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Recipe: Pumpkin, ginger & lemongrass soup
I love soup and pumpkin soup has been among my favourites forever. Pumpkin is rich in beta-carotene, a precursor to vitamin A. Its sweetness, accentuated by roasting it instead of just boiling it, pairs well with the zing of ginger, lemongrass and lime juice. This recipe is gluten-free and can be made vegan/vegetarian by using vegetable broth and omitting the fish sauce. It’s low in fat (if you don’t add the optional coconut milk) and protein. You can add some cooked chicken or boiled eggs to bump up the protein content.
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Recipe: Banana pancakes
Banana pancakes are the perhaps the easiest pancakes you’ll ever make. This recipe is vegetarian, gluten-free and dairy-free. The basic recipe has only 2 ingredients: banana and eggs. That’s 1 serve of fruit and 1 serve of protein foods ticked off for the day. I add cinnamon because I love its taste and it helps control blood sugar. Ripe bananas work best for this recipe, as they are easier to mash. Smaller pancakes are easier to flip. If you are like me and the sweetness of the banana is enough, you can use unsweetened yoghurt (e.g. YoPro or Rokeby Farms) or peanut butter (e.g. Mayver’s) as toppings. These will also…
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Recipe: Double chocolate, adzuki and black sesame bliss balls
Double chocolate, that’s all you need to know. Don’t worry about the hippie stuff 🙂 Ok, ok, as you can gather from the recipe name, these balls have beans in them. Beans are a great source of fibre, low GI carbohydrate and a decent source of protein. They can cause gastrointestinal discomfort to some people, which can be minimised by preparation steps such as soaking, sprouting and fermenting. This recipe came about because I had rescued some adzuki beans from going in the bin. Since these beans are commonly used in desserts, I thought I’d make myself a healthy treat with them. I though I would continue with the Asian…
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Recipe: Smokey poached salmon and potato salad
This is another recipe featuring one of the wonderful sustainable Saltverk Icelandic sea salts. Once again, I relied on the internet to tell me which foods are common in Iceland and put a bunch of them together in dish that is easy to make, healthy and delicious. If you have never poached fish before, I encourage to give it a try. The trick is to use a flavourful sauce or dressing to make the fish shine. I used Spud Lite potatoes for this recipe for a slighter lower carb meal, but you can use whichever potatoes you can get your hands on.
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Recipe: Cacao maca smoothie
Confession time: despite being Peruvian, I don’t like maca. I do try to get some in my diet because it’s meant to help with hormonal balance, but I have to find ways to disguise its flavour. I’ve been making a smoothie mix with the dry ingredients listed below, which I multiply 3 or 4 times and store them in a jar, making it easy to chuck in the blender in the morning. I’ve used avocado and/or coconut milk for thickness and fat content. I don’t use any sweetener (IMO you don’t need any if using coconut milk, anyway) but that might be overkill for you, so go ahead and add…
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Recipe: Lúcuma coconut mousse v2.0
This is a revamped version of the lúcuma coconut mousse I posted a while ago, this time with the added benefit of the probiotic cultures in CO YO and the collagen in gelatin.
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Recipe: Dairy-free mango lassi
Love mango lassi but have a hard time digesting dairy? Fear no more, here’s a friendly recipe for you, featuring CO YO.
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Product review: CO YO coconut yoghurt
CO YO, the wonderful company making coconut yoghurt available for those who can’t tolerate dairy (or choose not to have it), has been around for a while but has been recently trying to expand their reach. Their yoghurts are vegan and free of dairy, soy, gluten, lactose, and added sugar. They have quite a few varieties that come in tubs from 250g up to 1k. All flavours contain organic coconut milk (88% in the fruit varieties, 98% in the plain and chocolate), starch (tapioca, pectin), stevia and live vegan cultures including Lactobacillus casei, L. rhamnosus, L. acidophilus, L. bulgaricus, Bif. bifidum, Bif. lactis, and S. Thermophilus. Note: I’m not quite…
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Product review: Luz cold pressed almond milk
As a FFG (former fat girl) I’m cautious when it comes to liquid calories. I drink mostly water, mineral water, black coffee or tea, but when I saw these little bottles in my local health food shop I couldn’t resist. Not only the bottles were cute, but the label read espresso with cold pressed almond milk followed by “gluten free, dairy free, soy free, cholesterol free (duh!), no additives or preservatives”. Sounded too good to be true. The label on the bottle next to it read Medjool dates with cold pressed almond milk. This is *real* almond milk (as opposed to the boxed varieties), so it sediments (give it a…
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Product review: CocoLuscious organic coconut ice cream
On my very first visit to Paleo Cafe one of the many things that grabbed my eye was CocoLuscious organic coconut ice cream. The fact that Alvaro was not there was the perfect excuse to buy a tub to bring home. With many flavours to choose from it was very tempting to grab one of each but the price tag ($12+) helped with restricting the purchase. That first tub was the tropical (a.k.a. plain coconut) flavour. The ingredients are coconut milk, agave nectar, desiccated coconut and guar gum. I know… not perfect but much better than commercial ice cream. It was delicious, and while less sweet than sugar-loaded ice cream,…
