My Week in Food: Rhian Stephenson

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Rhian Stephenson: My food diary

I am a die hard foodie, so I always try to use the freshest, organic ingredients so that different flavours and textures really shine through. I love to cook and it's a real stress release for me, so whenever I can I make things from scratch, but you'll also see that I rely quite heavily on my Spirulizer for a quick and healthy meal. In my opinion it's one of the most essential tools you can keep in a healthy kitchen.

On weekends I always make an interesting dressing that I can keep in the fridge throughout the week. Healthy sauces are the key to keeping things interesting.

During the summer I always do one raw day per week. Since the summer season can be really social (with more eating and drinking out), it's a great way to stay focused and clean with my food.

I don't eat red meat or dairy and haven't for years, and I avoid gluten whenever possible. The base of my diet is vegetables, psuedograins, legumes, raw nuts, lean proteins and low sugar fruits. I am obsessed with breakfast as you'll see - I LOVE superfood smoothies, chia porridge, raw nuts and buckwheat porridges. It's a great way to keep things grain free without having to eat eggs everyday (which I also love!). Making my smoothies has become a great morning ritual - a great way to keep things interesting is to slowly build up a supply of great ingredients that add extra punch. I always keep raw cacao, macca, spirulina, wheat grass, lucuma, acai, goji powder, camu camu, chia, purple corn powder. The works. I also use my protein powder on days that I workout.

I try to have a green juice daily as well - at the moment I'm obsessed with Imbibery's Chloro. It's totally green, fruit free and has loads of ginger which is great for circulation. I use this in lieu of coffee when I'm feeling tired.

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MONDAY

Breakfast: Vanilla cashew yogurt with hemp seeds and berries. This is super easy to make and it’s full of fibre, essential fats and protein.

Mid morning: Iced green tea.

Lunch: Stir fry with Asian greens, mushrooms and organic non GMO tofu.

Dinner: I went to the Soho Hotel and had the grilled Nicoise salad.

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TUESDAY

Breakfast: Almond Chia pudding with papaya, strawberries and some cashews.

Mid morning: Iced green tea

Lunch: I had eggs, mushroom and avocado from the Riding House Cafe and a green tea. I also had a 500ml Chloro from Imbibery mid afternoon to keep me going.

Dinner: This was a bit of a feast. Grilled tiger prawns with raddichio from the local farmer’s market with spinach and fennel socca. Socca is a cross between a pancake and a pizza dough that’s made with chickpea flour, so it’s high in fibre, protein, and gluten free. It’s a great dish to make for dinner and then take the next day for leftovers. For this one I sautéed spinach, fennel and onion first before adding the batter to bake. Delicious!

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Wednesday

Breakfast: Today was a busy day so I had a protein shake: protein, berries, handful of spinach, 1 tbsp chia and almond milk.

Mid morning: Iced green tea.

Lunch: Leftover socca, raw carrots and a boiled egg.

Snack: More raw carrots, chloro juice.

Dinner: I went to The Oak in Notting Hill with an old friend and we both had two starters rather than a starter and main. This is a great way to watch what you’re eating when you’re out without having to worry too much. I chose the Paprika grilled octopus with saffron pearl onion and rocket, and the red quinoa salad with asparagus and chicory.

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THURSDAY

Breakfast: I do a Psycle on Thursdays at 9:30 so I don’t like to eat much beforehand. I just threw some of my protein powder in a cashew milk and had half for breakfast before the class and half after. I also had an iced green tea before class.

Lunch: One of my favourite things to make are Buddha Bowls - these usually have a psuedograin as a base and then are layered with lots of lovely vegetables and a tangy sauce. This one had quinoa, black beans, kale, basil, shredded carrot, olives and tomato. Topped with EVOO and lemon, sea salt and pepper!

Snack: Boiled egg and Chloro juice

Dinner: I went to Nama, the raw food restaurant in Notting Hill, and had the courgette spaghetti with sun dried tomato pesto. We also shared a Mexican wrap to start but we were so hungry we ate it before I remembered to take a picture!

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FRIDAY

This was one of my raw days and I rely on the Chloro juices to keep me going. It has so much ginger and is packed with chlorophyll - it literally feels like nutritional rocket fuel!

Breakfast: Green Cream Smoothie: 1/4 avocado, 1 inch cucumber, handful of spinach, 1 frozen banana, greens powder, juice of 1/2 lemon, tbsp hulled hemp seeds and some water to thin it out.

Lunch: Detox Kitchen Courgette & Cabbage salad with Pomegranate. Imbibery CHLORO Juice (500mL).

Dinner: Courgette spaghetti with pine nut pesto (dairy free), walnuts and cherry tomato.

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SATURDAY

Breakfast: Buckwheat porridge with almonds milk,  pecans, flax, blueberry, peach and a few soaked mulberries.

Lunch: Scrambled eggs with tomato, cucumber and nori salad.

Snack: Four celery sticks with a very generous tbsp of walnut-almond butter. I usually buy organic nut butters but every now and then I make my own and it’s well worth the effort; walnut, almond and a bit of himalayan sea salt makes an amazing combo.

Dinner: Sole with sautéed mushrooms and green beans. I made a tahini orange sauce for the green beans with ginger and miso. I always try to make a flavourful sauce - it keeps things interesting and makes it almost impossible to get bored of healthy food!

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SUNDAY

Breakfast: Acai Bowl: acai, blackberries, raspberries, 1/4 avocado, wheat grass, hulled hemp seeds, raw cacao.

Lunch: I had left over courgette from the day before, so I paired a Courgette & Tomato Salad with Moong Dal (Yellow Lentil Dal). Yellow lentils are one of my favourite legumes; they are an amazing source of plant based protein with 22g per cup. They also have 14g of fibre, are high in B vitamins, folate, molybdenum and iron so are great for my blood sugar.

Dinner: This was a bit of a feast! I had a barbecue with some friends and we made chermoula marinated Seabass, grilled prawns, sweet potato wedges, and grilled aubergine, pomegranate and spinach salad. We also grilled some peaches and had them with a scoop of coconut ice cream for dessert - it was divine!