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Flapjack Squares

April 28, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

energy-squares

I’m always looking for delicious, easy to prepare food that’s portable and these are dangerously moorish!  The best bit is I’ve packed them full of healthy fat and some, dare I say it, superfoods.  These are perfect if you need an exercise pick-me-up or something to tide you over to the next meal.  They’re also great to take out for children as a snack.  They’re naturally sweetened and take about 10 minutes to prepare.

We love goji berries in our house, if you’ve not tried one, they’re more intensely sweet than a raison and I love them on yoghurt for breakfast or even a few on my salad.  They’ve been used in Chinese medicine for centuries for high blood pressure, eye health, diabetes but more recently have been shown to increase metabolism and boost energy levels so perfect when you need a hit of energy in the day.

Cacao nibs are the creme de la creme of chocolate, these are cacao beans that have been roasted, separated from the husks and broken into nibs so with very little processing.  If you eat them from the bag they almost taste more like a nut than chocolate but add them to naturally sweetened goods and the wonderful chocolate flavour comes through.  More places are now selling these wonderful pieces of chocolate, I get mine online but many supermarkets now stock them too.  This is chocolate that you have permission to eat with absolutely NO guilt attached because they are full of minerals, fibre and antioxidants and provide a very healthy saturated fat.

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Energy Squares
Author: Vanessa Woozley
Prep time:  10 mins
Total time:  10 mins
Serves: 16
 
Quick go to energy snacks packed full of healthy fats
Ingredients
  • ½ a cup of desiccated coconut
  • ¼ cup of pecans
  • 1 tablespoon of almond butter
  • 3 tablespoons of coconut oil (melted)
  • 1 tablespoon of goji berries
  • 1 tablespoon of cacao nibs
  • 2 tablespoons of pumpkin seeds
  • 4 dates
Instructions
  1. Put all ingredients in a food processor and blend until a rice grain consistency
  2. Pour contents into a parchment lined small cake tin, i used a brownie tin and smooth out so even. You could alternatively roll into balls and place on a plate.
  3. Refridgerate for at least 1 hour so the coconut oil hardens, then take out of fridge and cut into squares and place back in the fridge or freezer ready for eating.
3.2.2310

Filed Under: Chocolate, Recipes, Uncategorized

Gooey Chocolate Nutty Squares

April 18, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Choco-squares

This is the perfect sticky, gooey bit of yumminess that you want for Easter.  They don’t require any baking and if you and your family want to avoid refined sugar these are the perfect substitute.  These were made in the quest to find something that my daughter could eat instead of an Easter egg.  Due to the special diet healing her eczema, she is unable to eat any refined sugar, sometimes this is challenging but the consequences for her are worth all the effort and when I offer up these she doesnt seem to mind!

These are super rich and very chocolatey so cut them up small and try not to devour them in one sitting.  I usually freeze a few as soon as I make them so I’m not tempted.

I use organic raw cacao in my recipes, you could substitute with cocoa which is more readily available but as previously mentioned here it doesn’t have as many health benefits as cacao which is an unprocessed chocolate so if you get the chance, order some online and make your chocolate baking even healthier.

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Gooey Chocolate Nutty Squares
Author: Vanessa Woozley
Recipe type: Chocolate
Prep time:  15 mins
Total time:  15 mins
Serves: 18
 
Ingredients
  • 1 cup of cashews
  • 1 cup of medjool dates
  • ¼ of macadamia nuts
  • 2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil
  • 1 tablespoon of raw cacao
  • ½ a teaspoon of vanilla powder or extract
  • Pinch of sea salt
  • 1 large bar of dark chocolate (I used pure cacao but an 85% would work as well)
  • 3 tablespoons of coconut milk
  • 1 tablespoon of raw honey
  • 2 tablespoons of flaked almonds
Instructions
  1. Cover the cashew nuts in water and leave to soak for an hour
  2. Cover the dates in boiling water and leave to soak for an hour
  3. Drain both and add to a food processor with the melted coconut oil, cacao, vanilla and salt and process until you have a smooth paste, incorporating when needed, this takes 3-4 minutes
  4. Add the macadamia nuts and pulse until roughly chopped
  5. Tip into a parchment lined small baking tray and smooth out with a palate knife
  6. Melt the dark chocolate on a bain-marie and add the honey and coconut milk and pour on top of the base smoothing out
  7. Toast the flaked almonds in a dry frying pan, flipping lightly until golden brown and decorate on top of the chocolate.
  8. Refrigerate for a couple of hours and then lift out and cut into squares to devour.
3.2.2310

 

 

Filed Under: Chocolate, Dessert, Recipes

Kale Crisps

April 15, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Kale-crisps

For all you crisp fans, this is as close as you’ll get to a crisp, while eating healthily and requiring very little effort so definitely worth trying.

I’ll be honest, chocolate is my food of choice but we seem to fall into 2 camps, chocolate or crisp lovers i.e. craving sweet or salty.  The problem with crisps isn’t so much the fried potato, it’s the fact they are nearly always cooked in vegetable or sunflower oil, making them highly toxic to our body.  The other issue I have with them is that they are smothered in table salt which ultimately loses all nutrient minerals that natural salt contains.

It’s kale season at the moment and kale is the highest nutrient dense vegetable there is, so there’s a pretty good reason to eat more of it.  Kale is a great source of vitamin K, vitamin C, manganese, calcium and copper.  What many people don’t know about green leafy vegetables is that the nutrients are easier to absorb by the body when eaten with fat, how perfect is that!  Pair your kale with extra virgin olive oil, coconut oil, I’ve even made it with beef dripping before although it sticks heavily to the leaves, sprinkle with sea salt and you have the perfect snack.

Tip: You want to cook these on a low heat so that you get the ultimate crispy texture.

Tip: Store them in a tin lined with parchment paper and a few grains of rice to keep them crispy for a few days.

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Kale Crisps
Author: Vanessa Woozley
Recipe type: Sides
Prep time:  5 mins
Cook time:  20 mins
Total time:  25 mins
Serves: 4
 
Quick healthy alternative to crisps
Ingredients
  • Large bag of Kale
  • 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
  • 1 teaspoon of sea salt
Instructions
  1. Wash the Kale leaves and dry thoroughly, I try to do this in advance and let them dry out on a tea towel.
  2. Remove the leaves from the stalks
  3. Melt the coconut oil in a saucepan and allow to cool slightly
  4. Put the leaves in the oil and massage into the leaves to coat fully (be careful not to burn your hands)
  5. Put the leaves on parchment paper on a baking tray
  6. Cook at 140 degrees for 20 minutes
  7. Sprinkle with sea salt and enjoy!
3.2.2310

 

Filed Under: Recipes, Sides

A love story with food and its power to heal

April 1, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

I was asked by my friends this past weekend what led me on my journey with food and my interest in nutrition and I started to ponder about where it began and how eating evolved for me.  It’s difficult to pinpoint the start because if you’ve read my about me page, it’s been a slow, gradual adaptation but I wanted to share my highlights and my significant discovery about the power of food.

My family has always been what you would probably call foodies, we like to cook and we REALLY like to eat!  I have a Granny still going strong at 101 years old and I reckon you can pretty much put that down to old-school very healthy nutrition.  It has been passed down the generations and I’m lucky I’ve been brought up on home-cooked food and butter!  However, like everyone my generation, in my teens I was convinced I needed to be on a constant diet and that low-fat was the way forward, this was my downfall.  I subsequently picked up some bad habits that I’ve since had to work hard to undo.

In my 20s, I started reading nutrition books and one of the first books I read was ‘Fats that Heal and Fats that Kill’, my fascination began and these books made me start to question everything..

The Power of Food

A few years ago, I was teaching a lot of Zumba classes about 14 a week and I began to really struggle with energy levels, particularly on the day when I had 4 classes.  I refused to let me body get the better of me and stubbornly knew there would be a way to fuel this level of exercise, I just hadn’t found it yet.. Professional athletes train all day so what was their secret?  I started to increase my carbohydrates, because we all “know” bread is a perfect reserve of stored energy, right?  I ate more wholemeal, organic toast with butter and Marmite.  The problem was this had the opposite effect, the more toast or pasta I ate the more tired I became, not only was I starting to feel exhausted all the time but I was getting this brain fog in the afternoon.  I was teaching in schools and finding no amount of caffeine would help lift the fatigue.  I started my research again came upon Paleo, this was just the start of a life-changing journey.

I’ve always been pro-natural alternatives, believing we are meant to eat the way the earth supplies our food so something clicked into place when I read paleo books.  If you’ve not come across paleo before it is embedded with ancestral ways of eating i.e. trying to replicate the diet of our ancestors millions of years ago, eating from the land.  There is a strong ethic in organic and sustainable farming but most significantly it is about removing processed food of all kind.

I started to realise the power of food within a month of taking wheat out of my diet, my life transformed and I have never looked back.  I felt healthier, happier, I was sleeping a solid 9 hours, my complexion improved and I had all the endless energy I needed.

Twice I tried to eat wheat in the 6 months following, at first I was a little embarrassed to tell people I didn’t eat wheat, I didn’t want to be one of “those” people with their special diet but both times I suffered with extreme stomach cramps through the night for about a week following.  I know I am gluten intolerant but this didn’t become apparent until it was removed from my diet, although it is my strong suspicion that we all are in some form or another (more on this to follow..)  There was more…I realised I had gone from being ill with colds and flu probably 4x a year to not at all and it wasn’t just me, apart from chicken pox, Scarlett also has not been ill in at least 2 years.  My hayfever and allergic reactions to animals that moult (that started when I was 5 years old) also disappeared.

I started reading all the nutrition books I could find on ancestral health and studying current scientific papers and I realised that everything we have been taught about nutrition has been based on flawed science, see here.

Healing Scarlett

Portrait 167aThis was probably the biggest milestone on my journey, although Scarlett has eaten Paleo with me these last 2 years, I weaned her on wholemeal pitta and houmous (before I knew differently) and when she wasn’t with me, she would eat like most regular toddlers – sandwiches, cakes and sweets at parties.  From a young age she developed eczema, I didn’t think too much of it as most of my family have suffered with childhood eczema.  On the advise of the Doctor, I put steroid creams on her a couple of times but after a few days of relief the eczema would always return.  Alarm bells started ringing when she started experiencing allergies to food, I noticed after she ate a tomato her face would flare up in a red rash all over her face, she was developing what I have since learned to be auto-immunity, due to gluten sensitivity and a subsequent leaky gut.  I have lots more to tell you about this journey, its been my biggest learning curve and we still have a way to go but 6 months of bone broth and probiotics (made from food) we are probably 90% there with curing her eczema.

Healing Aggie

AggieIf you think my dog, Aggie got off scott-free, think again, even she got the Vanessa healing treatment.  I was spending a fortune on natural dog food and in a bid to save some money, I introduced her to the delights of pedigree chum, (a grain containing dog food).  Within 6 months she developed this incessant scratching so I took her to the Vet £40 later I was told, nope, absolutely nothing wrong with her.  My friend who is a dog hydrotherapist suggested a raw dog food diet and something twigged, if I could heal Scarlett’s eczema why not Aggie’s so with her raw food she was given bone broth and fermented vegetables.  I’m happy to say the results were much quicker, within a month no scratching and even the dog groomer recently commented on how lovely her coat is, one happy dog again.

Probiotics

I have so much to share with you about these exciting, life-changing foods.   Having been around for centuries and particularly used in traditional cultures, natural probiotics are now making waves in nutrition circles.  Nutritional Science is now at an exciting time because for the last 100 years we can now determine what food can cure.

We’re also lucky enough to live in a generation where we can now expect to live past 100 years old but I also think we should expect to be in good health for those years, without symptoms and without age holding us back from being physically active as well as looking young too.  There has been a big shift in people looking at holistic, natural, homeopathic cures and what I’ve learnt on my journey is that you shouldnt underestimate the power of food, it is literally your most powerful medicine so you should be mindful of what you eat.

It’s been on a slow gradual journey on what many now term clean-eating. I am fussy with what I eat but with very good reason, I know how certain foods used to make me feel and I’m not willing to go back there. It makes me smile when people enquire as to what strange food I’m eating now because I’m wondering whether I do actually eat that strangely or has eating fast, processed, junk food just become so engrained in society it is now accepted as the norm?

I hope this blog has interested you and maybe there has been something here that you can relate to as well.  You can probably gather, I have lots more information to share so I hope you’ll continue to read them as my journey with food continues.  My next blog will be on wheat because this food group has a big impact for everyone..

Filed Under: Adults, Children, Nutrition, Uncategorized

Vanessa Woozley

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