Real Food Friday Feast - Healthy Snack Options

It's going to be a great sporting weekend! Between the US Open, the rugby and the soccer, many South Africans are not going to want to leave their couches until Sunday night! Of course, you know what happens when you make like a couch potato? You eat like a couch potato! This can be a problem if you are eating all the wrong things.

Let's face it, it's easy to eat all the wrong things when we're talking snacks. You walk into a shop, grab a few bags of potato chips, a couple of litres of soft drinks and some beers. It all takes about 10 minutes from car to shop, and back to car. Nice and convenient. What people seem to forget is that, just because they are snacks, doesn't discount them as food that your body is going to use for fuel. Besides the extra body fat you'll gain, how about what all those genetically modified, processed bits of wanna-be foods are doing to your poor body while you are sitting on the couch, unconsciously shoveling them into your mouth because you're too busy watching the TMO decide if it was a try or not. They're taking the place of real food fuel your body could be putting to GOOD use while you are couch potatoing it.

There are healthy snacks you can replace those GMO foods with. They may require slightly more work than opening a chip packet and finding an empty bowl, but they are just as tasty and so worth it. You won't even have to think about consequences and you can enjoy the game without the guilt (don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!) I have tried and tested these options on GLM and on a few friends with great success so if you have some fussy eaters in your house, there's some good news for you!

We'll start with cabbage or kale chips... I can hear the WHAAAAAATTTT?!??!?!?! I know. It's sounds revoltingly healthy and vegetarian-like doesn't it? I guess it is. But the good news is, they taste REALLY good! I say cabbage or kale because either will work but most people usually have cabbage on hand, not kale, so we'll work with cabbage for this recipe. Feel free to try kale though! Incidentally, I discovered I could do this quite by accident when I was making roast chicken in the oven a few days ago. I put some vegetables under the chicken to cook in the juices but the cabbage wasn't covered enough by the juice and delicious cabbage chips were the result! Inspired, I played around a bit and came up with this recipe.

Dehydrated Cabbage chips

Several large cabbage leaves (the more guests you have coming over, the more you will need)
A big glass jar or several small ones
Fine himalayan rock salt or sea salt
Filtered or boiled water

Method

• Turn the oven on to 50°C
• Tear cabbage leaves to desired size for chips (usually about 5x5cm in size)
• Place a tsp salt in the glass jar and half fill with filtered water (I use boiled water that has cooled slightly so the salt dissolves nicely)
• Mix until the salt is dissolved
• Add cabbage pieces to jar until just below the top of the jar
• Top up with cool, filtered water (make sure the water is covering all the leaves)

• Place lid on and leave to soak overnight (yes, you need to prepare in advance for these!)
• The following day drain the salt water
• Lay all the cabbage out on a tray or in a dish

• Place in the oven and leave for ± 20mins
• Take out tray and turn leaves over (if you don't they tend to stick to the pan. This could be solved by using baking paper? Haven't tried it yet but I will!)
• Put back in oven for ± 20mins (times depend on your oven. My door doesn't shut properly so it may need longer than yours)
• This is the best part, you get to taste and see if they're ready, which will be when they are crisped to your satisfaction.

I first tried this just with cabbage straight out of the fridge, no salt. They weren't bad but they were a bit bland and they went soggy within an hour. Soaking them in salt gives them a delicious flavour and it seems to help them maintain their crispness because they were still crispy 24 hours later.

These are DELICIOUS just on their own but you can also make an avocado dip to go with them. Just watch out because they break pretty easily. In fact, because they crumble REALLY well so, what I do is I take a few in my hand and crumble them over my salad. It adds the most DELICIOUS flavour!

The other snack is something absolutely heavenly and so simple to make! Once I tasted these things I was addicted I tell you! Now, if we go to a friend's place for a braai, I just take these along to snack on while everyone is eating their GMO chips;) Most can't resist having some of mine though!

Coconut flake chips

A bag of dehydrated coconut flakes (it has to be flakes. The small, grated pieces won't work the same)

Fine himalayan rock salt or sea salt

Cinnamon

Method

• Put a frying pan on the stove and turn on to medium heat
• Pour coconut flakes into the pan and spread them out to cover the whole pan (do not add any oil or butter)

• Leave to cook, shaking the pan around now and then so they get cooked as evenly as possible
• While they are cooking mix your spice
• In a small container add a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of cinnamon
• Put the lid on and shake it up to mix well

• By now your coconut will have started to brown and that's when you know they are ready. You don't want to burn them.

• Remove them from heat and pour into a ceramic or glass dish
• Immediately sprinkle with spice mix and shake around to get all the bits of coconut covered

• Leave for about 5 minutes
• Eat!

The natural oil of the coconut flakes will initially make them a little soggy, but that's perfect because your spice will stick nicely to them. Leaving them for 5 minutes allows them to crisp so they will have a nice crunch when you eat them. BEWARE, these are ADDICTIVE!

Have a wonderful, health-filled weekend!

Real Food Friday Feast - Breakfast Smoothie

Doctors, dieticians and nutritionists have always maintained that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. While I think all meals are pretty important, I do agree that skipping breakfast leads to a lot more weight problems. I can't survive without breakfast. I open my eyes and my stomach literally yells for food;) But I struggled a bit with what to have for breakfast when I made a decision to cut out processed foods.

If you walk down the cereal aisle you are literally bombarded with every kind of cereal under the sun. The problem with those cereals is that 99% of them are loaded with sugar (usually GMO corn syrup), and ALL of them are grains with NO exceptions. They are rice-based, or maize-based or oat-based and the rest of the ingredients are sugar, sugar and more sugar, and then add a few of those nice coded foods that no-one understands like E61 and E500. I don't think that starting your day off with a carbo load of GMO grains and a whole bunch of other scientifically generated "foods", is a great way to start it.

I've cut most grains out of my life since I discovered they were largely responsible for my IBS flaring up. If I have them now, I'll make sure they're properly soaked and they must be organic obviously;) If you cut grains out of your life, that leaves very little for the "normal" breakfast options. I don't need to eat "normal" food so that doesn't bother me, but GLM is my little creature of habit and is not a fan of change;) There are some things she will go along with, but some things are just a no-go!

One breakfast meal that has always been a winner for her, however, is the breakfast smoothie. I have been making breakfast smoothies for years but, in the last year, the recipe has changed quite drastically. It used to be a very boring combination of banana, apple, almonds, protein shake and soya milk (Can't believe I bought into the propaganda and drank that poison! I'll blog on that at some point too but, take my word for it, avoid it. Especially if you are trying to have a baby. It's loaded with GMO and hormones.) So anyway, that smoothie was pretty average nutrition-wise but it didn't taste too bad.

Enter the organic, super, real food era and how things have changed;) GLM sometimes asks what happened to our "normal" smoothie? (Creature of habit;) You see, what I have realised is that a breakfast smoothie is the EASIEST and TASTIEST way to get most of your fruit and vegetable daily requirements into your body, in one go. Our breakfast smoothie has replaced our multivitamin because it is loaded with all the natural vitamins we need. It is a powerhouse of goodness all in one glass and it's so easy to make, and eat on the run. There are a lot of websites out there by people who have cured cancer with diet and most of them talk about smoothies and juicing. But these are not just any smoothies and juices, they are supercharged, power nutrition in a glass.

So I am going to give you my recipe, but please bear in mind that this is just ONE way to make it. You can add as much variety as you like, depending on your tastes. Don't be put off by the colour. That will depend on the colour of the food you use but it'll still taste amazing. The more different colours you use, the more nutrition you will get out of it. 

You will need a decent blender (a hand blender will work well too.) 

Power Breakfast Smoothie (feeds 2)

1 raw Banana (medium size)
1 raw baby marrow (medium size)
1 raw patty pan
2 tsp peeled ginger root (or just a nice size chunk)

4 Tbs paw paw
2 Tbs soaked organic chia seeds
1/4 avocado pear
2 tsp organic cocoa powder
4 eggs OR 2 eggs and 125ml organic plain yoghurt
2 Tbs dehydrated coconut
2 slices pineapple
Add water to get a nice consistency

Method

• Throw all ingredients into blender EXCEPT chia seeds, adding liquid last.
• Blend till smooth
• Pour into 2 separate glasses
• Add a tablespoon of chia seeds to each glass and mix in
• Drink!

As I said, these ingredients are not carved in stone. You can replace the fruits with other fruits and the veggies with other veggies. I recommend keeping the coconut, ginger, cocoa powder, avocado (it gives the smoothie a lovely, creamy consistency) and chia seeds, but play around with the rest depending on availability and taste preference. You CAN use milk instead of yogurt. Both are a good source of protein. You can even JUST use milk instead of the eggs. As long as you have some protein in there. Bear in mind that eggs are a GREAT source of nutrition (provided they are free range) and are NOT public enemy number one for those with high cholesterol as some people keep insisting. If you are a vegetarian you can leave out the eggs and milk and just use water but you will need a bit more protein in there so I would add a handful of properly soaked nuts and perhaps a scoop of vegetarian protein powder. 

Some of you may be wondering about chia seeds. These little seeds are like magic seeds;) They are so good for you! They contain your daily dose of Omegas all in one little tablespoon. You can buy them at dischem and all health shops as well. They look like this when they are dry:

And like this when you make them into gel:

Why would you want to make them into gel? Well, they go so much further and they're easier to work with. They are mostly tasteless little seeds but they are good for so many things. 

• Omega 3's - Help reduce inflammation, enhance cognitive performance and reduce high cholesterol
• Fibre - Reduces inflammation, lowers cholesterol and regulates bowel function
• Antioxidants - Help protect the body from free radicals, ageing and cancer
• Minerals - Two tablespoons of chia seeds contain 18% of the daily recommended intake for calcium, 35% for phosphorus, 24% for magnesium and about 50% for manganese
• Satiety - They make you feel full for longer
• They are gluten free
• They make a good egg replacer when baking for those who can't eat eggs
• Blood sugar regulation - They play an important role in regulating insulin levels and can reduce insulin resistance and decrease abnormally high levels of insulin in the blood.
• Raise energy levels

See why you would want to eat these? Making them into gel is really easy. Get a clean glass jar and place 3 tablespoons of seeds in the jar. Fill the jar up with filtered water, all the way to the top and stir with a fork. Leave for a few minutes and then stir again. You'll notice they will clump up a bit. That's because they absorb the water and start to swell. Leave for a bit and then stir again to break up the clumps. Eventually the jar will be filled with chia seed gel and no more clumps and then you simply add a tablespoon of those to each smoothie. You can add them to anything really. You won't notice the taste at all, but you'll feel the health benefits! And that jar will last a week or two in your fridge.

That's it! I recommend eating at least one of these smoothies a day, but you are welcome to have more!