Dr Mosley’s Eggplant Brownies

Hello everyone.  These delicious brownies are from Dr Michael Mosley’s Clever Guts Diet book so I take no credit for them whatsoever.  I was lucky enough to attend a talk he did last week in Perth and his book was part of the package I purchased.  I try not to jump on diet bandwagons, but his makes so much sense and is nothing crazy or onerous.  In fact, most of the things he suggests are things I am already doing or eating (so I feel fairly smug ha ha).  Do visit his website and read his book if you are interested in improving your health and feeling better in general.  You may lose some weight too, although that’s not the focus of the diet (it’s just an added bonus).

Anyway, I have recently given up sugar (sort of…I fall off the wagon regularly) and, because of this, have not been craving as much sweet stuff.  That’s not to say I don’t want it at all – we ARE talking about me, after all – but I have been less inclined to raid the cookie jar at work and haven’t been wandering around the house at night trying to find something to eat after dinner.

These brownies are yummy.  You would never know they have eggplant in them and hardly any sugar (none added – just dates).  They are really moist and fudgey and will satisfy any sweet tooth and the most fussy chocoholic.  Do try them 🙂

Ingredients

• 1 medium eggplant (200 g), peeled and diced
• 150g dark chocolate (minimum 70 per cent cocoa solids), broken into pieces
• 60g coconut oil
• 60g soft pitted dates, diced
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 80g almond meal

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 170°C. Steam the eggplant for 15 min­utes until it’s soft. Put it in a medium-sized mixing bowl and stir in the chocolate and coconut oil. The warm eggplant will melt the chocolate and oil. Add the chopped dates and salt. Using a hand blender or a food processor, blitz the mixture until it’s smooth. By now it should be cool enough to add the eggs and baking powder. Blitz again for another minute or so, then mix in the ground almonds. Spread the mixture onto a medium-sized baking tray lined with baking  paper and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. It is cooked when a knife comes out clean.

Cut into squares to serve.

 

Enjoy! 🙂

 

Vegan “Meat” Balls

Hello, everyone!  I meant to post this before Christmas and then got a little bit sidetracked with, um, Christmas.  Seems like a long time ago now…

My brother and his partner are currently giving veganism a go and so, as Christmas was at their house, we had to come up with something to contribute to the dinner that night.  Normally, this wouldn’t be such an issue – Mum and I are already vegetarian – but because I have kidney issues, a lot of vegan-friendly foods are off the menu.  No chickpea casserole or lentil burgers for me!  So it became a little trickier to figure out what to bring.  And I didn’t want to wuss out and bring something just for me to eat.

Mum was in charge of dessert, so I told her to just make apple pie which is easy to do (just substitute any butter in the pastry with a non-dairy spread) and we served it with soy ice-cream.  Simple!  So she got off lightly.

I had to figure something else out for a savoury dish.  So I came up with these vegan “meat” balls.  I don’t have an exact recipe – I was too busy testing and mixing to actually write down any measurements – but you will get the general gist of things here.  It’s a bit of a keep-adding-stuff-until-you-get-it-right kind of recipe anyway.

Start with the binding agent, which in this recipe is flax seed meal.  Add three tablespoons of water to one of flax meal and mix together in a small bowl.  Set aside.

Now you need a large eggplant, chopped into small-ish pieces.  Chuck in a frypan and saute with a little bit of oil.  To stop it drying out, add a splash of water now and again.  You’re going to want to cook it for a while until….

…it goes shmushy.  Y’know, all soft and mushy and no longer holding its shape.  Shmushy.  Oh and while you’re doing that, blanch some broccoli florets in boiling water for about 3 minutes until it is tender but NOT shmushy.  I used about 400g broccoli for this.  Drain it and set aside while the eggplant is cooking.

Into a food processor, chuck the broccoli and eggplant, flax meal, five chopped spring onions (or you can use a small brown onion, chopped and sauteed with the eggplant), 200g of pine nuts, and about a cup of quick porridge oats.  I also added a little vege stock powder for seasoning and some smoked paprika.  Pulse in the processor, until it forms a sticky, combined blob. If it seems a little too sticky and wet, add some more oats or, if you’re not me, you could probably chuck in some besan (chickpea) flour.

Now, roll the mixture into little balls – about the size of a golf ball.  Place on a baking tray and sprinkle with a little more smoked paprika if desired.

Bake for 25 – 30 mins in a 180 C oven.  Turn halfway through cooking time so they’re golden on all sides.  They should be quite firm and crispy on the outside.

Serve with a nice tomato sauce (like you would regular meatballs).  Yum!

These balls freeze really well and are delicious cold as well as hot.  You can use them in place of mince in a “meatloaf” or burgers.  As I said, my recipe is not exact – just go by feel and taste.  The eggplant lends a nice meaty taste to the dish, but you could substitute everything else for something you prefer.  Eg grated carrot instead of broccoli, breadcrumbs instead of oats, etc.  And of course you could use egg instead of the flax, if you’re not vegan.  Anything goes here!  Just experiment a bit 🙂

Hope you give these a try and maybe invent your own version/recipe (using my crappy version as a blue-print).  This recipe makes enough for a whole family and has the added bonus of not looking like they contain vegies (so fuss-pots will eat them too).

Thank you for stopping by x

 

High-Fibre Muesli Bars

I have a new baby nephew!  He’s very cute (as babies tend to be) and everyone is besotted and spending a lot of time gazing at him, taking photos, and generally coo-ing in his direction.  What is it about babies that makes everyone go a bit nutty?

In trying to help out my brother’s family, I baked a few meals to pop in the freezer and a few little treats to go in school lunchboxes, for bub’s four older siblings.  One such treat included these muesli bars (granola bars if you’re in the U.S.) that I modified from a recipe found at  http://superhealthykids.com/.  I have to confess, I made the munchkins a batch and then, unwisely, made myself some.  I am not good at stopping at one treat – I will generally convince myself that I can have just one more, and just one more…and so on.  I am a bit binge-y these days.  I am consuming my emotions in vast quantities.  Which translates to having no willpower whatsoever and basically just shoving food into my face, regardless of how large my thighs are getting or whether I can do up my pants.

At any rate, these muesli bars are quite delicious and super simple to make.  I was looking for something I could give the kids that was nut-free (because their school has a ban on foods containing nuts due to the rise in allergies) and this fit the bill.  Coconut is not a true nut (it’s considered a fruit, technically) so isn’t on the banned list (but do check to see if it’s ok with your school and allergy-prone kiddiwinks).  You should also check to see that the seeds used are not from a plant which also processes nuts.

I added flax meal to the original recipe to incorporate some extra fibre.  You could easily add some chopped dried fruit, dessicated coconut etc.   Choc chips would be nice too 🙂

 

Ingredients

• 2 cup – quick oats, dry
• ²/₃ cup – raw caster sugar
• 1 cup – flour, wholemeal
• ¹/₂ teaspoon – bicarb soda
• ¹/₂ teaspoon – baking powder
• 1 teaspoon – cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon – salt
• 1 teaspoon – vanilla extract
• ¹/₂ cup – honey
• 2 tablespoon – coconut oil, melted if it has turned solid
• ¹/₄ cup – sunflower seeds
• ¹/₄ cup – pumpkin seed kernels
• 2 tablespoons ground flax meal

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients and press into rectangular pan, (mine was 32cm x 23cm) lined with baking paper. The mixture will be really dry, kinda like crumble mixture.  That’s ok – that’s how it should be.  Trust me.
2. Press mixture right to edges of pan.  Flatten with a fork.
3. Bake at 160 degrees celsius for 20 minutes or until edges are browned. Take out and before it cools, score lightly into bars (mine made 15).  This makes it MUCH easier to break them into bars later.  Otherwise you just have a crumbly bunch of, well, crumbs, everywhere.
4. Once completely cool, break or cut into bars and store them in an airtight container.

Ta-da!  Easy-peasy.

Superhealthykids.com has lots of simple, tasty, healthy recipes to try.  Check them out!

Thanks for dropping by.  Have an awesome week 🙂