3/31/2013

CHOCOLATE ATTACK!!! My very first baking session!

So, yesterday I decided to start my career as a CleanEatingMasterChef - and I did pretty well, I think! ;) I've been so inspired by all those Instagram pictures lately that I just couldn't hold myself anymore. Like I told you yesterday, I've found loads of recipes to die for. So I wondered, what would I like to try first... I don't have any casein protein (I've ordered some, just haven't received it yet) so I had to look for a recipe that I could do with whey protein.

I'm going to do some kind of list here in my blog about inspiring blogs and websites. Lately I've been sooooo hooked on PROTEINPOW and MEGAMEOWS (you should follow them in Instagram! And if you're not in Instagram, join immediately!) that I decided to try some of their recipes. After a very hard and longlasting consideration process I decided to try Protein Cheesecakes inspired by Protein pow and some Chocolate Banana Protein Muffins inspired by Megameows. I also considered Protein pow's Dark Chocolate Protein Digestives and Upside Down Blueberry and Vanilla Protein French Muffins, but then I thought that I just can't do it all at once. It was just my first day as a CleanEatingMasterChef.

Sooo I went to my nearest grocery store and bought some stuff I've ever boughten before. Like almond milk (didn't need it in these recipes but I bought some stuff that I can use after my diet). We don't use it a lot in Finland and the only almond milk I've seen in stores is the one from Alpro. Anyways, I found myself standing in front of the canned food looking for some black beans for the Digestives that I was NOT supposed to do. Well, of course there were not any black beans, I'm in Finland... So I continued shopping and headed to the counter... And then, suddenly, I just marched to the canned food shelf (or how do you say it in English...), picked up some chickpeas, grabbed some chocolate from the candy shelf and felt myself a little excited :D


Oat flour, bulgur, buckwheat flakes, wholegrain speltflour, oats, millet flakes

Xanthan, psyllium, almond milk, coconut cream, chickpeas, vanillaflavor, applemash (just 100% apples)

Didn't find any Greek yoghurt (not very popular in Finland) so I thought that I'll try this Ehrmann quark with yogurt. Then this natural yogurt from Valio which has a funny consistency, what would be the word for "lohkeava" in English... cracking splitting.... nooo, I don't know :D Anyways, then the darkest chocolate I could find from my nearest grocery store and some all organic Fairtrade banana-almond-whitecocolate. Yummmm...

I have to tell you that I don't usually even like marshmallow!!! And it's totally NOT clean!!! I just have this thing about rocky road although I have never even tasted it... and I thought that maybe I could use just a few small marshmallows sometimes on some delicious clean dessert...

So back home I found myself preparing four different pastries. I can't put all of them in this same post 'cause it would be waaayyyy to giantic post then. So I'm going to introduce two of them now and save two of them for another post. But I'll show you a picture of what I achieved to produce :D



The recipes went through some changes and I'm just about to tell you about that :) I used my Kenwood Multipro Compact which I love because you can do pretty much anything with it plus it was affordable - that's a big thing for me! I didn't have any chocolate or vanilla whey so I used my Self Omninutrition mint chocolate & pear vanilla whey proteins. That's a good quality and also affordable protein, I've used it for almost two years now :) I also have their coconut chocolate whey which is sweetened with stevia. I actually don't know why I didn't use it... Well, I love mint chocolate so maybe that's why :D



 And here's some superfood products from Detox Trading that I used with these pastries. Coconut flour, lucuma powder, banana powder, golden berries and bee pollen. I just received a huge package from them a few days ago, I can introduce these product more sometimes :)

I'll present my chocolate treats now and the vanilla ones in another post. So let's get started!

DARK CHOCOLATE PROTEIN DIGESTIVES 
with chickpeas&chiaseeds
click HERE for the original recipe by amazing PROTEIN POW!


What I love the most about these recipes is that they are so easy to make, you just have to blend the ingredients and put it into the oven :) So I didn't find the blackbeans so I had to use chickpeas. And then I realized that the recipe says 345 g of beans and I only had 230 g. But I thought that I'll try and if it sucks, that's OK. Here's my Digestive's ingredients:

230 g chickpeas
3 eggwhites
65 g mint chocolate whey protein
80 g buckwheat flakes
35 g organic raw cocoa powder
1/2 tsp English Toffee liquid stevia
a dash of sea salt
1 tbsp chiaseeds

 I just mixed it well and put into the baking cups, 170 degrees celsius and about 35 mins. Too bad I don't have a muffin mould :( but I just ordered some stuff from WellBake so soon nothing will stop my CleanEatingMasterChef career!

These are from iHerb


 I ended up with probably the most ridiculous looking "cookies" ever. The baking cups are NOT GOOD for this. But because I think it's the inside that matters, I just melt some chocolate, topped the cookies with it and put the cookies into the freezer for half an hour. I also topped two blueberry-vanilla muffins 'cause I had melt too much chocolate.


 Because I prefer not to use microwave nowadays, I used hot water and I think that it really is the best way to melt chocolate, it's so easy :)



And this is how they looked like. I can't describe the feeling when I realized that I can't taste the cookie dough!!! Or any other dough!!! I can't lick the spoon or the bowl, 'cause I'm on a diet!!! It almost killed me. And what a waste of food!!! OMG it was freakin' awful... But I survived! I still don't have any idea if all these pastries taste like shit, but I don't think so. The texture and the SMELL of all of these were soooo amazing that I almost cried. Almost! My boyfriend is coming back home tonight so I believe he will tell me how they are.


CHOCOLATE BANANA&STRAWBERRY PEANUT BUTTER PROTEIN PIE
inspired by Megameows choc banana protein muffins, click HERE for this awesome recipe

Sooo muffins right?! :D It was supposed to be. I lost my mind with those baking cups and decided to make it a pie. With this one I felt myself like some crazy scientist and the ideas were just flooding into my head! It was an amazing feeling for me, who NEVER EVER bakes anything! I enjoyed this so much and I'm so full of ideas that I'm craving to put into practice. I feel like I've found my mission in this world :D

So here's my version:

3 bananas
2 scoops mint chocolate whey
1 tbsp organic raw cacao powder
2 eggs + 1 eggwhite (was supposed to put 1 whole egg but oooops...)
0,75 dl wholegrain speltflour
0,5 dl oatflour
1 heaping tbsp raw banana powder
2 tbsp bee pollen
1 heaping tbsp lucuma powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp smooth peanut butter
1 cup frozen strawberries

Mixed it and put the strawberries on top, then in 190 degrees celsius approx 20 mins.

I thought it was shouting for some toppings, so I HAD TO use the strawberries :)

It's so pretty!!!

And the texture... PERRRRRRFECT!!! It was so moist and beautiful and everything!


I decided to top few bites with that lovely whitechocolate, which -by the way- smells soooo delicious!!! Can't wait that I can taste it! I don't usually even like white chocolate. So these with the topping are for my boyfriend.


 And these are for meee!!! :)
I put these in the freezer, I'm going to eat it by myself!!! In two weeks... :)

And these are for my boyfriend, hope he'll love the surprise :)
The funny thing is that although I'd love to taste all of those, I don't want to eat it all at once :D That's weird FOR ME so I believe something has happened inside my head! I know that all my meals and all the ingredients that I use are not clean or organic etc. etc. but I think that this clean eating as a lifestyle is just the best thing ever :) I hope that I'll have time to post the rest of the recipes real soon. And I have a lot of other ideas too to write about :)

Life is good! xoxo,
Henna

3/30/2013

The Beginning

So this is The Beginning. I'm going to start a new blog. I'm Finnish but I'll write in English to activate that grey stuff in my brains. And maybe to prep my language skills. So, my English isn't perfect but I think you can live with it.

I have two weeks left for my body fitness (=figure) competition. For the last couple of months I've been thinking a LOT about my life, health and happiness. I've been reading about detox and stuff like that and right now I just fall for clean eating. I've been writing down recipes for two days, my hand hurts but I don't care. I want my recipes on my notebook - yes, I'm old fashioned. And yes, I've found hundreds of wonderful clean eating recipes from internet and I can't write 'em all down... It's a shame. I've also becamed a dessert addict, even though I haven't been able to try any of those recipes because of my diet. Call me silly. I know that I am :)

So, after two weeks I will start my cleaneatingmasterchef -project. Of course I've been eating pretty healthy for years 'cause I'm training to get more muscles. But this clean eating thing is a bit more, I think. Before I ate processed junk when I wanted something sweet - and I was pretty obsessed with chocolate even though I managed to stay in pretty good shape. Now I don't even want "normal treats" anymore and that's a pretty freaking amazing feeling!!! I'm just waiting to get my hands dirrrty and bakebakebakeeee! Maybe I'll start today and do some proteinmuffins or something like that for my lovely boyfriend who's out of town this weekend. I've been pretty annoying during my diet, he would deserve it...


I believe this blog will include some fitness nonsense. I don't know, 'cause I decided to start writing this blog just half an hour ago :D I'll start astanga yoga lessions in May, so maybe I'll be writing about that, too. I've been dreaming about it for ten years and now I'm finally going to do that! Pretty excited about it!

Travelling around the world and moving abroad is such a huuuuuuge dream... Hopefully someday I have enough money to see the world :) Right now I only have a lot of loan :P I would love to try working in London and in Sydney. I'm a nurse and I think it would be interesting to see what it's really like (nursing, I mean) outside of Finland.Living in Australia has been my dream since a little girl. When I grew up, I was learned to think that one must keep both feet on the ground - and head under it! If you know what I mean... But now I just want to dream big dreams and believe in those dreams, 'cause I don't want to be one of those bitter bastards when I get old...


So I think that's enough for my first post. Hope that somebody somewhere someday reads some of my stories. And if don't I can read it myself!

And Happy Easter for You :)

xoxo,
Henna