What's summer without... a picnic?

THAT gorgeous Berry Yoghurt cake- perfect for summer sharing!  Recipe here.

As a little girl I was blessed with parents who loved the outdoors.  We'd often, in the Great Aussie way, have a barbie on summer afternoons after Dad had mowed the lawn.  Fresh cut grass and the smell of sizzling beer on a hot plate (it's the best cleaner, you know), take me right back to age 7.


When I was in uni at Sydney my sophisticated boyfriend and I would buy a kilo of king or tiger prawns from the fish market in Pyrmont on our special occasions and take them back to Manly Head, where we'd set up a lavish lawn picnic in the national park.  We'd bring our champagne buckets filled with ice, too many bottle of NZ sauvignon blanc and perhaps a salad and fresh baguette.  But it was really about the gorgeous fresh pink prawns and afterwards, daydreaming on a white sheet under the impossibly wide blue sky.


I like to think I've picnicked my way round the world ever since, and given a sunny day, my catering thoughts immediately turn al fresco.
More memorable picnics include: in Central park, NYC, where I saw my first fire-flies... high on a mountain in Austria, eating packed-cheese sandwiches and fresh picked blueberries from beneath our feet... 


And here on the Isle of Man, where the weather is so tumultuous, where a mornings sunbathing can be followed by an afternoon of freezing fog.  Picnic style changes due to location, doesn't it?  Here I've learned it's not about the equipment, the style, the setting.  We go where the sun is strong and people few.  We're off on one now (it's been sunny for a few hours, late august, and the sky is that funny pale blue colour where it's impossible to tell if there's clouds or not... sun's hot though; we'll chance it.


What to eat?
In thinking how much I wanted to share the joy of picnicking with you, because, to alot of the friends I've dragged along with me, they don't understand the point of :- preparing.packing.unpacking.eating/spills/forgotten items/weather changes/bugs/location variables/packing.unpacking cleaning (to which I say whatwouldyoulike.pop it in there.anything else you need/what would make it super special.i know where we're going, it's a surprise. right, just here is fine. yum/yum/oh look at that/oh that makes me remember/would you ever like to/wouldn't it be nice if/i've always wanted to.time to go. wasn't that great.it's good to be home.), I had in my mind to pop here a picnic menu of simple yummies that make alfresco just so good.


Happily- so happily- I had unexpected help because just when one is in the middle of a great blogpost and one's attention invariably switches to facebook, what should appear but my talented friend Lisa Miller's article in nourish magazine suggesting How to tempt picky eaters.  She suggests a selection of healthy goodies, and so many of these are perfect picnic fodder too!


When you're lured by the promise of fun and relaxation alfresco, here are some wonderful ideas for your menu. *means they're going in my backpack for our jaunt right now! 

Nibbles:
Healthy tortilla chips, home-made veggie crisps, home-popped corn
Dips: hommus, tzatiki*, peanut butter, minted yoghurt, salsa
Vegetable crudites*, celery, cucumber, carrot, sliced peppers, baby beets, broccolini, asparagus, apple
Hard boiled eggs, peel them once sitting down


The main event:
Chicken- organic, pre-roasted and cut into portions (a british thing?) 
Turkey salad rolls* -recipe to come!- a wonderful portable gluten free lunch for energy
Nori rolls filled with avocado, chopped cabbage and toasted sesame seeds 
Pre-grilled sausages, gluten free*
Prawn, calamari, or crayfish tail dressed in garlic chilli and olive oil
Salads:  Quinoa with peanuts and shallots*; Wild rice with pineapple or apricot; Mixed leaves with green beans; Caprese (tomato, basil and mozzarella stacks)


Thereafter;
Local organic cheeses, rye crackers
Grapes
Strawberries*
Olives
Greens organic chocolates
Home-made cake or health bars* the Berry Yoghurt cake pictured above's recipe, here!


Beverages:   Sparkling water, elderflower cordial, wine or champagne* if you are this way inclined; a martini shaker, ice, vodka, orange segments and cranberry juice.

Enjoy these beautiful days alfresco whilst you can, beautifuls!

"Get. A .Grip." (plus the recipe you'll need- to decompress)

When someone says, "Get a grip!" to you, what does this make you do?  

A.  Rebel.  I don't let someone else's priorities rule my life no matter how sane they sound.

B.  Make sure to keep a foot in the world around me... this could be important.

C.   If it's the Universe sending the Get A Grip message, I need to wake up and realise what's really important to me.

A, B or C?
(our answer:  ALL of the above)

For lunch:  Lose-it Salad

I Got a  "Get a Grip!" call from the Universe this am.  Tightened my hold, zooomed in focus, went:  this is not what I want to be part of but oooomph it needs doing- and found a solution.  Now, I can lose it- ie. Release.  Must eat.  Lunch = glass of sauvignon blanc and THIS salad.  Time to let spirit wander again.  She just loves it, you know.

Nicoiseasy salad- Friday lunch

serves 1 greedy green monster.

Mixed salad leaves- 4 handfuls

Sustainable tuna in brine- 1 tin drained

4 cherry tomatoes, quartered

1/2 cup peas (fresh or un-frozen)

1/2 onion or 3 shallots

1 baby pickled beet, drained & sliced

1 egg, hard boiled, quartered

2 tablespoons of roasted/toasted in frypan for few mins, sunflower seeds

dressing:

1 clove garlic, mashed with a pinch of salt

1 tbsp olive oil

Juice of 1 lemon

Pinch mixed herbs (dried in a jar purchased from supermarket)

Fresh cracked black pepper

How to-:

1. Add all the salad ingredients except the sunflower seeds and egg to a large bowl. Toss by hand.  
2. Shake all the dressing ingredients in a fresh jar.
3. Mix the dressing into the salad with a wooden spoon until well combined.  Pile in a large shallow bowl.
4. Arrange the egg quarters on top, sprinkle with the roasted sunflower seeds, and garnish with more black pepper.

Remember, beautifuls!  This is lose-it salad.  You aren't going to find a grounding, stabilising mood in eating this.  You'll be away with the fairies with green tara inspired lettuce leaves for wings!  You'll need a nourishing, grounding dinner in a few hours.  After dinner then, you may be ready for another Get. A. Grip. call.  




This post dedicated to my absurd family in Australia; and to Susie Juuls, who (I believe) actually has said this to her passengers.  Making her only the most inspiring air hostess, ever, to work with! xo

Truly, Madly, Raw-ly... and a recipe

www.samanthahoney.com

If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way. --Buddha


Fancy sharing my raw lunch?


Since completing more of my IIN studies I've become deliciously tempted to go RAW.  And through listening to raw-foodie friends and resources....plus sages like Natasha St Michael- who used a raw food diet to cure PCOS; David Wolfe , THE raw food guru; and UK's own Gillian McKeith- I'd love to encourage you to enjoy two or three meals, most days, eating raw too.


I kind of get overwhelmed with juicing talk, discussions of acai, goji berries and raw cacau.  I wanna take this stuff slow.  One resource I'll be using is the Raw Food Institute's Raw-gust- all this month they're offering free support to raw food enthusiasts!  If you want to also get a feel for how fun and delicious raw food can be, visit Rawfully Tempting- Barbara is a talented lady with a fantastic site and recipe collection.  I promise you'll be as excited as me at the possibilities...


Just quickly- why would I like to, and encourage others, to "go raw"?  

1. Going raw is a sexy concept... with sexy promises... and NO-ONE's profiting.  There are a million ways to do this and yes, you can buy a book, or a cleanse, or get support from a health coach or other professional with this but- you don't have to.  You just begin... by upping your intake of fresh -preferably organic- washed, vegetables and fruits. Our own bodies and healthy life are what's benefiting, here!
2. It promises us more energy, freed up by quicker and less taxing digestion on the body.  So much energy is wasted on digestion.  That why, when we're really ill, we have no appetite.  The body is using all it's energy for healing. Digestion just doesn't get a look-in.
3. It's a diet high in active enzymes which are destroyed when food is heated over 110F- enzymes which are the key to a healthy, vital life- that we gradually lose as we age, unless we ingest them.  
4. It aids healing and can reverse many of our modern diet-induces sicknesses- example here.  
5. Owning-up:  I'm a greedy, girly girl :P- and, on our plates, raw food looks pretty, is great for weight-loss and tastes fantastic.  I can't think of more reasons why I'd like to enjoy more raw food in my life (oh yes I can.  Clean and green, organic, intuition-enhancing, free from artificial ingredients...) and why it can assist you in any of the goals you have for a healthier lifestyle, too.

But notice I say- "enjoy more raw food".  "Going raw" sounds so scary- like- I'll never eat a cooked meal again!  That's SO not what this share with you is about.  Instead, here's my thoughts on going... eating... living Raw...

• You probably eat more raw than you know.  Fruit and nuts for breakfast.  A big salad filled with rainbow colours topped with sliced avocado for lunch.  Carrot, celery and broccolini dipped in hummous (from sproutde chickpeas) as a snack.
• I wanna learn how to make almond yoghurt.  Cashew nut cheese.  This is an adventure!
• Proof of the pudding re: superfoods:  Recently, I bumped into a man who I hadn't seen for 5 years.  In our conversation back then, he was complaining about his wife making him drink Spirulina every morning.  Seeing him the other week, he looked younger than he did those 5 years ago.  His skin was smoother, more hydrated.  Curious, I asked him if he was still taking the supplement.  He responded that he wouldn't go without it now!  Myself, I've been taking blue-green algae for a few months.  When my supply ran out last month I was without it for almost a week.  I felt waaaay more thirsty, and noticed my skin looked more tired.  Both Spirulina and BlueGreen algae are superfoods, a high source of natural and complete protein with amazing benefits proven and disproven.  But in my mind they are the real deal.  I've tasted the pudding.
• Bit of crunch for thought: we think we'll miss cooked food.  But really, what we're craving is texture and flavours.  Cheese, for instance, is a creamy, salty taste.  Pureed fresh corn kernels with soy sauce could fit this taste...  
• Last, I enjoy surprising my husband and myself with really healthy, tasty treats.  No more "fajitas again!  prawn or chicken?"  It's time to freshen up.  Take health and vitality to the next level.  And enjoy the extra energy raw food provides.  

www.samanthahoney.com

LUNCH:

Sweet Nut Salad with Tahini 'Mayonnaise'

3 cups mixed leaves

1 cup baby spinach

1/2 apple, peeled and sliced

Handful chopped walnuts

Handful chopped hazelnuts

1/2 cup fresh or frozen garden peas

Tahini mayonnaise:

1 tablespoon tahini

1/2 small onion, diced or 2 shallots, diced

Juice of 1/2 lemon

1 clove garlic, crushed

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1/2 teaspoon honey

Black pepper, to taste.

• Combine all the salad ingredients in a large bowl
• Place all the 'mayo' ingredient in a clean jar, and shake well til combined.
• Divide the salad between 2 plates, tip over the 'mayo' (you should have enough for another day too!), garnish with black pepper, and serve.

oh! I also love sprinkle over all my savoury dishes- raw and otherwise- Clearspring's Nori flakes- any seaweed flakes will do, to include this deliriously beneficial superfood into our diets- a sprinkle is so palatable, and infinitely better than none! 

Be well!
With love,
Samantha.

Sunday lunch- Save the date!

So begins a lovely new tradition:  the Sunday Lunch share.  I hope this will become interactive, and I can learn so much from you... in time, I'd also like to start a facebook Sunday Lunch group- what we're planning, cooking and eating, how it went, who we are with, what we're hoping, feeling-- reflections on the week past and the week to come...


“There is no delight in owning anything unshared.”- Seneca


The template so goes:


1.  Start here.  Okay, it's 11am.  Just dropped Husby at the airport.  Feel twitchy, all full of things to do, but what first?  It's a grey cold and blustery summer's Sunday.


2.  Who's cooking what?  Just me.  I found 3 gorgeous cookbooks in the secondhand shop this week and this one especially is making me drool: "The New Vegetarian cookbook" by Heather Thomas with foreword by Linda & Paul McCartney.  Yes, it's very old.  It's so old that Heather Thomas is doing vegetarian in all sorts of deep fried, gluten-rich, sauce-y, simple carbohydrate loaded ways, ie. "Boil in the bag rice is a godsend!" not a quote, just you get the general gist ie.  not thaaaaat healthy!  But I am fascinated.  It also is English- in a way that knows what we have and can use and is achievable here.  I love American and Aussie recipes, and I've realised we all have to work within our own countries.


Menu:
Only 2 courses this day.  Main:  Filled crepes.
Dessert:  Date pudding.
Both from scratch.


How's the cooking?  Not showing the crepes pic... 'twas disaster!  Recipe doesn't work with Granary flour.  Needed to be thinner, smoother, lighter.  With a cheesier, richer,more velvetly elegant and creamy sauce...


Result?  Date pudding = Divine!  A gorgeous, "take anywhere", moist, dense cake; or a proper date pudding when the sauce is poured over:  here's the recipe.  It does contain gluten, dairy, nuts & sugar.  Do share your healthy exchanges for these.  


Dates are one of the most wonderful ingredients in a cook's cupboard- their inherent sweetness help minimise the added sugar (cut it by a half when using in any recipe), and they are rich in iron and B vitamins.


Any AHA!'s?  I found it so comforting to take direction from the recipe book at a wobbly moment after husband goes away and a big week in store. Yet I played with the recipe so much though after reading through it, it's comforting warming moist chewiness hardly resembles the "old fashioned tea loaf, serve in slices with butter" the original recipe creates!  That's why I found it so heartening that the Date Cake turned out brilliant whilst my savoury main left alot to be desired (when it's usually the other way around- baking isn't really a little bit of this and that way cooking style, is it?)  No matter how slap-dash a baker you may be, you can do this and it will turn out gorgeous, I promise!


Anyway, here's the recipe:


Ginger Date and Nut cake with pudding sauce


1 cup water
1/2 cup dark brown/molasses sugar
2 tablespoons of butter or olive oil
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chopped dates
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/4 cups wholemeal plain flour
1/2 cup chopped nuts- walnuts and hazelnuts are great here
Pinch ground ginger
Pinch salt
1/4 cup stem or candied ginger (optional)


for the sauce: 
1/2 cup butter
4 tbsp honey
1/2 cup cream

1. Combine the water, sugar, baking soda, butter or oil, and dates in a saucepan.  Simmer for 1 min.  Transfer to a mixing bowl and let cool slightly.
2. Add the beaten eggs and mix.  
3. Sift in the flour, salt, spice.  Add the nuts and ginger if using.  Mix well. 

Bake in a preheated oven for 35 mins at 180degrees/ 350F or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  I used a square pan- it would look lovely in a ring pan- I always line my pans in baking paper for easy escape.  Allow to cool in the pan for 10mins before lifting out.

• To make the sauce (not shown), bring all the ingredients to a simmer in a saucepan.  Sliced the cake, tip over the sauce, and garnish with lemon zest, shaved fresh ginger, and sliced strawberries.

~*~

To judge of how good ANY dish is for you, you can ask yourself these questions:

1.  Is it made from natural ingredients?

2.  Does it include fresh fruit and veg? 

3.  Does it avoid most irritants- gluten (wheat), nuts, dairy?

4.  Is it homemade; and made with love?

Be well!

love, Samantha.

Shady Lady salad... must share.

Good evening, beautifuls!  One for the tum here.  It has only been after SO wanting to share this dish with you, and researching it a little to explain the gorgeous mood that it puts me in, that I realise it was a recipe I laughed out loud at a few weeks ago- that recipe was loosely translated as "Whore's Spaghetti"


I guess then, this makes this "Whore's Salad"! 



Salad Puttanesca ~ the Shady Lady salad

The story goes:  Puttanesca gets it's name because it was so quick and simple to make, prostitutes in southern Italy would quickly dash to make a bowl to revive themselves between clients.  As believable as this is (because it IS quick!), another description I found...  


"[Puttanesca is] a little salty (from the anchovies)... a little spicy (from the capers)... and a little fragrant (from the garlic & the olives)" 


... may also explain why the salty, spicy, fragrant ladies of Italian nights had a dish named after them.


This dish is rich in natural, health-giving fats, greens and power-packed protein; and bursts with mediterranean summer flavour.  We are lucky enough to buy here (UK) a jar of "Puttanesca"- anchovies, capers and black olives preserved in olive oil- from Waitrose- I hope in Australia, Woolies; or State-side, Wholefoods or TraderJoes, sell a complete jar too! The speed of the dish is because all these fiddly yet delicious ingredients, a staple of Italian cuisine, can be added together, as in Italy.


Dark green leaves, diced cucumber, tomato and onion, a generous squirt of lemon, and a protein serve like chicken breast (shown here) or- my favourite; it seems to intensify the flavour- tuna- complete the "Whores salad":  a delicious, body-enhancing dish.  


Enjoy!


How to:
Serves two for lunch or light dinner- no cooking required

• 4 handfuls baby spinach
• 2 handfuls mixed baby leaves and herbs
• 1/2 cucumber, de-seeded, diced
• 8 cherry vine ripened tomatoes, quartered
• 1/2 onion, I like red here, diced,
• 150g each person of cooked chicken breast or tinned tuna, organic/sustainable wherever possible
• 4 tablespoons Puttanesca mix or 100g mixed black olives pitted; capers, drained; anchovies, drained and crushed; with 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
• Juice of 1/2 a lemon

Do it now!

1. Mix the protein with Puttanesca mix and lemon juice in a large mixing bowl. 
2. Add all other ingredients and toss.  
3. Divide between two serving bowls, garnish with cracked black pepper, and serve.

OM, that name!!! makes me giggle everytime.

Feel-good Food and great Feng Shui

Food, fitness and feeling good have alot to do with feng shui. I love to visit the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York online for their concepts on how to create harmony in the body through food which will enhance our lives.

May I share with you two of my favourite concepts from their form of nutrition that absolutely apply themselves most aptly to successful feng shui?

1. The concept of "Crowding out"

Integrative Nutrition says: that the reason so many diets fail, is because they limit or prohibit the foods we eat that we love, but which are unhealthy. The secret to successfully eating well is to ADD more vegetables, more healthy proteins, more quality fats and more wholegrains to our diet.

How it works: If you're eating an omelette and large vegie juice for breakfast with green tea and wholegrain toast, where are you going to find room to put the donut?

With a Feng Shui By the Sea perspective: many people are focused on the things that aren't working or perfect yet in their lives. Yet there are so many things that are going right! When we look at, talk about, and try to fix the problems in our life, they remain foremost in our minds and consequently, our experience.

How it works: By filling our minds each morning wih counting blessings and looking for the things we want to see all through the day, there's limited chance to focus on negative predictions, and life takes an upswing.

2. The concept of a "Does it work for you?" Food Journal.

Integrative Nutrition says: Foods have different effects on different people at different times. Keep a diary of what you eat, record how you feel when you eat it, then record how you feel two hours after.

With a Feng Shui By The Sea perspective: Different feng shui remedies work in different areas. When you are drawn to move furniture or bring a new piece into your home, note how you feel when you first position it, then note how you feel two hours after.

How it works for both: Impulse, habit, or the "norm" causes us to feel good in the short term, but in a very short period of time we know if something is truly right for us!

I'd like to add here the word chronic... any by the way, did you know this doesn't mean permanent, it comes from the word root "chron" meaning "over time"... what choices do you continually make in your home decor (or diet) that really you feel are not in alignment with the person you truly are inside?

Truly food for thought!

much love!

PS Don't you just love this little pic of "the happiest eggs in the world"! Had to show you! i bought them last week in Surfers Paradise from the nearby granite belt region of Queensland. what a beautiful marketing idea... such feel good energy.