Monthly Archives: October 2013
Healthy Veggie Wrap
This wrap is great for breakfast, lunch and dinner! It’s healthy and really low in calories and fat. It’s great as a pure veggie wrap, you can also add some fish, chicken, black beans or even some chickpeas.
It’s important to choose a whole wheat tortilla because the white ones hardly have any nutritional value at all.
Ingredients:
- Red, green or yellow Bell Peppers
- Red Onion
- Romaine Lettuce
- Lollo Rosso Lettuce
- Rucola Lettuce (Arugula)
- Cucumber
- Tomato
1. Place the tortilla on a plate and add the Romaine, Lollo Rosso and Rucula Lettuce on top of each other.
2. Cut the remaining vegetables in chunks or however you want it, and place on top.
3. Then you add the chicken, fish, beans or peas on top and enjoy.
You Can Also Add:
- Add some Tabasco sauce or chili peppers if you’d like it a bit spicy.
- Avocado Hummus is also great with this
- Low fat dressing (read the label and make sure it’s actually low in fat)
- Add some red grapes or sweet corn for some sweetness
- Basically anything can go with this wrap, make it your own with your favorite vegetables
How to make the chicken:
This is how I make my low fat chicken.
You’ll need:
- Fresh chicken breast
- Vegetable Stock (from the store or make your own, recipe coming soon)
- Salt & Pepper to taste
Cut the chicken breast in half (split it in the middle to make two thin slices). Boil enough water so it will cover the chicken breasts. Add the vegetable stock, then place the chicken in the boiling water for about 15 minutes. You can add the salt and pepper before or after, whatever you prefer.
When the chicken is done, drain the water. Let the chicken cool and cut into chunks. Enjoy
Oatmeal Banana Muffins
These are absolutely delish! They are low in calories and healthy, so if your craving a snack then this is a great choice. There are only a few ingredients, and it’s something you probably already have in your kitchen.
Ingredients:
- 2 Bananas
- 1/2 Cups Blueberries
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
- 2 tbsp Extra Virgin Organic Coconut Oil
- 2 Cups Oatmeal
- 1/2 Cup Coconut Flakes
- 1 tbsp Flax seeds
1. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
2. Mash the bananas then add the blueberries, vanilla, cinnamon and coconut oil.
3. Now mix together the rest of the ingredients.
4. Put the mixture in muffin forms or paper. Whatever you like best.
5. Place them in the oven for 15-20 minutes.
You can choose to add whatever berries you like, or some nuts if that’s what your craving. I chose blueberries because they are my favorite! These aren’t too sweet, but you can add some pitted dates instead of blueberries, or some stevia (but not to much). You can even add some chocolate but then again it wouldn’t be as healthy 😛
TIP: This is a great quick snack for the kids!
Enjoy!
Adding Coconut Oil To Your Diet
We posted an article about the benefits of coconut oil and what it does for your body, but we’ve had some questions about how to use it in food and how they can still eat it without tasting it at all.
You should try to consume 2 tbsp of coconut oil every day, organic virgin is better for cooking and organic extra virgin is great when eating it raw like with your smoothies and coffee. We’ve asked and looked around and there are so many simple ways of adding this to your diet!
Coconut Oil has the closest consistency to butter. It is smooth in room temperature, however after you’ve opened the container it will turn liquid at 24C/75.2F. So don’t freak out if it all of a sudden is clear as water. It goes solid (hard) when cooled, and turns liquid when heated. It has a pleasant sweet, mellow taste that adds just a slight unassuming flavor to foods without overpowering other tastes in the dish!
If you’re a regular coffee/tea drinker, you might want to just add a teaspoon of coconut oil each time, or if you really like the taste of coconuts, go ahead and add the whole amount with your breakfast coffee/tea.
Smoothies, Shakes & Juices:
So simple, just mix it with the other ingredients and enjoy.
Cooking:
Coconut oil is great for cooking! You can use it for basically anything, you can even use it as a substitute for butter when your baking/cooking (1:1 ratio). You can add it to any recipe, like: cookies, bread, chocolate, cakes, the list is endless The coconut oil will keep your baked goods fresher for longer and even make them more moist and richer in taste. Try it on your toast, you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Other:
You can add it to your oatmeal, yoghurts, sauces, I can go on forever, but you really just need to use your imagination and get creative. Start by trying it with your favorite food. You never know you might end up having your own recipe to share with your friends and the rest of the world.
Don’t like the taste of coconut:
If you don’t like Coconut oil, that’s OK! Like I mentioned earlier, Coconut Oil doesn’t have a dominating taste. Now, if you really want to reduce the flavor there are a few ways of doing exactly that! If you’re making a smoothie for example, you can use all kinds of citrus fruits. They are really over powering so much so that you wont taste it at all, especially if you use lemons or lime. You can also use bananas, ginger, mint leaves the list goes on. Just pick something you know has a strong flavor. If you have super taste buds, I’d recommend you use a little less than 2 tbsp, start off with 1 tbsp and work from there. If you start adding this to your diet every day your palate will change and you’ll get so used to it that you wont even taste it anymore or better yet end up loving it and wanting more!
If you’d like to use it as a substitute for butter on your bread, bagels or anything in that category, I recommend you go the same way as earlier, choose something that overpowers the coconut, like peanut butter or jam (organic).
If you use it when baking just use half and half of coconut oil, and butter, preferably without salt & dairy to stay on the healthier path. However you’ve still come a long way even if you go with your regular choice of butter, because half of it will be coconut oil
Coconut Milk Whipped Cream:
You should also try coconut milk, it’s really magical! You can use it as whipped cream. If you’ve bought coconut milk, you’ve probably noticed that there’s usually some liquid and there’s a solid white part, that’s what you’d want to use. Separate the liquid from the white milk, and add it to your mixer and stir it until you can see it getting the same consistency as whipped cream. It usually doesn’t take more than 2-4 minutes, depending on your mixer. You should add some vanilla to taste.
Hope this helps, and good luck! If you’ve got any tips or a recipe, comment and share so we can all enjoy it as much as you do
Orange & Berry Smoothie
This smoothie is really easy and only has 4 ingredients. It’s quite thick so if you want it to be a but thinner you can add some water or almond milk.
Ingredients:
(serves 2, 202 calories each glass.)
- 2 Oranges
- 1 Cup fresh Strawberries
- 1 Cup fresh Blueberries
- 1 tbls organic extra virgin coconut oil
- 4 ice cubes
Cut oranges and strawberries into chunks and mix all ingredients in a blender. The coconut oil is very good for you, read all the benefits of the Coconut oil here. Remember choose Organic, it doesn’t contain any artificial ingredients. If you would like to add an additional super ingredient you could add some Flax seeds
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