May 24, 2014

No poo

I have been using a no poo method to wash my hair for over a year now. I use bicarb to wash it and then do an apple cider vinegar rinse. I don’t use any products and my hair is so thick and unruly i felt it was time to test a homemade styling solution.

homemade sea salt spray 🙂

For an organised chaos kind of look.

I used:

1 pint of hot cammomile tea (to lighten hair, just use hot water if you don’t want to lighten hair).

1 table spoon of Epsom salt

1 table spoon of sea salt

Essential oils of your choice. I used lemon and lavender.

What do you think? Looking glamorous as hell, ja?

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(In this picture you can also see my homemade black out blind. We take this homemade thing veeery seriously. Bloody summer. Tallulah was waking up at 5am, so i expertly handcrafted some “blinds” out of an old blanket – i am actually quite embarrassed to reveal our interior design faux pas, so maybe ignore this last bit and just focus on my hair! Thanks!)

April 1, 2014

Perfect little green pancakes

I bought a perfectly sized, little cast iron frying pan. Perfect for little green pancakes.
I make them like this:
2 eggs
1/2 cup of ground almonds
1 cup of milk, or milk and cream if you crave some extra fat.
Curly kale. I ground some raw kale in a coffee grinder until i had about 2 tablespoons full.
Fry in lots of grassfed butter… We ate ours with cream cheese…

March 27, 2014

Bliss balls

I have been experimenting with chocolate treats. This is my second batch, which turned out to be a lot more bitter than the first. But if you’re a fan of bitter, dark chocolate, you probably won’t mind. Not for the sickly sweet milk chocolate types…
This version id made from oats, cocoa powder, chia seeds, melted coconut oil, mixed nuts and peanut butter. About 2 table spoons of each (apart from chia seeds, i put in about 1 table spoon). When i tasted the mixture it was bitter. Too bitter. I added shredded coconut and 1 teaspoon of honey. To be honest, it would have benefited from more, but i wanted these as sweetener free as possible.
Finally, i rolled them in more coconut and stored in fridge.
They do satisfy my chocolate craving, both at morning coffee time, and evening sugar craving time…
What different versions will i try? Adding a shot of espresso? Making them oat-, and therefore seed free? Pistachios? Melted dark chocolate? Watch this space…

March 27, 2014

Bliss balls

I have been experimenting with chocolate treats. This is my second batch, which turned out to be a lot more bitter than the first. But if you’re a fan of bitter, dark chocolate, you probably won’t mind. Not for the sickly sweet milk chocolate types…
This version id made from oats, cocoa powder, chia seeds, melted coconut oil, mixed nuts and peanut butter. About 2 table spoons of each (apart from chia seeds, i put in about 1 table spoon). When i tasted the mixture it was bitter. Too bitter. I added shredded coconut and 1 teaspoon of honey. To be honest, it would have benefited from more, but i wanted these as sweetener free as possible.
Finally, i rolled them in more coconut and stored in fridge.
They do satisfy my chocolate craving, both at morning coffee time, and evening sugar craving time…
What different versions will i try? Adding a shot of espresso? Making them oat-, and therefore seed free? Pistachios? Melted dark chocolate? Watch this space…

September 29, 2013

Yummy baby snacks

Yes, I am guilty of buying those little packs of baby corn snacks. They are just so easy and it keeps babies busy while I sip on coffee in Costa. They give me a precious 10 minutes before someone heads for another walking practise on the floor.

But I’m not happy about buying these. I don’t like buying food that is specifically targeted for babies.

So I had a little think…
And made popcorn. Simple! I popped them in coconut oil and then flavoured them with this spice mix that I found in Tesco: organic cloves, cardamon, cinnamon, coriander and ginger. No salt and no sugar.

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Tallulah loves them.

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And if they’re kept in an airtight container they stay crispy for days.
Just be sure to pick out the un-popped and burnt ones.

September 26, 2013

Oh dear

I love Bounty bars but I don’t love processed food so in order to get my Bounty fix I decided to try to make own. Easy right? You only need about 5 ingredients. Done!

Okay, so before you read on please visit the website where i found the recipe. It’s here. Beautiful Bounty bars.

Mine did NOT look like that.

Here’s the recipe:
2 cups desiccated coconut, sulphate-free is best
1 cup of coconut milk (use the full fat one)
3 Tbsp coconut oil or coconut butter
4 Tbsp of 100% pure maple syrup, coconut syrup or date paste (adjust to taste)
A pinch of sea salt (important to get all the natural flavours out of the coconut milk and flakes)

I did not have any maple syrup, coconut suryp or date paste so I chucked in a bit of sugar instead. Only a tiny bit, I think coconut is so sweet in itself and besides I’m terrified of sugar.

You heat up the milk, oil and sweetener, and then add the dessicated coconut, mix it until you have a nice paste. Well, mine was ridiculously runny. I chucked the whole thing in the freezer and left it there for like half a day. I ate a couple of spoonfuls and nibbled on some dark chocolate afterwards. The taste was actually very Bounty-esque.

Then I finally got round to the chocolate coating bit. Fun but messy! I kept thinking about The Great British Bake Off though and how you’re supposed to present little baked things in EQUAL size and shape. Well, what do you think? How did I do?

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Now, “Project Bounty Bars” wasn’t a total failure though. They actually taste Just. Like. Bounty. Bars. So I’m a little bit impressed with myself after all. I just had to make sure they went straight from fridge to mouth as any handling just made them melt into an even messier mess.

September 26, 2013

Garlic and rosemary pizza bread

This is exactly the same recipe as the one I used for the pizza. Super easy. I chucked in a bit of rosemary, to create this garlic and rosemary bread.

Cook for less than 10 minutes. Eat hot with real butter.

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If I was cooking these just for me, I would have sprinkled with sea salt before baking, but I just put salt on mine before I ate them instead. Perfect on those days when you miss bread. Or, perfect on those days when you don’t miss bread (which I rarely do) but want some anyway. Plus, a great excuse to eat melting, salty butter.

September 26, 2013

Peanut brownies

I finally have some time to share these amazing peanut brownies with you. These were just for me, not for Tallulah (who shall remain chocolate free a little while longer). I let Bill have one, but that was it. They’re mine!
I really like salty chocolate, it’s one of those things that shouldn’t work but really does. I love peanut butter and wanted to do something with that and when I started off with these brownies I had peanut butter snickers cakes in mind, they turned out to be something completely different though.

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For these cakes I melted 100 g of dark dark chocolate.
I mixed the chocolate with 1 egg,
1 cup ground almonds
1/4 cup double cream
2 tablespoons psyllium husks
1 teaspoon baking powder
A handful of chopped salted peanuts
2 tablespoons of the sweetener of your choice (I used fructose, because it’s what I had at home)

Mix it all together, spoon it into an oven dish lined with baking paper, lick the spoon, lick the bowl. Leave a few of the peanuts and sprinkle on top.

Bake in the oven for appx 30 mins.

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I reckon this would taste delicious with any nuts. I think I’ll try chopped pistachios next time, but the saltiness of the peanuts worked so well with the rich chocolate.
When I first tried these I was quite disappointed that they kept crumbling, but the next day they were gooey and perfect, so I would recommend baking these in advance. That’s if you can resist eating them all straight away…

September 21, 2013

Oaty breakfast bars

This is another one from Natural new age mum. It’s cooling as I type this but I’ve had a little sneaky taste and it’s delicious.
I loooove flapjacks and tend to treat myself to one every day, thinking they’re “healthy”. Oats=superfood and all that. Ha! Ha! Anyway, I will happily scoff these down instead of shop ones, and better still, I’m happy to share these ones with Tallulah.

These ones are sooo easy to make. No excuses!

This is what you’ll need:

3 cups of organic oats
2 organic eggs
2 organic green apples
2 large ripe organic bananas
1 cup organic blueberries (I use frozen ones)
3 tablespoons virgin, organic coconut oil
2 tablespoons organic chia seeds (or use any other seeds or chopped nuts)
1 tablespoon organic cinnamon

I used blackberries instead of blueberries, as I have a freezer full of them and I’m out of chia seeds so I used some milled mixed seeds instead. I also used pears instead of apples as my friend picked some for me at the nature reserve.
Mix the squashed bananas, eggs, coconut oil and oats and leave to stand. Grate the apples (or pears) and add that and all the other ingredients to the oaty mixture. Stir, get in there, get messy, then spoon on to an oven dish lined with baking paper and bake for appx 25 mins or so (I always forget to check the time).
I will attempt to freeze some as it’ll take us ages to get through… Or maybe not.

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