Sun Dried Tomato Cashew Pesto

Happy New Year's Eve!! So this is rather different from regular basil, pine nut pesto BUT it's just as delicious if not better! It's so easy to whip up and tastes great on toast and crackers with some lemon juice. You can water down the pesto a little, stir it through some pasta and serve with some protein for a satisfying main course!

There's only one step for this recipe!! Just blend up everything hehehe. I love thyme and sun dried tomatoes btw :-)) Also hope y'all are having a good New Year's Eve!

What you'll need

50g sun dried tomatoes

15g (2 tbsp) cashews 

1/2 tsp minced garlic

1 tsp fresh thyme leaves 

2-3 tbsp water (your preference)

How to

1. Blend everything together well!

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Yum in my tum. Gluten and dairy free sweet potato gnocchi!

Just realised gnocchi is sorta like western dumplings? 

I've never made my own pasta before, which is why I was really excited to make these! I'm honestly so happy with the way they turned out. If you like sweet potato you'll absolutely love these. You can really use any herb in place of rosemary, but I think rosemary goes fantastic with sweet potato! 

The pasta can be a little sticky, so when you're forming the little gnocchi pieces use slightly damp hands and a slightly damp fork. Water repels the stickiness :D 

What you'll need 

160g sweet potato 

1/4 cup all purpose gluten free flour blend

1 egg white, beaten

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

Water and a fork/gnocchi board

2 tsp olive oil

1/4 tsp butter extract 

1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves 

1/2 tsp minced garlic 

Black pepper 

Cherry tomatoes

How to 

1. Scrub sweet potato and poke holes in it with a knife. Bake the sweet potato in a preheated oven at 200C for 1h. Let the sweet potato cool, scrape out the insides and mash. 

2. Mix flour, egg white and smoked paprika into the sweet potato. Combine well into a slightly sticky dough. 

3. Take a teaspoon of dough and roll it into a oval shaped sphere aka an ovoid! Roll it on the fork to make the line indents you commonly see on gnocchi. Set aside and repeat until the dough is used up. 

4. Set gnocchi aside to air dry for an hour. Then cook gnocchi in boiling water for a few minutes until they float to the surface. Remove with a sieve or slotted spoon. 

5. Heat olive oil and butter extract in a pan over high heat. Fry garlic and rosemary. When fragrant immediately turn off heat and toss in gnocchi. Serve with black pepper and cherry tomatoes!

Pandan Salmon Bundels

Oh boy. The second I, no, BEFORE I even removed these guys from the oven, I could smell how delicious they would be. The slightly charred pandan and the Asian marinated salmon together were so fragrant, I immediately started freaking out because I knew what I had created today was a success. 

Savory recipes are sometimes tricky, because salt adds a lot of flavour. But with these you won't miss the salt at all! The combination of the shallots, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, chili and pandan is absolutely divine. If you love pandan, salmon and lemongrass as much as I do, you HAVE to try this recipe!

Even better, it's so simple! Anyone can do this :-) 

Be sure to leave your pandan leaves wet after washing them to keep them from burning while on the grill!

What you'll need

125g salmon fillet, cut in to 4 pieces

1.5 tbsp shallot

1/2 tsp minced garlic

1 tbsp chopped lemongrass (white part)

1 tsp chopped ginger

1/2 red chili, chopped

1 tsp honey

1 tbsp water 

4 pandan leaves (leave wet)

How to

1. Blend all ingredients together EXCEPT pandan and salmon. Marinate salmon in the paste for 30min - 1h. 

2. Preheat grill. Roll each piece of salmon (along with some paste) in a damp pandan leaf. Keep the end of the leaf at the bottom of the salmon so it does fly out. Grill for 12min. If your pandan leaves look like their getting too brown, brush some water on and continue grilling! 

I served mine with brown rice, salad and tomatoes.

Another pizza post. Sorry I'm not sorry.

These are like pizza, minus the grease and carbs.

Gluten free too! Quinoa is also higher in protein than other carbs like rice :)

Going for a swim in pizza sauce. Actually I used pasta sauce but what's the difference haha.

I do realised I just spammed you guys with pictures but I can't short list them it's so difficult sigh. 

What you'll need

1/2 cup cooked quinoa 

1/3 cup shredded cheese 

1/4 cup chopped shallots

1 tsp minced garlic

Slightly under 1/4 cup parsley or basil 

1/2 tsp chili flakes

1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs (ensure there's oregano in there) 

1/2 tsp smoked paprika 

50g turkey breast, chopped up

1 egg

Serve with: pasta or pizza sauce

How to 

Preheat oven to 180C

1. Mix everything together except egg. Beat egg and combine with the other ingredients.

2. Divide into 5 greased muffin cups. Bake for about 18min. Cool slightly, remove from tray and serve with sauce!

Ps you can try less cheese and an extra egg white if you want.

Mint French Toast Tree

Hello! This post is so late!! I'm sorry I've been lazy. Though no one asked for this recipe I'll just leave it here in case anyone ever wants it later on :) Do you see two angels at the base of my Christmas tree? Let's pretend they have their wings folded in :)  

Had this super cute breakfast on Christmas morning and I had way too much fun dressing my tree up. 

I used a gooseberry as my "star" to top my french toast tree. 

Licked the plate clean. Yup.

Did you guys have a very Merry Christmas? 

What you'll need 

1 egg 

2 tbsp milk 

1/4 cup baby spinach

1/2 tbsp honey 

1/4 tsp peppermint extract 

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

2 slices wholemeal bread

Oil to fry 

Decorations:

Fruit 

Yogurt 

1/2 tbsp honey + 1 tsp cocoa powder = chocolate sauce 

How to

1. Blend egg, milk, baby spinach, honey, peppermint extract and vanilla extract. 

2. Heat oil in a pan. Dip a slice bread into the batter and let both sides absorb a good amount of batter before frying over low heat. Repeat with the next slice. 

3. Now decorate and eat up!

I love sweet potato. My favourite way to eat it has always been twice baked (recipe posted before). But this new method may be just as good if not better! This is great to serve at a party because the hasselback effect just looks really.. Cool. 

Usually I don't bake my potatoes with oil but I did use some this time. OMG it makes a huge difference. Like it gets all crispy and stuff :O Look!

I served mine with otah stuffed baked chicken. Just slit a chicken breast, stuffed some otah in the centre, sealed with toothpicks, seasoned and backed it :D 

What you'll need

1 sweet potato (150g ish)

1 tsp olive oil

1/4 tsp butter extract

1/2 tsp minced garlic

1 tbsp chopped parsley 

How to

Preheat oven to 200C. 

1. Slice sweet potato 3/4 way down into 0.3 - 0.5 cm thick slices. No need to be too precise actually.

2. Mix olive oil, butter extract, minced garlic and parsley together. Rub mixture all over the sweet potato and don't forget to get between the slices. It helps to use a butter knife!!

3. Bake for 45min. Fan out the slices with a butter knife and your hands. Curve the sweet potato back slightly to help the slices fan out! 

4. Bake for 10 more minutes and eat! If you want you can serve this with greek yogurt and chives :-)

Red Velvet French Toast

Red velvetttttttt. The combination of vanilla kissed with cocoa and the cream cheese frosting is just perfection. My frosting is greek yogurt for more protein and less fat but you can totally use cream cheese if you wanted! 

And guys tomorrow is Christmas Eve yay :) I spent today afternoon making cute cards for my family members, hopefully they appreciate it. Also, I won the Christmas recipe contest by funwithmunch so thank you guys so much for voting for me :) 

What you'll need

2 tbsp chopped beet root 

2 tbsp milk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 tbsp honey 

1 egg 

2 slices wholemeal bread 

Oil to fry 

1/3 cup greek yogurt to serve 

How to

1. Blend first 5 ingredients together. Make sure there aren't any beet root chunks! Then blend in the egg. 

2. Dip your bread slices in the French toast batter. Heat some oil in the pan. Then fry bread pieces on both sides until slightly browned. 

3. Serve with greek yogurt and whatever else you want, 

And your done! 

Paleo English muffins! Complete with the nooks and crannies of our usual muffin, perfect for spreading creamy nut butters and jam on :-)) Paleo also means dairy free and gluten free yay! These are about 100 calories per muffin, low fat, low carb and high in protein and fiber! 

How to serve: Split your English muffin in half and toast. I topped one half with mashed raspberries, pistachio and desiccated coconut. The other with adams crunchy peanut butter, cottage cheese and pomegranate arils ~

Yum and not hard at all to make. It may take a while to bake but remember, real English muffins require a lot of waiting time to let the dough rise! So this is actually quicker and healthier too :) 

The yeast is just to add flavour... The boiling water kind of kills the yeast haha. 

What you'll need

1/4 cup coconut flour 

3 tbsp psyllium husk 

1 tsp baking powder

1/3 tsp yeast (for flavour) 

3 egg whites

1/3 cup boiling water

How to

1. Mix dry ingredients. 

2. Mix in egg whites with a fork. Add in the boiling water and combine well.

Preheat oven to 160C

3. Form the dough into two English muffin shaped patties. Heat a little oil in a pan and fry the patties over low heat on both sides until golden brown. 

4. Place on baking paper and bake for 40min. The bottoms will look nicer after baking so turn them around after baking. 

5. Use a fork to split into two, toast, and serve! 

Gingerbread popcorn!

Sorry I haven't been uploading many recipes! They keep failing on me lately haha. Also I uploaded this late because I was lazy. Anyway this popcorn is healthy because it's almost fat free and is sweetened with maple syrup instead of corn syrup etc. I had no idea making popcorn was so simple. Basically just microwaving and mixing. Please note that you need to eat this fresh or it'll get kinda soft from the maple syrup after a while.

Gingerbread popcorn = Christmas movie night?? I don't have those other gingerbread spices like nutmeg, cloves or whatever but you can add them if you do :-)) 

Makes about 4 cups of popcorn 

What you'll need

3 tbsp corn 

3 tbsp - 4 tbsp maple syrup 

1 tsp ground ginger 

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Dash of allspice 

How to

1. Put corn in a big bowl and cover. Microwave for 1min 45s. Then remove the popped corn kernals (so they don't burn). Keep microwaving at 1 - 2 min intervals and removing the popped corn until all the corn has been popped. 

2. In a large bowl stir popped corn and maple syrup together. Then add in all the spices and combine well. Done! 

:) 

Microwave Christmas Pudding

Isnt this adorable! Now you can eat an entire Christmas pudding on your own. You can even eat it for breakfast like I did and not feel bad :P It was tricky getting the colour to match the original Christmas pudding colour without using alcohol, brown sugar etc so I used cocoa powder! You can't taste it though hah. If you can then you have really good taste buds :-)

I'm so excited for Christmas. I'm almost completely done with Christmas shopping! 

Side note: Guys it's raining do heavily now and the wind is crazyyyy. Knocked the whole Christmas tree over whaaaat. 

Nice moist inside ❤️ 

What you'll need

1/3 cup oat flour

1/4 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp cocoa powder

30g raisins (I normal sized box!)

1 tsp water

1 egg 

1 tbsp chopped almonds 

1/4 cup grated apple 

1/4 tsp orange zest

Plain yogurt

Flat leaf parsley

Raspberries 

How to

1. Blend oat flour with spices and cocoa powder. Transfer to a bowl.

2. Blend raisins with water. Now add raisins and egg to the bowl of oat flour. Beat it all together.

3. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Scrape the inner sides of the bowl down so all the batter is together. Smooth the surface of the batter. Cover bowl with cling wrap and microwave 3 min or so until everything is cooked! 

4. Serve with yogurt, parsley and raspberries :)

More cranberry and pistachio things for Christmas! May not be very creative but there IS a reason why this combination is so popular. These scones are gluten and egg free plus they are low fat because we use greek yogurt instead of butter here! 

But to be honest, even though these scones are delicious, the texture is kinda bun-like. It's more like a scone bun than a scone?? I'm not sure if I should reduce the greek yogurt or add more baking soda or flour :/ Anyway, some of you want the recipe so here it is :) 

Drizzled mine with plain non fat no sugar yogurt!

So deeeelicious. 

What you'll need

1 and 1/4 cup gluten free flour blend

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp cinnamon 

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup greek yogurt

1/2 cup fresh cranberries

1/4 cup shelled pistachio

How to 

1. Soak your shelled pistachios in hot water for 15-20min. 

2. Meanwhile, mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon together. Than add in the honey and greek yogurt. combine everything together well. 

Preheat oven to 190C

3. Rub the skins off the pistachio to reveal the green insides. Now fold cranberries and pistachios into the scone dough. 

4. Use an ice cream scoop to scoop 5 balls of dough out onto a baking tray lined with parchment paper. ((They should be bigger than the ice cream scoop size. The scoop just makes it easier to get equal amounts of dough!))

5. Bake the scones for 20 min and then cool before eating. I left mine in the (turned off) oven to brown a bit longer. They taste great on their own but you can eat them with some breakfast spreads too!

Enjoy!

Mozzarella stuffed Meatballs

They may look like regular meatballs, but when you bite into them, they're filled with ooey gooey mozzarella cheese :-) Really easy to make and you can take these to a Christmas party too! 

These are the mozzarella balls I used. I couldn't find low fat but if you can, good for you! I know they aren't completely healthy but if you use lean beef this recipe is moderately healthy :)

Makes 5 meatballs

What you'll need

120g lean minced beef

1/2 tsp minced garlic

2 tbsp diced onion

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp dried herbs

1/2 tsp chili flakes 

2 tbsp oats 

1 egg white 

5 mozzarella balls

How to

Preheat oven to 200C

1. Mix the 1st 7 ingredients together. Beat in the egg white. 

2. Grab some beef and form it into a disk. Then wrap it around a mozzarella ball. Repeat for the remaining meatballs.

3. Bake for 15min (or longer if needed) then serve with tomato pasta sauce, wholemeal pasta and vegetables.

Raw Vegan Neapolitan Babycakes

Guys I've been thinking. And I think, my photography needs to get better. I'm trying harder now, looking for nice crockery and props. I met up with Andrea and Serene from Instagram yesterday! Serene is totally into buying her crockey. Makes me feel like I should put more thought into my food styling lol.   

Today's raw vegan babycake recipe is sweet, yummy and good to look at! Unfortunately I didn't blend my frosting very well because I didn't have enough strawberries and had to mix in some water and ... Complicated stuff :P if I were to make this again, I'd also double the amount of the (white) vanilla coconut part! 

I call these Babycakes because they are kinda flat for cupcakes hahaha

This is the coconut I used 

NR = Not raw 

Makes 3 babycakes:

What you'll need

Chocolate: 

1/2 cup raw almonds (about 70g) [or NR baked almonds)
1 tbsp raw unsweetened cacao powder [or NR unsweetened cocoa]
50g raw date paste (pitted dates basically)

Vanilla: 

1/4 cups raw skinless almonds (unless you like a browner vanilla part)

1/4 cup dehydrated shredded coconut 

1/2 tbsp agave nectar [not vegan alternative: honey]

Optional: Vanilla bean if you have it [NR: 1/4 tsp vanilla extract]

Frosting:

1/3 cup Cashew

4 medium strawberries + somemore if needed 

How to

1. Process chocolate ingredients together until clumpy and sticky. Press firmly into 3 cupcake liners (placed in a pan) or disposable aluminium cups. 

2. Process vanilla ingredients until clumpy. Press firmly on top of chocolate. Freeze cupcakes for 10min. 

3. Make icing by blending the ingredients together until you are satisfied. Just add strawberries until the texture is the way you like it :-) transfer the frosting into a ziplock bag and cut the tip off. 

4. Get your cupcakes out, pipe frosting onto them and serve up :D

Orange Lemongrass Soufflé

So today I made lemongrass orange soufflés that are not only processed sugar free but are also dairy free. They are so scrummy and soft it's kinda like poking a marshmallow. I'm so happy I succeeded on my FIRST attempt!! It was so exciting watching the soufflés rise :-)

Check it out.

YES I ATE BOTH! But that's because together, they are only about 250 calories. If I ate one that would be a horribly pathetic breakfast. I also had one of my tahini cookies on the side and some mango. Gosh I'm eating all these dessert-y thingys for breakfast T_T I guess I have a sweet tooth. 

What You'll Need

1 tsp coconut oil to grease ramekins

1/2 tbsp minced lemon grass

1 tbsp any milk

1.5 tsp coconut oil

1 tsp coconut flour

1 tbsp fresh orange juice

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest

1 egg yolk

1 egg white

1 tbsp honey

How to

1. Brush the insides of 2 ramekins with coconut oil (1/2 tsp each). Keep in the fridge.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees C. 

2. Mix minced lemongrass with milk. Microwave 1min. Then microwave another 1min. Try to mash up the lemongrass with a fork. 

3. Stir coconut oil, coconut flour, orange zest, orange juice and egg yolks into mixture until smooth.

4. Whisk egg white until frothy. Slowly add 1/2 tbsp honey and whisk. Then add another 1/2 tbsp honey and keep beating until soft peaks form.

5. Remove ramekins from the fridge. Fold half the egg whites into egg yolk mixture until combined. Gently fold in second half until well mixed. Transfer to the prepared ramekins, allowing 1/4-inch of space at the top.

6. Bake until risen and browned, 16 minutes.

The 2nd Christmas recipe, this time a sweet one! Super clean and healthy (and vegan and dairy free) tahini shortbread cookies with hints of cinnamon. When I tried these cookies I fell in love. If I were the sort who left cookies out for Santa, these are the ones I'd leave. They are so simple which means you don't have to wash so much :D only 7 ingredients! Sorry for saying 5 ingredients on Instagram. In my excitement, I forgot how to count. One cookie is about 68 calories. AKA delicious points. 

Santa wants some.

Usually I'm not very good at cookies but these are just the perfect texture!

Buttery and just perfect. Sigh. I'm gonna make another batch of these for my relatives this Christmas. That's saying something because I almost never remake recipes, I'm too busy creating new ones.

Use measuring spoons or you may use too much of an ingredient! 

Makes 8 cookies

What you'll need

1/2 cup gluten free flour blend (Bob's Red Mill)

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp honey (maple syrup would probably work) 

2 tbsp organic hulled tahini (or any nut butter of similar consistency!) 

Juice from 1 wedge of lemon  

1/4 tsp butter extract 

How to 

1. Mix dry ingredients together. Add in wet ingredients and combine well.

Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Make 8 tbsp spoon sized balls of dough and flatten to form cookies, use a fork to make a design on top. 

3. Bake for about 15min on a prepared pan and cool before eating. 

ENJOY! YOU WILL I PROMISE.

P.S the Santa hat is using fage 0% greek yogurt

Pistachio Crusted Salmon with Cranberry Sauce

The first of the two Christmas recipes for today. 

Pistachios and cranberries are a classic Christmas combination. Since I have yet to make a dish with the two, I felt it was only right I made this pistachio crusted baked salmon and cranberry sauce served on a fluffy bed of quinoa. The tartness of the cranberries goes really well with the salmon and adds that wonderfully festive feel. This is so basic anyone can do this :) 

For salmon I used fillets premarinated with a whole bunch of herbs and a little garlic. If you are using plain ones, please add some herbs and garlic to marinate it. 

What you'll need

1 125g salmon fillet (I used premarinated ones, see above)

1/2 a lemon (juice)

15g pistachio nuts

1/4 cup or more cranberries

1 tbsp water

1 tsp honey

Cooked quinoa

Steamed vegetables

How to

1. Chop up pistachio in a small food processor. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Squeeze lemon over salmon fillet and coat the salmon in the chopped pistachio. Bake for 15min.

3. Microwave cranberries for about 40s, depending on your microwave. Mash it up with a fork and mix it together with water and honey. 

4. Serve over salmon with quinoa and steamed vegetables.

P.S To quick steam your vegetables, wash them, don't pay dry and microwave for a 30s or so until cooked. 

SGFS: Kaya Toast Panacotta

At my job attachment with the marketing department at Goodrich Global, I was flipping through magazines and tagging stuff. One of the magazines I really liked was epicure. I think I'm going to subscribe to it. Also appetite magazine had this little recipe book and I saw a kaya toast panacotta, which of course inspired me to create this healthy version!

Single serving and it can be made dairy free, vegan and paleo too. It's fun shaking the plate and wobbling the panacotta :P

Not very green cos my blender isn't the best at blending up leaves :(

What you'll need

3/4 level tsp gelatin

3 tbsp hot milk (whatever kind)

80g coconut milk

6 pandan leaves, cut up

1/4 cup milk (whatever kind)

1 tbsp honey/maple syrup

1 tbsp coffee

1/4 piece of toasted bread

How to

1. Stir gelatin into hot milk and let it dissolve.

2. Blend coconut milk with pieces of pandan leaves. My blender didn't manage to blend the leaves up completely they were a little piecey, but that's fine! As long as the coconut milk has got some green in there....

3. Strain the coconut milk and pandan leaves into the gelatin and milk. Squeeze it all out! Discard the pandan leaves. (There was some coconut milk hanging around on my discarded leaves, but I just couldn't get it through the strainer so whatever.)

4. Stir in the remaining 1/4 cup milk and honey/maple syrup. Pour into a ramekin and cover with cling wrap. Chill in the fridge (I did this overnight aka 8h but 4h should be okay too?) and then serve by running a knife along the edges and turning the panacotta out onto a plate. Pour coffee over and top with a piece of toast :)

Chocochip Gingerbread P-uffins (protein muffins)

This is my favourite kind of recipe. The kind that uses few utensils which makes for easy clean up, and the kind that is so super delicious! Healthy gingerbread protein muffins aka puffins, but with chocolate chips! Super low fat and high protein. 

Moist and delicious interior. 

Another addition to my Christmasy recipes :-) As always, hope you guys try this out!

Please remember to measure with measuring spoons where needed. Oat flour is oats blended into a flour. 

Makes 6 puffins.

What you'll need

30g vanilla protein powder (I used Tera's whey)

30g oats (I used instant quaker oats)

40g oat flour 

1/4 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

2 egg whites

170g non fat greek yoghurt ( tub of fage)

1/4 cup maple syrup or honey

1/2 tbsp grated ginger

30g cacao nibs

20g chocolate chips 

How to

1. Mix dry ingredients together. 

2. Beat wet ingredients. 

3. Pour wet into dry and mix together well. 

4. Fold in cacao nibs and chocolate chips. 

Preheat oven to 180C

5. Line your cupcake/muffin pan with paper liners and lightly grease the paper liners. Divide batter equally between paper liners. Bake for about 25min. Cool slightly before removing from pan. 

Ps: when I ate these fresh out of the oven the muffin kind of stuck to the paper, but somehow, after keeping it in the fridge and reheating it later, it didn't stick anymore lol