Ginger Longan Upside Down Cake

Delicious ginger longan upside down cake, topped with juicy mandarin orange slices. Perfect for the Chinese New Year season, and gluten free too! This cake wasn't made intentionally for Chinese New Year but my mum told me the flavours were rather suitable and suggested I topped it with mandarin oranges (:

I made this using buckwheat flour. The first time I baked it, it was very dense and heavy. I suspected it might have been the greek yogurt so I replaced a portion of the yogurt with coconut oil and voila — a perfect cake. I also took extra special care to beat the egg whites separately and sift the dry ingredients. 

Although the longans are only at the top of the cake (or rather the bottom) the juice kinds of diffuses through the cake and gives the entire cake a longan taste. 

What you'll need

3/4 cups buckwheat flour

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt

1/4 cup coconut oil

1/8 cup maple syrup

1 egg yolk

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

2 egg white

1/4 tsp apple cider vinegar/citrus fruit juice

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 cups longans 

How to 

1. Pit the longans. Grease and line a 5-6 inch round cake tin. 

2. Sift first 3 ingredients together into a bowl. 

3. Mix greek yogurt, coconut oil, maple syrup, egg yolk and vanilla extract together. Pour the wet mixture into the dry and combine well.

Preheat the oven to 180C

3. Beat egg whites and apple cider vinegar until frothy. Gradually pour in the maple syrup and continue beating until soft peaks, or mid way between soft and stiff. 

4. Fold half the egg whites into the first batter. Then gently fold in the other half until the mixture is one even colour.

5. Evenly distribute pitted longans across the bottom of the cake tin. Pour batter over. Tap in the counter top a few times to get the air bubbles out. 

6. Bake for about 50min. Cool slightly before turning out on to a plate. Cut off the rounded top (or rather bottom) of the cake and then flip it onto another plate so it is now upside down and the longans are on top of the cake. 

Remember to serve topped with some mandarin oranges :-))

Sweet and Sour Meatballs

After one bite of this, I flipped out and couldn't stop raving about it for the next few hours. These healthy sweet and sour meatballs are honestly THAT good. They taste and look like they were made in a Chinese restaurant! 

I'm going to teach my maid how to cook this for us, so we can have it for dinner some day! On weekdays my maid cooks dinner (-: 

Perfect blend of sweet and sour! Plus it's low fat unlike the usual sweet and sour pork. I messed these up last weekend and they were terrible!! But my mum motivated me to try again (-: I'm so glad I did!

What you'll need

140g minced chicken (or you can use half pork half chicken)

1 tbsp tomato paste

1 tbsp honey

1.5 tbsp apple cider vinegar

1/2 tsp light soya sauce

1/3 tsp Chinese rice wine

3 tbsp water

1/2 tsp olive oil

1 tsp minced garlic

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped capsicum (3 colours)

How to 

1. Boil water in a saucepan. Form mince chicken into balls. Drop chicken into the boiling water and cook for about 15min or until they float to the top. 

2. Mix tomato paste, honey, vinegar, light soya sauce, Chinese rice wine and water together to form your sauce.

3. Heat olive oil in a pan. Over medium high heat sauté onion and garlic. Once fragrant add in vegetables and chicken meatballs. Briefly fry for a minute or so and then pour sauce over. Mix everything together well and cook until sauce thickens. The sauce should be thick enough to coat the meatballs.

Serve with brown rice and you can garnish with coriander if you wish :-)

Tahini Soba

School has started officially so my posts from now on may be even shorter than normal! Today I made this really easy soba. When I showed it to my brother he said, "that's not japanese" so I said "it's fusion.

In any case, it's delicious ^^ Tahini is sesame seed butter. I used organic hulled tahini I got from wholefoods in London. Tahini's rather bitter, so I sweetened it up with honey. Worked pretty well I must say! 

What you'll need

A piece of ginger

50g uncooked soba

1/2 cup chopped broccoli 

1/4 cup sliced carrots 

1 tbsp hulled tahini

1 tbsp honey

1/4 tsp mirin

1/4 tsp light soya sauce 

Grilled meat of choice

Seaweed for garnishing 

How to

1. Boil water with ginger. Add in broccoli and carrots. Blanch for a few minutes and remove broccoli and carrots. Then cook your soba in rapidly boiling water for 3 min or according to your packages instructions. 

2. Mix tahini, honey, mirin and soya sauce together. Toss soba in the sauce. Garnish with seaweed and serve with vegetables and grilled meat :)

Bounty Cups

Have you ever wondered what would happen if Reese's Peanut Butter Cups had a baby with Bounty Bars? No you probably haven't but anyway, this is what would happen. Bounty cups! Crunchy shells of dark chocolate with a soft coconut filling! Such an easy recipe that requires minimal cooking and washing and ingredients. 3 ingredients, 3 steps.

I used little heart shaped silicone moulds from daiso which made them easy to remove :) you can also do them the traditional way in small cupcake liners I guess. 

RAW VEGAN: I used dark chocolate for this, but you can use raw chocolate made of cocoa powder and coconut oil and agave if you like! Maple syrup can be subbed with agave.

What you'll need

35g 85% dark chocolate

1/8 cup dehydrated shredded coconut (desiccated works too)

1 tsp maple syrup

How to

1. Prepare 6 little silicone cups or liners. Melt dark chocolate. I microwaved for 1 min, stirred, and repeated till it was melted and smooth! Pour a little into the cup and spread up the sides. Put in the freezer.

2. Meanwhile mix maple syrup and coconut. Remove cups from freezer and fill up with coconut!

3. Pour melted chocolate over the coconut to seal it in and freeze again until the chocolate is set. It'll take less than 5 minutes (okay don't hold me to this I'm estimating)! Remove from cups and GOBBLE DOWN.

Healthier Enchiladas!

Asdfghjkl. These are not the cleanest recipe I have but they are certainly super delicious and healthier than other enchilada recipes! When I first took a bite of these I immediately tweeted that I was in enchilada heaven because seriously, I was! It's like pizza pasta deliciousness in a burrito or something. And single serving convenience ~

On a side note, I want to let you guys know that I do iifym and don't eat healthy all the time. In case you don't know. Because someone today was criticizing me of not being truthful. And I did not ever claim to eat completely healthy 24/7 but incase it was implied by my pictures :/ 

What you'll need

1 wholewheat/wholegrain flour tortilla

1 tomato

1/2 tsp olive oil

1/8 cup sliced onions

1/4 tsp minced garlic

50g minced chicken breast

1/4 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp smoked paprika

1/2 tsp dried herbs

1/2 - 1 red chili, chopped up 

1 tbsp corn kernals 

1/8 cup chopped bell peppers

2 tbsp tomato paste

10g shredded mozerella

Greek yogurt 

Spring onion

How to

1. Rinse tomato and leave some water on the surface. Microwave on high in 1 minute intervals until the skin splits. When cool enough to handle, remove the skin and chop up. 

Preheat oven to 180C. 

2. Heat olive oil in a non stick skillet, over medium heat sauté onions and garlic. When fragrant add in chicken and fry till opaque. 

3. Next add in the spices, chili, corn, bell pepper, tomato paste, and lastly chopped tomatoes. Toss together and keep frying. The chopped/mashed up tomatoes will soften up as they cook. At the end you should have something resembling chicken and vegetables in pasta sauce.

4. Spoon chicken and vegetable mixture into the centre of the tortilla, leaving the sauce behind to use for later. Wrap up burrito style! Fold sides of the tortilla over slightly then roll up tightly from bottom to top. Place into a dish, pour the remaining sauce over the entire tortilla wrap, sprinkle cheese over and bake for 20min. Cool before eating. Top with greek yogurt and spring onion. Enjoy!

Lemon Coconut Protein Crinkles

Made these cookies a grand total of 3 times. The first two times they looked more volcano like and were rather dry. Third times the charm I guess :) These make your kitchen and hands smell nice because of the lemon zest!

Crinkle cookies aren't very common in Singapore, where I live, so I made my own! They are sort of a cake-cookie, and have cracks across the top surface of the cookie! Instead of rolling mine in powdered sugar I used ground dried coconut! Definitely healthier :) This cookie is fairly low in fat but high in protein!

About 6 cookies:

What you'll need

1 scoop vanilla protein powder

1/2 cup oat flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup greek yogurt

1 tbsp honey or slightly more to taste

3 tbsp whisked egg/1 small egg

Lemon zest of 1 lemon

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

3 tbsp dried coconut 

How to

1. Combine the first 3 ingredients. 

2. Whisk together remaining ingredients, except coconut. Next combine both mixtures. Freeze for 1h or longer.

Preheat oven to 180C.

3. Blend 3 tbsp dried coconut as fine as possible. Get a tbsp of cookie dough, form into a ball, roll in coconut, place on prepared baking sheet. Repeat until dough is used up. 

4. Bake for 10min.

Chocolate Chip Bacon Donuts

This morning I got up bright and early just bursting with excitement to use my new mini donut pan. I bought it with some of my Christmas money the other day and it's been sitting in my kitchen cabinet begging me to use it ever since. 

Delicious donuts for me to eat! 

In case anyone of you asks, I got it from kitchen capers a wonderful little cooking shop along kallang bahru. I wanted the normal sized donuts but they were all sold out, so I settled for the mini donut pan! The donuts are smaller than they look in the pictures above. You'll see! 

Anywho I decided to make clean chocolate chip donuts, frosting with maple greek yogurt and sprinkled with crunchy little bits of turkey bacon! I basically used a pancake batter and baked it haha. 

You can sub the greek yogurt in the donut batter with cauliflower purée and use dairy free chocolate to make it dairy free. I just love the protein added by greek yogurt! 

I made 11 mini donuts and I ate 9 of them for breakfast. Not the slightest bit guilty because each donut is roughly about 35 calories INCLUDING TOPPINGS. I wouldn't mind eating the whole batch of donuts ;)

My process of frosting these cutie piess, or should I say donuts:

Now you know how small they are!

What you'll need

1/3 cup oats

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 egg

1 egg white

1/4 cup greek yogurt

1/4 tsp vanilla extract 

1 tbsp chocolate chips

1/2 tsp coconut oil

1/8 cup greek yogurt

1/2 tbsp maple syrup 

1/2 strip low sodium turkey bacon

How to

1. Blend oats and baking powder into a flour. 

2. Beat egg, yogurt and vanilla extract together. Mix in dry ingredients. Fold in chocolate chips. 

Preheat oven to 180C.

3. Grease donut pan with coconut oil and pour the batter in until almost full! Bake for 10min. 

4. Remove donuts from the oven. While the donuts cool. Cook turkey bacon according to the packaging. Mix greek yogurt and maple syrup to get a frosting. Chop up cooked turkey bacon. 

5. Now frost the donuts and sprinkle them with bacon. Voila! Your yummy healthy donuts are served. 

P.S this can be made into cupcakes 

Tabasco Cream Soba

Today's recipe is so super quick and easy I can barely call it cooking. It's really good on a warm day because the sauce is made of greek yogurt, which is cold. You can always make it hot my making the sauce in a double boiler or heating it in a microwave. However the weather was just too hot for me to even consider doing that. Therefore I have cold soba, which is actually normal since Japanese soba is sometimes served over ice :) 

What you'll need

50g uncooked soba (organic if possible)

1/4 cup greek yogurt

30g tomato pasta sauce

1.5 - 2 tsp Tabasco sauce

1/2 cup spinach, torn up

Grilled chicken, chopped up 

Chopped red chili (about 1/2 a chili) 

How to 

1. Cook soba according to the package. Remember to rinse in cool water afterward to stop the cooking process.

2. Mix yogurt, pasta sauce, Tabasco sauce and torn up spinach. Mix into soba and add in the grilled chicken too.

3. Sprinkle chopped red chili over and serve :)

How easy was that? 

So now that 2013 is over it's about time I start thinking what I'm going to do in order to achieve my fitness goals in 2014! I want to lose fat and gain more muscle. Since about mid November I've been reverse dieting. I've increased carbs and calories by a lot! The aim of this, is to eat more without gaining fat, thus increasing my metabolism. I think I've been successful at that. 

3 kg difference but not much fat gain overall! I'm not showing my legs and arms but I'm pretty sure they haven't got fatter. So I'm assuming this weigh gain is muscle? 

Anyway I'm going to maintain at 250C for about 2 weeks more! That would have been a month of 250C. Then I'll start  dropping carbs by 10g a week. The slower you lose weight, the longer you keep it off. Dropping calories too quickly can also crash your metabolism which you do not want. 

Also I'm going to increase cardio a little by making one of my tabata workouts longer. Jogging is twice a week and PE is once a week in school too, so my cardio will naturally increase :-) 

I'll stop reducing carbs at the start of March. By then my macros will be 180C 144P and 47F vs the 250C 148P and 47F that I'm consuming right now.

Honestly can't wait to be done eating so much food! It's expensive and time consuming AND people think I'm insane.

You may be wondering why I started reverse dieting. Well simply put, I wasn't making any progress. Even now I don't look that much different from over a year ago. And I thought the problem may be my metabolism?? In the earlier half of secondary one (2012) I ate so little it's unbelievable. I'd been eating like that since the second half. of 2011. My eating habits on a normal day would be like this.

Breakfast:

1/4 cup oats

1 tbsp milk

1 tbsp honey 

Recess:

Half apple

Lunch:

1 oat cookie 

Snack:

Peanut butter on toast or a fruit

Dinner: 1/2 cup pasta or rice and some meat and vegetables my maid cooked

Dessert: can't remember but probably fruit.

Roughly my daily intake was about 800. I eat about 2000 calories now, over two times that amount now. Anyway I thought that might have affected my metabolism in someway and decided to give reverse dieting a shot.

Wishing all of you the best in achieving all your goals this year! 

Healthy Floating Island

Hi everyone! I do hope you enjoyed yourself last night. I had a barbecue ~ It's officially 2014 now! I'm so excited for the new year! I plan to achieve more and make this year even better than the last. Thank you all for supporting me throughout 2013, it really means the world to me when you guys like and comment on my pictures, and even try my recipes out! Tag #healthiepanda if you do :) 

For the first breakfast for the year, I decided to have dessert. What's new? Haha. It's a French dessert called île flottante, œufs à la neige aka Floating Island. It consists of a poached meringue floating on crème anglaise (vanilla custard). The texture of the meringue is like marshmallow!

However I gave my my own twist to the custard by adding in some orange! Simplified the recipe by microwaving the meringue, inspired by sorted food. They're awesome so go check them out :) 

Oh and I know it's strange that I only use 1/2 an egg yolk, but if you use more it'll be way too eggy. Blech.

What you'll need 

Custard:

1/2 egg yolk

1/2 tbsp maple syrup

1/3 cup plain non fat no sugar yogurt

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Juice from 1/4 orange

Meringue:

1 egg white

1/2 tbsp maple syrup 

Chopped walnuts (any nut is fine)

10g 85% dark chocolate 

How to

1. Put the egg white and a little squeeze of orange juice into a mixer.

2. Beat the custard ingredients together in a heat proof bowl. Boil some water in a sauce pan. Place the bowl over the mouth of the sauce pan. Cook for about 10min, stirring occasionally, until the mixture has thickened. 

3. Beat egg white until soft peaks. Add in maple syrup slowly while beating until you get stiff peaks. Pour 1/2 a cm of water into a dish/bowl. Scoop a mound of the meringue onto the water. Microwave on high for 30s. Now when you poke the meringue it should be firm.

4. Microwave chocolate for 30s or a little more until it melts. But make sure not to burn it. 

5. Pour custard on to a plate, top with meringue, chopped nuts, drizzle melted chocolate over and garnish with a sprig of some herb. 

Yum!