pepper

(If you aren't happy with using cider, you can always substitute it with 250ml (1/2 pint) of not-from-concentrate apple juice).

Method:

1. Get a large saucepan and heat up the oil. Cook the onions and garlic in the pan for 2-4 minutes, until the onions are slightly translucent.

2. Now add in the pumpkin, apple and season to taste. Cook for another 2-4 minutes.

3. Pour in the cider, and cook for 1 minute. Then add in the vegetable stock. Bring everything to the boil. Once boiling, turn down the heat and allow to simmer for 25-30 minutes.

4. After it's finished simmering, pour the mixture into a blender and blend until smooth.

5. Now pour it back into the saucepan and heat it back up, so it's nice and hot when served.

6. Spread evenly into 4 servings and serve immediately. Serve alone, or add some cream/milk into it, or even enjoy it with some fresh baker's bread (such as a slice of cottage loaf - yum!).

P.S. I'm pretty sure this soup can be kept in a sealed box to be heated up the next day, or even frozen to enjoy on a later date - I can't see why not. :)

Low-kcal pizza - yes there is such a thing!

I'm not going to lie.. I adore pizza! I use to enjoy late pizza nights with my boyfriend faaar too often (occasionally we still do, but very rarely compared to before). But pizza makes my waste line suffer. I thought I'd have to sacrifice my love for pizza to be able to lose weight.. That was until I saw a pizza recipe in the magazine, Healthy Food Guide (September 2012's issue, page 41). I was also bought a recipe book, called "100 Pizzas From 1 Easy Recipe" - it was a gift from my Nan. It's a book full of lots of different pizza topping ideas. So I decided to have a go at making one.

I took the recipe for the pizza base and pizza sauce from my magazine's recipe. I chose a pizza topping idea from my recipe book, which is called "Neapolitan Pizza" - a cheese-less, but still super tasty topping! I mix and matched my recipe from both sources as the base and sauce in the magazine was lower kcal than the book, but the topping in the book was lower kcal than the one in the magazine. But I also altered the recipe slightly by using granulated sweetener, rather than actual sugar.

This recipe makes 2 very yummy, light, fluffy based pizzas, at approx. 290kcal per 1/2 pizza! Much better calorie-wise compared to a takeaway pizza - can't go wrong with that! :)

Ingredients:
(For pizza dough)
- 275g plain/all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
- 7g sachet fast-action dried yeast
- 1 tsp granulated Splenda sweetener
- 1 medium egg, beaten

(For pizza sauce)
- 250g passata
- 1 tsp oregano
- 1 tsp granulated sweetener
- small handful of chopped basil

(For pizza topping)
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 4 small tomatoes, thinly sliced
- 1 tsp dried Italian herb seasoning
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- fresh basil leaves, roughly torn, to garnish

Method:
1. For the base, put the flour, yeast and 1 tsp of sweetener in a large bowl. Mix the egg with 125ml of warm water and pour it into the dry ingredients. Mix well and knead lightly to make a soft dough, adding more water if needed. Divide in two and roll out onto a flat surface, dusted with flour, to make 2 x 20cm diameter circles. Transfer to baking trays, lined with baking paper, and cover with cling film. Leave in a warm place (such as an airing cupboard) for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat the oven to 200°c/fan 180°c/gas 6. For the pizza sauce, heat the passata, oregano and 1 tsp of sweetener in a saucepan for 5 minutes until it thickens. Add in the chopped basil.

3. For the topping, divide the pizza sauce between the two pizza bases, spreading almost to the edges. Scatter over, evenly, the garlic, sliced tomatoes and the herb seasoning and drizzle over a little oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

4. Bake in the preheated oven for around 15-25 minutes, or until the base is crisp underneath and the crusts are golden. Garnish with the torn basil leaves and serve immanently. Enjoy either on it's own or with a little side salad! :)

Been a naughty girl..

I'm sorry for not posting as often as I usually do.. This last week has been a hard one! I've slipped up, pretty badly.. Working so much lately (had a 13.5 hour shift Saturday), a friend's 21st birthday party (involving a lot of alcohol and a massive hangover), 2 days at Alton Towers theme park (with a 4 hour drive each way) and a night at a hotel - sticking within my calories for each day has been pretty much unrealistic.

Normally I kind of enjoy having a naughty meal/snack or two for a change from all the healthy eating.. But for some reason I haven't enjoyed any of it really. After eating all this rubbish, I have been really desperate to just dig into loads and loads of healthy veggies! I feel so fat, bloated and tired after eating so badly for just under a week.. But now I'm home, with nothing but work in my way, and I can eat absolutely anything I want - yaaay!

I am expecting to put on about half a stone from all the rubbish I've ate - a fish burger, vegetable crisps, munchies, a cookie, chips, pizza/pasta/salad buffet, alcohol (lots of it), a sandwich, etc.! Very ashamed of myself and very anxious about weighing myself tomorrow. But I'm only human and can't beat myself up too much about it. What's done is done - I've got to face the consequences and guilt of my bad choices, suck it up and start a fresh. Next week I will lose whatever weight I've put on this week, for sure! :)

Before/after - baggy trousers!

Look at those trousers! I was rummaging through my wardrobe last week and came across my first pair of work trousers, from when I first started my job back in 2009. They are a size 16, and they use to fit me perfectly! And of course, I tried them on to see the difference between then and now, and just.. wow! Couldn't believe how big they were! They drop to my ankles if I don't hold them up myself. I am now size 8-10 (in the majority of shops). Just crazy. I thought I'd share this with you all! I love comparing my photos and clothes from before and now - you never quite realise how much different you look until it's in front of you.

If anyone has any before/after photos, I'd love to see them!

Bruschetta.

I found this is my 'Healthy Food Guide' magazine (page 60-61, September 2012 issue). This recipe is so simple and quick to make and tastes absolutely gorgeous! It's a lovely little dish, great to have at lunchtime, as a starter or as a biggish cheeky snack. It's fresh, light and filling - a very summery dish. The magazine gives you 1 basic bruschetta recipe with 9 different ideas to chop and change this recipe up to suit you.

Here's the basic recipe (serves 4, approx. 177kcal per serving):

Ingredients:

- 4 salad tomatoes, diced

- 1 small red onion, diced

- small bunch of fresh basil, leaves picked and finely chopped

- 1 garlic clove

- 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil

- 1 tbsp good-quality balsamic vinegar

- freshly ground black pepper

- 8 slices of bread, such as ciabatta or sourdough

Method:

1. Preheat the grill to high. In a medium bowl, combine the tomato, red onion, basil, garlic, olive oil and vinegar. Season with black pepper.

2. Put the bread slices under the grill and toast until crisp and browned. Top each with the tomato mixture and serve.

See - as simple as that! Absolutely delicious!

Here's the variations that I chose to do from the suggestions when making this recipe:

Avacado: Add 1 diced medium avocado to the mix, then spoon over the toasted bread (246kcal per serving using only this change).

Tangy lemon: Replace the olive oil and vinegar in the tomato mix with 1-2 tbsp lemon juice. Sprinkle over a little lemon zest before serving (148kcal per serving using only this change).

Baked banana and raisin oatmeal.

Always remember to eat a healthy, balanced breakfast! People (especially dieters) tend to skip their breakfast in the hope they'll lose weight, or to save calories.. This doesn't tend to work - if anything, skipping breakfast will aid weight-gain, rather than weight-loss. This is because your metabolism slows down whilst you're sleeping and doesn't speed back up again until you eat.. So if you eat breakfast, your metabolism will start up sooner than if you left it until lunchtime to eat, which means you'll burn calories faster! There is loads of research and evidence that can be found online that supports this. So please don't skip breakfast. It really is the most important meal of the day!

I found this yummy baked oatmeal recipe on Mr Breakfast - a whole website dedicated to breakfast! I have adapted the recipe a tiny bit to make it contain a little less calories.. But if I were to make it again, I would definitely cut it up into 8/9 squares, instead of 6 -making each square even less calories than it says below!

This recipe serves 6 people and is 296kcal per serving.

Ingredients:
- 2 eggs
- 1 egg white
- 2 very ripe bananas
- 3 cups/210g rolled oats
- 1.5 cups/330ml unsweetened almond milk
- 0.25 cups/g seedless raisins
- 0.25 cups/55ml oil
- 6 tbsp golden syrup
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp vanilla extract


Method:
1. Preheat the oven to medium-high temp.
2. In a  large bowl, lightly beat the eggs and egg white. Add all the remaining ingredients. Stir until well combined. Now leave the mixture to set for 10 minutes, to allow the oats to absorb up some liquid.
3. Stir the mixture once more, before pouring it into a baking pan (make sure the baking pan in generously covered with a spray-oil, such as "Fry Light").
4. Leave to bake for 35 minutes.
5. Once finished, cut the oatmeal into 6 pieces and serve warm. You could serve it with a little golden syrup drizzled on top (this step is optional) - yum!