2015 healthy eating

Right New Year, New Years resolutions, get fit, get healthy, eat healthier, lose weight, blah, blah, blah!

Some time towards the end of last year I realised I needed to eat better breakfasts, sugary processed cereals were not doing me any favours. I tried out incorporating more fruit, had yogurt with my cereal and experimented with bagels. Nothing really hit the spot.

What do I want from a breakfast?

It needs to be reasonably quick and easy, tasty and filling and above all it needs to contribute to my overall healthy, active lifestyle and support my running plans.  

I want my breakfasts to incorporate plenty of fruit and/or veg, clean carbs and ideally a good dose of protein as I feel I am not getting enough in my diet.

So thinking about breakfast ideas I came across some great recipes from Tess Agnew (@fitbits) which you can see here.

I used these along with some other ideas as my own inspiration for making my own awesome breakfasts!

Nutty banana protein breakfast smoothie

Using my new Breville blend active smoothie maker and a few basic ingredients I devised a great tasting protein packed smoothie that kept me full all morning. 

Ingredients: A splash of orange juice, a handful of brazil nuts, a banana, half a dozen spoonfuls of natural yogurt and a dash of milk. 

Method: Chuck it in the blender and blend until smooth, simples!

Spinach omelette/frittata/scrambled egg 

Inspired by +FitBits Brighton Veg omelette muffins but without access to any muffin tins (I really need to buy some!) I went freestyle and used the same ingredients and just threw it all together in a omeltte/frittata style. Awesome! So quick! So easy and so amazingly tasty! 

Ingredients: two eggs, a big scoop of spinach, and some mushrooms and baby/plum tomatoes. 

Method: Chop up the veg, throw in a wok/frying fan with a bit of oil, lightly fry for a bit then chuck in the eggs and scramble. Serving on a piece(s) toast optional. 

So they are the two breakfast stables at the moment, a nice balance of a sweet option and a savoury one as well, I had each twice last week setting me up for the day ahead and plenty of training. I need to work on a few more options but these two options will serve me well I feel and they are both versatile enough to incorporate a range of ingredients, e.g. peppers instead of mushrooms and a variety of nuts in the smoothie. 

Other healthy eating meals from 2015: 

I am a big fan of stir frays, and why not? Loads of veg, and plenty of flavoursome sauces to use, my downfall is a large portion of prawn crackers that I usually accompany a stir fry with.

Earlier in the week I whipped up a veggie stir fry with extra mushrooms, minus the prawn crackers and with the healthier option of rice noodles instead of the usually wheaty noodles. 

Clean eating lunch time meals: 



As it seems spinach only comes in large family sized gigantic packs I had a lot of it going spare! So I used it with some tomatoes, mushrooms and courgettes along with brown rice for a tasty nutritious lunch time pack up for work.









On a Friday you need something a bit decadent and enjoyable, it doesn't need to be healthy and fatty though, sweet potato! What is more tasty, luxurious and so enjoyable to eat than sweet potato?! Through in some kidney beans for a bit of substance and protein and you have a healthy clean eating great tasting lunch!

Evening meals:

Its too easy to eat some rubbish in the evening when you are tired after a long day and I am too find of throwing a pizza in the oven as a quick, filling, satisfying meal especially after training. 

So here we go an easy homemade healthier pizza: 

Here I made too different types of pizza both using wholemeal pittas as a base. The standard pizza using ketchup as a base with a topping of cheese and then mushrooms, tomatoes and peppers. My even healthier option then used homemade guacamole (Mashed avocado with a squish of lime) as a base with a little cheese and courgettes and peppers as a topping. So tasty, so enjoyable and surely so much healthier than a takeaway pizza or a frozen pizza. At the weekend I even tried just a pitta with guacamole and courgettes with n cheese and this worked out really well and was obviously so much healthier without any cheese. 


I hope you enjoyed looking at these recipes and are maybe even inspired to try these or something similar out yourself?! Happy 2015, hope its a healthy one! 

Daddy Donkey Burrito

I love burritos and have started doing a review/rating system of the various different chains, please see my previous reviews of Poncho8 & Chilango. 

So Daddy Donkey, if you are not aware of this smaller Mexican food group you have got to love their back story. Supposedly the first company to start serving Mexican street back in London back in the old day of 2005 they seem to have stuck to their roots of authentic awesomeness. 

This is the second time I have been and the last time I don't remember being blown away by their burrito.

But today was a different story, first bite,  BAM!!! in your face with Kick-Ass flavour exactly as they advertise on the website!

Daddy Donkey talk a big talk and have a cult following as the regular queues outside their Leather Lane shop testify to. 

As I mentioned earlier they claim to be the first Mexican street food provider and are therefore the reason why larger chains like Chilango are now scattered around the area.

Chilango can open as many shops as they like though as they don't come anywhere near Daddy Donkey for a taste experience.

Today I was hungry and wanted some big flavour and I wasn't disappointed with what my burrito provided.

My burrito ingredients today were:

Coriander lime rice

Black beans

Marinated Chicken Breast

Medium Green Tomatillo salsa

Sour cream

Cheese

Lettuce

& extra for Guacamole

So to review the burrito; 
Tortilla wrap: quality, authentic, chewy and flavorsome.

Rice: wasn't sure I would get much from this but you could really get the cooling effect of the coriander and lime.

Chicken: meaty, succulent and good sized chunks of good quality meat.

Salsa: I went medium and it provided a good punch of flavor right from the start. Authentic, natural, full flavored and good tasting.

Black beans: Wow! A rarity! Proper black beans with real texture and flavor! 

Sour cream: great tasting and nice cooling effect and you could feel it working against the heat of the salsa.

Cheese: Probably the weakest ingredient and didn't really contribute to the burrito experience unfortunately. 

Lettuce: did its job of providing some crunch and freshness.

Guacamole: the mighty green stuff, transforms any burrito into a whole different world of experiences. The last two burritos I reviewed I had for various reasons opted out of going green but today I was all in! Disappointingly the guacamole didn't quite meat all expectations, yes it provided more flavour, a different texture and a splash of colour. But unfortunately the portion size was a little on the stingy side and it seemed to be the kind of guacamole that had chili in which although good as it added an extra kick of flavour it wasn't the traditional avocado green gooey goodness guacamole that I was after. 

Overall rating: I haven't bothered to think of my own descriptive cliches to describe this burrito when Daddy Donkey already provide their own. That definitely was a Kick-Ass taste experience that is a real daddy in the burrito world! OK that was cheesey (not as chessey as the burrito) but it really was a great burrito! 

Really enjoyed the chicken, it is some of the best meat I have ever had in a burrito or in a precooked fast food kind of set up for that matter. The rice was very good and a real difference of flavour to the usual tomato flavoured rice which can sometime be quite bland.  The big plus though was the beans, loved them! Beans are a key player in burritos for me so if they are great the burrito is on to a winner as it was here. The salsa was also top drawer and really had a good deal of flavour and tasted authentic and non artificial which makes it stand out from some of the other chains. In terms of extras it was nice to have high quality sour cream and good quality fresh non artificial guacamole as well. 

Daddy Donkey experience: great, I timed my lunch to get there for around 2pm so I missed the lunchtime rush but he place was still teaming if not queuing out the door and down the street which is often the case. Very efficient service by a large number of enthusiastic and genuinely smiley staff squeezed in behind the counter enthusiastic team. The only slight draw back compared to other companies is the lack of choice, you wont find three differ types of rice or different types of beans here. They do however have four different meat options as well as six different salsas and I would say the quality of their ingredients makes up for any lack of variety. 

My overall experience would have to be a whopping 9/10 as it was a really top drawer burrito full of strong authentic flavors. The only negative aspects I thought of were the small portion size of guacamole and the lack of a napkin in the bag, a little thing I know but something that irritates me as I always forget to pick one up and am then left with messy hands! 

I wouldn't rate the burrito as any more filling than anywhere else despite what the website would make you believe about it being the size of a small baby but its by no means small. The great flavours the burrito left me with meant I was reluctant to eat anything for several hours after so It didn't matter matter whether I wanted to eat anything more. 

So that's 3 reviews done with Daddy Donkey coming out on way ahead of Chilango and Poncho8, hopefully there will be  more reviews soon and stiffer competition to come!

Tasty brown rice lunch

I had a great idea for using up a bit of left over bacon; I made my own kind of risotto dish for lunch.

Probably not technically a risotto but a rice dish non the less with tomatoes and mushrooms  to accompany the said bacon with a few generous squirts of ketchup.

It ticks all the boxes, delicious? Had bacon in so yeah! Nutritious? Made with brown rice so a nice whole food card source and it had a good amount of veg in it via the tomatoes and mushrooms. Quick and easy to make? Pretty much, rice never takes too long and it only took a few minutes to fry up some mushrooms and bacon, and I did extra rice so got some for lunch tomorrow. The test will be whether it fills me up and keeps me going all afternoon? Time will tell?!