Tag: food

not porridge, oatmeal

not porridge, oatmeal

We used to call this porridge but now it’s oatmeal which sounds less stodgy and more superfoodbloggy, but don’t let that put you off if, like me, you’ve had a gutful of the superfood thing – it’s incredibly delicious and so easy your dog could make it. I have it every single day and never tire of it.

oats porridge nuts raisins
That’s Gary in the background, a lonely fighting fish.

Chop up a couple of cups of raw oats in your food processor with an optional tablespoon of psyllium husks and a handful of chia seeds. Store in a jar in the pantry.

oats nuts oatmeal jar

Toss into food processor your own preferred quantities of nuts (almonds, brazils, etc), seeds (pepitas, sunflower seeds etc), muscat raisins and coconut. Chop so it’s still chunky. You’ve just prepared about two week’s worth of porridge oatmeal.

 

Recipe

2 cups oats

some psyliium husk (optional)

boiling water to cover

microwave for a minute

add handful of nut/raisin mix, and a big slug of pure maple syrup

top with blueberries – they have just been proven by Harvard researchers to be even better than you thought

 

To serve, put about half a cup of your porridge in a bowl, add enough boiling water to cover and microwave for a minute. Stir in a large handful of the nuts mix, and add maple syrup. You won’t think about food again until lunchtime.

The Angry Almond in Perth (Subiaco and Nedlands) has everything you need.

AngryAlmond.jpeg
Angry Almond, Rockeby Road Subiaco (conveniently two doors down from Jean-Claude Patisserie)

I [sort of don’t] Quit Sugar: Granola

I [sort of don’t] Quit Sugar: Granola

On the advice of a sensible friend who recently quit sugar and has not cried into her vodka soda once about it, I picked up Sarah Wilson’s new cook book in the flesh the other day. I already had her book on kindle but since I decided to catch up on six seasons of Mad Men I don’t even know where the kindle is. There’s nothing like flicking through an actual real life book when cooking.

It’s called I Quit Sugar which I know is going to put some of you off and draw others like a bear to honey. Perhaps, like me, you fit into both categories.

This is a fantastic cookbook although I am not sure about the name. While it will immediately appeal to the anti-sugar purists (I tried and failed this and am now simply anti-purist) it has loads of really gorgeous recipes suited to the committed sweet toother. Some of the really beautiful ‘sweet’ recipes in it that are actually sweet enough on their own, or alternatively lend themselves really well to a few glugs of maple syrup or coconut sugar (my two favourite sweeteners).

Coco-nutty Granola Sarah Wilson

This is my own version (very close to the original) of Sarah’s Coco-Nutty Granola as I have made it twice now – the first time it was quite easy, the second time it was ridiculously easy and “ridiculously easy” is a pre-requisite for getting a recipe up here. I’ve linked the title above to Sarah Wilson’s recipe at her website.

Coco-Nutty Granola Ingredients
These storage jars make finding stuff in the pantry and fridge easy – from IKEA.

Coco-Nutty Granola

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups unsweetened coconut flakes (or shredded)
  • 2 -3 cups nuts (I used almonds, brazil nuts and cashews)
  • handful chia seeds
  • handful goji berries (optional)
  • 1 tbsp spice (cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg)
  • 80g coconut oil
  • big splash of maple syrup (optional)
  • 1/2 – 1 cup raw muesli (fine without this)
  • a few apricots

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 120* C.
  2. Use a food processor/thermomix to chop nuts, apricots – not too fine.
  3. Combine all ingredients and spread on a baking tray covered with baking paper (it doesn’t matter if it’s a little deep).
  4. Bake for 20 mins, toss and turn, keep baking till golden brown.

coconutty granola

Sarah’s recipe calls for a total baking time of 20 mins but mine took closer to 40 so just keep an eye on it.

Brazil nuts are a good inclusion if you want to up your selenium intake as they are a very rich source. If you’re having trouble finding unsweetened coconut flakes, try the link in the recipe or here and check out Supercharged Food, it’s a great site for whole-foodies and a flat shipping fee of $10.50.

Easy Peasy: Persimmon Brekky & Stuffed Spuds

Easy Peasy: Persimmon Brekky & Stuffed Spuds

Food Prep: Hate it (mostly).

When I want to paint a room, the only way to do it is buy a big tin of paint and pour some into a tray, roll a roller into it and start painting. I have not left out a single detail. My husband Rob boringly always says “preparation, preparation, preparation” and says it the three times, irritatingly. So now we only use Barry who does all our painting for us. Being in a very old house with a lot of timber there is regularly some painting to be done.

It’s the same with cooking – because I do not want and could never afford to have Barry do all our cooking and food prep, I will spend a day having a Condiment Day, where I make all the things that are so nice added to food like pesto, tomato sauce, béarnaise, mayonnaise, pasta sauce, umami paste and so on. All so that the rest of the time I don’t need to bother with all that.

In light of all that here are two meals that have pleased us all here and are perfect for the busy working/stay-at-home/unemployed mother:

Baked Spuds Stuffed With Whatever’s Handy

No one needs a recipe for this – it’s just more of a reminder.

Bake however many potatoes you like, takes about an hour and can be done the day before if need be.

Once well-baked cut in half, scoop out the soft potato and sit skins on baking tray.

Bake skins to crisp them up a bit sprayed with oil and salt/pepper for 20 mins 180 C

In a pan saute onion and bacon with maple syrup, salt and pepper, then add fresh vegetables, chopped and herbs.

Mix with the potato, stuff the skins, sprinkle with cheese and bake for 15 minutes.

stuffed potato skins stuffed potato skins before stuffed potato skins cheese

The other one is the result of The Local Grocer. I had a Seasonal Box delivered and with it came two persimmons which I have never before bought or eaten.MSF persimmon

I chopped one up in my food processor (thermomix) along with some shredded coconut, gogi berries and chia seeds (superfoods alert!) and it was amazeballs. Try it with a few macadamia nuts as well.

persimmon brekky persimmon brekky 2 persimmon brekky 3

Blog Love

Blog Love

If you’re serious about wasting time there is no better way than following heaps of blogs and there is a site that lets you do it all in one place: Bloglovin’. You just go to the site, type in the names of the blogs you like and each day a summary will be sent to your inbox in a single email with all your favourite blog updates.

Here are some of the blogs the sensible friends are lovin’ right now:

Man Repeller: This is how she defines the title: “outfitting oneself in a sartorially offensive mode that may result in repelling members of the opposite sex. Such garments include but are not limited to harem pants, boyfriend jeans, overalls (see: human repelling), shoulder pads, full length jumpsuits, jewelry that resembles violent weaponry and clogs.” It’s pretty cool.

Who What Wear: Whoever runs this site is a hard worker; it’s updated constantly with fashion trends and style notes. It includes style tips from stylists, what the celebs are wearing, various blogs within the blog, look of the day and product of the day. Fashion mecca.

The Sartorialist snaps uber-cool people on the street and posts them up. I can never even aspire to the level of cool I see in these pages but it’s lovely photography and gorgeous clothes. Today there are gorgeous New Yorker’s in pyjama style clothes. You’d think it would be comical but it somehow is beautiful instead.

Flourish Magazine is one I have mentioned it before but worth another shout and not just because it’s run by my good buddy Jane Willis. I was searching for someone to make a proper party cake the other day and asked Jane for a recommendation. She threw the question onto her Flourish Facebook page and within minutes there were about 14 replies with great local suggestions – the advantage of having a successful, well-connected local blogger on the books. If you want to source something in Perth, just flick Jane a note.

A Subtle Revelry is the go to spot for party DIY ideas, craft ideas (my house is a craft-lover’s wasteland, but it could be for you) and there are some interesting recipes – for instance today is how to make your own bagged microwave popcorn.

Olivia Palermo is a mainstay of fashion blogging but be warned, that sweet little cardi you think you will source for Autumn is liable to set you back eight hundred dollars. For cheaper fashion links look toward The Londoner or Buy Now Blog Later (although if you’re over 40 you also run the risk of becoming the proverbial mutton dressed as….).

Smitten Kitchen is gorgeous and the name says it all. She has a book which I haven’t got but looks lovely. Very popular food blog, like What Katie Ate. I sometimes judge a food blog by how boring/tricky the muffins look (muffins should be simple, delicious and easy) – check these out for beautiful Greek-yoghurty coconutty easy muffins. Beautiful.

Cheating with Bellini is a fairly new local blog by a pretty young mum I run with, Rosie. She has great taste in food and recipes so it’s worth following for those thermomix types who are interested in a variety of interesting tips, hints and dishes such as David Lebovitz’s Fresh Ginger Cake.

Style and Focus is a local Perth blog discovering and showcasing local style and creativity.  It is a newish blog by two highly accomplished women, Jo Carmichael, stylist and Jody D’Arcy, photographer with seriously lovely photography, a great eye for beauty and fascinating interviews. These bloggers also have their own sites. They find stuff we all wish we had and post it up…. I think I might need a bar cart for my veranda.

Stockholm Street Style – It’s a little bit like The Sartorialist but it’s Scandinavia, home of the best TV series’, best clothes, happiest souls and my pin-up guy (apart from you of course Rob), Alexander Skarsgard….it’s where I will be born when I am next reincarnated.

Hej då.

Parmigiana

Parmigiana

My sister-in-law Claire put me onto this amazingly simple and wonderful recipe a few years ago. It’s one that has never failed to impress the kids and a great one to make for someone you want to drop a meal in to (mainly because it’s not casserole or lasagna).

Pesto or Tomato Parmigiana

Step 1: buy some free range chicken or veal parmigiana (always easy to find Mt Barker chicken parmigiana) and lay it out on a tray covered with baking paper.

chicken parmigiana

Step 2: spread either passata from a jar (pizza tomato paste works very well) or homemade tomato sauce over half the parmigiana’s. Spread homemade pesto over the others.

Step 3 Top with grated cheese or parmesan and bake for 20 mins in a moderate oven.

parmigiana chicken cooked

I wasn’t kidding when I said it would be easy. I severed – I mean served – them with potato fritters and salad and sliced my hand in the process. I haven’t taken a finger off yet but I think even that would be worth working with a good sharp knife.

cooking injury

Happy school holidays to those celebrating the end of endless school lunches and sporting drop off and pickups. I’ll be on the veranda if you need me…

Real [Easy] Baked Beans

Real [Easy] Baked Beans

This one is one of those recipes I am just kicking myself I haven’t been doing for years and years, suggested by a sensible school mum the other day. It is so easy and the difference health-wise between this version and Mr Heinz’s is unspeakable…I didn’t ‘fess up that I had been opening the can for years; I pretended I had been making them as below (no particular recipe) forever.

So here it is. You’re probably all doing this on a regular basis already. It’s just ridiculously simple. Next time I will reduce the amount of bacon and onion only because my littlest child struggled with the sudden difference in texture and demanded to inspect the tin.

baked beans 2 MSF

Baked Beans

Throw in a pan with some olive oil half a big red onion and a few rashers of bacon. Sauté until soft and aromatic. If you have boys the smell of this will draw them into the kitchen for a chat.

Add paprika, basil, salt and pepper, a tablespoon of molasses, about half a big jar of pasta sauce or sugo (I like Five Brothers Tomato) and anything else that you think will go well. I also add a big dollop of homemade tomato sauce/ketchup for extra sweetness.

Cook it down a bit with about half a cup of water. Add a can of cannellini beans, drained.

Pop it on buttered toast for brekky or over a bowl of rice or cous cous for dinner and Bob’s your uncle.

baked beans on toast msf

 

As a grand finale I urge you to have a read of the latest post of my all-time favourite food blog which is written by my whole food pin-up gal, Jude Blereau. Many years ago MSF Ali and I did a four-week whole food cooking course with Jude and there can just be no better grounding in food love than her teaching.

Jude has such a great take on what constitutes a ‘super’ food as well as her famous bone broth recipe which is very similar to that of my other foodie heroine, Sally Fallon who I saw speak several years ago when she headed up the Weston A Price Foundation.

If you’re on the hunt for a new recipe book you can’t do much better than Sally Fallon’s Nourishing Traditions.

nourishing traditions sally fallon

Amazeballs and Rosa Brook

Amazeballs and Rosa Brook

Here is a recipe that you can alter entirely without screwing it up. I call it Amazeballs because thats how you feel when you’re eating them. And they’re balls.

date nut chocolate energy balls

Amazeballs

300g approx of:

nuts/seeds. I used 50g each of walnuts, almonds, pepitas, brazil nuts, pistachios and cashews

30g (1 tablespoon) coconut sugar, optional

10 medjool dates

50g melted raw cacao butter (substitute with coconut oil if it’s handier)

20g (1 huge tablespoon) cacao powder or cocoa

Method:

Blend the bejeeziz out of it all in your thermomix/food processor. Roll into balls and store in fridge. I sometimes add a bit of protein powder or some maca powder (libido booster anyone?). This batch I couldn’t be bothered with any of that. Also there will be teenagers eating them, don’t want to boost anything but brains and good manners thank you. I only used these nuts because they were in the pantry – you can just use almonds if you like and they are just as nice.

I drove through Australia’s most adorable town on Sunday and thought ‘I have to get a photo of this on my blog’, as you do. Rosa Brook is not far from famous wine and surf town, Margaret River. There’s Darnell’s General Store and about half a dozen houses you can barely see. I always stop there just because I can’t not stop there, it’s too cute:

rosa brook darnells general store

Here is the view up the road:

rosa brook view 2

….and here is the view down the road:

rosa brook

This is who I parked next to. His mileage is nearly as efficient as mine:

rosa brook car

Rosa Brook is quite close to a great olive oil grower called 34 Degrees South which is my favourite olive oil at the moment. You empty some wine bottles (easy!) and take them in and fill them under the vat tap of your choice. It’s worth a visit and exactly like walking into the M.A.S.H 4077 tent that contains olive oil rather than Hawkeye and Radar. There are some slightly scary geese to negotiate on the way in.

34 degrees south

 

 

How to Lose All Your Excess Fat. Forever.

How to Lose All Your Excess Fat. Forever.

Fed up to the eyeballs with faddish weight loss programs that work for six months, tops? Ready for some in-your-face-in-a-good-way common sense? Read on, girlfriend.

I won’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t eat or even how much because I think you already know this. If you don’t let me know and I will post an update with suggestions that were provided to me by my sensible friends.

We live in a society that is just plain spoilt and greedy. We expect to always feel content, full, happy. Never to feel empty, lonely, sad. If we experience what used to be seen as ‘the blues’ we’re whacked on lexapro faster than you can say ‘bummer’. Of course there are exceptions to this and the recent progress by popular culture such as the film Silver Linings Playbook in de-stigmatising mental health issues is great. But back to the main event for today – blubber.

Hunger is designed to be out of everyone’s comfort zone. It is supposed to make you sit up and plan for the next feed. It’s your body talking to you. It triggers you to feel dissatisfied, slightly irritable, even sad. That’s the whole point. If we felt serene and calm when we were hungry we’d all starve to death as our bodies wouldn’t prompt us to do anything about it.

It’s just that fixing ‘hunger’ can lead to too much of a good thing: Excess fat.

My sensible friends have en mass chipped in with ideas and advice over my many years of yoyo dieting; the yoyo staying on the upside of fat for longer each time, staying on the skinny side for shorter and shorter periods. Sigh. This, along with guidance from bariatric (fat) doctor, Hendrik Rensburg has armed me with enough knowledge on the issue to feel confident enough to write about it. But of course you never stop learning about these things and there will be a mountain of things I miss because I don’t know it yet.

Eat less. Much less.

It sounds so depressingly simple, doesn’t it? It actually really is. However (big however!), there are just a few hurdles to overcome before a body is prepared to do this. If you know what they are it isn’t hard to jump them. First of all is working out whether you’re a hummingbird or a polar bear. You can pretty much guess what this means:

Polar Bear or Hummingbird?

Rensburg uses these animals as a way of explaining in layman’s terms how people’s metabolisms differ. A hummingbird has to eat at least its own body weight in food each day just to survive. They often eat around 14 times their body weight. No fat hummingbirds.

hummingbird

A polar bear on the other had needs to go for several months without food each year and is highly efficient at storing fat for this reason. People’s metabolisms vary from person to person. I am a polar bear. It sucks but at least I don’t have to think about eating all the time (ironically I do, though). Some of us have metabolisms that require frequent feeding to stay stable, others have clever, efficient metabolisms that extract every last calorie from whatever’s eaten and stores it carefully for the next famine.

polar bear

Denial

If you’re reading this and you’re overweight, this is step number one. Yes you probably have a metabolism that is good at holding onto every last calorie from that piece of sourdough fruit toast. Yes you are one of the “lucky” ones who is so efficient at storing fat that, come the next famine, will triumphantly survive while your perpetually skinny bestie who scoffs pizza every Friday night will be dead within three days. Suck it up, princess.

Deprivation

Do you honestly actually know what this feels like lately? One of my current fave blogger’s, Rose at The Londoner has a great little chart that describes the difference between a craving and proper hunger:

hunger versus craving

The uncomfortable side effects of hunger in the First World will not kill you. You can satisfy your hunger in an instant if you wish. However for those looking to reduce fat, unless you allow your body to partly consume itself, you are not going to lose excess fat. It’s just scientifically not possible. And having your body eat up its own fat is not a pleasant feeling no matter how exciting it is seeing the pounds come off. Just deal with it and have another drink of water. I bought a soda stream to make it a bit more interesting. I’ve come to love soda water, you can too. Learn to be at ease with what Rensburg calls the pain of deprivation.

soda water

Nutrient Density

If you’re going to eat a small enough amount that your body is going to have to feast on itself for a while (i.e. more energy out than energy in) you want to be sure that the calories you are taking in are actually going to feed you at a cellular level. Don’t eat food that contains little nutrient value (you’re a big girl, you work out what those are). Otherwise you’re going to be excruciatingly hungry the whole time and eventually get sick, fail, and get fat. Fatter than you were before. That doesn’t sound like much fun, does it? Take it from a pilgrim; it’s not.

The easiest way to do this is eat “clean” foods. Avoid anything that comes in a package of any sort. If you have to brush or wash earth dirt off it, more power to you. If it’s meat try to see that the animal was a happy one, ie pasture fed before becoming your dinner. This way you can still be primal, paleo, vegetarian, whatever floats your boat, and know that your body is getting properly fed, albeit in small doses for a little while.

Chocolate cake for example can have plenty of calories but because it contains foods that have little nutritional value (flour, sugar), it’s going to fill your tummy for a bit, then leave you wildly hungry and likely to snack unnecessarily. Trust me on this one.

Being Strong

Your biggest enemy is self-pity. We all go there. It’s something most of us avoid checking out to ourselves because well, it’s a bit embarrassing. Who wants to be caught out eating a massive second helping of risotto because they feel sorry for themselves? So to avoid acknowledging that we are over eating due to a “poor me” habit, we blame it on anything else: My marriage is hard, my daughter is strung out, I’m tired, I’m time-poor. The list goes on. You can try to work out why you overeat or you can just stop doing it, the choice is yours. I went for ‘just stop it’ and decided to check it out after the weight was gone. There is a time for navel gazing and there is a time for harden the fuck up. Your choice. Either road will get you there if you eat less regardless.

Exercise a Bit

While you’re dropping excess fat off, it pays to try not to get massively hungry so you want to be doing some exercise but not so much that the hunger is just too much to bear. I love to run but while I was losing the extra kilos I cut down how much I run and did a lot more walking. Happily, I found that even with cutting down my kilometres, I came out the other end after a few months able to run faster than ever before.

Do some fast walking and do some weight-bearing exercise. I just use the equipment at the outdoor exercise park and my own body weight for weight-bearing.

Bathroom Scales – they’re not the enemy

No one can love the bathroom scales; I get that. There are some of us who can monitor a healthy weight without ever getting on the scales. Sadly I am not one of these people. I can quite easily gain eight kilos without even realising it. So for me it’s onto the scales every day or so. If I am up, I eat less, if I am down I relax a bit. I try to keep within a two kilogram yoyo rather than a 15 kilogram yoyo. I can only do this if I keep my eyes firmly on the scales. If I know I have a big feasting period coming up, like a holiday or Christmas, I try to lose the extra kilo first rather than afterwards. It works so much better than trying to get extra holiday fat off as it doesn’t feel punitive this way. Instead, the feasting is a reward, nothing to feel guilty about. Hummingbird types reading this will have no idea what I am talking about but you polar bears do, don’t you?

Get to Grips With Yourself

Honesty time: how skinny do you seriously expect to be? If you’re entering the glory of middle age you might want to re-think that size zero, or eight, or whatever sizes your country does. It’s not a good look to be underweight. Seeing a doctor for guidance on this is a really good idea as you’re going to get totally unbiased advice.

On the other side of the coin, how long do you want to be fat for? It’s your choice. I’ve been fat and I’ve been thin and thin is much much more fun.

The Local Grocer Delivers the Goods

The Local Grocer Delivers the Goods

This week I took a “preview” delivery of gorgeously fresh and mostly* very local fruit and veggies from new Perth business, The Local Grocer. It’s not available for orders until next week – I happened to have thrown an embarrassingly small amount of money at the business to help them start-up via the hot new(ish) concept of crowd funding – so they let me order a week early. They also asked me not to publicise their website until next week but I just couldn’t wait so please don’t tell on me.

Local Grocer seasonal box

It is chockas! The fruit and veg are fresh, cold and crisp and the local ham…lovely. It came at about 5.30pm so I whipped out a few ingredients and threw it together to make a ham and vegetable risotto.

risotto ingredients

It was all locally fabulous with a handful of frozen peas because the kids love them.

risotto local grocer

The box was $70 and will easily feed the five of us for the week. My box is a conventional box; the organic box is $90. I will have to supplement a couple of things – we eat a lot of apples here and we also have a beetroot, celery and carrot juice (Juice-Plus! we call it) each morning so need big quantities of those.

You don’t have to order a seasonal box. You can just pick and choose exactly what you like and in any quantities. I wanted to check out the seasonal box to see what is actually seasonal right now, and also to see if it would suit me as I like the idea of one-click ordering (are you getting how lazy I am yet?).

If you live in Perth and you’re interested in supporting Greg and Mary Winning and The Local Grocer you can jump on board to order as of next week. Just don’t tell anyone or give it away that you had a sneak preview this week, promise? It’s our little secret.

*While the business is newly growing, there are a few items that need to come from interstate. They plan within a couple of years to be 100% local. It’s a work in progress, as with any good idea.

Margaret River Farmers Markets, Part 1

Margaret River Farmers Markets, Part 1

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What better way to end a sweltering December day than with a swim with our Hong Kong-based Sensible Friends, Ian and Keir (and families) at the mouth of the Margaret River in Western Australia’s south west.

The only thing missing was an Esky with icy drinks.

This time of year Margaret river is heaving with tourists, none of whom see themselves as tourists but rather as highly irregular residents, like me of course, I mean, come on I virtually grew up here; every summer for forty years has to count for something doesn’t it?

There is so much to do down here but really no time to do it what with ending a long lazy day of pottering around with a beach swim. How could you fit in anything else?

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I’m making an exception for the farmers market. There is chocolate from Yallingup, syrups from Dunsborough, grass fed meats from The Farm House, local soap, honey, olive oil, local organic beef….not to mention the greens, the fruits and veg! Good grief I even broke my own rule and used an exclamation mark.

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Now it is time for bed with a cheap fan and a cool sheet and tomorrow I’ll let you know whats fabulous from the market.

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