Persimmon Chocolate Marble Oats

Superrrrrrr easy recipe! Well oatmeal is usually super easy anyway. Especially if you use instant oats like I did! The chocolate sauce for this is bitter on it's own, but with the sweet creamy oats I promise it'll be fine!! Usually I don't post oatmeal because my oats aren't very photogenic..... But it was requested by a follower so of course I made some :) If you ever want a recipe, just request and I'll try to make it! 

I added protein powder to this. You can leave that out but add more oats! Also add some honey or whatever sweetener you like ^^

The marble effect destroyed :( 

Questie on the side :>

What you'll need

100g persimmon (half a persimmon)

1/3 cup cup instant oats

1 small scoop vanilla protein about 15g

About 1/2 cup almost boiling water 

1 egg white 

1.5 tsp cocoa powder 

1 tbsp water 

How to

1. Microwave persimmon until soft. I microwaved for about 1.5 min. Next purée it in a blender.

2. Mix oats and protein powder. Pour in boiling water. Add in egg white. Stir well. Egg whites will cook in the water and make oatmeal really creamy! Next add in persimmon purée. And stir.

3. Mix cocoa powder (make sure it's not clumpy) and water. Swirl in oats like this. 

Then run a tooth pick up and down the oatmeal in a zig zag pattern. 

4. Add some raisins and coconut or whatever you wish! 

Spiced Maple Chestnut Cake (Gluten Free) (Paleo)

Tis the season to be jolly! We are approaching the Christmas season friends! And this is the first in the collection of Christmasy recipes I'll be posting! 

This gluten free chestnut cake is so easy it literally took half an hour to get it in to the oven.

Want a piece?

Its gluten free and paleo (apart from the icing)! Totally healthy. I used half boiled chestnuts and half roasted chestnuts. You can easily get preroasted chestnuts from a supermarket. They sell them as snacks in little 100g bags ☺️ 

Do note though, if I were to bake this again for my family (they absolutely loved this) I would add something to hold the cake together better. Such as chia or xantham gum or starch. 

What you'll need

Cake:

300g cooked and peeled chestnuts

3/4 level teaspoon baking powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 cup maple syrup

2 eggs separated 

3 tbsp coconut oil

1/4 cup water

Frosting:

1 tub Greek yogurt (170 g)

1 tbsp Maple syrup

(Not paleo, but can sub with cashew cream or coconut cream!) 

How to

1. Process chesnuts until it's like a clumpy flour. 

2. Mix baking powder and spices into ground chestnut. Beat maple syrup, oil, 2 egg yolks and water together. Pour into ground chesnut and combine well. 

Preheat oven to 160C. 

3. Beat egg whites until stiff peaks and gently fold into chestnut mixture. 

4. Transfer batter to a prepared 6 inch round pan and bake for 40min. Lower temperature to 150C and bake for 10min. Then 140C for 10min. ((Honestly though I think you should just do 150C for 45min or so. I'm sorry I don't feel like rebaking the cake just to tweak the temperature))

5. When cake is cool, flip it out onto a plate. Mix greek yogurt and maple syrup together, spread over the cake. Top with walnuts or anything your heart desires. Orange zest would go nicely I think.

Chili Beef Pie

You see London inspired me quite a bit. I saw the pies in London and thought heh I should make a pie. And then my parents had a chili beef pizza and raved about what an awesome combination it was... So here we have it, healthy chili beef pie. 

It's like spicy beef stew under a blanket of pie crust. I'm going to be honest here, the crust isn't flaky and puffy like usual pie. For that you'll need puff pastry which needs lots of butter. This is more like the base of a tart kind of crust. But it is still a pie none the less, and a delicious one at that! 

Also I hope you noticed my new blog template! Do you like it better than the old one? 

What you'll need

Pastry:

1/4 cup whole wheat flour

1/5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp oil

1/4 tsp butter extract

2 tbsp water

Filling:

100g lean beef chuck, cut into 2cm pieces

1 tsp wholemeal flour

1/2 tsp olive oil

2 tbsp onion, chopped

1/2 tsp diced garlic

1 small chili padi, diced (slightly longer than an inch) 

2 tbsp carrots, diced

2 tbsp leek, chopped

1 Swiss white button mushroom, sliced

1/2 cup water

1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs

1 tbsp tomato pasta sauce

Dash of black pepper

How to

1. To make the pastry, mix wholewheat flour with baking powder. Then form a well. Pour wet pastry ingredients in all at once, and knead to form a dough. Set aside. (As always, too dry add water, too wet add flour)

2. Toss beef cubes in wholemeal flour. Heat olive oil in a non stick pan, and fry onion, garlic and chili over medium heat. 

3. Once fragrant add in the beef and cook until the beef turns brown. Add in remaining ingredients. Mix everything together well. Simmer until the water is mostly evaporated and it's like a stew!

4. Preheat oven to 220C. Roll out dough until fairly thin. I just made it the right size for my dish. Put beef in a porcelain dish, cover with pie crust, press the edges with a fork. Cut slits in the pie crust. Bake for 25min and eat!! 

Reese's Pizza Pockets

Peanut butter and chocolate. I just never get sick of this combination. These Reese's pizza pockets are wonderful if you're like me. Peanut butter chocolate chip deliciousness wrapped up in cinnamon spiced pizza dough, baked to perfection and drizzled with maple sweetened chocolate syrup. 

Delicious fresh out of the oven. But today I had one chilled and it was really yummy too. Although I forgot to add sweetener to the filling, it turned out perfect, to me. If you prefer things sweeter sub the 1 tbsp of water in the filling with 1 tbsp of maple syrup. Also feel free to add more cacao nibs! Cacao nibs can be subbed with dark chocolate chips :) 

Can't take dairy? Sub cottage cheese with something of a similar consistency like mashed banana or something! You can even omit that and just add more peanut flour and pb and water ☺️ 

What you'll need

Pizza dough: 

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

1/2 tsp quick-rising yeast

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/3 teaspoon honey/brown rice syrup

5.5 tbsp water,

1 tsp coconut oil

Peanut butter filling: 

1 tbsp peanut butter 

1/4 cup peanut flour 

1/4 cup Cottage cheese

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp water OR maple syrup 

1 rounded tsp cacao nibs

Beaten egg

Chocolate syrup:

1 tbsp maple syrup 

1 tsp cocoa powder 

1. Mix flour, yeast and cinnamon together. 

2. Make a well in dry ingredients and pour 2 tbsp water, oil and brown rice syrup in. Knead. Add the rest of the water in tbsp by tbsp, just enough that you can form a ball of dough. Let the dough proof for 20 minutes. If the dough is sticky add flour, if it's dry and water! 

3. Make filling by mixing all the filling ingredients together.

4. Now roll out dough on some wax paper into a 6 x 6 inch square. Cut it into 6 squares. Then roll each piece out somemore until it's about 0.1-0.2 cm thick. 

Preheat oven to 230C. 

5. Fill up the pieces with the filling. Dampen the inner edges with water, Fold the squares over into triangles, and press down with a fork to seal. 

6. Brush lightly with beaten egg. Bake for 12 min. 

7. Mix sauce ingredients together (takes a bit of stirring) and drizzle over! Then stuff your face. 

P.S don't waste the egg. Please eat it after!

Finally a non-recipe post. Yesterday was a very special day, because the wonderful Andrea from readysetfoogo kindly nominated me for the Liebster Award! 

I've never heard of this award to be honest, but I'm really surprised to have been nominated for something. At times I wonder if anyone actually cares to read my blog, because I don't hear many reviews of my recipes :/ It's nice to know my effort has been worth something! I feel extremely extremely unworthy of being nominated but I shall accept the nomination anyway :') Like it says above the award is one that allows us to discover new blogs and I'm happy to have discovered Andrea's! Thank you x 8973920820!

About the award:

The Liebster Award is an award for ‘up and coming’ bloggers with less than 200 followers.

There are many revisions of the rules. Here’s the set I’ll use:

• Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
• Link back to the blogger who awarded you.
• Copy &  paste the award to your blog.
• Nominate 5 blogs to receive the award who have less than 3000 followers.
• Inform them of their nomination by leaving comment on their blog.

SO these are the questions that I have to answer:

1) Describe yourself in one word.

Over-thinker.

2) What’s your favorite food?

Oh gosh. I love all sorts of food its really hard to pick one?? I mean there are so many delicious flavors. If I gave an answer to this question it would definitely not be an honest one!

3) Your childhood snack growing up.

Mamee noodles woot woot! It was always so fun crushing the noodles inside and then mixing the seasoning in. Sometimes we'd just eat the noodle block on its own! I've always wondered what would happen if you tried to cook it like instant noodles. I've yet to find out. 

4) Your most memorable moment in 2013

2013 hasn't ended yet so I assume this means so far. Um. Um. Um. This is another tough one. I don't know if something is memorable until time passes and then I think what happened in 2013. Then I'll know. I'm sorry I can't answer ): 

5) Hard boiled or soft boiled eggs?

Hard boiled! Actually I'm not sure. If its just a slightly softer version of hard boiled then I guess soft boiled. But if its soft boiled to the point where the yolk is rather raw and runny (tongue twister?) I'll have to go with hard boiled. I just can't seem to love "yolk porn" like some people. 

6) Describe your ideal weekend.

Well, 

1. Make amazingly delicious and photogenic food, and post the recipes on my blog.

2. Eat good food I've never tried before in the company of my friends/family.

3. KILL MY WORKOUTS!

4. Go shopping and hang out with fun people :-)
5. Also it should be a long weekend due to some school/public holiday

7)  What would you eat for your last meal?

Buffet with international cuisine. 

8) Who motivated you to start blogging?

Well I first started blogging on a personal blog like 3 years ago. My neighbour had a blog and I thought she was super cool so I started one too! It was a rather pathetic blog though hahaha. As for this blog, I can't remember. Must have been a bunch of instagram-ers I followed who started posting their recipes on blogger as well! 

9) Name an eatery that you’re dying to try!

Definitely real food cafe!!!!!!! I've been meaning to try it for so long I have to get around to doing it soon! I don't know who I should go with though.

10) What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

I just realized I haven't eaten many weird things. I was a fussy kid so growing up I basically lived off the same foods... Don't judge me the weirdest thing I've eaten is clams or something in japan hahaha. Weird to me because its so squishy and stuff. (I know its not weird at all I'm the one who is weird)

These questions are so tough. The time I took to type this post is just...........

This is somewhat a chain award, you pass it on once you receive it! It's honestly difficult to choose 5 bloggers with less than 3000 followers because I can't tell how many followers some bloggers have. But without further ado here are my nominees:

Ginger girl - swallowyoursecrets.blogspot.com

Gluttonous Nutritionist - thechiafuldigest.blogspot.com

Sheryl - http://eatgreencake.wordpress.com/

Yvonne - http://vonnix.tumblr.com/

Serene - http://www.eatyourrainbows.com

Honestly I have no idea how many followers they have on their blogs, but I think they are all amazing anyway!

My 10 questions for them:

1. Sweet or savory?

2. What is one place you want to travel to?

3. When did you start blogging?

4. What time do you normally eat breakfast?

5. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

6. Which grocery store do you prefer to shop at?

7. How do you take and edit your photos?

8. Do you have any pets?

9. If you had to throw away your computer or phone which would you choose?

10. What is your favourite restaurant?

xx

Pumpkin Chicken Risotto

Hellooo. Today's lunch was pumpkin chicken risotto. I used leftover brown rice which made it quicker to make! Those hardcore risotto fans, don't kill me for not using special risotto rice lol.

This was simply divine. Creamy, sweet and buttery mmmm. I think what made this dish so tasty was the butter extract. I highly recommend it. I got it from iHerb.com!  http://www.iherb.com/?rcode=LPQ082 use this for a discount on your first order :-) 

What you'll need

1/2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp diced garlic

2 tbsp diced onion

140g chicken, cut in to bite sized pieces 

3/4 cup cooked brown rice

1/3 cup steamed pumpkin, puréed 

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup low fat cottage cheese 

1/2 tsp butter extract 

Dash of black pepper

3 leaves sweet basil, torn up

Almond flakes 

A bit more pumpkin

Cayenne pepper (if you wish)

How to

1. Heat olive oil in a non stick sauce pan (such a small portion of food anyway).

2. Sauté garlic and onion over medium heat. Once fragrant, add in chicken pieces and cook until opaque. Then remove from the sauce pan.

3. Now add in brown rice, puréed pumpkin, water, cottage cheese, butter extract. Mix together well and simmer until the water has mostly evaporated. Just cook until the consistency of risotto you prefer. 

4. Add a dash of black pepper and stir in the torn up basil leaves. Serve with almond flakes, a dash of cayenne if you wish and a few pumpkin bits. 

Hi! I love eating paus so it was about time I made a healthy recipe for one. I'm glad I did because I really enjoyed gobbling these up! I used a mixture of organic wholemeal and Hong Kong flour for this. I know the latter is not exactly healthy but a little won't kill you. This pau won't be as fluffy as regular pau because it's 50% wholemeal which makes it heavier. 

If you want a fluffier pau you can adjust accordingly by replacing some wholemeal flour with the Hong Kong flour. Hong Kong flour is low protein white flour that has been bleached a lot. It's very light so it makes buns, breads etc softer. If you really can't find it you can use white flour. 

The previous time I made this I used a bob's red mill gluten free flour and some corn starch instead of the HK flour and it was pretty okay too. You can do that if you wish. 

What you'll need 

Filling:

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup brown rice syrup (you can sub with honey, agave or maple syrup but I think you have to use less. In my opinion, brown rice syrup isn't very sweet)

1/3 cup milk

1/4 cup corn kernels 

3 tbsp coconut flour

Pau: 

3/4 tsp instant yeast

75 gm wholemeal flour

75 gm hongkong flour 

1/2 level tsp double action baking powder

1 tsp honey/brown rice syrup/agave/maple syrup

70ml water

1 tsp coconut oil

Extra ww flour if the dough gets sticky

How to

Filling: 

1. Mix egg, brown rice syrup and milk in a sauce pan. 

2. Heat over high flame until the mixture begins to bubble. Then over low heat simmer 13min, add corn kernels, simmer 3min longer. 

3. Then stir in coconut flour and let the mixture cool. It will thicken by the time you need to use it.

Pau: 

1. Mix wet ingredients. 

2. Mix dry ingredients.

3. Make a well in dry ingredients. Pour wet into dry ingredients and knead into a ball. Add flour if too sticky. Leave to proof for 1h.

4. Punch down. Split into 6 equal portions. Flatten dough into a disk. Wrap dough around corn custard filling. Rest for 20min.

5. Steam over rapid boiling water for 10min. Leave in steamer for 3 min after cooking. 

P.S The pau surface will be a bit sticky when its first done steaming. But when you let it cool and stuff it'll be fine!

Baked Scotch Eggs

On my trip to London I saw these scotch eggs and I knew I had to try and healthify them. Traditionally a scotch egg is a hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, coated in breadcrumbs and deep fried. I'm sure that's all really delicious but its probably not too good for you. 

I made my own bread crumbs using a slice of 100% wholemeal bread. All I did was rip up the bread and bake the small bread pieces in a preheated oven. 150C 10min. Then I processed it in a food processor/mini bullet blender thing.

What you'll need

1 hard boiled egg 

1/2 tsp dried mixed herbs 

1/4 - 1/3 tsp smoked paprika 

40g minced chicken breast 

40g minced pork (lean) 

1 tbsp wholemeal flour

1 egg white 

Wholemeal breadcrumbs 

How to

1. Mix herbs, paprika, chicken and pork together.

2. Beat egg white in bowl A. Put flour in bowl B. Put breadcrumbs in bowl C.

Preheat oven to 200C.

3. Form the meat into a flat disk. Wrap hard boiled egg in the meat. Next evenly coat the egg + meat ball in wholemeal flour. Dust off the excess. Next dunk it into the egg white. Make sure it's all coated. Lastly coat it in the breadcrumbs!

4. Now bake it on a greased pan/greased aluminium foil/parchemnt paper for about 27 min.

Tabasco Chocolate Chicken

I do realise how strange this sounds. Tabasco and chocolate and chicken served with naan??? BUT 

It works.

It's such a #strangebutgood recipe and I have to share it! 

What you'll need 

150g chicken breast, chopped

3 tbsp water

1/2 - 1 tsp Tabasco sauce (to taste)

1 tsp cocoa powder

1 tsp honey

1/3 tsp ground paprika

1/3 tsp minced garlic 

1 tsp olive oil

Chopped red bell pepper

Serve with:

Naan

Lettuce 

How to

1. Mix all the ingredients except chicken and olive oil.

2. Marinate chicken in the sauce. 

3. Heat olive oil in a pan. Add in the chicken pieces and fry over mediu heat. When the chicken is opaque, pour the remaing marinade over and simmer till the liquid evaporates. Add in some chopped red bell pepper.

4. Serve with naan and lettuce.