Tag: healthy replacements

Notella – nutty, chocolate-y deliciousness 

Laura NanaLeave a comment

I heard this weekend that Nutella contains more sugar in it than hazelnuts. 

I’m a big fan of substituting bad things with good things and this weekend I wanted to do a clean eating version of Nutella – for my own sake as well as my sons! I miss it!! 

This recipe made a good jam jar size portion that will keep well in the fridge. 

I’m having it for my 10am snack today slathered on a banana and I also added it to some ‘n-ice’ cream, but we’ll come to that later. 

 
Ingredients 

  • 200g hazelnuts 
  • 50-70ml almond milk or other non-dairy milk
  • 1tsp coconut oil
  • 60g honey
  • 40g of cacao or cocoa powder
  • A small pinch of salt 

Roast the hazelnuts in an oven at 180 for ten minutes. 

Let them cool a little. 

Place in a good strong blender with all the other ingredients and blitz for 5-10 minutes until you have a consistency you are happy with. It may not be as smooth as shop bought but it will be delicious on toast (gluten-free) and will give you more health benefits than its shop bought counterpart. 

‘N-ice cream’ is where you blitz frozen slices of banana with whatever flavour you like (peanut butter, notella, clean jam) and then re-freeze until solid. It’s a fantastic alternative to regular sugary ice cream and perfect to cool down on these hot summery days. 

  

Prosciutto Rolls & Salad

Laura NanaLeave a comment

I came up with this lunch idea at the weekend, I love prosciutto and combining it with good quality mozzarella and peppery rocket makes this a really delicious option for lunch. Please try and go for the best possible quality mozzarella you can realistically afford, I promise it makes a difference. I’ve added a cheeky little video for you, hope you like it!

  
Serves: 1

  • 2 slices of prosciutto
  • 2 tsp mascarpone
  • Couple of torn-off pieces of mozzarella
  • 3-4 sundried tomatoes
  • Rocket
  • Handful of spinach
  • Cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters
  • Squeeze of lemon juice

Lay out the prosciutto and spread the mascarpone over them and season well, you could add a little bit of oregano at this point too. Lay on the rocket and sundried tomatoes and add the mozzarella. Squeeze over a spritz of lemon juice and roll these up into little parcels of joy, you can secure them with a little cocktail stick if you need to.

Put the spinach and tomatoes in a Tupperware container and pop the parcels on top.

Try and wait until lunchtime.

Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket Laura of London

Another 10 minute wonder

Laura Nana2 Comments

Yesterday we had a fab day celebrating the lovely Hishal’s 4th Birthday in East London, it was lovely to see D’s cousins and eat lots of lovely BBQ food by the lovely Yogesh and Veerusha and her cake baking skills are second to none!

I wanted to make something really light and meat-free for dinner, and after such a long drive it had to be quick! So I made myself a little apéritif of rose, soda and ice and got to work…

A little Apéritif Laura of London
A little Apéritif – rose wine, soda and ice

As you’ve probably seen from my recent posts, I’m a bit of a fan of my new spiraliser (Zoodle Chef, £15 on Amazon) and so I decided to make some ‘pasta’ otherwise known as courgetti. This is where you spiralise courgette and use it as a replacement for spaghetti. If you don’t have a sprialiser, you can just shave the courgette using a peeler and either have it as ‘papardelle’ or use a knife to slice it into thin, ‘pasta’ strips.

Spiralise 5 courgettes
Spiralise 5 courgettes

Once you’ve got the courgette ready this is a pretty fast recipe so get everything laid out and ready to go.

Ingredients

5 Courgettes
2 tins of crab meat
Handful parsley and basil
3-4 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 tbsp cold water
Juice of 1 lemon
400g tin of Cheery tomatoes (or normal tinned tomatoes + handful of fresh cherry tomatoes)
50g pine nuts
Rocket and mixed seeds to decorate

Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket Laura of London
Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket

Method

Spiralise your courgetti and put it in a bowl.

Make the pesto by adding the basil, pine nuts, parsley, water, oil and lemon juice to a blender and let it go for a minute or two

Add the pesto to a saucepan with the tinned cherry tomatoes – this will look a weird colour but don’t worry! Warm it through on quite a low to medium heat. You can add a small teaspoon of honey at this point to offset the acidity of the tomatoes but this isn’t vital.

Add the tinned cherry tomatoes Laura of London
Add the tinned cherry tomatoes

In a separate pan with a lid, put as much of the courgette in as will fit and 2 tbsp of water. Put the lid on and warm it through for a couple of minutes, remove the lid – if it is soft enough, drain it and do the same again with the next batch of courgette – depending on the size of the pan, repeat as necessary until all of the courgette is cooked.

Add the crab to the pesto/tomato sauce mix and season and stir well. Then add the courgetti to the sauce mix and stir/toss and allow it to warm through for a minute or two.

Mix the courgetti with the crab sauce Laura of London
Mix the courgetti with the crab sauce

Serve in warmed bowls with a drizzle of olive oil and a topping of lemon juice, rocket and mixed seeds.

Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket Laura of London
Crab Courgetti with Seeds and Rocket