Our healthiest shop ever

Me and my dad went to the supermarket again tonight. Armed with recipe ideas for salads, healthy soups and shakes, as well as just general meals. My dad was resisting at first trying to get all the normal stuff he usually gets, but I was stubborn (as always) and we got lots of fruit and veg as well as beans and grains.


So for the next few nights i'm going to post our dinners on here, to give you an idea of the healthy, yet tasty foods we're eating, which will hopefully inspire you to eat well too. I'll put what we had tonight on in the morning along with the ingredients and method (and of course a lovely picture).


For tonight, however, I will leave you with the picture of our super healthy fridge! Its a terrible picture, taken on my phone. But it'll do!


Love and hugs,


Fussy Eater


Xxx

Gluten free at the supermarket

Walking around tesco last night with my dad, it really hit me how expensive the free from section is. On top of that, all the food has more ingredients than at all necessary, tastes bad AND is all unhealthy food. Chocolates, biscuits, cakes and ready meals. The truth of that matter is that the non freefrom alternative is just as unhealthy. With food with so many ingredients, we really shouldn't be happy putting them in our body's. I know it's difficult to change habits of a life time, where after a long day you just want a 30" pizza, but after reading plenty of articles on this subject this morning, it's clear to me that in order to have a balanced vegetarian and gluten free diet (and for some of you dairy/nut/allergy free diet) we need to use a wider range of healthier foods in our diets. We need to completely exclude all packaged and processed foods, and stop trying to find gluten free equivalents to our old gluten and meat foods. This will be a challenge for me, especially when feeding my boyfriend, who is a big fan of tesco/sainsburys/asdas basics food that costs 50p but is poison to your body. It's a whole new aspect to learning to cook. I hope more of you can join with me on this new adventure with food.

Love and hugs,

Fussy eater
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Gluten free berry cupcakes

This is my recipe for gluten free berry cupcakes. They're perfect for when you're after that fruity treat rather than a really sugary or chocolaty one, and they're really easy to make as well! This recipe can easily be altered for those of you who are lactose intolerant, however, this recipe contains nuts, so those of you with nut allergy, you best keep away from this one. This recipe is also not suitable for vegans because of the eggs, but for vegetarians its fine. It has no colouring at all, and, of course, its gluten free.

Ingredients 

• 125 grams butter (or soya/dairy free alternative)
• 2 teaspoons lemon extract (or more if you prefer)
• 165 grams golden caster sugar
• 4 medium sized eggs
• 160 grams ground almonds
• 80 grams gluten free self raising flour blend
• 100 grams rice flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon xanthan gum 
• 160 grams frozen mixed summer berries 

Method

Soften the butter and mix together with the lemon extract and the golden caster sugar until the mixture is smooth. You can do this by hand or with and electric mixer on its lowest setting. I prefer to do it by hand with a silicone spatula, however sometimes this can be difficult to get the desired mix and so an electric hand mixer can be useful. 

At this stage, add the eggs, one at a time and gently beat in to the mixture. The mixture may start to separate, but don't panic, it will all come together later. 

Weigh the almonds in a separate bowl to the butter, eggs, lemon and sugar. Sift the two kinds of flour and add to the almonds along with the bicarbonate of soda and the xanthan gum and mix together with a table knife. 

Add the flour mix to the butter, sugar, lemon and eggs until well combined and smooth. I find with this recipe it comes out very dough like, but it still bakes well.  Once the mixture is fully combined add the mixed summer berries and gently mix in. 

Place in cupcake mixture and bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees in a fan assisted oven for 30 - 45 mins (30 mins for small cases and 45 for large cases). When cooked, place on a wire rack to cool.

I find this quantity makes between 12 and 24 cakes, again, this depends on the size of cases you intend to use. 

This recipe always goes down well with my mum and dad, however i originally made it for my boyfriends mother, who is also gluten intolerant. It was the first gluten free cake i made so I'd advise this for those of you new to baking gluten free. 

Love and hugs,

Fussy Eater

x

My first fussy post!!

Hi all, this blog is for all you fussy eaters out there.
I'm from a family of fussy eaters, my mum has one-hundred-and-one allergies, my dad is vegetarian and on top of that I recently discovered that I can't have gluten. So as you can imagine, the three of us living and eating under one roof makes for some tough dinner ideas.

I am 19, with a passion for food, I went to university and spent a year studying music, I hated the whole experience, so left to find something I really enjoyed. I am currently working at a Cafe, I love making people their dinners and chilling with all the regulars, but one day I really want to open a place of my own. I'm not in to posh eating, I like proper eating, but a lot of food on offer to us in restaurants, cafes, and even in the supermarket is not friendly to us fussy eaters. This HAS to change!

In this blog I want to help people with dinner ideas and recipes for some special treats. As well as this I want to help those of you who think you can't eat out.

Thats all for now,

Love and hugs

Fussy Eater
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