Kombucha Love.

I remember in the mid nighties my mother and grandmother got into this new fad that was going to help them loose weight. It involved fermenting tea with the aid of a giant mushroom in a big porcelain pot. Needless to say, the fad didn't last long. Not many fads did in the nineties.

Kombucha is making a big pro-biotic comeback, in the same way that other nineties fads, like floral prints, ripped jeans, facial hair for the boys and porkpie hats, have.

My family members called this tea "mushroom tea" which doesn't have the nicest ring to it. Kombucha is apparently based on a Russian word and the tea is quite popular over there. I haven't been to Russia personally, so I can't really tell you too much about that. I have read that a previous Russian head honcho put in a lot of time and money to try and discover a magical elixir that would give him more energy and stamina and make him super healthy. He decided kombucha was the way of the future.

Long story short, no one really knows about this tea, the origins or what really is in it. But like everything in this world, no one will do the research into finding these things out unless there is a tonne of money to be made. I sincerely doubt that any scientist will put down his or her pay check to find these things out. What I can tell you is that like any other fermented product (other than alcohol), it is full of probiotics, makes my tummy feel good and tastes great.

Plus, it's tea. Obviously it's rad.

Time: One week to 30 days.
Makes: 1 litre or so.

Ingredients:

• First of all you need what is known as a SCOBY. That stands for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast. I bought mine from eBay. If you have a friend that  brews kombucha, you can get one from them. This is your mushroom starter.

• You also need about half a cup of the tea that the starter SCOBY came from.

• About two black tea bags. I have also used green and that worked a treat.

• Half a cup of sugar. I am a bit anti-white sugar. It's just ingrained in me not to use it. I have used coconut sugar and raw sugar for this recipe and have been quite successful. Everything I have read says that white sugar is the way to go. I use about half a cup of sugar per litre of tea. White sugar is sometimes filtered with animal bones. 

• One litre (4 cups) boiling water. 

• One big glass jar that holds at least a litre and a half of fluid. 

Method:

Boil the water and add the teabags and the sugar. Stir until the sugar dissolves. The whole idea is that the SCOBY will eat the sugar and ferment the tea.

Allow this tea mix to cool completely.

Add the mix to the glass jar along with the SCOBY and starter culture. Leave in a cupboard covered with a clean cloth for about a week. After a week, you will see a baby SCOBY has grown on the top of the tea. You can give this one to a friend or use it to make more mixes. 

You can bottle the brew after a week when it will be quite sweet and still have some sugar in it. Alternatively, you can wait up to a month when it will be more vinegary.

When bottling, you can add fruits, ginger or a herbal/ fruit tea to the mix. Place the bottles in the cupboard again for a week for a second fermentation. This part will make it a little bubbly. 

In the photo above, I have used green tea as the base, and added pomegranate tea on the top. It's delicious.

This is my lunch today. I'm getting ready for night shift and have cleaned the house and made a french onion-style cashew dip. French onion dip was my favourite as a kid. I love the way flavours and smells can bring back such vivid memories. This one is very similar to this dill dressing, but with truffle oil, half an onion and a clove of garlic instead of dill.  x   

My new favourite smoothie or Riot... Don't diet!

I haven't been posting many recipes lately. Essentially, I have been trying to kick some weight that I have put on over the years and have been focusing on salads, green smoothies and clean foods.

About 6 years ago, I quit my physical job of being a school photographer where we were constantly running around lifting heavy objects. I swapped this job for a desk job thinking I would have more stability.

I certainly had more stability. I also had less opportunities to move. At this time in my life, sadly I was in a relationship with someone who's personality clashed a lot with my own and neither of us were very happy at all.

I put on 20 kilos that year.

It was then that I ended the relationship. I changed jobs and became a carer and started uni and was on my way to becoming a nurse. Throughout my life, I had always had employment where I gave back to the community and having a desk job for a corporate company did nothing whatsoever to warm the cockles of my little heart.

Instead of staying in a job which I did not find fulfilling, I changed my career path. On a side note, I have met so many people who are unhappy in life and when probed further, it seems the basis of this unhappiness is their job. Ultimately, we are only here for a short while and we must follow our hearts and dreams. If you spend the majority of your time in a place that makes you unhappy, you will be unhappy.

If you are like me and seem to lack any particular direction, choose one. I do enjoy nursing and it gives me a good outlet for my art. It's a job where I can travel, make enough cash to be comfortable and also one where I can help people. It's not the most glamourous job and it can be quite draining and lead to many an existential crisis, but ultimately, it's for the greater good and I don't feel the soul destroying crush that big business can cause. Also, the hours allow me to have many a side project. I take drum lessons, DJ and paint portraits. Those are my true passions but admittedly, when I worked as a photographer I felt like it wasn't "enough" if you know what I mean. I love helping those who are somewhat neglected by society. Having said that, my skin has also become thick from dealing with those who rudely take more than they should. Oh, the ups and downs of nursing... But that is a different story.

When I changed jobs, I slowly lost 10 kilos. I was getting more exercise and not eating for the sake of eating. I learned more about nutrition and instead of living only on bread, I began to try new nutrient dense foods and quite enjoying them.

Having grown up with a family that focused on dieting but still had a mentality about food as if it was the Great Depression, my idea of food was somewhat skewed. We were often expected to have seconds and thirds at family gatherings whilst the conversation swirled around ideas of "being fat and needing to loose weight".

"You must eat all of the food on your plate. Think of the children starving in Africa."
I'm sure we've all heard this before. This saying has never made sense to me. As a smart arse child, I would offer that we take what was left on my plate and help feed those starving children. Those children will still go hungry regardless of what I eat.

We are not living in the Great Depression anymore, as my grandparents did. Our food is not rationed. In fact, we are privileged in that we can buy food in abundance.  This does not mean that we should gorge ourselves for the sake of not wasting food. We no longer need to think as if we may not have food on our plates tomorrow.

What does it mean to "waste food"? Is gluttony not wasting food? The only real way to not waste food in this day and age is to not buy too much, not cook too much and if you do have left overs, save it for your next meal.

My beloved often teases me for the fact that I often take leftovers home from restaurants. He calls me a "Nana". But do you know what? That is my lunch for the next day. It's not wasted and I don't have to spend any more money or use any more resources in buying more food. I am also loosing weight. Plus, I don't see being called a Nana offensive at all.

Here in Australia we make and receive massive portions of food. None of us want to "waste it". This is why we are having an obesity epidemic. We have been taught to think about food by those who grew up during the Great Depression when sources of food were scarce and little treats were rare and special.
We no longer need to worry about starvation and yet we still have a mentality that if we do not eat everything on our plate, we are wasting it. In what way are we wasting it? If we were to eat more than our bodies wish to receive we become fat and unhealthy. That in itself is a waste of a beautiful, energetic life.  Is it not a waste to eat something that you do not need? It doesn't make any sense to me. Up until recently, I have had rescued pet chickens and rabbits that we fed our leftovers to. We also compost. This is not a waste.

The people who taught us not to waste food are the same people grew up and went through all of the diet phases of the 80's and beyond. Talk about conflict. The idea of the diet actually started in the 1920's when for some reason, society went from thinking that a robust figure was sexy to idealising a more straight up and down figure. This idea of the diet strangely coincides with the beginning of cinema and popular culture.

I have heard every diet hint and tip spewed forth from the mouth of my grandmother who has been a member of weight watchers since before I was born. She has been overweight since I can remember and this weight has an adverse affect on her health. Being that she has this conflicted idea of food consumption, she doesn't seem to understand how food effects the body and has many emotional connections with it.

This can be generalised to many of us that grew up with these ideas being thrown at us.We all seems to think that being thin will in someway make us happy. I suppose given that food is essential for survival and somehow the human condition is all mixed up in survival mode and the emotional state, this is somewhat understandable. Perhaps focusing on eating is a way to not deal with deeper emotions that may be plaguing us. Therefore, over eating or under eating can be seen as an emotional focus when we can't figure out answers to the bigger questions.

Lately, I have been focusing on avoiding mindless snacking. I have not been drinking alcohol. I have been buying only what I need regardless of what is on special and I have been eating until I am full and no more. I have been recognising that if I just need something to do, eating is not the answer. Filling my life with things that I have always wanted to do and often put off, like study and make art.

Eating is not the answer. Unless of course, your body tells you it's hungry.

Having said that, I have lost 4 kilos in the last week without really doing much. My nails have gotten stronger, my existential crisis is resolving and I have more energy.

I feel good.

Above is my recipe for this weeks favourite smoothie which I have been eating for breakfast or lunch. x

Green Monster Smoothies :)

Despite the recent death of my Thermomix, I have been concentrating on drinking green smoothies  after my little health scare the day after Australia Day. I am happy and healthy but collapsing after feeling my heart kick off was certainly a wake up call.
Since then, I have quit drinking alcohol and increasing my levels of basic exercise. In my last post, I told you that I wasn't really sure of how to appease my boredom when it comes to exercise. I realised that this was in part down to time constraints. I like to organise my exercise around work.
I was riding my bike to and from work which increased my energy levels and gave me some valuable time with my music collection. The downfall, however, was that doing this took away from my reading time, as I like to read on the bus. Reading on the bus helps me to relax.
Obviously, I like to multitask.
I have since come up with a new plan. I now walk one way and catch the bus the other way. So many birds with one stone. Amazing. I feel great.
I have also started drinking an array of green smoothies. My skin is getting clearer. My memory is better and my nails are stronger. I feel good.
My friends are often asking what I put in my green smoothies so I thought I would share some of my favourite recipes with you. I definitely feel that green smoothies taste better when it comes from a high powered blender, as the fibre breaks down. It still tastes good from a regular blender, but is often a bit fibrous. I make one batch and drink it over two days, usually for breakfast or as a snack.
One thing to note. I actually hate spinach. I am learning to like it through these smoothies.
Adding ingredients like citrus and ginger help to mask the horrible taste. Citrus also adds valuable vitamin C which needs to be replaced in the body daily. Vitamin C also aids the absorption of iron, so your body will increase it's intake of iron from the spinach just by adding a simple lemon or grapefruit.
Here are some of my favourite recipes. Have a play with other ingredients and find a recipe all your own that you love.
A thumb of ginger just means a small amount, about two cm squared. Please don't write me saying you put in a piece the size of your thumb and you don't know why it tastes horrible. I'm sure most  of you get it. As always, these are basic suggestions. I'm sure you are clever and can use these recipes as a guide to go along with your own tastebuds. (Ooh, venting! I do get some very strange comments on here from people that don't seem to trust their own instincts. Everyone's tastebuds are different. Go with your gut.  ;)

Time: Less than 5 minutes.
Serves: 1-2 

Ingredients:

The basic Green Machine:

• One large handful of baby spinach. 
• One apple.
• One stick of celery.
• One lemon.
• Half a cucumber.
• One thumb of ginger.

Tropical Green:

• One large handful of baby spinach.
• One mango.
• One lemon. 
• One thumb of ginger. 

Tart and Tasty:

• One large handful of baby spinach.
• One grapefruit.
• One thumb of ginger. 
• Half a cucumber.

I can't think of a good name for this one but it's pineapple and I love pineapple:

• One large handful of baby spinach.
• Quarter of a pineapple, skinned.
• One cup of coconut water instead of regular water.
• Ginger. 

Method:
If using a regular blender, chop up these ingredients and place them in the blender. Add one cup of water and maybe some ice and blend for about 3 minutes until it's all liquified. Obviously, blending time depends on how powerful your blender is. My regular blender is just a cheap one and this is about how long it takes me. I do need to push the veggies around to assist the blender chop it all up. Watch your fingers!

If using a high powered blender, add all of the ingredients and blend on high for one minute. Add one cup of water  and maybe some ice and blend for a further minute.

Keep in the fridge.

Big Love! x

Oat milk. It makes me wonder why I ever bought anything in a carton.

If you know me, you probably think I'm a hippy.

I like to make everything from scratch. I shop local and I like to ensure that I create as little waste as possible. So here is a basic recipe for oat milk, which is the cheapest and easiest milk I have yet to make. I don't drink coffee or eat cereal, so I'm not sure how the flavour will work in that regard. However, oat milk is astounding in smoothies, sauces and cakes.

Time: 4 Minutes.
Makes: 1 Cup.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons of rolled oats.
• 1 Cup of water.

Method:

Place these ingredients into a blender and blend for two minutes. Strain through a nut milk bag or some muslin cloth. 

If you wanna get really fancy, you can add some vanilla or a sweetener. But I like it plain just fine.