Baked Oats #1 | Carrot Cake

I'm completely oat obsessed. Obsessed to the point that waking up early to experiment with porridge has become a daily ritual and more often than not prioritises a lie-in. After craving carrot cake one morning (I hope I'm not the only one?), I decided to combine my cravings and lust for porridge and this fine creation was born.

You will need:

1 cup of oats
1 cup of almond milk (or enough to completely cover the oats)
1 small grated carrot
1/2 grated apple
1 banana (1/2 mashed into mixture, 1/2 for decoration)
2 tbsp Linwoods Milled Organic Flaxseed
3 tsps cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 handful of chopped walnuts
1 tbsp ground almonds

Method:

1) Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4
2) Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, leaving out half the banana for decoration
3) Pour into a baking dish and pop into the oven for 15-20 minutes (or until the top looks golden)
4) Decorate with the leftover banana and add a few extra walnuts.

My recipe is featured on the Linwoods website along with lots of other healthy recipes - check it out here.
Enjoy!

Be:Fit London 2015

As you may know if you follow me on Instagram, the lovely people over at Linwoods very kindly sent me a pair of tickets to Be:Fit London 2015 last weekend. After getting into fitness and nutrition over the past few months, my fellow health foodie (Lily) and I jumped at the opportunity to go.

Eager for nutrition tips and fitness motivation, we hopped on the train with our porridge pre-prepared in neon tupperware (why follow the crowd when you can flaunt your breakfast in style?) and made our way to Islington. As soon as we got there, we were handed goodie bags and went to browse the stalls. The venue was packed with health food and activewear brands and, much to our delights, everything was discounted!

Among the brands was Wyldsson. As we went on the last day of Be:Fit (Sunday 3rd), they were offering all of their products for £5. This meant MASSIVE reductions compared with their usual prices, so Lil and I decided to split a box with 10 of their trail mixes between us. My only regret is not buying one of their nut butters - mmm they were so good!

Another of my favourite brands is Pulsin and, to my luck, they also had a stand with discounted products. Having done my research prior to the event, I was keen to try out their pea protein powder. If you're interested in taking supplements, pea protein is an amazing, natural way to up your protein intake without consuming the fat and cholesterol in most whey powders (I'll be posting more on this at a later date!).

My favourite part of the day had to be the yoga class in the Reebok Fitness Studio with Leah Kim, Nike's Global Yoga Ambassador. I love my yoga, but I've never done a class as intense as this or pushed myself to hold poses for long lengths of time before. After an hour and a half, I came out of the class feeling inspired to work on my yoga and to dedicate more time to improving my core and flexibility (two things that will probably come in handy for my Grade 8 ballet in a few weeks!).

So, thank you Linwoods - it was so lovely to meet you and I will definitely be buying some more flaxseed soon! I had the most amazing day gaining insight into the health and fitness industry, meeting like minded people and, of course, trying out lots of new foods. Despite having really sore arms from carrying around bags full of goodies all day, a steward insisted we took another bag on the way out as they had to get rid of them all. I'm now stocked up on health-foods for a veeeryy long time - Bring on Be:Fit London 2016!