Sarah’s Recap- Reinforce Week

I’m fully sick ya’ll so this week I’ve been solidly reinforcing my body with my bed, tissue box and netflix. 

It’s been a weird, snotty, pajama filled week for me and I’m so glad that this has happened in Week 4 and not in Week 1. I felt like I had my sh*t together this week and I just wanted to nourish my body with healthy fats and lots of sauerkrautkombucha* and many many cups of tea. I ALSO just wanted Vegemite on toast but I didn’t succumb to that craving. I made chicken soup instead. *Fancy*

I had the mantra of “creating lasting change” in my head all week. I think this is because I am really noticing a difference in my arthritis and fibromyalgia symptoms since starting The Real Food Reboot and that for me is the biggest motivator of all. 

I no longer get an aching spine by the end of my work day. My hands and knuckles aren’t aching after gym sessions where I do deadlifts. I can walk up the 7 million flights of stairs in my house without having random, niggling knee pain. I’m also sleeping more solidly and my insulin levels are the best they have ever been! Knowing this has kept me going, kept me consciously choosing food that I know will heal me and make my overall life better. Because that’s what it’s doing! 

I hope everyone has noticed some awesome changes as well. It’s really encouraging to think about all of you, going through the same struggles I am at the same time and hopefully having some wins as well! I feel like we’re all a team… like we’re all in this together! 

I didn’t stick to my meal plan as much this week as I mostly ate chicken soup and drank waaaaay too much tea. I was comforted though by the fact that I had put the plan together so that if I felt better I could just go straight to it and know what I was doing for the rest of the week. I’m going to use my week 4 meal plan again as I didn’t get to try most of the recipes I wanted to. 

I’m so excited to keep up these changes we’ve all made to our diet and I can’t wait to see the long term effects this has on my overall health and wellbeing. I’m not perfect and I do slip up sometimes but this program has taught me the foundations I need and can always, always come back to. It has taught me to not feel ashamed when I do stumble with my diet but to get back up on the damn horse and try to ride that thing off into the sunset. An avocado/fried egg filled sunset I hope ;o) 

Sar Xx

*Please hit me up if you need a Scoby/Mother as I have so many of them! 

Week 3 Recap- When the going gets tough… JERF!

Hi Rebooters,

Hope everyone had a great week! I was a bit up and down this week. The random weather really caused havoc with my arthritis and I’ve had flu symptoms all week which are probably due to introducing some intermittent fasting into my diet at the request of my dietician and doctor.

I was diagnosed with insulin resistance a few months ago and we are trying natural processes to help get it under control. So far it seems to be working but whoooooooo baby am I grumpy. I’m not proud to admit this but at one point I stayed in bed until 12:30pm (feeding time) on the dot as I couldn’t face getting up and not eating. #dramaticmuch. I know that this will help me in getting my insulin levels more normalised but when you are hungry, rational thought doesn’t really seem to matter.

I was super prepared to be craving things this week as I started my fasting periods however it’s had the opposite result! I’m SOOOO satisfied after lunch that I’m not looking for food around 3pm. I also am ravenous at dinner (rare for me) and really enjoying my food so I’m not even wanting my healthy snacks for an after dinner treat.
Most importantly, when I wasn’t fasting I stuck to my meal plan and it felt really easy and normal this week. I drank lots of my chicken stock as my flu symptoms lingered but I didn’t reach for unhealthy quick fixes and I was so proud! Even my hubby commented on how much I wasn’t snacking so for him to notice it must be true! He was just happy as all the protein balls and whole food muffins were up for grabs! He was like a shopper on a Black Friday muffin frenzy.

The first food I reintroduced was some Coal Coast Sourdough for my gluten product. I didn’t feel bloated after however I did feel a bit sluggish. This may have been from the fasting so I’m going to sporadically eat some and see how I go. I also had some Greek yoghurt which I had taken out of my breakfast shakes for the Reset phase. This is about as much dairy as I normally eat although I had a clean iced coffee (ice, coffee, milk, coconut nectar) from Opus Coffee Brewers and felt fine. I guess it’s all about balance and listening to your body.
My focus for the coming week is to stick to my meal plan whilst incorporating my fasting. I know it might seem a bit full on to try the Real Food Reboot AND do intermittent fasting but I don’t do anything by halves. It’s actually easier in many ways because one is making me stick the the guidelines of the other and vice versa.
Please talk to a doctor, dietician or even better Steph before you start adding anything like intermittent fasting into your diet plan. I just couldn’t be honest about my week without mentioning it. You all have so much to focus on already so don’t think you have to add this in too! It’s just where my diet is at the moment and we are all different and that’s ok!

My meal plan is a little different this week however I’m still really looking forward to trying out new nourishing recipes and continuing to stick to my plan.Good luck this week everyone!

Sar. Xx

Week 2- It’s all Perspective, Baby!

Sometimes you need to look at how far you have come, and not beat yourself up about where you currently are or where you came from.

I really struggled this week. Mentally I was exhausted and physically I was not feeling great after lots of extra work for our annual staff christmas party. It’s a massive event every year with 2 full days of set up after weeks of planning and designing sets and photo booths etc etc. It’s super fun but also hard on my spine and hands which suffer the worst arthritis symptoms throughout my body. 

Eating well helps this. I KNOW I can nourish my body with healthy, nutritious food and that I will feel great after. I know I can treat my body with love by feeding it things that will help my arthritis and fibromyalgia and this my friends,  is a powerful weapon. Especially when I’m only 30 yet feeling like I’m at an age where my back goes out more than I do.

I did find some time this week to make my Almond Coconut Protein Balls and a batch of Steph’s Whole Food Muffins

I tried a few new recipes this week and LOVED them all. My favourite 2 would have been the Chia and Banana Porridge and the Green Eggs

Despite feeling a bit flat, I was determined to stick to my meal plan and I did! I had a lot of fun trying the new recipes and used Steph’s trick of putting positivity post-it notes around (bathroom mirror, work desk and in my car) to help keep me on track this week.

I am thinking about what foods I want to reintroduce as I don’t really eat dairy or gluten very much at all. I may head up to the Flame Tree co op or Coal Coast Organics and grab a sourdough and start with that.

My meal plan for this week was pretty quick but I’m looking forward to trying some new recipes again and keeping the momentum of Week 2 going.

Almond Coconut Protein Balls

These babies are a staple in my house. I make a batch every week for hubby and I to take to work so we are snacking on wholesome noms and not tempted to reach for processed noms. I don’t ever really measure ingredients as sometimes I don’t have enough of one so I add more of another. I’ve put what I used this time but you can change it up depending on the taste and texture you like. I’ve linked to products I use in the ingredients list. 

Ingredients
1-2 cups organic coconut flour 
2-3 scoops of vanilla protein
½ cup organic almond meal or LSA
½ cup organic desiccated coconut
2-4 squares chopped coconut mylk dark chocolate
3-4 tablespoons organic coconut oil (melted & slightly cooled)
3 tablespoons rice malt syrup (or natural sweetener alternative)
1/3 -½ cup coconut milk or non dairy milk of choice

Method
Combine all dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix well. Combine coconut oil and rice malt syrup in separate bowl. Make sure the coconut oil is not too hot or the chocolate will melt. Stir wet mix and milk over dry ingredients until well combined. Roll into balls or add to a brownie tray. If adding to a brownie tray cut mixture after a few hours in the fridge into desired shape. Store in an airtight container in the fridge. Eat!

These taste like cookie dough to me which I love!
Happy ball-ing!

x

Sar

 

Week 1 Recap

Hi Rebooters,
Hope everyone had a fantastic week!
This week was a test for me in lots of ways.
I am super busy at work at the moment and 2 collegues have left for other jobs which makes it even more stressful!
I find that when I am really busy the first thing I get lazy with is my nutrition.
Getting enough sleep, no problem…I’m like a bear in winter. Exercise helps my stress levels so I’m good at forcing myself to work out if I don’t feel up to it. BUT ask me to get good sleep, exercise, work a 15 hour day + drive 2 hours AND cook dinner… How dare you!
Despite all of that, this week I stuck to my meal plan 80% of the time, which for me is awesome!
We only had non-scheduled eggs twice; a new world record in our house.
I did slip up twice with my reboot / real food eating but my mindset was really positive this week so I didn’t beat myself up and just got back into it.
The meal I enjoyed the most from the Members Portal was the Tasty Taco Bowls. Give me anything with smashed avo and cheese and I’m like a pig in mud.
To help my stress levels this week I continued with my new hobby/bad ass sport of archery. It has really helped me find a way to consciously meditate and get fully immersed in the practice and skill. I actually think this may be one of the reasons I stuck to my meal plan 80% as I was WAY more relaxed than I normally am and more inclined to cook.
Prep day Saturday for me consisted of making some protein bliss balls, chicken stock (photo above), kombucha, sauerkraut (photo above) and freezing a bunch of bananas and avocado for smoothies.
I didn’t get a chance to visit the Bulli Foragers Market today as I was working however I will use lots of left overs/things from my freezer and make “easy meals” this week with the produce I do have.
Meal plan attached so you can see how I have planned for a week when I havn’t shopped much and will also be super busy.
Good luck everyone with Week 2 – Recalibrate!
Can’t wait!
Sar Xx

 

Sarah’s Foundation Week Recap

This is the first recap I’l be doing whilst undertaking the Real Food Reboot program by Life Wellness Co. This week I’m focusing on Foundation Week and letting you guys know how I went, what i’m feeling, what information really stood out to me and also what I hope to achieve over the next week; Reset Week.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Members Portal. All of the information is so easily accessible and organised. I work full time in Sydney so I travel for over an hour to get to work each day. I often leave for work at 6.30am and don’t get home until 7 or 8pm. This means I don’t always have time to watch the videos and read the info each day. The members portal has organised it in a way that means I can read 2 days at a time quite easily which has really been helpful to me.

I attended Steph’s Nourish and Flourish Workshops earlier in the year so I have seen/read some of the Foundation Week information before HOWEVER it was great to have a refresher and go over everything again. We all get complacent sometimes and one of the main things I noticed this week was the info gave me a kick up the butt that I really needed.

I think the biggest thing that stood out to me this week (and that I always struggle with) was around the meal planning. I can be really hit or miss (mostly miss) with meal planning. I have gotten great at making my shopping list and going to the Bulli Foragers Market each week to get my fruit and veg. I have a fantastic local butcher in Balgownie GRAZE Butchery who sell Grass Fed meat and nitrate free bacon. I’m all over it…. then I get to the middle of the week and can’t be stuffed cooking what I buy. I then hit the phase my husband likes to call “We’re having eggs/smoothies AGAIN??” where we eat poached eggs / omelette / quiche OR protein smoothies for dinner 3 nights in a row. By Friday or Saturday I’m frantically making meals to use up all my fresh produce. Kind of backwards I know. Just call me Nigella! ;o)

ANYWHOO…. This week I have done my meal plan and I intend to ACE it! I’ve put the reasons I normally struggle below but this week I am feeling really positive.

Meal times are a bit strange in my house as my husband works night shifts a lot and I often eat by myself which means I don’t always do a lot (Cheese slices and nuts anyone?? AM I RIGHT!). If you’ve read my earlier posts you’ll see one about my Blueberry Breakfast Smoothie. I have this on days where I work as between my morning exercise and getting ready for work I don’t have time to sit down to breakfast. I have learnt that to de-stress my mornings, making this smoothie is my best option. I enjoy drinking it on the way to work and I find I’m not scoffing my food down to get out the door. Not very exciting BUT I try to switch it up on the days I’m not at work by having eggs, home made muesli with yogurt or oats with lots of healthy toppings.

Lunch time for me is interesting. We have lunch provided at work however I normally take most of my own stuff. The supplied food is often cooked on bulk and not very nutritious. They do normally supply 1 type of protein that isn’t cooked in sauce so I normally pick that (Chicken, Beef or Lamb mostly) and then I make a salad with baby spinach, boiled eggs, sauerkraut, feta, avocado and whatever options I feel like from the salad bar. If I know my husband won’t be home for dinner than I tend to eat a larger lunch and skip dinner (I told you I was Nigella).

Dinner (when not in the “Are we having that again” Phase) normally consists of protein (steak, grilled chicken, eggs, lamb chops, fish etc) with lots of veggies and sauerkraut. I do make the occasional stir fry or whole food curry. In summer we tend to barbecue A LOT as it’s quick and easy. I know I know, so adventurous right!

I’m super excited to learn some recipes from Steph to start incorporating them into my repertoire. I think this will actually really help me be more consistent with my cooking mid week as I will have new recipes to look forward to and try out. That’s my aim for this week!  I’ve put the recipes from the Members Portal that I want to try this week in my meal planner. So take a look and I hope it inspires you to try something new too!

Happy Rebooting!

Sar Xx

 

Have you ever wondered what it is like to become a Real Food Rebooter?

We get loads of questions about the program everyday so we have found a willing volunteer to give us a no-holds-barred account of her experience as she runs through the 6 week program.

Sarah will be updating us on her progress regularly, posting some of her insights on social media and she may even answer your questions if you ask nice enough!

Meet Sarah 

A bit of info about me:I am 30 years old and live in Balgownie with my husband, Nathan.
We’ve been married 12 years and don’t have any kids yet.

My stress levels go up and down depending on work. I often have deadlines that need to be met however I am pretty good at knowing when I have had enough and need to go home or switch off.
I have started taking Wednesdays off work to have a mid week break and I make up the hours on other days. This allows my mind and body to relax and have some time mid week and I feel more productive and less stressed through the rest of the week.

I have been on a bit of a self-help health journey (last 2 years) as I was having a lot of unexplained pain.
I have had asthma and eczema since I was a baby and have lots of allergies to food, preservatives, lotions, etc etc etc… On top of this- I have also recently been diagnosed with Peripheral Spondyloarthritis and Fibromyalgia. I found that every Dr I went to kept palming me off to another Dr or just trying to help my pain and symptoms with pain medication and never really addressed the real problem or offered a long term solution.

So I started to look at how to heal myself without medication and through food and lifestyle changes- and finally I am starting to see some results!

I have lost roughly 30kgs in the last 2 years simply from changing my diet and attitude to food and exercise. I also try to float at Cocoon Flotation 1-2 times a month for pain management.

I signed up to the Nourish and Flourish workshops as the more I read about health and wellness I kept seeing the terms ‘gut health’ and ‘healing the gut’.

I really wanted to learn more and not just about what I was putting in and on my body but about what was happening once I did and how I could optimise my diet and lifestyle to positively impact my health, pain and weight.

I have noticed the biggest and most amazing change in my pain levels since completing the Nourish and Flourish workshops. I have less pain throughout the day and can exercise 80% of the time without pain which is great!

The simple food changes I have made started with adding grass fed gelatin and a probiotic to my diet. Then I started making sauerkraut and kombucha. I also make home made chicken stock every 2 weeks and drink it most days.

I am listening to my body and only eating when I am hungry (which is less now) and am working towards cutting out all treats in my diet (I’m 80-90% there!). I cut out most breads / heavy starchy food a while ago however adding more healthy fat into my diet (which I struggled with at first) has really helped me be less hungry throughout the day and not crave as many sweets.

I feel that the Real Food Reboot is exactly what I need to take my diet to the next level and also help me learn more tips and changes to implement throughout my diet. I am looking forward to discovering more healthy recipes and food combinations and can’t wait to get started!

Follow Sarah’s Reboot Journey

https://www.facebook.com/lifewellnessco/
Sarah’s Tumber Account

#realfoodreboot
#lifewellnessco

5 Top Fresh Produce Picks this Winter

Parsnips

It’s root vegetable season and top of the list is the parsnip. I am a huge fan of parsnips, they always remind me of Sunday roasts at my grandma’s place when I was growing up and I love that they are making a comeback in my world this season. But now I love them not only for their deliciousness but also because I am aware of their awesome health properties too. These quirky looking versatile vegetables contain high levels of potassium, manganese, magnesium, phosphorous, zinc, and iron, in addition to an impressive range of vitamins, including vitamin B, vitamin C, vitamin E, and vitamin K, as well as high levels of fibre and some protein. All of which equals nutritional gold!

Not sure what to do with them?

Parsnips are an awesome alternative to plain old potato when your thinking of making mash, roast veggies or even to make into deliciously crispy home-made chippies.  Simply cut them into chip size, coat with some of your favourite cooking oil (I like coconut or ghee) and sprinkle with some Himalayan salt and whack in the oven for 45 minutes to crisp up. Yum!

Swede

Another root vegetable tops this list this season. Swede’s are those ugly looking things that couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be a cabbage, or a potato or a parsnip so they are kind of a quirky blend of all three.

They have some pretty awesome health benefits including their ability to improve our digestive health, boost our immune system, improve our metabolic function, lowering our blood pressure,  lowering cholesterol levels, aiding in cellular and enzymatic functions, building strong bones, and can even help with weight loss. Enough good reasons to seek these babies out at the markets? I think so.

So what do we do with them?

The same as we do for parsnips. We mash them, we roast them, we make them into chippies and we use them in our soups. So delish and so nutritious.

Navel Oranges

I love the fact that number 3 on our list for this season is a citrus fruit as we can all do with some serious vitamin C boosting during the winter months, and oranges are chock full of the good stuff.

Bronson assures us that this season the Navel oranges are the pick of the litter – sweeter than the Valencia’s and deliciously juicy they are the ones to reach for at the markets this time of year.

Gravensteine Apples

Don’t you just love the name of these apples? ‘Gravensteine’…..so glamorous…..so European, yet these little cherubs are grown here locally. Bronson informed me that these little beauties are famous for their their cider making heritage being traced back to their original birth place in Denmark, many, many, many years ago.

I can honestly say I have not consciously consumed a Gravenstein apple prior to today and what can I say other than WOW! These apples are so super crisp and have the most amazing flavour, they could very easily make me an apple snob.

One of my favourite recipes for apples in the winter months is my Apple Crumble. If you haven’t tried it yet, you simply must so check out the recipe here.

Queensland Blue Pumpkin

Pumpkin is such a versatile vegetable. You can make pumpkin soup 101 ways, you can roast it and put it through a salad, you can roast it and have it on it’s own as a meal, you can mash it, you can make chips out of it, you can even make desserts out of it. I love it!

The Queensland Blue variety of pumpkin completes off our top 5 fresh produce picks this season due to it’s deliciously creamy texture, it’s thin skin (equals minimal wastage) and it’s abundance of flesh with minimal seeds.

It is just perfect to use to make a Creamy Pumpkin Mash, Pumpkin and Sage Carbonara, a roast pumpkin soup or even a Thai Pumpkin Soup.

Just a quick reminder that buying and eating ‘in-season’ produce which is locally grown with love is not only good for your health, but it is also extremely beneficial for your wallet too. Fresh produce grown in season is more likely to have been grown outside in natural conditions, with minimal storage time and less ‘intervention’ meaning we get max nutrients (more bang for our buck) and due to the abundance in supply during peak season, the costs per kg reduces significantly. Not only that but eating seasonally also allows us to obtain a wide variety of nutrients from different foods rather than just sticking to the same fruit and veggies all year round and variety in our foods is absolutely paramount to our overall health and wellbeing.

If you need further inspiration, check out this video with Bronson from Roaming Fresh. This guy is seriously passionate about his fresh produce and it’s contagious.

 

Nourishment- It’s an inside job!

What we eat is only one part of the equation when it comes to truly nourishing our body, yet so many of us are totally obsessed with this aspect alone. So many clients come to us with the mentality that they need to change what they are eating to feel better.

If I eat less sugar….I’ll feel better, if I eat more greens…..I’ll feel better, if I have more omega-3’s….I’ll feel better…..and on and on. And whilst these statements are true to an extent for most people, they  only represent such a small part of the ‘nourish and flourish’ equation.

So here’s a heads up. Simply changing what you eat is not going to make as much of an impact on nourishing your body as it would if you spent some time and effort focusing on how you eat to maximise your body’s ability to digest and assimilate all the goodness in your awesome food choices.

You see, the simple fact of the matter is that we could sit down to the most deliciously, nutritious, nutrient dense packed plate of food, yet if we can’t digest and absorb the nutrients from the foods because our digestive system is not up to scratch then there is minimal goodness to be had from that meal and you may as well have thrown it down the toilet (in fact that’s exactly where a lot of the goodness will actually end up!).

Unfortunately, the way many of us live our lives these days has taken a serious toll on our digestion and as a result more and more of us are becoming ‘overfed and undernourished’. We are certainly eating enough food, but not enough of the good stuff is getting in to allow us to truly nourish our cells to allow us to be firing at optimal capacity all day, every day. As a result our cells are literally starving for nutrition, which triggers our body to send signals to encourage us to seek out more food (hunger cues and cravings), so we eat more, and we still can’t fully digest the new food, and so the cycle goes on, and our waistlines expand whilst our energy levels slowly but surely become more and more depleted.

It’s an all too common scenario. But it is one that we can so easily correct.

The answer lies in learning how you can listen to your body’s cues and learning how you can support your body’s natural digestion process to maximise extraction of the nutrients from the delicious foods you are eating to useful in truly nourishing your body’s cells. Because nourished cells are happy & healthy cells, and happy & healthy cells are energised, vibrant and bursting with life – and as a result that is exactly how you look and feel when you become truly ‘nourished’.

Simple choices that you may not have thought about can seriously impact on your ability to extract goodness from your food like how you position your body when you are eating, how you prepare your body for a meal, what cues your body is giving you regarding timing of eating, what other competing priorities you are placing on your body which strip energy from the digestion process, what foods you are combining together that could enhance or detract from it digesting, what foods provide the best fuel sources for different times of the day,  how you are influencing your gut health with your daily lifestyle choices and what that in turn does to your digestion and how your skin, mouth, moods and bowels all play a role in allowing your body with work optimally.

This is the stuff that makes a serious difference. Knowing how your body is designed to work optimally and how you can support it’s natural processes is just as important, if not more so, than the actual food choices you make on a daily basis. It’s like being given your very own ‘Operator’s Manual’  for your body which in turns allows you to maximise it’s running efficiency and seriously amp up it’s performance. How cool is that?

This is why we have created the ‘Nourish & Flourish’ workshop series. Because we care and we know that simply providing you with dietary advice is not enough to help you become truly nourished and flourishing in your own life. This series has been designed to give you the knowledge and insight into your own body to help you reclaim your digestive health to allow you to truly nourish your body from the inside out.  Throughout the four part series, we not only give you the ‘Operator’s Manual’ but we also give you a massive toolbox, jam packed with all sorts of awesome tools that you can use to supercharge your energy, vitality and wellbeing.

We’d love to have you come and join us. Check it out here.

In the interim, if you do just three things between now and when we get started on this journey together, let them be this:

  1. Stop drinking cold water before you eat – this seriously dampens your digestive fire.
  2. Avoid taking a hot shower, exercising or going to bed before your meal has had time to fully digest (not sure how long to leave it…..we’ll talk you through this).
  3. Take one deep, long inhale and exhale through the nose before you eat.

We’ll explain why, when we see you.

 

Easter Eggs- No nasties. Just 5 wholesome ingredients.

Next time you pick up a store brought Easter egg, I’d like you to take a quick squiz at the ingredients list. It will surprise you the number of ingredients listed on the labeling to make such a simply treat. There is an alternative. Put the Easter egg back down, go to your local Food Co-op or health food store and pick up the following 5 ingredients so you can make your own, healthier version, not only for Easter but for the rest of the year! All you need is cacao butter, cacao powder or carob powder, vanilla (optional), honey and coconut oil. Yep, that’s it. No refined sugar, no additives or preservatives, no nasty numbers….just 5 wholesome ingredients.

And here’s what to do with it….

Ingredients:

1 cup cacao butter (220-250 grams of solid cacao butter)
6-7 tbsp raw cacao powder (or cocoa powder)
4 tbsp honey or maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract/essence
2 tablespoons of coconut oil
Method:

Bring a saucepan of water to boil and then turn the heat down to simmering. Add cacao butter to a heatproof bowl and place over the simmering water in the saucepan. Do not allow the bowl to come into contact with the water and make sure no water gets in the cacao butter, otherwise you cacao will seize (that is, it will turn into a grainy paste – disaster!).
Melt the butter, stirring with a metal whisk / spoon, until it is smooth and creamy. If you have a thermometer, make sure the temperature does not go over 45°C/118°F. If you get very close and the cacao butter is still melting, remove the bowl from the heat and let the butter melt further on the counter top, whilst still stirring. Don’t stress if you don’t have a thermometer, just keep your eyes on it and take it off the heat just before it is completely melted and continue stirring off the heat until all lumps of butter are dissolved.
Once cacao butter is melted, add the cacao powder, vanilla, honey or your preferred sweetener, and coconut oil and whisk together until all dissolved and well incorporated. Keep the mixture warm if possible (around 30-35°C) by mixing over a bowl of warm water. This will keep it smooth and silky, and decrease the chances of chocolate seize (for which there is no redemption).
There you have it. Silky, smooth, melt in your mouth chocolate made from a small handful of ingredients without a grain of white sugar in sight, making it a much healthier choice than the traditional store brought variety for you and the family this Easter.

5 Top Fresh Picks for Autumn

Cauliflower

Whilst the past couple of months have seen a nationwide shortage of cauliflower causing a spike in the cost of one head to up to $7.99, we can now all rejoice as supply is back and these little beauties are in the finest during the Autumn months. Cauliflower is such a versatile vegetable, yet most of us just think about steaming or baking the florets to put alongside our roast meat. Yet, think a little outside of the box and you find a whole array of great recipes for this one ingredient. Some of my favs are cauliflower pizza bases, cauliflower puree (to replace cheese on lasagna), cauliflower steaks, cauliflower rice, cumin coated cauliflower salad and cauliflower soup.

Needing some inspiration – why not try this super delicious spicy cauliflower soup tonight and keep your eyes peeled this week for a Roasted Cauliflower and Mushroom Soup that I am just finishing some final tweaking with the view to publishing it this week in The Illawarra Mercury.

Pears

Now is the season to pick up super crispy and delicious pears. Try a few different  varieties as they can be used for different purposes depending on their texture, sweetness and size.

Two of my favourite uses of pears is to slice them into discs or slithers and scattering through my salads or dice them and add to my morning porridge for some natural sweetness.

For a super simple pear salad, cut the pear into fine slices and add to a base of fresh rocket, shaved parmesan and a handful of walnuts topped with a tangy balsamic dressing. Delish.

Bronson also suggested using the pears as a ‘cracker’ alternative to have with some cheese and a glass of vino. Sounds divine.

Fuji Apples

Fuji apples are enjoying a late season this year, making now a perfect time to pick some up for the kids lunchboxes, or to add to a delicious apple crumble. I also love to dice these apples up into small pieces and add them to my favourite muffin recipe for an added element of texture, taste and nutrition.

Check out my whole food version of apple crumble here….

Stone fruits

Bronson assures me now is the time to get your hands on some super delicious stone fruit. Think golden peaches, white nectarines, sugar plums. Again these little gems can be popped into school lunchboxes for a great snack, sliced and scattered in salads or even stewed up to make your own homemade jam. So many options. 

Figs

Figs have to be one of my all time favourite fruits, yet I find it difficult to justify the high costs of these little parcels of pure perfection. So you can imagine my delight to hear that these little babies round out the top 5 picks for awesome autumn produce, meaning they are abundant at the moment resulting in you being able to buy more of these gems for less.

Oven roasted figs drizzled with maple syrup  for dessert tonight anyone?

Or how about fig, prosciutto and goats cheese salad on a bed of rocket for a delicious side dish, or why not stock up and make up your own fig paste for your next cheese board. So many options.

Buying and eating in-season produce is not only good for your health, but it is also extremely beneficial for your wallet too. Fresh produce grown in season are more likely to have been grown outside in natural conditions, with minimal storage time and less ‘intervention’ meaning we get max nutrients (more bang for our buck) and due to the abundance in supply during peak season, the costs per kg reduces significantly. Not only that but eating seasonally also allows us to obtain a wide variety of nutrients from different foods rather than just sticking to the same fruit and veggies all year round and variety in our foods is absolutely paramount to our overall health and wellbeing.

If you need further inspiration, check out this video with Bronson from Roaming Fresh. This guy is seriously passionate about his fresh produce and it’s contagious.