Tag: Margaret River

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

 

 

PAR-TAY!

PAR-TAY!

Gosh there are some fun blogs out there.

I was cruising the ‘Net early this morning instead of making the kids’ lunches for school like it was a Sunday. God knows what they eventually went off with….probably all my money, again. I re-visited one that I haven’t seen for ages but am looking at now with new eyes: Buy Now Blog Later. What I love about her apart from how pretty and interesting she seems to be is her unashamed shallowness. This is her tagline:

“Just so you know this is a blog about shopping.
It doesn’t get any deeper than that.”

I’m throwing around words like “wisdom” and “inspiring” – even “sensible” – but I still want to blog that amazing tube-y mascara….so I’m embracing my inner shallow.

On that note, let me show you a few photos from a great party we went to on the weekend. I feel entitled to blog a party as they are – to be honest – few and far between these days. Perhaps now that everyone’s turning 50 any minute – not me thank God – there might be a few last gasps of frivolity to be had. According to my oldest teen, we may as well just roll over and die from old age right now. She can’t believe I can stay up beyond 9.00pm and lets face it, I rarely can.

The party was in the south west at a friend’s holiday house which was more like walking into a winery for its elegant beauty.  The theme was ‘festival’ so I channelled Kate Moss at Glastonbury and believe that no one could even tell the difference between us. I feel sure I will find this image floating around Google Images next time I google “kate moss”:

serena rob party

Rob channelled a hairy rock guru which was a mean, rockin’ look as he drove us to the bus stop in my mean, rockin’ Toyota Prius:

Rob Prius

Ali and I getting ready in the bathroom of the family holiday house, Le Crap Shack  (yes it is really called that):

serena ali party

The Hoodoo Gurus lit up the stage:

Hoodoo Gurus

And we danced the night away, despite my daughter betting we wouldn’t stay up past 11pm.

Next day called for a lot of food, so we headed to Eagle Bay Brewery for a great feed of burgers and salmon with some of the other rockers. I highly recommend lunch there if you’re anywhere near Yallingup/Dunsborough. We chatted to one of the lovely owners, Astrid, and discovered its owned and operated (“..and there’s mum on the till…”) by a third generation farming family and sits smack bang in the middle of their farm.

salmon eagle bay brewery recovery lunch eagle bay brewery eagle bay brewery burger

Now about that really great mascara….I’ve got a section on the blog called The Dogs Bollocks which is just cool stuff other people have put me on to. It talks a bit more about it there.

 

Margaret River Farmers Markets Part 2

Margaret River Farmers Markets Part 2

You’ve never seen so many hotties in one place as here at the farmers market. It must have been well into the high thirties by 10am and people were wandering around sweating and eating freshly grown peaches and home made icy poles to try to cool down.

The lovely Lara and Jamie McCall were there selling their home grown avocados, wine and honey. They have Burnside Bungalows and an amazing organic farm:
Burnside Organic Farm
The markets are now open in Margaret River every Saturday from 8.30am, you can check out who’s selling what here:
Farmers Market Margaret River

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While in town MSF Keir and Clever Man Ian (from now on I am officially abbreviating, like Abed in Community, so MSF is a reference to those sensible friends) joined me for cake and coffee at Blue Ginger. It’s the sort of shop you want to move into and live in. You half expect to see Angus Stone and John Butler just jammin’ out the front for the fun of it.

It’s my opinion (rare as a hens tooth on this blog…promise) that there’s a global and powerful shift towards produce-shopping more like our grandparents did and less like the big supermarkets encourage us to with their cheap prices and shiny cling filmed food. I barely even washed my beetroot before juicing it this morning. So there.

Thanks to MSF Rosie (she who runs when she isn’t busy having babies) I had a voucher for both the Blue Ginger cafe and the shop, so no second mortgage on the house needed this time (much as I love to shop like this, I can’t afford to all the time). But seriously, you get what you pay for and in this case, and I got coconut oil, Australian apricots, coconut flour, muesli, cacao powder and several of their own mix of spices. My favourites are the Tuscan mix and the Creole mix. Almost all deliciously organic and holier than thou.

I didn’t manage to get a photo of us there because I forgot, but did snap a couple of shots as I was melting out the door back into the heat wave.

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