During the month of love, we’re bringing you heart-healthy workouts and recipes that are good for your ticker. Make this recipe on the weekend and enjoy homemade seed bread all week long! This recipe is both vegan and gluten-free.
Heart Healthy Info:
Including a variety of nuts and seeds into your meal plan can go a long way to living a healthier life.
Nuts are a good source of heart-healthy monounsaturated fats which can help protect against heart disease. Research shows that incorporating a few servings of tree nuts into your diet can help protect against heart disease and that consuming nuts as a snack can help to lower bad cholesterol and raise good cholesterol. (Nuts are high in calories, so be sure to check these amounts with a dietician if you are on a weight-loss or management programme).
Chia seeds, flaxseeds, and hemp seeds are all great sources of heart-healthy nutrients, including fibre and omega-3 fatty acids.
Hemp seeds are high in arginine, an amino acid associated with reduced blood levels of specific inflammatory markers. Chia seeds contain dietary fibres, antioxidants and omega‐3 fatty acids, which may help reduce blood pressure and blot clots and lower levels of bad cholesterol.
What You Need:
1 cup buckwheat flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of sea salt
2 tbsp flaxseed flour (ground flaxseeds)
¼ cup each: almonds, walnuts, flax seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, hemp seeds, pine nuts (or 1 ½ cups of mixed seeds of your choice)
¼ cup dates (for a sweeter touch) or olives (for more savoury), chopped into small pieces
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp maple syrup (for vegan) or sweetener of choice
1 ½ cups water
2 tsp lemon juice
Method:
1/ Mix together the flour, bicarbonate of soda, pinch of salt and flaxseed flour. Roughly chop the almonds and macadamia nuts so that the pieces are similar to the size of the sunflower seeds. Add nuts and seeds to the flour.
2/ In a separate bowl, whisk together the olive oil, maple syrup, water and lemon juice. Pour into the flour and seed mix and stir to combine. This gluten-free vegan recipe works better if the batter has time to rest before baking, so set aside for one hour, covered with a cloth.
3/ While your batter is resting, preheat your oven to 150 degrees Celsius and grease and line a loaf tin with baking paper.
4/ Bake for about an hour and test with a cake tester to ensure that your bread is baked through. Allow the bread to cool down completely in the tin before slicing.
Notes:
– You can replace pine nuts with another half cup of either pumpkin seeds or sunflower seeds.
– You can replace the walnuts with pecans or almonds for macadamia nuts.
– The bread will last fresh for 2-3 days, but we recommend slicing and freezing the slices on day 2, if you would like the bread to last. Simply remove a slice and toast when ready.