Chocolate, Avocado & Banana Smoothie

 

This post will be short and sweet.

 

Avocado smoothie - sounds weird but I'm telling you it's awesome. The avocado makes it the texture of chocolate mousse.

 

Tips: Chill the banana & avocado beforehand and add ice for a nice, cold smoothie

 

Chocolate, Avocado & Banana Smoothie (serves 2 or one for a giant breakfast)

 

1 tbl cacao powder

2 tbl honey

1/2 cup yogurt

1 cup frozen banana

1 avocado 

1 cup water/ice

Substitute water with milk if you like and potentially less yogurt if you want a less sour smoothie.

 

I add lots of cacao because I like a strong, slightly bitter chocolate flavour. So again I suggest adjust this to your taste.

 

 

Put it all in your blender/mixer

 

 

Blitz and enjoy!

Azuki Bean Smoothie

I'm so excited about my latest breakfast smoothie; it's almost chocolatey and down right delicious! 

 

I've ventured into the world of the azuki beans for a couple of reasons.

 

 

I've always loved them in Asian desserts as sweetened red bean paste and I've been meaning to experiment with  them.

 

They are a legume, therefore great for you.

 

Introducing another legume to my repertoire = more variety.

My main driver, however, was my back. Azuki beans (also known as adzuki and aduki beans) are identified as a special bean for draining dampness in the body. "Dampness" is a term used in traditional Chinese medicine. I recently started getting acupuncture for my back issues (that I've had for years) and was told the excess "dampness" in my body was a strong contributor to my aches and pains.

 

I'm always sceptical of this kind of talk, but after just two acupuncture sessions, there has been a noticeable improvement. So I'm will to try anything (except supplements).

 

It takes a little planning and preparation the day before, when you soak and cook the beans, but the cooked beans will last 3-4 days in the fridge and you can even freeze them if you like.

 

Soak 1 cup of beans in plenty of cold water for 6-8 hours. This will make about 4, 1/2 cup serves of cooked beans.

 

Place your soaked beans in a saucepan on the stove and bring to a simmer for about 5-10 minutes, until foam develops on the surface of the water.

 

Strain the beans, discarding the cooking water, rinse off the foam and clean out the saucepan (all website recipes I looked at include this step and I can't find an explanation why).

 

Add 2-3 cups of cold water to the beans and bring back to a simmer for 1 to 1 & 1/2 hours, until they are soft enough to break with your tongue.

 

While boiling, keep the temperature low because if they boil to rapidly they tend to break up a little.

 

When they are done, strain and put in the fridge to chill.

Azuki Smoothie

 

 

1/2 cup chilled, cooked azuki beans

1/2 cup unsweetened natural yogurt

1/2 cup almond milk (rice, oat, dairy milks are also fine)

1 banana (mango works well too)

A generous spoonful of honey or sweetener of your choice.

The beans require a fair amount of added sweetness. The exact amount will depend a lot on the natural sweetness of your fruit and milk choice (the almond milk I used is not very sweet), you can always add more honey.

 

I used a hand blender, it takes a couple of minutes to break down the beans and make it nice and smooth.

 

 

I really hope you enjoy it!

 

 

Pre-mix Orgran Buckwheat Pancakes

I'm a little hesitant to consume abundant quantities of the GF flours and baked goods you find these days. They are typically composed of highly refined rice, potato and tapioca flours/starches, not to mention a bunch of numbers.

I don't desire a product that pretends to be white flour. Instead I'm on the hunt for ways to use things like buckwheat flour, polenta or oats in baking, where we celebrate them, not attempt to hide them.

In truth I have started experimenting, with varied success. I'm not too good at following recipes, perhaps this is a case where I'm going to have to start.

This whole preamble is basically me trying to justify writing a post about using a premix. I'm not a premix kind of girl, but due to my recent spate of GF baking failures I wanted a win. There are many great GF blogs with heaps of recipes out there, which I plan to test out over time... but today I cheated and convenience won.

I LOVE pancakes... The whole maple syrup, bacon pancake combination is such a treat. (I'm sure I just lost some vegan readers). When I found this packet of buckwheat pancake premix I was super excited and NOT disappointed. 

Enter Orgran Buckwheat Pancake mix.

These guys make a huge GF, Vegan friendly range and today was my first time using their product.

 

They include directions for a vegan version!

 

 

The only ingredient I didn't recognise was the monocalcium phosphate (341). According to Steven Gates book on E numbers, it's a synthetic raising agent made from phosphoric acid treated with hydrated lime. It's not organic, i.e. not something cavemen ate, but it doesn't seem too scary to me.

 

I appreciate it also contains rice flour, tapioca starch and maize starch, but I figure 49% buckwheat flour is a pretty good start.

 

My pancake tips are as follows:

• Don't forget when mixing, add the wet to dry to prevent lumps
• I allow the pancake batter to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes. I'm not sure why, but it seems to make better pancakes.
• The batter consistency should be slightly thicker than pouring cream, so add a little water or milk if its too thick.
• Getting the fry pan the right temperature is the trickiest part. Generally speaking you want bubbles to form and burst on the uncooked side before the underside gets too brown. Flip to seal and get eating!

 

 

 I was a bit of a goose and I forgot to take a photo of the eggs and dairy, but you guys know what they look like...

Mix together the following

 

1 packet of Organ Buckwheat pancake mix

3 eggs

90 ml of dairy (I used rice milk)

240 ml water

pinch of cinnamon

 

 

Serve with your favourite toppings.

We had honey, mixed berries and mascarpone.

Black Rice Pudding/Sticky Coconut Black Rice

Breakfast is quite the celebration of gluten; breads, pastries, pancakes, breads, cous-cous, semolina, paratha, naan and more breads.

 

So where does that leave those of us who want to be gluten-free? I appreciate that there are some great GF breads and flours out there, but the majority are highly refined and I can't help but question their nutritional value. 

 

I've experimented with GF cereals but after a few days, I can't face them.

 

It's summer at the moment so porridge isn't too appealing. 

 

Omelette's are a great option, but I'm not always feeling up for eggs.

 

I enjoy yogurt with a mix of fruit and nuts but if I want to fuel up it isn't the best choice.

 

Enter Black Rice Pudding.

 

Growing up in Darwin in the far north of Australia, I was lucky to be exposed to some amazing foods from Southeast Asia. One of which was black-rice pudding. It's a very simple and highly nutritious dish made with glutinous black rice. I was introduced to it as a Balinese breakfast dish, but they also make it in Thailand, where they call it sticky coconut black rice. 

 

I had to double check, but glutinous rice, does NOT contain gluten, it's just a reference to it's viscous texture when cooked.

 

It can be eaten for breakfast or if you want to serve it as a dessert add more sugar.

 

 

1 & 1/2 cups glutinous black rice

5 tbl brown sugar/palm sugar - or more to taste

150 ml coconut milk + extra to serve

 

optional extras

kaffir lime or pandan leaves

tropical fruit to serve e.g. mango/pineapple/banana

 

Warning: on occasion your black rice might contain the odd stone, which could cost you a tooth. The best way to find them is place the rice in a saucepan and add a few cups of water and very slowly swirl your hand around the base of the pan like you would to wash the rice. Listen very carefully and feel for any stones. The stones are usually quite obvious and easy to find this way.

 

 

Okay once you've washed your rice, add about 2 and 1/2 of water and place it on a medium heat.

 

 

Bring to a simmer for about 30 minutes.

 

Keep an eye on the water level, you want it to reduce, but don't let it dry out because it will start to stick to the bottom.

 

Add another 1/4 or 1/2 cup of water if needed.

 

 

After 30 minutes, test if the rice is cooked. The outer part of the rice is always a little firm, it kind of pops when you bite it. Whereas the inside should be nice and soft.

 

Ideally the water level should be the same as the rice at this stage. If it is to watery, let it reduce for another 10-15 minutes.

 

Add the sugar and lime leaves, stir to dissolve the sugar.

 

NOTE: the sugar must only be added after the rice is cooked!

 

 

Add ~150 ml coconut milk, stir it through and allow to come back to the boil.

 

Remove leaves and you're done.

 

 

Serve with a generous dash of coconut milk and some fresh fruit.

 

Pan fried bananas work a treat too.

Wholesome wholemeal toast



I was raised on wholemeal bread and as a child I always found it boring. On the rare occasion a loaf of white bread made it into our house, it was consumed within hours. It's no surprise I've been compensating ever since, often through my love of Italian breads and sourdoughs. I know wholemeal bread is "better" for you. I know some people even consider white flour as "poison". Considering I'm such a health nut you'd be right in questioning why I indulge my childish white bread desires at all. It's pretty simple, if you don't want to think too much about something, you generally don't.

 

This has all changed, thanks to reading Michael Pollans brilliant book, "In Defense of Food". Just one of the thousand thought provoking ideas contained within this book concerns the lack of health benefits in refined grains. The process of refining wheat,  making your brown flour white, removes the bran and the germ, taking fibre, protein, vitamins, minerals and goodness knows what else with it. So according to my "whole egg philosophy" eating white bread and white rice is equivalent to eating two minute noodles! As far as your high fibre or omega 3 enriched white breads are concerned, once again - how can you honestly think refining something, then adding back the handful of things nutritional science considers important (not to mention the 10 other things they add to it to keep it on the shelf longer and taste as much like white bread as possible, because that's what consumers want), will have the same health benefits as eating the unrefined wholemeal bread in the first place.

 

None of this is really breaking news. My big revelation in all this is that white flour is basically empty calories. I assess all foods based on whether or not I think the calories are worth consuming. For example, there are many high calorie foods I love and eat without guilt, like chocolate, cream, mayonnaise, cheese, chicken thighs etc. On the flip side I think hot chips are okay, but I don't get too excited about them,  so generally I only eat a couple (because I know they are pretty high in calories and I'd rather eat something else).

 

In a very long winded way I'm tryng to explain that the way I view white bread has shifted. I now consider it in the same category as a packet of two minute noodles or a lamington. I like lamingtons and two minute noodles, I eat them, but not every day.

 

To finish up, during winter I usually eat porridge for breakfast, occasionally switching to toast when I can't face the porridge, here are some recent wholemeal toast breakfasts I've had...

 

An egg with (real) butter and heinz baked beans, with a cup of ceylon
orange pekoe tea with soy milk.

 

honey and ricotta

 

Smoked salmon, ricotta, tomato, capers and spring onion

 

Tomato, cheddar cheese, olive oil salt & pepper

 

Porridge inspiration

My inspiration for new and different ways to prepare food are wide and varied. Growing up in the multicultural town of Darwin, around the corner from the iconic Parap markets I was exposed to a variety of cuisines at a young age. My sister Lydia recently reminded me that the main thing we fought about as kids, was food... "who ate the rest of my prawn bun with peanut sauce?"... (*ahem* as if I'd ever leave part of my prawn bun uneaten...)

I've been lucky enough to travel quite extensively to distant lands, with my strongest memories centering around food. In Germany it was the roast goose with knödel, red cabbage and gravy (which I am certain was 50% duck fat) that we had for new years eve, in a cold bus station in Japan it was a warm triangle of sushi rice wrapped in nori with steaming salmon inside, the fried clams in Porto Covo, Portugal have never been paralleled and the white anchovies in Spain changed my opinion about pickled fish forever. That's just to name a few.

My parents and Aunty Shamim bring their own worldly experience to the table and have helped shape me as a cook, for which I will be forever grateful. More recently it was the cooking stylings of the multi-talented Cherise, a yoga teacher/chef who showed me just how deeply satisfying vegetarian food can be.

Cooking shows on SBS are often a source for inspiration and I have to give a big shout out to their recently released "Feast" magazine as the only food magazine I have ever read that consistently inspires me. I think it's because they try very hard to present food from different cultures authentically, without over simplification. 

In recent years I have spent countless hours on the internet looking at different blogs, often north American ones. Many of them blur together and I'm sure many of my food ideas began from a seed planted by someone's blog I can no longer recall. I want to make sure I give credit where it's due (when I can remember) and today's "recipe" (using the term loosely) was directly inspired from Susan's "Ode to Oatmeal"

Even though I can be very experimental with food... (I once had a partner complain I never cooked the same meal twice. I took it as a compliment and probably should have realised at the time that it highlighted a fundamental philosophical miss-match in our personalities... but I digress...) Despite my experimental nature, I have certain blockages in terms of my creative approach. For example, it had never occurred to me to put anything on porridge besides brown sugar/honey and milk. So imagine the revelation I had when I read Susan's Ode to Oatmeal!

This morning my breakfast was porridge cooked in water, topped with soy milk (I'm pretty lactarded when it comes to milk), 1 heaped tsp of tahini and a generous splash of maple syrup. If you think about it, tahini + sweetener (usually honey) is halva, so this is kind of a Canadian inspired Halva Porridge. If I'd had pistachios it would have been even better...

It's not as healthy as plain porridge with milk, but it's a lot more satisfying - so I would argue that this keeps you feeling fuller for longer and therefore possibly better for you in the long run because it cuts down on cravings and binge eating...

I hope this helps inspire you too