Lee – Page 58 – Supercharged Food

Spirit iPad sleeve and iCrib

My ipad loved this gorgeous Spirit Sleeve! It has the perfect padding for your ipad and computers when you want to carry them in your other bags or just by themselves. Great when you are carrying other things and you don’t want your tablet to get damaged. The sizing is snug and just right for iPads, tablets and laptops. The range comes in a number of fun patterns and colours so it’s really easy to mix and match and stay stylish at the same time.

This iCrib is perfect when you want to go hands free in the kitchen. Just pop your iPad or tablet into it and then follow along your recipe with ease.

It’s also handy when you feel like watching a favourite movie as you can keep it steady and just relax and enjoy yourself without having to worry about the tablet flipping over or going sideways.

Perfect on the train or bus, in bed, on the couch in the car for the kids – it even makes a handy pillow when you need a rest! Comes with a side pocket for your phone or earbuds too.

For more information visit the website.

Cosima Skin Care

Australian made Cosima skin care is a beautiful range of Advanced Organic Cosmeceutical products which are completely natural. I reviewed the Gentle Cleansing Milk, Regenerating Night Cream, Purely Radiant Elixer and Flawless Day Cream which all made my skin feel rejuvenated and refreshed. The products are formulated with carefully selected natural ingredients and researched for their anti-ageing, skin enhancing properties and nutrients.

The good news is that there are no fillers and each ingredient in every product has beneficial properties for your skin and body. The products improve the condition of your skin and its underlying health helping to preserve or regain skin youth.

Here is a list of what is not contained in Cosima products, which are also not tested on animals and come in recyclable packaging.

NO Sodium Lauryl Sulphate
NO Mineral Oils
NO Petroleum
NO Artificial Fragrances
NO Artificial Colours
NO Harmful Detergents
NO Animal Derivatives
NO Parabens
NO Harmful Chemicals
NO Propylene Glycol

For more information visit the website.

Earthy Mamma Cleaning Products

Now you can ditch all your chemical laden cleaning products and embrace natural environmentally friendly products that will make your home sparkle. Earthy Mamma cleaning products are made from 100% certified organic ingredients they contain only pure and safe ingredients and not the usual toxic paint strippers or anti-freeze that are in most modern day cleaning products. The cleaning range contains gorgeous products such as All Purpose Disinfectant, Floor Cleaner, Dishwashing Liquid and Bathroom Cleaner.

Many products are misleading in their labeling, and are bursting with synthetic and chemically based ingredients. These products are very affordable and made from natural antibacterial compounds. No more will you have to suffer from chlorine fumes!

For more information visit the website.

Buckwheat Pasta with Flaked Trout

There’s no time like the present for a bit of self- reflection. How did last year shape up for you? Was it smooth sailing or were there things that you would have done differently given the opportunity?

Many of us start the New Year with a resolution or two, whether it involves assessing our relationships, financial decisions, deciding to clean out your proverbial closet or vowing to never drink again after one too many cocktails!

What are some of the changes you’d like to see happen in the year ahead? I’d like to do some more travelling this year and experience life a bit more, instead of being chained to my computer and also teach a restorative yoga class for people who want to do gentle yoga to help give them have more energy and enable them to recover from illness.

Whatever it is you choose to do this year, if you’re ready to wipe the slate clean, start afresh and ring in the New Year with a resolve to be happier and healthier, then setting yourself a realistic resolution to make gradual changes to your eating habits and lifestyle will be a lot easier to maintain. Making small changes might not seem like much at the beginning, but soon, these small changes really do become significant larger changes that you'll notice.

In a dietary sense, a few examples of small changes might include swapping your daily coffee every second day for dandelion or herbal tea, or cooking with brown rice instead of white. Or it may even be that you will become less restrictive with your current eating habits and allow yourself the occasional treat without feeling guilty. (more…)

Lee’s Chicken and Green Olive Tagine with Preserved Lemon

I’ve noticed them around but always thought tagines lived into the oven. So after extensive googling and googling I discovered that stove top cooking is the method that works best for this unique shaped earthenware pot which has its origins planted firmly in North Africa.

Used for cooking or serving, you’ll see that the tagine pot has a distinctively shaped triangular shape which is formed entirely of a heavy clay, sometimes elaborately painted or glazed and each one uniquely beautiful.

The traditional Moroccan inspired vessel is a brilliant pot for slow-cooking savory stews and vegetable dishes, as the cone-shaped lid traps steam as it cooks and delivers condensed and concentrated liquid back into the pot. That’s why you only need to add a small amount of liquid when cooking. It creates a deliciously tender meat or vegetable and its unsophisticated design makes it straightforward to use. (more…)

Why I Love Chocolate and Why it Loves Me Back

Homemade Superfood Chocolate

If chocolate is your weakness you don’t need to give it up altogether just because you are eating healthy. Chocolate created with super food ingredients is as delicious as it is good for you. Packed with essential vitamins and minerals, simple homemade chocolate contains nourishing properties.

The wonderful thing about this chocolate recipe is that you can make it your own with whatever flavourings you would like to add in depending upon your specific craving. Maybe its orange or peppermint choc chip or hazelnut? Whatever your fancy this recipe will rock your socks off.

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Home-Made Baked Beans

Home-Made baked beans

Beanz Meanz Health… Beans are no longer consigned for those on a budget or a dorm room favourite for many hard working uni students. Easy to whip up in the morning as part of a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, nitrate-free bacon and Stuffed Tomatoes or as a snack on top of freshly baked Spinach Bread or slices of Gluten Free Nut Loaf the bean is back with all its robustness.

Did you know that home-cooked baked beans are surprisingly packed with nutrients? They’re an excellent source of fibre, helping you to maintain a healthy digestive system and contain high amounts of soluble fibre, which slows digestion and binds toxins, drawing them out of the body. Not only are they high in fibre, they boast a slew of vitamins (B vitamins in particular) and are loaded with folate and iron, an excellent choice for people with low iron and expectant mothers.

If you’re planning on purchasing the store bought variety, freshness is something that is lacking in the tin cans standing to attention on supermarket shelves. You’ll find high levels of sodium and sugar and lost are the nutrients and vitamins you would ordinarily obtain from using dry beans. The good news is, with minimal effort, you can gain back the bean and incorporate it into your hearty breakfast just by following these few simple steps.

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Raw Almond Croquettes

When I fall in love with something I eat it repeatedly.

Take these delicious almond croquettes for example, even the name evokes in me a warm fuzzy feeling. Every time one enters my mouth, I still have that same old familiar first encounter feeling, you know the one that never quite leaves you, the one that is at its most natural. Like first love.

Speaking of natural these croquettes are a world away from the diminutive, bread crumbed, deep-fried, old style versions, full of binders and fillers that loiter in counter-top bain-maries at fast food joints getting drier by the moment.

A brief history lesson into croquettes, from the French verb croquer, "to crunch" and you’ll find that they've been hanging around for centuries, with food historians believing that recipes for croquette-type dishes likely descended from Ancient Roman rissoles. These little football shaped snacks were not built in a day. (more…)

Trail Mix

(Makes 2 cups)

Ingredients

¼ cup almonds
¼ cup walnuts
¼ cup cashews
¼ cup pepitas
¼ cup coconut flakes
Pinch nutmeg 1.5 gms
Pinch cinnamon 1.5 gms
2 TBS cacao nibs
3 TBS goji berries or dried white mulberries (optional)
¼ cup caramelized ACV (recipe *)
1 tsp alcohol free vanilla essence

Method:

Set oven temperature to 180 degrees Celsius
Place almonds, walnuts, cashews, pepitas in a mixing bowl (nuts can be pre-soaked)
Add cinnamon and nutmeg and stir
Add vanilla essence and caramelized ACV and stir to mix
Place in a baking dish
Bake in middle shelf of oven for 20 minutes
Stir after 10 mins, add coconut flakes and correct flavours
You may need to bake for another 5 mins for further caramelisation
Remove and let cool then add mulberries/goji berries and cacao nibs
Place in sealed container ready for your next adventure

Caramelized ACV (recipe *)

1 cup Apple Cider Vinegar
1 tsp powdered stevia or 20 drops liquid stevia (plus extra depending upon sweetness required)

Happy Snacking!

Suvana Paw Paw & Honey Lip Balm

Lip Balms have come a long way from the original chemically laden, sickly sweet smelling, tubes of thick sticky ‘balm’ we once coveted. Suvana Paw Paw and Honey Lip Balm is Australia’s first ECOCERT Certified Organic Lip Balm and a must for your handbag.

All Suvana products contain natural, organic ingredients, grown with energy provided from the sun. It’s fitting to know then, that the name Suvana comes from the ancient Sanskrit language meaning ‘the sun’.

What I like about the Suvana brand is their commitment to organic, natural products. There are absolutely no synthetic preservatives, chemicals or fragrances and fortunately for us, no petroleum jelly so often found in commercial lip balms so you can wear this balm with ease and confidence.

The balm felt lovely and smooth and protective on my lips and this is due to the gorgeous ingredients Paw Paw extract and Honey, which contain healing properties as well as Cocoa Butter, a high quality emollient working to soften skin and add moisture, and Vitamin E, known for its skin healing properties.

Suvana balm can also be used as a natural cure to soothe dry, cracked skin or to prevent nappy rash. Visit the website here.

Banana Bread

When fruit cravings happen, berries and bananas are a good choice as they are rich in vitamins. Banana's wonderfully sweet, creamy flesh, and the fact that they’re perfectly packaged by nature in their own yellow jacket leaves me simply smitten. Whether baking, mashing, blending them into a scrumptious smoothie or a remarkable raw dessert, or simply enjoying them straight from the skin; bananas are a brilliant sweet treat to work with in the kitchen, and they’ll reward you by working wonders on your health, and renovating your body into a sanctuary of wellness.

Bananas are one of the highest sources of vitamin B6 you can eat, and provide impressive amounts of vitamin C, potassium, dietary fiber and manganese. Vitamin B6 is a vital nutrient that helps with the production of several neurotransmitters; chemicals that carry signals from one nerve cell to another. B6 is therefore needed for normal brain development and function, and helps to make the hormones serotonin and norepinephrine, which influence mood; and melatonin, which helps to keep your body clock in top order. (more…)

Slow Cooked Green Beans

Slow cooked green beans

We’ve all experienced a questionable serving of green beans at some stage in our lives; the boiled-to-death, soggy, watery, grey tinged version that tastes like something you’d find in the bottom of the kitchen sink after a big round of washing up. These kind of food experiences are what turn people into veggie enemies. It pains me to think that the green bean isn’t able to display its true splendour; but when given the recognition it deserves, the humble green bean accompaniment can drop the jaws of an entire Masterchef panel.

I’m sooooooo excited for spring, not just for the bursting forth of fragrant flowers, but because this is when glorious green beans come out to play. There’s nothing like a freshly picked, sweet green bean to munch on during a sunny spring day. They’re also very nutritious; containing high amounts of vitamins C, K, A, B6, B2, B1, as well as folate, fibre, and a multitude of minerals; including bone building calcium, bone and tissue supporting silicon, manganese, magnesium, potassium, phosphorous and energy producing iron. (more…)

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