Oat-free bircher style muesli

If you saw the apple and strawberry bircher on facebook the other day, I was requested a lower carb higher fat version, so here it is!

It contains half the carbs as the original, 3 times the fat and nearly half the protein.

If you want to further lower the carbs you can leave the fruit out and if you are dairy free you can replace the yoghurt with coconut yoghurt or just use 1/2 cup of you prefered "milk" and leave out the yoghurt altogether.

You can replace the nuts/seeds with other nuts/seeds if you wanted. The chia seeds is what thickens the muesli up.

Let me know what you think!

10g hazelnuts, chopped

10g slivered or flaked almonds

10g chia seeds

10g pumpkin seeds

10g coconut flakes

50g full fat greek yoghurt

50g strawberries, chopped

50g grated apple

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Stevia or preferred sweetener to taste

Method

Mix altogether and add about 1/4 cup of water (you could use extra milk but will change the stats)

stats

1638 kJ

25g carbs

30g fat

12g protein

Protein pancake mix

Makes 6 serves

Each serve uses ½ cup or 57g protein pancake mix

Ingredients

200g oat flour- this is just oats blitz up until fine like flour

120g vanilla protein powder

Optional 1 x whole vanilla bean- chop roughly and blitz when you make the oat flour

5 tsp baking powder

Method

Mix well together and store in an airtight container.

To make; mix ½ cup (57g) protein mix and whisk with around 80ml water or until you get a thick batter. As an alternative you can use milk or use an egg + a little water or milk.

In a pan spray some olive oil and heat.  Spoon in your batter into 3-4 pancakes. When it bubbles and the bottom is golden brown underneath and flip over, Cook a further 30 seconds or so or until cooked.

Per serve (½  cup of powder)

886 kJ

Carbs 17g

Protein 19g

If you want to use a waffle make take 45g of the protein mix add 1 egg and a little water to make a thick batter. Cook as per instructions for your waffle maker.

I had this with a strawberry cheesecake sauce.

For one serve take 100g strawberries, chopped. Cook in a pot until they breakdown-this only takes a couple of minutes. When cool take half the strawberries and mix with 1 tbsp softened cream cheese. Serve the other half of the strawberries to get this two toned effect.

Slow cooker lasagne

Serve 8

Ingredients

1 batch of lentil spaghetti bolognese

500g ricotta- I have used low fat ricotta

100g cheese, grated- I used a lower fat cheese

¼ tsp nutmeg (optional)

150g vetta high fibre pasta- raw- or use lasagne sheets

50g parmesan cheese, grated

Method

Mix the ricotta, the 100g of cheese and nutmeg in a bowl, season well with salt and pepper.

Spray your slow cooker with oil. Place in 2 ladles full of the mince, then dot over ½ cup of the ricotta mix, swirl a little then place half the pasta over (75g) then another 2 ladles full of mince, then ½ cup of ricotta mix, then the other half of the pasta, then the rest of the mince, then the rest of the ricotta mix.

I did not have my shit together for this and only had this on at 3.30pm,  so I put this on high for 1 ½ hours, although it did take a little less than that, check after an hour or so to make sure the pasta is cooked. On low would take about 2-3 hours. You can also bake in a 180c oven for around 45 minutes.

At the end I sprinkled over the parmesan and put the whole insert under the grill for 5-7 minutes to get golden brown on top.

You could add veg in place of the pasta or as well as. Things like thinly sliced pumpkin, sweet potato, potato, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, spinach etc..

Spaghetti & lentil bolognaise

I like the addition of lentil to stretch this out as well as adding extra fibre. The good thing about using red lentils is that they break down and you don't even know they are in there! You decide if that is a good thing or not! I like to double this and freeze half of it. If you make double, 1 batch is 1.5kg in weight.(3 kg's altogether)

Serves 6

Ingredients

600g lean mince

1 brown onion, chopped

2-3 cloves of garlic or as much as you like, minced

150g red lentils

2 ½ cups of beef stock

210g tomato paste

2 tsp each of dried basil and oregano

Method

In a large pot heat a little oil and fry off your onion and garlic for 2 minutes, then add your mince and cook until it has changed color. Then add your tomato paste, lentils, stock and herbs and simmer with the lid on for about 30 minutes or until the lentils are nice and soft. Add more water or stock if needed. Serve with cooked spaghetti and parmesan cheese plus salad or veg.

For 6 portions I cooked 300g spaghetti in boiling salted water.

Stats- including 10g parmesan cheese (164 kJ) and 50g raw weight or 100g cooked weight spaghetti

Each portion should be around 250g.

1963 kJ

51g carbs

9 g fat

40g protein

Mandarin cupcakes

Makes 8-12 depending on size

Ingredients

125g butter, softened (the softened butter should be easy to cut through)

1/3 cup of sugar (70g)

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs at room temperature

1 cup of spelt or gluten free flour

175ml mandarin juice- zest them first if you can using a micro plane-for me this was 4 mandarins- plus you need 1 extra mandarin (squeezed) for the icing

Method

Preheat oven to 180 C

In a medium bowl with a hand beater, cream butter, vanilla and sugar until light and fluffy. Then one at a time your eggs. Continue beating until eggs are incorporated. Sift your flour, and baking powder into the butter mix, then zest and juice and fold into until combined, make sure there are no lumps, but don’t overmix. Spoon into 8- 12 holed greased or lined muffin tin and bake for 12-15 minutes. I use a silicone one then they just pop out.

Leave in tin to cool for 5 minutes and then turn out and leave to cool completely on a cake rack. Ice with your favourite icing when cool.

I used the juice of one mandarin with about ¼ cup or so of icing sugar and a heaped tsp of soft butter until you get a reasonably thick icing. Feel free to color with food coloring to make it orange- 2 drops yellow and 1 drop red. Sprinkles optional!

If you don’t want to ice you could add in some chocolate chips into the batter or on top for Jaffa cupcakes. You could swap mandarin for orange, lemon or lime.