#gethealthy Week 4: Getting Out Of Your Fruit and Veg Rut

It's the last week of the #gethealthy January Challenge and with these weekly goals in place, it's quickly made me realise how easy it is to fall into foodal habits - whether good or bad.

This week's goal was to eat more fruit and vegetables. Now, I've always been a fruit and veg fan, I can't get enough of the stuff - twice a week I go to the local market to stock up on the stuff.

But this week, when I was at the market, I took some time to have a proper look around. And this was when I realised that I tend to just buy the same fruit and veg every week.

Nothing wrong with that I guess - it's better than no fruit and veg after all. But I saw so many things that I have never bought, or rarely buy - the simple reason being that I just wouldn't know what to do with them. And that's just a bit of a silly attitude to have, isn't it?

So how do you get out of such a fruit and veg rut?

Well, there's two simple ways I'd like to suggest, the next time you're shopping for fruit and veg.

1) Buy one piece of fruit/veg that you've never or rarely bought before
2) Choose a piece of fruit/veg that you normally buy - with the intention to create a new dish with it

Ok, so maybe they both sound a bit simplistic - but it's just a suggestion for the first step you might choose to take. For example, with the first one, it's not about finding a completely obscure vegetable that you've never even heard of - just something that you might have shied away from before.

For me, one of the veggies I want to try properly is rhubarb - I've never tasted it before (that I can't remember), and the sight of it at the market with its big poisonous leaves always scares me. But it's not in season at the moment so this experiment will have to wait!

Of course, there's other ones I plan to try, but for the timebeing, I want to leave you with something I made following the second step - choosing a fruit/veg that I normally buy (in this case, blueberries), and creating a new dish with it...

Grilled Paprika Pork with Blueberry Sauce

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Serves 2:

4 lean pork steaks (250g)
2 tbsp paprika
1.5 tbsp honey
1 tbsp olive oil

100g fresh blueberries
4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp honey

Some steamed rice and veggies to serve

1) Put the paprika in a large bowl with the honey and olive oil. Add the steaks, mix well and leave to marinade for 15 minutes.
2) Switch on the grill to the highest setting and transfer the steaks to a grill tray. Grill for about 4-5 minutes on each side until cooked through.
3) Meanwhile, gently heat the vinegar and honey in a small pan. Add the blueberries, gently pressing them to heat through.
4) Pour the blueberry sauce over the grilled pork, and serve with some steamed rice and fresh veggies.

You might also find a bit of fruity inspiration from these salads and curries to experiment with, to work more fruit into your diet. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: Creamy Coconut Salmon Pie

Yes, it looks a bit of a mess

But don't knock it!

I was at my friend Grace's house the other weekend for dinner and part of it she made was these gorgeous dauphinoise potatoes. The proper kind too, fluffy and creamy all the same time!

Normally with dauphinoise, you put the raw pots in the dish, pour cream over the top and leave to bake for ages (in a nutshell). Grace was saying how she parboiled them in milk before finishing them off in the oven, to speed up this process.

Ping!

That's the lightbulb going off in my head - what a great idea for a pie topping I thought. Now I've done a potato topping with cream before, but it got me wondering what it'd be like with coconut milk. Mm!

I was a little wary of parboiling the potatoes in coconut milk, since it thickens as you boil it. But I thought I'd give it a shot anyway. I kept it on a low simmer and stirred it every now and again to avoid the whole thing turning into a big potato coconut clump.

It didn't take that much longer to cook the potatoes through actually (than if I'd just boiled in water). There is however the slightly arduous task added here - removing the potatoes, so that the remaining coconut milk can be poured into the pie filling.

With the softened potatoes in the thickened coconut, it can be very easy to break them. And you want to keep the slices intact, so that they can be arranged nicely on top.

So if you try this at home, be gentle!

Creamy Coconut Salmon Pie

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Serves 3-4:

350g potatoes, sliced
400ml coconut milk
400g can of salmon
200g cucumber, diced
175g celery, chopped
4 spring onions, chopped
Juice and zest of 1 lime
100ml double cream

1) Put the sliced potatoes in a pan with the coconut milk. Bring to a slow boil, then leave to simmer for about 20 minutes until the potatoes are just cooked, stirring carefully at regular intervals, as the milk thickens. Take the pan off the heat.
2) Preheat the oven on to 180 degrees C. Carefully remove the potatoes onto a plate with a slotted spoon, leaving the coconut in the pan.
3) In a 2 litre casserole or pie dish, mix together all of the remaining ingredients, except for the double cream. Pour over the coconut milk from the pan.
4) Add the potato slices over the top of the pie to cover, then pour over the double cream evenly. Bake for about half an hour, until the potatoes go golden.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures. Continue reading this post..

Restoration of the Strawberry Cake

A few weeks ago, I had a bit of a soggy slip-up in an attempt to make a strawberry cake.

Now, a faux pas of this kind is usually enough to put me off having another go for a while.

But in this case, I had to get on the case and try again quickly!

I had promised my Capoeira teacher, Bia, a big strawberry and white choccy fan, that I would bring some cake to the first class back after Christmas.

Now I hadn't baked for her before and so when I ended up with the sad and soggy cake of past times, I just couldn't bring myself to take that in!

So I downsized and reworked my failed recipe into cupcake form. What with it being last minute, making it the evening before class, I prayed and crossed my fingers that it would work.

And it did!

Ok, so I almost burnt them, as some of the white chocolate chips at the top were getting a little black. But they certainly weren't soggy and instead were fluffy and sweet - just as intended (unlike the first time round).

Phew, strawberry cake restored, hurrah!

Strawberry and White Chocolate Cupcakes (butter free)

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Makes 12:

1 egg
125ml skimmed milk
3 tbsp olive oil
150g self raising flour
50g white sugar
75g strawberries, finely chopped
75g white chocolate chips

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly beat the egg with the milk and oil.
2) In a large mixing bowl, sift in the flour with the sugar. Fold in the strawberries and chocolate chips.
3) Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, then fold until just mixed.
4) Transfer to a lined cupcake tray, then bake for about 25 minutes until risen and lightly golden.

These cupcakes are butter free - here are some other butter free baking recipes that might take your fancy. Continue reading this post..

#gethealthy Week 3: Cheap (and Less Greedy) Ways to Cook More at Home

Ok, I've got to admit that I went a bit backwards with this weeks #gethealthy challenge to cook more at home.

It's all very well trying to cook more at home. But at the same time, you have to tackle cooking healthily at home and within a reasonable spend too. And this week I've realised the full extent of my greediness.

I've always been under the impression that I'm quite a frugal grocery shopper - I go to the market to buy my fresh fruit and veg, and try to avoid buying random food on the go.

But the thing you get with writing a food blog is you end up constantly buying more food than usual. (Funny that.)

Note I said 'thing' and not 'problem' - I love buying food, I do. And I love eating it as well. So I'm not about to start scrimping on what I eat, no.

Time to focus on cheap and less greedy ways to cook more at home then I think:

1) Start collecting a jar of change and use this to get your fruit and veg from your local market. You can buy as much or as little as you like, and still get a bargain either way.
2) If you can't get to a local market, always go for loose produce at the supermarket - it usually works out cheaper than buying the prepacked ones, and you can pick the best of the bunch.
3) Do your food shop when you have somewhere else to go afterwards. Having a time restriction means you won't end up buying the entire shop by accident.
4) Find the opportune to double or triple your cooking when you get down to it - now you've got a lovely cooked lunch or dinner for the next day, or leftovers to freeze for another lazy day.
5) When making carby things like pasta, rice or potatoes, make the effort to measure out portions - it's too easy to overdo it with these.
6) Although it never beats the fresh stuff, stock up on dried herbs and spices. Keep them visible (I keep mine lined up on a
7) Finally, don't be afraid to eat your cupboard down and throw something together that's completely random. It might just work.

For instance, take the er, Baked Bean Macaroni dish I made this week (at top of post), using stuff I had kicking around. Granted, I did have a randomly weird craving to try macaroni and baked beans together - but it turned out a lot tastier than I thought.

It probably isn't that fitting under the whole 'healthy' theme but it was definitely a homecooked meal so that's something, right?

Baked Bean Macaroni

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Serves 2:

200g macaroni pasta
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp olive oil
4 celery sticks, chopped
75g mushrooms, sliced
75g red onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, grated
400g baked beans
Generous pinch of cayenne pepper
100g grated cheese (I didn't have any at the time, but imagine this would be the killer!)

1) Gently boil the macaroni in lightly salted water. Drain and keep warm.
2) In another pan, fry the celery, mushrooms, onion and garlic in the oil over a moderate heat for about 4-5 minutes.
3) Turn down to a low heat and add the baked beans. Slowly simmer, adding in the cayenne pepper, constantly stirring until the beans are piping hot.
4) Pour in the drained macaroni, and mix well before dishing up into two bowl. Top with grated cheese.

Other recipes you might like for home-cooking inspiration Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day Faux Pas: The Awkward Chocolate Crumble Pie

Do you ever have those moments where you plot something out in your head, with the promise and visualisation of the most amazing thing? And thus, as it comes into fruition, it just all falls into place, sometimes even more beautiful than expected?

Well, this wasn't one of those moments.

I had this idea in my head of twisting up a traditional apple crumble. On the face of it, it doesn't sound that elaborate at all - I wanted to use pears and bananas instead, with a chocolate almondy crumble on top.

Whilst working out my recipe ingredients, I remembered that I already had some butter in the fridge to use up. Ah, perfect for the crumble, I thought. Of course, I didn't think to double check I actually had enough. Which I didn't - I needed about twice as much.

By this point, it was already too late - the oven was preheating and the fruit was already mixed in cinnamon, sitting patiently in the pie dish to be topped with the crumble.

I figured I could just make half of the crumble amount I had planned to and just try to spread it out more. That didn't work. So I quickly transfered the fruit into what I thought was a smaller tin.

But it wasn't - I couldn't fit all the fruit in, so the depth was definitely smaller, but the surface area was probably about the same!

So, I resorted to spreading the crumble topping out as thinly as possible, which felt a bit like unyielding cement - the kind of topping I had made was aiming for a slightly hardened version to make it set more pie-like. Unhelpfully, it seemed to be setting as I tried to spread it out.

The only saving grace of this awkward pie was that it actually turned out to be very tasty indeed - I just need to make sure I get all the ingredients next time so that I can write it up properly...

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures.

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas? Continue reading this post..

Say NO to Takeaway: Garlic Up a Veggie Stir Fry Instead!

When I was younger, I used to hate garlic. Pooey and weird tasting. I just didn't understand it.

My mum tends to put whole cloves of garlic in her cooking, and so as I was growing up, I always had that Fear of accidentally scooping whole cloves up into my mouth. Ick!

Of course, since then, I've become Hungrier for a far wider variety of foods now. Including garlic. I'm still not in the habit of buying it regularly, so it's something I tend to overuse when I do buy it - because I'm always surprised by how much flavour a little clove can add. Yes, everytime. Stupid I know. But the perfect little ingredient to whip into a homemade takeaway dish, yeh!

So where the Garlic is it?

Well obviously I've spoken about garlic far too much in this post already. But it hasn't been omitted from the photo above, no. I still can't handle eating whole cloves. So I always grate it. Yep, right into the sauce it goes.

This Easy Garlic Veggie Stir Fry has a really simple sauce: white wine vinegar - and a chuck load of garlic. What are the odds?

I probably did go overboard a bit here as I used 4 cloves here - for 2 portions ;-) But it's delicious!

Easy Veggie Garlic Stir Fry

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Serves 2:

2 'blocks' of wholewheat egg noodles
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tbsp groundnut oil
100g sugar snaps
50g mushrooms, sliced
2 orange peppers, sliced
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
4 garlic cloves, grated

1) Gently boil the noodles for 7-10 minutes until just cooked. Drain in cold water, toss in the sesame oil and set aside.
2) Add the groundnut oil to a hot wok. Fry the sugar snaps for a minute or so, followed by the mushrooms and peppers. Lower the heat slightly, then mix in the vinegar and garlic.
3) Finally, add the cooked noodles, and carefully toss everything together before serving.

If you liked this, you might want to try making these other takeaway alternatives too. Continue reading this post..

#gethealthy Week 2: Having Your Wholegrain Cake (and eating it too!)

Can you believe we're only halfway through January? It's also the second week of the January Healthy Every Week Challenge, and it's been an interesting one.

This week's challenge was to eat more whole grains. Beefing up your fibre intake, satisfying your stomach for longer, boosting your energy and just generally being a bit more superior than their refined counterparts.

The simple way to go about this, which I decided to go along with, is some simple substitutions. Wholegrain rice instead of white rice, wholewheat pasta instead of white pasta, and bran flakes instead of cereal. A fairly painless way to work in the whole grains.

Then as I was thinking about my next weekly cake to make for aikido, I realised that I've never gone wholegrain with my flour before.

Generally, I try to healthy-up my baking by omitting things like butter and sugar. But I've rarely done anything about toning down all that refined flour.

Time to do an experimental cake with the wholegrain effect, methinks.

I wasn't holding out that much hope, to be honest. The more I researched about wholegrain flour, the more nervous I got - dry, dense, bitter, tough - these unfriendly cake words kept popping up in descriptions of wholegrain cakes gone wrong, and I wondered whether I should just part-substitute the flour in one of my older recipes instead of going the whole hog.

Well no, frankly. I didn't see the point of part-substituting - I wanted to make this as much a wholegrain cake as possible! But as I looked back through my recipes for inspiration, I came across these Cranberry and Nutmeg Breakfast Muffins that contain bran flakes. Yes, this is the one to adapt to make a full-blown wholegrain cake.

The changes I made were small - sifting the flour an extra couple of times to get it as fine as possible to make it less dense and adding more oil than I usually would for a white flour cake to compensate for the danger of dryness.

I also changed my method of mixing slightly - usually, I tend to use the muffin-mixing method of mixing dry and wet ingredients separately before combining (for the purely technical reason that this method is er, just easier to remember). This time however, I used the creaming method of beating the sugar with the fat (ie the oil), which is meant to make cakes fluffier and help them rise in a lovely light manner.

So did it turn out dry, dense, bitter and tough?

Quite the opposite - moist, light, sweet and soft!

With the low sugar, and extra wholegrain content from the bran flakes too, you can sneak in an extra slice when you come to eat it and not feel guilty about it. Well that's how I felt anyway...yes folks, you can have your wholegrain cake, and eat it all too ;-)

Wholegrain Berry Cake (butter free)

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For an 8" round tin (8 slices)

75g bran flakes
100ml orange juice concentrate
1 egg
75ml olive oil
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
50g white sugar
100g wholemeal/wholewheat plain flour
1.5 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
75g mixed berries

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Crush the bran flakes to crumbs in a bowl. Add the orange juice, mix well and set aside.
2) In another bowl, beat the egg with the oil, vanilla and sugar. Gently mix in the bran flake orange mixture.
3) In a large mixing bowl, sift in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon. Fold in the berries, then the wet mixture carefully until just mixed.
4) Transfer to a lined round tin, then bake for about 25 minutes until golden brown and you can pull a fork out clean.

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in

Other healthy baking recipes you might enjoy. Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: Veggie Potato Pie with Paprika Crust

Ugh, I'm getting fed up with January already. It is d r a g g i n g by so slowly. I cannot wait for the days to get lighter. The last pay day seemed like an age ago, and the next one is taking forever to get here. That miserable cloud just won't shift.

Ah, the January blues have hit.

Ooh...

Surely a comforting potato pie will help?

There's nothing a good pie can't fix!

This was something that I was just playing around with really, with the stuff I had in the kitchen. Yes, this is what I end up doing when I'm just mooching around the house, when I can't be bothered to face the cold outside world!

The potato is cooked first and mashed with creme fraiche to make it nice and creamy, then I just mixed in what veg I could find in the fridge. I didn't even bother cooking the veg first either! The potato should ideally be cooked and cooled so that it doesn't soggify the pie crust.

Finally, the paprika I randomly decided to add in a pinch as I was making the pastry - and ended up giving it a lovely smokey kick.

Serve this with a fresh side salad and a sunny smile :-)

Veggie Potato Pie with Paprika Crust

Print-friendly recipe

For an 8" pie dish (8 slices):

150g plain flour
1/2 tsp paprika
Pinch of salt
75g cold butter, diced
Some ice cold water

350g potato, chopped
Pinch of salt
100g mushrooms, finely chopped
75g broccoli, finely chopped
2 spring onions, chopped
150ml creme fraiche
150g cheddar cheese, grated
Juice of 1 lemon
Handful of fresh coriander, roughly chopped

1) Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl with the salt and paprika. Rub in the butter to a breadcrumb mixture.
2) Add a little cold water and knead into a dough, adding more water if needed. Wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.
3) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Roll the dough out into a large circle on a floured surface and transfer to your pie tin. Cover with foil, fill with baking beads and stick in the freezer whilst waiting for the oven to heat.
4) Blind bake the pastry for 15 minutes until lightly golden. Allow to cool completely.
5) In the meantime, gently boil the potatoes in lightly salted water. Drain and allow to cool.
6) Preheat the oven again to 190 degrees C. Transfer your cooked potato into a large mixing bowl. Spoon in the creme fraiche and mash well. Add all of the veg, lemon, coriander and two thirds of the cheese. Gently mix together.
7) Spoon into the baked pie crust, and scatter over the remaining cheese. Bake for about half an hour until the top starts to brown.

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures.

Other vegetarian recipes you might enjoy. Continue reading this post..

Hungry Jenny Faux Pas: Soggy Strawberry Cake

Well it had to happen sooner or later.

My first faux-pas of the year, hurrah!

It was one of those moments where I knew something wasn't quite right - but I just couldn't put my finger on it.

When I was bringing the mixture together in the bowl, it was a little sloppier than I'd expected, but I didn't think anything of it. The alarm bells should have been ringing at that point really. Of course, they only started ringing in my head after the cake went in the oven.

My thought process then went off a bit like a tubelight:

Hm, it's odd that it was so sloppy...
Let me have a look at at my recipe notes again...
So I calculated that bit right, yes...
And that bit...yep...but hold on...
Did I work that bit out...DAMN IT!
I put in a third less flour than I was meant to!

(See? Tubelight - slow, slow, blink...ping!)

I actually then had this crazy idea of whipping the cake out, sifting the extra flour in, mixing it back up and returning it to the oven. Thank goodness I didn't go through with this. That surely would have made it alot worse!

So what became of the soggy cake?

Well luckily, it turned out to be pretty edible (sogginess aside). I took it into work, warned them of the sogginess and left it out for them to try as they dared.

Yummy noises were made and it all got eaten - and I know that lot would not have gone back for more out of politeness!

Needless to say, I'll be starting from scratch to put together this recipe again...

Fancy a laugh at my other Hungry-Jenny-Faux-Pas? Continue reading this post..

#gethealthy Week 1: Team Breakfast All the Way!

So Week 1 of the Healthy Every Week Challenge has whizzed by already. This week's challenge was to eat breakfast every day.

Now you hear how breakfast should always be eaten daily, and that if you skip it, you're actually more likely to put on weight. Hm, well gaining pounds is something I do want to do, so there seems to be a simple maths solution here:

Start skipping breakfast more = I'll put on more weight.

Brilliant!

Erm, how about NO?

There's no way I'm testing out that theory. It's Team Breakfast all the way! I can't function without eating something first thing. The problem I've always had is that I'm usually still hungry afterwards!

So this week, I went back to the old classic health food of slow-releasing energy - the Oat - and have a go at making granola. It's one of my favourite oat-based breakfast meals, but I've always just bought it from a supermarket. Tasty and easy yes, but no doubt high in sugar and other hidden monsters.

The great thing is that you can put what you fancy in it. It does take half an hour in the oven, but you can double or triple the recipe as you wish and stick in an airtight container to last you a couple of weeks ;-)

Easy Granola

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Makes 300g (4 portions):

100g rolled oats
50g dried fruit (eg raisins, apricots)
25g hazelnuts, chopped
25g brazil nuts, chopped
25g sunflower seeds
25g ground almonds
50g honey
50g olive oil

1) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Mix the oats with all the fruit, nuts, seeds and ground almonds in a large bowl.
2) Add in the honey and oil, then roughly stir to coat the oats as much as possible.
3) Use your hands to roughly clump bits of the granola together and transfer to a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.
4) Bake for about 20 minutes until golden brown. Leave to cool before serving.

Serve it with a few generous spoonfuls of natural yogurt and a bit of fresh fruit. Or simply pour over some ice cold milk. If you need some other way to sweeten it up, try some flavoured yogurt, or flaked coconut.

Now the Big Question - will it actually keep you going? Well I'll tell you this now - granola is deceptively more filling than it looks. Food didn't even enter my mind for about 2 hours afterwards. Yes, Hungry Jenny got full at last!

Pour out less than you would for normal cereal - trust me, just go for half a cereal bowl's worth and you'll be sorted and raring to go. Hurrah for breakfast!

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in Continue reading this post..

Friday Pie Day: Cheeky Tarts for Leftover Christmas Chocolate

Leftover Christmas chocolate? Ok, so it's possible you might have scoffed the whole lot already. But I really hope you haven't chucked a load of it away in a bid to cleanse yourself for the New Year, or anything crazy like that.

Yes, it's all well and good doing a detox or whatnot, but that really does not justify throwing (or even giving) away chocolate. That's just wasteful.

What you should do instead, is make some Cheeky Chocolate Tarts. And do you want to know the beauty of this devious plan?

You can freeze them - and therefore have a mountain of chocolate tart goodness at your disposal. (Well, 12, with this recipe)

There is a challenge to this recipe though. And that is getting to the freezing stage. Because you will want to eat one as soon they're chilled. And when you eat one, you'll want another.

But. Be. Strong.

Stick them in a few freezer bags, and you'll be thankful later in those times of chocolate need. Yes, you should be healthy. But don't deny yourself a treat every now and again ;-)

Cheeky Chocolate Tarts with Almond Crust

Print-friendly recipe

Makes 12:

125g plain flour
125g ground almonds*
100g cold unsalted butter, diced
Some cold water**

200g chocolate of your choice, broken into chunks
200ml single cream
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbsp flaked almonds

*Sub the ground almonds with plain flour if you do not wish to use almonds.
** You can also use 375g premade sweet shortcrust pastry instead of making this pastry, in which case, go straight to step 3.

1) Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl with the ground almonds. Rub in the butter to a breadcrumb mixture.
2) Add a little cold water and knead into a dough, adding more water if needed. Wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for 20 minutes.
3) Roll out the dough onto a floured surface. Using a 3.5" cutter, stamp out 12 rounds and transfer to a lined cupcake tray.
4) Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Cover with foil and push baking beads into each hole. Chill again for 15 minutes whilst waiting for the oven, then bake for 12-15 minutes until brown. Allow to cool completely.
5) Gently bring the cream to a slow simmer in a large pan. Take off the heat, then stir in the lemon and vanilla. Add the chocolate, moving it around gently until melted.
6) Spoon into the cooled almond cases, and once a little cool, top with the flaked almonds. Cover and leave to chill for at least 4 hours.

My ones here have Guylian Belgian chocolate and Ferrero Rocher. Pure indulgence, mmm...

Pie out.

Read my other Friday Pie Day adventures.

Other chocolate recipes you might enjoy. Continue reading this post..

A Weekly Challenge to #gethealthy

Right, so I decided earlier this week to get myself up to a healthier weight. But I don't know how to go about it. I have some vague ideas, but it's pretty safe to say that there's alot more info out there about how to lose weight rather than the other way around.

So what do you do, if you can't work out the steps to reach your goal?

Get help!

I follow the Food Network's Healthy Eats blog, and they've recently put a callout to food bloggers and healthy eating enthusiasts to take part in their 'January Healthy Every Week Challenge.' You are set a weekly challenge over the month, in the hope that you'll develop healthy habits for the rest of the year and beyond.

As I read into it more, I thought it'd be the perfect way to kickstart my efforts to put on weight.

Healthy Eats have broken down the month as follows:

Week 1: Eat breakfast daily
Week 2: Eat more whole grains
Week 3: Cook at home
Week 4: Eat more fruits and vegetables
Week 5: Stay on track

None of these are alien to what I try to do anyway but the point of the overall challenge is picking up healthier habits. I mean, you might think that you eat fairly healthily, but is it really doing anything?

This is what I've come to realise looking back over the last year - that although I enjoy eating healthily, keeping active and all that, I know I actually need to get myself up to a healthier size.

So what I hope to learn from doing this challenge is to have a better understanding about healthy weight gain. I'm not looking to just 'fatten up' quickly and hibernate for the rest of the year! There are sure to be some lardy adventures along the way though ;-)

So perhaps now you might be feeling inspired to take part in the challenge too. You can follow Healthy Eats on Facebook, @healthyeats on Twitter and get involved with the discussion to #gethealthy.

If not, hopefully you'll find it entertaining enough to follow me on my challenge - I've no idea which way it will go, but it should be interesting...!

Other Hungry Jenny healthy food thoughts you might be interested in Continue reading this post..

A Sneaky Start to 2012...and a Reality Check

Ok, so it's 2012, the start of a new year, a time to state new resolutions and all that. I was all over this, thinking yes, I'm going to make a proper healthy list of goals - 2012 is the year where it's all going to go good.

And now that it's 'already' the 3rd Jan? Erm, well, I have to admit that I've only got as far as jotting some random ideas down onto the sticky notes on my desktop. And made some sneaky mini muffins.

Oops.

But hold on, I've got a point to make here!

It's too easy to declare a vague goal like 'cut out junk food', but what does that leave you with? A stronger craving for 'bad' food, with no real action to cut it out. So it's fine to say that you want to cut out junk food, but only if you put some actual steps in place to follow this through.

I'll admit that I've only got to the vague goal-setting stage so far:

Put. On. More. Weight.

There, I've said it. Yes, this is something that has bothered me - and kind of ignored - for a long time. It was only when I was looking back over some recent photos and saw one in particular that shocked me a bit:

No, not because I seem to be kicking a small girl in the face (I intended to, in a Capoeira-friendly kind of way). It's just not quite the picture of health that I'm happy with.

Aha, some people say, you're a health and fitness nut anyway, so maybe you should just eat more greasy food and stop running around so much. But that's the problem, I love being active, and I like the challenge of good nutrition with things like healthier baking. Plus I want to try and put on weight in a healthy way, not clog up my arteries.

Everywhere you look though, it's all about weight loss, slimming plans and diets. If you want to lose weight, you find guidance on breaking this down into smaller actionable steps such as 'Eat off smaller plates' or 'Add in an extra portion of veg' for example.

But there seems to be very little advice about healthy weight gain. And this is why I seem to be falling at the first hurdle - I just don't know what steps I need to put in place to achieve this.

So that's my next step - to work out the steps! In the meantime, I'll sneak in the recipe for these Mini Apple and Cinnamon Muffins for you to enjoy, whilst I work out how exactly I'm going to work on this Hungry Jenny challenge for 2012. I think it will turn into a very interesting journey ;-)

I'll keep you posted...

Mini Apple and Cinnamon Muffins (butter free)

Print-friendly recipe

Makes 36 mini muffins:

1 egg
125ml skimmed milk
3 tbsp olive oil
150g plain flour
50g brown sugar
1/2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tbsp baking powder
150g apple, skinned, cored and finely diced

1) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Lightly beat the egg in a bowl with the milk and oil.
2) In a larger bowl, sift in the flour with the sugar, cinnamon and baking powder. Mix in the diced apple.
3) Tip in the wet mixture and fold in until just mixed.
4) Spoon into a couple of lined mini muffin trays (mixture fills about 36 holes). Top each with a little more brown sugar if desired. Bake for about 15-20 minutes until risen and brown.

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