Don’t diet this new year, feel healthier, happier and springier with my top wholesomely seductive tips. Xmas-Excess and the cold, shorter days leave me desperate for a re-charge. My body’s creaking through yoga and cycling, even dog walking’s less springy. This time last year I blogged The Anti-diet. The Wholesome Seduction way of life that’s bursting with flavour and makes us feel and look our best. Without dieting. I live by this, mindful of 3 key things:
Anyone who’s attempted to cut out certain ingredients, detox or just eat more healthily, will know this isn’t always easy when on-the-go in the UK – Nope, crisps and chocolate aren’t part of our #eatclean menu.
The bottom line: We need to be prepared. Most of us are super busy so having a bank of quick and easy recipes is key. Over the coming weeks, I’ll blog my Top 5 green breakfasts, brunches, suppers and packed lunches. Including recipes for entertaining, along with my favourite clean, green eats restaurant, The Good Life Eatery.
And because how we feel is about more than what we eat, I’ll share workout wear to inspire, nip and tuck even the most lethargic and style conscious amongst you.
Here are some of my go-to recipes and products for feeling healthy and cutting down on the stuff that makes us feel like we’ve been hit by a truck:
From the streets: Rude Health dairy-free milks and Coconut oil and Coyo yoghurt.
Recipes: Watercress, avocado & passion-fruit smoothie, Sticky sweet potato wedges, Broad bean & cashew pesto, Quinoa, feta & toasted seed salad, Orange, almond & chocolate cake, Cranberry & lemon amoretti (yes, these count!).
In the wake of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, here are some DIY foodie gifts you can do from the kitchen, mostly. From homemade Almond, orange & cranberry granola in a super stylish Skandi jar to spicy nuts in a kitsch sugar shaker. Show your love with design led DIY that lasts beyond the Quality Street bucket. And with treats that won’t have you sweating out all of January in the gym.
Cranberry & lemon amoretti are a great Christmas failsafe: Festive fare, deliciously indulgent, yet healthy (high protein, low carb, no refined sugar) and so easy an ape could be trusted to make them. You can’t go wrong with Spicy nuts for a New Year’s eve boozy or juicy pairing and Cacao nut energy balls are great for those determined to avoid sugar overload.
I recently designed the above sweetie bags for Gather & Gather’s extensive cafes and restaurants, but Cox & Cox do an exhaustive supply of ribbons and wrapping to inspire the least creative and most time pressed among us. Something as simple as a ribbon tied jam jar, cellophane or greaseproof looks great and is super easy.
If wrapping paper wrestling’s not your thing, however, or if you need something that really tap dances, here’s my pick of the best buys to house and gift your wholesomely seductive recipes:
Two containers to fill the fussiest of friends or hosts with glee. Ideal for Spicy nuts or Almond, orange & cranberry granola – the perfect boxing day breakfast.
These have to be hands down the most covetable salt and spice grinders I’ve set eyes on. Made for my famous Sesame & rosemary spice.
The recipes I’ve picked are my cupboard staples, tested and reviewed by friends, cafes and yogis to the point I deem them worthy of festive feasting and giving. In fact, I’m spending Christmas in the sun (sorry, no gloating or smugness intended) and have been primed that all of the above are to form part of our Cape Town kitchen menu. I’ll share more tips for Christmas indulgence that won’t bust a bikini here, including next week’s, Spiced orange & cranberry granola.
Cranberry & lemon amoretti
Spicy nuts
Choco nut energy balls
Sesame & rosemary spice
Almond, orange & cranberry granola
For more ideas my past posts still stand: The gift guide top 5 and Please santa…
It’s that time of year again; we’ve hit December and already passed the busiest online shopping day of the year apparently. Well versed in the art of shopping, I thought it only fitting I share my failsafe food inspired gift guide, hopefully taking some trauma out of your Santa duties.
I have a sneeking suspicion the sunshine eggs could be a bit of a faff; maybe one to delegate to your sous chef / spouse / kids. You can always thank them with some Made with Love cookies.
One morning spent researching cafes and sampling espressos with Gather & Gather in house coffee guru, Paul Hallit and I came home with the above (essential) haul. We’re now entering the 4th wave in coffee apparently: Beyond independent cafes and single origin beans, it’s also about the science behind the perfect cup. Anyone who appreciates coffee will thank you for this kit, or simply some decent beans.
Seggiano. God of taste: flavour and design. Everything from panettone to olive oil, chocolate clementines to raw honey. Packaged so beautifully, wrapping paper wrestling is a thing of the past.
Two years in and these are still my failsafe classics. For the creative cook keen to go off piste: The masterpiece that is The Flavour Thesaurus. Jerusalem, the latest kitchen handbook by My Favourite Places Godfather, Yotam Ottolenghi is a must that no self respecting food lover should be without.
And for the adventurous: Milk of New York’s Momofuku Milk Bar fame, as recommended by uber chef and Gather & Gather colleague, Dan Rampat. Momofuku means Lucky Peach. Sold!
Because, as much as I love to cook, there are few kitchen smells I want to curl up on the sofa with. And let’s face it, smelling of Eau de Honey Roast Ham outside the kitchen is offensive. End of.
Diptyque Baies and Jo Malone Grapefruit are clean classics guaranteed to win over the fussiest of recipients. At £40 neither candle comes cheap but the quality is second to none: dripping in perfume oils = stronger and longer lasting spa scents. RK Ridings does a huge selection of similar diffusers and candles at 1/3 of the price.
When all else fails, opt for a mug. 19 carat gold rim mug with horse design (obviously) and coffee cups you can bake in. Genius. In the spirit of giving, I’ve tested festive Orange, almond & chocolate cake in said super mugs.
Designer tartanry brand ANTA also do a range of throws and cushions as cozy as a Christmas jumper. Sign up for Tartan Tuesday (2 for 1 offers) and their Advent Calendar of daily discounts in the run up to Christmas.
Horse mug £20 from Rocket St George; Tartan cups £22 from ANTA.
Best cookery courses: Ginger Pig butchery class, Rick Stein Seafood School, Bread Ahead bakery school.
For Little Miss Fussy: Big rocks are in! Try Bex Rox or Aurelie Bidermann. The Outnet also has a wide range of heavily discounted designer jewellery (and clothes).
For kids: Cox & Cox have an inexhaustible selection of games and trinkets for kids of all ages.
For The Friend Who Has Everything: Diageo Brand Store offers a 6 ltr bottle of Ciroc vodka for £250. You can even have your own bespoke swing for a mere fifteen hundred quid.
This is one of my all time favourite recipes: uber moist; sophisticatedly sweet and tangy; distinctively almondy. A cake for grown ups. Commonly used in Spanish and Moorish cakes, almonds bring so much more to the party than Bulk Out Flour, and they taste better. They’re filling, good for us, moist in baking and gluten free. The swapping of sugar for Agave is a trick I’m a tiny bit pleased with. Options are also given for sugar and Stevia (saccharine barf) FYI, though my preference on both taste and waistline would be Agave.
You can lose the choc drops for a more traditional recipe which is also sugar and dairy free. This cake is so devoid of bad stuff, in fact, you can even use it as an energy and protein pick me up for fitness training. I’ve baked in tartan cups as a nod to Edinburgh’s Brew Lab inspiration from last week.
3 medium oranges
4 tbsp Agave / 3 tbsp Stevia / 300g tbsp caster sugar
400g ground almonds
4 eggs
2 tsp baking powder
3 tbsp dark choc chips
2 oranges, juice of
2 tbsp Agave / 1 tbsp Stevia / 100g sugar
Preheat oven to 180C / 350F / Gas 4. Grease and line a 25cm springform cake tin with greaseproof paper. Alternatively, you can make 8 – 10 individual cakes with muffin moulds or ANTA ovenproof cups.
Clean oranges, cover with water in a saucepan, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool for 10 mins. Cut into quarters, removing the seeds.
Transfer to a food processor (retaining the peel!) and blitz with 4 tbsp of the Agave or 300g sugar for about 30 secs. Add almonds, eggs and baking powder and puree for a few seconds before scraping down the sides and blitzing again until smooth – approx. 10 secs.
Fold through the choc chips and transfer into your greased tin. Bake for 50 or so mins. If opting for the muffin-sized cakes, cook for 20 mins. A knife should come out moist. Set your cake aside in the tin or cups for 10 mins.
Bring the syrup ingredients to the boil and simmer until the sauce starts to thicken. Prick the cake/s all over with a skewer and pour over the syrup. Leave to soak up all the juices.
Once cooled, remove and serve on a plate, or directly from your ANTA cups. Dollop with double cream.
The almonds will keep this cake moist for several days. In fact, it will go moldy before it goes stale. As an added bonus, almonds are also a Seducer, check out their charms here.
I’m a big Peanut Butter fan. I was practically weaned on Sun-pat and Marmite sandwiches; I dollop Wholenut Crunchy into smoothies and even cram it into Lindt Teddies. Don’t knock it. Apart from the nagging feeling of gluttony, I’m painfully aware that peanuts aren’t great for me – there are better fats out there and I’m cursed with instant bloating on consumption. Almonds on the other hand, are a veritable powerhouse of goodness. And in my opinion, taste even better when roasted, blitzed and topped on toast or oatcakes. Protein and nutrient packed instantness.
Almond Butter it transpires, is Sun-pat on Crack: Keens cheddar over Pilgrims Choice; Chloe over Primark. You get the idea. Inevitably then, shop bought Almond butters don’t come cheap. Hence my super quick and easy DIY version that costs half the price. Try the supermarket World Food aisles for better value sacks of almonds. Get the full health benefits of almonds on our Seducers page.
200g almonds, skins on
¼ tsp sea salt
Pre-heat oven to 200C / 400F / Gas 6
Scatter almonds in a baking tray and roast for 8-10 mins, until nuts start to brown around the edges inside – bite one of the darker nuts in half to test.
Transfer to a food processor, add the salt and blitz for 1 min.
Scrape down the sides and blitz for a further 2 mins, scraping the sides every 30 seconds to a minute.
The nuts will release more oil the longer you blend. You can add groundnut oil to bulk out your mix but there’s no need.
I like a crunchier butter so I remove 1 tbsp of the ground nuts after 1 min and mix back through at the end.
Tip: Be careful not to burn the almonds when roasting or you’ll taint the end result. If when you bite in half, the flesh has turned fully from white to brown, you’ve gone too far.
For me, Soda bread’s a true winner: Yeast and hassle free (no sweat provoking kneading required), you can have a batch in the oven within 10 minutes. Genuinely. It’s so quick in fact, I’ve adjusted, binned and tweaked this ambitious (for someone who doesn’t make bread) combo countless times. I’m now ready to disclose.
275g spelt flour
175g rice flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1tsp sea salt
1 tbsp tahini
250ml milk retain drizzle for to brush over top (based on semi skimmed milk)
Preheat oven to 190C / 375F / Gas 5. Sieve dry ingredients into a large bowl and mix to a soft dough with the milk. The dough should be slack but not wet.
Knead until smooth, form into a ball and flatten dough to 3 – 4” thick. Put on a greased baking tin and score a large cross o the top. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 35 – 40 mins.
The bread should still be quite moist in the centre due to the tahini so a knife shouldn’t come out clean. If you over cook, the bread will become dry quickly after cooling.
Serve warm or toasted with good, salty butter and soup. Or with Mum’s Seville orange marmalade.
Following on from last week’s post The jam co-operative, here’s the promised 1929 recipe for Seville orange marmalade. Taken from The Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries & Food, HMSO Bulletin 21: Home Preservation of Fruit & Vegetables. Tested, tweaked, tasted and approved by Mum Garcia.
1.4 kg Seville oranges
4.5 – 6 pts water
2.7 kg sugar
1 tsp citric acid or tartaric acid. Or juice of 2 lemons
Scrub, scald and peel the fruit.
Cut the peel into shreds, first removing some of the pith if thick. This is where we enlisted the ingenious Magimix shredder blade:
Put the shredded peel, acid and half the water in a jam pan (I use lemons and grate some peel into the pan too). Bring to the boil and simmer gently for about 2 hours or until the peel is tender. Add more water if you think it’s needed.
Cut the rest of the fruit and pith coarsely. Simmer with the rest of the water in a closed pan for 1.5 hrs then strain through a colander. Alternatively, rub the pulp through a fine sieve for a very thick marmalade.
Add the strained pulp to the peel, bring to the boil and cook off excess water if necessary. Add the sugar, stir until dissolved then boil rapidly until setting point is reached. To test: Put a tsp full onto a plate and allow to cool slightly. If the jam wrinkles when you press gently with your finger, it’s ready.
Remove the scum from the top, allow the marmalade to cool slightly and pour into warm jars – cooling prevents the peel from rising in the jars.
Cover with waxed circles while still hot and tie down when cold. If using plastic or metal lids, sterilize by boiling for 5 mins first and screw on immediately.
With a teeny tiny bit of prep, and some Tupperware, you can eat within five minutes of stepping in your kitchen. Literally. Leaving the evening free to do, well, whatever it is you like to do…
Now, I enjoy cooking but the last thing I want to do when I get in late, so hungry I could eat a weathered donkey, is cook. And quite frankly, my creativity and patience by this point have entirely evaporated in the face of anything more challenging than a tub of hummus. So, what happens if one is equipped with enough toolkit tupperware for several days? Revolutionary.
You may have noticed I’m a bit of a salad groupie. None of the insubstantial, rabbit feed variety for me though. An ideal receptacle for accommodating almost the entire contents of the fridge and given the high male praise of being “like eating meat”, I’ve termed them Man Salads. The key is in the base, and in embracing accidental recipes; where my most treasured dishes are born.
1 handful salad leaves: rocket, watercress, spinach and / or herbs
2 dsp puy lentils – from the Larder page
2 tbsp qunioa – from the Larder page
2 tbsp peas, frozen (and defrosted!) fine
4 sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1 tbsp vinaigrette, or to taste
1 tbsp toasted seeds
With a couple of additions, the options are endless. Click on the recipe links in the text:
Top with feta for one of my favourite, healthy suppers: Qunioa, feta, rocket & toasted seed. Or swap the quinoa for Roast butternut & fennel seed and a desert spoon of hummus. The saltiness of the feta against the sweet butternut squash and earthy, yet lemony hummus and nutty, crunchy seeds is happiness itself. In my opinion…
Chuck in half a breast of Garam masala chicken and maybe a desert spoon of hummus for my take on Shawarma joy – a Middle eastern staple. This is also delicious in a wrap; chicken and hummus really are perfect partners. The chicken and feta route is a winner too.
I sometimes swap the quinoa, hummus and vinaigrette for Caesar salad dressing and toasted pine nuts with feta, goat’s cheese or Parmesan – an altogether meatier Chicken Caesar. And Goat’s cheese, apple and Caesar is pretty addictive.
As you may have noticed, I have a tendency to throw all sorts of ingredients in together, even sometimes adding to shop bought salads if they err towards bland or insubstantial. Don’t be afraid to improvise; some concoctions work, some don’t. Making mistakes is the best way to learn and innovate.
In the interests of your sanity (and mine), I’ve stuck to bite sized tips: Salads this week, soups and stews next.
By this I mean made by you. Or your granny / the local deli / anyone not advocating the use of ingredients you’d expect to find in a science lab. As this blog eulogises, food is our fuel. I have a sneaking suspicion our growing girths and ever more vociferous food intolerance grumbles, can largely be attributed to the unpronounceable nasties poured into our ready-meals.
Our bodies like variety. And by eating seasonally, you automatically tick the balanced diet manifesto. At the very least, you’ll never unwittingly consume horse in your beef burgers again.
And don’t get me started on salt, fat and sugar. It’s now common knowledge that many ready meals contain over half our recommended daily allowance of the former in a single serving. As a result, salt has become a swear word when in fact, our bodies need it to function.
It’s like this: Our heart is a muscle. Our digestive tract and limbs, amongst other things, are controlled by our muscles. Without salt, said muscles can’t move (hence cramp). If you’re not living off packaged loaves or processed food, you can probably scratch this one off your worry list.
By the same token, coffee houses such as Monmouth, All Press and Caravan (pictured), don’t do skinny milk. Because lattes weren’t invented with watered down, processed lactose. Coffee and the sweet, velvety cows milk are perfect partners. Enjoy them as they’re meant to be – in a smaller cup as opposed to a 32oz Venti bucket.
And what is the deal with sugar? When did we Brits develop such a super saccharine tooth? Most Rhubarb crumbles are now sweeter than Pick ‘N Mix with even ready meals and low fat foods typically loaded with sugar. It’s no wonder obesity and diabetes are on the increase, hence the press recently turning into our most vociferous saccherophobe (sugar hater). sugar demon taking such a beating by the press of late. On current trends, by 2050 half the UK adult population will be obese. We currently stand at 1/3. Nice.
For the record, the legendary J. Sheekey’s still flies the flag for our tangy British crumble favourite, complimented with the silkiest, vanilla bean speckled crème Anglais. #drool
“But I don’t step foot in my kitchen before 9pm”, I hear you groan. Without wishing to sound like Martha Stewart, soups, stews and salads can be super quick to prepare. The key is to make bigger batches for the fridge or freezer.
Next week I’ll blog some key recipes that can be mixed and matched for a week of almost instantaneous post work suppers and office lunch boxes, putting into easy practice what must seem like Anti-diet overload! In the meantime, click on the Seasonal Seducers and recipes for Wholesomely Seductive eating that’s a way of life, as opposed to a starve v. binge battle.
For more Anti-diet tips click on the Tag on the right, or type Anti-diet into the Search box at the top.