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Sugar Free Chocolate Mint Avocado Mousse

Guest post with recipe developed by Nicky Corbishley, the founder of Kitchen Sanctuary blog.http://kitchensanctuary.com/

Nicky is also brand ambassador for NEFF, after winning the Cookaholic competition last year, and is currently helping gathering true and passionate cookaholics around the country to enter this year’s competition.

Neff is currently looking for new entrants to this years competition at: http://www.nextcookaholic.co.uk/

One of his fantastic recipes is included in this post.  Enjoy..

Refined sugar-free chocolate mint avocado mousse with shortbread bites

  Makes 4 servings of mousse and 28-30 shortbread bites

Chocolate Mint Mousse:

  • 4 ripe avocados, peeled and de-stoned
  • 2 very ripe bananas, peeled
  • 160ml unsweetened almond milk
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
  • 1/8 tsp green food colouring gel (optional)
  • 3 tbsp honey
  • ½ tsp peppermint extract
  • 3 tbsp raw cacao powder
  • 2 tbsp Greek yogurt
  • 1 small square good quality, sugar-free dark chocolate, grated
  • Mint leaves to garnish

Shortbread Bites:

  • 100g unsalted butter, softened
  • 3 tbsp real maple syrup
  • 100g plain flour
  • 50g rice flour
  • pinch of salt

Instructions:

  1. Start with the shortbread. Using a stand mixer, or by hand, mix the butter and maple syrup until well incorporated. Add the two flours and the salt, and mix again until just incorporated (don’t over-mix as your cookies will be tough).
  2. Scoop out the dough and squash it together into a big ball. Place it onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to approx. 6mm thick. The dough is quite delicate and will try to crumble in places. Just push it back together if it crumbles.
  3. Using a small (approx. 3-4 cm) cookie cutter, cut out the cookie shapes – squashing and re-rolling the dough as needed. Dip your cookie cutter in flour before each cut, to prevent it sticking to the dough. Place the cookie shapes on a tray or chopping board, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes (this will help the cookies to maintain a sharper shape once in the oven).
  4. When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 170c CircoTherm. Take the biscuits out of the fridge and take off the clingfilm. Place baking parchment or a silicone mat onto a large baking tray and place the cookies on the tray. They shouldn’t spread, but leave at least 1.5cm space between each cookie. Place the tray in the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges start to turn slightly golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray.
  5. Now make the mousse. Place the avocados, banana, almond milk, vanilla bean paste, food colouring gel (if using) and honey into a food processer. Blend until smooth and creamy. Spoon half of the mixture out into a bowl and stir in the peppermint extract.
  6. Add the cacao powder to the remaining mixture in the food processer and pulse until well combined.
  7. Spoon the two mixtures into two separate piping bags with a large circular or semi-circular tip (alternatively use disposable piping bags with the tips cut off – no nozzle needed). Holding both bags at the same time, with the tips next to each other, pipe the mousse into serving glasses in a swirled pattern.
  8. Top each mousse with ½ tbsp Greek yogurt and a small sprinkling of grated dark chocolate. Push a shortbread biscuit into the blob of Greek yogurt and garnish with a few small mint leaves.
  9. Serve the mousse immediately, with extra shortbread bites for dipping.

 

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The Hay Fever Survival Guide

I don’t know about all of you, but I suffer from hay fever these days.  I was lucky enough to avoid it for most of my life, then one day, I started sneezing after an outside run, and it’s bothered me ever since.

Believe me, there’s nothing safe about repeated sneezing your way home in the car when you’re driving, so I had to find ways of dealing with it on a day-to-day basis.  Mine started as exercise induced, but now it’s just your regular old hay fever.

We’re at the point in the year, where I have felt a few extra sinus headaches, and a more than a few sneezes, and it’s only going to get worse.

What Is Hay Fever?

Unfortunately for some of us, it starts with an itchy, runny nose, lots of sneezing and water eyes to go along with it.  Mine comes on suddenly, then stubbornly refuses to go away.  It’s very common in the UK, and it affects our lives in more way than we tend to think about.  I know I struggle to sleep and don’t work so well when my hay fever is at its peak.

Hay fever is an allergic reaction to pollen.  It’s fairly simple, but there are different types, such pollen from grass, nettle rape seed, mould spores, hazel trees and more.  One, or a combination of these is what we’re allergic to.  Our bodies recognise that pollen as an alien threat and produces histamines which trigger sneezing, coughing, runny eyes etc, in a bid to get that pollen out of our bodies.  In effect, our bodies are doing us a favour, no matter how miserably we feel about it.

What Can We Do About It?

At first, my instinct was to try to ignore it, thinking I had just caught a cold.  When it didn’t tail off after a few days, I knew I had a longer issue to worry about.  Simple hacks to help ourselves can include.

  • Taking exercise earlier in the day and try to avoid evening jaunts outside, as pollen rises during the day, being higher in the evenings, before subsiding during the night.
  • Dry clothes and bedding indoors if you can, but if you have to hang them outside, take them in before evenings.
  • Consider using a saline nasal spray to wash out your nostrils after being outside.  Speak to your local pharmacist about it and anything else that might help.

See The Doc

I did end up having to see the doc.  I have chronic sinusitis, so having hay fever as well is just double summer misery.  I use a corticosteroid spray in the summer months, and I use an antihistamine all year round, to avoid the headaches.  Age seems to have something to do with it, as our immune systems start to need a little extra helping hand.   As with all allergies, you need to seek medical advice if any adverse symptoms begin to appear.

What Else?

I’m still unsure about alternative therapies, although may people swear by them.  I don’t know much about them, other than quercetin is said to help in a similar way to an anti inflammatory.  It’s worth checking out for yourself.  I’ve heard immunotherapy works in a similar way to a vaccine, where we’re given small doses, to help reduce symptoms

To find out more, visit the Allergy UK website, at allergyuk.org.

 

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Mindfulness is a new thing for me.

We’ve probably heard it called a multitude of other things, but learning to make time for ourselves is something we should all do, no matter what our budget or free time looks like.

It’s not the same, but as an example, I’ve lost count of the people who’ve asked me how I lost weight, but when I tell them I log all my food, they say they don’t have time for that, or they don’t have time to exercise.  What they’re really saying, is that they’re not prepared to do it, or they don’t want to, or they’re not yet ready to focus on themselves, or I somehow, magically, have many more hours in a day than they do.

Let’s talk about a stereotype of some women I met in the playground when my kids were younger.

I can’t help thinking they’re going to have a heart attack, due to being constantly on alert, always worrying about what people say about them, always worrying about whether their kids are clever enough, pretty enough, top of the class, a genius in whatever, or whether their husbands are making enough money or not.

They’re STRESSED…..  With a great stonking S…….   Not only do they have to contend with the playground mums these days, they also have to content with the mythical perfection that exists in family life on Facebook or Twitter, or Pinterest, or Instagram, or whatever their choice of social media, where the pressure to conform is massive.  Their phones beep every few seconds, and they’re always being at the other end of demand from someone or other…    And when it comes to appearance, many are doing the latest Botox, or fillers, or Microblading their brows to perfection, but what about their minds????

Mindfulness is a new term to me, and one that I might mention frequently from now on.   Looking after our mental health is a place where we tend not to go these days, as time is always just that few seconds ahead of us, and we struggle to catch up.

For relaxing treatments, a move to treating the mind, in order to relax the body, isn’t a new thing, but it has tended to be ignored.  A move to more holistic approaches to treatment is always going to relax the mind, body and soul.

Aromatherapy, Hot Stone Massage, Facials, Hot Stones, Reiki, Reflexology and much much more, are all examples of therapies where we can sit back, and let our minds wander, especially if we’ve turned our mobile phones OFF for the duration.  I’ve come late in life to the benefits of holistic treatments, but I’m finding the therapy, where we have time to concentrate on our breathing, sit quietly, and actually relax, allowing our minds to rest, is something I’ve been missing all my life.

Sleeping is a no brainer, and a big issue for many of us, whether it’s falling asleep, or simply staying asleep.  I find that my hayfever makes that worse from Spring to Autumn, but on the whole, whenever I’ve taken time out for me, I’ve found my sleep has improved enormously, especially if there are aromatherapy oils or a well delivered massage involved.

Do some research and find something that works for you.  You won’t regret it.