17th Birthday Celebrations 2016 - Simple ways to Celebrate

 If you have been following me on Instagram (which you can do here), it was my birthday last month and I have finally had time to get this post up.

 

I had a great week (because if your anything like me you would take advantage of the fact that your birthday only happens once a year and celebrate it for the whole week because you can) - which mostly consisted of cake, food and chocolate!

 

Sometimes I am lost for ideas on how to celebrate birthdays but I've learnt that sometimes keeping it simple it the best option.

 

So what are the ways  that you can celebrate turning 17?

 

- Go out with friends for a cheeking Nandos - I recommend you going for the Churrasco Thigh Burger which is a chicken burger with cheddar cheese, coleslaw (I thought it was weird but it taste pretty good) and salad. I added extra avocado and I can tell you now it was the most satisfying meal with a portion of Piri Piri salted chips

 

- Celebrate with Wilton's Cake - In my area Wilton's is a baker renowned for its cakes and sweet treats. I got the half milk, half white chocolate cake which was very rich, amazing quality and perfect for all you sweet toothed girls and boys out there

 

- Take your first driving lesson - If you haven't started driving yet you really ought to. My family booked me a 2 hr lesson as a surprise on my birthday, I was a little nervous but it was so lovely to have a drive around on a sunny Sunday morning.

 

- See friends you haven't seen in a while because you realise how much you miss them and it makes your day a  whole lot better

 

- Dance - You heard me, just shut your self in your room, put on your earphones and let it all out if your not having a party ( there are so many birthday songs to choose from and they are all made for your special day)

 

- Watch a  comedy / your favourite movie - It is great to have a laugh around the television with your family in the evening

 

- Be grateful - An amazing day can pass just like that but if your grateful for every minute of it, you will remember and cherish your birthday with all the great people around you more than if you just let it pass and complain that you have not been doing anything exciting

 

Let me know what special things that you like to do on your birthday. Does your mum have a special recipes she likes to bang out for everyone or have you had any surprises that have particularly blown your mind?

 

Priyanka xx

Mango, Banana Oatmeal ft The Wild Peanut Chocolatey

THE WILD PEANUT CHOCOLATEY IS THE BAE.

 

Just saying to y'all who haven't tried this peanut butter you have been missing out on life. You know that whole in your heart, well it's this that you have been missing your whole life.

 

And the best way I could ever breakfast is by putting all my favourite sweet goods together into one bowl... and dear ones, here I will show you exactly how to do it Priyanka-style 'fist pumps with a massive grin on her face'.

 

 

My question to you is do you like peanut butter, bananas, chocolate, mangos, breakfast, sunshine, pretty food photos that make you happy?

 

Then a) keep reading... and b) you and I have way to much in common not to be friends

Ingredients:

 

- 1/4 Cup Oats

- 1 tsp. Chia Seeds/ Hemp Seeds

- Water / Soya Milk to cook the oats (or other Non-Diary Milk)

-Cinnamon 

 

 Toppings :

 

- 1/2 coined Banana

- 1 tbsp. of The Wild Peanut Chocolaty

- 1/4 Chopped Mango and pulp  (if unavailable use tinned mangos but these unfortunately usually  have added sugars) 

- Few blueberries

- Desiccated Coconuts

- 3-4 almonds 

 

Method:

 

- Cook your oats as you would, I usually add hemp seeds/ chia seeds, a sprinkle of cinnamon and use soya milk to cook the oats in the microwave for 2 minutes (a minute at a time adding more milk if needed).  Feel free to cook more oats but I thought that the toppings made this a filling breakfast.

 

-When your oatmeal if cooked, chop 1/2 a banana into coins and place on the side of the bowl on top of the oatmeal. Alternatively you can fry bananas with honey in a small frying pan and add this to your oatmeal instead.

 

-Mix up The Wild Peanut Chocolaty with a spoon as the honey, natural oil and peanut usually separate

 

- Add I tsp. of the nut butter and place on the centre of the bowl (remember to lick the spoon of course!)

 

-  Add the mango, almonds, blueberries and coconuts beautifully on top .

 

-Take a snap of your breakfast and tweet it to me/ tag me in your Instagram photo because I would honestly LOVE to see it! 

 

Take a spoon and enjoy the bliss.

 

Now that feels like freedom right?

 

I really hope that you enjoy this recipe and try it out. The one thing that is killing me at the moment is the fact that I can't find anywhere that sells The Wild Peanut near me. Asda used to but for some crazy reason they stopped.... I think they wanted to act in my best interest to kill my addiction because it was getting pretty unhealthy anyways...

 

Let me know how you like your chocolate peanut butter and any of your favourite breakfast recipes would be appreciated in the comments below!

Priyanka xx

Nutella Rocky Road Croissant Recipe

Ingredients:

- 1 Large Croissant (I recommend Costco, they seriously have the best!)

- Nutella (as much or as little as your heart desires)

-Mini marshmallows

- Cookies

- 1/2 Banana

 

Method:

-Preheat your oven on low, the croissants will become crispy easily so high heat may cause it to burn.

- Cut your croissant side ways so it forms a 'pocket'

- Spread Nutella on the bottom half of the croissant, making sure you get all  the edges covered

- Crumble 1 - 2 cookies and place on top of the Nutella

- Sprinkle marshmallows over the cookies and close the 'pocket' shut (BEWARE: This can be messy!)

- Place the Croissant on tin foil on a baking tray and place in the oven.

- Leave the croissant for 6 minutes and keep checking to see how crisp you would like it

- Optional: Chop the banana into coined pieces and stuff into the croissant near the top after you have taken it out of the oven to stop them from 'melting' in any way

 

-Serve immediately on a plate and enjoy with ice cream!

 

Dessert is intentionally made easy, trust me when cravings hit, they hit hard and chocolate is all that you heart desires...

 

Hope you liked this recipe and make sure you check out my post here on a great savoury use of you croissants. What are your favourite uses of Nutella? Let me know below!

 

Priyanka xx

The Wild Peanut Buttter

The other day I was in Asda doing my usual weekly shopping (and picking up my usual Whole Earth Peanut Butter when I bumped into this beauty called The Wild Peanut Chocolatey. At first glimpse it looked like just another delicious but sugar filled unhealthy version of Nutella but it proved not to be the case when I looked at the ingredients. This chocolate peanut butter only contains roasted peanuts, dark chocolate (cocoa mass, vanilla extract) and honey! There is really no reason to say no to this little jar of goodness. The chocolate flavour is definitely my favourite; it fulfils all cravings for chocolate without even tasting healthy, is luxuriously creamy, smooth and running just as I like it! Other favours that I have tried is the 'I'm Bananas' and 'Hello Honey' flavours of which the honey one is my second favourite. I was looking forward to the banana one but found that it did not taste like banana even the slightest and the consistency was not the same as the others.

Here are some of my favourite ways of eating this chocolate peanut butter:

- Banana dipped into peanut butter
- On top of oatmeal
- Oatmeal with mango slices, chocolate peanut butter, sweet potato brownie pieces, bananas, blueberries and pumpkin seeds.....check out my post on that here.
- Straight out of the jar
- On top of healthy banana bread / banana cake
- On a spoon into my mouth directly

I hope that you go out and buy this peanut butter because I am sure that it will not let you down. What is your favourite nut butter flavour and how do you most enjoy eating it?

Priyanka xx

Super Easy and Healthy Chocolate Fudge Sauce

Chocolate mousse? Hot chocolate sauce? Chocolate banana dip? Chocolate oatmeal topping? Chocolate anything?

Yes,please.

This is a great, super easy and healthy chocolate sauce recipe that you can put together in no time (and practically with no brain power at all!).

Ingredients:

- 1 Can Full Fat Coconut Milk (Unmixed)
- 100% Cocoa Powder / Bar of Dark Chocolate
- 2 Tbsp. Honey / Alternative Sweetener
-Cinnamon
-Pinch of Salt

Method:

-Boil 1/3 saucepan of water and place glass bowl on top
-Add thick coconut milk from the top of the can into the bowl without any of the excess water
-Add dark chocolate, honey cinnamon and salt to the bowl and allow the heat from the water below melt the ingredients
- Stir frequently until a sauce like consistency is reached and check the sweetness (I know that sweetness varies between people a lot!)
- Move the sauce into an open glass container to cool before refrigerating,

When the sauce is cool it has a mousse like texture but you can always warm it up in the micro oven to use as a hot fudge sauce.

Let me know if you enjoyed this recipe and how you enjoy eating the sauce the most.

Priyanka

Browned Paleo Banana Coconut Cookie Recipe

 

Overly sweet tooth like me? In need for chocolate? Want to become a cookie monster without the 'unhealthy' feel?

 

Dear ones, join me.

 

I accept that my cooking skills are not perfect and that these cookies are a little over browned but doesn't mean that they taste bad at all!

 

To make these quick and easy yummies, you will need:

 

- 2 Bananas

- 1/2 Cup Ground Flax Seeds

-1/2 Cup Shredded Coconut

-1/3 Cup Hemp Seeds

-5/6 Dried Dates roughly chopped

-2 Heaped Tbs Honey

 (more or less depending on your preference; you can also sub any other sweetener)

- 4 Squares Dark Chocolate (I used Lindt 85%) Chopped

-1/2 Tsp Cinammon

-1 Tsp Nut Butter

-2 Tbs Olive Oil/ Coconut Oil

 

Method:

 

- Preheat the oven to 200 °c

 

-Line an oven tray with tin foil and spread with olive oil to prevent cookies from sticking to the foil

 

- Mash the bananas (TIP: Peel and warm the bananas for 40-50 seconds to make mashing them up easier) and mix flax and hemp seeds, coconuts, oil, cinnamon, honey and nut butter together in a large bowl.

 

-Allow to cool a little before gently stirring in the dark chocolate chips and chopped dates

 

- Place mixture on the foil and press into cookie shapes

 

-Bake in over for 6-10 minutes

 

TIP: To prevent over burning keep checking the cookies and take out of the oven before it goes too brown , pretty self  explanatory but I always seem to find the simple things in life too straight forward.

 

I ate my cookies with hot almond milk hot chocolate whilst I watched Vampire Diaries like a typical girl on a typical Friday night.

 

Let me know if you know if you liked this recipe and any variations you may have made.

 

Priyanka xx

Healthy and Filling Chocolate Breakfast Smoothie

Normally I'm not one for breakfast smoothies because they tend to lead me unsatisfied and hungry in the morning. One thing I've learnt is that I really don't like being hungry in the morning because I then go and snack on everything in my fridge. Not good.

When I came up with this, I chucked loads of random ingredients, that I would normally eat for breakfast, together and blended away... I don't know how but it came out much better than I expected.

So here is the recipe: (Serves 1)

- 1 cup of Hazelnut milk (sub any milk but this gives a different taste)
- 1 Banana
- 1 Tbsp Chia Seeds
- 1 Tbsp Smooth Peanut Butter ...( I still can't believe I got through the hole tub in a month. That's some kind of record)
- 1 Pack of Quaker Instant Oats or 1/2 Rolled Oats
- 1 1/2 heaped tbs Cocoa ( depending on how chocolaty you'd like it)
- Handful of ice cubes (optional)

Throw all your ingredients into your blender and blend away!

This is probably my favourite smoothies at the moment and I love sippin' it with my smoothie straw! Maybe its just me.  Also, I have been using my blender a lot during the summer holiday for baking and smoothie-ing  - I love it.

I really hope that you enjoy this smoothie recipe! Let me know if you substituted or added anything that makes it taste  better.

Priyanka xx

Things That Make Me Happy #2 Cake Batter

Opps I did it again...

Yes. I will scoop up the remaining cake batter until its as clean as it can be.

Most would say its a guilty pleasure but what's so guilty about it, its the same thing as eating the cake isn't it? To be honest I'm not completely sure if its great for you because the ingredients are not technically 'cooked' ...(well raw egg anyone?) But it is covered in chocolate that makes it better :)

Well the main thing is it makes me happy! The main reasons I love cooking is because I feel satisfied after putting in the effort and you get food at the end. Duh.

Anyone else up for sharing a whole bowl of cookie batter with me?

Priyanka x