Win a Winter Warmer Festive Hamper from Mira Manek

Each year, we share with you a selection of highly nutritious recipes with flavours and textures that are luxurious and indulgent from healthy food chef and guest author and contributor to the Cubex food for brains recipe blog, Mira Manek. This festive season, not only are we sharing some of her latest creations from her cook book Saffron Soul with you, but we are now proud stockists of Mira’s culinary books. You can order your copy of Saffron Soul by contacting host@213.175.217.238 for just £15.00. 

Win a Winter Warmer Festive Hamper from Mira Manek

We are giving a lucky Cubex Hear & Now subscriber the opportunity to win in a Winter Warmer Festive Hamper from Mira Manek. We all tend to associate the festive season with merriment and indulgence that isn’t in favour of our health and well being. We use the New Year as an opportunity to recover and we place more emphasis on looking after our health and well being.This is where Saffron Soul comes in perfectly. You absolutely can indulge on delicious and incredibly flavourful feasts that is guilt free and in favour of your health. Want to know how? We're offering one lucky winner a Winter Warmer Hamper from Mira Manek which will include a copy of Saffron Soul, cinnamon granola, coco fudge, chai spice and more.

*All you have to do is enter your email address below - winners will be announced on December 20th. 

Spiced Nut Roast

We hand you over to Mira who shares a selection of her favourite, highly nutritious, Winter Warmer Festive Recipes, spiced nut roast and Saffron overnight oats. Just seeds, nuts, oats and masala!

So I finally tried to come up with a nut roast recipe and it really is just the tastiest thing, only it’s more seeds than nuts, which is great (easier to digest, but still so much crunch) and has a warming earthy blend of mushrooms and masala. I’ve served it at two events and it was ALL eaten! I’ve taken inspiration from various places including a wonderful life-changing bread from mynewroots, hence the psyllium husk which really binds this loaf. Yes Christmas is about indulgence, and this taste plenty indulgent with all the flavour and spice and crunch, but it’s just a tiny bit lighter.

Makes 1 loaf

120g sunflower seeds

80g flax seeds

50g almonds or any nuts, broken

150g oats, can use gluten-free oats

2 tablespoons chia seeds

3-4 tablespoons psyllium seed husks (can also use husk powder)

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon maple syrup or agave

3 tablespoons melted coconut oil

600ml water

mushroom mix

1 teaspoon oil

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

2 teaspoons fennel seeds

3 cloves garlic, grated

½ green chilli, finely chopped, optional

1 stalk of rosemary finely chopped, optional

4-5 medium mushrooms, roughly chopped, small cubes

1/4 courgette, grated, optional

2 teaspoons garam masala

1½ teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons dried cranberries

Garnishings

maple chilli seeds from Saffron Soul cookbook

*handful cranberries*

If you don’t have maple chilli seeds, toss together in a pan 1 tablespoon each of sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, cashews, sesame seeds, a teaspoon of coconut oil and 2 teaspoons of maple syrup or other sweetener for 5-10 minutes with some salt and sprinkle of chilli flakes if you wish.

Method

Combine all the dry ingredients for the loaf in a mixing bowl. Melt the coconut oil (if solid) and stir in the maple syrup (or agave) and water. Stir this into the dry ingredients and mix well until the dough becomes quite thick. Leave this to one side for at least an hour or leave out overnight.Make the mushroom mix before you bake the loaf (or you can make it anytime). Start by heating the cumin seeds and fennel seeds in a little oil in a medium pan, let them turn brown (around a minute) then add the grated garlic, green chilli and rosemary, if using. Now add in the mushrooms, courgette, cranberries, garam masala and salt. Stir together well and mix this mushroom mix into the loaf mixture. The consistency should be thick but stir-able (it should not be solid e.g. if you have let the loaf mixture sit out all night it may have solidified, in which case you should heat and soften in the microwave or stove). Now grease your loaf tin with a little oil or butter (so that the bread doesn’t stick to the pan) and lay the mix into the loaf tin. Smooth out the top with the back of a spoon.

Preheat oven to Gas Mark 4 or 180° C. Place the loaf in the oven for around 30 minutes, then remove from the oven, take the loaf out from the tin straight onto a tray or baking paper. Place the loaf back in the oven, now upside down, and let it cook for another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool before slicing.

Be careful when slicing, trying not to make the loaf crumble. Sprinkle over with maple chilli seeds and cranberries, or roasted nuts and seeds. 

Saffron overnight oats

Overnight oats are just brilliant, especially for winter and especially if you’re lacking time in the morning! They’re super simple and make for the best breakfast, are great on the go and the perfect snack. In my cookbook Saffron Soul, I have a luxurious saffron porridge recipe with jaggery, so here’s the overnight oats version of that with a few extra edits. Just soak overnight and eat the next day – you will love it!

To soak together

7-8 tablespoons 70g oats

150ml nut milk (or any milk of choice) around ¾ cup

100ml apple juice, around ½ cup

2 teaspoons flax seeds

2 teaspoons chia seeds

2 teaspoons pumpkin seeds

1 apple, peeled and grated (or julienned)

pinch of saffron

¼ teaspoon ground cardamom

Optional garnishings

1 tablespoons coconut yoghurt or any yoghurt

handful blueberries

handful goji berries

sprinkle of bee pollen

Soak together all the ingredients for the bowl and stir well. Leave to soak for a few hours or overnight (you can also just soak for an hour but the longer the better!). Divide into two bowls and serve with garnishing’s.