Summery quinoa fruit salad

Summery quinoa fruit salad

Have made this super summery quinoa fruit salad twice now and it really is very versatile when it comes to the fruit you can use. Hence two different pictures and loads of optional fruits you can use!
I came across this recipe on a number of blogs and as soon as I manage to find the one I got most of the recipe from I will post a link on here.

Ingredients (serves 1)

Note: Use however much fruit you want and think is one portion. It really all depends on the combination of fruit you use how much to use etc so I’m giving the responsibility to you to do what works best for you. I’m sure you can do it! 😉

• 20-ish grams of Quinoa. Regular (left) or red quinoa (right) OR a combination of the two of course!
• Blueberries
• Strawberries
• Mango (left)
• Pineapple (right)
• Kiwi (right)
• Small handfull of roughly chopped almonds
• 1/2 tablespoon of desiccated coconut to sprinkle on top (optional)

Dressing:

• Juice of 1/2 lime
• 1/2 – 1 tablespoon of honey
• Mint (for dressing and garnish)
• Sprinkle of salt (optional – did not try this myself)

How to prepare

1. Cook the quinoa in advance or cook it while chopping up your fruit and rinse it thoroughly with cold water. Drain as well as you can.
2. Chop up your fruit and mix it together in a bowl with your cold and well drained quinoa.
3. Mix all ingredients for the dressing together and mix it into the bowl of fruit.
4. Put the bowl of fruit with the dressing in the fridge for about an hour to ‘marinate’ 😉 This step is optional btw!.
5. Chop up the almonds and sprinkle over your fruit bowl.
6. Add the desiccated coconut (if you want to) and add extra (chopped up) leaves of mint to taste.
7. Find yourself some sunshine and enjoy!

Additional notes

• As I said: a billion fruit combinations could be made!
• Also pretty damn tasty without the dressing.

Snack: Almond & Date balls

Almond & Date balls

Ingredients (serves 1)
Note: This is a snack sized portion, you might want to make a bigger batch out of this as it will be easier for your food processor + it is nice to have a pre-made batch instead of having to constantly make it :))

• 4 pitted dates
• 8-10 almonds
• desiccated coconut
• vanilla extract
• dash of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of water

How to cook 

1. Mix all ingredients BUT the desiccated coconut with your food processor.
   If you don’t have one, not to worry, neither did I. This will just mean it is a lot more effort to make AND you’ll yet a bit of chunkier end result (which I think I actually quite like!)
2. Roll small 2 by 2cm balls out of the mixture. I could make about 4 out of the amount of ingredients given.
3. Coat the balls by rolling them into some desiccated coconut.
4. Place into the fridge to firm up for a bit.
5. Enjoy!

Additional notes

• Almonds could be replaced by cashew nuts or potentially any other type of nut you like!
• Coconut could be replaced by cocoa powder (or use both!)
• Many variations could be made. Just google it and find your favourite (and share it with me please!).
  Example 1 – Example 2 – Example 3 (with cashews and cocoa)

3 ingredient chocolate!

Heavenly ‘natural’ chocolate!

I just couldn’t wait posting this recipe so I moved the planned blogpost back to make room for this one. Trust me. It will be totally worth it! This chocolate is just amaaaazing and super easy to make. It also doesn’t give you the aftertaste some chocolates leave behind, which is great because it makes it easier to not eat loads of it even though you might crave more 😉

The initial recipe comes from this amazing website. (I do apologise in advance, once you find her website it is quite hard to never visit it again.. and end up with a ‘to make’ list that is longer than you would want it to be..).

I’ve converted the ingredients from US metrics to understandable grams. You’re welcome 😉

Ingredients option 1 – Sorry! Screwed up the weight of the ingredients earlier. Should be the right amount now! (27/5/2013)

• 25-30 grams of cocoa powder
• 50 ish grams of coconut oil
• 1 tablespoon of liquid sweetener, agave or maple syrup. I didnt have the latter 2 so mixed up some kind of water/sugar syrup by heating it up in the microwave, stirring it and making my own syrup. No idea if I can do it again a second time..

Ingredients option 2 (have not actually tried this one myself!)

• 50 grams of cocoa powder (just found out it is supposed to be 60 + 1 tablespoon (=7.5).. hmm.. to be continued)
• 50 ish grams coconut oil
• Vanilla stevia drops to taste (don’t have that stuff at home..)

How to cook 

1. If your coconut oil is not very liquid (like mine usually is as I don’t actually live in a warm country), stick it in the microwave on the defrost setting for a couple of seconds.
2. Combine coconut oil with your sweetener of choice.
3. Stir and add in the cocoa powder. Stir until it is one mug of chocolaty heavenness!
4. Pour into a flat container/tupperware. Or, as Katie additionally suggests, use candy moulds or smush between layers of wax paper or in ziploc bags). I used a small round container and that worked perfectly fine!
5. Freeze until solid and keep it stored in the freezer (the only benefit/disadvantage; you can’t take it anywhere because it will melt!)

Additional notes

• Add in nuts (I roughly chopped up some almonds).
• Add in cranberries / raisins.
• Am going to try and make it with honey instead of sugar syrup – will keep you posted..
• Use the liquid form as a chocolate dip or as a sauce for over desserts!