Healthy Granola Bars

Well, detox week was a success!  The scales are being kinder and I feel better in my jeans (jeans never lie, scales sometimes do!).  I stuck to the healthy breakfast smoothie all week, salads for lunch and healthy soups and stews (all veggie) for dinner (except for lunch out on Thursday and a Chinese takeaway last night... oops).  Now, I love my food and that diet alone would not be enough as I am out of the house for 12 hours each day in the week, so I needed some healthy snacks.  Having been initially inspired to detox after discovering goop.com, this week's newsletter had some healthy lunchbox ideas.  The granola bars suggested looked good, and here is the version I made to get me through the week:

Homemade Granola Bars

1 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup rolled oats, blitzed in a food processor
A pinch each of the following:
fine salt
ground cinnamon
ground nutmeg
ground ginger
1/4 cup flax seeds/linseeds
1/2 cup dried cherries*
1/4 cup almonds, roughly chopped*
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds*
1/4 cup groundnut oil
1/4 cup high quality maple syrup
2 tablespoons honey

Preheat the oven to 180ºC.

Line a 8” square baking pan with parchment paper (my pan was 9" so my slices were quite flat)

Combine the oats, spices, nuts, seeds and dried fruit in a large mixing bowl.

In a small bowl or jug, whisk together the wet ingredients and then stir them into the dry ingredients.

Put the mixture in the prepared pan, smooth the top with a rubber spatula and bake for 25-30 mins or until pale golden. 

Remove from oven and let cool for about 15 minutes. Remove to a cutting board, remove the parchment and cut into individual bars or squares.

* Use any combinbation of dried fruit and nuts, made up to 1 cup measurement.  Next time I'll be trying date and walnut I think.

Detox and a Chocolate Cake...

The last few weeks have seen my weight creeping up due to lack of exercise and a fair bit of comfort eating.  It was definitely time to kick start a more healthy way of eating and the best way for me is to have a mini detox.  But, the weekends are the perfect time to do some baking so I got the cake making out of the way on Friday and swiftly delivered it to my parents on Saturday!

The recipe is a delicious one: Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake from Nigella's Feast.  Now, I hadn't made a proper chocolate cake for quite some time, and I hadn't attempted this one before.  I chose it because it was going to use up the carton of sour cream I had in the fridge that was fast approaching its sell-by date.  I couldn't have chosen an easier recipe as both the cake and the icing can be whizzed in the food processor, saving lots of kitchen mess and washing up.  I really loved Nigella's suggestion of placing four strips of greaseproof paper under the cake before icing it, as once you remove them you have a lovely clean plate with not a splodge of icing in sight (well almost!).

The recipe can be found here:  http://www.nigella.com/recipe/recipe_detail.aspx?rid=191

And here is my cake being assembled:

The cake went down very well with everyone, it was light, moist and very chocolatey!  Definitely one to make again, and next time I'll find some pretty sugar flowers for decoration.

So, even more reason to detox today and keep me away from the cake!

Breakfast comprised a hot water with fresh lemon slices, followed by a blueberry smoothie* made with almond milk and ground flaxseeds and my mid-morning snack was a handful of natural almonds. By lunchtime I was ravenous and had a HUGE bowl of delicious watercress soup which I made after being inspired by Lucie over at Cooking at Marystow.  I didn't add the milk as I am trying to be dairy-free this week, and I added a handful of freshly chopped chives, parsley, oregano and basil - delicious and healthy!

To keep my mind off food (unsuccesfully!) I kept busy with housework, sorting out clothes and ebaying.

Mid-afternoon I made a refreshing drink, blitzing half a peeled cucumber in the blender with some fresh lime, basil leaves and apple juice and served it over ice*.

And finally, it was dinner time!  Wanting to use up vegetables but also add some protein, I made up a big pot of this delicious mediterranean bean stew which I found over at nigella.com.  I halved the recipe, substituted carrots for the red pepper, passata for the tinned tomatoes, and topped it with some freshly made basil and oregano pesto.

*My new favourite website is goop.com which is beautifully written by Gwyneth Paltrow, very inspiring and great for healthy recipes including the smoothie and cucumber drink.