Quick and healthy family fare

Your Best Life is a remarkable recipe book with more than 80 recipes. It’s jam-packed with full-colour photos and shows readers how exciting healthy food can be.

Check out some of the tantalising recipes below:

Wholemeal pancakes

Wholemeal Pancakes

Serves 3-4

INSPIRATION: Saturday mornings were made for two things: surfing and pancakes. Most people make the traditional pancakes with just white flour and no added fibre or long-term, energy-giving nutrients. This recipe will sneak some extra goodness in without having to drown it in sugar or syrup.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 free-range egg, beaten
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• ½ cup milk
• 1 apple, grated
• 30 g dried cranberries
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• ½ cup muesli or rolled oats
• pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 3 tbsp farm butter or coconut oil

TOPPINGS:

• 2 bananas, sliced in half lengthwise
• 4 tbsp almond butter or nut butter of choice
• 150 mℓ yoghurt
• 100 g or small handful fresh strawberries, sliced

1. In a bowl, combine wet ingredients: egg, oil, milk and grated apple. Mix well.
2. In a separate bowl, add the flour, muesli, salt, baking powder, cranberries and cinnamon.
3. Combine the two and do not over mix – just enough to moisten everything.
4. Heat a skillet to medium high heat and add the butter. Pour batter into any size.
5. Turn the pancakes when the tops are covered with bubbles.
6. Add a little butter or oil to the pan and fry the banana slices till slightly caramelised.
7. Spread a little nut butter on the pancake. Add the banana, a dollop of yoghurt and the sliced strawberries.

Health tip: Officially, fibre is a type of carbohydrate that your body can’t digest. Unofficially, there isn’t one classification that everyone is happy with. Whatever the definition, what we do know is that it’s good for you, yet South Africans eat less than half of what we should.

Keeping you regular is what fibre usually gets the Oscar for, but it also plays an important part in keeping some nasty diseases at bay, most importantly, colorectal cancer. Studies consistently show the higher your natural (dietary) fibre intake, the lower your colorectal cancer risk. Eating more fibre seems like a small price to pay for staying footloose and cancer-free.

Chicken salad with summer strawberry dressing

Chicken salad and Strawberry Dressing

Serves 4

INSPIRATION: I learned this recipe as a young chef in California; the dressing makes everyone do back flips.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 free-range chicken fillets
• juice and zest of 1 lime
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp turmeric
• ½ tsp ground coriander
• ½ tsp ground curry powder
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 150g mixed leaf salad
• ¼ English cucumber, peeled into ribbons
• 1 carrot, peeled into ribbons
• 6-7 strawberries, sliced
• 1 bunch spring onions, sliced

DRESSING:

• 100mℓ olive oil
• 1 small handful fresh basil
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 small handful Italian parsley
• 200g fresh strawberries (set aside 5-6 whole ones for garnish)
• 100mℓ rice vinegar
• 2 tbsp honey
• freshly ground salt and pepper to taste
• 50g pecan nuts, raw and unsalted
• 1 tsp honey
• 1 pinch of cayenne pepper

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the ingredients with the chicken and allow to marinate while you prepare the rest of the salad.
2. Combine all salad the ingredients.
3. Toast the pecan nuts in a pan with 1 tsp of honey and a pinch of cayenne pepper.
4. In a food processor combine the oil, basil, garlic and parsley together and blend till smooth. Pour into a bowl. Add the strawberries, vinegar and honey to the food processor and blend. Pour into the herb oil mixture and mix well.
5. Season and grill the chicken. Set aside and let cool.
6. Cut the chicken into strips and arrange on top of the bed of salad. Pour the dressing over, and garnish with pecan nuts and fresh basil leaves.

Health tip: How do I love strawberries? Let me count the ways!

The heart-shaped silhouette of the strawberry is the first clue that this little fruit is good for you. Packed with vitamins, fibre and particularly high levels of antioxidants, strawberries are a sodium-free, low carb, low calorie choice for everyone.

A single serving (8 strawberries if you’re counting) provides you with more vitamin C than you’ll find in a single orange without having to go through the pain of peeling.

Strawberries wear their hearts on their sleeves, so to speak, by having external seeds. Nooks and crannies made by these seeds make it easy for dirt to take up home on their skins. Soaking strawberries for a minute before you rinse them will loosen any nasties, while still keeping all their goodness intact.