Cold, grey January days

Its late January which means the winter months are slowly moving on, with Spring in sights (sort of!). For the cold winter months which are often bleak and grey its best to spend time inside, sit down and try to keep warm! As I currently spend days at home often, working on my university assignments, my usual lunch on these cold January days is a bowl of warm soup; which I love! Its one of those elements that I really enjoy about cold days, being able to eat comfort food in a warm central heated home. I like different variations of soup and this one (shown) was Potato and Leek. I added dried herbs and crushed walnuts which added some crunch, and of course made it look nice!

 

I hope you are having a great January!
 

My Coffee and Walnut Cake!

So I baked! Yes I don't do it very often! I decided to make a coffee and walnut cake for the first time. I followed a basic Victoria Sponge recipe. This little recipe book seen is my mums and I think its from about the 1970's! Its so vintage I love it!
 So according to my Mums recipe I used 6 Oz (170g) of self raising flour, 4 Oz (113g) of sugar, 6Oz (170g) of Margarine and 3 eggs. I also added tiny amount of milk and a tiny amount of instant made coffee until it was the right consistency and colour.
Its very easy to make, its a basic all-in-one recipe. You mix the margarine and sugar until combined and light and then add in one egg and a small amount of flour at a time until all mixed in. Then add the milk and coffee until it is sort of 'glupy' (yes its obvious im not a professional baker!).

 

I put the mixture into two tins with grease proof paper on the bottom of each. I put them on the lower shelf of the oven at Gas Mark 4 for 25-30 mins. I checked it regularly to see how it was doing - as everyone cant help but to do! I then used a cake tester to make sure it was cooked all the way through and put it on a cooling rack.

I added icing on the top which is made simply by mixing icing sugar and a small amount of coffee and then put walnuts on the top. Its such an easy cake to make and tasted so good, especially as it was coffee which is my all time favourite!

I hope you like the look of this cake as much as I did eating it!

Jasmine X

(All images are mine)

Strawberry and Banana, Dairy Free Smoothie

 Smoothies are great! I have recently been obsessed with them after I perfected my recipie.

 I am going to share with you my way to make smoothies which includes absolutely no dairy. I am not intolerant to dairy products but after realising the negative impact on health that dairy can have I decided to avoid it. One of the main issues with dairy, especially full fat milk is all the fat! This obviously isn't a good thing. Secondly is the hormones present, again especially in milk.  None of this sounds very appealing and I know that when I trialled a month of drinking goats milk my face was breakout mad. This is possibly due to increased hormone levels in my body causing spots from having the milk (although this hasn't been proven scientifically).

 

You will need a banana, a handful of strawberries, Alpro yoghurt (its dairy free) and Alpro almond milk (its dairy free) and honey or sugar as optional. Also its crucial you have a blender although it doesn't matter what type.

 

 1.) Anyway here it goes! To start with chop up fresh Strawberries or you can use frozen. You could also use a selection of other fresh or frozen berries to your taste.

2.) Then chop up a banana, one should be ample. Put both the strawberries and banana pieces into the blender.

 

3.) Spoon in four or five spoons of Alpro yogurt. Here I used Plain but I prefer to use Vanilla for a better taste. All of the Alpro range are made without dairy and come straight from almonds or plant based products. It tastes just as good as dairy, looks like dairy and works just as good. Do be aware that it is made out of nuts (the almond version anyway!) and so if you are allergic to nuts it may not be suitable (check the labels!).

4.) Next pour in some Alpro almond milk, mines unsweetened. Use about enough to cover the ingredients in the blender. It is all approximate measures so if you want a large cup, fill it up more!

5.) Lastly put in either a spoonful of honey or a spoonful of sugar if you like yours sweet, or you can just leave it like it is. I personally don't add any as the banana gives it a nice, natural, healthy sweetness.

6.) And that's it, mix it in the blender and its good to go. Simple!
Its such an easy recipe it hardly needed instructions but I wanted to share possibly my favourite drink with you so you can make it too!
You can put it in a fancy cup with a strawberry garnish as seen above or put it into
 a sweet vintage dairy bottle and take it with you. Then no-one at all will tell its not dairy!
The only bad part is when your bottles empty!


Jasmine X
(All images are mine and I am in no way associated with brands mentioned. You should check all ingredients before making the recipe to make sure it is suitable for you)