We’ve just arrived home after a special weekend in Bahrain, attending a black tie event.

About to snuggle under the blankets, watch Casino Royale and wring the last of the weekend out before the working week begins!

See you tomorrow with a new recipe.

Whilst the one thing that remains the same is the inconsistency of items we are able to find here, I’d  love to share my latest shopping destinations which of course are subject to change due to availability. I last wrote about them here and here.

Saudi Arabia:

So I don my abaya and this is where I hit up:

Lulu in Khobar: is usually my one stop shop to get almost every kind of fruit or vegetable you could imagine. They have a huge range of local and imported produce and every now and then I will find my beloved rocket/arugula or bagged baby spinach and young thai coconuts. The only thing I cannot find there usually, is fresh basil. Here you will find:

• GREAT range of fresh produce included green leafy vegetables (rocket/arugula, spinach and herbs)
• Small organic fresh produce section
• Small international section (UK/USA) where they stock some organic nuts and seeds
• Asian ingredients (sushi rice, sushi rice vinegar, rice paper rolls for the Vietnamese rolls I made here
• Vegan meats, jerky’s and cheeses (sometimes)
• Organic frozen vegetables and fruits

Tamimi Corniche Khobar:have a smaller range of produce but sometimes a larger range of greens. Also have a great organic packaged pantry food section, where I tend to find organic herbs and spices as well as more unusual grains and seeds like buckwheat, quinoa and aduki beans

Organic Plus: – a recent new addition to my grocery musts. I ventured out there last week to find a wonderful range of organic packaged foods like hemp seeds, flax, gluten free pastas, agave and nut butters as well as  a limited range of organic fresh produce, usually from Lebanon. I tend to steer clear of organic produce in this part of the world as anytime I have bought it, it has spoilt before I’d had a chance to use it, but if I buy a small amount for immediate use it is just fine. Apparently they stock organic local dates also. For non organic produce items I just make sure I do my best with veggie washes.

Himalayan Sea Salt

This weekend – Friday – I will be taking part in a farmers market on the compound, the first one of it’s kind, which is designed to bring local organic farmers to the people (some of which we didn’t even know existed) and hopefully if it’s successful, it will occur every month. If you’d like more information regarding the markets click here [Farmers Market Flyer]

Jameel Store (whom I assume supply  to mainly hotels, restaurants and large companies) is where I pick up some  commercial kitchen supplies as well as some more usual kitchen gadgets (they had julienne peelers for making vegetable pasta like I filmed about here).

GNC: Probiotics and other vitamins and supplements

Bahrain

Bahrain Geant: Usually I find, coconut oil, almond butter, seaweeds, grains like aduki beans, quinoa and millet etc and raw bars here, but also I tend to find these superfoods too. These products can also  be found in Carrefour at City Centre.

I also found some lovely looking young thai coconuts – you know how much I love them!?! (sometimes they are also available in Lulu in Khobar, Saudi

Carrefour at City Centre: Usually the same as what is available at Geant, so if if am heading to City Centre mall I usually stock up there instead of making the special trip to Geant. I find that once one store has a certain item, you can be guaranteed the other will. I guess that is how shipping to the island country works.

Al Osra: this is where I find some terrific organic fruits and vegetables and I usually stock up on bags of fresh greens like baby spinach and mixed leaf salad as well as organic baby carrots, apples and other produce staples. They also have earth balance margarine (tastes just like butter but is organic and vegan), ezekiel bread (apparently ordered in especially for one of the princesses) and rolls in the freezer and vegetarian frozen meals like Linda McCartney pies and sausage rolls (nice for a treat!) They are renown for stocking western recognised brands.

Nature Valley: a health food store and cafe stocking supplements, superfoods and oils, plus a range or frozen organic foods.

It is encouraging to see that things are slowly beginning to change here (I’ve even heard the compound commissary is started to stock more organic and vegan items), and as they say in Food Inc we can vote with our dollar (or Riyal or Dinar) everytime we shop. So let’s start being more demanding and our suppliers with provide!

Just keep in mind, as I mentioned above, all of these places are subject to change .

For unusual to find ingredients like spirulina and chlorella I tend to order these online at Amazon or wait till I have a trip to the West and buy up large and bring them back home. Vanilla extract is also something you cannot find anywhere here (possibly the alcohol content). I usually buy that up elsewhere too

In a tiny cathedral

During the Holy Month of Ramadan

My best friend

Partner in crime

Salsa partner

And father to my beautiful baby boy

A year ago said I Do.

Here’s to plenty more adventures in our long future ahead honey.

Oh and HAPPY FATHER’S DAY (Australian Father’s Day today!)

Yesterday we took at trip across the water to the island Country of Bahrain for some shopping sans abaya and to stock up on some new wardrobe items (I’m still not back to pre baby weight, but was deserving of some new duds).

Here’s the view we have on the drive to Bahrain (and no I am not driving – women are not permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia remember?)

We even had a beautiful lunch in a non raw nor vegan restaurant where I ordered the Asian Salad

2 of them infact! See you can order raw/healthy foods in normal restaurants and still enjoy the food! This had bean shoots, chinese cabbage, mixed leaves, shittake mushrooms and a sesame/soy dressing garnished with nori. Totally recreating this in my future.

I know I’ve promised you a juicing review post, but I know, my video needs a bit of work before going public bear with me and my technical skills!

I’ve still been around on facebook and twitter though so if you are not already liking me WHY NOT???, as I’m quite often posting food/recipes and ideas on there throughout the day

Funny that my Soul Sister Kristen kinda posted a similar post this week saying she’s been scaling back her work a little too (that is why she is my Soul Sister – we are always so in sync) and we HAVE been playing Words With Friends whilst we are oceans away from each other – it’s a great way to have fun whilst the days get a little longer with nursing. I’m not really that good though.

Another thing Kristen’s been doing is a really informative series every second Friday on raw food  weight loss. You can read about it all here. As part of her series, she mentions food journalling as a way to see how different foods make you feel, so as of tomorrow I am starting a food journal (which is what this blog was supposed to be in the beginning). I’m interested to be accountable and to see what foods make me feel great and what don’t! Plus get closer to fitting into those jeans

How that will work with the blog is I am going to post my food journals here on the blog  and share any new recipes that I use along the way, hopefully giving you inspiration on how to incorporate RAW into your world.

Also I am too, going to start a new blog series, every Monday: How To Go Raw – The Easy Way. It’s a question I get asked most (other than am I 100% Raw) by clients and friends and I love sharing with others how to get the ball rolling with a healthier way of life. It really isn’t as hard as you think! I promise!!! I’ll be including proven ways on how to still be social, how to eat raw with minimal equipment, and how to do it when your partner doesn’t even eat the same way! And I’d love you guys to get involved to and share your experiences in the comments too.

I even went to a friends house for dinner tonight and saw THIS!

So excited to see it somehow hitting the mainstream

Just not happy with the use of raw fish in one of the recipes – BIG THUMBS DOWN.

Anyway it’s time for me to hit the sack but not before I share a really yummy easy dessert with y’all.

Easy Raw Mango Softserve w Fresh Strawberries and Chocolate Cream

Frozen Mango

Sliced fresh strawberries

2 avocados

2/3 cup of agave nectar

1/2 cup of cacao powder

squeeze of lemon juice

pinch of Himalayan or Celtic Sea Salt

Blend 1 frozen mango in food processor, blender or champion juicer with the blank plate  to homogenise (awesome for making ice cream from frozen fruit!).

Blend remainder of ingredients together in high speed blender or food processor until smooth.

Place frozen mango soft serve in the bottom of dessert dish and layer with fresh strawberries then top with chocolate cream.

DIVE IN!

Last Chance to VOTE for me to be HOT RAW CHEF  please!!! Voting ends today! Please help my dream come true and I have one more ebook left to giveaway when it is complete in September – email me at events@girlonraw.com once you have voted. Don’t forget, my video is #19 VOTE HERE

Don’t forget to LIKE this post if you are on facebook too. Spread the love!

What exciting plans do you have ahead of you for this weekend?

Did anyone catch the lunar eclipse where they were?

We camped outside our house and waited, but it was a little difficult to see through the dusty haze, but we got some good pics…

Then yesterday, we took a day trip across the causeway to Bahrain, to hang out and have some pampering.

I had my hair done – such a luxury now that I have a little one, but he was able to spend some time with daddy whilst I was tended too (although I missed my little boy like crazy and it was only for an hour an a half!)

Then we had a lovely lunch at one of my favourite cafes in City Centre Mall, French Cafe, Paul. I downed a lovely unpictured salad whilst hubs had the traditonal french onion soup served in a bread bowl.

A bit of window shopping ensued as I’m not ready to flex the plastic just yet, until I’ve shed some kgs and then we did what we thought would be the impossible.

Took a baby to the movies.

This was something we used to enjoy on our frequent trips to Bahrain pre baby (as there are no movie theatres here in Saudi Arabia) but on a whim we thought we’d give it a shot. And it worked.

We timed it so that Baby M was sleeping, and we went and saw Limitless. Although he woke up during the movie, we chose a time when it wasn’t so full, had seats close to the door and room for the pusher/pram close to us. I had to stand for some time to rock him a little but he really didn’t mind and we got to see a movie we’ve wanted to see for some time without disturbing other movie goers (I think!)

A cocktail at Trader Vics and a bite to eat, and then it was time to come home to crash out!

Today was spent watching Jason Vale Juice Master DVD 7lbs in 7days to get the recipes for the ‘kinda juice fast’ I start tomorrow. As I mentioned before, as I am still breastfeeding, I am not going to follow the program to a T but will get into the flow of juicing, like I have been this week anyway.

I love the idea that Jason also does the program 4 x a year – each season, and that he still managed to run a half marathon in the middle of the juice fast with endless energy supply!

Today I made the Super Chute Juice

So do you like the straw I am using?

Well STRAWESOME have agreed to give one lucky reader the chance to win one of their glass straws and it’s easy to enter!

All you have to do comment below here and tell us what would be your first beverage that you would drink with your new straw should you win.

The giveaway is open worldwide, and entries close at midnight GMT Sunday 19th June, winner to be announced on the blog here the following day.

I’ll be back to tomorrow with a discussion on juicers!

Good luck!

Geez, it’s really hard to remember it’s Easter when it is a Christian holiday and I live in an Islamic Country. So tomorrow night, we are heading out to dinner with friends to another compound (where Pat and I met and he took me out for Valentines Dinner this year).

They always have a set menu for special holiday celebrations and the chef is always compliant when I ask for veggie options

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to make a decent dinner for us, so the other night I was able to whip up a quickie feast suitable for two tastes:

Veggie Marinara Pasta for me, Bolognaise for him.

Being from Australia, I always wonder why tomato sauce in the States is called marinara as in Australia that is what we consider a seafood sauce.

I sauteed some onion and garlic, used a jar of pasta sauce and some fresh tomatoes, red capsicum & mushrooms with some addtional herbs and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Ground mince for him.

And raw zucchini noodles for me.

A half raw dinner

Served atop rice noodles for him. With a side salad x 2 of cucumber and romaine/cos lettuce with my fattouch salad dressing:

Fattouch Dressing

1/2 c lemon juice

1 c extra virgin olive oil

3 cloves garlic

1T Sumac (powdered reddish herb) *available from ethnic supermarkets

1T agave nectar

1t himalayan or sea salt (I used fine grind sea salt)

Use a mortal & pestle to smash the garlic with the salt to form a paste (or you can use a knife on a chopping board).

Place paste and remainder of dressing ingredients in a bowl and whisk.

Any tricks on how you deal with different eaters in your household?

Since I haven’t ventured over to Bahrain (due to their unrest) to stock up on goods, I ordered a few of my old time favourites in a shipment.

Hello Artisana Raw Almond Butter.

Yummers on red apple.

If you don’t have access to Artisana products in your part of the world, then try and make some almond butter as per Neeta’s recipe here. I’ve not had much luck making my own RAW nut butter but I have with roasted almonds before.

On a fun note, I’ve been having fun looking at cute outfits for my boy to wear to my lil sister’s wedding I’m attending in Verona, Italy, in June.

How about these for size?

Have a great Easter weekend, wherever you are!

If you didn’t catch Amber’s review of Tanya’s Seduced Raw Chocolate Ebook, you’ve gotta check it out. I was already going to purchase it before I caught the review but, then it just sealed the deal for me. Just in time for Easter right?

My mum is due to arrive from Australia next week so we might be having to change her flight to arrive direct to Saudi, and NOT Bahrain because at this stage, the causeway (border) has been closed for us to enter Bahrain

Yesterday I started my day off with a hot water & lemon and cayenne pepper (thanks Melody for the cayenne pepper idea)

Then chased it with a detox juice:

Beets, celery, apple, lemon, parsley, carrot, red & green cabbage. Blended with 1 t of Vitamineral Green.

Liquid Life.

I decided to invite a couple of girlfriends over to have a girly catch up and also to clean out my fridge

I’m due a grocery stock up but still have some produce in my fridge that needed eating. What better way than to make a hearty soup.

So out came the Turbo Chef.

I do love that it chops pretty much everything and I don’t have to pull out my larger electrical food processor. And it’s much simpler to clean too.

Then what to do with all the ‘comedy pieces’ of the zuchinni’s following the oodles of zuchinni spaghetti I made for the workshop on Sunday night?

Throw them in the soup too.

Here I put in 3 cups of soaked green lentils, 2 x 400g cans of tomatoes, 1 onion, 3 cloves garlic, 2 carrots, 2 stalks of celery, veggie broth (with extra 800g of water) some curry powder, himalayan sea salt and cracked black pepper. When the soup was cooked, I took a stab mixer to the pot and puree’ed it all.

Then I found some left over cooked ‘real’ and zucchini  pasta in the fridge from a dinner a few nights back. What to do?

Make a pesto and serve up as a pasta salad served 2 ways. So now I needed the food processor!

I spread the pesto out over both the cooked and the raw pasta and served them up with the soup for a bit of a mixed dinner, but a great way to eat up some of the produce before I head out tomorrow to restock some fresh veggies.

Another great idea is to juice up the last of your produce before you head out to restock, and dehydrate your ‘just about to go off’ fruit into dried fruit treaties.

Do you have any other useful tips or tricks for using up your veggies/fruit before heading out to restock?

Come back later for the above RAW pesto recipe – I’m doing a raw version of my all time favourite Marks & Spencer salad I used to look forward to when I worked in an office job in London .

Oh how I loved Marks & Spencer and their fabulous range and ready made meals!

My weekend’s up and I bet you are looking forward to yours.

Have you been listening the Great Health Debate? They are all quite long winded however I’ve been playing them in the background whilst getting the house sorted as this week marks 37 weeks for us (which I don’t understand why, but this makes me full term, even though 40 weeks is the due time????) so I guess any moment now….

I had a wonderful baby shower last week with some lovely friends (how lucky am I that I get to have not 1 but 2 baby showers – one here and one back home) and the girls made sure I had a wonderful time.

As I am an expat living in a community with so many friends from so many different countries, it is really interesting to learn about each other’s traditions. For example it’s not very common to have baby showers in the UK and it’s becoming more common in the USA for both the guys and the gals to be included.

Poor Pat was locked in his room doing study, whilst us girls were outside playing silly baby shower games – but oh what fun!

It’s not what you think! “Guess the melted chocolate bar in the diaper/nappy” game

We are going to a friends baby shower in 2 weeks which will be both sexes and actually live music as well. Very fun!

Also we’ve discussed that in Australia, it’s tradition for the father to go and ‘wet the baby’s head’ when the baby is born, which means that the father and his mates go down to the pub for a drink and maybe share some cigars.

As we live in a dry country, a trip to Bahrain will no doubt ensue shortly after our boy’s birth for the hubs and his mates

What are some traditions where you are from when there is a new arrival?

Over the last couple of days we’ve had visitors pop in and say hi (the benefit of living on a compound – all your friends live so close by) so I made some more of those easy apple pies:

Pat reckons they are the BEST thing he’s ever tasted!! Oh bless – reminds me a little of a scene in Aussie cult fave movie The Castle. The Aussies amongst you will know EXACTLY what I am talking about (Sponge cake??)

Plus I made a almond milk mocha – decaf for me…

Almond milk froths up really nicely on the stove top.

Once the milk was hot, I added instant coffee, cacao powder and sucanat to taste.

And I tried (and kinda failed) to make some more raw almond butter. Neeta I just don’t know how you do it?

Here is the result after 40minutes of annoying my husband with the food processor continuously whurring.

Perhaps you should make this when you are at home alone?

I am determined to conquer this beast! It’s still not how I’d like it. I varied Neeta’s recipe. This is 1 cup of almonds, 2 T olive oil, 1 t vanilla extract, 1 t lemon juice 1/8 t sea salt.

It still tastes great but the texture is not so great for slathering on fresh apple and banana the way I like but I’ve already eaten 2 large spoonfuls

Have you ever made raw nut butter and if so how did it turn out?

Whilst there with some friends of ours, I took the time to show them some of my favourite places to pick up some of the more unusual ingredients.

Carrefour in City Centre Mall for things like Cacao, Goji Berries & Agave.

Bio Natural Nutrition in Bahrain Mall

Geant in Bahrain Mall for pretty much everything else that Carrefour doesn’t have. I was a bit disappointed to find that although they still stock Artisana Nut Butters they didn’t appear to have my all time favourite Coconut Buter

This week is going to be really busy for me with loads happening, which I’ll fill you in on later, but stay tuned, because starting Monday I’ve got a Travel/Health Week lined up! I have some really fun guest posts from some of my favourite travel bloggers.

I’ve talked a little before about living in Saudi and Bahrain, but whenever we get the chance to pop on over to the other country (which is merely a city away) we do to catch a movie, check out the shops without us having to worry about me wearing an abaya, or even enjoy a hard drink if we really like!

Yesterday we headed on over to pick up our marriage certificate from our solicitor and did some shopping and some sightseeing.

It’s really nice to be able to try on clothes in the fitting rooms unlike the Saudi malls where they have strict rules on having NO fitting rooms in ladies clothing stores, only males

Also some great news for us in this part of the world – things are moving ahead albeit slowly.

Carrefour, which is one of the bigger supermarkets are stocking ALMOST every thing I could possibly want, including gojis, cacao powder and maca, just no Artisana raw nut or coconut butters…but I am hopeful.

I was at City Centre Mall and I saw this sign:

Who said hot weather meant you shouldn’t exercise? Walking indoors in comfort with plenty of pretty window displays to keep you occupied. How novel is this? A walkers club in a shopping mall!

And also, recently I was at Seef Mall in Bahrain and saw this!!

Finally! My favourite (and only organic place) from Dubai is coming to Bahrain. How soon I don’t know but this is something. And it’s the closest thing we have to Wholefoods.

Next on my wish list is getting vegan Daiya cheese here somehow…..fingers crossed!

I promise tomorrow I will share that dessert I had for breakfast