Post workout green pancakes

green pancaked 1

Don’t let the colour put you off; looks can be deceiving because these pancakes are delicious!

They are also the perfect post workout second breakfast, providing all you need to recover after a tough session. Add a scoop of protein powder for extra gains!

You will need:
– Couple of handfuls of spinach
– 1 cup oats
– 2 eggs
– 1 banana
– 1 tbsp honey
– 1 tsp coconut oil

To make:
– Put everything (apart from the coconut oil) into a blender and blitz until well mixed/similar to that of a thick pancake consistency.
– In your best, non-stick frying pan, heat the coconut oil on a medium-high heat. Using a ladle, or something similar, pour a spoonful into the pan and cook like normal pancakes. Flip halfway through as they begin to darken. Once cooked, start the next one and so on until the mixture is all gone!

That’s it, post workout green pancakes, it’s as simple as that! Top with whatever you fancy – my favourite is another banana and some Meridian’s smooth peanut butter – delicious!

Let me know if you give these a go! Enjoy 🙂

Healthy pancakes with blueberries

Pancakes make the perfect Sunday brunch or weekend breakfast…

pancakes

They also make the perfect post-work out snack if you add some protein powder to them, making them the perfect balance of protein and carbohydrates. If you top them with some honey or golden syrup you’re making the most of that recovery window where it’ll go straight into your muscles to refuel rather than to be stored as fat!

You will need: 
– 1/2 cup of coconut flour
– 1 tbsp oats
– 3 eggs
– 1/2 cup of milk
– any fruit you want in there
– 1 tbsp of natural honey or golden syrup if you want to sweeten them

To make:
– Mix all of the ingredients together in a blender or by using a hand blender.
– Put a dollop of your chosen oil ( I use coconut oil) into a pan on a low heat and when the oil has melted add a spoonful of the mixture to the pan.
– Flip the pancakes when you see the surface begin to ‘set’/bubble. Stack them up and then add whatever toppings you fancied.
– I like to top mine with honey, blueberries and peanut butter!

Tag me in your creations using #hannahshappypace and let me know what you top yours with.

🙂

 

Nourishing our bodies at The Garden, Hale

Get yourself to The Garden in Hale

The Garden 2

Balance in my life is always restored after I’ve been to see my best friend, Liana. Visits to Liana’s always involve great food, training and hysterical laughter at some point throughout the weekend. A recent visit to her house was no exception.

We rustled up a delicious dinner on Saturday evening of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon, spinach, chives (who are we?!) and avocado – we LOVE breakfast at any time of the day, especially for dinner. Sunday morning was a knockout egg scramble with chilli and chives before we hit the gym for a strength session.

We have been dying to try Bosu Body Bar in Chorlton for ages as it looks amazing but sadly for us it wasn’t meant to be as they are closed on a Sunday so we had to go in search of another fantastic healthy eating place to fill the void. Liana had been to The Garden, in Hale before with her friend so even though it was a good 30 minutes away after looking at the menu we decided that it would be worth it.

The Garden offers a selection of healthy, organic dishes using local produce and has an array of mouth-watering clean treats.

45 minutes later thanks to horrendous traffic we arrived delirious with hunger but the friendly staff soon had us sat down at a table browsing the menus with two tasty drinks on the way.

Liana went for a Green Peace smoothie which was made up of spinach, avocado, apple, kale, cucumber, parsley, wheatgrass and spirulina while I had an I am Balanced juice of coconut water, fresh aloe vera and fresh peppermint. They were both served in charming jam jar style jars with cardboard straws. They also do amazing looking shakes and a raw cacao smoothie, too.

Choosing lunch was just as hard as choosing a drink as the whole menu is full of delicious superfood dishes packed full of flavour and goodness.

Liana went for the Rainbow Spaghetti which was seasonal vegetable spaghetti, which you could have raw or al dente, served with a choice of tomato, coriander and chilli or a kale pesto sauce. You could then choose from quinoa meatballs, organic salmon or organic chicken. Liana had kale pesto and organic chicken and said it was delicious.

The garden 3

Meanwhile I went for the Abundance Bowl with king prawns. This was a big, hearty bowl of cauliflower rice, chilli and lime chickpeas, spring onions, parsley, radishes, apple, sunflower seeds and pomegranate seeds topped with pistachios a lime and mustard dressing. It was really tasty and the cauliflower rice was very filling but the only thing I would say is that I would’ve liked more dressing.

We didn’t stop there either. We also got some kale chips which had been cooked with some sort of cashew butter making them even tastier than regular kale chips, as well as and dips and crudités. The three dips we chose were houmous, sundried tomato tapenade and cashew cheese.

Enjoying the chilled atmosphere we decided we wanted to stay a bit longer, i.e. we weren’t done eating, so we checked out the dessert menu. Everything looked delicious but what we really had our eyes on were the blueberry buckwheat pancakes on the breakfast menu. The staff and the chef were kind enough to make us them and we enjoyed them with dairy free ice cream, banana and homemade chocolate sauce. We also threw in a homemade date and raw cacao protein ball on top – us girls can eat!

The Garden 1

If you live in Manchester/near Manchester or are there for a day trip I’d definitely recommend checking out The Garden, it’s well worth it. It’s a health food lover’s paradise. #earthfriendlyfood

#cleantreats

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 with stewed plums and frozen berries.

photo 3 (6)

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

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.