Store cupboard Apple, Pear and Cinnamon Smoothie

• 1 Pear
• 1 Apple
• A pinch of Cinnamon
• Honey
• 1 Cup of Milk (I used lacto free but regular works great to!)

I’ve called this a store-cupboard smoothie but lets be completely honest, we can be right? Were friends, yeah? These are the leftovers from the week. I know, you’re shocked I didn’t just buy these ingredients for this smoothie.

In fact, really I wanted to use a banana but my lovely forward thinking boyfriend cleaned the kitchen yesterday and figured that we probably didn’t want near to blackened banana’s, how wrong can you be. Although it did save me from having to make banana bread. If theres one way to kill healthy eating its banana bread, especially when chocolate chips get involved.

Stay tuned for maybe some style, i’m hoping we will have a lucky weekend one that doesn’t involve too much rain or another cold, but at the rate this years going you never know what might sneak up on you!

http://www.lactofree.co.uk/am-i-lactose-intolerant/

It’s a wonderful site and has been a great source of information, and recipes.
The only other alternative is soy products, I’m not a huge fan but I have found a few yoghurt replacements that I’m happy with. Alpro soya chocolate flavour is quite yummy.
I have easily found milk, which is great. Only 1 cheese, a spread which is ok and some cream.
I do think there could be a lot more choice as I’m sure I’m not the only person in my area with this issue.
The only thing to do is to try and adapt my regular recipes to the few lactofree ingredients available.
For all the recipes I post, that I will eat I will put lactofree ingredients in but all can be replaced with regular stuff.

Based on the Hummingbird Bakery recipe for simple vanilla cupcakes, I just made some substitutions. Also, you’ll need to use muffin cases to get 12 cakes. If you use the English cupcake cases you will need about 18 – 24!

Ingredients – Cakes

120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
a pinch of salt
40g ‘Lacto-Free’ spreadable butter (by Arla), at room temperature (only takes 15 mins!)
120ml UHT soya milk (fresh would work too)
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ingredients – Chocolate Icing

Please note – these measurements are direct from Hummingbird, however I actually divide them all in half, if not by three, as it’s way way too much!

300g icing sugar
100g ‘Lacto-Free’ spreadable butter (by Arla)
40g cocoa powder, sifted
40ml UHT soya milk (fresh would work too)

Preheat the oven to Gas Mark 3/ 170c/ 325f

Making the Cakes

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and butter together in a large bowl and mix together, either by hand (like crazy me) or by being sensible and using a handheld electric whisk. Mix on slow speed until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined. Gradually pour in half the soya milk and beat until the milk is just incorporated.

Whisk the egg, vanilla and remaining milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds, then pour into the flour mixture and continue beating until just incorporated (scrape round the edges to mix it all completely). Continue mixing for just a couple of minutes until it’s all smooth.

Spoon the mixture into muffin cases until two-thirds full and bake in the preheated oven for 20 – 25 minutes, or until light golden and the sponge bounces back when touched.

Leave the cupcakes to cool for a few minutes before turning out into a cooling tray to cool completely. Then it’s time to prepare the icing!

Making the Icing

Beat the icing sugar, butter and cocoa powder together by hand or by electric whisk until the mixture comes together and is well mixed. Go a bit slower, and gradually add the milk.

Whisk it up until it is light and airy, then add to the cupcakes!

Here is a rubbish picture of my try at this!

Don’t judge me for me generous portion. It’s been awhile…

During one of those life periods where you feel the world is against you, my a-word-a-day calender decided to join in; April 23rd: Lactard – a derogatory term for someone who is lactose intolerant. Despite my efforts to quickly crumple up the offending sheet, a friend saw it and the term has stuck ever since. Becoming a lactard isn’t the worst thing that could have happened to me but it is challenging when certain “friends” insist on drinking a pint of milk or eating a bowl of ice cream in front of me whenever I come over. However, this week I had a win. A glorious one at that! On the shelf at Tesco, illuminated by the heavenly light of the refrigeration there lay lactose-free cream, lactose-free cheese and lactose-free yogurts. A door that has been sealed for many-a-year has just swung open and to celebrate I made this tasty Orange and Almond Cream Cheese Cake.

The only ingredient that  matters

What You’ll Need:

• 4 Eggs, separated
• 175g Golden caster sugar
• 250g Ground almonds
• 1 tsp Baking powder
• Zest of large orange
• 120g Butter
• 100g Icing Sugar
• 300g Cream cheese
• 1tsp Vanilla
• 250g approx Raspberries

If you’re in anyway as close to being as excited as I am about this, you’re going to need to stop dancing around the kitchen before we go any further. Delight suppressed? Good. Now, using a food mixer whisk up the egg whites until stiff. While that’s happening, in a separate bowl beat the yolks and golden caster sugar together until they’re light and fluffy.

Some eggs fresh from a family friend’s chicken – nothing but the best ingredients for this special occasion

When both mixtures are ready, fold the egg whites into the yolk mixture in two goes. Then add in the ground almonds, again in two goes. After this, add in the orange zest and baking powder. Pour it all into a round baking tray and pop into the oven for 35 – 40 mins.

Before the oven elves work their magic…

Place this baby on a cooling rack and leave to settle. In the mean time, soften the butter and blend well with the icing sugar. Lump the cream cheese into the mixture along with the vanilla and voilà: the icing is ready. Now turn your attention back to this beauty.

…And afterwards; Damn, those guys are good!

Smoothing the butter cream icing over the cake and then place the raspberries on top in a pattern of your choice. If you’ve been limited by lacto-filled food like I’ve been these last few years, by no means should you hold back! Having not tasted cream cheese for years, its flavour was fondly welcomed back by my pallet. I have to hand it to them, Arla make some fantastic stuff!

Life as I know it has changed for the better

Given my hysterical happiness about this development, here’s a gratuitous cake photo. Enjoy – I sure did!

Yes. A am going for seconds in the background. Don’t judge.

Reading through what has been written, I think I have a better handle on my position. Or at least a way of expressing it:

• No wild animals should ever be taken from the wild and kept as a pet.
• I think that hedgehogs, of whatever species, belong in the wild.
• Pet hedgehogs (African species, possibly hybrids, and possibly subject to 10 or 20 generations of captivity) are unable to be returned to the wild.
• The welfare of any hedgehogs that are kept in captivity should be paramount.
• Breeding hedgehogs for profit is likely to lead to a reduction of the quality of conditions in which hedgehogs are kept.
• If you are going to look after a pet hedgehog then please use this position to help promote the really important issues surrounding the well-being of ‘real’ hedgehogs out in the wild.
• ‘They are just so cute’ is NOT reason enough to keep an animal in captivity (these are not animated teddy-bears).

Losing 26 lbs was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done, at 22 I found myself  almost at 11 stone, I was over weight, unfit and needed to change my life style if I were ever going to be a slender, healthy young woman. At 10 st 11, I was overweight, for a BMI of 25 (upper level of a healthy range) I needed to be around, 11lbs lighter! And I wanted to aim for a BMI of around, 21, which would take me to, 9st.

At 9st, I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off me, quite liturally, have you ever tried carrying around 26lbs more than you need to?  I have more energy, I feel better about myself, I was able to buy myself an entirely new wardrobe!

If you’ve read this far, thankyou, I’ll start by telling you , that I  haven’t lost 26lbs yet, but I want to, I’m almost 11 stone and I feel sluggish, bloated and tired all of the time, I felt that if I visualised, what It would be like, to achieve my goal, It would help me get there.

I hope that you chose to continue reading this blog, and follow me on my journey of losing 26lbs, I plan on telling you all EVERYTHING I eat, everything I do to exercise, and every measurement, weight loss and phyiscal/emotional change that I experience. I hope that we can help each other, and that I inspire others to lose weight themselves.

My next blog post: The start of my journey!

Sarah

x

Thank you for making use of the “Killer Stat” in your latest campaign.

Nicorette, with their 1 Week challenge (which I posted about here), used their “Killer Stat” to create an entire communication and activation platform, and I love the way you have used your “Killer Stat” to go about dispelling myths.

With a stat like: “Over 90% who think they can’t have dairy, can, with Lacto Free”, that’s now 9/10 dairy avoiders who are questioning their behaviour – as long as they see the ads that is…

And thank you for your Dump the lactose not the dairy strapline:

I like its straightforwardness, although I have to confess that the “Dumped” / “Take me back” advertising idea (not to be confused with the brand positioning of course) does feel slightly forced, even if it is beautifully executed. But I’ll forgive you that.

Thanks again,

Ned

One of the best things I have found on ‘Freshly Pressed’ is a blog named Carbonara’s Weblog. The author is an American, and having visited both France and Italy compared the two countries’ street crepe sellers. He also oozed about Nutella, a rich hazelnut spread, perfect to lather on hot crepes. This post gave me a huge craving for crepes covered in Nutella, but, being wheat-intolerant, I could dip in to the crepery in John Lewis. What I did get from there though, was a crepe maker. It didn’t take me long to pass my craving on to my boyfriend. A few days later we casually slipped in to John Lewis, just to have a look at the crepe maker. Having located the crepe maker, we stood there, both trying to think of a reason to justify buying one.Neither of us needed much convincing.

Since we brought it home we’ve had crepes nearly everyday. We spent a lot of time dreaming up different toppings. So far my favourite has been peanut butter, Nutella, and bananas. If this post has given you a craving then check out the recipe below, you can see how I adapted it to make gluten-free crepes and/or dairy and lactose crepes too. To find somewhere to purchase a very good but reasonably priced crepe maker or pan keep scrolling. Let me know if you think of any great toppings. Happy crepe-ing!

Basic crepe recipe: makes about 8 or 9 crepes

Ingredients

• 250g plain flour or gluten-free flour, I buy Dove Farm which is available in most supermarkets, whole food stores and health shops
• 4 eggs
• 50g melted butter/soya butter works just as well if you’re lactose-intolerant
• 500ml milk/dairy-free alternative, I use Lacto-free milk (available in most supermarkets too) but you could use rice, soya or oat milk too
• 1tbs sugar

Method

Use a hand-blender to mix the flour, eggs, milk and sugar. Add  the melted butter and whisk until a fine, smooth mix is achieved. It’s best to let it the batter sit for an hour, but if you’re impatient (like me) then you can just make them straight away. Use a small amount of butter to grease the pan, you can use oil but they don’t taste as nice. Set you crepe maker to low (about 3 on mine) to make a light brown crepe, or higher if you prefer your crepe to be quite brown. Spoon the batter on the pan, starting from the centre and moving around to the crepes. Use the wooden T *see pictures* to evenly spread the batter. Use the wooden turn over to flip the crepe after about a minute (wet the turnover to prevent the crepe from sticking to them). The best thing about crepes, unlike pancakes, it’s pretty hard to mess up the turnover. Spread the filling inside the crepe, then fold over in half, repeat twice more and then enjoy!

I bought my crepe maker from John Lewis for £29.99

You can buy a crepe pan from Amazon for £7.75

Crepe pans and makers are also available on Amazon in  Europe and the USA, if you live outside of the UK, for reasonable price