Guilt-free protein snacks - "Bounty" bars

This is my best recipe ever. Low effort, low carb, guilt-free awesomeness.

 These taste amazing!

Now, first of all, I really feel the need to talk about whey protein, because I have been exposed lately to a diet and exercise program that virtually obsesses over protein powder (I'm not going to name and shame), and I feel it's important to discuss the dangers of protein overdose. Let's bein by having a look at how much protein we should be consuming (source: betterhealth.vic.gov.au) 

• 0.75 g/kg for adult women
• 0.84 g/kg for adult men
• Around 1 g/kg for pregnant and breastfeeding women, and for men and women over 70 years

You need to look at the tub of protein powder you're using to see how much is in each scoop/serving. Please keep an eye on your intake. The dangers of consuming too much protein, long term, is severe. It causes permanent damage to the kidneys, can cause gout, and may damage your liver. The tell-tale sign that you're consuming too much protein is that you feel crappy (like you would if you were doing a liver cleansing detox) because your liver has to work harder to process it all.

Now that I've done that little PSA, on to the recipe.

This recipe makes 6 large bars, or 12 smallerones (the size of each half of a bounty bar)

You'll need:

4 scoops of vanilla protein powder (25g scoop - I use Musashi SLM womens toning protein with extra fat metabolisers)
1 cup desiccated coconut
3-4 tablespoons coconut milk ( I used reduced fat)
dark chocolate (more than 70% cocoa has more antioxidants and much less sugar)

Each bar: (this is the count for 12 bars, double it if you make 6)
4g carb
8g fat
7g protein
3g sugar
1g fibre
15mg sodium
120 calories

Mix the protein powder and coconut together in a bowl, then use the coconut milk to bind it together. It should feel sticky, but not wet, and should form a ball when it's all bound together. If it's too dry, add more coconut milk, if it's too wet, add more coconut.

Break the ball in half, then break each half into 3 pieces. You can break each of the 6 pieces in half if you're doing 12 small bars.

Break the dark chocolate into pieces in a microwave safe bowl and heat on high for 1 minute. Bring it out and stir it until all of the lumps have melted and the chocolate is smooth. If it won't melt/is crumbly, you heated it on too high for too long and you have to start over. This is called "seizing" chocolate. If your microwave is super-powered, you might prefer to melt it on a double boiler.

Form the filling mixture into bars using your hands. You want it to be square or round, but flat, not ball-shaped.

Dip the bottom of the bar into the chocolate, then set it on a tray covered with baking paper. Continue until all bars have their bottom side covered with chocolate, making sure to set them a few cm apart on the tray.

Using  tablespoon, pour chocolate over the tops of the bars, using the spoon to make sure the sides are covered. Don't worry if it pools around the bottom of the bar a little. You can use a knife to scoop it up and use on the next one, or simply cut the excess away from the edge later.

When all of the bars are completely encased in chocolate, put them in the fridge until the chocolate is set.

Once the chocolate is set, you can take them off the baking paper and neaten the edges by cutting the excess chocolate away with a sharp knife.


Eat them....in moderation. No more than 1-2 or the larger bars per day, and it's better to have them either 1-2 hours before exercise, or within an hour after to get the best benefits from your protein powder.

Enjoy!

Delicious, healthy meals: Chicken and vegetable risotto.

My kids and I are all big risotto fans, and contrary to the hype, I believe it's one of the easiest meals to prepare. The only downside with risotto is that it's volcanic in temperature when it first comes off the stove, and you have to wait for it to cool down.

Let's get to it, you can substitute the chicken and the vegetables for pretty much anything. I'm a big fan of chorizo and beans, with a little mexican spice mix instead of oregano, but let's go with what we've got pictures of right now:

To feed a family of 4, you're going to need the following ingredients. If you want to stretch the meal a bit firther, you can add more rice or vegetables. The quantities don't actually matter.

Chicken (breast or thigh, depending on what you prefer) - I used about 2 large breast fillets, diced.
Vegetables of your choice - for ease, I used frozen spring greens mix, but you can add whatever fresh, frozen or canned veges you like. About 2 cups of chopped vegetables will suffice.
Arborio rice. This is important. The ONLY rice to use for risotto is ARBORIO. Any other kind of rice will not give you that fat, glossy, sticky consistency. A cup and a half of rice, in this mix, will feed 4 easily.
Chicken or vegetable stock (you can use beef or fish stock, depending what meats/vegetables you're using. I used vegetable stock cube(1) dissolved in a litre of boiling water)
For chicken and vegetable, you'll need a good whack of oregano. For other meats/vegetables, other herbs or spices are appropriate (For example, cumin works quite well with pumpkin, and if you're using beef, cracked black pepper is nice)
Parmesan cheese. You can use any cheese you like, but parmesan is sticky and melts into the risotto beautifully. it also has a lovely sharp taste which I am particularly fond of.

So, first things first, we're going to brown the chicken in your biggest pot with a tiny bit of oil or cooking spray and about 2 tablespoons of the oregano (if you're using different spices and herbs, just add a little bit at a time, quantities vary, dependent on the spice). You want the chicken to be pretty much cooked before you add the rest of the ingredients, because chicken in particular is one of those foods that harbours really nasty bacteria if it's not cooked properly.

Once the chicken is cooked through, we'll add the vegetables and the rice and stir it all together.
Then add all of the stock, and give it a good stir. A litre is a good starting point for stock. You'll probably need a bit of extra liquid in it towards the end, once it's absorbed all of the yummy stock into the rice.

When the stock goes in, it looks like this:

Now you want to crank the heat up on your stove as high as it will go, and let it boil the hell out of itself. You'll need to keep an eye on it, and stir it every few minutes to prevent the rice from sticking to the bottom of the pot. As the rice starts to absorb the stock, you begin to get a thicker, rice-ier looking mixture, and as the rice swells, it begins to look like a risotto, and not the soup-looking thing that you started with.

The more it looks like risotto, the more often you need to stir it. The way to check if the rice is cooked is to taste it. You need to use a CLEAN spoon EVERY time you dip into it, and make sure you allow the grains that you pick up to cool before you stick them in your mouth. It's amazingly hot, and we don't want anyone to burn themselves.

The rice should be soft, no crunch left to it at all. If you get your risotto looking like the picture below, and the rice still isn't cooked through, you need more water in there. Use boiling water, 100ml at a time, stirring until it's absorbed, then test the rice again.

Once the rice is cooked and the majority of the liquid is soaked up or evaporated, you need to add a really good handful of cheese to the risotto and stir it in, letting it melt into the risotto. At this point, you should take the pot off the heat.

Serve in bowls, with shaved parmesan on top, according to your personal taste, you might also like a little salt and pepper.

That's it, it's really that easy. Don't be scared of risotto any more! It's the easiest thing ever! The dishes, on the other hand....you may want to rinse them immediately to make sure you don't have a hard time scrubbing plates and pots.

Healthy cheesy crust pizza.

This one is unfortunately not for the vegetarians, or the lactose intolerant, but it's really tasty and really filling.

My kryptonite food is cheesy crust pizza. Some days it's really tough to not have things like that, so I've developed my own healthy alternative which, while it's not quite the same as the fat-laden version, satisfies my cravings nicely.

So, here's what you're going to need (you can substitute some of the toppings, but remember to keep it healthy, low fat and high protein. The whole thing is 510 calories, and provides a decent amount of your daily nutritional requirements without excess fat and sugar. I could only eat half of what this recipe made, making this a 255 calorie meal for me that filled me right up. Awesome stuff.

3 wholemeal mountain bread wraps (the really thin ones)
Philadelphia extra light spreadable cream cheese
Light mozzarella, shredded
Fresh baby spinach leaves, washed (spinach is grown in sand, so make sure you wash it well and drain away the excess water)
50g thinly sliced low fat ham
Turkey breast steaks, pan fried and diced
Pizza sauce, any will do, but don't use barbecue sauce because it's full of sugar.

Start with just one mountain bread wrap on an oven tray. spread some of the philly extra light cream cheese onto the mountain bread, very thinly.
top with another mountain bread and repeat, this time adding a single layer of shredded light mozzarella. (the cheese should not pile up, just one shred thick, all over.
Top again with another mountain bread.
Spread a thin layer of pizza sauce over this mountain bread and begin layering toppings. I started with a layer of spinach leaves, one leaf thick, covering the entire mountain bread. I thin sliced the low fat ham into thin ribbons and spread that over the top of the spinach. After that, the diced turkey, quite liberally all over it, and then just a small handful of light mozzarella all over the top.

Bake at 200C for 15 minutes and you're done!

I sliced this into 4 and could only eat 2 slices!