Cooking & Lifestyle Blog

This week's recipe takes the form of a light, low-fat dessert – because we all need a treat every now and then! This recipe features low-fat alternatives to unhealthy ingredients, as well as making the most of the natural sweetness of fruit, meaning that there is no reason to fight against satisfying that sweet craving at the end of a meal. With strawberries beginning to crop up more and more in the shops, it's a good time to start thinking of tasty new recipes beyond the traditional (and excessively calorific) strawberries and cream combination. I highly recommend this roulade, it's one of those great simple recipes that looks a lot harder to make than it actually is, perfect if you've got friends coming for dinner.

Even though we have not yet officially reached the first day of Spring, I think the fact that it is finally sunny outside and it is now still light when I leave work is sufficient for me to say that as far as I'm concerned Spring has practically sprung! To celebrate this occasion and to make a change from Winter soups, I thought that this week's instalment in the simple recipes for healthy eating series would be an only slightly premature Spring Vegetable & Herb Risotto. This is a great recipe which combines tasty seasonal vegetables with deliciously filling creamy risotto rice. What's more, in the coming weeks seasonal vegetables such as asparagus and French beans will be on special offer at supermarkets and looking their best on market stalls, so what better time to start including them in your healthy recipe repertoire?!

As February drags on, the rain keeps up its unremitting drizzle and I still have to wear my fingerless panda-themed gloves at my desk, I find myself whistfully thinking of sunnier climes... Well, unfortunately I'm not jetting off any time soon, but there are other ways to bring sunshine into your life and that is through the evocative power of taste and the food of sun-blessed nations.

This year 31st January not only marked the end of a very long post-Christmas month, but also Chinese New Year. Although this date officially brought us into the Year of the Horse, London's main Chinese New Year celebration weren't held until February 2nd. So just to drag out the celebrations for a little bit longer, I decided that this week's healthy recipe instalment should be Chinese themed in honour of the occasion.

When it's cold and rainy outside, being healthy can be quite a challenge. Take this Sunday for example…the weather was miserable, my flat was chilly, and to be perfectly honest all I really felt like doing all day was sitting in bed watching Netflix and eating warm stodgy food. So this week, to keep you motivated through this persistently drizzly rain, I decided that if we are going to slip-up and give in to the temptations of a delicious and comforting pudding, that pudding may as well be reasonably healthy and low in fat.

With its high proportion of fruits and vegetables, low saturated fat content and emphasis upon oily fish rather than red meat, the Mediterranean diet is well-known for its potential health benefits. It is suggested that eating a diet rich in such characteristics is a great way to protect against high cholesterol, strokes and heart disease.

When it comes to healthy eating I think there are few foods quite as great as fresh fish. Not only is it full of vitamins and omega-3 oils, which are the healthiest kind of fat, but it also holds the added bonus of being full of top-class protein – which means that you stay feeling full for longer, always a plus if you're trying to lose a bit of weight or avoid the temptation of unhealthy snacks!

With the first week of 2014 having already flown past in a blur, I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering how I'm going to stick to those New Year's resolutions of leading a healthier lifestyle. However, let's not be totally demoralised just yet!

So far this week three things have happened to confirm to me that summer is definitely over and winter is fast approaching. Firstly in a stubborn bid to avoid turning our heating on until November at the earliest, making a hot water bottle has become part of my night-time routine. Secondly, after leaving work on Monday to meet a friend for coffee I climbed the steps out of the underground to find that it was almost dark already, and it was only 6.30pm – the night’s are indeed ‘drawing in’ as my Granny would say. Thirdly, just this lunch time, after venturing out to buy her lunch in the pouring rain my work-mate Emma returned to the office, took her boots off to dry near the radiator and stepped into her handy work-slippers. Yes people, winter is on its way!

So it's time for the second of my Top Ten Simple Recipes for College Students, and this one is a real stunner and definitely a personal fave. This Sweet Potato Curry is deliciously moorish, comforting and really ridiculously easy to make – the perfect option for when you've got a big deadline to power through and are feeling just a teeny bit homesick for a good wholesome meal. A great introduction to using spices, mastering this recipe will really add to your repertoire; simply serve up with boiled rice or a shop-bought naan bread for an Indian meal which is both healthier and a damn sight cheaper than that takeaway down the road!

Sweet Potato Curry

Ingredients

Makes 1 large portion