Easy Peasy Summer Strawberry Ice-cream

Strawberry Delight

This is just too easy.

It’s this month’s favourite sneaky after-dinner treat on a balmy summer’s eve.

It’s ice-cream…but of course it’s dairy free. There is also a sugar free option (but I put a little honey in mine to sweeten)

What do you need?

Well here’s a ratio for 1 punnet of strawberries. Just multiply if you’re making a double batch.

• 1 punnet frozen strawbs
• 1 teaspoon organic vanilla essence
• 1/2 tin organic coconut cream – chilled.
• 1 level tablespoon honey or a few pinches of stevia.

What happens next?

As with so many of my recipes – just put all the ingredients in a food processor and blend!

The ratio should create a soft creamy texture – eat right away! Or you can put it in the freezer for 30 mins if you want it a little firmer. This won’t be any good if you freeze it solid so best to consume when you make it.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling extra cheeky, I make up a quick batch of my candied nuts to sprinkle on top (you can use any nuts you like). This ice-cream is also great topped with shredded coconut.

Happy summer days!

Move over Nigella..

Hello again – apologies for the posts being so few and far between these last months.

I’ve been renovating/moving house and all sorts…but somehow in the midst of all of that I magically found the time to make a cooking show. Well, a cooking clip really. A snippet. A taster.

Thanks to the talents of Aurora Jane, in one little afternoon we show you two easy peasy recipes you can make simultaneously – on your BBQ out the back!

That’s right. It’s called ‘Carla’s Outdoor Kitchen’ and it’s a cute little window into my world and also my first foray into food filming.

Find it here at Mojo Junction.

If you like, you can also check out a fantastic Fast Track Hummus Recipe I wrote up too.

Thanks for visiting!

See you very soon ladies and gents – I’m cooking up a few more little movies and easy, tasty recipes for y’all.

Eating at Mojo Junction

Hello my dear readers!

Pea & Basil Soup @ Mojo Junction

I’m so very sorry for my absence (partly explained by my previous post).

I’m here today to announce something very exciting indeed. I’ve been asked to regularly contribute to an amazing online creative collaborative – Mojo Junction. It’s a monthly online publication that traverses food, music, adventure, culture, art and travel (cue Julie Andrews… ‘these are a few of my favourite things’…)

It’s been put together by a very talented posse of foodies, artists and musicians and it’s full of really engaging multi-platform stories. There’s podcasts, films, reviews, features and of course recipes.

I highly encourage you to click along and have a peep – Mojo Junction launched it’s very first edition today (15/10/13) , so you’re right where the action is as it’s happening.

The best part? You’ll get to see lots of the old favourite recipes get jazzed and styled up with exciting new recipes to be featured as well.

Come along and see me at Mojo Junction in the food (and sometimes music) section every month with great new food ideas to share.

Much Love xx

Eater’s Hiatus

Hi all,

I’m writing to apologise for my lengthy, unexplained absence from Eater’s Digest.

I have needed a break from my computer screen. From status updates. From research and writing and editing and sitting on my bottom.

I have needed to reengage fully with the world outside of blogs and facebook pages and tweets and all that other stuff that sometimes threatens to take over some of the more urgent priorities – nature, physicality, family, love, personal creativity and unicorns.

I will be back.

I’m just taking some air.

Thanks for all your love and support.

Smashed Bean Mexican Stew.

Recently a dear friend of mine came to me with a desperate request – she needed a one-pot-wonder that was vegetarian, versatile and virtually foolproof.

This lovely lady works long hours and often gets home late feeling quite exhausted. She needed something simple but substantial. Something that could be made on a Sunday but last through half the week. The catch? She wanted it to be simple, saucy, stewy and tomato based.

I put on my thinking cap and came up with this veritable beast of a smashed bean stew. Now, I made this up only last week and I can vouch for it completely. It’s every bit as good as you hope it will be.

image courtesy health.com

It really is versatile. You can eat this as a stew with quinoa or rice – or use it as a taco or wrap filling when eating Mexican food. It all depends on how much you reduce it at the end.

You will need:

• 1 large or 2 small Spanish onions
• 4-5 cloves garlic
• 1 level tbsp cumin
• 1 level tbsp coriander
• 1 level tbsp paprika
• 1 level teaspoon chilli powder (or fresh chilli)
• Tabasco
• Fresh Coriander – stems chopped finely, leaves loose.
• Broccoli  – diced stem and little florets
• 1 can kidney beans (or dried beans soaked overnight)
• 1/2 can corn kernels or small can (or fresh corn cut from the cob)
• 2 cans peeled or diced tomatoes
• Olive oil, salt, pepper.

A little note on kidney beans:

An incredible little vitamin pill, kidney beans contain loads of folate, magnesium, iron and manganese. They’re a great source of protein and also help stabilise blood sugar. All that and they’re also little bundles of fibre joy, so excellent in the regularity department. Even with all that good stuff, kidney beans still get a bad rap in the flatulence department. I can tell you this is largely due to poor food combining as we so often see kidney beans in Mexican or European recipes being paired with meat or cheese. Mistake! These little wonders are best eaten with vegetables and vegetable protein and can also be combined with complex carbs (but not simple ones like white bread etc). If you combine food correctly you’ll find digestion a breeze. So that’s my little lowdown on the K-bean.

To make:
You start by finely dicing the onion and frying it off in a deep frypan or a pot with a little oil, (all of the ingredients will go in one pot so make sure it’s big enough).
Fry until the onion is translucent then add the garlic chopped up. Stir and then add the dry spices. Let them fry off a little (add some more oil at this point if needed). Add the chopped stems of the coriander bunch and stir. Throw in your tomatoes and season with some salt and pepper. Add Tabasco (as much as you like).. Taste as you go and keep balancing the flavours. Then let that bubble away on medium heat for a few minutes. Then you take the can of beans and drain them. Now this is the fun part – as you add them, use your hands to squish the beans as you put them into the sauce – so you end up with some beans all mashed up and others still whole. This creates a thicker, richer texture. Add the corn, stir and taste again. At this point you can probably turn the heat down and let it simmer for a while. This stew needs to cook like pasta sauce – it gets better the longer it gently bubbles away. Keep an eye on the liquid content and stir regularly. Add h2o if necessary.

*note – if you find the sauce a little acidic in flavour add one grated carrot to the stew. It will melt in and naturally take the edge off the acidity of the tomatoes and tabasco.

So, here’s where the culinary paths diverge – if you want to eat it as a stew, just keep it nice and saucy and add the broccoli towards the end. Once the broccoli is cooked through you can serve. Don’t forget to garnish at the end with lots of fresh coriander leaves. For a thicker, richer consistency add the broccoli and then keep cooking the stew with the lid off until most of the liquid reduces. Then you’ll be left with a kind of juicy refried beans mix (but with so much more!). This is what you use to put in a taco, over nachos or in a burrito etc.

So thanks my dear friend for the inspiration for this recipe – I used it in tacos recently and it was just mouth-watering.

Great sides for tacos include a Creamy dairy free guacamole:

• 2 avocados
• juice of half a lemon
• couple of shakes tabasco
• 1 tablespoon good quality mayo
• 1 very finely chopped clove of garlic
• salt & pepper

And a Super simple mexe salad:

• 1-2 finely diced capsicum (red or green)
• lots of coriander
• 1/4 spanish onion diced finely
• 2 tomatoes diced
• dress with lots of fresh lime juice, some salt and olive oil.

Have fun amigos!

My Healthy Chocolate Balls.

There are so many good things about this recipe I just don’t know where to start.

Yes I do – Chocolate makes you feel good. It really does. But it’s got to be the good stuff – the real stuff.

So let’s get to it. It was a cold afternoon and I was beset with an urge, a calling if you will, to devour some sweet, sweet chocolate. Having none in the house I stared into my cupboard and began to grow a tiny inkling of a notion that I just might be able to make some of the precious substance from scratch. I love to freestyle as many of you may know by now – so I set about making some good ol’ handmade raw chocolate balls out of things I found lying around in my cupboard.

Into a food processor I put:

• 4 tbsp sunflower seeds
• 1.5 tbsp psyllium husks
• 1.5 tbsp LSA (ground up linseed, sunflower seed and almond)
• 2 tbsp organic coconut oil
• 2tbsp raw honey
• 1tsp organic vanilla essence
• 3-4 tbsp organic raw cacao powder

I then processed all of these ingredients on high speed for a minute.

When I was done it looked like this:

And it tasted like heaven.

Then I simply rolled out balls of the stuff – each about the diameter of a 10 cent piece. They’re like little party poppers for your mouth. The mixture will be easier to roll if you refrigerate it for 10 mins before handling. The warmer it gets, the more difficult it is to handle. Once you’ve rolled out your little balls just pop them in the fridge and they will set choc solid.

Full of rich chocolate flavour. Sweet enough to satisy. And packed with extra nutrients and fibre to boot! No need to fell guilty if you sneak a couple of these for afternoon tea.

This is just a basic recipe. You could try swapping some sunflower seeds for hazelnuts or walnuts. Add shredded coconut. Try some ginger or a few drops of peppermint oil. Add a little powdered chilli. The possibilities are endless and I plan to explore them all..

Have fun!

Choose Your Own Adventure Winter Fruit Crumble

Is there anything snugglier and more wonderful than your own bubbling little pot of warm fruity crumble on a cold mid-winter’s eve? 

It’s so simple and relaxing to make – the perfect dessert for people (like me) who aren’t exactly patissiéres when it comes to the sweet stuff. Your friends, lovers and families will be suitably impressed. And of course it’s all gluten and dairy free.

The Lazarus of desserts.

Like I said, crumbles are an absolute cinch to make and all you need are a few cupboard staples and a couple of apples or whatever rogue fruit you have loitering around. Crumble is the perfect way to give new life to those browning pears, shrivelling passionfruit or floury apples.

The possibilities are endless! I’ve made crumbles with apple/banana, apple/berry, apple /passionfruit, apple/apple, peach, pear and so on. You can throw in sultanas, prunes, figs, dates or even try adding some soaked dried apricots. So be creative and use whatever you’ve got handy.

Stewing the fruit:

Cut up your fruit – cubes, slices, wedges – whatever you like. Throw it in a pot with water covering about 2/3 of the fruit. Add a heaped teaspoon of organic vanilla essence and some cinnamon and nutmeg then bring the mixture to the boil and turn down and simmer until the fruit is soft but not mushy – you still want some texture and shape.  Turn off the heat and ensure there’s still a little liquid in there with the fruit. You want it to be juicy when you bake it and not too dried up under the crumble mix.

Want to know how I stew my apples? Have a look here.

Making the crumble:

This part is wonderfully easy. For ingredients I just look in my cupboard and pull out whatever looks like it would make a good toasty topping. I use nuts, seeds, shredded coconut, LSA, psyllium husks, old GF muesli, almond meal and the like – basically whatever I can find that’s seedy, nutty or crumbly. At different times I’ve used walnuts, brazils, hazels, almonds sunflower seeds, pepitas, sesame seeds, seed mix, trail mix, muesli, whatever! It all works. And if you’re missing one component it really doesn’t matter- it’s a choose your own adventure crumble, remember?

Throw all your seedy nuttiness into a food processor – you’ll need about 2 cups worth of stuff. I run it through the food processor so it’s still a little chunky but not in large pieces. I put the nutty seedy mix into a bowl and add

•  a cup or so of GF flour,
•  about 2/3 a cup of organic coconut oil,
•  two tablespoons honey and more vanilla essence.

I use my hands to incorporate everything.

(NOTE: you can also do this in the food processor – it’s way faster but it means your crumble will have a slightly more uniform texture).

With the crumble mix you want a clumpy, crumbly consistency that’s wet enough to clump together when you press in in your hands but a little dry and floury too. Play with this one. You can’t really get it wrong, it will always taste good. Taste the crumble mixture and add more coconut oil, honey or flour depending on the flavour and consistency you like.

*This will make enough crumble mixture for an approx. 6”x8” baking dish or four 10-12cm diameter pots. Adjust for making fewer pots or massive trays. And if you make a little too much (always better than not enough), the mixture freezes just fine so you can pull it out another time and crumble away!

Crumble construction and cooking

Put the stewed fruit and some stewing liquid in an oven-friendly pot or a baking dish, cover with crumble and press down a little. Bake on 160 for 20 mins then check. Keep checking every 5 mins after that. It should go a toasty brown on top but be careful not to blacken the top as this will make the coconut oil taste unpleasant.

Note: If your stewed fruit is refrigerated this will take longer, so cover with tinfoil for the first 15-20 mins to heat the fruit, then remove the foil to toast the crumble.

Once cooked you can serve this up as is, or with a few scoops of coyo coconut ice-cream or coconut yogurt for extra deliciousness.

And that’s how you make a gluten and dairy free winter dessert that will no doubt make yourself and everyone you know very happy. Snuggle up and enjoy!

*Dairy lovers, use good quality organic butter instead of coconut oil in the crumble and whatever dastardly lovely creamy accompaniment you like.

Carla’s Candied Walnuts – The Best TV Snack ever.

Carla’s cosy candied nuts

Alright guys and dolls – this is going to knock your bed socks off! My most favourite new movie snack slash after dinner treat – Candied Walnuts! Totally good for you, and they make your whole house smell like waffles! 

You just take a cup of walnuts (organic if possible) toss them into a dry frypan and toast them off for a few minutes. When they start to get that toasty smell, mix through one tablespoon of honey and a teaspoon of organic vanilla essence. It will sizzle a little (that’s all part of the theatre), stir the honey and vanilla through swiftly and make sure all the nuts are coated. Remove the nuts from the pan and put them straight into a bowl. Served warm they taste toasty, sticky, chewy and delicious – as they cool they get crispier and crunchier. They are the most incredible topping for coconut ice-cream as well. 
I make a special healthy ice-cream topping following exactly this recipe but swapping walnuts for pepitas and sunflower seeds. Make your own candied nuts of all description using the same process. Much healthier than buying TV snacks or sneaking in a few chocolate chip cookies after dinner.

Walnuts – What are they good for? 

Walnuts are an excellent source of Omega 3’s – so great for mood enhancing and regulating those brain triggers. They’re also full of fibre, antioxidants and specific vitamins and minerals that are great for brain health, (funny, they also look like little brains). One more really exciting thing is that walnuts contain melatonin – which also occurs naturally in the body – and this wonderful stuff helps regulate sleep patterns and is used to treat insomnia. So a little walnut snack comes with a whole host of great benefits for both the body and mind.

Enjoy!

Hearty Pumpkin Miso Soup with Tri-colour Quinoa and Tofu

This is my new favourite thing. Take two pre-existing favourite things, enter them into the loving sanctity of culinary marriage (or at the very least introduce them via mutual friends) and voilà! Pumpkin Miso Soup evolves.

If there ever was a hearty vegetarian winter warmer that will leave you feeling like you’ve been most thoroughly and lovingly hugged in the belly – this is it.

Quinoa – why spilling it all over your kitchen ain’t so bad

Quinoa (Keen-wah for the uninitiated) is such a great source of protein. It’s actually a seed but you cook it and use it the same way you would a grain, like rice.

Funny thing is most of us associate protein intake with a big steak or chicken hit. What we may not realise is that many vegetables, nuts and seeds are really high in protein and also include fibre so they’re much easier on the body than trying to digest a slab of meat. Excellent for omnivores and vegetarians alike, quinoa is also high in zinc, folate and iron.

Yesterday I spilled a whole bag of red quinoa on my kitchen bench – so I thought I’d take the opportunity to talk about how great it is… I believe that’s called turning disaster into opportunity.

Stay tuned for a great quinoa recipe that’s become my new favourite winter warmer…

The Famous Pea n’ Basil Soup

This soup is seriously famous – love, adoration and desire follow in its aromatic wake…

Pea n Basil Soup is the most ridiculously simple kitchen hit that friends and family will ask for again and again. Most people I know have caught on to its addictive simplicity and excellent taste – I call my family up on a Sunday night and I hear, ‘guess what we’re having for dinner?!’ (an excited child-like tone in their voice) I know what’s coming… ‘Pea n basil soup!’

Upside-Down Apple Cake – Featuring Baking All-Star Shelly Hughes.

Introducing my next guest feature and today it is the glorious, the multi-talented baking whiz – Shelly Hughes! (must be read in game show host voice – out loud or in your head, depending on where you are).

Shelly has her own special way of cooking. It’s a lot more like art and a lot less like science. This cake recipe has a lot of room to move with flavours and ingredients so turn up your favourite record and shake some ample booty in your kitchen while you get yo’ bake on – it’s how Shelly would want it.

I hope you enjoy this gluten, dairy and sugar free delight as much as I did. This cake is a show stopper!

So delicious, so cakey, so healthy.

Without further ado – here’s Shelly’s recipe just for you…

 Upside-Down Spiced Apple Cake.

cakey photo by Shelly Hughes.

*This gorgeous cake goes equally well using pears – just substitute the apples for pears and follow the same recipe.

See Your Recipes Published!

Fat Loss Fads: The Truth About Dieting

Do you go on diets to try and control your weight?

Diets and weight loss products constitute a multi-billion dollar industry in the West and the popularity and demand for it all is increasing rapidly.

There are so many diets to choose from these days – the Atkins Diet, the Paleo Diet, the Raw Food diet, The Blood Type diet, Gluten Free diets, Weight Watchers, Calorie Counters, Low-Carb, NO Carb, Juice fasting, or the Just Eat Your Lawn Clippings diet. They all have one thing in common – according to most studies, 90% of us fail at maintaining them long-term.