My daily bowl of porridge

For twenty three years I have been having the same breakfast every single day - a cup of Indian tea and toast with margarine. By 9.30 in the morning I am normally starving and end up snacking on a cereal bar. I decided I had enough and I wanted something that will keep me fuller for longer. 

I was inspired by Gemsmaquillage, and decided to make something similar myself.

You will need:

• 1/2 cup of porridge oats ( I am going to switch over to gluten free soon to help with digestion)
• Milk (I use unsweetened almond milk)
• Banana (preferably ripe)
• 1 tablespoon of almond butter
• 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 1 tablespoon of pumpkin seeds 
• Blueberries
• Baobab powder
• Cinnamon

1) I start of by heating the oats and adding enough almond milk to cover the oats

2) I then mash a banana and add it into the porridge. The banana makes the porridge taste so much better!

3) I also like to add the almond butter, coconut oil and honey

4)The porridge only takes a few minutes to make! I like to add pumpkin seeds, blueberries and cinnamon and baobab powder to it :)

This only takes 5 minutes to make. The porridge keeps me full for hours (I have breakfast at 6.45am and I end up eating a snack at 11.30am - not bad!). Also, it's absolutely delicious and I look forward to a warming bowl of porridge every morning.

What do you eat for breakfast?

Green monster - revisited again!

I love making smoothies and juices. They taste delicious, are quick to make and they are full of nutrients. 

 

One of my favourites is the green monster smoothie which I have blogged about twice (here and here). The green monster smoothie is very nourishing and filling.

 To make my favourite smoothie you will need:

1) Frozen bananas - these tastes so much better than normal bananas in a smoothie. It is also better to add frozen bananas as adding ice to the smoothie can make it watery. I like to prepare the smoothies by cutting three to four bananas and freezing them on a Sunday - that way I am good to go for the rest of the week

2) 1 cup of milk. I prefer using almond or coconut milk as I am lactose intolerant

 

3) I cup of kale or spinach.  I prefer kale because it lasts longer than spinach. Don't worry if you do not like the taste of kale or spinach as you will not be able to taste it.

4) You can add extras too. I love adding a quarter of a cup of oats, a tablespoon of almond butter and a teaspoon of honey (I replace normal honey with manuka honey if I am feeling unwell). Other extra that you could add: coconut oil, chia seeds, flax seeds and bee pollen. If you do not like the taste of bananas, you can add vanilla extract to mask the taste.

5) Blend all of the ingredients. I tend to blend it for about 40 seconds in the Vitamix : 

 6) And Voila, you should have enough to pour in two glasses.

What is your favourite smoothie?

Lil Miss Healthy: The Vitamix

Hi guys! I hope you are all having a lovely bank holiday weekend! The weather seems quite nice today (it always rains every bank holiday in England)

Today, I am finally going to review the Vitamix. If you follow me on instagram (roshas is my username) then you might have seen a few videos dedicated to this awesome machine!

What is the Vitamix?

The Vitamix is a very powerful blender. It is basically 10 machines in one. You can use it as a smoothie maker, an ice cream maker, it also makes soups, dips, peanut butter etc. I love making smoothies - green smoothies are my favourite. You can even juice with the Vitamix by using a nut strainer bag to remove the pulp. 

Why don't you just buy a bog standard blender?

What I love about the Vitamix is that it is extremely powerful. Your average blender will get damaged by ice cubes etc, and it will not blend the ingredients in as little as 30 seconds. Your average blender will not even make ice cream in 30 seconds or knead dough. I even use the Vitamix to chop onions! 

How much does it cost?

In my opinion, in life, you get what you pay for. The Vitamix cost £459 (including a free dry container). I purchased it at the Ideal Home Show so we got a better deal. Yes it is very expensive, but I use it everyday, and the machine has a warranty of 7 years. If you use it everyday for over 7 years, you've got your value for money. People go on holiday in a week and spend that much. If you want to improve your diet and have a machine that will help you in your day to day life for a long period of time, then it is totally worth purchasing it. Also, because the Vitamix is so powerful, it is used in most coffee shops and smoothie bars (including Starbucks and Mcdonalds).

What else do you like about it?

A year ago I was addicted to juicing. Every morning, I spent half a hour cutting vegetables and fruit, juicing them, and then spending about five to ten minutes cleaning the juicer. The worst part of juicing was cleaning the machine. It totally put me off. The Vitamix can be cleaned in less than a minute. It is designed to self clean. You simply add a little bit of water with some fairy liquid and put it on high speed. It will clean it self, all you have to do is rinse it out.

Where can I buy it from?

Lakeland, John Lewis, Selfridges, Harrods, Costco (Costco seem to always have good offers). I have the Vitamix Total Nutrition Centre one. I also received a recipe book with it. My biggest tip is to watch a live demonstration of the Vitamix. I was contemplating purchasing it for a few months until one day when I randomly went to Whole Foods and I was blown away by the demo.

Here is one of my favourite recipes: 

 You will need:

1) 1 cup of milk ( I used almond milk)

2) A banana

3) 1 teaspoon of Agave Nectar (to sweeten it up)

4) A small bowl of frozen berries 

5) I also added a teaspoon of chia seeds (not in photo)

1) Start on Variable, set to number 1

2) Slowly increase the speed to number 10 and switch from Variable to High

3) Blend for about 40 seconds

5) Serve! (It will make about two glasses) 

 If you would like to see more recipes, please let me know :)

Lil Miss Sweet: Ferrero rocher stuffed cupcakes +

Even though I am a big advocate of healthy eating,  I do like to indulge sometimes ;) My family had a get together yesterday, and I decided to make Ferrero rocher stuffed cupcakes! The lovely MilkBubbleTea inspired me, but I used the recipe from The Curvy Carrot.

I think it's such an original concept! Ferrero rocher's are my favourite chocolates so this was the perfect cake for me! 

I started off by mixing cocoa powder, flour, baking powder and salt together. I then mixed 3 eggs, vanilla extract, butter, sugar and sour cream in a separate bowl.

  I then mixed them together and placed them on a cupcake pan evenly.

The Ferrero rocher's were added to the batter, and the remaining batter was used to cover the Ferrero rocher (this part is optional - you don't have to completely cover the chocolate)

 

 The cupcakes were left in the oven for approximately 20 minutes

For the icing (the most time consuming part), I mixed some butter, sugar, milk, nutella and vanilla extract. My cousin has icing equipment (purchased from Lakeland) so she was able to make the frost look pretty ;)

Optional - you can mash up some Ferrero rocher's and place them on the frosting.

The cupcake was delicious, albeit extremely sweet! 

Have you ever tried this?