Coconut and Quinoa Pancakes w/ Bananas, Cottage Cheese and Raspberry Sauce

Alrighty then! Due to overwhelming demand from friends and family for recipes I'm restarting this blogging thing; and what else to start up on but a delicious healthy breakfast, this one takes a bt of prep work the night before, but can be re-made a couple of days later and is just as good (if not better)

Coconut and Quinoa Pancakes w/ Bananas, Cottage Cheese & Raspberry Sauce

serves 4

Pancake Batter
1 cup white quinoa, cooked in-
     - 2 cups cocoquench (coconut milk drink) then cooled
2 cups shredded coconut
4 eggs 
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
1/2 cup Almond Meal
1/2 cup cocoquench (http://www.pureharvest.com.au/product/organic-coco-quench)

Raspberry Sauce
1 cup Raspberries
1 Vanilla pod, scraped
1-3 teaspoon coconut sugar (http://organicness.com.au/product/power-super-foods-coconut-palm-sugar-1kg)
100ml fruit juice (cloudy apple works really well)

2 Bananas
200g Cottage cheese
1 Tablespoon coconut oil or spray

Method

Mix together eggs, cocoquench, almond meal and protein powder. Add quinoa and coconut and let stand for at least 10 minutes, preferably overnight so the coconut can absorb some of the liquid.
While the batter is resting, make the raspberry sauce by putting the raspberries, vanilla, juice and sugar into a small saucepan and simmer for 10 minutes.

When you're ready, heat a pan really hot and coat with coconut oil. Plop a couple of big tablespoon sized  dollops of batter into the pan and press out to a palm size. These pancakes are quite delicate so the smaller they are, the easier they are to flip. Once they are nice and golden, carefully flip them over and cook the other side. Continue until you've got enough pancakes, stack them in the middle of a plate, top with sliced banana, cottage cheese and lashings of hot raspberry sauce. Dig in!

Almond Crusted Pork Loin on Coleslaw and Quinoa with Mustard Apples

Got inspired by an incredible whole roast pig at an amazing wedding earlier this year and came up with this creation. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

serves 4

4 pork loin chops

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup plain flour

2/3 cup slivered almonds, roughly crushed

sea salt

freshly ground pepper

Quinoa

1 1/2 cups white quinoa

1 1/2 cup chicken stock

1 1/2 cup water
1 Tbls unsalted butter

Coleslaw

1 1/2 cup finely sliced white cabbage

1 cup finely sliced red cabbage

1 cup roughly chopped coriander

1 granny smith apple, diced

4 spring onions, finely sliced

juice of 1 lemon

Tblsp sour cream

Mustard Apples

1 jonathon apple

2 Tblsp Dijon mustard

juice of 1 lime

1/4 cup coriander, chopped

Start by heating some peanut oil in an oven proof pan. Coat the pork loin with seasoned plain flour, then dip into the egg, then coat in crushed almonds. Place the loins in the pan and fry for around 5 mins on both sides. Pre-heat your oven to 200oC.

While the pork is cooking combine quinoa, stock and water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Cook for around 15 min or until tender, adding water as necessary.

Whisk together lemon juice and sour cream. In a large bowl, combine cabbage, coleslaw, coriander, granny smith apple and spring onions and coat with lemon and sour cream dressing, cover and refrigerate.

To finish cooking the pork, place whole pan in the preheated oven for 15 min or until juice runs clear. Remove from oven and let it rest for 5 min. Cooking pork this way keeps it ridiculously moist and tender.

Finely slice the red jonathon apple and coat and coat with mustard and lime juice for a sweet, sour spicy combo. Sprinkle with coriander for an aromatic hit.

To finish, mix butter into cooked quinoa. Spoon into open ended moulds on the plate. top quinoa with a large amount of coleslaw and pack in quite tightly. Place a few apple slices around the plate. Carefully remove the mould from the quinoa and coleslaw. Place a crunchy almond crusted pork loin against the coleslaw. Kick back and enjoy. x