I’ve been absent because being a mummy (mommy) and putting on my first workshop in a while has taken up my time for the past few days, just when I think I’m going to have some time to sit down, then mummy duties call, but that’s the way I like it.

Remember I mentioned Jason Vales’ 7lbs in 7days program? Well I’ve been on it for now 5 days (except for a little taste testing on Monday for the raw foods class) and I am feeling amazing.

I have not felt hungry for solids and my energy is through the roof. I’ve been walking with the pram most evenings and even going further than what I thought I would having only consumed liquids. No headaches, no detox symptoms, very surprising.

So far I’ve lost almost 2kgs and I’m just over halfway done.

I am not looking at this as a crash diet, merely a kickstart back into a High Raw lifestyle that hasn’t been as high as I used to be prior to falling pregnant. What a kick up the bum for sure.

Here’s a sample of some of my daily juices:

So the other day I said I was going to talk juicer models as hubs came home with this one in anticipation of my juice program

It’s a centrifugal juicer and we already own one of these

Champion Juicer – single gear masticating juicer

But I want to wait til I’ve finished the program on Saturday to give a proper rundown, but you can read a little about juicing here .

Winner of Strawesome Straw: Winner of the straw was drawn by random.org and the winner is Averie!

Thanks to everyone who participated and stay tuned for another exciting giveaway this FAB FRIDAY! Here’s a hint: if you’re pregnant or have children, you might just love this!

I promise I’ll be back with more foodie ideas when I start eating solids next week. Oh and I am conducting another workshop on Monday – Decadent Desserts – Raw & Vegan. I’m pumped!

Watch this: Matthew Kenney of 105degrees fame (now known as Matthew Kenney Academy & Cafe) gives a thought provoking talk on eating raw here

 

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!

As my girlfriend whom I stay with lives close to Dubai Mall I have been getting to know the place quite well each time I visit Dubai.

Usually my first stop is Planet Nurition on lower ground floor where I pick up a juice from the Jason Vale Juice Master stand.

On my first trip there I had a wheatgrass shot with a Dreamy Detox chaser

Apple, celery, cucumber, ginger, lemon.

On the way back from Italy, I tried another wheatgrass shot with the hubs, who met me in Dubai for a couple of days before we came home.

And I tried the Turbo charge but failed to take a pic.

It had pineapple, apple, celery, cucumber, spinach, lime juiced, then blended with an avocado.

Pat had smoothie envy as he chose the Pure Berry Boost, after just having had a similar mix earlier in the day at another cafe.

I had a carrot and orange mix – YUM.

We then had the hot and cold buffet lunch at Organics Food & Cafe – which is not entirely vegan but here’s my plate

VEGGIE heaven. The pumpkin curry was pretty delish.

I also picked up a DVD copy of Jason Vale’s 7lbs in 7days Super Juice Diet like any ‘post pregnant carrying a few extra kgs more than she should be’ woman would be tempted to. But once my common sense kicked in, I was more interested in grabbing it for juicing research, and so glad I did.

Jason talks on the DVD (which incidentally is an extension of his book and CD of the same name) about how he really didn’t like the name ‘diet’ being attributed to the program as he believes the word diet conjures up feelings of deprivation of which his program is not. I totally agree and avoid using the word when I can. But his publishers believe he’d reach a wider audience and that can’t be a bad thing when trying to educate others on healthier choices right?

Jason counts Jordan aka Katie Price, as one of his celeb clients who’ve had success on the ‘program’ among others, and the DVD is shot in his retreat in Turkey, which also hosts different juice retreats throughout the year.

As for me, still being a breastfeeding mama, it’s not the right time for me to complete the program to a T, but we’ve already started making some of the juices and will follow along as much as we can over the coming weeks. Plus it’s given me my juicing bug back again, although it always seems to come and go.

Today I made the Super Juice as featured here

I subbed the fresh wheatgrass for 1/2 t of Vitamineral Green – in hindsight, should have halved it as I already had 1 t of spirulina in the mix.

All slurped down with my new smoothie straw, care of Strawesome.

If you come back on Friday, we’ll be running a glass straw giveaway, so don’t forget to stop back here.

Congrats again to Halona for the giveaway win. How exciting. Your prizes are on their way to you Halona.

Today I had a productive day in the kitch, with a little helper I asked to join me, as a potential assistant for some upcoming workshops I plan on doing in the coming months.

But

We had a fail. Haha, I can laugh now but oh it wasn’t pretty.

Let’s just say I looked away for a second, and then all of a sudden, where there should have been cheezy sauce batter ready for my broccoli chips (for dehydration) there was a GREEN sludge in the vitamix!

I asked my friend why it was so green, and she said “you told me to put hemp in” and pointed to the spirulina.

Oh the ingredients you take for granted when you’ve been eating raw for some time!

So folks, hemp seeds are, well a seedy, yellowy/light greeny kinda colour, and spirulina is something quite different, being an algae.

I think I saved it by playing around with a few ingredients, but let’s just say when these guys get out of the dehydrator, they’re going to be super green superfoody chips.

Let’s hope they taste better than they look!

We also made a whole batch of detox juice for the next few days.

We made some almond milk, then a green smoothie – my fave at the moment.

Green & Gold

(so named after my country of birth and my home of Queensland where pineapples and bananas ‘usually’ grow in abundance)

2 cups fresh pineapple

2 frozen bananas

2 cups almond milk

1/2 cup packed fresh/frozen spinach

optional 1 Tablespoon hemp powder

Blend and serve

And we ran out of time to make the ice-pops I had in mind, but they’re on my to do list for tomorrow, as the temperature here soars.

I finally got my mumsy one piece swimsuit to start taking Manus to the pool for some swimming lessons – it’s a good idea we don’t wear bikini’s on camp at our pools here. Even though they are westernised compared to outside the compound where we MUST wear an abaya, we are kinda frowned upon by the lifeguards when we wear our ‘kinis.

Anyway, time to head off to get this kid off for bed.

Any funny or disappointing kitchen fails for you lately, you’d care to share?

Celebrating being the mama to this cheeky little fella

And for all those other mothers out there, including my mother, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY. I now understand why this is such an important day.

As a kid I remember asking my mum why kid’s don’t have their own day, and mum said “it’s everyday?” She was so right.

Nonetheless I love my little munchkin and that he’s made me a  mum (mom).

So yesterday I started the day off with a detox juice.

Beetroot, Turnip, Carrot, Celery, Green Apple, Parsley, Green & Red Cabbage, Lemon & Ginger

Whoa it’s been so long since I’ve been able to hit the kitchen for one, but Manus had a sleep so I was lucky to get in there and pump out about about a litre for the next 3 days.

What about spoiling/oxidisation? Isn’t it best to drink your juice immediately to ensure no spoilage and maximum enzyme/nutrient hit?

Sure but for those busy people (and people that hate the juicer clean up every morning) there is a solution.

If you store the juice correctly, you can actually store it for up to 3 days without too much damage.

So here’s what you do:

You will need

A glass jar/s of some kind (large enough to fit you juice) canning jars with 2 piece lids like Ball are great.

STEP 1:

Fill the jar ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP with even a little overflow (you want this airtight)

STEP TWO:

Place first part of lid on top. You want to create a vacuum seal. Best to have a little overflow of juice to make sure. If you don’t have a 2 part lid system, you will then want to cover the juice with cling/plastic wrap but ENSURE there are no air bubbles

STEP THREE:

Cover with 2nd lid and secure tight. If you are using cling/plastic film, then place your only lid over the top.

Voila. Then I had two serving sized juices for next 2 mornings. Ready to store in the fridge.

Later in the day I was so excited as I was heading back to see my good old friend

BOOT CAMP

Wasn’t sure how I’d do, especially with Manus in tow, but he loved the music and didn’t really give me too much of an excuse to jump out of working out if he cried.

I got hammered. First time back is always hard, but gosh I felt good afterwards.

So did he

Pre workout fuel was one of these (2 others for my pals who gave me a lift there)

Half a nanner with raw cashew butter. Never tried the cashew butter before. Not quite fond of it on it’s own, but delish on a ripe banana.

Tomorrow night I’m headed back for my other old mate, Boxercise.

Read this: My friend Kate Quinn, founder of Living Raw Magazine writes about the practicality of being raw. See what you think here

Watch this: Another pal, who’s father is beating cancer, put me onto this thought provoking film on healing cancer from the inside out.

Come back: Tomorrow to check out my biggest giveaway yet!

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!

Ipswich Highway going to Brisbane

My old work headquarters

MacDonalds completely underwater!

Even animals are banding together! Here is a frog hitching a ride on a snake!

Luckily all my family and friends are safe and on higher ground, but there are still plenty of people being effected and my mum posted this on her facebook status today:

It feels weird to be in a city with the world watching, at home glued to the TV for direction, waiting for the waters to rise.
And if you leave your home you don’t want to go too far to help others,
you are putting others at risk for rescuing You.
Still, Help your neighbour and live in the NOW as we don’t know what is in store for us, any of us that is.

Friends are telling me their power is cut for the next few days (for their safety) and people are walking around in shock but everyone is helping out each other where they can. It still makes me sad to see my home devastated like this….

If you wish to support the flood relief you can go here.

My prayers and thoughts are with you all! Even a friend of mine who is due with her baby any day now has had to book herself into a hotel right next to the hospital – NO HOME BIRTH FOR HER!

• rest now whilst you can
• don’t worry about what baby needs, they need less than what you think
• appreciate getting in and out of the car without having to worry about anyone else (even if I do take a little longer these days)
• go see as many movies as you can now (bit hard in Saudi where there are no movie theatres) but point taken
• and enjoy it all!

So with all that I am trying to remain calm and not too stressed about getting the house in order, but nevertheless, the husband and I have been madly shopping for new furniture (for us, as we were kindly gifted most of the baby stuff ) to make our home as lovely and low maintenance as possible so we can really focus and treasure our new baby son when finally arrives.

Our gorgeous new dining table.

I think Lucy doesn’t mind it.

I’d really like to have some quiet time just before he arrives to so we can enjoy the calm before the storm and it would be nice to enjoy my best buddy’s company for one last time, before 2 become 3 forever.

With all the chaos of hitting the town most nights for shopping, we’ve been eating mainly cooked meals (plus the dropping temperature makes it harder to convince my other half that salad can actually be a meal)

But some of the yums we’ve been enjoying are:

Veggie stir fry with brown rice

The players:

I love my mandoline. Takes the hard work out of chopping veggies

Carrot & Coriander Soup – recipe taken from Jamie Oliver’s site here

Simple and a great way to get rid of about to go off carrots. I subbed olive oil for coconut oil - as coconut oil is the only oil use you should use when cooking due to the toxic free radicals that come about from heating other oils

I’ve also been rounding out all the cooked food with plenty of these juices

Does anyone else blend their juices to combine all the froth?

Usual ingredients: anything in my fridge that needs consuming before use by. Beets, carrots, celery (I always juice these last as the strings clog up the juicer), parsley, cucumber, ginger, green apples, lemons and whatever else I can find.

Something I learnt at my Natural Wellness class the other night:

Fruits cleanse

Vegetables nourish

Food for thought!

I’m outtta here, it’s now our weekend and tomorrow we are having a Garage/Yard sale so I’ve gotta go and prepare for it. I thought it was just in Australia that people would call up early to see your wares, but here we’ve been fielding calls all week asking for people to come by earlier by days even, but tomorrow is the DAY!

Does that happen in your part of the world?

UK based Innocent Smoothie lovers if you click on the video to the right at the top of this page, you will find out about the free 250mL smoothie promotion for the month of January. Go on, you know you want to

Some yummy eats over my weekend (Thursday/Friday).

Banana Berry ‘Greenish’ Smoothie

2 cups of homemade almond milk

1 frozen banana

1 cup of frozen blueberries

1 cup of packed frozen spinach

1 T hemp powder

1 T raw honey

1 t spirulina

squeeze of lemon

Chased by a good ole cooked breakfast:

His and Hers.

Ezekiel Bread (I think there is a version in Australia at Wray Organic or other healthfood stores?) with a smear of earth balance, baked beans and sauteed tomatoes and mushies with mixed herbs for ME Eggs sunny side up for HIM.

Although I am not celiac (my father is) or gluten intolerant, I do try to limit my gluten intake, however I do find ezekiel bread, which is sprouted wholegrain bread (found in the freezer section of Al Hosra in Bahrain) kinder to my tum tum. I just keep it in the freezer and chip off a piece when needed. They also have burger buns too.

Lunch was as unpictured baked sweet potato topped with leftover savoury green lentils (that I intended to make into a veggie soup but came out more like a stew), served with one of my favourite salads which I’ll post later Totally forgot to take photos or write down the recipe but I’ll make it again for sure!

Yesterday we rounded out the cooked breakfast with something I’ve been lacking for a while! A juice.

So out came the BEAST!

My Champion Juicer. This juicer is a masticating juicer and not a centrifugal juicer. You can read more about that here.

Some of the ingredients (parsley, celery, carrots, green apples, beetroot) – plus a bit of unpictured ginger.

Always a bit frothy afterwards, so I like to give it a whizz in the good ole Vitamix

Liquid Life.

Delish

Last night I attended my first ever Adult Education class offered on our compound. This course was on Natural Wellness and goes for 4 evenings. It is heavily geared towards eating raw food. Whilst I know quite a bit about this already, I love meeting other people who live this way, and keeping my focus high by sharing experiences, plus I think you are always learning and I certainly walked away learning ALOT last night. I loved that one of her juices incorporates almost everything I happened to chance and put in my juice above anyway. Great minds eh?

The instructor is a geologist on camp who lost her husband to a heart attack and made it her mission to research more about good health. And one thing I really loved that she said and that was no disease is hereditary, but lifestyle is. Diet and cooking styles are. Wow. So true. Next class is tomorrow night.

So finally here’s the Raw Vegan Lime Tart recipe I’ve been promising for a while:

Lime Tart

Base

1/4 cup almonds

1/4 cup of sunflower seeds

1/4 cup of pumpkin seeds

1/4 cup of shredded coconut

10 pitted dates

1/4 t cinnamon Edited to remove the cinnamon!!!! Do not put cinnamon

3 T coconut oil

Process all the above ingredients in a food processor fitted with an S blade until crumbly and sticky. Press into a coconut oil greased spring form pan/s and place in freezer while you make the tart filling. I used two small pans.

Tart Filling

2 avocados

1/3 cup of fresh squeezed lime juice

2 T agave

2 T coconut oil

1/2 t xantham gum

Blend all ingredients in a high speed blender.

I used my trusty pint sized tribest (great for travel and small blending purposes).

Pour into tart base and into freezer.

Sparkling grape juice next to tart to show real size

Keep in freezer until ready to serve, cut slices whilst still frozen.

Hey and don’t forget about Russell James’ great deal only available until tomorrow, so hurry and get in fast! Click here for more info!

The tart will begin to soften whilst as room temperature which is why it is important to slice whilst still frozen or partially frozen. Due to the nature of raw food quality and changeability,  you always need to taste test as you go along. Ensure when you are making the tart filling that you taste test whilst adding in lime juice and agave nectar as I prefer a more tart flavour, others prefer more sweet and you want the avocado taste masked completely. You want to make sure the mixture is creamy enough without being too wet, so if you add too much liquid add small amounts of xantham gum to thicken up (you don’t need much at all).

JUICING

Source

Juicing is a fantastic way to get a bucketload of nutrients as juicers essentially separate the juice from the fibre of the vegetable and the juicers do the chewing for us, which means the nutrients are delivered faster. Oxidisation is quick however, so it is recommended you drink juices as soon as you have made them or in the very least within a day of making. Different juicers offer different kinds of technology for handling different fruit and vegetables. Most of the cheaper supermarket brands (and some of the more expensive like a Breville) are centrifugal which means they spin the pulp very fast, but there are claims that it oxidises the juice much quicker by heating it which damages delicate enzymes.

Breville Juicer – Centrifrugal (Source)

A masticating juicer like a Champion (the juicer I have) or a Green Star, uses a slower motor and is believed it can enable the release of more minerals from hard fibres and keeps more enzymes intact.

Champion Juicer – Masticater (Source)

Juicing tends to speed up cleansing and detox reactions much quicker than smoothies and it is believed that juice which still has some pulp in it, may be more taxing on the digestive system than properly chewing fruits and vegetables, due to the lack of salivation that is produced with proper mastication.

All in all though, my thoughts are any juicer is better than none because when was the last time you sat down to eat a bunch of apples, some carrots, a plate of spinach and some kiwi fruit? Sometimes it is just much easier to juice all of these up and drink the glass to get the goodness.

Juicing is ideal when you are ill, as the nutrients are more condensed and there is no no time wasted in digestion. However if you are juicing and consuming too many sweet fruits,  (even beets and carrots) you can put significant stress on your blood sugar and insulin levels resulting in diabetes or other complications.

BLENDING

Blended foods such as green smoothies, blended salads and raw soups, are digested much easier than solid foods, as it destroys the cell walls of the fruits and vegetables, making the nutrients more available to our body but not as efficiently as juice. Smoothies are much heavier so can keep you fuller for longer and have been known to take away cravings for sweet sugary processed foods. Whenever I feel like a craving for something ‘naughty’ I make myself a green smoothie and it tends to be satiated immediately. I even take my Tribest Personal Blender on the road!

It is thought that blending fruits especially, rather than juicing, with the fibre kept more intact, allows your body to regulate the pace at which the sugars are released into your bloodstream.

Don’t forget, even though you sip your smoothies, DON’T chug them, and DO chew them. The reason for chewing (which seems absurd as you have blended your food into a drink for sipping) is it makes the smoothie even easier to be digested, especially for those who believe Green Smoothies make them bloat up. Chewing your smoothie until it is warm and begins to taste sweeter in your mouth, means that you are producing saliva which will lubricate the sugars and help them to break down in your stomach even better, hence eliminating any bloating feeling you may suffer. Plus it will ensure you don’t suffer any gas 

THE VERDICT:
Whether you choose to blend or juice your fruit and vegetables consider one thing, try and ensure the majority of what you do blend or juice is vegetable, with perhaps some sweet fruit added for flavour or sweetness.

Also I do tend to blend more than I juice, purely due to the effort factor. My blender is way easier to clean (both my travel blender and my Vitamix), I don’t need to cut my fruit and vegetables into as smaller chunks and it just seems more effortless than the juicer. Ideally I’d like to drink more juice, so I’d like to alternate my juicing with my smoothies, but smoothies just always seem to win out.

You can find some of my favourite recipes here. Do you have any favourites you’d wish to share?

So onto my eats.

Yesterday we decided to make pancakes. But not just any pancakes, I wanted to veganise these ones I got off a recipe card in Wheel & Barrow.

So first I used flax eggs instead of EGGS (1 T of flaxmeal to 3T water for each egg required)

Ground up the golden flax in the Vita God

Then ground up some dehydrated almond meal from leftover almond milk that I keep in the freezer.

Added the rest of the ingredients:

Then COOKED

Eeek these don’t look right!

Ahem! How do these even look the same?

Further proof I am best working with RAW food and not COOKED.

Ah well we made the best out of them (even though *my husband*  said without anything on them they tasted like poo!)

Maple syrup, bananas and cinnamon ensured they didn’t end up in the dog bowl.

I am determined to try this again and make them look (and taste) much much better.

Do you have any recipe disasters or any recipes are you just dying to master?

This was definitely a disappointment in my eyes. Back to the drawing board.

Oh but the veggie combo juice *my husband*  made us to complement was the highlight for sure!

Carrot, orange, celery, parsley & pineapple.

LOVE parsley in my juice!