20 July 2017

The Dark Side Anti Unicorn Smoothie! A Deep Dark Vegan Smoothie full of Goodness!



This smoothie comes out looking so deep and dark and is rich in goodness. There's only so many Unicorn Hot Chocolates a girl can cope with in one day, so I've created the complete antithesis to the Unicorn Food Trend, this is my backlash, in a splash! Sometimes, I just can't keep that rebellious streak down. 

So to feed the rebel in you and escape the sweet light pinks and prettiness of all things unicorn, sip on this!

Before I go and make one of these delicious creations for myself, here's the recipe so that you can make one too!


The Dark Side, Anti-Unicorn Smoothie


1/ Throw the following ingredients into a blender:

A handful of frozen cherries.
A handful of frozen banana
One and a half tablespoons of Spirulina
Half an avocado
One Tablespoon of Raw Cacao Powder
Half a tablespoon of Agave Sweetner
250ml of Almond Milk


2/ Whizz it altogether and you get a really dark, almost black smoothie that tastes AMAZING! 


Nutrition Facts
Servings 1.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 204
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 4 g6 %
Saturated Fat 0 g2 %
Monounsaturated Fat 0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg0 %
Sodium 386 mg16 %
Potassium 789 mg23 %
Total Carbohydrate 27 g9 %
Dietary Fiber 6 g24 %
Sugars 22 g
Protein 3 g7 %
Vitamin A35 %
Vitamin C16 %
Calcium65 %
Iron13 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.

11 July 2017

Unicorn Vegan Natural Hot Chocolate Recipe!



I like natural food, natural healthy food, without food colouring. Food that you can see what it's made from, cakes that are easy to make, no icing, or marzipan, or layers of rainbows, or thick dollops of cream, I like my drinks the same, uncomplicated gorgeousness. I am completely against those hot chocolates that other people seem to love, those ones made with powder, topped with spray cream, sprinkled with sweets and stuff. Yuck! It all seems a bit too elaborate and a bit too over the top and it just looks very, very bad for you it seems tacky and unhealthy. So, when the Unicorn food fashion for rainbowed items came along, I thought I'd just hold my breath, continue making my black bean brownies and simple hot chocolates and wait for it to go away. I was pleased to see in one of the Sunday Times magazines their barometer pointed to the Unicorn trend going down! Yippee!

What happened then and why was I inspired to create my Vegan, Unicorn Hot Chocolate?

What happened was the weather! After several sunny days, we woke up to a dull overcast day, with rain on and off through the day. One of the first things that I thought this morning was, 'This is a hot chocolate kind of day'. I am still continuing my plant based diet, since Veganuary and this hot chocolate had to be Vegan, mostly healthy and taste deliciously comforting and it had to be sparkly too. First of all, I created a spirulina based hot chocolate with cashew nut butter and although I enjoyed it and so did my children and even Miranda, of Ido-Vintage, a very cute Vintage shop down the road from us, had one and thought it was delicious and I have to say she was instrumental in inspiring me to experiment with colourful Unicorn stuff in the first place! Today, however some new ingredients came in from a new supplier and now instead of using spirulina to create a mint green colour, I'm using beetroot powder to create the deeply pink topping and edible flowers! So, if you want to make one of these as a treat for yourself at home, here's how you do it!

Mini Unicorn Vegan Hot Chocolate


1/ Into a small cup place the following:

1 teaspoon of melted Cacao Butter
1 teaspoon of Agave Nectar

2/ Mix together well.

3/ Warm and froth up around 100ml of almond milk.

4/ Pour the almond milk into the mug and make sure it is foamy on top.

5/ Top with a little Beetroot Powder and  Golden Chocolate Powder.

6/ Of course, if you want to you can treat yourself to some vegan sprinkles and really go to town but I would prefer to sprinkle some edible flowers on top.

Take lots of pictures and post them everywhere.

Then sit back and enjoy.

Oh and I have to tell you, that my two boys loved this hot chocolate! Absolutely loved it and so do I, which is a first in a long time, for us all to enjoy the same thing! I might not have mentioned that the deep pink stuff on top is beetroot powder!

Nutrition Facts
Servings 1.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 141
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 7 g11 %
Saturated Fat 3 g14 %
Monounsaturated Fat 2 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 1 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg0 %
Sodium 136 mg6 %
Potassium 198 mg6 %
Total Carbohydrate 19 g6 %
Dietary Fiber 1 g5 %
Sugars 1 g
Protein 2 g3 %
Vitamin A0 %
Vitamin C0 %
Calcium26 %
Iron0 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.


8 July 2017

Chocolate Beetroot Lavender Brownies Recipe. Vegan.




Some recipes are so complicated and they use oil, which is highly calorific and refined sugars and eggs and so on but these brownies are completely Vegan, refined sugar-free and have no oil or dairy products in and are even made with gluten-free ingredients. They are immensely tasty and feel really indulgent on the tongue and as long as you are sensible, you can enjoy them on a calorie controlled diet and still lose weight, just as I have been doing.

I am really, really proud of these moist and sophisticated brownies, where a lot of thought has gone into the ingredients chosen and we have specifically used Fairly Traded products, with organic and sustainable ingredients sourced from local and independent wholesalers.

Just a note about the way I set out my recipes:
I find the way that recipes are conventionally written,  are not the way that I like to follow them! Normal procedure is to mention the pre-heated oven somewhere in the middle when you need to put the batter in, instead of mentioning the pre-heated oven as one of the first things you should do. So, here's my recipe, written as I and I am sure, any logically-minded person would like to follow it.


1/ Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

2/ Take a 9" x 9" square brownie tin, line with grease proof paper.

3/ Place the following ingredients into a blender:

1 x Cup of Sliced Cooked Beetroot

1 x Cup and 2 x Tablespoons of Buckwheat Flour

1 x Cup of Raw Cane Sugar

Half a Cup of Cocoa powder.

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 a teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda

1 x teaspoon of Doves Farm Gluten Free Baking Powder.

1 x teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

A pinch of ginger.

1 x a cup of water.

4/ Blend it all together, I use the smoothie setting on my blender.

5/ Smash up a bar of Seed and Bean Lavender Chocolate and stir it into the mix. (if you want another flavour, then just replace the Seed and Bean Lavender Chocolate with something else, I sometimes use Lemon and Cardamom, also from Seed and Bean and sometimes I use a Lemon, Ginger and Black Pepper bar from Equal Exchange).

6/ Then pour the whole mixture into the brownie tin and cook for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, carefully cover the pan with foil and cook for another 10 minutes. 

Don't forget, you can buy all the ingredients you need in our shop, online and instore.

Enjoy but if you can't be bothered to make them yourself, just pay us a visit in Shepton Mallet and we will make them for you.



Nutrition Facts
Servings 9.0
Amount Per Serving
calories 206
% Daily Value *
Total Fat 1 g1 %
Saturated Fat 0 g0 %
Monounsaturated Fat 0 g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0 g
Trans Fat 0 g
Cholesterol 0 mg0 %
Sodium 154 mg6 %
Potassium 0 mg0 %
Total Carbohydrate 35 g12 %
Dietary Fiber 2 g8 %
Sugars 24 g
Protein 2 g4 %
Vitamin A0 %
Vitamin C0 %
Calcium0 %
Iron0 %
* The Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet, so your values may change depending on your calorie needs. The values here may not be 100% accurate because the recipes have not been professionally evaluated nor have they been evaluated by the U.S. FDA.