Guilt free banana, blueberry & peanut butter bread

Posted in Recipes by hannahbryan91

I can promise you that the title is not a trick; this really is a guilt free treat.

Thanks to the ‘caveman’ paleo plan there is such a thing as sin free cake. The paleo plan focuses on eating what our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have eaten, steering clear of processed foods. This twist on a classic banana bread is full of completely healthy and wholesome ingredients and provides a healthy sweet treat for breakfast, dessert or an afternoon snack.

I’ll admit that the peanut butter isn’t paelo but I couldn’t resist; the slightly salty & crunchy texture against the sweet moist bread proves an ideal combination.

The recipe is adapted from a pumpkin bread recipe on www.paleoplan.com, which is a great site if you’re a follower of the paleo plan, or even if you want to try new recipes using some alternative ingredients. If you fancy knocking this up from what you’ve got in your cupboard though, simply switch the flour used here for regular plain flour. One of the great things about banana bread is that you can add whatever you want, so if not blueberries why not try walnuts and dates or pumpkin seeds and cranberries.

Ingredients:
– ½ cup almond flour
– 1 tbsp cinnamon
-1/4tsp ground ginger
– ½ tsp baking powder
– 2 heaped tbsp peanut butter (organic Meridian smooth is the BEST)
– 2 large eggs
– 3 ripe mashed bananas
– 3tbsp coconut oil
– 1tbsp vanilla extract (natural)
– 1 cup blueberries

Method:
– Preheat the oven to about 180 and line a baking tin with a little bit of the coconut oil.
– Mix the cinnamon, ginger and baking powder in to a bowl. In a separate bowl add the peanut butter, eggs, coconut oil, and vanilla, mashed bananas, blueberries and flour until well combined.
– Add the dry ingredients to the peanut butter mixture and mix well.
– Pour the mixture in to the lined tin and bake for about 40-50 minutes. Allow to cool before slicing. Topping with more peanut butter afterwards is optional but highly recommended.

12May2014

Trying out tapas in York

Posted in Recipes by hannahbryan91

So as you’ve probably guessed from reading this blog, I love running and eating. If I’m not running or eating you can guarantee that I’m thinking about it.

Living in York I am lucky enough to be spoilt with an abundance of nice restaurants to choose from which makes choosing a new weekend haunt possibly one of the best problems to have.

On Friday night my friend and I were torn between either Thai or tapas for dinner. After several pre drinner drinks tapas came out triumphant and we headed to Ambiente Tapas on Goodramgate. We hadn’t booked and the waitress told us that there might be a table for us in the bar area if we came back in about half an hour.

Even though our bellies were rumbling the food smelled so delicious and the decor was warm and inviting that we decided to head for another drink before going back later. Luckily when we returned there was a table free for us in the window and we were seated at a long wooden bench. It didn’t offer a roomy space like a table in the restaurant but it was big enough and added to the whole dining experience.

After drooling over the menu we decided on bread and oils to start and almond stuffed dates wrapped in Parma ham. I’m a huge fan of dates but I’ve never had them wrapped in ham so decided to try them on the recommendation of my friend. He wasn’t wrong, they were incredible and the almond in the middle made for a nice surprise.

For our main we chose six dishes:

The Calamares fritos – calamares rings deep fried in Estrella beer batter with aioli
Chorizo y patatas – caramelised chorizo and roast potatoes
Gambas con crema de manchego – Grilled prawns with a spiced Manchego Mojo sauce
Alboronia – A warm spicy salad of quince, pumpkin and aubergine
Queso de cabra y hinojo – Soft, mild goats cheese lightly battered and drizzled with honey, served with braised fennel and beetroot crisps.
The classic patatas bravas

All of the dishes were packed full of flavour and even the classic patatas bravas contained more flavour and taste than expected.
My favourite was the goat cheese which melted in the mouth and the honey added a surprisingly pleasant sweet taste to it. It was unlike anything I’d ever tasted before. The calamares was also the best I had ever tasted and the restaurants own beer batter really gave it the edge. My friend fell in love with the chorizo dish, so simple yet exceptionally cooked.

All in all our bill came to just under £50, with wine and beer as well which I think was reasonable considering the amount we had eaten. We couldn’t resist eyeing up the dessert menu which offered some tasty treats but it would’ve been a case of eyes bigger than the belly if we had said yes.

The atmosphere in the bar was great too and had a real buzz about it. When I ventured to the toilets, which are through the restaurant, I was surprised to find that I was actually pleased to have been seated at the bar. The atmosphere in the restaurant seemed a little quieter than the bar area and somehow you didn’t quite get the buzz on offer in the bar. All in all a great evening and I will definitely be heading back to Ambiente next time I fancy tapas.

16Apr2014

Forget the Sunday roast

Posted in Recipes by hannahbryan91

After getting home at 4am following a night of dancing, my friend Liana and I decided that we were going to get smoked salmon for lunch the next day, or later that day should I say.
But after a slightly longer than planned lie in (I think all that dancing had worn me out) and a lengthy gym session it was time for dinner rather than lunch – and we were in charge of cooking for the whole family!

Chicken is pretty central to our diets so dinner was of course centred around that.

So here is our take on a classic Sunday dinner: Mediterranean chicken

You will need:
As many chicken breast as you like (we had five)
One can chopped tomatoes
One jar passata
Aubergine
Courgette
Garlic
Onion
Olives
Sundried tomatoes
Peppers
Capers
Sunflower seeds (toasted under the grill for a few mins)
Pumpkin seeds (toasted under the grill for a few mins)
Fresh basil

Whilst the chicken is baking in the oven, prep the veg for roasting.
Leave out the capers, olives, sundried tomatoes and nuts. Add the veg to a roasting tin before adding the chopped tomatoes, passata and some cracked black pepper.
Once the vegetables are cooked, chop the chicken and stir in before adding the olives, sundried tomatoes, toasted pumpkin and sunflower seeds and fresh basil.

Another simple yet extremely tasty meal that sticks to the clean eating plan. For those who want to add something exta, throw in some sweet potato to the roasted vegetables.

Homemade Mediterranean chicken

15Apr2014

#cleantreats

Posted in Recipes by hannahbryan91

You can go right ahead and file this one under #cleantreats.

Finding a sweet treat to satisfy that after dinner craving when you’re an avid follower of a clean eating plan can be a daily battle.
But treating yourself after dinner needn’t be such a struggle anymore. Whilst having an active weekend with my best friend and fellow clean eater, (dancing until it was too painful to walk in our heels and trying out fun new exercises at the gym), we discovered the perfect sweet treat – minus the sugar, chocolate and all of the other bad things we tend to avoid.

Protein pancakes.

All you need is two eggs (one whole egg and one egg white) and three scoops of protein powder. We tried vanilla and chocolate but they would work with any.
Add a little bit of coconut oil to a pan after creating your pancake “batter” – add some water to the mix if it is too glooopy – and pour a small amount in to the pan. Basically, you make them the same way as any other pancakes!
It genuinely is that simple (although it did take us a few tries to perfect them but by the fifth pancake we had definitely mastered it.
Check it out…

Chocolate protein pancake with stewed plums and frozen berries.

Chocolate protein pancake – it was tastier than it looks, promise!

We topped ours with stewed plums (courtesy of Liana’s fantastic mum Anne) and frozen fruit. Not only did they satisfy our sweet tooth but we got our protein hit too, an ideal combination.

The rest of the weekend was as usual centred around food and exercise so I thought I’d share some of the other creations we made. Check them out on the next post.

10Mar2014

Peanut butter, fruit & nut balls

Posted in Recipes by hannahbryan91

I confess – I’m not the most organised person in the world, but when it comes to meals I plan them down to the last mouthful. Sunday evening consists of planning the following weeks meals, factoring in training sessions and of course starting that all important meal prep.

Main meals are usually the easiest to plan and with Sunday night meal prep, lunches are easy as well. I find that snacks are my downfall though. Once the afternoon slump hits I’m ready for a boost and I’ve been looking for a way to switch up my snack options.

This is when I decided to get creative. For those who don’t know me, I love peanut butter – on apples, in cookies and more often than not I am guilty of eating it straight out of the tub.
Instead of grabbing a couple of spoonfuls pre-gym, I thought why not incorporate my love of it in with my afternoon snack to give myself a healthy protein hit to keep me going all afternoon.
With that in mind, I created these peanut butter fruit and nut balls.

You will need:
– 1 cup sugar free coconut shavings
– 1 cup flaked almonds
– 2/3 cup sultanas
– ½ cup chopped dried apricots (or any other dried fruit you fancy, I just happened to have apricots)
-Sprinkling of cinnamon
-couple of heaped tablespoons of smooth peanut butter (organic preferably, I love Meridian smooth!) – You can also use chunky if you want a different texture although I found that smooth enables it to set better.

What to do:

-Combine the coconut, almonds, sultanas and apricots into a bowl and blend with a hand blender – this isn’t the easiest of tasks but it doesn’t take long and it helps the mixture to combine.
– Add the cinnamon and then start to add in the peanut butter a spoonful at a time. Add enough so that the mixture is sticking together but not too much that there is more peanut butter than mixture!
– Tip the mixture on to some Clingfilm and flatten out before putting in the freezer for about 20 minutes.
– Once set, mould the mixture in to balls, sprinkle with an extra bit of coconut if desired and keep in the fridge.

And there you have it – a healthy, high protein and tasty snack for the rest of the week! Now there’s no excuse for me to eat peanut butter straight from the tub – well, at least for the next week anyway.

Peanut butter, fruit and nut balls – my latest creation!

25Feb2014

2014’s big challenge – Climbing Kili for kids

Posted in Uncategorized by hannahbryan91

IN SEPTEMBER 2011 this happened:

GO CHILDREACH! We did it!

Celebrating at EVEREST BASE CAMP!

A group of 21 students from The University of Sheffield, including myself, reached Everest Base Camp, all proudly wearing our fetching yellow Childreach International t-shirts, the charity we had raised more than £40k for.

It was possibly the most demanding challenge, both physically and mentally, I have ever experienced. There were times when you were so cold you thought why am I doing this, times when all you wanted was a pizza or some sausages (which was well documented in my diary!) but had to make do with plain rice and there was even a face swelling incident which made any happy trekking pictures almost impossible.

That said, it was the most amazing experience of my life and I can hand on heart say that the downs were worth the spectacular highs and that overwhelmingly feeling when we finally reached base camp after a gruelling 12 day trek.

The highs didn’t stop after reaching base camp either. The following day, still giddy, albeit a bit tired and groggy from our achievement, we were woken up in the early hours of the morning to climb Kala Patthar at an impressive 5,545m. It was definitely head torches at the ready as we scrambled over rocks and all I could think about was taking in those panoramic views of Everest and trying to demolish my frozen Mars bar at the top – but it was so worth it (the views and the experience more than the Mars bar I mean!).

After the trek we had some time off to explore Kathmandu. I fell in love with it and it became my second favourite place I have been lucky enough to see so far – sorry but Australia just pips it to the post. Since then my desire to travel and explore has continued to bubble away.

This year I have finally found an outlet for it. I’ve taken on an even bigger challenge of climbing Kilimanjaro at 5,895m high, the highest free-standing mountain in the world.

Once again I am taking on this challenge for Childreach International, an amazing and extremely worthwhile cause dedicated to providing children in poorly developed countries with the same opportunities any other child would have. Whilst in Tanzania (I fly out on August 25 EEK!) I will spend some time working on a Childreach project to witness first-hand the amazing work they do and what a difference the money I raise will make.

I truly cannot wait. Those who know me will know that if I’m going to do something, I want to do it right, so my training is already in full swing and I’ve got lots of ideas for my fundraising. With a fundraising target of £2,650, slightly higher than it was for Everest, I will be giving it my all.

My most successful fundraiser for Everest was a curry night held at my local pub but my bravest (or most stupid as my mum called it) was this…

Braving the snow and freezing cold temperatures in just our underwear to raise money in a street collection.

We raised so much money in just one (albeit very cold) day thanks to the generous people of Sheffield.

I’ll be taking on various random challenges for my fundraising – first up is a street collection and I want to know what fancy dress costume YOU think I should do it in. Submit your ideas using the form at the bottom of this post.

Other events to come:
– Sheffield Half-marathon
– Cake sales
– Ebay sales
– Auction of promises
– Blind date night

Any donations anyone could spare would be massively appreciated for this great, great cause. Here’s a link to my fundraising page:

https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/hannahbryan2

Thank you 😀

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Thank you for your response. ✨

16Feb2014

Healthy peanut butter cookies

Posted in Recipes by hannahbryan91

Yes, you did read that title correctly – these flourless peanut butter and choc chip cookies really are a guilt free treat.

These cookies are soft, gooey and packed full of energy – not to mention so tasty they may well become your new go-to treat.

I am a massive peanut butter addict and I’ve wanted to try cooking some guilt free treats with smooth peanut butter for ages and this seemed like the perfect recipe.

Not only that, but these cookies are gluten free as well.

You will need:
-8oz smooth organic peanut butter (preferably organic)
-3oz of organic natural honey (you can add more or less depending on how much of a sweet tooth you have)
-1 egg (flax egg if you like)
-1/2tsp baking powder
-pinch salt
-dairy free choc chips

To make:
These really are so easy to make which is yet another reason to love them.
-Mix the peanut butter, honey, baking powder and egg in a bowl.
-Stir in the choc chips then put cookie sized dollops on to a baking tray lined with grease proof paper.

Place in the oven at gas mark 4 for about 12 mins/until the cookies start to turn brown.

The cookies may still look gooey but as soon as they start to brown take them out and leave them to cool. They will firm up but still retain that amazing soft gooey texture inside.

10Feb2014

Experimenting with vegan

Posted in Uncategorized by hannahbryan91

Since Beyoncé published pictures of her and her hubby Jay Z’s 22 day vegan challenge just before Christmas veganism has seen a rise in popularity.

Apparently she enjoyed it so much that she has started it again. It would appear she isn’t alone either, with more and more people wanting to try either going vegan or vegetarian for a couple of days a week.

Campaigns such as Meat Free Monday have taken off after research showed that having a vegetarian diet at least one day a week comes with health benefits.

Eager to feel these health benefits after a pretty extravagant weekend in London (which put significant stress on my back balance as well!) I decided to try out some vegan recipes.

I could never be vegetarian – I love meat too much – so for me it wasn’t an ethical change, it was purely to see if the health benefits the expert’s claim you feel are true.

It was a lot easier to avoid meat than I thought, especially at tea time. Dinner time was when I struggled though as I usually have salads so at first it was quite tricky to give up my favourite salmon salads and Nando’s chicken. But I stocked up on tofu and made a really tasty broad bean, bean sprout, cucumber and spring onion salad which was very tasty.

After a week I did start to feel the benefits which I was surprised at. I felt full of energy and generally less sluggish on a morning which was great and I found that I hadn’t really missed red meat all that much. Plus, I saved money from not buying chicken as well which was an added bonus.

Here are two examples of vegan dishes I made for tea:

The first is Mediterranean veg and bean mash.
I used:
– aubergine
– courgette
– pepper
– mushrooms
– artichoke
– haricot beans
– vegetable stock
– garlic

Whilst the vegetables are roasting, boil a tin of haricot beans in some vegetable stock with the garlic and simmer for about 10 minutes. When it starts to thicken, take the beans off the heat and mash until you’ve got a consistency you like and voila – a simple, really tasty and surprisingly filling tea.

Vegan Mediterranean veg and bean mash

The second was my favourite of the week – apricot and orange baked quinoa with roasted vegetables.

See above for the roasted veggies recipe, but you can add whatever you want to roast and whatever flavouring you fancy.
I’m a big fan of quinoa (or keen-wa as my flatmate recently told me it was pronounced) but I had never baked it before.
Add the quinoa to a casserole dish with the juice of one orange, fresh apricots and vegetable stock. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, stirring once in between.

Baked quinoa with apricot and roasted veg

And there you have it – two really simple, tasty and healthy meals made in less than 30 minutes.
I liked the results and the new tasty dishes I had tried so much that I’m trying out more this week. I’ll post my new recipes as the week goes on.

If you’ve got any vegan/vegetarian recipes you think I should try let me know.

5Feb2014

Feeling perky!

Posted in Fitness & well-being by hannahbryan91

I was nicknamed perky pony during university so you can imagine my excitement when I discovered there was a whole range of healthy breakfasts and treats with the name PERK!ER.
The bright packaging is what first caught my eye followed quickly by the fact that they are gluten free, full of goodness and offer tasty snack options as well.
The healthy snack option sold it to me, plus the fact that I am a porridge fiend in the mornings and the porridge range looked really tasty.
I’m not gluten free but my sister is supposed to be for health reasons, so I know she would appreciate that side of PERK!ER products.
I went for the fruit berry porridge pot and the apple, cinnamon and raisin pot, but PERK!ER offer plenty of other breakfast options including PERK!ER fruity flakes and more interesting flavours of porridge such as gingerbread and raisin.
The pots were so quick to make – simply boil the kettle, fill up the pot with boiling water to the marker point, pop the lid back on and wait two minutes for the perfect porridge.

PERK!ER porridge pots are really easy to make.

I tried the berry one this morning and it was filling and full of flavour but not over powered with artificial sweeteners as many porridges with flavourings are – this is all natural.
The pots are also ideal for a post gym breakfast sat at my desk at work. Rather than having to carry a sachet around and find a bowl at work, all you need is a kettle and you’re good to go. That will definitely help with my morning motivation to get to the gym- I can’t wait to try the rest of the flavours now.
As well as breakfast though, they offer a range of “gloriously gluten free, fabulous and delicious treats” including Tiffin, rocky road and multi-grain bread.
The best thing as well – they can be easily found at Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s as well as to buy online. The products are also wheat free and do not use artificial colours, flavours or hydrogenated fats.
Follow PERK!ER on Twitter @perkierfoods

I can’t wait to try the apple, cinnamon & raisin PERK!ER porridge pot.

20Jan2014

Homemade hummus

Posted in Uncategorized by hannahbryan91

You’ll never need to buy hummus again with this recipe. It’s so easy and so quick to make and just as tasty.

What you will need:
– one 200g can of chickpeas in water (drained) – keep a couple back for decoration
– 2 tbsp lemon juice
– 1 garlic clove
-1 tsp cumin
-100ml tahini (optional)
-4tbsp water
-2tbsp olive oil (or sesame oil if you don’t have tahini)
-1 tsp paprika

How to make it:

-Put the chickpeas, lemon juice, cumin, tahini (if you have it), garlic and water in to a food processor and blend until smooth – or if you’re a fan of chunky hummus just blend until your desired texture.
-Smooth out with a back of a spoon and drizzle with oil and finish by decorating with the remaining chickpeas and a sprinkle of paprika.

Done!

Hannah's Happy Pace

Author Archives: hannahbryan91

Guilt free banana, blueberry & peanut butter bread

Trying out tapas in York

Forget the Sunday roast

#cleantreats

Peanut butter, fruit & nut balls

2014’s big challenge – Climbing Kili for kids

Thank you for your response. ✨

Healthy peanut butter cookies

Experimenting with vegan

Feeling perky!

Homemade hummus