Reflections on my health, fitness and wellbeing

Category: Recipes

Bagel mania

My latest obsession is cottage cheese bagels which are so easy to make and, in their simplest form, only have 2 ingredients – cottage cheese and flour! I’ve started experimenting with the recipe and got some great results. They have more protein than your average bagel and no emulsifiers or preservatives. They freeze well and are great sliced in half then toasted the next day.

You can scan this QR code to see the original recipe then I’ll show you my adaptations below.

Pictured below are these three versions:

  • Wholewheat and sesame – use half wholewheat flour and put sesame seeds on top
  • Cinnamon and raisin – add a tablespoon of cinnamon to the dough then knead in a large handful of raisins
  • Mature cheddar and Parmesan – add a large handful of grated cheddar to the dough then add finely grated Parmesan on top

Cottage cheese pancakes

I just made these pancakes that I discovered on instagram. I added a big handful of frozen blueberries to the mix which worked really well. Full of protein and fibre so great after a run. They were delicious! Scan the QR code to see the instagram post!

Delicious breakfast smoothie

I haven’t been organised enough to make my overnight oats this weekend but I wanted to get back into my routine of having kefir every day so I threw together this breakfast smoothie which was delicious!

Ingredients:

  • 250ml semi skimmed milk kefir
  • 10g oats
  • 80g mixed berries
  • 50g Green smoothie mix (mango & spinach)
  • 10g chia seeds

Cottage Cheese bread

I stumbled across this recipe the other day and I have made it twice since as it is soooooo delicious! Also really easy to make. It’s full of protein and fibre so a great addition to my day! If you cut it into 12 slices then it has around 123 calories, 7g protein and 2g fibre.

Overnight oats with home made kefir

I’ve been reading, watching TV programmes and listening to podcasts about the gut microbiome quite a bit recently and I’m becomming increasingly interested in doing what I can to make mine healthy (particularly after having a bowel cancer scare 18 months ago). After a couple of friends told me about their home made kefir, I decided to give it a go and I’m obsessed!

I have used the Kefir Company starter cultures which are so easy to use! I will have a go at using some live grains at some point but, for now, this is so easy.

I blend the prepared kefir with what ever soft fruit I have got around and then pour it over oats, leave it in the fridge overnight and have some delicious over night oats for breakfast every day. I usually add some grapes, a chopped up pear or what ever fruit takes my fancy.

Before I add the extra fruit, the overnight oats with home made fruity kefir comes in around 10g of protein and 5g of fibre so a great start to the day!

There’s lots of information about the health benefits of kefir on the internet but I’m not an expert so I’m not going to say which sources are the most accurate. It’s worth having a google though if you’re interested!

Quick low calorie breakfast

My favourite low calorie breakfast at the moment. 0% fat yoghurt (I have about 100g) and fruit. This one worked out at less than 150 calories! The protein in the yoghurt keeps me full all morning – in fact I had this and a bag of 44 calorie popcorn then ran 13.65 km before I needed to eat again!

Thai peanut salad dressing

I’ve been eating a lot of salad recently and this is one of my go to favourite quick dressings! You can scale the ingredients up to make more but this works for one meal and is around 69 calories per serving (it works without the oil if you want to reduct the calories)

Ingredients:
1 tsp Lime Juice
1 tsp Rice Vinegar
1 tsp Peanut Oil
1 tsp Soy Sauce
0.5 tsp Peanut Butter
0.5 tsp Honey

Method:
Mix it all together!