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Breakfast

Breakfast, Lunchbox, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw, x For Freezer x

Paleo Flapjacks

Nuts are superheroes, with an arsenal of fancy ninja moves.

Some of the largest health studies in history – the Adventist Study, the Iowa Women’s Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study, and the Physicians’ Health Study – have consistently shown that snacking on raw nuts can lead to a 50% reduction in heart disease.

Research from the British Medical Journal goes further, identifying nuts as one of seven foods that can help reduce the risk of heart disease by up to 75%. You’ll be relieved to hear that dark chocolate and red wine qualify too. You’re welcome.

But don’t get too giddy my friend. You need to recruit the unprocessed, unsalted variety to make a difference to your ticker. Anything else is cheating.

Those flavoured packets in pubs? Bye-bye. We know that unsalted raw nuts contain special-agent unsaturated fats that help raise your protective cholesterol (HDL) while lowering that menacing cholesterol (LDL). Another special-agent fat, omega-3, may also help prevent blood clots much the same way as aspirin does. You’ll find omega 3s dancing in walnuts.

Many nuts are rich in arginine. Scientists, look away while I mutilate your language. Arginine is an amino acid necessary to make a molecule called nitric oxide that relaxes constricted blood vessels and eases blood flow. Think of it as the Bach of the blood. This might indeed help explain why nuts are applauded for their role in protecting arterial walls, making the walls more pliable and less susceptible to damage. Good news for health insurers.

 

 

paleo flapjacks

 

Paleo Flapjacks

1 cup walnuts
1 cup unsalted cashews
Generous pinch of sea salt
1 cup desiccated coconut
1/2 cup any nut butter you fancy
1/4 good honey (preferably local and raw)
Pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon good vanilla extract

 

Pulse the nuts (almonds don’t work here) along with a good pinch of sea salt, the desiccated coconut and your honey in a food processor. A blender will turn it into baby food, which is not today’s vibe.

Add any nut butter you fancy (peanut, cashew, hazelnut or almond), a grating of fresh nutmeg and a whisper of vanilla. Pulse until it clumps together. Don’t be tempted to help the mixture along with water. You’ll regret it! I added a few goji berries for colour too, but they’re not essential.

Scrape and press the flapjack dough into a regular 8×8 brownie square tin. Set in the fridge, and lift out of its tin once firm. Cut into small squares and store in the fridge or freezer. Exactly like flapjacks (until you mizzle melted chocolate all over them of course).

Great with a tall glass of milk.

 

 

Will I see you next week at Avoca Kilmac, between Dublin and Wicklow?? I’ll be signing books from 11:30am on Saturday 28th May 2016, and baking treats for you and your loved ones. Free admission. 

Cover image EV softcopy

Breakfast, Lunchbox, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw

Healthy Marmalade

If you’re not eliminating waste from your bowels, you’ll end up wearing it on your face. Listen up. The skin is our body’s largest excretory organ. Crazy but true. You want luminous skin? Make sure your pipes are on speaking terms with you.

Cranking up the fibre in your diet will have you shaking your booty like Lady Marmalade on the dance floor. By fibre, I don’t mean a bowl of wholemeal pasta. Nice try. When you want fibre, you need to call in the services of black belts like flaxseed, bran, oats, prunes, beans, hummus, and psyllium.

 

psyllium husks

 

Research confirms that scoffing more than 35g of dietary fibre a day can result in a 40% chance of living longer. Jeesh.

Here’s what happens in our very own waste plant. Insoluble fibre from our food acts like a traffic warden, clearing jams and keeping junctions clear. His job is to keep things moving. If nothing moves, waste can build up and re-enter the bloodstream. One way of ridding toxins is to sweat them out on a treadmill. Or frequent the village sauna. Both options are about as appealing as sex with Donald Trump.

So let’s fight with our fork?

Arm yourself with this marmalade. It’s criminally good and much more refreshing than the regular jammy stuff. One taste will ignite your dimples, like kissing Bradley Cooper, or giving Michael Flatley a wedgy live on stage.

The weird sounding seeds can be purchased in savvy pharmacies or health food stores nationwide. They help to set the marmalade. Prunes Shmunes. Psyllium are the King Kong of the colon.

 

healthy marmalade recipe

 

A healthy marmalade

3 unwaxed organic oranges

3 tablespoons psyllium seed husks

Pinch of sea salt

2-3 tablespoons local honey

 

Start by grating the zest from 2 of your oranges. Set aside. Then slice the bum off each of the 3 oranges, and sit them on a chopping board. Carefully carve the skin from each orange with a paring knife, and discard. The white pithy stuff is a little bitter, but it does contain a whack load of nutrition so maybe don’t take it all off.

Cut the orange into chunks, to check for pips.

Add the orange zest, the juicy chunks, your psyllium husks, sea salt and really good honey to the blender (or food processor). Pulse until jammy, but not entirely smooth. You still want beautiful blobs of orange in there.

Scrape into a scrupulously clean jam jar and leave to set for 30 minutes before spreading over hot toast. Refrigerate for 1 week – it will set even more when chilled.

Breakfast, Vegan &/or Raw

4-Grain Porridge

People want three things in life. To be happy. To be healthy. To be rich.

I can’t make you rich, but two out of three ain’t bad! This blog is all about food to make your taste buds break dance, without making you fat or ill. It’s about paying the grocer, not the doctor. It’s about taking the hell out of healthy.

Everyone digs porridge; the steaming bowl of goodness before that icy walk to work; the comforting smell of the kitchen as your oats happily burp on the stove; the sweet syrupy mess you so love to launch on your hot porridge, like a giddy conductor with ADD.

This 4-Grain Porridge is kickass comforting. The best part? It’s a complete source of protein too.

 

4 grain porridge recipe

 

By socialising oats with other grains such as amaranth, buckwheat and chia seed, we achieve a full quota of essential amino acids that otherwise would have fallen short of the bench presser’s Sweet Spot.

This is real cereal, not that sugary nonsense the word ‘cereal’ has come to represent. Whole, unrefined, unadulterated yumness that takes minutes to prepare, but parties in your body all day long.

And yes, oats often contain gluten. I need you to collect yourself. Ready? Gluten is not a poison. Such is the misinformation surrounding gluten, my poor husband thinks we should be taking an insurance policy out against it.

And our neighbour thinks gluten is something that wild teenagers sniff.

If you want to evict something in your diet, ditch the processed cereals and mass-produced granola. Let’s decriminalise gluten. I’ve never seen a herring so scarlet.

 

4 grain porridge4 grain porridge susan jane white

 

4-Grain Porridge
Makes 1kg

 

625g regular oat flakes
125g buckwheat flakes 
125g milled chia seed (not a grain)
125g amaranth flakes
3 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 teaspoon sea salt flakes

 

I find the best way to make this is by asking 2 different pals to purchase the buckwheat flakes and the milled chia. I buy the amaranth flakes. Then we all swap 125g each.

Add the listed ingredients together in a 1kg Kilner or other jar. Shakey shakey shakey.

Store this way for up to 6 months.

When you fancy a bowl of 4-Grain Porridge, just treat the mix like regular oats. We like using 1 teacup of this 4-grain mix to 2.5 teacups of plant milk (oat’s milk is particularly good).

Simmer gently for 10 minutes, until glossy and creamy. Serve with sticky set honey.

 

 

A special announcement

Join me on Substack

Howdy! I’ll be deleting this website shortly. Gah! But please stay in touch – I so appreciate your loyalty and lovebombs.

You can continue to access my recipe drops over on Substack.  Hope to see you there, and to continue frolicking on this veggie-fueled dance floor.