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lean eats

Friday Fare

Friday Fare – Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

February 14, 2014

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!! Whether you have a special someone to spend it with, or are single and proud, I hope you are having a fabulous day.

Since I made a very decadent raspberries dipped in dark chocolate and cacao for last weeks Friday Fare, I thought I would make something a little lighter, but delicious nonetheless. I bring you Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins!

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

I really like muffins, particularly in the mornings but most commercial ones are full of junk and other yucky stuff I quite frankly refuse to put into my body. These muffins are light, healthy, and very versatile meaning you can add berries into the mix, dark chocolate chips, pretty much anything into them. If I had some coconut whipped cream I most definitely would have dolloped some on top of the muffins I made. They are still a sweet treat regardless of their lovely and wholesome ingredients however, so please treat these as a dessert and do not go nuts. I am planning on featuring a lower calorie sweet treat soon that you can definitely eat quite a few of, so stay tuned 😉

You need the following ingredients to make 8 muffins:

Almond & Oat Cinnamon Spiced Muffins

Alice Williams
Muffins that won't pack on the pounds!
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Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup almond flour
  • 1 cup oat flour
  • 2 eggs
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp high quality salt
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil

Instructions
 

  • 1. Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees farenheit 🙂
  • 2. Mix all of your WET ingredients in a large bowl (eggs, vanilla extract, unsweetened applesauce, melted coconut oil, and raw honey).
  • 3. Mix all of your DRY ingredients into the wet ingredients (high quality salt, baking powder, oat flour, almond flour, and almond flour).
  • 4. Once you have mixed all of the ingredients together well, get a muffin or cupcake pan and either put muffin cups into the cupcake pan holes or grease the holes with some olive oil or coconut oil. Put the batter evenly into 8 of the muffin holes.
  • 5. Bake the muffins for 20 minutes (or 25 minutes if you like them more firm).
To make the oat flour, all I did was buy rolled oats and then quickly pulse them in a food processor (a blender works too).

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

Almond and Oat Cinammon Spiced Muffins

Nutritional Values per 1 muffin

Calories: 320
Carbohydrates: 32g
Fat: 20g
Protein: 7g
Sugar: 18g
Fiber: 3g

Let me know how the recipe goes for you, and how you personally enjoyed them. Did you add any berries in, had some coconut whipped cream, etc?

Have a great weekend, and again, happy Valentine’s Day!!

Honestly yours,
Alice

Blogs I love, Fitness, Health

Sunday summary

January 19, 2014

I feel as if I have accomplished so much this past week. I officially launched Honestly Fitness on Tuesday, January 14th, have received over 798 hits and gained 306 likes on Honestly Fitness’ Facebook page.

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Wow!! Thank you all so much, I could never have expected such an amazing response, and I all it all to YOU, my wonderful followers!! I have received really supportive and positive comments all around, and I am so happy you are all enjoying the blog posts. That is my goal, to create a blog where people are genuinely excited for the next post to come up and as a way to learn new things about health and fitness. And please, let me know what you would like to see next! I have many idea’s for future posts but I want to know that I am blogging about things you guys want to know about.

I just wanted to end this fantastic week with a health and fitness mention, sort of like a ‘This week I am loving …’ post.

The Green Post

I recently discovered www.thegreenpost.com.au and really love how their approach to health and lifestyle is focused on educating people on a sustainable and healthy lifestyle. It is such a breath of fresh air to find someone else who is focused on the long-term as opposed to quick fixes and short-term changes that will get you nowhere. Although The Green Post is still fairly new, they already have many interesting articles and delicious looking recipes posted! I tried their Butter nut and Lavender Apple pancake recipe and it was AMAZING!! The fact that it still tasted so sweet with only apple sauce as the sweetener was fabulous, and the lavender was a refreshing touch to them. A very original recipe that I recommend you all try!

Yummmmmy! I actually made 3 pancakes but the 3rd one was not photo worthy .. pancake flip fail shall we say ;P

So there you have it for this weeks recap! I am so excited to see how Honestly Fitness grows over the coming few months and eager to share most posts and video’s with you all. I have had so many idea’s locked up in my mind and it is incredibly to be able to finally share them all with you. I also want to mention that I recently created a Pinterest page, so please check it out when you have the chance.

Honestly yours,
Alice

Friday Fare, Health

Friday Fare a collection of healthy recipes

January 17, 2014

Hey everyone! Welcome to the first edition of Friday Fare a collection of healthy recipes.

Friday Fare is going to be a regular weekly post (may become bi-weekly during the uni semester though unfortunately) where I will be posting healthy and filling breakfast, lunch, or dinner recipes. Why did I choose ‘Friday Fare’ as opposed to ‘Monday Meals’ or ‘Tasty Tuesday’? Well a) I wanted to be original and b) ….

Friday Fare a collection of healthy recipes

Which is exactly what I will be doing. Posting a range of foods, especially of a particular type – the healthy and nutritious type 🙂

The first edition of Friday Fare features one of my favorite simple meals that can be eaten for lunch or dinner. What I made for you all today is a simple stir-fry featuring a lean protein – shrimp, carbohydrate source – sweet potato, healthy fats – coconut oil, and plenty of fresh vegetables. It only took me about 30 – 40 minutes to make (chopping, cooking and everything) and is such a delicious and nutritious meal! The photo below shows you all the ingredients you need to make this delicious stir-fry.

healthy and easy shrimp stir fry

As you can see, you really do not need many ingredients at all! They are all relatively cheap as well, although I know shrimp is not that cheap but if you buy it frozen you can get some great deals. As you can see, I did not put a measurement on how much salt or cumin to use. This is because I think you should spice and salt the stir-fry according to how you like it. As a rule of thumb though, you can start off with a teaspoon of salt and cumin, and then add more if you like the flavors.

The secret to making my vegetables quickly and in a healthy way is my beautiful steamer … Ta da! I do not know what I would do without this baby. I literally chop up my veggies and throw it in my steamer and then put the steamer in my microwave for a few minutes. I know some of my old housemates will recognize the steamer, they loved using it 😉

Alright, now that you know what ingredients to use, and how to make the veggies, I will now tell you how to make it and nutritional value of this dish.

Healthy and filling shrimp stir-fry with sweet potato and steamed veggies

1. Make sure you have done your prep work – this includes chopping, getting all your spices out, and etc.

2. Throw the chopped broccoli and sweet potato in your steamer and microwave for 5 minutes. If you do not have a steamer, you can mimic the steaming action by placing the vegetables in a frying pan and adding about 2-3 tablespoons of water and then placing a lid on top of the pan. Check it every few minutes to see how soft the veggies are.

3. Whilst the veggies are being steamed, get a frying pan and heat the coconut oil in the pan until the coconut oil has melted (coconut oil is usually found cold-pressed so is in a solid state).

4. Then put your diced garlic and shrimp in the pan and fry until the shrimp is pink on each side. Lightly season the shrimp with some salt and cumin, and add half of your half tablespoon of chicken broth. Once the shrimp is cooked, place the shrimp on a separate plate for now (we will come back to it shortly).

5. Put your spinach into the frying pan with a splash of water. And no, not a Niagara Falls splash, just a tablespoon or so of water. This will create a nice steaming effect for the spinach. I typically just steam my spinach in the pan because since the sweet potato and broccoli take longer to steam and soften, if I add the spinach in with them, it will come out a pile of mush!

6. Now your sweet potato and broccoli should be steamed. Take them out of the steamer and add them to the spinach in the frying pan. After a minute or two, add the shrimp back into the pan so all the flavors mesh together.

Voila, and there you have it! A really simple, healthy and quite filling meal. If you do feel as if you want more food, feel free to add some more sweet potato, shrimp or veggies as you wish. Keep in mind that this will change the nutritional values of what I posted below. Adjust it to your own unique daily caloric needs 🙂 If you are weird like me, you can chop an ounce of Parmesan and nibble on that whilst enjoying the stir-fry (Parmesan has a surprisingly high protein content).

  healthy and easy shrimp stir fry               healthy and easy shrimp stir fry

Mmmmmmm. As you can see, I am a chili fiend so added some chili powder to it. I hope you all enjoy the meal! Let me know if you would like me to post meals with specific ingredients, anything you can think of!

Nutritional Info
Calories: 343
Protein: 30 grams
Carbohydrates: 54 grams (mostly all from the sweet potato which has 41 grams in one cup)
Fat: 6 grams
Fiber: 14 grams

Honestly yours,
Alice