Chicken & Quinoa | Eating my Degustabox

Last night my flatmate Mary-Jane (or Muj) and I decided that we were going to make  a decent dinner and we turned to the Degustabox I received (first impressions post here). We decided to use the Maggi SoTender Italian Herbs papyrus paper and Alice & Oscar's Quinola Mothergrain Express Quinoa with some reduced to clear chicken breast. I will forever fly the flag of reduced to clear shopping!

It was all very easy to use which put my mind at rest as I am no Gordon Ramsay, apart from maybe the swearing! One of my resolutions this year was to cook more which hasn't happened all that much but these are great for easing yourself in!

For the chicken all you do is take your portion, lay it on one half of the papyrus paper, fold the other half over and flatten it as much as you can. I had a massive portion so couldn't get it that flat but I gave it a go! Stick them in a frying pan - sidenote Muj and I don't have a frying pan yet so we used a soup pot - 10 minutes on each side and hey presto, done! I think next time we will maybe give it a couple extra minutes on each side as both Muj and I though they were a tiny bit undercooked in the middle and her portion was much smaller than mine! Apart from that though, this was so freaking delicious. It smelled and tasted amazing and will definitely be going in my shopping basket during one of my trips to Asda!

I've not had much experience with quinoa so didn't know what to expect with this. We stuck it in the microwave for 2 minutes and that was it done. My favourite kind of cooking, no cooking! I thought the quinoa was really nice, it didn't have too much taste but I liked the texture and it was definitely filling! Half way through the meal, both Muj and I noticed how full we were getting and very oddly for me, I actually left food on my plate!

To finish off the meal we chucked in some cauliflower and broccoli. Our healthy and filling meal was cooked in 20 minutes and it was bloody delicious! We still have two of the papyrus papers left (I was quite shocked to see you get 4 in a packet!) so we will be having that again very soon

 You can buy Maggi products at Asda, Tesco and Sainsburys, and you can find Alice & Oscar stockists on their website (link here).

Banana and peanut butter smoothie | Recipe

I've always been a bit funny with fruit, never really liked it that much. Nowhere near as much as I love veg anyway! So I'm always looking for ways to get fruit into my diet without making myself feel sick. Enter smoothies!

I've tried a couple smoothies in the past but they've never really turned out right, I cannot stand 'bits' so trying to make them with strawberries or anything like that ends up with me either drinking half the smoothie and giving up or trying to sieve all the bits out. By the time I'm finished that, I don't even want to drink the damn thing!

I decided to take a fruit I didn't like but one that I knew didn't have any bits in it - bananas! I cannot stand bananas, eating them just as they are actually makes me feel sick. I don't know what it is but bleurgh! Banana flavoured things and banana chips I'm fine with but bananas, get away.

This smoothie is pretty simple to make :  

• 200 ml Almond Breeze unsweetened almond milk
• 1 banana
• 1 tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter

Almond milk is new in my life, thanks to Gemma Tomlinson. I've been watching her healthy YouTube channel HealthyHappyLife for a while now and I just love it! I'd heard her mention almond milk a few times so during my most recent shop I decided to get some and try it out. I'll be writing a more in depth post about it soon so look out for that, all I will say is it is bloody delicious!

I will be trying out this recipe again but I think next time I'll use half a banana and smooth peanut butter. It was a bit too 'banana-y' for me and the crunchy peanut butter made it a bit gritty so hopefully smooth will fix that.

Apart from those few things, this smoothie was delicious. I think once I get some protein powder I'll maybe add that in and it could be a great after workout pick-me-up. 

Are you a smoothie fan? What are your favourite combinations?