So, this looks like granola, right?
(yes)
But! If you look closely you will notice that it doesn't quite look as, well, oat-y, as granola would. Why? Well, my pals, this baby is made up of red lentils.

I have always wanted to make an oat free granola. Not because I don't like oats. I LOVE OATS. I consume more oats than anyone I know (mainly in the form of granola, ofc). However, I know lots of people don't. I have many gluten-free followers (whom I love and I would like to apologise to for my 100% gluten filled bread obsession), and some people don't eat grains.

*Side note: Oats are gluten free, but may be contaminated if they aren't certified gluten free, so many people who do not eat gluten avoid regular oats. If you aren't allergic, though, oats are fine! It depends on your personal preferences really, eat some regular granola if you are happy with oats. Otherwise, try this recipe! Try this recipe ANYWAY, it's pretty cool.*

Because this is made of red lentils (bae #02 after oats), it's extraaaa high in protein. Which is why I finished 90% of my first batch after the gym (granola>yucky protein powder). Jokes, I don't lift. Have you seen these arms? Here's a pic.
*true story*
Grain free granola is often just a trail mix of nuts and coconuts. And there is nothing wrong with that! Trail mix is FAB. But sometimes you want something with a bit more substance that will fill you up a bit more. I never feel full by eating just nuts/seeds.

Anyway! Granola! This is going to take a bit more work than my super simple oat granolas. It tastes earthy but not weirdly savoury as you MIGHT expect it to be. I promise you this will NOT be a oddly sweet dhal recipe.

For those of you wondering, you can't really use any other kind of lentil in this. Red lentils have the perfect texture and mildness to work in this, nothing else will!

Red Lentil Granola
1 cup red lentils, rinsed
3 tbsp of you fav liquid sweetener (agave/maple syrup/brown rice syrup etc)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp all spice
Pinch of sea salt
1/2 cup of you favourite seeds or nuts (optional)
1/2 cup of your favourite dried fruit (I used raisins, obviously. Because I am currently too poor to buy mulberries or goji berries post-uni-fees)

Place the rinsed and drained lentils into a saucepan with boiling water. Boil until lentils until al dente, they should still have a good bite to them without being raw, about 5 minutes. Drain them as well as possible (I used a sieve and jiggled it about A LOT to get the water to drain). Spread them out on a baking tray and leave them to cool become less steamy and a bit more dry. Leave this for about 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 150C. Place the agave (or equivalent) into a mixing bowl with the spices, and stir it well. Pour in the cooled lentils and stir to coat everything evenly. Give the baking tray a quick rinse and dry, and line it with parchment or a silpat liner. Spread out your 'granola' in an even layer and bake for 15 minutes. Take it out, stir it about and spread it out again and bake another 15 minutes. Do this again after 10 minutes. Add in the nuts, if using, and then back in the oven for the last 10 minutes. It should take 40 minutes in total. You really want to get them properly crispy and dry, because soggy and soft granola is no fun!
Once it is done the granola should be a beautiful golden colour and smell like christmas (mostly bc cinnamon). I like to turn the oven off, leave the door ajar and cool the granola in the oven, just to make sure it's properly dry. Once it is nice and cool, stir in your dried fruit and place in an airtight container. Enjoy it just as you would any granola, on soy yogurt/almond milk/with a spoon/your hands straight out of the jar. I am v guilty of the last one *no shame no regrets*.

You can play around with the spices, swapping it out for cacao powder or matcha, for example. You can be a bit more daring with cardamom, maybe. Add in a tablespoon or two of a nut butter into the mix before baking, if you <3 PB (who doesn't?). Go crazy!

Because I am a student (read: poor), I can't really afford nutritional yeast or raw cashews all the time. And currently I had no nooch and only a handful of a snack-pack of roasted cashews (ahem tesco VALUE cashews. Regular cashews are pricey). So this recipe is easy peasy, because you probably have loads of these ingredients already.
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tbsp maple/agave/coconut sugar or your favourite sweetener
1/2 tsp liquid smoke (If you do not have this, add smoked paprika or double the amount of BBQ sauce)
1/2 tsp smoked paprika

  Let me just begin by saying I have heard many good things about Sage by Heston Blumenthal. His team and himself take a very scientific approach when developing appliances and it just gives machines that do what they are built to do, and well. He often thinks of that is wrong with the current appliances in the market and works to fix that in the Sage range. I remember hearing about his microwave and how fab the smart settings were, as well as how it didn't make soup bubble and spurt out all over the inside of the oven.

  But this post isn't about the microwave, it is about his high-speed blender: The Boss. And because it is by Heston Blumenthal I have decided to also delve a little deeper into the science and nutrition behind the machine so that we all know a little more about blending VS juicing... all the little myths you may have heard here and there about what is better for you and why. While The Boss is a high speed blender, I have often wondered about the nutritional differences between a juice and a smoothie, and thought it would be fun just to discuss it a little!


  Firstly, I believe strongly that both juicers and blended smoothies can offer you good nutrition although many people argue that one is better than the other. I have been doing some reading up on the benefits of both, as well as reading through some science-backed research and have come to the conclusion that no method is superior to the other.

  Juices are great and smoothies are great, and in different ways. For example, one reason why smoothies are often thought to be better for you than juices is because they still contain the dietary fibre of the fruit and veg you you use, and all this is stripped away in a juice. Dietary fibre is important in your diet as it slows the rate at which your blood sugar levels rise after a meal, less dietary fibre = a faster, higher rise in blood sugar and vice versa. The slower the rise in your blood sugar, the smaller the strain on your pancreas to produce enough insulin to bring your blood sugar levels back down to normal. This, of course, is important especially in diabetics. Fibre is also a very important part of your diet (the recommended intake is about 25-30 g a day), being in important factor in letting food move through your gut easily, and juicing fruit instead of adding them to a smoothie can be seen as 'wasting' the opportunity to consume that fibre.


  While this is true, it does not mean that juices are more likely to cause diabetes due to the spikes in blood sugar, or lead you to put on more weight as a result of that. In fact, the amount of fibre in a food does not have a direct+strong correlation with the rise in your blood sugar levels. in other words, the previously mentioned equation of 'less dietary fibre = a faster, higher rise in blood sugar' is not always the case. Removing the fibre in a juice also allows your gut to absorb more of the nutrients in it, while drinking an equivalent smoothie may result in some of these nutrients not being absorbed at all because it is 'trapped' within the dietary fibre. This way you can pack in a lot more nutrition for the same volume of fluid you consume.

  So, as you can see, chose a juice or a smoothie based on how you want it to treat your body. If you need a fast boost of energy and vitamins, a juice will be your best bet, while if you need something to keep you full until lunchtime, the fibre in a smoothie will make it the better option. That being said, there are ways in which you can pimp a juice in order to make it behave more like a smoothie. I like to add wheatgrass powder to add soluble fibre to a juice to let it keep me full for longer.

  In fact, juices have been found to contain a higher nutrient content than an equivalent smoothie for things like Vitamins C and A as well as potassium. Smoothies, on the other hand, proved to be a better way of delivering calcium to your body for the same ingredients. The reasons for the differences in nutrients between a smoothie and a juice despite containing the exact same ingredients is because both juicing and blending process the ingredients in such a way that some of the nutrients are destroyed. Nutrients in fruit and veg are always being destroyed, from being picked off a tree/from the ground to when you chew it. Nutrient destruction is inevitable but different amounts of each nutrient are retained depending on how you process it. The longer the time the fruit has going through a blender/juicer, the more nutrients you destroy. Also, the more heat that is applied to the ingredients, the less nutrients you retain.

  If you extend this last argument, it is easy to see how many people think that a slow juicer may offer more that a centrifugal juicer. Slow juicers essentially are marketed as applying less heat as it juices, and thus retaining more vitamins etc when you drink it. However, as it's name implies, the fruit also spends more time going through a slow juicer (about 30 times more, in fact) so it is in contact with the heat for longer. By the end of it all, if you take into account the total heat applied to the ingredients, the difference isn't that much for a slow and fast juicer, if there is any difference at all. For this reason, there is actually little difference between vitamin and mineral content of a slow juice VS a fast juice.



  So, why buy a juicer or blender when you can just get juice off a supermarket shelf or from a juice bar? (1) The cost; and (2) the nutrition you actually receive. Firstly, cost. A juicer may seem to be an hefty investment at first because it is so much more expensive than a juice, for example. But if you drink a fair amount of juice, you are going to have to buy a fair amount of juices. And if you add that all up, it easily makes up for the juicer in about 20 or so juices. Also, having your own juicer lets you make your own juice (duh) and that way you can chose what goes into your own drink. Don't like carrots? Leave them out. I have found that smoothie companies often try to be inventive with flavours and some of them have just one ingredient in it that just isn't working (picky eater confession). Juices themselves are heavily overpriced for the ingredients actually in them, so bite the bullet, invest in your health, in saves you a lot of money in the long term. Secondly, nutrition. Stuff on supermarket shelves are pasteurised, maybe they have stabilisers and preservatives. All these reduce the nutrition of the drink itself. Juices left sitting out on a juice bar shelf, while maybe fresh when looking at the bigger picture, actually lose nutrients as they sit out there. When you juice it yourself you have the option to drink it immediately. More vitamins for you. Win win.

While I would love to ramble on and on about the whole debate, I don't want to bore you. If you are interested in reading more about the science behind it all, I really loved this website called Juicing Science, it was really informative and was backed by solid evidence and really had no ulterior motive, so it's probably one of the least biased sources out there.

And if you have found yourself, after reading my juice VS smoothie debate, that you're more of a juice kinda person, Sage has a fabulous rage of juicers that I have had my eye on.


THE BOSS
  I have been talking a lot about smoothies when it comes to blending, and while The Boss makes a mean green smoothie (and even has a smart setting for that BOOYAH), the sky really is the limit. It can make hot soups, mill you fresh flour from buckwheat or quinoa, grind you ridiculously creamy nut butters, whip up some banana ice cream, frozen cocktails (wink wink), mix up the batter for a baked good... I could go on.
  I mentioned a green smoothie smart setting, and it also comes with one for crushing ice, normal smoothies (which is different from the 'green' kind because you don't have to blend through fibrous leaves and what-have-you), frozen desserts and soups. The manual settings on The Boss itself are very easy to use, just twirl the dial to up the power. It also has a timer (for those emergency loo breaks) and a pause button (when you just don't know if a soup is done enough). The Boss is a winner for presets and functions.


  Often high speed blenders require you to use a paddle (or tamper... depending on which school of blender lingo you subscribe to) to push the ingredients down towards the blades. Which, as someone with a very tall vitamix and very low overhead cabinets on the kitchen counter, involved a lot of me knocking my hand on the bottom of the cabinet itself (i.e. much pain). While The Boss does come with a paddle, I found that I didn't have to use it as often as I had with my other blender. I suppose this has to do with the design of the blades and also the angle of the base on the jug. It is designed to push food up and away from the blades as the spin, allowing the un-blended food to fall down towards the base to get ground up themselves. That isn't to say you can just ditch the paddle, some of the tougher things (i.e. nut butters) require a bit of coaxing, but smoothies and soups seemed to blend without me having to intervene.
  Clean up on this is a breeze. I forgot to mention it also has a smart setting for washing up. So pour a bit of water into the blender post-soup-making, add a drop of fairy liquid and press 'auto clean'. Then just rinse it out with water. Easy peasy.
  The blender is a bit on the noisy side, but you have to remember that it is after all a high speed blender, and nothing that has a power to crush solid ice into a beautifully fine granita is going to be very silent. It is still quieter than my vitamix, though. I have thin walls in my room and was afraid of angering my neighbours, but I never actually ended up blending for very long for it to be annoying. I hope. Otherwise I have very polite neighbours and have myself been ridiculously inconsiderate.
  Something I struggled a bit with, was getting all my smoothie/banana ice cream/other wet blended food item out of the jug. Because the base is narrow to allow the ingredients to be pushed up, it is difficult to get, for example, every little bit of an acai smoothie out from under the blade into your glass. I had to buy a very small and long spatula to solve this problem. Which, considering the silky smooth smoothies it gives me, is fair enough.



  The boss comes with several really great recipes and also has loads of beautifully-shot recipe videos on youtube. Heston Blumenthal also has several videos on how the design of the jug makes this blender stand out from other high speed blenders. So check that out if you are thinking of this baby.
  I know that cost is an important factor when choosing what to buy, and any high-speed blender isn't going to come very cheap. I personally did toy with the idea of just getting a regular blender when I was thinking of buying my first high speed blender, but when it came down to it, I realised that I was willing to pay for the better quality result I would get, and also the additional features of a HS blender. For example, it may just kill an average blender to crush ice or to grind nuts into a butter, something I now use The Boss for on a regular basis. Also HS blenders often come with fairly long warranties, seven years for The Boss, which guarantees you many years of beautifully smooth soups. And even then, they often last years and years beyond their warranty. So it is an investment, yes, but in my opinion, it's an investment worth making.


Now that I have given you my two cents on how I liked The Boss, here are a couple of recipes I have made and that I adore:

Smokey Sunflower Butter


2 cups sunflower seeds, toasted while stirring constantly in a dry pan on the skillet until fragrant
1 tsp rice malt syrup
1 tsp pink himalayan sea salt

Place the ingredients into the blender and blend on the highest spin setting until a 'butter' consistency is obtained. This spread is the perfect replacement for PB if you've got an allergy, or if you just want to try something a little different!

Raw Vegan Chocolate Vanilla Cheesecake



'Nana Ice Cream Bowl


Spiced Carrot soup


6-7 small carrots, peeled and sliced
1/2 a head of a large cauliflower
3 cups vegetable stock
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Salt, if desired
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 cup red split lentils, washed
Seeds of 4 cardamom pods

In a pot, boil the red split lentils in 1 cup of vegetable stock until they are cooked through and mushy, about 15-20 minutes. Add all the ingredients into the blender along with the cooked lentils and blend on the soup setting.

How simple are these? It's made my student lunches so quick and easy to whip up, meaning I cook for myself a lot more and it's so much healthier and cheaper than eating out all the time! These are only 4 of the many things I made, and I have many lots of other recipes already on the blog in them:
Falafels, Brocc-Cauli salad, Dosa, Hummus, Pesto,  Shiitake Pate, Buckwheat Porridge, Hazelnut Mousse, Bliss balls (of course!), my FAVOURITE raw fig rolls, healthy cookie dough and 'nana popsicles.

  Small disclaimer: I was sent the appliance to review and give it a spin (heh heh see what I did there?) but the opinions are all my own!

  The annual Gill Xmas party always has (a) an insane amount of food, (b) an impressive gingerbread house structure; and (c) a lot of violence when aforementioned gingerbread structure is demolished.
  The violence is mostly on Kyra's fault. I usually cling helplessly to whatever instrument we may be using to destroy said house, while Kyra flails it about with reckless abandon and screams (that girl is insane in the membrane).
  No, really.

  So here is a list of food that I made for the party along with any recipes/links to recipes. I know it's past christmas, but what better way to celebrate 2015 than with stuffing and mince pies?
  I can't think of a single one.
  Except maybe this time, plan your food prep time well ahead so you actually get down to making mulled wine. I am still bitter about that.

Candied Sweet Potatoes
4-5 large sweet potatoes, I like the orange variety
Olive/Coconut oil, optional
Pink himalayan salt, pepper
1/3-1/2 cup of maple syrup or honey

Wash and peel sweet potatoes and cut them into wedges. Preheat the oven to 180C. Heat a little oil on a pan, or you may use a non-stick pan with a bit of water, and brown the wedges a little, for about 5-8 minutes over a medium flame. Once this is done, transfer them to a large roasting or baking tray, and drizzle a little bit more oil if you want to. Spread them evenly out and pop it into the oven to 40 minutes.
After 40 minutes, remove the sweet potatoes from the oven, season them with salt and pepper and the syrup or honey, toss them well to coat, then pop them back into the oven for 4-5 minutes to glaze them.
Serve hot/warm!

Apple and Walnut Vegan Stuffing 
1 large loaf of your favourite bread, I used a nice crusty whole wheat french loaf, but GF also works!
1 cup of green lentils + 2 cups of veggie stock
1 flax egg (1 tbsp ground flax + 3 tbsp water, stir and leave to gel up for 20 minutes)
1 large celery stalk, diced
1 large white onion, diced
3 small/2 medium apples, diced
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary/1 tbsp dried
1 1/2 cups walnuts
3/4 cup raisins/sultanas (or a mix, shake it up.)
Salt and pepper
3 cups veggie stock, use mushroom stock for a more 'meaty' flavour.

Cube the bread the day before and leave it out in a pan to dry out, it should have the texture of day old bread. If you forget to do this (like I did) (ha, ha), preheat the oven to 100C, turn it off, wait 5 minutes and place the cubes on a tray in the oven with the door slightly ajar for 10 minutes.
Rinse the lentils and boil them in the 2 cups of veg stock, once it boils, bring it to a simmer until all the liquid is absorbed and lentils are soft.
Fry the onion, celery, apples and rosemary, until onions are translucent, rosemary is fragrant and apples are tender. At this point preheat your oven to 180C
Place the cubes of bread into a deep baking dish, then pour in the cooked lentils, the cooked veggies, the flax egg, the walnuts, raisins/sultanas, salt and pepper and veggie stock. Mix it up, don't be afraid to break up the bread. When it is nice and even, pat it down and cover it with either a lid or tin foil. Pop this into the oven for 40 minutes, then remove the lid, and bake a further 8-10 minutes uncovered, until the top has formed a slight golden crust.
Serve hot/warm!

 Sasha's Spicy Salsa: click here





Oh, and for the royal icing:

Vegan Royal Icing
1 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted
3 tsp almond milk
2 tsp rice syrup
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Food colouring if you want to get fancy like that

Double/triple/quadruple as needed.

(I know I have not mentioned much about my gingerbread Noah's ark with Benedict Cumberbatch starring as Noah, but I thought you knew me well enough by now not to question it)
(yes, his robe IS bedazzled)
(no, I don't know where the second Zebra is)


Mince Pies
Makes: 15-18 mini pies

Filling:
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup sultanas
1/2 cup currants/dried cranberries
2 medium apples, diced finely
Juice of 2 oranges
Zest of 1 orange (zest it before you juice, MUCH easier, trust me. I learnt the hard way)
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp clove powder
Pastry:
1/2 cup spelt flour
1 cup jumbo/rolled oats
1/2 tsp xantham gum
1/2 cup applesauce
Pink of pink sea salt
2 medjool dates, pureed
2 tbsp rice syrup

Place all the filling ingredients into a saucepan over medium heat, and let it reduce down until apples are very tender, and the filling is fragrant and all the liquid has boiled down.

Grind the oats into a flour in a food processor, mix with the spelt, xantham and salt. Stir well. This distributes the xantham and prevents clumping (ick!). Add in the date puree (you can do this in the food processor as well), applesauce and syrup, and knead to form a dough, adding more spekt four if needed until it comes together in a nice ball and is not incredibly sticky. Wrap in cling film and place in the freezer for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C, roll out the dough really thin, something slightly less than 1/4 of an inch, cut out little circles with a nice pastry cutter or a small mug. Place these into either shallow mini pie-baking dishes or cupcake lines trimmed to half their original height. If you use the cupcake liners, be sure to place it in a cupcake tray so the pies keep their shape. Prick the base with a fork ever so slightly and bake these for 10 minutes, until slightly browned. Fill with a few tablespoons of filling then cut out a star from the remaining dough and place it on top, bake another 5-7 minutes, until nice and golden. Eat immediately (let it cool for a few minutes though!) or pastry will soften.

 Overall, I had a blast. I was in a food coma for the next 24 hours and I didn't get any sleep that night because of the sugar high, but.

I
Regret
Nothing.

xx
Sasha out.
And if I don't see you by 2015, which is very likely given that I have piles and PILES of embryology to memorise, have a great new years' day. Make some realistic resolutions, and drink lots of bubbly. And mulled wine if you didn't get any at xmas. (hands up!)

  But my Mother adores fig Newtons. She loves 'em. She likes them more than actual figs (that, I do not understand). So I decided to make her some raw-vegan versions.
  So recipe-less and without having any knowledge of what an actual fig newton tasted like, I set out to create the perfect 80/10/10 friendly fig roll. After reading through the ingredients list of a fig newton, I BEGAN!
  I handed one of these babies to my mother and she proclaimed they tasted identical to a fig newton, the only thing slightly different was that my fig rolls were less crumbly. But I'll take it. Less crumb, less mess anyhoo!







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