28 Day Reboot - Day 3 and 4 Summary

I've actually had a pretty good couple of days. It seems my body has adjusted and is running quite well on juice.

Day 3:
On Waking: 1L Water
Breakfast Juice: Orange, pineapple, green powder, english spinach
Morning Tea Juice: Beetroot, carrot, apple, lemon, parsley
Lunch Juice: 1/2 large cucumber, 2 stalks celery, 2 tomatoes, lemon, red capsicum
Afternoon Tea Juice: Orange, pineapple, watermelon, english spinach
Dinner Juice: Orange, pineapple, english spinach

Cheats: Too many cigarettes (I actually lost count but I think it was about 12) :(

I was much more active in general, doing work around the house and spent most of the day either on my feet or driving, without feeling light-headed or having a headache.

Cleansing: Lets just say there's movement at the station! Its obvious that a lot of stuff that has been stuck in my digestive tract is being cleaned out. It all very easy and comfortable though! Just have to keep up the water.

Day 4:
Breakfast Juice: Watermelon, lime, raspberries
Morning Tea Juice: Beetroot, carrot, apple, lemon, parsley
Lunch Juice: Spinach, orange, passionfruit
Afternoon Tea Juice: Pine, Mint, Baby Spinach
Dinner Juice: TBA (or I might not have another one tonight, will see how I feel)

Cheats: 6 cigarettes

Once again I had a fairly active day spending most of the time on my feet. I'm feeling pretty good now except for the smoking. Really going to make the extra effort tomorrow to stop!

So far I've learned that I can't do too many juices that are just vegetables in a row - that's when I seem to get dizzy and low energy etc. I guess pure vegetable juice just doesn't have enough calories to keep you going for very long. I've been trying to alternate fruit and vegetable juices, or at least make sure the spinach in my juice makes up at least 1/3 of the juice. I also learned that despite the fact that I don't feel thirsty, as all I'm doing is drinking all day, I DO still need to drink a decent amount of water - 2L approximately. This helps with keeping me feeling full and I haven't had a headache or dizzy spell since I started concentrating on drinking more water.

If any of you are also trying this out, I'd love to hear how you're doing so far! :D

See you tomorrow,
Love and Health,
B xxx

28 Day Reboot - Day 2 Summary

Today was really tough! I had a massive headache all day and felt very low energy. I'm feeling a lot better tonight, so maybe the worst is over! I've discovered that I can't do JUST vegetable juice very easily - working on that!

On waking 1L water.
Breakfast Juice: Pink grapefruit, English spinach, 2 x pink lady apples
Morning Tea Juice: Orange, Watermelon, english spinach, 2 x passionfruit
Lunch Juice: 1/2 large cucumber, 1 stalk celery with leaves, 1 wedge lemon, large bunch parsely, 1 green apple.
Afternoon Tea & Dinner Juice (both were the same): orange and pineapple.

Cheats: 5 cigarettes :( (but better than yesterday, so we're making progress), 2 small pieces of bruschetta type bread with approx 2 tablespoons raw vegan pesto. (In the mid afternoon I was feeling so faint, and had such a massive headache, I felt like I was going to pass out)

Exercise: No walking but I did do all the washing, folding, ironing and cleaned the house so can I count that? Housework-workout? LOL

Wish me luck for day 3!

Love and Health,
B xxx

28 Day Reboot - Day 1 Summary

Here's a quick summary of the first day of my juice cleanse week:

Before Breakfast: 1L water with juice of 1/2 a lemon
Breakfast Juice: Bunch of Kale, 2 oranges, 1 passionfruit, 1 tsp green powder
Morning Tea Juice: Watermeon, 1 orange, raspberries
Lunch Juice: Celery, Baby Spinach, 1 small slice red onion, basil, parsley, 3 tomatoes, juice of 1 lemon
Afternoon Tea Juice: Celery, beetroot, carrot, ginger
Dinner Juice: Baby spinach, 2 stalks of celery, 1/2 a large cucumber, 2 apples.

Cheats: I broke down around lunch time and had a glass of coke that I had left in the fridge :(
I also had 7 cigarettes. I didn't have my first one until almost 2pm though, so that's a good start.

Today I didn't fit in any exercise.

I've felt pretty light-headed most of the day, with a very slight headache. And I was pretty low on energy. I'm pretty sure these are pretty standard detox symptoms, so I'm determined to persevere and reap the benefits of the cleanse!

Tomorrow my goals are to continue with the juices, and to fit in a 30 minute walk, and to have less cigarettes than today (preferably NONE!).

Have any of you started this? If so please let me know how your first day went!

Love and Health,
B xxx

28 Day Reboot - Day 1-7

Have any of you been slipping back into some bad habits lately? The reason I ask is because I had a conversation with my friend Vicki the other day, and we were talking about how we KNOW what's good for us, we KNOW we'll feel better if we do (insert whatever good habit here), and yet we let ourselves slip out of those good habits and back into bad ones! Does anyone know why we do this? Cause I sure don't!

Having said that, since I went away in April for my sisters wedding in Adelaide, I've been sliding further and further into really bad habits. It started innocently enough - because I was on holidays I ate a few things I know aren't great for me here and there, and drank some alcohol, even had some smokes! :( And before you know it, I was feeling low about having put on a bit of weight and developing some bad habits, so that made me eat MORE bad stuff and not want to exercise etc. So NOW I find myself in this place where I'm eating ALL the wrong things, even drinking soft drinks and smoking again! I have no energy and EVERYTHING is a big chore, I'm not enjoying my life at all! :( I've been wanting to do a cleanse/reboot for a while now, and after my chat with Vicki I was inspired by her idea of doing a 28 day program to get back into some good habits.

So I'm going to run a "28 Day Reboot" for myself, and if there are any of you who have maybe also slipped back into some habits you know aren't great for you, please join me for the ride! :D It's starting tomorrow - Monday the 25th of June! I will put up the outline plan for each week on the Sunday night (I'll run the weeks Monday to Sunday) so you can get prepared, and each day I'm going to log what I eat and do and put it up on the blog - to hold myself accountable. I'll also check in on Facebook each day with how my day went etc, and hopefully some of you will share your experiences with me there too!

For Week 1 - Day 1-7 - Food: I'm going to be doing a Juice Cleanse! That is ONLY fresh fruit and vegetable juices for the entire week (WOW, it's going to be a challenge!). I really think this is a great way to pack heaps of easily accessible nutrition into your body whilst cleansing out all the rubbish you don't need. So for this week all you need to have are a bunch of fresh fruits and vegetables, and a juicer, or a powerful blender and something to strain the juice through like a sieve or nut-milk bag. I'm personally planning on having fruit-based juices for breakfast and morning tea, and mostly vegetable juices for the rest of the day. If you have a green powder or spirulina or wheatgrass or chlorella please DO add this into your juices as its AMAZING for detoxing!

For Week 1 - Day 1-7 - Exercise: I'm also going to ease back into some better exercise habits, so my goal for the week is to go for a 30 minute walk at least 4 times in the week. If you haven't been doing any exercise at all, go with this, if you have, perhaps jog or gym for you, but try to fit in at least 4 exercise sessions in the week.

So for right now I'm off to continue vegging out watching telly and generally being a slob! Tomorrow is GO TIME! (I'll also be stopping smoking AGAIN from tonight, so please pray for me and send me your good energy that I have the strength of will to do that!) So see you here or on FB tomorrow night. :D

Love and Health,
B xxxx

Creamy Raw "Risotto" with Dill & Bacon and Spinach Quinoa Pilaf

I've been finding it hard the last couple of weeks to feel motivated to come up with some interesting things to say, recipes and pics for you. I've had this vicious cold which seems to be going around and it really knocked me about - time for me to get high-raw again methinks - and its hard to feel energetic about anything when your head feels like its full of cotton-wool, your nose won't stop running, and your cough could be mistaken for a vicious dog barking!

HOWEVER! I did manage to snap a pic of those Kale Chips I made a while back, so here's the final product: (They were so yummy I'm amazed they lasted me two days - what restraint I showed! hehehe)

They are a PERFECT on-the-go snack for raw foodies - I just threw these in a ziploc bag and there you go, instant delicious and healthy snack to take with you! (The recipe is here btw)

I also made my very first attempt at a mock rice/rissotto type dish, which I've been wanting to try out for a while - I've seen a few recipes around and had a think about how I'd do it in the TMX and it turned out pretty well.

Creamy Raw "Rissotto" with Dill (Raw Vegan, Dairy-Free)

1. First make the "Dilled Sour Cream": Soak 3/4 cup of sunflower seeds in water at room temperature for 2-4 hours. Rinse then drain. Add seeds to TMX along with small handful of fresh dill, (or 1-2TBSP dried dill), 1-2 tsp sea salt, 1/2 TBSP Apple Cider Vinegar, 10g Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and 100g water. Blend all ingredients for 1 minute on Speed 9. Scrape down the sides of bowl and blend for a further 1-2 minutes on Speed 9 or until a smooth, creamy texture is reached.

2. Quarter two medium carrots and chop in TMX for 5 seconds on Speed 5.


3. Add 1/2 a head of cauliflower (broken into florets) and 1/8 red onion (optional) and chop for 10 seconds on Speed 4. This should result in a rice-like consistency.

4. Add the Dilled Sour Cream (should be approx 220-250g) and blend for 15 seconds on reverse and Speed 3, scrape down sides of bowl and blend another 10secs if needed. Serves 1-2 ppl.

The use of the sunflower seeds to make the sour cream, and the carrot makes this a really affordable dish, and it tasted pretty great too! :D

I've also been whipping up some fabulous Green Smoothie's (as per usual, for me the day isn't off to a good start until I've had my green smoothie!). Recently I've been enjoying a lot of watermelon in mine, and I've also added two organic raw powders that I alternate between - one is a green powder of Spirulina, Chlorella, Wheat Grass and Barley Grass, the other is a power berry one (pomegranate, acai berries, goji berries etc). I just add a tsp of one of these to my smoothies for the extra nutrients, and the green powder especially seems to make a big difference to my energy! Here's Jon after enjoying some of my Kale/Pineapple/Fresh Mint/Green Powder smoothie which was breakfast yesterday: (Aren't they just the bluest eyes you've ever seen??? Perhaps I'm biased......so sue me! :P)

Another experiment I had which turned out to be delicious was also Risotto-related - I wanted to make a savoury dinner risotto type dish which was gluten free. I'm a HUGE fan of risotto in general - its always so delicious and super easy in the TMX, but regular risotto can often leave me feeling bloated and heavy in the tummy, whereas a gluten free version doesn't give you that heavy feeling. So I made a pilaf using Quinoa instead of rice, which came out just great:


Bacon & Spinach Quinoa Pilaf:


1. Cut 50g parmesan or pecorino cheese into small cubes and grate in TMX for 10 seconds on Speed 9. Remove from bowl and set aside.

2. Rinse TMX bowl, then weigh 200g of Quinoa into the rice basket, sit into TMX and pour 1200g of water over. Cook for 17 minutes  on 100°C on Speed 3. Remove rice basket using spatula and set aside the cooked quinoa in your Thermoserver or other bowl.

3. In TMX bowl dice 2 shallots, 2 cloves of garlic, and a handful of parsley for 3 seconds on Speed 7. Add 150g chopped silverbeet (including stalks) or spinach, 150g bacon pieces, and 30g Extra Virgin Olive Oil. Saute at 100°C for 5 minutes on Reverse & Speed 1 with MC Off (to allow it to sweat).

4. Return Quinoa to TMX bowl, add 1tsp-1dssp TM Vegetable Stock Concentrate (depending on how salty you want it) and 150g boiling water and cook for 4 minutes at 100°C on Reverse & Speed 1½.

5. Pour pilaf into Thermoserver and stir through most of the Parmesan/pecorino cheese leaving some aside. Serve out and garnish each bowl with a little parmesan and chopped parsley like so:

* For a vegetarian or vegan option, I would substitute some mushrooms instead of the bacon, and perhaps use Nutritional Yeast Flakes (2-3tbsp) instead of the cheese. You would also need to increase the stock to compensate for the saltiness of the bacon.

This recipe makes enough for 3 main serves or 6 side-serves.

I hope you enjoy the recipes, and as usual, if you have any feedback or questions, please don't hesitate to leave a comment here or on my Facebook Page.

Love and Health, B xxx

Cheesy Herbed Kale Chips (Dairy-free)

So lately the new love of my life is Kale! This amazing superfood which is a form of cabbage, and is a pretty dark green and curly, is packed with all the goodies: High in beta-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin B6, an excellent source of iron, protein, magnesium and phosphorus, rich in calcium, and also a great source of sulforaphane, which is a chemical known for its cancer-fighting properties. Add all this to the fact that it has a delicious flavour all it's own and you can see why I'm currently super excited about using it!

Last week I planted a bunch of stuff in my garden. I'm so excited because I've been wanting to get in there and get the weeding done and get some food planted so I can eat more chemical-free fresh foods, not to mention the convenience of just going out the back door to get my groceries! :D Thanks to some great help from Jo Whitton's children with the weeding, I have planted tomatoes, beetroot, basil, parsley, dill and of course 2 kale plants. There will be more going in once I get the rest of the garden beds prepped! In the meantime I have found a local store which can order in organic kale for me - so for any of you who are up here on the Atherton Tablelands, you can get it from The Humpy at Tolga - you need to call and order it in, but they can get it within a few days.

I love kale in my green smoothies, its especially delicious when teamed up with pineapple, watermelon and pomegranate into a sweet yet tangy smoothie, this morning I also added a big leaf of it to my Cashew-milk hot chocolate. It was super filling and yummo and I'm still feeling energised almost two hours later!

One other thing that a lot of people make with kale is raw/dehydrated kale chips. I've found quite a few different recipes online. There are some at Uncooking101.com which are great, and also another one I've tried is from SuperKitchenMachine's Blog found here. However what I have discovered is that although the recipes are delicious, I sometimes find the sauce/marinade can overpower the taste of the kale a little - which I love in and of itself. SO my mission was to make a recipe for kale chips which enhanced but didn't completely mask the flavour of the kale. You can use this recipe to make the chips as shown, OR you can simply massage the sauce into the kale, and add some chopped tomatoes, avos and other salad vegetables and some seeds and have a delicious salad.

RECIPE: Cheesy Herbed Kale Chips (Dairy-free)
1. Pre-heat oven to 50C.
2. Take one bunch of kale and rip into 2-3 inch sized pieces and place into a large bowl like so:

(I know I may be a little strange, but isn't it pretty? ;))

3. Pop into TMX (or blender or food processor) 1 clove garlic, 1/4 to 1/2 red onion, sml handful parsley & a few basil leaves (I used about 8 large leaves) mince for 5 seconds on speed 7.

4. Scrape herbs down into the bottom of the bowl and add 2 TBSP Nutritional Yeast Flakes (also called Savoury Yeast flakes, NOT brewers yeast), 1 cup of soaked and drained cashews (140g), 1 large or two small tomatoes, quartered, juice of 1 lime or half a lemon, 1 tsp pink himalayan or other quality salt, a little cracked black pepper, 20g of Cold Pressed Extra Virgin Olive Oil, and 100g water. Blend all ingredients in tmx for 1 minute on speed 9.

5. Pour the sauce over your bowl of kale - and now the fun starts! Roll up your sleeves and massage the sauce into the kale quite firmly (as Eva from uncooking101 says - a Deep Tissue Massage, not a light massage ;)) for 1-2 minutes, so that the sauce is thoroughly coating the kale and the kale goes a little limp:

6. Line two baking trays (cookie sheets) with good quality baking paper and spread the prepared kale evenly over them. Pop in the oven and bake for 4 hours at 50C, turning once halfway through. *A Quick Note (added 11 June 2012) - if making these in the oven, if you have a fan-forced oven it will be fine, if you have a standard electric you need to prop open the door of your oven by half to 1cm to let the moisture escape, otherwise you'll just have nice warm limp kale LOL! Even better, if you're lucky enough to have a dehydrator, put it on dehydrator sheets and dehydrate for 4 hours.

I don't have a picture yet of the finished product as I'm still (im)patiently waiting for mine to be ready! But I'll add a pic once they're done.

These make a great snack, and are pretty filling due to the high protein and fibre content, so they're great to pop into a ziploc bag or container and take on the go with you, IF you can restrain yourself and not eat them all as soon as they're done! :D You can also break them up a little and sprinkle over a salad for a little extra crunch and pizzaz.

Love and Health, B xxx

Recipes: Raw Beetroot Soup, Seeded Pizza Bread

So last Sunday was Mother's Day - I hope all you Mum's out there had a lovely day and were spoiled rotten! My daughter brought me a lovely green smoothie of baby spinach and oranges for my breakfast in bed, it was so sweet.

Then we went for a picnic lunch by the lake with my Mother, Saana, Jon and myself. It was just lovely, cool with a nice breeze but not too cold. I made a delicious and healthy picnic lunch of three deeps, some crudites and some seeded pizza bread, which I thought I'd share with you. It's based on the regular pizza dough from the Thermomix Everyday Cookbook with some adjustments. It's a lovely thickness - just a midbase, quite crunchy on the outside with a soft seeded centre, perfect for dips!

Seeded Pizza Bread:

Ingredients:

280g water

2 tsp dried yeast

20g oil

1-2 tsp salt

500g bakers flour

1 TBSP chia seeds soaked in 3 TBSP warm water

1 TBSP linseeds

1 TBSP sesame seeds

Method:

Place water, yeast, oil, salt and chia seeds in TMX bowl and blend for 6 seconds on speed 6.

Add all flour and other seeds and blend for another 6 seconds on speed 6.

Place dial onto the locked lid position, and set the timer for 2 minutes, then press Interval and stay with the machine while it kneads the dough.

Check the consistency of the dough before turning it out, if its a little sticky, just add a little more flour (approx 50g) and knead for a further 30sec to 1 minute.

Turn dough out and shape into four similar sized balls, allow to rise for 20 minutes, then roll out into pizza bases.

Top pizzas with your favourite toppings, and bake for 10-15 minutes. Or to use for dipping bread, roll out into the desired thickness, then spike the dough halfway through with a fork all the way around, and bake approx 10 minutes at 180-200C.

Everyone loved the pizza bread with dips for our Mother's Day Lunch (well except Jon, because he's still drinking milk, lol!). To top off my day my Mum and Saana gave me a beautiful bunch of flowers, which I arranged in a bowl of water for our table when I got home. They turned out so nicely I just had to snap a pic, of course. ;)

At the moment I'm participating in Uncooking101's 21 Day Raw Food Jumpstart (you can find info at her website: uncooking101.com) and I'm finding it just fabulous! As part of our program for this week we needed to try some cold soups, after trying a few from the recipes I decided to have a go at my own based on one of my fave ingredients: the humble beetroot! The result turned out looking and tasting so vibrant!

Raw Beetroot Soup:

Ingredients:

1 tsp cumin seeds or ground cumin

1 small clove of garlic, with core removed

120g cashews, soaked for 2-8 hours, NOT drained

1 medium beetroot (250g approx)

20g lemon or lime juice (I used kaffir lime juice)

130g water (or more to your preference)

1 tsp sea salt

2 TBSP fresh parsley

small sprinkle of diced shallots and parsley to garnish

Method:

Grind cumin in TMX for 1 minute on speed 9.

Add garlic and mince for 3 seconds on speed 7.

Add all other ingredients (except garnish) and blend for 1 minute on speed 9.

Check consistency - I made mine quite thick so I could use it for a dip with vege sticks as well as a soup, if you prefer it to be more of a soupy consistency, add at least 50-100g more water.

Serve up in your favourite bowl, garnish with the greenery and enjoy! :D

Soon I will be sharing a Mediterranean Vegetable Quinoa recipe, but its still in development (read: I had a great inspiration last night but it turned out sooooo salty it was inedible, so back to the drawing board!) and once I get clear of my To Do List (which is about as long as my daughter is tall!) I will be putting out my Chookie's Cookin' Great Green Smoothies recipe ebook. So stay tuned, and please leave me some comments and feedback on what you'd like to see on the blog!

Til next time, Love and Health, B xxxx

Getting back on the wagon......

Helloooooo lovely people!

So it seems like its been FOREVER since I did a blog post! But I'm determined to get back into the swing of things now - not just with the blog, but with my raw food journey, weight loss, Thermomix, parenting, just everything, lol. I went on holiday for two weeks and then needed the next two weeks to recover from my holiday, so all sorts of things have been left to slide, but no more!

So the past few days I've been working on getting back into mostly raw food, as while on holidays I splurged and ate/drank all kinds of things that I know are not so great for me - don't we all do that? One green smoothie I did make while I was away I will share with you because it was sooooo sensational I can't wait to get my hands on some more kale and some pomegranate to make it again! Seriously it was THE best one I have ever made, bar none! :D

Recipe: Sweet and Tangy Green Smoothie
Ingredients:
2 cups kale
200-300g watermelon
100-200g pineapple
seeds and flesh from 1 pomegranate
large handful ice

Method:
Place all ingredients in Thermomix or blender and blend on speed 9 for 1-2 minutes or until nice and smooth and juicy! Enjoy the sweet and tangy deliciousness. Sorry I don't have a picture for you, I drank it all before I thought of taking a pic!

Another quick recipe I'd like to share with you (and one I DID snap a picture of) was this fabulous salad I made the other day:

Recipe: Monster Salad with Minted Lime Dressing
Salad:
Ingredients:
6-8 large leaves of iceberg lettuce
1 large tomato
1/2 medium cucumber
1/2 large red capsicum
1/4 red onion
1 medium avocado

1 Serve of your favourite veggie pate (I used Uncooking101's Sunny Carrot Pate)

Method:
Chop lettuce and veggies and arrange prettily, making a fan of the avocado slices and sprinkling the red onion on top (I layered lettuce, then tomato, then cuc, then capsicum, then avo, then onion). Place a nice ice-cream scoop of pate on the top and drizzle with Dressing.

Minted Lime Dressing:
Ingredients:
70g fresh lime flesh (approx 3 limes or kaffir limes, peeled and deseeded)
sml handful fresh parsley
sml handful fresh mint
60g Apple Cider Vinegar
60-80g Grapeseed Oil

Method:
Place all ingredients in Thermomix or blender and blend on speed 9 for one minute. Drizzle over your monster salad and pate and enjoy! This dressing is VERY tangy, so if you don't like that zesty lime flavour reduce lime flesh to 40g or just use the juice from the limes instead of the whole thing.

That's about it for NOW! But there will definately be more to come in the following days and weeks, and I will be working on that Great Green Smoothies ebook to have available for you as soon as I can!

Please have a look on my facebook page I have an exercise in self-love going on there at the moment which I hope will be really special!

Love and Health, B xxx