Failed attempts at being healthy

After the excesses of the past few days/weeks, I thought it was about time I dragged my diet back on track.

After stocking up on fresh fruit and vegetables, I decided to venture into the as yet unknown territories of green smoothies. From what I understand from reading other people's blogs, green smoothies are basically any smoothie with green vegetables incorporated into it - spinach seems to be the most popular. Now I'm not someone who will happily neck funky flavoured juices e.g. one's containing ginger, broccoli and kale. So I knew I couldn't leap into the deep end with my green smoothies. However, I've read quite a few times that for green smoothie virgins, it's best to try a standard combination of fruits and then add a handful of spinach leaves to get you started. This apparently results in a smoothie where you are unable to detect the flavour of the spinach.

Food: granola bars

Further to the success of my fruit nuggets, I thought I'd have a go at making some more portable energy foods. I decided upon granola bars. I love granola. It's full of oats, fruit and honey. I usually eat shop bought granola with yoghurt and a little honey as a tasty breakfast alternative.

The granola bars below are great for breakfast on the go, and for providing a long term energy fix during the day. Ok, they're not super healthy owing to the inclusion of butter and sugar. However, the granola bars' butter and sugar content compares very favourably with most other cakes/biscuits. Plus you have the added benefit of slow burn oats and healthy dried fruits. The dried fruits add a natural sweetness to the bars so less sugar is needed.

The recipe below makes deliciously chewy granola bars. Feel free to use any combination of dried fruits, nuts and seeds - the end result will be absolutely delicious, I promise! The recipe below is just a guide so you use the correct quantities.

Granola bars

granola bars

Serves 14

200g porridge oats
100g butter
100g dried figs/dates/apricots
50g sesame seeds
50g chopped almonds
50ml runny honey
100g pumpkin or sunflower seeds
100g light brown sugar