Apple, banana and pear smoothie

Mom and dad went on holiday last weekend and left me with a few too many pears to eat on my own. So since summer has finally started and the weather is getting to nice temperatures and lots of sun I thought of making a smoothie. Cold, fruity and the perfect breakfast for a sunny morning!

Apple, banana and pear smoothie
Adapted from: http://uktv.co.uk
Serves: this recipes makes about 1 litre

Ingredients

• 1 ripe banana, peeled and cut into chunks
• 2 medium Golden Delicious apples, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks (make sure the apples are peeled! I decided not to because I never peel my apples but the skin left some little crunchy bits behind in the smoothie)
• 1 ripe pear, peeled, cored, and cut into chunks
• 250 ml yogurt 
• 250 ml apple juice
• pinches ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Put everything into a blender and blend until the mixture is smooth.

~ Enjoy!

Spring spinach salad with brie, apple and chicken

Spring is in the air! Don’t you just love it when the days get longer, the temperature rises and it’s actually nice to be outside again?

Really, I don’t like winter. It’s cold and even worse, there’s snow. So when Spring hits I get excited, go outside more often and, for some reason, I start to crave salads. Instead of a hearty, warm meal I suddenly want to eat light, cold or lukewarm salads that particularly shout Spring!

When I saw the recipe for this salad I knew I wanted to make something like it but not exactly what I found online. First off, I wanted chicken in my salad so I took the liberty to add chicken. Secondly, I don’t have a broiler so I turned creative and found some other way to make a normal, boring apple a lot more special then it usually is.

In the end, I’m glad I made it the way I wanted to because the salad was absolutely delicious! I even ate it two nights in a row and my family loved it just as much as I did. An empty salad bowl was proof for that. The sweetness of the apple goes wonderful with the chicken, creamy brie and slightly tough spinach. It’s a great combination and definitely a Spring-dish to me!

Spring spinach salad with brie, apple and chicken
Inspiration from: Tase of Home
Yields: 3 person main-course salad

Ingredients for the salad

• 200 gram spinach, cleaned
• 180 gram brie, cut into small pieces
• 2 chicken breasts
• 1 ½ apple, diced
• 1 ½ tablespoon maple syrup
• 1 litre vegetable stock

Ingredients for the dressing

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 ½ tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 2 teaspoons maple syrup
• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Directions

1. Boil the chicken in the vegetable stock for about 15 minutes until it’s cooked. Drain the chicken and cut it into small pieces.
2. Coat the diced apple with the maple syrup and heat them in a pan until the apple has soaked up all the syrup.
3. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing.
4. Combine the spinach, brie, chicken and apple in a large salad bowl. Pour the dressing over the salad and toss until combined.

Tips:
• Instead of using brie, this salad would also taste great with a “heavier” cheese such as Gorgonzola

~ Enjoy!

Healthy apple and honey muffins

I love my muffins and cupcakes and this is the recipe I make when I'm in a heatly mood. They're very tasty muffins. When you eat them you can taste that they're healthy instead of filled with lots of sugar.  The good thing about this recipe is also that you can add any fruit you want. I made them with apple but you can also choose to make them with berries, bananas or any other fruit.

For this batch, I decided that I wanted my muffins to be a bit more fancy than they usually are. So, I added a glaced apple on top and not only did it look much nicer it also tasted great!

This recipe makes 12


Ingredients

Muffin
2 egg-whites
240 gram wholemeal flour
170 ml. milk
110 gram apple, in small cubes
4 tablespoons sunflower oil
4 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt

Topping
± 1 ½ apples
75 gram packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Recipe
Pre-heat the oven at 190°C and grease a muffin-tray with butter.

A side-note: I advice you put a small piece of baking paper on the bottom of the muffin-tray. I didn’t do this while preparing the recipe but I think it will help you lots in getting the apple-topping out.

Topping

• Combine the brown sugar, the cinnamon, and the melted butter and put the mixture on the bottom of the muffin-tray.

• Core the apples and cut into ¼ inch rounds (see picture below). I drew a circle around my muffin-tray to know how big the rounds should be. If you don’t want to go through the trouble, just cut the apple into parts and cover the sugar-mixture with the apple. It should be about a ¼ inch layer of apple that covers the mixture.

Muffin

• Lightly whisk the egg-white and mix the dry ingredients in another bowl.

• In another bowl, mix the milk, oil, honey and apple. Then carefully mix in the egg-white.

• Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones and mix until you get a light but firm batter.

• Fill the muffin-tray with the batter. Usually you fill them about 2/3 but I filled them up almost completely to the brim. That’s because when they’re done, you’ll need to cut off the top of the muffin in order to properly flip the tray over.

• Bake for about 20 minutes until the muffins are light-brown.

• Let the tray cool for about 10 minutes before running a knife along the top of the muffin-tray, removing the tops of your muffins.

• Flip the tray over above a wire-rack so the muffins fall out. If the apple sticks to the bottom of the tray, scrap it out and place on top of the muffins.

• These muffins are best while still hot with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream.

~ Enjoy!

Source: Kookjij a Dutch website with recipes