raw vegan desserts: banana soft serve

After a blissful weekend at Bonnie Doon basking in the serenity with my beautiful family I'm feeling quite relaxed and refreshed! The fresh country air, the slow country pace and the friendly country folks are good for the soul. My thoughts are that regular breaks away is one of the keys to living a happy and healthy life. And it's all the better with people. Life always is!

Wearing my Mum's vintage hat to go out paddle boarding!

Enjoying my mid-morning coconut water

Anyway, I'm sharing one of my simple recipes with you today - all you need is 5 minutes, 5 ingredients and a high-powered blender or food processor. Seriously friends, it doesn't get any easier or tastier than this!

banana soft serve

2 bananas, peeled and frozen

1 Tbs raw almond butter (or any nut butter)

Handful of dried shredded coconut

Shake of ground cinnamon

Scattering of goji berries, to garnish

Place the bananas, almond butter, shredded coconut and cinnamon into a high-powered blender or a food processor. Blend until smooth and creamy - use a tamper to push the bananas into the blades of the blender (you may need to stop and stir the mixture once or twice). Pour into a bowl and serve with goji berries or any topping of your choice. Add frozen berries to the mix for a flavour twist. Serves 1.

Quote for the Road… 

I love a sunburnt country,

A land of sweeping plains,

Of ragged mountain ranges,

Of droughts and flooding rains.

I love her far horizons,

I love her jewel-sea,

Her beauty and her terror - 

The wide brown land for me!

- Dorothea MacKellar

Here is my view at Bonnie Doon looking out across Lake Eildon in Victoria, Australia. 

What's your favourite getaway place?

simple spaghetti salad

Today I am keeping it simple. There is something about simplicity that leads to freedom in our lives. There is no pretence, no confusion, no heaviness. I love simplicity. Especially simple food. Nothing's better than delicious and nutritious food that is also simple to prepare so that you can keep enjoying the moments that make up a lifetime.

Here is simple food from my kitchen to yours… 

My parents on Valentine's Day with a broken orchid - gold!

simple spaghetti salad

1 zucchini, peeled into strips

1 tomato, diced

Handful flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped

1/4 tsp sea salt

Squeeze of lemon juice

Sprinkle of hemp seeds

Take the zucchini and peel lengthways into spaghetti strips. Toss with the sea salt and leave to soften while you dice the tomato and chop the parsley. Assemble the salad on a plate or in a bowl, squeeze the juice of half a lemon over the top and sprinkle with hemp seeds (you can grind sea salt and kelp granules over the whole salad for an extra mineral boost). Add a sliced avocado for some good fats. And there you go - a raw spaghetti salad to serve one! 

the payoff of pacing

While Victorians are fighting bush fires today, defending their homes or evacuating with their loved ones, I am reminded of just how precious life is. Life is to be lived and lived to the fullest.

What my life looks like, however, will look different to yours. My hopes, my dreams, my desires for my life are unique, as are yours. My duties, my responsibilities, my commitments are relevant for me, as yours are for you. I have learnt to be content with where my life is, even if it looks different to everyone else's. Unfortunately, there are many voices in this world that tell us how and what we should live, look and love, and if you listen too long it just creates confusion. And you end up suffering from the deadly affliction of comparisonitis!

Since I've been back home from my European adventure my energy levels have been lower than normal and I've had to reassess my priorities in order to keep moving forward. So, I remind myself to slow down. I remember to just breathe. And I let myself be cradled by the rhythm of my self-care routine. One thing in particular I practice is pacing, which stabilises the activity in my life so that I can maximise how I use my time and my energy.

Pacing is a technique used to stabilise activity, which aims to balance your physical and cognitive activity with rest, exercise and socialising. Or anything else that may make up your life. The idea is to bear in mind the intensity and duration of your daily tasks, and buffer the harder tasks with the easier or more moderate ones. By using this technique you can accomplish more and minimise the impact that it may have on depleting your energy levels. It's a way to help those living with chronic illness to live a fuller life and to necessitate healing by allowing the body to rest in amongst the movement of living.

A simple way to implement pacing is to look at your activity and plan out your week using an activity diary. And if you too are on a journey to recovery I want to remind us to be kind to ourselves, to slow down and just breathe. And I encourage you to use pacing to help you move forward, one step a time, one day at time.

Basking in the sun & the serenity at Bonnie Doon

Raw detox salad on a bed of zucchini

Almond choc-chip cookies from The Whole Pantry app

Lazing about on hot days with the fur child!

A true friend sticks closer than a sister… 

Loving recyclables - my dad's "Australia" tee circa 1980!

Quote for the Road…

pour a little sugar on it?

Here I am pouring a little sugar on a chocolate cake my sister made. Ok, a lot of sugar. And no, I did not eat this cake! But I did have fun pouring over it a waterfall of hundreds and thousands. Just like I remember my late beloved Grandpa pouring white sugar over his bowl of cornflakes in the mornings for breakfast. Just like I remember pouring golden syrup over multitudes of pancakes I've eaten in my lifetime. Just like how many of us order our favourite hot drink. One sugar to two?

Does anyone know the song Sugar, Sugar by The Archies? The lyrics in the chorus go like this: Sugar, ah, honey, honey, You are my candy girl, And you got me wanting you. Now let's pretend this song isn't about a person; let's pretend this song is about food. Do you recognise the sweet call of sugar?!

There is much conversation around the topic of sugar in the health and wellness world at the moment. The problem with sugar and the modern-day production of food is that it's in everything. Sarah Wilson, the voice behind I Quit Sugar, is an Integrative Nutrition graduate, and I highly respect and support her message as a fellow Integrative Nutrition student. Her program is well suited for people who need help making healthier food choices and are looking for a way to manage and recover from auto-immune disease.

My particular focus on sugar has been to swap out refined, artificial sugars in my diet and add in whole, natural sugars. I simply eat sugar as found in nature - like fruit. This is an accessible starting point for anyone wanting to consume less sugar. It's all about moving in the right direction. And so now, I've begun to decrease the amount of sugar I include in my diet, and am moving towards a more low-sugar diet. A challenge considering fruit is a staple in my diet! This change has come about because I have an underlying health issue that responds negatively to more sugar and positively to less sugar in my diet. How do I know this? Apart from being a health nerd I am doing something very important day-by-day: I am listening to my body.

Quitting sugar isn't the way for everyone, and such elimination diets are hard to sustain long-term, but this approach helps to support your body's healing mechanism and resets your health so that you can live your life to the fullest, and without continual health concerns. 

My own struggle is with an unfortunately common condition, Candidiasis, which is an overgrowth of the yeast Candida albicans. There are many causes including the use of antibiotics, birth control pills or other hormones, and excessive consumption of processed foods. There are also many symptoms, which include but are not limited to intense cravings for sugar, digestive issues, fungal infections, brain fog, mood swings, food or chemical sensitivities, flu-like symptoms, joint pains, muscle aches, fatigue… and the list goes on. 

There are many differing dietary approaches to treating Candidiasis and herein lies a problem within the study of nutrition - for every theory that is proven true another stands in opposition to it. That is why it is so important to listen to our bodies. What works for me may not work for you! But, there are ways to minimise nasty sugars and maximise natural sugars so that you may see improvements to your health:

• Avoid refined starches and refined sugars, such as white bread, white pasta, sugary drinks, cane sugar, molasses, fruit juice concentrates and high-fructose corn syrup.
• Eat more sweet vegetables.
• Eat more non-sweet fruits, like avocados, coconuts, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini.
• Choose low-sugar whole fruits, like grapefruit, raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, cherries, cranberries, lemons, limes, green apples. 
• Swap syrups for dried fruit. For example, use dates or prunes rather than agave or maple syrup in your raw desserts. Or, if you prefer baking, experiment with coconut sugar or coconut nectar.
• Use gluten-free grain-like seeds in cooked dishes, which are amaranth, buckwheat, millet and quinoa. 

I'll keep you in the loop as to how my low-sugar diet is working out. I am even considering a Sugarless Saturday! I encourage you to experiment with sugar in your diet and if you're ready, maybe you could consider a Sugarless Saturday, or perhaps even a Meatless Monday?! Until next time, my friends, may good health greet you every morning, meet with you every day, and lay you down to sleep every night.

Book for a Look…

The Beauty Detox Foods, Kimberly Snyder, C.N.

The Body Ecology Diet, Donna Gates with Linda Schatz

Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine, Gabriel Cousens, M.D