Healthy summer eating with Littlewoods

Here at Littlewoods, we love nothing more than welcoming the different seasons with fantastic food: whether that’s warming bowls of stew and soup in winter, or superfood salads in summer, we love it all! Plus, knowing what’s great to eat will keep your body healthy and looking fabulous – all the better for that new season wardrobe.

Summery weather means we’re less interested in heavy, warming meals and turn towards fresh, healthy ingredients that we can use in salads, sandwiches and filling evening meals to make the best use of summer’s abundance. Steaming vegetables helps to keep essential vitamins and minerals locked in, as well as keeping them crunchy and delicious! And a great way to help with your five-a-day is with energy-boosting fruit smoothies. We’ve got a fantastic selection of kitchen gadgets to help you with your summery, healthy eating: why not take a look?

Kenwood B245 Concert Mini Smoothie Blender

For steaming vegetables, try the Tefal VC135215 Compact Steamer, a three-tier steamer that means you can cook all parts of your meal at once to perfection: the Aquatimer technology built into the Tefal Compact Steamer means that it stops cooking when there’s no water left. Steamers are also great for cooking light meat dishes, like Chinese-style pork wrapped in cabbage, or chicken strips ready for a Caesar salad.

For meat eaters, summer is the ideal time to try out the lighter, leaner meats like spring lamb and free range chicken with fresh sauces and vegetable dishes. As the weather hasn’t been quite what we expected for July, a grill is the next best thing to a barbeque: the George Foreman 18870 Grill is perfect for quick, simple meat-cooking, and it’s fantastically healthy too, thanks to the angled grill that channels excess fat away. It’s great for chargrilled vegetables too, or certain firm cheeses: we love halloumi with roasted peppers as a vegetarian barbeque alternative.

Philips HR1861 Juicer

Fruit smoothies and juices are a brilliant way to indulge in the fresh, healthy produce of summer, and also add in some things that are good for you but we don’t always like eating. The Kenwood B245 Concert Mini Smoothie Blender is a great addition to any kitchen: compact yet powerful, you can whip up some fruity treats in no time! Plus, it’s great for milkshakes too. The Kenwood HB645 400-watt Hand Blender is a good alternative, and can be used for hot and cold drinks, smoothies, and even sauces like pesto. For the ultimate in healthy eating, juicing your own fruit like oranges and grapefruits is another way to get essential vitamins and minerals. The Philips HR1861 Juicer is our favourite: it’s powerful, easy to use (and clean) and has an extra-large feeding tube so you don’t have to spend hours chopping fruit into tiny pieces.

Have a healthy summer with Littlewoods kitchen gadgets – here are some of our favourite smoothie recipes!

• Classic – strawberry, banana and orange juice
• Very Berrylicious – blueberries, raspberries, strawberries and cranberry juice
• Citrus Zest – apple, banana, grapefruit and orange juice with a dash of lime
• Bananas! – chopped banana, handful of nuts, milk and a sprinkle of chocolate
• Super Health – banana, blueberries, strawberries, handful of oats and milk