Festival What I Eat In A Day/How To Stay Healthy At A Festival!

Hi everyone.

This weekend I went to WOMAD Festival, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to show you all what I ate/how I stay healthy at a festival! We went in a campervan with a stove, which meant we were able to take breakfast foods with us to cut down on cost and make sure there was food we could eat in the mornings. I find that breakfast is the hardest thing to find at a food stall if you have intolerances or an unusual diet, as they often just sell the usual bacon and egg cobs etc. I'm going to start this blog post with a list of food we took with us and snacks we prepared the day before leaving. If you are on a tight budget this should give you some ideas as to what meals you can prepare easily while camping. I mainly took tinned stuff as its easy to reheat!

Food to pack:

• pasta
• tinned tomatoes
• tinned beans
• homemade ratatouille (made the day before and reheated on the stove)
• oats for porridge
• pancakes (made the day before and reheated)
• almond milk for porridge
• porridge toppings (I took walnuts, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, date syrup and dark chocolate)
• energy balls (recipe already in a previous post)
• chocolate coconut milk (great for making sure you're getting enough calcium)
• smoothies in cartons
• fruit (apples, bananas, oranges)
• multipacks of popcorn
• condiments (I love Hot Smoky Bastard sauce! You can get it from https://hotsmokybastard.com/)
• nakd bars to take into the festival grounds as snacks

That is roughly what we took with us, we ate breakfast in the van everyday and dinner one day (pasta with the warmed up ratatouille). Having porridge in the mornings was great as it gave me lots of energy to burn throughout the day and meant I was full until lunchtime. Now I'm going to show you a what I ate for the full day. 

Breakfast: porridge made with almond milk and 1 mashed banana stirred in, topped with walnuts, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, date syrup and half a square of dark chocolate. A peach and passionfruit smoothie to make sure I get my fruit fix!

Mid-morning snack: chia and cacao energy balls and an apple.

Lunch: spiced potato and garlic dosa with bhel poori, and some onion bhaji's on the side with mango chutney.

Pudding: chocolate coconut milk with some salted popcorn! These are perfect for taking to festivals for quick snacks as the milk doesn't need to be chilled and will satisfy any sweet cravings without the need for loads of sugar.

Afternoon snack: fresh fruit smoothie with chia seeds (ingredients: mango, banana, apple juice, pineapple and chia seeds)

We had pasta for dinner in the van which I forgot to take a photo of! It was wholemeal gluten free pasta topped with homemade ratatouille, and tender stem broccoli on the side. 

I also made sure I drank lots of water throughout the day as it was hot and its very easy to forget to stay hydrated at a festival. 

I hope you enjoyed this blog post and it gave you some ideas for what to take to a festival with you!

Love Moo x

Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Cake! (Vegan, Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free)

Hi guys.

I got back from the festival and really felt like baking seeing as I'd had a few days away! I came up with a recipe for this chocolate peanut butter fudge cake, perfect for rainy day sweet tooth cravings. I also made a peanut butter buttercream icing to top it off, which was the perfect salty accompaniment! This cake will fool anyone into thinking its packed full of sugar, dairy and eggs. It's the perfect imitation of a not so healthy cake! We ate this with cups of tea whilst watching harry potter movies, which was a perfect cosy family day. Hope you like it!

You Will Need:

• 1/2 cup gluten free plain flour (or normal if you aren't intolerant to gluten)
• 1/2 cup oat flour (I just ground up some oats in my nutribullet)
• 4 tbsp peanut flour
• 3/4 cup cacao powder
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 medium ripe avocado
• 1 and 1/2 very ripe bananas
• 1/2 cup agave or maple syrup
• 1/4 cup melted coconut oil
• 1 cup plant milk (oat, almond, hemp, soya etc)
• 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 2 tsp vanilla essence

Start by preheating your oven to 180C, and lining a circular cake tin. Then mash your banana and avocado together until combined and smooth. Add your maple syrup, coconut oil and vanilla essence. Add the tablespoon of vinegar to your almond milk, and let it curdle for 1-2 minutes. Then add this into the mix. Add all of the rest of your ingredients and stir to combine. Then pour it all into the cake tin and bake for 40-50 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean! It really is that easy to make!

For the buttercream, I mixed 4 tbsp vegan butter (but you could use coconut oil) with 2 tbsp peanut flour, and 2 tbsp maple or agave syrup. You can play around with the quantities depending on how sweet you like it and how much icing you want. I then topped mine with chia seeds, cacao nibs and goji berries for a bit of crunch.

Hope you liked the recipe!

Moo x

Raw Cacao Energy Balls!

Hi everyone.

This is the best energy ball recipe that I've ever tried! And its so easy to make, you just put everything in a food processor and pulse! I use raw cacao to make it a chocolatey flavour, combined with dates and almonds to give you the perfect energy hit. As they contain lots of fibre, protein and natural sugars these balls are the perfect snack when you're on the go. Almonds are the key ingredient, they are rich in healthy mono-saturated fats which lower your cholesterol! They are also an excellent source of vitamin E which is really good for your skin hair and nails! 

I'm going to be taking these as healthy snacks to womad festival this weekend to keep me energised throughout! As I'm vegan and gluten free it's often difficult to find food at festivals that is yummy and healthy, I'm going to be doing a blog post next week about tips and tricks to keep healthy at a festival so look out for that!!

You will need:

• 1 cup raw almonds
• 1 1/2 cup medjool dates (this may vary depending on the size of your dates)
• 4 tbsp cacao powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• Oats and chia seeds to roll

To begin, place your nuts in a food processor and grind into small pieces. I like to keep mine quite chunky so I get chunks of nuts in each bite but if you aren't a huge fan of nuts you can grind them down into a smooth flour. Then add your pitted dates, the dates I used were fairly small so if you have bigger ones you may need less. Just keep adding until you get a sticky ball of mixture. Once your nuts and dates are combined, add your vanilla extract, cinnamon and cacao and pulse again. You should be left with a cookie dough consistency. You can now begin rolling! I roll them into about 3cm squared-ish balls and then coat them in chia seeds and oats so they dont stick together! 

You can then place them in the fridge to set, or just eat them straight away!

Hope you enjoyed this recipe, remember to use the hashtag #MoosFood on instagram!

Love Moo x

Vegan Sushi Rolls!

Hi everyone.

Today's recipe is for vegan sushi! This is so quick to make and keeps really well, I like to make things for lunch and dinner that keep well as leftovers so I can have them in my packed lunches the next day, as it's very hard to find food to eat from school dinners if you're a gluten free vegan! 

This recipe serves two with some leftover. 

You will need:

• 190g (dry weight) organic sushi rice
• 2 nori seaweed wraps
• Whatever veggies you want inside! I used peppers, avocado and cucumber. 

Wash your sushi rice in cold water and drain. Repeat this process 3 or 4 times - this is a really important step in making great sushi! Transfer it to a saucepan with 300ml cold water and leave it to soak for at least 30 minutes. Then bring the water to the boil, cover the saucepan and simmer for 10-12 minutes. Remove pan from the heat and leave covered for 10 minutes until the rice is cool. 

Spread a layer of rice onto one of your nori wraps, and top with whatever veggies you have on hand. Then begin the rolling process (I used a bamboo sushi rolling mat), make sure you roll it neatly and very tight or it will unravel! Once rolled, simply slice your wrap into small sushi bites and enjoy!

#MoosFood

Love Moo x 

Vegan Falafel

Hi everyone!

In today's post I'm going to be showing you how to make my vegan, gluten-free falafel. I make these all the time as a quick lunch, to take to school or sometimes I make them slightly bigger and have them as burgers on the BBQ! They are very high in protein which is great to fill you up and satisfy any cravings for meat you might have if you're watching other people eat burgers and sausages! In this recipe I used black beans and chickpeas, but you can use whatever beans you have in your cupboards.

You will need:

• 1 x 400g tin beans (I usually use black beans)
• 1x 400g tin chickpeas 
• Juice and zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tbsp paprika or harissa 
• 1 tsp allspice
• 1 tbsp gluten free flour
• 1 bunch coriander, chopped
• Olive oil

Preheat your oven to 180C. Add your drained beans and the rest of your ingredients to a food processor and blitz until everything is combined. Roll your falafel into whatever size balls or patties you like, and place on a lightly greased baking tray. Bake for around 10 minutes on each side, until they are golden brown all over. Leave to cool slightly to make sure they're all stuck together properly.

On this particular day I had mine in a burrito with a gluten free wrap, homemade hummus, salad, and rice! They are so versatile, you could also use them as meatballs with spaghetti bolognese! 

Make sure to tag me with your creations using the hashtag #MoosFood!

Love Moo x 

Why do I eat a vegan, gluten free and refined sugar free diet?

I eat this way because I realised that dairy, sugar, gluten and meat made me feel ill all of the time. For years I did not feel myself at all and I looked and felt exhausted!

I have always been intolerant to milk from when I was born. I used to have to drink goats milk instead of cows milk because it gave me exczema, I never realised that I could be drinking soya milk instead! However I still used to eat chocolate and ice cream all the time, I was completely addicted to sugar!!

3 years ago I started getting tummy ache a lot of the time, and I also had tonsillitis very regularly. I tried all the medication in the world and different herbal remedies, and I still didn't get any better. I had my tonsils removed, and I still got tonsillitis even after I didn't have any tonsils! I had to have a lot of time off school which put me very behind with my school work. I was on antibiotics for a whole year, I was tired all of the time which meant I had to have half days at school and sleep for hours when I came home.

On top of this I was still getting tummy ache all the time and we didn't know why. I decided to stop eating gluten because I noticed I would often get tummy pain after I'd had bread or pasta. It was really hard at first, I would often slip up and eat a biscuit or have some bread at school if there was nothing else I fancied to eat. It took a few months for me to get used to eating gluten-free and for all of the gluten to be out of my system (it can take up to 6 months for your body to get rid of it all!). After the first few difficult months I felt so much better. I had a lot more energy and found it easier to concentrate at school, and best of all my tummy ache had gone and my tonsillitis stopped coming back!

At the same time as this, I began experimenting with refined sugar free baking. This was a coincidence, as I noticed a lot of gluten free recipes are from health bloggers like Deliciously Ella and only use natural sugars. I realised that when I ate a cake or biscuit that only had natural sugars in, I didn't get a sudden energy rush followed by a crash because my blood sugar levels were stable. Although these treats taste exactly the same as cakes containing gluten and sugar, they are so much better for you as every ingredient nourishes your body and gives you the good energy you need! Soon, all of my baking was completely gluten free and refined sugar free. I felt happy and energised all of the time and barely had any days off school. I felt about 80% better.

I also became vegetarian because I love animals and I didn't want to eat them anymore.

Dairy products were the easiest thing for me to give up. I have never liked milk or cheese, which I realise now was my body telling me that it's bad for me by my taste buds rejecting it! However I still ate chocolate all of the time until about 1 year ago. Even though everything I was baking at home had no refined sugar in, I was still eating chocolate when I was out and about or as a treat.

I pretty much gave up all dairy products apart from chocolate, so for a while I was vegan with the occasional chocolate bar! However once I began to realise more about where cows milk comes from and the dairy industry, I decided that I didn't want to play any part in cruelty towards animals anymore. I also began to read about how milk is sold to us as healthy, even though in many cases it isn't at all. Even though I love milk chocolate, knowing where milk comes from and the health effects of it made me give it up completely about 6 months ago. I now felt 100% better.

I now eat absolutely no dairy products, meat, sugar or gluten whatsoever and I feel amazing. I never have days off school, I no longer feel tired at all during the day and my skin is brighter, my hair is growing longer and thicker and best of all I feel happy and full of beans all the time! At the beginning, we were worried that eating such a 'restricted' diet wouldn't give me all the vitamins and nutrients that I need but I can tell that my body is thriving off a plant based diet because of how great I feel. I do take a B12 supplement as it is very hard to get sufficient amounts of B12 when you don't eat meat.

Whats surprised me most about my diet change is that before, when I used to eat white bread, chocolate and ice cream all the time, I would think that things like kale, quinoa and date syrup were disgusting and weird health foods. But now they are some of my all time favourite foods! I think this is because when I eat healthy foods, I feel so fantastic that I just want to keep eating them! People ask me if I slip up and eat gluten, sugar and dairy but because these foods make me feel so rubbish its very easy to keep on track eating healthy meals and snacks.

I really hope this has inspired you to examine your diet and the foods you eat and maybe consider eating less meat, dairy and sugar and try some of my recipes!

Love Moo x

Lemon and Poppy Seed Donuts! (Gluten Free, Refined Sugar Free, Vegan)

Hi guys!

This is a recipe that I adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe to make it refined sugar free, gluten free and vegan. I wanted to make something that was more like a traditional sponge cake, as when you have a refined diet its difficult to get a soft sponge. I used donuts moulds to make them as I wanted to experiment, but if you don't have any you can use normal cupcake cases. You could also make this in a loaf tin and put a lemon drizzle over the top. 

You will need:

• 200g melted coconut oil
• 300g gluten free self raising flour
• 200g agave nectar
• 200g vanilla or plain soya yogurt 
• zest of 3 lemons
• 1/2 tsp xantham gum
• splash of almond milk
• poppy seeds

Preheat your oven to 190C. Begin by creaming together your coconut oil and agave nectar. Then add the rest of your liquids. Add your dry ingredients and mix every thing together, then add your poppy seeds! Add almond milk as needed if the mixture looks too dry. 

I baked mine in donut tins until they were golden brown on the top, and then topped them with my homemade nutella and flaked almonds. This recipe is great for lunchboxes or to take on the go as they aren't crumbly like a lot of gluten free cakes! 

Hope you enjoyed this post, remember to hashtag #MoosFood if you try any of my recipes!

Love Moo x

Raspberry Jam Chocolate Chip Pancakes! (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Refined Sugar Free)

Hi guys.

This is my recipe for my favourite buckwheat chocolate chip pancakes with raspberry jam! These are super quick to make and really healthy so a perfect breakfast to have before school or a busy day. I used flaxseed to bind them together which has lots of nutritional benefits. They contain loads of omega-3 fatty acids which are very healthy fats! They are also an antioxidant and very rich in fibre. They make the perfect egg substitute to bind everything together, but if you don't have any flax and aren't vegan you can replace them for 1 egg.

You will need:

• 2 flax eggs (2 tbsp flax seed mixed with 6 tbsp water and left to form a gel)
• 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
• 1/2 cup almond milk
• 1 mashed banana
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• A handful of chocolate chips
• 1 cup frozen raspberries
• 2 tbsp date syrup or liquid sweetener of your choice!

Combine your water with your flaxseeds and leave to set to form a thick gel. In a mixing bowl, combine your flour and baking powder. Add your almond milk, mashed banana and vanilla essence and mix together. Once they've formed a gel, add your flax egg. Then mix in your chocolate chips! 

Heat a pan with coconut oil, and add 1/4 cup of the mixture at a time to make a small pancake. Once they start to bubble on top, flip them over.

While your pancakes are cooking you can make your jam. Heat the raspberries and sweetener until the raspberries have melted down into a sauce.

Then remove your pancakes from the pan and top with your raspberry sauce and other toppings of your choice! I like to use flaked almonds, goji berries and pumpkin seeds on mine. 

Don't forget to tag me in your pictures if you make them! Use the hashtag #MoosFood

Hope you enjoy!

Moo x