An organic salon. Does this even exist? You bet! Last week I went to the hairdresser and came out so happy. I had forgotten what nice hair looked like! Going to the hairdressers is such a luxury at this time in my life and the last time I had done anything to my hair was last Christmas.. 8 months ago. And that was when my mum was here and she cut my hair. (Love having a hairdresser mum.) I am so happy that I found a really really good hairdressers here in Sydney. Last year I searched on google for natural organic hairdressers in Sydney. I search google for different things often and call lots of places looking for better alternatives to all things in health. It's too easy to go mainstream and follow the crowds without thinking ;) There are few natural salons around Sydney and as this is such a big city I was so lucky one happened to be quite close. It's called Salon Dimensions and it's in Terry Hills. The salon is beautiful and they use all natural and organic products. I love looking at all their organic shampoos and styling products and they have natural makeup too. The best thing is that their hair colours don't contain toxic chemicals like ammonia. It smells nice in the salon without all the toxic fumes you usually associate with hairdressers. And best of all the prices are very very competitive! I paid less that what I see advertised in most other salons. Oh yeah and they even had a natural beauty magazine that I could read too while my hair was getting done:) Perfect for me! I think its a good idea to spend a little time sourcing out a good toxic free hairdressers. One that doesn't have a bad effective on the environment due to the chemicals they use and one that is safe for you too. Your body absorbs whatever is put it and for me it's a great feeling to know I'm treating body with love and respect.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Coconut oil: How I use it
Coconut oil is one of my most precious and loved foods in the kitchen. It has just so many health benefits and I use it for so many things. It is one of natures amazing natural gifts to us that our bodies just love and thrive on. Coconut oil is a tropical oil and consists mostly of saturated fat. We have been bombarded for years that a low fat diet is healthy and saturated fat is bad for you. BUT there is lots of research that says the exact opposite. Saturated fat is essential to our health and our body needs it to grow and function properly! Things like coconut oil, butter and fats from grass fed animals is what cultures around the world have traditionally been eating.
I first got into coconut oil when I was a teenager and our family changed our diet to a more healthy one. One of the things we started eating was coconut oil. My mum used to always have organic extra virgin coconut oil at home which we used for cooking and baking. Good quality coconut oil is processed in a way that doesn't alter it's health properties and keeps it raw, which means it has not been processed with high temperatures.
Here are the ways I use coconut oil in my home. You can be creative and come up with different ways to add it into your food and life <3
Cooking
Coconut oil can be used in cooking to replace other oils. Coconut oil one of the best oils to cook because it can stand high temperatures and doesn't go bad when heated. I use it in frying, to saute vegetables and in baking. Cookies and cakes taste great with it.
Smoothies
Add a tablespoon to your favourite smoothie in the blender. Mmmmm. I like to add a good fat like coconut oil to a fruit smoothie to balance out the sugars in the fruit.
Raw chocolate and desserts
Use it to make raw desserts and chocolates. For example: Coconut oil, avocado, banana, honey and cacao powder blended together makes a wonderful healthy chocolate mousse. Or by mixing coconut oil, honey and cacao powder you can make an lovely sweet chocolate frosting for cakes and other things!
Body and face moisturiser
I use it all the time on my skin as a moisturiser. A little bit goes a long was and your skin will love it. Plus coconut oil is naturally anti bacterial!
Makeup removal
Coconut oil is perfect for this and it nourishes you skin at the same time too. With some cotton it wipes off eye makeup and anything other makeup real easy. Who needs chemical makeup removers anyways?
Skin cleansing
Without writing a whole post on this, you can use coconut oil to cleanse your skin. Google 'Oil cleansing method' if you want more info. Basically because oil dissolves oil, coconut oil can be used to cleanse and draw out impurities in the skin. Massage some coconut oil all over skin or face for a few minutes and put a warm towel over and leave for a minute. Then wipe off coconut oil and rinse skin with water.
Hair treatment
I put a tiny bit into the ends of my hair after a shower. Nourishes the hair and makes it nice and soft. Definitely a great way to use coconut oil.
Straight from the jar
And last of all.. I just eat it off the spoon! Coconut oil is a great source of quick energy.
Check out this link for some more info on the benefits of coconut oil:
http://wellnessmama.com/2072/the-many-benefits-of-coconut-oil/
I first got into coconut oil when I was a teenager and our family changed our diet to a more healthy one. One of the things we started eating was coconut oil. My mum used to always have organic extra virgin coconut oil at home which we used for cooking and baking. Good quality coconut oil is processed in a way that doesn't alter it's health properties and keeps it raw, which means it has not been processed with high temperatures.
Here are the ways I use coconut oil in my home. You can be creative and come up with different ways to add it into your food and life <3
Cooking
Coconut oil can be used in cooking to replace other oils. Coconut oil one of the best oils to cook because it can stand high temperatures and doesn't go bad when heated. I use it in frying, to saute vegetables and in baking. Cookies and cakes taste great with it.
Smoothies
Add a tablespoon to your favourite smoothie in the blender. Mmmmm. I like to add a good fat like coconut oil to a fruit smoothie to balance out the sugars in the fruit.
Raw chocolate and desserts
Use it to make raw desserts and chocolates. For example: Coconut oil, avocado, banana, honey and cacao powder blended together makes a wonderful healthy chocolate mousse. Or by mixing coconut oil, honey and cacao powder you can make an lovely sweet chocolate frosting for cakes and other things!
Body and face moisturiser
I use it all the time on my skin as a moisturiser. A little bit goes a long was and your skin will love it. Plus coconut oil is naturally anti bacterial!
Makeup removal
Coconut oil is perfect for this and it nourishes you skin at the same time too. With some cotton it wipes off eye makeup and anything other makeup real easy. Who needs chemical makeup removers anyways?
Skin cleansing
Without writing a whole post on this, you can use coconut oil to cleanse your skin. Google 'Oil cleansing method' if you want more info. Basically because oil dissolves oil, coconut oil can be used to cleanse and draw out impurities in the skin. Massage some coconut oil all over skin or face for a few minutes and put a warm towel over and leave for a minute. Then wipe off coconut oil and rinse skin with water.
Hair treatment
I put a tiny bit into the ends of my hair after a shower. Nourishes the hair and makes it nice and soft. Definitely a great way to use coconut oil.
Straight from the jar
And last of all.. I just eat it off the spoon! Coconut oil is a great source of quick energy.
Check out this link for some more info on the benefits of coconut oil:
http://wellnessmama.com/2072/the-many-benefits-of-coconut-oil/
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Lunch with the girls
The other week I had two gorgeus girls come over to make some yummy and healthy food. It was so fun we will have to do it again. Nothing like real food and real beautiful friends. We made a quinoa tuna salad and a banana coconut smoothie. I only recently discovered young coconuts and am in love with them at the moment and usually buy one every week. I have to get my hubby to open them for me because they are pretty hard to open. The young coconuts have lovely sweet water in them which is supposed to be really good for you. So to make a smoothie we just blended the coconut water and the flesh that we scraped out from the coconut in a blender with a banana. As for the quinoa salad it was really easy and I have made this salad again heaps of times since having the girls here. We used white quinoa but black and red work great too or a mix of them all. We just added the things I had in the kitchen at the time like lettuce, cucumber and tomato but basically you can put whatever you want in the salad. A roasted pumpkin and rucola version is super good. Oh yeah and the yoghurt makes it all nice and creamy!!
Quinoa salad
1 cup cooked quinoa
1 cup natural yoghurt
125g tuna
Juice of half a lemon
Lettuce, cucumber, tomato, avacado
Olive Oil
Salt and pepper to taste
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Sourdough crackers
Crunchy and out of the oven
Mixing in butter and oregano to the dough
Ready!
It's cracker time. With my sourdough starter baby that is now part of the family I have been making all sorts of things with it. One of them is these sourdough crackers. I like them because they are easy to make and nice and crunchy. I eat them on their own or with a dip like hommus. I don't have a specific recipe, I just go with the flow. But they are so easy I don't think you can go wrong. All I did was take some sourdough starter and mix enough flour to make it a stiff dough. Then I let it sit overnight in the kitchen in a covered bowl or for at least 8 hours. The next day I just kneaded some butter into the dough and then rolled the dough out very thinly. I put it on the baking sheet and cut into little squares and added some salt and herbs ontop. You can also brush the crackers with some olive oil before putting in the oven. Then I just baked them in the oven until crispy!
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Cookie time
Ready with some lemon icing!
About to go in the oven..
These cookies are only sweetened with honey and are made from almonds. They smell like gingerbread cookies. I whiz up almonds in my blender to make my own almond meal. I made some lemon icing from coconut oil, honey and lemon juice to put on top. You just have to wait for the cookies to cool down before putting on the icing. I debated whether to make chocolate icing using raw cacao powder instead of lemon. But lemon won today. It will be chocolate's turn next time:)
I didn't know what to call these. Almond cookies? Spice cookies? Anyways, here is the recipe for super yummy cookies:
1 cup almonds
1 tbls flax seeds
2 tbls butter or coconut oil
2-3 tbls honey
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnammon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cardomon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp baking soda
Blend almonds and flaxseeds into a fine powder. You can leave it more coarse if you want a more nutty dough. Add rest of ingredients and mix with hands so that the butter becomes soft and it all forms a sticky dough. Roll into small balls and press flat onto baking sheet. Wet your hands if the dough is sticking to your fingers too much. Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye of them as they brown quickly!
Makes about 16 cookies
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Colourful breakfast
I had to quickly take a photo of my breakfast. Aren't the colours pretty? I love my scrambled eggs! I just mix some eggs with a fork with a little water and herbs and onions and scramble it in the fry pan with heaps of butter. Oh yeah and I love my butter. It's what people have always traditionally been eating and beats margarine any day nutrition and health wise.
I have been trying to eat different fermented foods so I made some of my own tomato salsa, which proved to go super well with the scrambled eggs. I have also been making some beet kvass lately which is basically fermented beetroot juice and is a wonderful health tonic. Can't wait to have a juicer one day too so I can have fresh veggie juice as well... *dreaming* .. :) I really like the taste of beetroots so beet kvass is just my thing. I just mix a little into my glass of water most mornings.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Sourdough Bread!
There is some joy in the kitchen because I am so excited that I have made my very own loaves of sourdough bread!!! Oh the feeling. And they were edible too which is also important ;) It is such an exciting step for me because I have been wanting to try baking my own sourdough bread and get a sourdough starter going for ages.. I wasn't sure if I would succeed. I have seen so many other real foodies on their blogs talk about how the make their own sourdough and have seen all these yummy recipes you can make with excess sourdough starter. I kept imagining freshly baked bread coming out from oven.. mmm.
Real sourdough bread (not the wannabe ones you probably find in most shops) is a traditional way of baking bread. Today in this 'I want it now' culture I feel we have swapped traditional nourishing ways of preparing food with quick alternatives which are no where near as good for our bodies. Commercial yeast, refined flours, rancid vegetable oils and lots of preservatives are basically what breads today are made from. Sourdough bread only needs water, flour, some starter and sea salt. Here is a lovely blog were you can see some of the benefits of why to eat sourdough:)
http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2010/03/05/food-for-thought-health-benefits-of-sourdough/
The first step was to get a sourdough starter going. I tried this in the summer time and got one going after my third try with some rye flour. I was squealing with joy when I noticed after a few days the starter had doubled in size and was nice and bubbly! You see to make a starter you mix flour and water together and feed it a mixture like this every day and after a while it should start to bubble because of the wild yeasts and bacteria. I'm not sure how the chemistry of this all works but anyways this is how a sourdough starter is formed and you use some in the bread to make it rise and sour the bread. How cool is that! Well my first starter lasted a week and ended up dying and I couldn't get another one going since. I wasn't sure if the temperature in my kitchen was not right of the flour I was using wasn't fresh enough. But recently I decided not to give up and and tried again and this time added a tablespoon of milk kefir whey to the mixture. I had read in places that this helped get the yeasts and bacteria in the starter going. And it worked!! This starter I have now is made from wholemeal spelt flour. I have some in a little jar and feed it every day the same amount of flour and water that is in it. After a few days as it grows I have enough to make some bread and then save a little to start the process over again.
I can't wait to to dive into the world of making sourdough bread and learn how to become a real bread master haha. I use this seriously easy recipe from my Nourishing Traditions book which is essentially a no knead method and doesn't take much time at all. I do my work then leave the bread to do it's magic.
Real sourdough bread (not the wannabe ones you probably find in most shops) is a traditional way of baking bread. Today in this 'I want it now' culture I feel we have swapped traditional nourishing ways of preparing food with quick alternatives which are no where near as good for our bodies. Commercial yeast, refined flours, rancid vegetable oils and lots of preservatives are basically what breads today are made from. Sourdough bread only needs water, flour, some starter and sea salt. Here is a lovely blog were you can see some of the benefits of why to eat sourdough:)
http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2010/03/05/food-for-thought-health-benefits-of-sourdough/
The first step was to get a sourdough starter going. I tried this in the summer time and got one going after my third try with some rye flour. I was squealing with joy when I noticed after a few days the starter had doubled in size and was nice and bubbly! You see to make a starter you mix flour and water together and feed it a mixture like this every day and after a while it should start to bubble because of the wild yeasts and bacteria. I'm not sure how the chemistry of this all works but anyways this is how a sourdough starter is formed and you use some in the bread to make it rise and sour the bread. How cool is that! Well my first starter lasted a week and ended up dying and I couldn't get another one going since. I wasn't sure if the temperature in my kitchen was not right of the flour I was using wasn't fresh enough. But recently I decided not to give up and and tried again and this time added a tablespoon of milk kefir whey to the mixture. I had read in places that this helped get the yeasts and bacteria in the starter going. And it worked!! This starter I have now is made from wholemeal spelt flour. I have some in a little jar and feed it every day the same amount of flour and water that is in it. After a few days as it grows I have enough to make some bread and then save a little to start the process over again.
I can't wait to to dive into the world of making sourdough bread and learn how to become a real bread master haha. I use this seriously easy recipe from my Nourishing Traditions book which is essentially a no knead method and doesn't take much time at all. I do my work then leave the bread to do it's magic.
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