Posts

The Psychobiotic Revolution

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Bit of a different blog post today, in the form of a little book review 🤓 For those of you who don't know me personally, I work in mental health but despite this I really champion the relationship between mental and physical health and feel they should be treated equally, and both taken into consideration. Parity of esteem. From personal experience of my journey to diagnosis this book really resonated with me. Before I was diagnosed a coeliac I was starting to get anxious about eating which could have lead to something way more serious. I felt like everything I ate was making me feel poorly and yet no one could seem to understand why. I was honestly beginning to think it was all in my head, especially as I heard the term "psychosomatic" being thrown around. Eating was starting to effect my mood because eating was making me feel physically so poorly. I can honestly say that since being diagnosed as a coeliac and eating a gluten free diet that I have actually felt like a n

Crustless Quiche

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This is a lovely lunch time or summer evening recipe. I had mine with salad but you could have it with a jacket potato, new potatoes, veggies, chips, coleslaw, sweet potato wedges... the possibilities really are endless.  Serves 4 Ingredients   For the quiche - 6 eggs - 150g of low fat cottage cheese  For the filling (now this is the exciting bit, you can literally put whatever you like in here so it can be made vegetarian if you wish, here's what I put in mine...) - half a green pepper, deseeded and finely sliced - 4 spring onions, finely sliced - 12 cherry tomatoes, halved - 2 rashers of bacon, cut into 4cm pieces - grated cheese (optional, I didn't use it)  Method 1)   Preheat the oven to 180°C/Fan 160°C 2) Lightly spray a 20cm round, shallow baking dish with low calorie cooking spray (I used Aldi's alternative to Frylite) and set aside 3) Spray a mediun frying pan with low calorie cooking spray and place over a medium heat. Add the spring onions, peppers and bacon (or w

What I eat in a day

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Just in case anyone is interested in what I eat in a day, here is today's food intake! I was working from home today so breakfast was later than it would be if I was in the office. Dinner was also a bit later than usual as I went out for a ramble in the countryside when I finished work!  I always drink at least 2 litres of water a day, I have a litre water bottle which I use to track my water intake. I find I get really headachey if I don't drink enough so it's something I'm very conscious of!  8:45am - 2x slices of genius gluten free toast with peanut butter. Morrisons Savers crunchy peanut butter is my favourite and although Morrisons is not my regular supermarket, I will go purely to buy peanut butter  - green tea with lemon. I've been drinking this in the mornings for years now, always gets my water works going in a morning (lol)  11am - glass of Morrisons chocolate flavoured milk. Another thing that I will only buy from Morrisons! They do the best choccy milksh

Super easy sausage casserole

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Sausage casserole used to be one of my all time favourites as a kid. Some of the recipes online take a really long time to cook and theres a lot of chopping of veg involved! So I've sped up the process and created a recipe that uses really simple ingredients, but 100% delivers on taste... Serves 2 hungry adults   Ingredients  6 good quality gluten free Cumberland sausages (I went for The Crosby Family Riverway Foods, from Tesco) 1x white onion 1x clove of garlic 1x tin of baked beans 1x tin of chopped tomatoes  Mixed herbs Smoked paprika  Cracked black pepper and sea salt Optional - mash or baked sweet potato to serve Method 1) Cook your sausages according to the package instructions (mine were half an hour in the oven) 2) Meanwhile, finely chop your onion and garlic 3) Lightly oil a large frying pan and cook your onion and garlic on a medium heat for approximately 8 minutes (or until soft)  4) Add the baked beans (with juice), chopped tomatoes, 2x tsp of smoked paprika and 2x tsp

Super easy gooey flapjack

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If you're really struggling to get hold of flour or eggs during the lockdown but want to get your bake on then I have just the recipe for you! FLAPJACK. This recipe is one of my mum's, so shoutout to her for always making the best gooey flapjack.  Makes: 12 flapjacks  Ingredients 250g of gluten free oats - I always buy my oats from Waitrose (posh I know) just because they are the only gluten free oats that are "jumbo" rather than like dust! But obviously feel free to use your favourite brand and if you're not gluten free then use normal oats because they are SO much cheaper! 125g butter - the proper stuff 125g light brown sugar 2 to 3 tbsps of golden syrup (depending how gooey you want it - personally I went for three!)  Method 1) Pre heat your oven to 200 degrees (or 180 degrees fan) 2) Melt butter in a medium sized pan 3) Add in the sugar and golden syrup to form buttery, sugary, syrupy, loveliness (yes, that's a technical term). 4) Remove from the heat and

Creamy mushroom pasta

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I made this creamy mushroom pasta last Thursday evening and thought I would share the recipe as it was super speedy and pretty damn tasty! It's a bit of a naughty one with the double cream and wine, but the calories are totally worth it. Ingredients - 1x white onion, finely chopped (I used a red one but I think white would be better!) - 2x cloves of crushed garlic - 8 closed cup mushrooms, sliced (you can use whatever mushrooms you fancy but these work just fine) - 100ml of double cream  - 100ml of white wine (top tip: buy a bottle and then you can drink the rest!) - 1x tsp of Italian seasoning (or fresh herbs if you're fancy)  - Salt and pepper to season  - Parmesan cheese to sprinkle Method  1) Lightly oil a frying pan and fry the onion and garlic for approx. 8 mins until soft. 2) Add the mushrooms and cook for around 5 mins until soft. Season well with salt and pepper. 3) Pop your pasta on to boil. 4) Add the white wine to the onions, garlic and mushrooms, and cook until the

Simple fairy cakes

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I posted about my little fairy cakes on Instagram and someone actually requested the recipe, even though they look like they've been decorated by a 5 year old, haha!  It's the first time since moving in to our house that I've actually done some baking so I had to raid Tesco's for bun trays, cooling racks, cake cases, the lot! Thankfully I live not too far from a Tesco Extra so was able to get it all whilst doing my weekly shop. However, I did forget proper butter so couldn't make any butter icing and I forgot to get any decorations so had to make do with icing sugar and water the old fashioned way! Obviously, when you make these you can be as adventurous as you want with the decorating, or you can stick with my simple icing sugar drizzle. Ingredients I always use the "weigh your eggs method" like my mum does so weigh three eggs and whatever they weigh (e.g. 175g) you'll need that much margarine, sugar and flour. My eggs weighed 175 grams so I'll ou