The Best Healthy 3 Ingredient Pancakes!

I have seen so many 2 or 3-ingredient pancake recipes around. They seem too good to be true, pictures of fluffy pancakes, using only banana and egg. I decided to do my research and test them out for myself and see just how they turned out.

I think I created a recipe that's even better than most I've seen. They are protein packed, gluten free, dairy free and refined sugar free! They have the simplest addition to the recipe that I've never seen online! Even my banana-hating boyfriend loved these pancakes. I think that says something.

Ottolenghi's Shakshuka

If you haven't already guessed from my instagram, brunch is my favourite meal of the day. There are a myriad of reasons why it's the best meal. It's at the perfect, not really sure when, time of day, it contains eggs and can be made healthy or unhealthy with the addition of bacon/cheese or avocado, depending on how you feel, and it is fairly difficult to get wrong.

Yotam Ottolenghi will probably go down as the man who mainstreamed shakshuka in the UK. By including it in his incredibly popular recipe books, and then on his menu at his restaruants and delis in London, he made it extremely accessible for anyone to try this exotic sounding dish; the shakshuka. Factor in our ever growing fondness for brunch and middle eastern foods, this dish of baked eggs and spices was always going to be a big hit. That and the fact it's delicious, of course!

I decided to make a little version the other day. The original recipe calls for 8 eggs, I think two for two people is enough.

It's pretty simple, one-pan meal. You just need to prepare all the food and spices, throw it in the pan and let it simmer and cook. 

My favourite kind of cooking: one that I don't have to worry about, with very little washing.

The Modern Pantry, Clerkenwell

I had a bit of a failed brunch on my actual birthday (this was back in July), so I was determined to go for some proper good brunch on a gorgeously sunny Saturday. Where else but the Modern Pantry?

The Lockhart, This Time For Brunch.

And I thought it couldn't get much better than dinner at The Lockhart. I was so so wrong. Lockhart is fast becoming one of my favourite places to eat in London.

Warning. This post is delicious. And full of one of the best brunches I've ever had in London.

However, best to start with the bad so it's out of the way. A coffee is £4. I nearly choked. But that is London. Moving on.

Starting with the best fried chicken in London on a pecan waffle with maple syrup. There are not enough words for how good this was. It blew my mind.

Equally as interesting and delicious, though not as sweet, was smoked pork hash with a fried egg. I can't tell you what else the pork was mixed with, some kind of creamy sauce, but all I know is that it was delicious.

To finish, we went for 1235 doughnuts, made by head chef Brad McDonald himself, sold in Columbia Road market. These were a little disappointing, mostly due to the fact I've had St. John's Bakery doughnut - maybe the best in the world - and more recently Justin Gellately's - of Bread Ahead Bakery in Borough Market - Salted Honeycomb and hazelnut praline doughnuts, which are very very good indeed. 

Here the salted caramel doughnut filling didn't taste of much at all, and neither did the pastry itself. However the chocolate filling was very good. They are by no means perfect, which Brad McDonald has acknowledged by saying he wants to tweak them to find the perfect doughnut.

Still, by no means a bad doughnut. I'm just being very picky!

If you haven't been to The Lockhart yet then WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!!?!

GO GO GO GO NOW!!!!

The Providores, Marylebone

Ahhh brunch. My favourite meal of the day.

We went to a little place recently called The Providores, a tapas bar in Marylebone that also does a pretty incredible brunch. We did have to queue for about 20 minutes (at 1pm on a Saturday, not too unreasonable I didn't think) but it was so worth the wait. 

I jumped on a freshly made smoothie. They have the usual fare - bananas and mixed berry - but they have caught up with the super healthy crew here, serving a spirulina smoothie, and a baobab smoothie. Although ridiculously expensive at £6, I went for the baobab, soy and blueberry smoothie. I've tried baobab once before at the Eden Project of all places. It's a tree native to Africa and the fruit has some incredible properties. Loads of vitamin C, iron and alkalising minerals. The only problem is that the soy milk probably undid any good that the blueberries and baobab did, since soy is not that great for you. Oh well it all tasted good!

We then ordered two dishes we both loved the sound of and shared, because that's the way greedy people like me get to try as many things as possible.

First up, grilled chorizo with sweet potato and miso hash, a soft boiled egg, garlic labne and star anise and cashew nut praline. Sounds like a dish and a half right?! It was.

Absolutely beautiful. Never had anything quite like it, let alone for brunch. Simply a creative, delicious and rather light brunch.

If you're looking for something a bit (a lot) more hearty, then this next bad boy is for you.

Bruschetta with haggis, smoked tomato relish, rocket, two poached eggs and chorizo hollandaise. No need to eat anything else for the rest of the day!!

This was my first ever taste of haggis and it was pretty damn excellent. I couldn't really taste the chorizo in the hollandaise with so many other powerful flavour, but it wasn't missed as everything else was so delicious and worked so well together. The tomato relish was the perfect addition that took this dish up to another level!

Both incredible, but I think I have to go for the haggis dish as my favourite, for a very boring reason - I love hollandaise way too much.