Healthy KFC & The Most Easy and Perfect Homemade Spicy Wedges

So last wednesday in Brisbane there was CRAZY storms... flash flooding, deafening thunder, gail force winds and the works! I dont think I'll ever get used to this crazy tropical weather! I have always complained about how cold and miserable Ireland is but by god did I miss it on Wednesday!

I do love looking at the lightnening and hearing the thunder (even thought it makes me want to jump!!). Luckily I got home before the storm really set in! I would not like to have been driving on the roads in the downpour!

So as a result Wednesday evening was one for hibernation and not venturing outside. Spurred on by a craving for chicken & chips, I decided to make a healthy version instead of reaching for the mainstream bucket of grease (I used to have a real soft spot for hot wings until I got food poisoning from them!).

And so my heatlhy version of grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free KFC was born!! This bad boy contains no processed crap or vegetable oils and are baked to give it that crispy coating. I have to share the recipe because I really think that this version is better than any processed junky version on the market! So without further ado here is the recipe, I hope ye enjoy it!

You will need:

For the chicken: (makes about 3 serves)
 
500grams of chicken thigh fillets (drumsticks or tenderloins would also work well depending on what you prefer)
1/2 cup of Almond flour
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp paprika (either smoked or sweet works well too)
1 tbsp 
1 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (I used himalayan pink)
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 egg (optional)
(You could also add a couple tablespoons of sesame seeds for a bit of texture and extra crunch or some hot chilli powder for an extra kick)

Simply mix all dry ingredients in a bowl until combined

Then whisk the egg in a separate bowl and dip the chicken in the egg. This is optional and depends on how thick a batter coating you like on your chicken - I skipped this more accidentaly than anything because we had run out of eggs so I decided to chance it! I was nicely surprised as it produced a nice thin crispy coating.

Toss the chicken (either egg coated or plain) in the coating mix.

Shake off excess and place on a lined baking tray. You can spray the top of the chicken with some olive oil or coconut oil which adds some extra golden brown crunchiness.

Bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes at 200 degress celsius.


For the homemade spicy wedges:

3 large washed potatoes with skin on (I made enough to serve 3 people but you can use as many as you want)

All you have to do is cut them into strips. I like to cut them fairly skinny for extra crispyness - but you can cut them into thicker chunks. Just allow extra over time!

Place the cut potatoes into a collander and rinse well under cold water (this gets rid of any extra starch and allows then to crisp up nicely in the oven so dont forget this step!!)

Once well rinsed and drained - throw them out onto a clean dry tea towel or some kitchen towel and pat dry (another really important step so the outside crisp up so dont skip this either!!)

Then coat the wedges in a small amount of olive oil. Dont over do this as they may turn soggy if you put too much on. If you dont have spray olive-oil - then dont be afraid to sprinle a half tablespoon of olive oil from the bottle on and get your hands in there to rub the oil thinly and evenly on the wedges.

Toss seasoning of your choice on them before baking in the oven for about 40 minutes at 200 degrees celcius.

It works well to make these first before the chicken and bake them for 10 minutes before putting the chicken in so they are done at the same time.

 I like to toss mine in salt, pepper, smoked paprika and cayenne pepper (just a tiny bit!). But you could also try these combinations:

Garlic powder and dried rosemary
Parmesan cheese
Hot chilli powder
Peri peri seasoning
Mexican spice mix
 
Then take it all out the oven and inhale it! I had mine with a simple salad of avocado and fresh spinach. Yum yum! A healthy version of a cheat meal - guilt free goodness packed with healthy fats and protein.

The chicken holds pretty well in the fridge for a few days after and the flavour actually intensifies a little so they are a great quick and easy one for prep days! I would imagine you could freeze them but they would loose crispyness also. The wedges are best eaten fresh.

Enjoy!!


Mary

xxx

Workout Inspiration - Tighten up your legs and bum!

Today's workout inspiration is all about the lower body.

It's one of the most important areas to focus on if your looking to lose weight and tighten everything up.

I have a love/hate relationship with the infamous 'Leg Day' - I need to motivate myself to get stuck into those squats but when I do it's so worth it! There is something so rewarding about pushing yourself to your limit and then collapsing in an accomplished ball of sweat on the floor! I love it!

One of the main reason why I love working the gluts, hamstrings and quadriceps is because they are some of the largest muscle groups in the body... Why is this relevant? Lets get a bit more technical...

• During exercise your muscles require a larger amount of oxygen than when you are at rest.

• Your breathing rate goes up as your lungs try to increase the amount of oxygen you are taking in. 

• In order to accomodate this, your cardiac output (blood-flow from your heart) increases allowing more oxygen-rich blood to travel to the muscles at work

• The more intense the exercise that you do, the more your heart rate increases and the more calories you burn.

Therefore... in order to turn your body into a fat burning machine, it is more efficient to work your larger muscle groups before focusing on the smaller ones. This means more calories are burned and you get more out of your workouts instead of focusing on fiddly isolation exercises!

Combine this theory with resistance training then you have the secret to maximise fat burning! This is because of the afterburn that occurs. When you lift weights it causes your metabolism to increase and remain in a turbocharged state for up to 48 hours after training. During cardio based exercises you burn calories during and then stop when your heart-rate returns to normal. During resistance based interval training you burn calories during the session but due to the metabolism spike, your caloric burn continues for 2 days after you finish that session - amazing!

Whats even better again is that resistance training allows you to increase your body's lean muscle mass. Muscle is a little more high maintenance than fat tissue and requires a higher level of energy in order for it to maintain itself. This means that by increasing your lean muscle mass, overall your body burns a higher level of calories throughout your general non-active daily routines.

So lets get stuck into this ladies! Here is a lower body circuit workout that incorporates resistance  training using a combination of free weights and your own body weight.

Some tips to keeping good form in this are:

• Remember to lower your bum down towards the floor with a flat back during the squat - stop when your thighs are parallel to the floor - remember to push your weight back onto your heels as you come back up!

•  The walking lunges can be done weighted or unweighted.

• If you are new to this exercise dont fret if you reach muscle failure before 30 seconds with weights, simply drop the weights and continue

• Sumo burpees are  the same as normal burpees but lower yourself into a sumo squat position by taking your legs out as wide as possible to protect your knees and turn your toes outwards. (These bad boys are the secret to blasting your inner thighs!)

• With all of these exercises the golden rule to injury prevention is to keep your knees on top of your toes. Dont let them track too far outwards over the toes as this puts too much pressure on the knee joint and can cause accelerated wear and tear - we want our knees for life remember!

This circuit is a timed one - instead of completeing a set number of repitions, I suggest trying to complete as many reps of each exercise within the time limit - this allows you to really get your heart rate up and push yourself as hard as possible for maximum metabolic burn.

Complete each exercise back to back - I recommend setting a timer on your phone so that the number-work is figured out for you! Repeat this circuit 3-4 times resting for 60 seconds in between each circuit - try to keep moving during the rest, walk around, drink some water - just dont lie there on the floor, after all we are here to WORK!!!

Also! Remember to choose a weight thats not too heavy given the high number of reps, but heavy enough to complete the full 60 seconds with good form - it is so important to maintain GOOD FORM! So if you get half way through and you start to fail dont just stop - drop the weights and keep going!

The overall goal is to reach muscle failure so that during the recovery phase after your workout - your body undergoes the changes needed in order for you to adapt to this training routine - so you get fitter, faster and stronger!

So lets get our sweat on!!


Mary

xxx

My Version of a Paleo-ish Sweet Potato Pizza Recipe

I love pizza! It is such a great comfort food!

Unfortunately the standard take-away or frozen pizzas are made of refined grains and a huge amount of vegetable oils and trans-fats which are a bit of a no-no for those of us on a healthy whole food journey!

I generally try and stay away from all that rubbish and even though its nice every now and again to indulge (I still go for the gluten-free base though)- I refuse to believe that there isnt a tasty healthier unprocessed version out there! So I am on a quest for the perfect healthy pizza base!

NOTE!!!!!  before you jump to conclusions, this is NOT a post about the 'deliciousness' of cauliflower pizza which seems to be really in fashion at the minute.

Just about every second health nut is raving about how tasty the cauliflower substitute is - 'it tastes just like the bad stuff', 'you wouldnt even know its got cauliflower in it'.

Oh yea?

Well! I firmly believe that all those claims are giant LIES!!!

This is just my own personal opinion but I have tried a few cauliflower pizza recipes and each one has let me down! I have gotten my hopes up with every new version I see - whacked all the ingredients together for the base, baked it in the oven and then pulled it out with excitement only to find that when you cut into it, it doesnt hold its shape! You cant pick up a slice! Its too crumbly! And the taste isnt much better! It just tastes like cauliflower no matter what anyone says! And yes you can season it all you like with herbs, salt, cheese etc which overall improves the flavour but definately not the texture. If I cant eat my pizza by the slice - I'm sorry it just doesnt feel like pizza to me!!!

After about my 6th attempt at lieing to myself about how pizza-like this damn cauliflower thing was, I got tired and packed it in! And launched a new search to try and find something with a little more substance and texture, a mix that would hold a reasonable amount of toppings without falling all over the place!

Surely there is an answer!

I decided to try experimenting with grain free bases and tried blends of coconut flour and almond flour which was tasty but still too dry and crumbly (grrrrr.....).

So in the middle of my crazy google search, I stumbled across a pizza recipe on bodybuilding.com by the author of proteinpow - Anna Sward. A recipe based around sweet potato - yes sounds crazy I know, and at first  I was a bit sceptical, I love sweet potato but wasnt so convinced if its sweetness would go well with pizza sauce, cheese, chillis, salami etc. All in all I went against my doubts and tried it - I figured that anythings has to taste better than cauliflower! (again I love cauliflower AND even cauliflower fried rice! but it just doesnt work with pizza! END OF!).

Now I had to make my own adaptations to this recipe based on what I had in the press - it was friday night and I was too lazy to get in the car and go to the shops! So here is my version!:

• Roughly 120g of cooked sweet potato (wrap it in tin foil & roast it first - or you could steam/boil etc)
• 2 large organic eggs (the recipe calls for egg whites, but I cant stand waste! and eggs are so much better for you when you eat them whole - plus the extra healthy fats in the yoke add to the overall flavour of this recipe)
• 1/4 Cup almond flour
• 1 tbsp Coconut Flour
• 1 tsp Chia seeds 
• Salt, pepper, oregano/herbs to taste

Just throw all the ingredients into a bowl and whisk until combined. Spread onto a baking sheet (you have to spoon this mix onto the sheet as it is more like a batter than a dough - make sure to spread it thinly and evenly for best results - if you like it a bit thicker thats fine but be prepared to cook it in the over a little longer so the middle cooks properly). Then bake in a preheated oven at 180 degrees for 10-15 mins.

Keep an eye on the edges when they start to turn golden brown and crispy then its ready to take out. Then cover in toppings of whatever you fancy and bake again for another 10 minutes. Anna recommends brushing the edges with olive oil to add a little extra to the crust which I forgot to do because I was blindly hungry at this point and couldnt wait to eat it! So dont forget that step like me!

My chosen toppings were onions, red & green peppers, salami, pumpkin and some mozzarella and parmesan cheese. But pretty much anything should work (except pineapple - I just dont understand why you would want to put this on your pizza people!)

And the verdict?

I was nicely surprised with this one! I hadn't any high hopes for it to be super tasty but it didnt let me down at all! The base was tasty with a hint of sweet potato and I really liked the doughy texture. And the best thing was that when I cut it in slices and picked one up - it actually stayed in slice form and didnt just collapse! It definately gets at thumbs up from me! And will be a staple in my future friday nights! Processed junk free, trans-fat/veg oil free, gluten and grain free and still tastes good - perfect!

Now my versions calories are a quiet a bit higher than the PP recipe given the almond flour and eggs added to the mix instead of a grain flour and egg whites, but its packed full of healthy fats and protein so that wasnt something I stressed about - and minus the artificial fillers and overall rubbish! I personally believe it also only really serves one unless you are planning on making a couple of sides with it.

Give it a go and see if you like it!

The original link to Anna's recipe is here, if you'd prefer to try that one. She has also listed another clever little one made with vegan pea/brown rice protein powder which I have also tried before in the past and is a little more pan-cakey but works very well too!

Enjoy!! - also if anyone has found any amazeballs healthy pizza recipes that would make my life a better place please share!!


Mary

xxx