Christine! Thanks sooo much to everyone who participated in my latest and first exclusively Aussie giveaway courtesy of raw-pleasure.com.au who generously donated one of their spiralisers like I featured here. This was a really exciting competiton, so much so that another company, this time UK based have decided to get on board and offer something similar, to my UK based readers, but this time with 3 giveaways, I will post details of these later!

Thank you to everyone for your kind and interesting comments regarding my life here in Saudi. And I loved hearing some of your stories about where YOU live and have lived. I think I need to schedule a follow up post as there is so much more I could have written, but now I know you are all so interested to find out more, then sure, I’ll promise to do a follow up including some video footage of where I live! Oh and I got the prayer times wrong. There are only 5 prayer times however 6 times are listed on any Islamic calendar per day, but this is because the first one just denotes sunrise. I had a few readers clear that up for me! Thanks so much, we are always learning!

Today I did something I haven’t done in quite some time and I broke out my juicer. For a girl who lives for her smoothies, I felt it was time to get some concentrated nutrients into my body, after feeling a bit under the weather.

I scoped out my fridge and before juicing up a storm I did my usual veggie baths (as most of the produce I get here in Saudi is inorganic).

Then I made this and served it on the rocks:

It was then time for the girls to come over for a night of Urban Cowboy as we had a native Texan in the house, and I love that not only her, but another of my friends (Kiwi funnily enough) rocked on over donning cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. Love John Travolta and Debra Winger. We all provided a plate of food and some chin wagging before hitting play on the projector. Was such a fun night, totally love the girl nights.

I didn’t specify to the girls what dishes to bring as I knew we had varied eaters in the house, but was sooo pleased that most of the girls brought Vegan, if not Vegetarian dishes bar one, who brought her native Turkish meal, but it was such fun to have different dishes to sample and not so much work for just one person.

I totally forgot to take some pics of the food beforehand but here are some after shots!

Here’s what I made:

Raw Marinara Spaghetti

SERVES 4 OR 8 hungry sharing girls

4 small zucchinis spiralised

Marinara Sauce

1 red pepper/capsicum

1 cup sundried tomatoes

4 fresh chopped tomatoes

1/8 cup of fresh packed basil

2 cloves of garlic

1 T apple cider vinegar

4 pitted dates

1/2 t himalayan/sea salt

Process in food processor fitted with S blade until well combined but still somewhat chunky. Drain excess liquid with strainer (reserve the liquid to savour as it tastes like a spicy virgin Mary! Keeps the the vampires away too )

Marinated Mushrooms

1 punnet of  sliced button mushrooms

2 T olive oil

2 T nama shoyu/tamari

1/4 t cracked black pepper

1 t of lemon juice

Marinate mushrooms with combined ingredients for 20 minutes, until all mushrooms are completely coated.

Arrange zucchini noodles on a plate or in a bowl and place marinara sauce on top, and garnish with marinated mushrooms. Tonight I just threw all the mushrooms and the excess liquid into a large bowl with the marinara and noodles. Tasty little buggers.

Leftovers!

Dessert made by me:

Do you regularly make time for  your girls (or boys) and if so what do you do? Dinner parties? Movies? Clubbing? Book Club?

I’ll be back later with details of that giveaway!

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