Healthy Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Coconut Curry

Do you struggle with sweet cravings?? (Bear with me here)

When your body is craving sugar it is because it NEEDS something. So it is not just a lack of willpower on your part. But before you grab the nearest biscuit thinking your body wants a chocolate digestive read on…

If you are craving sweet things there is likely a lack of sweet vegetables in your diet. Evidence (and experience) shows that incorporating more sweet vegetables into your diet will help you reduce and manage these sweet cravings.

So how about having this tasty and easy to make curry which has sweet potato, carrots and cauliflower (all sweet veg) for dinner to help reduce your biscuit intake? Win win.

Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Coconut Curry

Time to make – 30 minutes

Makes enough to feed four

Ingredients for the Curry

1 x Large Sweet Potato
1 x Medium Cauliflower
2 x Medium Carrots
1 x Can of Coconut Milk
2 x teaspoons of chopped chilli
1 x teaspoon of chopped garlic
1 x teaspoon of chopped ginger
1 x tablespoon of fish sauce (leave this out of you want to make it vegan)

For serving

4 x handfuls of kale
1 x tablespoon of sesame oil
1 x cup of brown rice
2 x tablespoons of pumpkin seeds

1. Put your brown rice on to boil for 30 minutes

2. Chop the sweet potato, cauliflower and carrots into chunks then put in a pan of boiling water for 20 minutes or until soft (Don’t go too soft as it will turn to mush)

3. Take your kale and use your hands to rub the sesame oil into the leaves

4. Drain your veg and add the coconut milk and spices. Once you have added the coconut milk there is no need to cook the curry further

5. Drain your rice and rinse with warm water

6. Serve the curry with your massaged kale salad and brown rice. Top with pumpkin seeds.

7. Goodbye sweet cravings.

One top tip to make being healthy EASY

The key to good health is preparation and commitment. Not exactly sexy, but if you want to make it you have to do it.

I think smoothies and juices are a great way of getting lots of vitamins and minerals into your system. But bugger chopping the fruit and veg every morning at 5.30am to prepare myself a fresh juice before yoga!

So one thing I do every Sunday is cut up enough fruit and veg for 5 smoothies.

I then sort them into individual smoothies portions and put them into individual sandwich bags.

Then I put them into the freezer. You don’t lose nutrients by freezing fruit and veg so win win as far as I am concerned!

Then when it comes to smoothie time just chuck in the blender with your liquid of choice and you are good to go.

An added bonus is that you end up with less fruit and veg waste.

Homemade summer ice lollies

I have a confession to make. I don’t really like ice cream. There I said it, now bite me. (Just to note, as controversially, I also dislike Beyoncé, people have serious issues with this fact for some reason)

So I thought I would tackle making my own dessert using Greek Yoghurt which is high in protein and healthy fats.

After the banana strawberry yoghurt failure that was this…

I thought I might have to reel it in and go for something a bit less, well, phallus shaped!

This was the result…

Slight improvement wouldn’t you agree?? Although I must admit the banana yoghurt combo tasted incredible!

SUMMER BERRY ICE LOLLIES

In order to make these you need Tupperware ice lolly moulds. You can get them from Lakeland or Amazon.

Because I don’t know how big your moulds are it’s going to be hard to give quantities, so you might have to wing it a bit! Don’t worry you can handle this.

Ingredients

– Greek yoghurt (do me a favour and don’t even consider going low fat. The fat is replaced with sugar. Now put it down)

– Strawberries

– Berries of your choosing (I went for raspberries and blueberries but you can use whatever you have in your fridge or even just more strawberries)

Now what to do?

Blend a handful of strawberries with enough Greek yoghurt to fill your moulds.

Place your berries of choice into your moulds.

Pour the Greek yoghurt on top of the berries.

Place the lollie sticks into the mixture and then freeze for an hour or until they are hard.

Dah dahhhhhh

Fresh Summer Salad

Gone are the days where a salad is a bit of iceberg lettuce with tomato and a token slice of cucumber.

Personally I love a salad which mixes sweet and savoury as I find it keeps it interesting.

I eat this salad a lot for lunch or as a side salad to a main dish when I have people over.  It keeps well in the fridge so I make two days worth at a time to save prep time.  If doing this you might want to leave the apple cider vinegar until serving as it will make the spinach soggy otherwise.

Fresh Summer Salad

1 x handful of spinach
1/2 x green apple (Granny smith is my go to as it adds a nice tang)
1/2 x carrot
1/2 x avocado
1/4 x pomegranate
1/4 x beetroot
1/4 x tin chickpeas
1 x tablespoon of apple cider vingegar

Optional topping of tofu or prawns if you are using as lunch rather than a side salad.

1. De-seed pomegranate.  Top tip is to bash the skin with a wooden spoon prior to cutting as this will loosen the seeds.  Also the more ripe the pomegranate the easier it is to de-seed.

2. Grate the beetroot and carrot.

3. Cut apple and avocado into chunks.

4. Open tin of chickpeas and rinse with cold water.

4. Add all ingredients on top of spinach and drizzle (oh yeah) apple cider vinegar over the salad just before serving.

Refreshing blueberry smoothie

Juices and smoothies are such a great way to get extra fruits and vegetables into you! I am definitely all about the smoothies as I think it’s good to keep the fibre in and more practically I find smoothies involve a hell of a lot less mess!

One thing I would say is try to gradually increase your vegetable to fruit ratio. Although fruit is great for you it can contain a lot of sugar by the time you have blended a few pieces up. Although still better than a chocolate bar so crack on if you fancy a fruity number.

I love this recipe as it is so refreshing because of the cucumber and coconut water and the ginger gives it a nice kick.

BLUEBERRY CUCUMBER REFRESHING SMOOTHIE

Makes 2-3

1 x cucumber
1 x tub of blueberries
1 x green apple
1 x chunk of ginger
2 x sprigs of mint
330ml coconut water

Put in the blender and blitz up until smooth. Add ice if desired.

Enjoy!

Ps I often make enough for a few days worth and put it in the freezer and defrost as needed… Efficient as always.

Why Carbs are NOT the Devil

Firstly I need to qualify this statement (being a lawyer and all) WHOLEGRAIN UNPROCESSED CARBS are not the devil.  However when it comes to the white stuff you can say what you want about those bad boys.

Carbs have had a pretty bad rep recently, with the Atkins, Dukan and Paleo diet banishing carbs from many a dieters plate.  But wholegrain carbs actually have huge health benefits and should play a fundamental part in every healthy blue bird’s diet.   The majority of the nutrients are contained in the germ and outer covering of the grain.  These are removed during the refining process, hence why white carbs have little nutritional benefit.

The Good, the Bad and the Absolutely Gorgeous

All very well, but what the hell are wholegrain carbs…

The Good – Literally ‘whole’ ‘grains’ such as brown rice, millett, quinoa, bulgar wheat (all bar bulgar wheat gluten free).

The Bad – white bread, bagels, pasta, crisps, white rice…these carbs are effectively sugar in disguise.

The Absolutely Gorgeous – VEGETABLES!  Full of healthy carbs with lots of vitamins and minerals thrown in for good measure

So tell us the benefits

Fibre, fibre and more fibre….Fibre is the part of a grain or vegetable that our body cannot digest, but that is actually where the benefit lies.  Fibre moves through the stomach and intestine, cleansing as it goes and, em well, keeps you regular.  A high fibre diet has been linked to a reduction in risk of certain types of cancer, particularly stomach, bowel and colon cancer.

Slowly digested…Wholegrain carbs are complex carbs which means they are slowly released keeping you fuller for longer thereby helping you control your weight. It also has the effect of controlling blood sugar levels which can reduce your chances of diabetes by 35%.

Carbs reduce cravings… Ever tried to cut an entire food group out of your diet?  Sugar cravings will take over your life, it is not pretty (thanks Mr Dukan)!  Adding wholegrain carbs into your diet will prevent this and make you less likely to cave.

Super duper cheap… not a health benefit but a huge advantage none the less

A word of warning

Food labelling standards only require a product to contain 1% wholegrain to make the wholegrain claim.  Also food manufacturers often colour their products with molasses (that is black treacle FYI) to trick consumers into thinking their products are brown and therefore whole grains.  When reading labels look for ‘whole wheat flour’ rather than ‘wheat flour’ (which is actually just good old white flour).

How to eat

Wholegrains are super simple to prepare – just chuck in boiling water as you would rice.

An easy way to introduce them into your diet is to substitute white carbs for wholegrains, ie rice, bread, pastas.  And if in doubt…..just eat more vegetables!!!!