Weekday Breakfasts

Good Day Everyone,

Our breakfast eating habits in Japan are somewhat different to Singapore. In Singapore, we would start the day with a fresh juice (e.g. green apple, cucumber, celery, carrot and fresh ginger), however, as our juicer was on it's last legs we didn't bring it with us to Japan, thinking we'd pick up a new one. Once here though, we realised that the voltage is completely different and given that juicers are quite the investment (and electronic items are more expensive in Japan!), we didn't want to buy one which we then couldn't use once we left Japan. Also there's no guarantee that had we brought our juicer it would have worked, given that my hairdryer and GHD straightening irons wont work here. So now we start our day with hot water with fresh lemon juice, ginger and honey. This is a great way of hydrating the body after a nights sleep and, on an empty stomach, it's also a great detox.

I don't know about you, but what we eat for breakfast during the week tends to be quite different to the weekends. During the week, we like to eat something that is nutritious and not too heavy (hubby and I find it difficult to eat much in the mornings as we are not morning people), but just as important, quick and easy to make. On the weekend we take things more leisurely and make something that's a bit more complex and filling as it often ends up being brunch, rather than just breakfast.

If you follow me on Instagram then you will have seen the numerous photos I post of my smoothie bowls and that's what we eat most weekdays. They're very quick and easy to make, and a great way of incorporating fruit into our diet (which is important to me as my hubby isn't much of a fruit eater). We make ours quite thick and then top them with lots of nuts, seeds and even more fruit which is why we eat them out of a bowl. In a blender these take just a few seconds to whiz together. Unfortunately, our blender broke when we left Singapore and we've not replaced it in Japan for the aforementioned reason. Strangely though, our little hand blender does work with the voltage in Japan and so that's what we currently use. It's not ideal as the smoothies are always a little on the chunky side but it'll do for now.

A typical smoothie bowl

Smoothie bowl toppings

When I first started making smoothie bowls I was using regular milk, then I moved on to natural yoghurt, but as I started to reduce my dairy intake (for health reasons) I moved onto almond milk. If I have too much dairy it can aggravate my arthritis but I find it almost impossible to give up cheese or the splash of milk that I have in my daily coffee. So I balance it by eliminating the yoghurt/milk from my smoothies. Also, almond milk adds a nice nutty taste to the smoothies and hubby really likes it. In the past we've also used hemp milk which we like.

A tropical drinking smoothie

Sometimes for a change we'll make drinking smoothies and you can see the fruits we use for that in the video below, as well as our other weekday breakfasts.

If it's a cold wintery day then we will sometimes have porridge topped with, you guessed it, nuts, seeds and fruit ;o) Occasionally I will have a simple fresh fruit salad, although that is a bit of treat given how expensive exotic fruits like mangoes and melons are in Japan!

A warm breakfast on a cold day

Fresh fruit salad

If you're a long time Glistening Sheen follower then you'll know that I love to make my own granola. However, as we don't have a proper oven I've not been able to make that since we moved to Japan. Unlike British people, the Japanese don't tend to use ovens much for their cooking. Hubby and I used to use our oven almost daily in Singapore and I cannot tell you how much I miss having an oven! You can find my granola recipe here if you're interested :o).

I will try to follow this vlog/post with one on our weekend breakfasts so keep an eye out for that in the next few weeks.

What do you like to eat for your weekday breakfast?

Love Sheen xxx

Recipe: Easy Tuna Fish Cakes With A Twist

Good Day Everyone,

Many people use the new year as an opportunity to kick start their healthy eating, after indulging in the Christmas festivities. Today, I have a very easy tuna fish cake recipe for you with a little twist. I usually have most of the required ingredients sat at home, as they're pretty much staples in our kitchen. So if I'm ever stuck on what to make hubby for supper, this is something that I can turn to with ease.

Ingredients: Fish Cake

The basic ingredients for the mixture

4 medium sized potatoes
1 can of tuna fish
3 spring onions
1 lemon
Few parsley sprigs
Salt & pepper

Optional Ingredients:
75gr grated cheddar cheese
Chilli flakes
Mustard
1/2 tspn turmeric powder

Coating Ingredients:
2 slices of slightly stale bread
1-2 eggs
1 tbsp olive oil for shallow frying 

Instructions:
1. Peel, wash, slice, and boil the potatoes until cooked through.
2. In the meantime, wash and thinly slice the spring onions and parsley, and put to one side.
3. Grate the zest of the lemon and add to the spring onions and parsley.
4. Once the potatoes are cooked, drain the water and put the potatoes into a mixing bowl.
5. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon on top of the potatoes and mash them roughly (lumps are allowed ;o)).
6. To the mashed potatoes add the spring onions, parsley, lemon zest, tuna, and salt and pepper to taste.
7. You can leave the fish cake mixture as is at this stage, or you can choose to add whichever of the optional ingredients you desire. I chose to add the grated cheese and some chill flakes on this particular day. I have, in the past, added turmeric (a great anti-inflammatory for arthritis sufferers like me), and it wasn't over powering, nor did it turn the fish cakes bright yellow, in case you were wondering ;o).
8. Now it's time to roll your sleeves up and get stuck in to mix all the ingredients together. I always wear some plastic food gloves to do this.

Time to get mixing

9. Take a bit of the mixture into your hands and roll it into a ball and then flatten and pop onto a large plate/tray.
10. Repeat until you have completely used up the mixture to make the fish cakes. I typically get 8 fish cakes from this quantity of ingredients. At this stage you can store the fish cakes in the fridge until you are ready to cook them. You can also freeze the fish cakes at this stage to use at a later date. Just be sure to defrost them fully before going ahead with the coating and frying them.

11. Blitz the bread slices in a blender to form breadcrumbs and pour into a breakfast bowl.
12. Whisk the eggs in a bowl.
13. Heat up a non stick frying pan with the tablespoon of olive oil.
14. Take a fish cake and dip it into the egg, then straight into the breadcrumbs before putting it into the frying pan. Repeat for however many fish cakes fit into your frying pan at one time. I can get 4 fish cakes in my frying pan.
15. Cook the fish cakes on a medium heat for about 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown.
16. Repeat the above 2 steps for the remaining fish cakes and serve with some fresh lemon.

In the summer, we usually have our fish cakes with a colourful salad, but as it's currently winter, we ate ours with some vegetable ribbons lightly cooked in olive oil and a drop of balsamic vinegar.

 

I hope you try this recipe out and don't let the number of instructions put you off. It is a lot easier than it looks, and best of all they taste delicious :o)

Love Sheen xxx

Recipe: Coconut & Mint Chia Seed Pudding

Good Day Everyone,

If you've ever read my Super Seeds blog post then you'll know that I'm a big fan of incorporating seeds into my diet. Chia seeds were a relatively recent addition, but they've quickly become one of my favourite seeds to eat. They're high in fiber, protein and anti-inflammatory omega-3s which is great for someone like me who suffers from arthritis, an inflammatory disease. I typically use chia seeds in my home made granola (you can find the recipe here), sprinkled on salads and I even eat them neat on their own. 

More recently, after seeing many beautiful photos on Instagram, I've started to make chia seed puddings. A quick search on Google brought up numerous recipes and I soon realised that there is no right or wrong way to make chia seed pudding. It all comes down to personal preference. Chia seeds don't have a particularly strong flavour of their own which means that they will take on the flavour of whatever liquid you mix them with. When immersed in a liquid, these tiny super seeds will soften as they expand up to nine times their original size, which makes them incredibly filling whilst being low in calories. Upon expanding they form a cross between a gelatinous and mousse like texture. I've seen different ratios of chia seeds to liquid in recipes online, and I think through experimentation, I'll find a ratio that suits my taste. The less liquid there is the less the chia seeds will expand, but ultimately I don't worry too much about my measurements being exact....that's my kind of recipe ;o)

The great thing about chia seed puddings is that they can be flavoured and decorated in sooo many different ways that for a colour loving freak like me, the possibilities are endless! These puddings can also be made ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator which makes them ideal for those of us that are pushed for time. They can be eaten for breakfast, as a snack and even dessert.

Below is a recipe for some coconut and mint chia seed puddings that I made recently.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of coconut milk
• 1/3 cup of chia seeds
• 2 teaspoons of honey
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• A large handful of fresh mint leaves
• Fresh fruit and shredded coconut, as desired

Instructions:

1. I mixed the coconut milk, honey and vanilla essence in a large bowl.
2. To the mixture above, I added the mint leaves, finely chopped (I used a hand blender to blitz them) and kept a few sprigs back to decorate with.
3. I then added the chia seeds to the mixture, mixed it all together and left the mixture to sit in the refrigerator for 30mins in the large bowl so that the chia seeds can expand.
4. After 30mins, I took the chia seed pudding mixture out of the refrigerator and poured it into two glasses and glass ramekins, and layered and decorated the pudding with fresh fruit, mint sprigs and toasted shredded coconut, as seen in the photos. I made sure not to fill the glasses and ramekins right to the brim, just in case the chia seeds expanded further.
5. I then covered the puddings with clingfilm and popped them back into the refrigerator for at least 2 hours to set and expand further.

The end result was a delicious, creamy, pretty looking dessert that I'd be happy to serve to dinner guests, and best of all it's easy to make and requires minimal preparation.

Next time, I would make a few changes to this recipe. I would add about half a cup of either coconut water or pineapple juice as I felt that the chia seeds could've absorbed a bit more liquid. Also using only coconut cream might be a bit too rich and heavy for some people. In terms of liquid, you could replace the coconut milk with almond milk,  different fruit juices and even mix in some fresh fruit puree.

I would also experiment with different natural sweeteners and even spices such as cinnamon. Being a chocoholic, my hubby's request is for me to make a chocolate version of this pudding.The possibilities really are endless ;o)

I hope you enjoyed this recipe post and do let me know if you try this out for yourself.
Love Sheen xxx

Roasted Vegetables Three Ways

Good Day Everyone,

When it comes to getting my five-a-day, I find eating fruit so much easier than vegetables. With fruit you simply peel / wash / chop and voila it’s ready to eat but with most vegetables there is that additional step of cooking that makes it just that bit more time and energy heavy. Also, some vegetables such as butternut squash are beyond the means of my arthritic hands and fingers. I just do not have the grip nor the strength in my hands to chop and / or peel such tough vegetables. 

So in order to make eating vegetables a bit easier, my hubby tends to bulk roast a selection of vegetables that we can eat for more than one day. Now this post isn’t a recipe per se but just me sharing the different ways in which we eat roasted vegetables. 

A few days ago my hubby made the below tray of roasted vegetables. He peeled and cut up the super hard to cook vegetables like sweet potatoes, potatoes and butternut squash and par boiled them. This is so that they can be roasted at the same time as the not so tough vegetables which don’t need be par boiled, like baby carrots and baby courgettes.

In a foil baking tray he added some olive oil, balsamic vinegar which helps to bring out the sweetness of the carrots, the par boiled sweet potatoes, potatoes and butternut squash as well as some baby carrots, baby courgettes, cherry tomatoes, baby bell peppers (capsicum), spring onions, peeled and quartered red onions, peeled whole cloves of garlic, olives, halved limes and some fresh sprigs of rosemary. To be honest, you could use any vegetables or herbs you like. My hubby just used what we had at home but he will often use other vegetables such as mushrooms and parsnip as well. He then covered the foil baking tray with a sheet of foil and roasted the vegetables until they were cooked.

We then had these for supper and they go perfectly with some fish or chicken. My hubby even eats them on their own as a meal, as he doesn’t eat chicken and isn’t a fan of fish.

The next day, I took some of the vegetables and heated them up in some olive oil in a frying pan but first I sliced some of the chunkier vegetables, like the potatoes and butternut squash. Whilst the vegetables were heating in the frying pan, I whisked an egg with some milk, turmeric (I add turmeric to almost everything these days as a way of upping my intake of anti-inflammatory foods) and a pinch of salt. I then added the egg mixture into the frying pan and finished with a little bit of grated cheese on top and voila I made an omelette come frittata that I had with some fresh avocado.

Finally, the third way we eat these roasted vegetables is by whizzing the cold left over vegetables in a blender and adding them to a pan with some vegetable stock, heat through and you have roasted vegetable soup.

So there you go, three meal ideas / ways of eating roasted vegetables and the best bit is that by bulk roasting you save not only time and energy but also on the gas bill too ;o)

What do you think to our way of eating more vegetables but reducing the time and effort spent in preparing and cooking them? Do you have any tips or ideas on how to incorporate more vegetables in to our diet with minimal effort? I’d love to hear your thoughts / ideas :o)

Love Sheen xxx

Recipe: Granola Goodness

Good Day Everyone,

Whilst I love my fresh fruit and homemade smoothies for breakfast there are times when I just fancy something a bit more filling and that’s where my homemade granola plugs the gap nicely. Not only does it taste great but it’s full of lots of nutritional benefits due to the nuts and seeds I use.

Whilst you can buy granola (and some brands/types are better than others) ultimately the company that makes the granola is rarely going to prioritise your nutritional health over their profit margins and so I prefer to make my own. This granola is incredibly versatile and can be eaten in so many different ways. My hubby has it for breakfast with natural yogurt and fresh berries, I tend to eat it as it is with my daily cup of coffee or as an afternoon snack, my dad likes it crumbled over piping hot custard as a dessert, whereas my younger brother likes it crumbled over his favourite ice cream and my mum likes it in all of the above ways :o)

I will often make the granola in bun cases as it’s easier to hand out to friends/family or for my hubby to take to work, rather than baking it in a tray and cutting it into bars/squares -  as it always seems to crumble!!! My mum has recently started making it and she does bake hers in a tray and quite likes it crumbled as she can store in an airtight container and sprinkle it over yogurt/custard/ice cream etc whenever she likes.

I also make this granola in the teeny tiny bun cases as it looks sooo cute when served on the side of a cup of tea/coffee when we’re entertaining friends.

Ingredients:

• 200gr rolled oats
• 100gr unsalted nuts (I tend to use baked cashew nuts and almonds)
• 100gr seeds (small seeds like chia/flaxseed/sesame or big seeds like sunflower/pumpkin)
• 100gr dried fruit (apricots/cranberries/raisins or even fresh dates)
• 100gr unsalted butter
• 100gr brown sugar
• 2 regular/dessert spoons of honey
• 2-3tsp cinnamon powder
• ½ - 1tsp ginger powder

Instructions:

1. If using dates/apricots chop them into small pieces
2. Chop the nuts into small pieces (I chop almonds/cashew nuts into 3-4 pieces per nut)
3. In a dry (no oil/butter) heated frying pan, dry roast the oats, 1/3 at a time until the colour changes ever so slightly
4. Dry roast the chopped nuts in the frying pan
5. Heat up a large pan/cooking pot and add the butter, brown sugar, honey, cinnamon and ginger. Melt and mix until the ingredients become syrup like and then turn off the heat
6. Into the syrup mixture, add the nuts, seeds and fruit and mix thoroughly
7. Then add the oats to the syrup mixture and mix thoroughly. Taste the mixture for sweetness, cinnamon and ginger levels and add more, if required to suit your taste
8. Spoon the mixture into bun cases (I usually get 18 regular sized bun cases from this quantity)
9. Bake in the oven for 12 minutes at 160-180 degrees Celsius
10. Allow to cool and store in the fridge in an airtight container. The granola buns will keep for at least a couple of weeks... that’s if they last that long!

This batch included white sesame seeds

Notes:

• You can use which ever nuts, seeds and fruits you like, even things not on my list like coconut and banana chips. I tend to use whatever I have in the kitchen
• If I’m baking the granola in a tray then I usually bake it for 15-20 minutes in the oven and cut it into bars/squares when it’s cooled down but still a little warm. I then pop the pieces into the fridge immediately so they will harden and set, thus less likely to fall apart
• If you don’t like ginger or cinnamon then feel free to leave it out. I like the  taste of the cinnamon and ginger to come through slightly plus I love to use spices in cooking for their health benefits and tend to be quite generous with them
• If you ever find that at step 7 the mixture is very dry and not sticking together then it’s most likely that you have too much of the dry ingredients and not enough of the syrup mixture (stickiness) to bind it all together. In this instance just drizzle a little honey over the mixture and re-mix and it should be fine
• Warning – whilst the granola is very yummy, you know that old saying, ‘too much of a good thing’ well let’s just say that due to the fibre content the granola can have a bit of a laxative effect if you over indulge!

I hope you try this recipe and let me know how it turns out. So many of my friends and family have and loved it so I hope you do too :o)

Love Sheen xxx

Recipe: Spiced Potato Patties With Cucumber & Mint Raita

Good Day Everyone,

We’ve been back in Singapore almost a week and our body clocks are only just starting to adjust to our current time zone. My hubby’s had a hectic and stressful week back at work and I’ve just about finished our unpacking! So we are both looking forward to a relaxing weekend and what better way to start the weekend than some delicious home cooked food and watching some feel good TV (well technically it’s not TV as we don’t have one but it’s a TV programme that we watched over the internet). Tonight we watched our first episode of the new series of Doc Martin that has just started back on British TV. My hubby and I both love this programme, set in the idyllic and picturesque fishing village of Port Isaac in Cornwall, England. It’s a little piece of home that we watched whilst enjoying some yummy food.

Back to the food bit, I thought I’d share some photos of what I made this evening as well as the recipes so that you can try it out for yourself. I’m not an amazing cook by any means and I don’t tend to follow recipes very well. Cooking, to me, is more of an art rather than a science and so I tend to make things up as I go along, often going off in little tangents and mixing things up a bit. The only time I tend to treat cooking as a science is when I’m making something where the relative proportions of the ingredients have a dramatic effect on how the final food turns out, for example, when baking a cake or a soufflé (not that I’ve ever made a soufflé but you get what I mean).

Despite not being vegetarians, my hubby and I tend to have a heavily vegetarian based diet for the simple reason that he doesn’t eat most types of meat or seafood. I really don’t mind this as I’m not a big meat eater myself. So tonight I made us spiced potato patties along with cucumber and mint raita. These make a great snack and for something more substantial, my hubby has them in a wrap with some salad. They can also be used in a burger bun to make a vege burger.

The spice levels are just enough to give the food a little bit of a kick but not burn your mouth as neither of us can handle really spicy food. I do tend to be quite generous with things like ginger and turmeric as they both have anti-inflammatory properties which studies have shown to be beneficial for people like me who have arthritis. I generally believe that spices and herbs have a lot of health and healing benefits and tend to use them as often as I can in home cooking.

 Cucumber & Mint Raita:

·         8 dessert spoons of natural yogurt

·         1 ½  tsp mint sauce

·         ½  tsp salt

·         ½ tsp ground cumin

·         ½ tsp ground coriander

·         3-4 stalks of freshly chopped coriander

·         3-4 stalks of freshly chopped mint leaves

·         1 baby cucumber finely diced

·         A little paprika for dusting

Instructions:
Mix all of the above ingredients together in a bowl. I kept a little bit of the diced cucumber and some whole coriander leaves back to use as a garnishing along with the paprika. You can add some finely chopped fresh chillies, if you prefer a little heat but I find that the ground cumin and coriander add sufficient spice for my liking. The salt helps to tone down the sweetness of the mint sauce.

Spiced Potato Patties:

·         1kg of potatoes peeled, finely sliced, boiled and roughly mashed

·         4 large spring onions finely chopped

·         10 stalks of coriander finely chopped

·         1 (not too hot) red chilli finely chopped

·         1 ¼ - 1 ½ tsp salt

·         1 tsp ground cumin

·         1 tsp ground coriander

·         ½ tsp ground ginger

·         ½ tsp ground turmeric

·         ½ tsp ground garam masala

·         ¼ tsp red chilli powder

·         2 eggs lightly whisked in a bowl

·         Some olive oil for cooking

·         Slices of lemon and fresh coriander leaves to garnish

Instructions:

1.      Into the mashed potatoes add all of the other ingredients except for the eggs, olive oil and lemon and coriander set aside for garnishing.

2.      Mix the ingredients well using a spoon and using your hands form the potato mixture into 14-16 balls.

3.      Heat a frying pan with enough olive oil to coat the entire pan.

4.      Flatten a potato ball in the palm of your hand to a round patty shape, coat the patty entirely in the whisked eggs and place into the heated frying pan.

5.      Depending on the size of your frying pan and potato patties, you should be able to get 3-4 patties into the frying pan at once.

6.      Cook the patties for a couple of minutes on each side until golden brown and then remove and place on a plate covered with kitchen towel to soak up any excess oil.

7.      Once you’ve cooked the patties, garnish with the lemon and fresh coriander leaves and serve with the cucumber and mint raita.

The potato balls will keep in the fridge for a couple of days, if you don’t wish to cook them all at once. When you’re ready to cook them just remove the potato balls from the fridge and repeat instruction steps 3-7 above.

The quantities in the recipes are very much a guide rather than a rigid instruction and so I recommend you adjust things to suit your own taste and as with most things it’s all about experimentation ;o)

Do let me know in the comments below if you tried any of these recipes and how they turned out? I’d love to see your photos too :o)

Hope you all have a relaxing weekend.

Love Sheen xxx