Month: May 2012

How to make bacon + egg cupcakes

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Oooh, it’s so close! My I Quit Sugar Cookbook is almost here. And so I figure I might share this recipe from the book: bacon and egg cupcakes! Yes. Two ingredients + some clever assembling = fun breakfast. Astonishing stuff! You can watch the video below, which was shot by my good mate Faustina (you … Read more

13 fun paleo ideas for kids (and parents!)

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Let’s continue with this Paleo series I started a few weeks back. I’ve written about eating Paleo here and here…. with more recipes for breakfasts here… But I’ve had a few requests for kid’s meals, so here you go: some paleo school lunches, and a CLEVER flower power egg invention! It’s really not that faddish or draconian…more of a way of eating that cuts out processed crap.

Screen Shot 2012 01 31 at 1.06.28 PM 13 fun paleo ideas for kids (and parents!)
photo via apronstringsblog.com

 flower power eggs

Donna and Anne from Apron Strings Blog came up with this pretty and clever idea.

* 3 x capsicums (bell peppers), in red, green and orange

* eggs

Cut the capsicums into 1.5cm rings; place in a non-stick lightly oiled skillet. Now crack an egg in the middle of each ring and cover and cook over low heat until done. If you like your yolks runny, just cook over low heat until whites are done. If you like your yolks firm, break the yolks and then cook over low heat until both whites and yolks are firm.

13 tips for making paleo lunches:

Screen Shot 2012 04 24 at 3.58.24 PM 13 fun paleo ideas for kids (and parents!)

1. Pre-order my I Quit Sugar Cookbook, due out soon! It has a chapter on kids’ recipes, most of which are paleo (ask your kids if they like the sound of coconut popsicles!).  PS, if you pre-order you will receive 30% off, plus a gift. Plus you’ll get the book before everyone else.

2. Make sandwiches with this great Paleo bread from Deek’s bakery. Available online. 

All Deeks products are grain free (including the absence of rice and corn), are additive and preservative free. They are

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how to make your own sprouts

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Slide into your Birkenstocks, tie on your recycled bamboo apron and turn up Steely Dan on the stereo (or tune to Portlandia on ABC)  because today we’re sprouting legumes!Screen Shot 2012 05 01 at 4.03.42 PM1 how to make your own sprouts

 

If you were the kid with the mushroom kit or the Venus flytraps on your windowsill that you’d race home from school to just sit and… watch, you’ll love sprouting. If you rather like watching any creation you’ve made grow, you’ll love sprouting, too. So much veiw-able gratification as they do their sprouty thing.

The rest of you? Read on to see why it’s a good idea to try this cooking technique. And scroll below for some recipes. Me, personally, I avoid eating too many legumes: I find them super rough on my guts. Sprouting is certainly the best approach I’ve found for making them a smoother experience.

First, why sprout?

Sprouting kills toxins

Phytic acid, a toxin found in the fibre of legumes, leaches calcium, magnesium, iron, copper and zinc from our bodies. Not great. Sprouting neutralises this nasty acid (as does soaking before cooking). It also inactivates aflatoxins –  potent carcinogens – in grains.

Sprouting increases vitamins

It increases the amount of B vitamins and carotene in the little beady things. Vitamin C is also created in the process.

Sprouting (almost) fixes the farting issue…

….because the complex sugars responsible for intestinal gas are broken down into simpler glucose molecules.

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chatting wing women with Agony Aunts

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Have you caught Agony Aunts on ABC yet (Wednesdays 9.30pm…or iview if you missed the first ep). It’s a lovely show. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6YLnuYqbJE[/youtube] The producer Adam Zwar(he made Wilfred) and I met about 10 years ago when we both wrote a relationship-ish column in the Sunday Herald Sun. Funny to come full circle. He’s an ace … Read more

happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens

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I’m facing a big challenge at the moment. It’s something that’s been building up for a while: finding out what life is like – and what I’m like – when there is no “something next”. When nothing is about to happen.

mg 0305 28 03 2012 niell 6 happiness that doesn't depend on what happens
photo by Aquabumps

Boy. What would that feel like? I’m always onto something next. Surely I’d be a shell of a human if I had no more happenings to forward onto?

I find life almost inconceivable without this relentless scheduling voice in my head, steering me on to the next thing, slotting in activities all day, timing how long it will get from here to there and what phone calls I can return while I’m transit. I rang my brother the other day. I was riding up a hill carrying groceries on the handlebars. “Geez Sarah, do you ever uni-task?” he asked. He’s 21 and he shakes his head at me.

When I was a little girl living in the country I would jump with excitement when the phone rang and physically ached to hear the sound of a car rumbling up our long driveway. I would climb a tree and wait and listen. For something to happen.  Someone’s coming! Something’s about to happen! I don’t think this anxious, incomplete anticipation has ever left my bones.

My biggest impediment to reaching something  resembling a meditative state each day when I sit in lotus is the constant diarising and scheduling more things to happen. I revert to this as soon as there’s an empty moment.

I thrive in disasters, because something is happening.  I always know what’s around the next corner…because I’ve anticipated it, planned it, scheduled it’s very possibility. Arghhh….it never stops.

I schedule, therefore I am. It’s my default cognitive position.

It’s got me places, this over-eager embracing of possibility and activity. Lots of things have happened in my life. Great jobs. Awesome opportunities. Excitement.

But it’s now starting to drive me mental. This, I know, is because it no longer serves me.

Whenever something no longer serves me, it all starts to become a noise that gets louder and brighter in my head, more irritating, until I just have to do something about it. I have a bunch of pink elephants in a room sitting opposite me. Staring at me. And demanding I act.

It’s time to act.

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Sally Fallon: the ultimate anti-aging diet (a podcast)

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You could say I’m a little obsessed with Sally Fallon. She’s the aunt I’ve never had (a lot of Y chromosomes in my family). The goddess of the kitchen I want to pull up a stool in. The author of the cookbook – Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats – with the zaniest subtitle ever. She’s also founding president of the Weston A. Price Foundation (for more on Weston A. Price go here), an organisation I have a lot of respect for.

BestDeal Sally Fallon: the ultimate anti-aging diet (a podcast)
image via culinaryporn.tumblr.com

*This blog post has been updated on February 5, 2016 and now reflects my current stance on eating raw foods.

She bangs on about eating whole food. Unadulterated REAL food, as our grandmother’s used to. And I really like to listen when she does. Because it’s real.

Oh, and FYI…Sally’s contributed a recipe to my I Quit Sugar Cookbook, which you can pre-order here.

Anyway, this morning I talked to her about enzymes: how eating them makes you age more slowly and gracefully and how to get more of them into your diet.

Listen in here:

[display_podcast]

For those wanting it nice and clear, here’s a cheat sheet for you

Why do we care about enzymes?

The short answer: they affect how long we live, and how well we’ll be in the process. This is how…

There are two types of enzymes for digestion

1, Digestive enzymes: Mostly manufactured by the pancreas, they break down food leaving the stomach.

2. Food enzymes: These exist in the raw food itself and they help our bodies break down that particular food as we eat it. Eg: lactase in milk helps us process lactose (which is why low-fat milk is such an issue…in the de-fatting process much of the lactase is lost).

Know this:

We have limited digestive enzymes in our bodies AND when these stores are used up, it ages us.

The aging process is the depletion of digestive enzymes, more or less.

Which means…

Eating food with lots of their own enzymes saves our bodies (our pancreases) from doing the work.

Thus saving us from aging more than we damnwell have to.

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Early birds offer! Pre-order the I Quit Sugar Cookbook now….

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Here’s a bit of an idea for you…and a sneak peak at one of the recipes from my ….some drum rolling please…I Quit Sugar Cookbook!!! The cookbook, as I’ve explained here, is a follow-up from I Quit Sugar: A Sweet 8-Week Program. It’s a behemoth of a book: more than 108 recipes of nutritious, easy, … Read more