Strawberry Picking

Last Sunday, I did something I haven't done since I was a child, but that I've been dying to do for a while - went strawberry picking! It was so much fun; the strawberries were delicious and cheap! And the smell of them... It was heavenly, and like no strawberry you can buy in the supermarket! I've grown quite a few of my own this year, but I couldn't get enough as I needed. I'll be eating strawberries for a long while now - just finished off the chocolate covered ones tonight!

Raw Cookies

I really fancied something sweet to eat today, but I couldn't decide what. I'd eaten loads of fruit already, and I'm trying to eat healthily at the moment and cutting back on a lot of things like chocolate, biscuits and baked goods. I'm also trying to increase my raw intake as well. It was while I was thinking about this that inspiration hit me - Kristen's Heavenly Cookies!

I remember a while back (a year or more?), everyone was blogging about these super delicious cookies, and I remember trying them and falling in love! I hadn't made them in a while though, so I logged into an old email account, eager to find the recipe (it was originally featured on one of Kristen's Raw newsletters) and make these cookies. I was gutted to find out that for some reason, all of my old emails had disappeared! Luckily, after emailing Kristen she extremely kindly emailed me the recipe again, so I was able to make these gorgeous raw cookies.



Words fail me at describing how tasty these are! And super healthy too. I made a smaller batch, just enough for 4-5 cookies, and I made them using cashew butter. While I was making them, my eye caught sight of a bag of hazelnuts I had in the cupboard, so I decided to have a go at making my own raw treats. Mine are the coconut covered ones on the left. Both sets were extremely easy to make (and so quick too!) so dig out that newsletter and make yourself a batch of Heavenly Cookies!

Emmas Raw Hazelnut Cookies:

30g Hazelnuts
30g Sultanas
1 tsp nut butter
Drop (just a drop!) of olive oil
1 dessert spoon light agave

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and pulse until combined. You might have to keep pushing the mixture down as I did. Roll into balls, and then you could also roll in coconut but that's purely optional, I just happen to love the taste and look of coconut! I then put them on a plate and popped them in the freezer for about 5-10 minutes to firm up.

The only thing these cookies were missing were the presence of some raw chocolate - is there any better combination than hazelnut and chocolate?!

An apple a day...

Do you know what the best thing to eat on a morning to wake you up is? .... Apples, apparently. According to the trivia question on my shampoo, anyways! They're supposed to be even better to wake you up than coffee! So I've decided to incorporate them into my morning breakfasts as I sometimes struggle to feel fully awake in a morning, but I've always been wary about caffeine.

So when I saw CCV's recipe for banana butter. I thought it would be the perfect thing to accompany my morning apple and I couldn't wait to try it out!



I wasn't disappointed, and I'm sure this is one recipe I'll be making often! As a further ode to the lovely CCV, I decided to eat my apple this morning...



...with chopsticks! Yum!

Make sure to stop by CCV's blog, because she's got another fantastic giveaway going on at the minute, and it's not too late to enter!

Peanut Butter & White Chocolate Blondies

Today has been one of those lazy Sundays where it's been nice to just do not very much! Especially after the busy week I had. I had a drive out to an oriental supermarket, and had to make an emergency stop at a garage to have my brakes tested! When I got back home, I went onto the UKTV Food website to try and find some recipes by the lovely Ching-He Huang (whose new series I am addicted to!) and I stumbled across a series I hadn't seen before called Rachel Allen: Bake.

Of course, loving anything to do with baking, I had to have a look at the recipes! There was a recipe for a cheesecake which looked amazing, but my eye was drawn to these...



Peanut Butter & White Chocolate Blondies

I love white chocolate, and I love peanut butter so this dessert was too tempting. It was really simple and quick to make too, and I had all the ingredients already on hand which is a bonus! The photo above is when they were still warm from the oven, I topped them with a scoop of clotted cream ice cream and they were so gooey and delicious - this recipe is definitely one of my new favourites! Click here to see the original recipe, or read on below.

125g plain flour
1 tsp Baking powder
100g Butter, at room temperature, plus extra for greasing
150g crunchy peanut butter
175g light brown sugar
1 Egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
75g white chocolate, chopped

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/gas 3. Butter the sides of a 20 x 20cm square cake tin and line the base with greaseproof paper.

2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a small bowl and set aside.

3. In a large bowl, cream the butter and peanut butter together until very soft. Add the sugar, egg and vanilla extract and beat until well combined. Add the flour, baking powder and the chopped chocolate and mix to form a dough.

4. Place the dough into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes, or until golden brown and almost firm in the centre.

5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin, before removing and cutting into squares.

Czechoslovakian Black Chillies

After what seemed like an age, my Czechoslovakian black chilli plant is bursting with chillies, and flowers. This is my first year growing chillies, and to be honest I was a little apprehensive as to how they would turn out. I didn't know if they'd be actually black, or just very very dark green but they really are black! And the flowers a lovely purple too. Very gothic!