Healthy pancakes...

Spinach Pancakes with Smoked Salmon & Grapefruit Vinaigrette

These dark green beauties will have you talking like Pop-Eye the Sailor Man in no time. Chock full of spinach and filled with protein, you’ll wish every day was pancake day!

These dark green beauties will have you talking like Pop-Eye the Sailor Man in no time. Chock full of spinach and filled with protein, you’ll wish every day was pancake day!

Ingredients:

150g baby spinach

10g fresh basil 

480ml almond milk

3 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

130g plain flour

1 tbsp oil (for frying)


Filling: 

cream cheese

smoked salmon

fresh basil

romaine lettuce

grapefruit vinaigrette (recipe follows)


Method:

  1. In a high powered food processor or blender (I use a Nutribullet Rx), add spinach, basil, almond milk, eggs, salt, and pepper. Blend until fully smooth and vibrant green.

  2. Add the flour to the mix and blend again until the flour is fully incorporated. The mixture will be quite thin. 

  3. Allow to sit and rest for a minimum of 20 minutes before you cook.

  4. Over high heat, drizzle oil into a non-stick pan or pancake pan. Pour in about 4 tbsp of mix (this may be more or less depending on the size of your pan), gently swirl to fully coat the bottom of the pan. 

  5. The pancake will begin to dry out and bubble along the edges to the center. Using a rubber spatula, carefully lift around edges, moving towards the centre of the pancake. Once loosened, you will be able to flip the pancake to cook the other side.

  6. Holding the handle of the pan with one hand, with a confident flick of the wrist flip over your pancake (don’t worry if the first one doesn’t land right- mine ended up looking a bit more like scrambled eggs than a pancake- still tastes great!). 

  7. Allow pancake to cook for about 30 seconds. Stuff your pancake with cream cheese, smoked salmon, fresh basil, & lettuce. Drizzle with grapefruit vinaigrette and garnish with peeled grapefruit segments. 

Grapefruit Vinaigrette 

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp grapefruit juice (about half of a medium grapefruit)

grated rind of 1 lemon

2 Tbsp lemon (about the juice of 1 lemon)

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil (any oil you enjoy or half will work)

2 Tbsp honey

1 1/2 Tbsp dijon mustard 

salt, to taste 

pepper, to taste


Method:

  1. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together all ingredients until fully emulsified.

  2. Store in an airtight container in the fridge and use as required

Loved that and still craving pancakes? Try this! Same green recipe as above, but substitute fresh coriander for the basil, fill your pancake with your favourite TexMex flavours: I love sautéing up onions, peppers, & black beans, mashing up avocado for a little guacamole, making some plum tomato & red onion salsa, and drizzling a bit of cheeky sour cream or shredded cheese across the top. Gorgeous! 

5 Essentials of Nutrition

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Nutrition is a complex thing, but there’s some essentials that everyone needs to know and a lot of people mess up on a few of them. Here’s the Dynamic Fitness guide to some of the basics of nutrition.

1) Eat every two to four hours:

Recent research shows that eating at regular intervals stimulates metabolism, balances blood sugar and reduces the impulse to overeat when you do get to meals. It doesn’t have to be a full meal every time, just something to stimulate the metabolism.

For example, bad nutrition timing is eating at 8am for breakfast and then not eating anything until 2pm and then don’t eat again until nearly 8pm. With this timing your metabolism slows down during the gaps, causing you to cling onto calories as fat, and when you do it spikes up making you feel even hungrier and prone to overeating at meals. Also you’d be prone to snacking in between times and grazing as you metabolism ramps back up.

A better option is to eat at 8am, have a small meal at 12pm and 4pm, and then eat a main meal at 7-8pm. This keeps your metabolism stable, reducing the urge to snack. You can figure out your own pattern that syncs up best with you day, just follow the 2-4 hour rule and remember that you shouldn’t be eating more in total, just more often during the day.

 

2) Eat complete, lean protein at each meal.

Good sources of protein include red meat, poultry, salmon, eggs, low fat plain yogurt, mixed beans and supplemental powders and shakes. Some experts claim that additional protien is harmful or unnecessary, but more modern and contemporary research is clear: a high protien diet is safe, an almost essential if you lead an active lifestyle. It helps with recovery and stimulation of metabolism.

 

3) Eat vegetables at every meal.

Vegetable help do two major things, they help to provide vitamins and minerals and also help to provide the blood with an alkaline load. Grains and proteins provide the blood with an acid load and if blood is too acidic it can lead to degradation of bone strength and muscle mass.

So with the first 3 rules in mind, carrot sticks wrapped in ham, or celery dipped in low fat peanut butter make excellent snacks to top you up at one of your meal timings.

 

4) For fat loss, eat carbohydrates other than fruits and vegetables only after exercise.

This encourages your body to use it’s body fat stores for your day to day needs, conserving carbohydrates for recovery and post workout nutrition. By other carbohydrates, im talking about foods like pasta, rice, bread and starchy vegetables like potatoes.

 

5) Eat healthy fats daily

These include monounsaturated fats (found in extra-virgin olive oil, some nuts and avocado) and polyunsaturated fats (found in some nuts, some vegetable oils and fish oil supplements)

 

There you are, five basic guidelines to help you get started on the road to better nutrition!

Friday Mocktail 2

Mocktail of the week

Last week we gave you the 'Dynamic Fizzness' - a glorified Lime and Soda, that is a great alternative for Alcohol at the pub or at home. It is also very low sugar (carb)

This week we are going a bit more fruity, so there is some sugar but it is all natural (from the fruit). Behold the Mango Lassi!...

Method

1. Blend one Mango with Ice and two tbsp of Greek Yogurt
2. Top with crushed Pistachios and Desiccated Coconut
3. Serve in a tall glass and long straw for mixing
4. Yum!

Competition time...

This Dry January our chosen charity, the Matthew project, are challenging everyone to come up with a Norfolk-themed mocktail.

Whether it uses local ingredients or honours a local person, as long as your mocktail idea has a Norfolk connection you're in with a chance of winning a £50 voucher for Dynamic Fitness!

To enter, please send your recipe along with a photo of the mocktail to mocktails@matthewproject.org  or tweet us @matthewproject using the hashtag #norfolkmocktail or post it on our Facebook Page Facebook/matthewprojectcharity

Need inspiration? Check out these recipes from some local celebs!: http://Norwich!: http://www.matthewproject.org/news/?id=142

Friday Mocktail 1

The Dynamic Fizzness from Ross Lenton at Dynamic Fitness

"Some mocktails are full of sugar - which isn't helpful when you're trying to detox. So this one is very low in sugar and carbohydrates. It's genuinely refreshing and rehydrating!'' says Ross.

It is quite simply:

- Juice of 1 lime

- Cucumber - thinly sliced (and spiralled for garnish)

- Soda Water

Served in a Balloon glas