cheat day – CLARE HOPKINS

Mother’s Day Feast

May 14, 2017April 17, 2020Posted in ALL POSTS, FOODTagged champagne, cheat day, chicken, comfort food, dessert, favourite, feast, Jamie Oliver, love, love mum, lunch, mom, Mother's Day, mum, Mum's Day, pink, relax, Sunday Lunch, Sunday roast, treat day, white chocolate mud cake, wine-braised chicken6 Comments

Today was Mother’s Day, and to treat Mum I decided to prepare a lovely Sunday lunch that she enjoyed.

As usual, it took way longer to prepare than I expected. I woke up at 9am and immediately started baking, and was going flat out until 1pm when lunch was served.

For the meal I decided to do wine-braised chicken (with white wine, carrots, red onion, rosemary, red grapes and pine nuts), and an asparagus & grilled halloumi salad.

For the recipe, I stuck to Jamie Olivers recipes from his cookbook. If you follow his recipes well they do come out at restaurant quality.

For dessert, I went all out with Mum’s favourite cake – a white chocolate mud cake. I always use the Taste recipe when I make the cake, but I halve the mixture because the amount they prescribe actually makes 2 regular sized cakes (you could definitely stick with the actual quantities and pile the 2 cakes on top of each other with creamy ganache in the middle).

It was a lovely day, and I treated Mum to a mani-pedi voucher at our local salon, to top the day off.

What do you usually do for mum on Mother’s Day?

The Ultimate Homemade Freakshake

March 12, 2017April 17, 2020Posted in ALL POSTS, FOODTagged beginning blogger, cheat day, chocolate dessert, colour pot, dessert, dessert recipe, donut, freakshake, fun, guides, journal, kit kat, photography, treat day, wordpress, writingLeave a comment

Okay find your stretchy pants and prepare yourself for the treat of the year.

I ~~love~~ am obsessed with chocolate, and recently I’ve been wanting to devise the perfect dessert that will satisfy my cravings. For this dessert, I’m diverging from my usual healthy desserts and going all out. However, it still has a couple of substitutions from a traditional Freakshake for some extra nutrition benefits!

Credit to Pinterest for helping me discover the original Freakshake.

You will need:

3 of your favourite chocolate bars – I chose Kit Kat, Twix Bar and Mini Toblerone
Plain regular donuts – try Noshu Donuts (they are 97% sugar free, low carb, high fibre and gluten free).
3 scoops of Halo Top (DF options) or FroPro icecream
1 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup coconut cream
2 tbsp Cocoa powder
2 drops MyProtein Chocolate FlavDrops
You could even add a spoon of peanut butter to the shake if you are craving some nuttiness

Method:

Pop three generous scoops of ice cream, coconut cream, the milk, peanut butter and the cocoa powder into a blender, and whip together. You can add bits more of different ingredients to get the best flavour for you!
Pour the shake mixture into the milkshake glass.
Decorate away! Go crazy poking the choccies into the creamy shake.
Slide the donuts onto the straws and pop in (make sure to do this before the straws are in the shake, or as you fiddle, it may overflow).
Enjoy!

And it’s as easy as that. Your perfect dessert for a cheeky treat.

Christmas: the Ultimate Treat Day

December 26, 2016April 16, 2020Posted in ALL POSTS, CHRISTMASTagged bread pudding, cheat day, christmas day, christmas diary, christmas dinner, christmas lunch, Christmas meal, colour pot, delicious, delicious food, desert, eating disorder, enjoy food, festive meal, food coma, fun christmas, healthy, journal, love food, lunch, mindset, perspective, treat day, treat yourselfLeave a comment

I don’t believe in ‘cheat days’ but rather ‘treat days’.

Sounds like a small difference to most, however, in order to foster a healthy relationship with food it has been important for me to redefine what eating junk food means. This meant a slight change in perspective: rather than unhealthy meals being ‘bad’ and a ‘cheat’, I see them as a treat that provides balance amongst my healthier food choices.

Of course, Christmas is all about treats and enjoying lots of wonderful flavours.

I started off the day with a candy cane cookie (Vegan Shortbread recipe, shaped in a candy cane – my friend made them for me) and a T2 Choc Chip Chai.

Then I busied myself making a Bread & Butter Pudding. And of course, I ate half the batter as I was making it. I used Taste’s recipe for it. Despite my affinity for anything with chocolate, B&B Pudding is still my favourite dessert.

To make the B&B pudding a little more nutritious, I added two eggs (six eggs total), took out the pure cream, and substituted the cows milk for almond milk. If you want a dairy free recipe you could try coconut cream, coconut milk and Nuttelex as your cream, milk and butter substitutes.

I find it’s fun to ‘healthy-fy’ recipes where I can – it was still just as delicious, and reduced the richness of the pudding so I could enjoy other things!

Just before lunch, we had assorted cheeses (Camembert, Brie, Cheddar) with biscuits, salami slices, bread sticks, chopped veggies with avocado dip and tomato relish. These were savoured with mulled wine and champagne.

For the main meal, there was an array of dishes but I chose smoked ham, roast chicken and prawns, with a side of a quinoa, kale and roast beetroot salad that I tossed together.

What’s important with Christmas is your mindset. Don’t go crazy all day on Dec 25 and then try to restrict calories for the rest of the week – you’ll just end up having a crap holiday. Rather, listen to your body and eat until you are full, enjoy the treats you wouldn’t normally enjoy, and eat intuitively for the days after. Your body will naturally crave fewer calories after a full day of Christmas eating!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a lovely day, whether you celebrate Christmas or not.