These crisps are even healthier if you make them like I did last week and burn them, because most of them go in the bin! Talk about diet crisps!

↑↑ See! I ate about five 😆

Ingredients:

• Sweet potato
• Oil
• Cumin
• Smoked paprika
• Salt & Pepper

Method:

• Thinly slice a sweet potato and put in a bowl
• Coat in oil, add salt, pepper, cumin and smoked paprika and mix
• Lay on an oven tray 
• Now I baked them for ten mins on each side at 180 degrees! and this ↑ was the result! So I recommend a temperature of 150 degrees and keeping a watchful eye out! 

When the days get cooler and darker, I tend to swap salads for bowls of warming soups and making homemade soup is so easy, healthier than a tin and you know what's going in it! 

Veggies can be really cheap so veggie soup is a winner and if I ever have leftover cooked chicken then chicken and veg soup it is!  Now I'll be honest, I literally just wing it with soup, I have a huge pan, chop a load of veg until it's half full and then cover with stock so I'll tell you what I typically put in my soup but I recommend you be free, chop away, throw it in and cover!

Ingredients:

• 2 sml sweet potatoes
• 2 sml white potatoes
• 2 large carrots
• 2 large white onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 parsnip
• Green beans
• Brocolli
• Veg or chicken stock
• 1 1/2 tbs plain flour
• Mixed herbs

Method:

• Chop all veg
• Saute onion with garlic
• Add potatoes and stir
• Add all other veg
• add flour and mix to coat veg
• add herbs and season
• Cover with stock and simmer for an hour
• Blitz if you want it smooth

Easy peasy done!
​

I originally found this recipe on BBCGoodFood and changed it to our taste, I start it on the hob and then transfer to the slow cooker to cook throughout the afternoon, the smell alone makes you hungry!  So here's my version:
​

​Serves four,

​Ingredients:

• 500g stewing beef
• 1 large onion, diced
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 2 tins of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tin kidney beans
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• Vegetable oil
• 3 garlic cloves, chopped finely
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tsp ground chilli
• fresh sliced chillies to garnish

​I like to serve this with Cauliflower rice, guacamole and salsa with a few chilli slices on the top for the brave!

Homemade, fresh and healthy, so enjoy!

Hello! If you've been reading my blog, you'll have seen my recent post about the September challenge, Go me! If you haven't read it, then sit down right now and do your bit by clicking here ←

​Ingredients:

• 2 large eggs
• 1 banana

Yep, minimal ingredients, minimal effort!

Here's the method,

• Mash the banana until mushy (not exactly an enticing word sorry)
• Whisk the eggs together
• Add the eggs to to the mashed banana and mix
• Heat a little butter or oil in a frying pan 
• Add blobs of the mixture to the hot pan (in 2 tbsp sized blobs) 
• Cook on one side, flip over and cook the other side
• Top with your favourite things and voila!

I had mine with blueberries, maple syrup, chopped almonds and a couple of strawberries on the side. I loved this breakfast! They even kept me going until lunch, which meant no snacking! Good girl me!

Ingredients:

• 1 large avocado
• 1 egg - poached
• Streaky bacon

All tasty ingredients yes? Carry on reading...

Method:

• Poach egg - online it was done in a little cling film ball so I did the same to keep its shape
• Prepare avocado - cut down the middle all the way round, remove the stone and use a spoon to get the halves out
• make the centre of each half a little bigger by scooping (and eating obviously) some of the flesh out
• Place the egg in it's avocado bed and enclose using the other half of the avocado
• Wrap in streaky bacon and fry off in a little oil until browned.

Easy peasy right? Again, read on...

This is the method I actually experienced:

• Poach the egg in a cling film ball thing, securing the twisted end by balancing a spoon over it on the pan handle! 
• Prep the avocado by carefully cutting all around, twist both halves and carefully remove the stone. Then use a spoon to carefully scoop the halves from their skin without breaking them. Make the centres a little bigger by scooping out some of the flesh (and eating it obviously) My advice here is be careful, it's fiddly 😉
• Remove the egg (that has now stuck to the cling film, stuck as in glue-like stuck) from the cling film using a spoon to carefully scrape it away without popping the yolk! My advice here is probably not to use the cling film!
• Place whatever is left of the scraped egg into one of the now slimy avocado centres and encase with the other slimy half. Coating your hands in green avo mush whilst doing so.  My advice here is to buy a 'not too ripe' avocado!
• When the top starts to slide off creating a slimy eggy filling as it does, hold everything together gently but firmly while trying not to make eggy guacamole. My advice here is whilst juggling eggy avo, somehow keep wiping your green slimy hands on some kitchen towel to avoid a green slimy kitchen!
• While gripping the eggy avo in one slimy green hand, use the other slimy green hand to quickly wrap bacon around the whole thing and make sure you somehow hold the bacon ends in place. My advice here is to use streaky bacon and overlap the rasher ends, I didn't!
• Whilst holding the slimy bacony eggy avo together in one slimy green hand, heat a little oil in a frying pan with the other slimy green hand, to  brown the bacon wrapped eggy avo. My advice here, is to simply multi task, good luck!
• When the bacon falls off the eggy avo, brown it anyway whilst holding the slimy eggy avo on top of it and against the pan edge in an attempt to support the halves. My advice here is to next time, magically insert the poached egg into the whole avo instead! Abracadabra!
• Once the bacon is sort of browned, (your patience may now be limited) flip the bacon back over and balance it rustically, use as many utensils as you can fit in your hands to transfer the eggy avo and bacon to your plate, ensuring the eggy avo stays in tact and the bacon stays balanced. My advice here is... nope I have none!
• When the green coated bacon falls to your plate and the top half of avo slides away to reveal a mushy yellowy centre, accept defeat and eat!
  
• My advice here, is to use your imagination and pretend it looks like it did in the video!

So both meals were edible, one was just far better looking than the other! You know the worse thing about it? It was only when I came to write this post that I realised I'd eaten bacon. Yep, a processed food. Tasty but processed!
So I've hung my head in shame and chanted
'avoid processed foods' and 'think september challenge' to myself whilst cooking a vat of homemade vegetable soup. 
A load of veggies thrown into a pan and souped can't really go wrong, can it?​

I'll admit I'm a little knackered from all the eggy avo juggling but I'm eager to see your efforts, obviously you'll have a better chance now I've given you my write up and all my sound advice!
​So make the pancakes and enjoy then make the eggy avo thing and send me your pics 😉

Good luck and Happy cooking!

Love
Simply Sarah
​X

Do you have a sweet tooth? I really do. I can guarantee that by 8pm, I'm questioning why I don't revert to the days when pudding was acceptable after dinner, every day...

So trying not to give in, I remembered recently that someone had shared a recipe for banana ice-cream online, so I got searching! (5 a day and all that) There are loads of great recipes but this time I wanted a healthier option.  

I found it!  I'd love to claim the credit for this amazing treat but I can't. TheKitchn have mastered it!  High five to them!
Get this, banana ice cream, using one ingredient! 🤔 Have you guessed what it is yet? 😉 Yup Bananas!! You can't get much healthier than that! 

I decided to give it a go and get ahead with a sweet fix to quench my 8pm sweetness pangs.

This is easy peasy, even I can do it and I managed to toast crumpets into ashes the other day! (I'll add the pic for your entertainment) 

• ​Slice the bananas into a tupperware tub and seal
• Put in the freezer for a couple of hours
• Blitz up (I used my hand held blender with the splash guard container thingy!)
• Keep blitzing until smooth
• Eat!

This is a winner! One ingredient, easy and delicious, I love it!

I ate mine sprinkled with some of my homemade granola and ate the lot (Quite possibly two normal portions 😉) There is already more sliced banana in my freezer and this time I think I'll try adding some crunchy peanut butter!
​You have no excuses, well unless you don't like bananas, so get it made!

Enjoy!

Simply Sarah X

Ps: here's my effort at toasting crumpets, I told you my Recipe Room page is also for culinary diasters! (Not quite culinary I know, but still amusing) ​