I love baked beans, but I've recently been put off by the sugar content. With nearly 10g of sugar in just half a tin, that's almost half my RDA, and I've also been trying to eat only natural sugars. I also love a large variety of beans so I get nutrients from all kinds of beans and pulses as well as a rainbow of colours and textures. So I created these healthy 10-bean baked beans, with only natural sugars but double the flavour! I enjoyed them with baked sweet potato and kale, (also vegan cashew cheese, but this experiment didn't taste as good as I hoped so I scraped it off!). It took quite a while to make them, but next time I will make a large batch, to store some in the freezer for a quick go-to snack.

Ingredients
4 handfuls of dried mixed beans (I use Waitrose 10 bean mix)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes (check it's 100% tomatoes and water, no added sugar)
1tsp maple syrup
1 whole clove of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp tomato puree
Salt and Pepper to taste

Before soaking

After soaking

The dried beans need soaking overnight, so put the beans in a bowl and cover with plenty of cold water, and leave in the fridge to soak. If you don't want to wait, buy a tin of beans already in water and skip this step.


After soaking, rinse with cold water and top up with fresh water in a pan and put on to boil, once boiled allow it to simmer for 1 hour. Pour away the water and rinse the beans with freshly boiled water, then add all the ingredients to a pan and heat until it boils (keep the garlic as a whole crushed clove, and pick it out before you serve). Leave to simmer for 30 minutes to let the beans soak up the sauce. Keep in the fridge and heat up in a pan for a few minutes when you're ready to eat it. It will keep in the fridge for about a week, or keep in the freezer.

Porridge is one of my new favourite things, there's so much opportunity for experimentation! I used to think porridge was bland and I could never finish a bowlful, but that's because I didn't know what to do with it. Here's a recipe for my newest porridge combination, it's absolutely divine! Think lemon curd flapjack but totally healthy!

Ingredients
30g porridge oats
15g chia seeds
Juice of half a lemon
Grated zest of half the lemon
A handful of mixed raisins and sultanas
Enough coconut milk to cover the oats in your bowl (use any nut milk)
A drizzle of local honey
1 tbsp of almond butter

Choose an oven proof bowl and add in the oats, chia seeds, and raisins. Pour over coconut milk until it just covers all the ingredients. Now add the lemon juice and zest, honey and almond butter and stir through. Leave to soak for at least 10 minutes (or prepare the night before for a quick breakfast), and add more milk when the levels go down.
Preheat the oven to 180c and oven bake the porridge for 10 minutes.

Optional: serve in a pretty bowl and top with flaked coconut, enjoy with a nice cup of white tea or homemade smoothie! ;)

This smoothie combination is one of my favourites at the moment as it's so refreshing and makes me feel cool and summery. It's also packed with goodness that makes my skin glow.

Ingredients

- 75g Frozen blackberries
- Half a very ripe banana
- Handful spinach
- 3cm slice cucumber
- Chunk of fresh ginger, peeled (about 8g)
- 5 mint leaves
- 200ml almond milk

Method

Place all the ingredients into a blender (or jug, using a hand held blender) and blend until smooth.

Top tip: Using frozen ingredients means the smoothie is extra cold and refreshing. I like to freeze sliced banana when it's just ripe then it stays perfect for as long as I want it and it won't go off, and it also means I can use just as much as I want without wasting any. Although it defrosts a bit mushy so it's best for things like smoothies or ingredients in baking, rather than to eat alone.

Pancakes seem like an indulgent, high calorie treat that must be avoided if you want to stay healthy. But in fact, with my healthy version of the recipe, not only do they taste delicious and fill me up until lunch, they're packed with nutrients from the banana, almonds and the sides of blueberries! And their low calorie total barely makes an impact on the day. (Oh and not to mention they're even sugar free!) So basically these are Super-Pancakes.

202 Calories (still only 307 with yogurt and fruit!)
Makes 3 pancakes
From prep to plate: Under 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 heaped tbsp Plain Flour
• 1 egg
• 100ml almond milk
• 1/2 banana
• A sprinkle of Flaked Almonds

Sides

• 1 Alpro soya flavoured yogurt or greek yogurt
• 10-20 blueberries, or fruit of your choice

How to make:

Using a blender or electric whisk combine the flour, egg and milk until smooth and lump free, then blend in banana.

Heat a small frying pan with a little sunflower oil, then pour in 1/3 of the mixture, tilting the pan to make the mixture spread into a circle, it should be about 1/2cm thick. Scatter some flaked almonds over the pancake to allow them to sink into the mixture. When the top side starts to look set, ease a spatula under the pancake, and if it seems like it will hold, gently flip it over. Sprinkle some more flaked almonds onto this side, and leave to cook for another 1-2 minutes. Continue to flip every 30 seconds-1 minute until both sides look slightly browned, then serve.

I like to serve my pancakes with yogurt and fruit, my favourite combination being greek yogurt and passionfruit but in this recipe I used blackberry soya yogurt and blueberries. If you have hay fever, try adding a drizzle of local honey on your pancake or yogurt, as the pollen in the honey will help immunise you to the local flowers.

I make and serve each pancake 1 at a time so each one is nice and hot. 

I hope you enjoy them, I certainly do!

Contrary to belief, it takes no professional Barista at your favourite coffee shop to make a delicious drink. And a milky coffee need not be a high calorie treat, with nut milks (almond, hazelnut or coconut) it cuts the calories by at least half, but keeping all the flavour. The only issue here is the amount of sugar in the syrup, so if you wish to be really healthy, just have a normal latte - use the same recipe but without the syrup. I've perfected this latte recipe to my own taste, so feel free to tweak the amounts to how you like it, adding more or less coffee depending on how strong you like it (my latte is around medium strength, the same as at Costa) and the same with the syrup, change depending on how sweet you want it. Let me know how your latte turns out in the comments box below!

This quick and easy pasta dish is fresh, delicious and very healthy! This is great when you don't have much time to cook something, particularly at lunchtime when you're having a busy day. For a lower carb meal, use more courgettes in the place of pasta.

Time: Around 12 minutes (Or more depending on the cook time of your pasta)

Calories: 480 (Per serving - Same for half pasta and double zucchini, which is a lower carb version so it's healthier)

Ingredients (Makes 2)

• 120g Dried spaghetti
• 1 Zucchini
• 3 Beef tomatoes
• 3 Sun-dried tomatoes
• A splash of white wine
• 1/2 Red onion
• 1 Clove of garlic
• 15g Spinach
• 1tbsp Olive oil
• 10 Large fresh basil leaves

Depending on your chosen pasta's cook time (Spaghetti is usually around 12 minutes, so I will use this as an example), boil a pan full of water and add the pasta. Put on a timer for the time indicated on the packet for your pasta.

Chop your onion finely and sauté in a little olive oil for 10 minutes (After 5 minutes, add in a clove of crushed or finely chopped garlic). While your onions cook, chop your tomatoes into 1cm chunks, and add to a separate pan with the olive oil, on a medium heat. Chop the sun-dried tomatoes into 1/8ths, or larger if you want to eat them in chunks, and add to the pan of tomatoes. Pour in a little white wine, I usually pour for around 2 seconds. 

For the Zucchini, I use a machine that has recently become very popular, called a vegetable spiruliser. It's very easy and simple to use (and clean up after!). It's quite affordable, and makes healthier and lighter vegetable spaghetti. To buy one, check them out here. (If you don't want to buy one, you can shred your zucchini into long 'ribbons' using a vegetable peeler, simply run the peeler straight down, and keep going in the same angle until you reach the middle, then turn around). Spirulise the zucchini into long strands (I call this Courgetti, courgette being the English word for Zucchini). This takes about 3 minutes to cook, sauté in a pan with a little olive oil, start cooking when your pasta has 3 minutes left.
When the pasta has 3 minutes cooking time left, stir in roughly shredded basil leaves and spinach, the onions and garlic, and salt and pepper to taste. When the pasta is done, rinse with hot water and stir in with the sauce. Plate up, then garnish with the 'courgetti', and I like to add a few fresh tomatoes and basil leaves on top. Enjoy!