strawberry cake

Serves 10

Ingredients

250g fresh strawberries

1/2 cup coconut sugar

1/2 cup EVOO

1 egg

1.5 cups gluten-free self raising flour

1/2 cup rice milk

Method

1. Line a medium loaf tin or cake tin with baking paper
2. Halve enough strawberries to cover tin and set aside. Chop remaining strawberries
3. Beat together sugar, oil and egg on high for 5-8 minutes until thick and creamy
4. Fold in flour and milk
5. Fold in chopped strawberries
6. Pour mixture into tin and top with halved strawberries
7. Bake in a 170˚C oven for 70 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean
8. Stand to cool before serving

Notes
For added texture to this light and fluffy cake, try adding quinoa flakes!

avocado + egg crispibreads

Per serve

Ingredients

Orgran Multigrain Crispibread with Quinoa

egg, boiled and chopped

1/4 avocado, diced

cracked black pepper

Method

The method is, there is no real method! Just pile the ingredients on the Crispibread for a quick snack. Obviously, this is more a concept than a recipe - so feel free to use toasted gluten-free bread, corn crackers, rice crackers or any other type of base. You can smash the avocado instead of dicing it, and add any ingredients you have to hand. I quite like adding dried cranberries for a sweeter version.

blueberry muffin top cookies

Makes approximately 30 cookies

My husband was very accurate in describing these cookies as tasting like muffin tops! They aren't your usual crunchy cookie but soft just like the best part of any blueberry muffin. The brand of coconut yoghurt and gluten free flour you use will impact on the texture of the cookies, but regardless, they are yum.

Poppy bakes...

1. Preheat oven to 190°C and line baking tray with baking paper
   
   
2. Using a spatula, mix together
   1 cup coconut sugar and 
   1.5 cups coconut yoghurt.
   
   
3. Add
   1 egg and
   1 teaspoon vanilla essence and mix together, then set aside.
   
   
4. Stir together
   2 cups gluten free plain flour,
   2 teaspoons baking powder and
   1/2 teaspoon celtic sea salt.
   
   
5. Add wet ingredients to dry and fold together.
   
   
6. Gently fold in
   1 punnet / 1 cup blueberries.
   
   
7. Spoon desired sized mounds on to baking paper with adequate space in between and bake for 10-20 minutes or until golden.
   
   
8. Cool cookies on a wire rack before eating.

For an energy boosting snack, team these cookies with a glass of coconut water

Notes
These cookies are beautifully soft with a slightly chewy texture, so be sure to carefully lift them off the baking tray using a flat spatula when placing them on a wire rack to cool.

salmon with a summer salsa

Serves 4

Ingredients

1/4 red onion, finely diced

green chilli, seeds removed and finely diced

red capsicum, finely diced

mango, cubed

avocado, cubed

lemon juice

4 potatoes, cubed

hot filtered water

celtic sea salt

nuttelex

4 salmon fillets

Method

1. Toss red onion, chilli, capsicum, mango, avocado and a squeeze of lemon juice together in a salad bowl and set aside
2. In a pot, add potato with enough water to immerse potato. Cook until tender, drain and mash
3. Add nuttelex and salt to mashed potatoes to taste
4. Cook salmon skin side down first until crispy, then turn over until cooked through
5. Divide mashed potato amongst serving plates, place salmon fillets on top followed by salsa. Garnish with micro herbs

Notes
This is a perfect dish for the warmer months. For a lighter meal, you can omit the mashed potato. Another alternative is to swap the mashed potato for mashed cauliflower.

dog food

As all my followers will know, Poppy is our gorgeous West Highland Terrier. When it comes to food, Poppy is a typical female and can be very picky. A few years ago, in addressing a common West Highland Terrier skin condition, we put her on a veterinarian Hypoallergenic dog food, which helped to regulate her eating habits whilst also addressing her skin condition. We found that each meal time, we had to entice her to eat her food by adding a few nibbles of either meat or raw vegetables, and you would never dare to add the same thing for more than one meal in a row - how dare you!

Anyway, we take Poppy to a special Westie groomer half an hour away from her home - we figure it is worth the extra travel for a groomer that treats the dogs well and doesn't stress them out. This particular groomer also grooms show Westie's, so we have full confidence that he knows what he is doing when it comes to the haircare of Poppy. On our last visit, he introduced us to a New Zealand brand of dog food he was importing that is so good, I just had to tell you all about it!

It is called Ziwi Peak, and it is the perfect gluten free, dairy free and sugar free food FOR YOUR DOG! We buy the air-dried dog food which comes in three flavours: lamb, venison and venison + fish. As I mentioned before, Poppy has always been a picky eater, but since feeding her Ziwi Peak, she has become a real foodie! As soon as she hears the jar which we store her food in being opened, she comes racing in. We no longer have to add anything to her dog food to entice her to eat, just give her the Ziwi Peak and she is a happy Westie.

The only way I was able to take this picture of Poppy looking up at me was to dangle some Ziwi Peak in front of her, hehe

So what is so special about Ziwi Peak?

1. 1=3...Gently air dried to lock in great nutrition. Their unique, gentle air-drying process preserves the goodness of raw meat, organs and fish. 1 portion of air-dried ZiwiPeak = 3 of raw meat.
2. No preservatives, fillers or carbohydrates from grains. Only natural ingredients go into ZiwiPeak. It's totally free of any nasties, added sugars, salt, glycerines, antibiotics, hormones or preservatives.
3. Over 90% meat content. With over 95% digestibility rating, ZiwiPeak ensures your pet gets almost all the nutritional benefit or raw feeding.
4. 100% of all ingredients from New Zealand. From trusted pastures and clean oceans, safely and conveniently, to your pet's food bowl.
5. Wild-prey diet...A completely  balanced, natural, wild-prey, meat diet.  Exactly what your pet's digestive system has evolved to thrive on.

Some of my friends have complained that ZiwiPeak is more expensive than other brands of dog kibble. And it is, but it is still affordable at around $150 for a 5kg bag. You also no longer need to add anything else to their food to either entice them to eat or in an effort to give them a more rounded diet; just feed them ZiwiPeak alone - they never get sick of it and it provides them with all the nutrition they need! Plus, can you honestly put a price on your dog's health and well-being?

For more information and stockists, go to http://www.ziwipeak.com

pork + pineapple salad

Serves 4

Poppy cooks...

1. Cook
   2 cups brown basmati rice and leave to cool (best to cook rice earlier in day or night before).
   
   
2. In a large frying pan, saute
   shallot, finely sliced, 
   2 cups red or green cabbage, shredded and
   1/4 pineapple, cut into pieces in
   olive oil until onion is slightly browned.
   
   
3. Add cold rice,
   punnet cherry tomatoes, halved and season with
   gluten free soy sauce and
   cracked black pepper to taste. Toss for 3 minutes and set aside.
   
   
4. Season
   pork fillet with
   celtic sea salt + cracked black pepper and cook in frying pan.
   
   
5. Slice pork and serve on bed of fried rice.

sultanas + pepitas

I may not have mentioned before what I do for work, but my husband and I run our own building design + interior design practice in Perth. As any owner of a small business will tell you, it is hard work. But we love it!

Eating well to maintain our health, productivity, concentration + creativity is key. And knowing easy-to-cook meals and easy snacks makes our aim to eat well a whole lot easier! I tend to eat lots of smaller meals through the day and one of my favourite snacks is a handful of no-fuss sultanas and pepitas. Being allergic to nuts rules out a lot of other options, so pepitas are my nut alternative. The nutty flavour of the pepitas, and sweetness of the sultanas, go perfectly together.

It is important to find a good brand of sultanas that are juicy as they do vary between brands. I prefer sultanas over raisins as they are plumper, sweeter and juicier. The benefits of sultanas are:

1. They are a great source of energy
2. Contain vitamins B1, B2, magnesium and calcium
3. Reduces inflammation and fever
4. Aids recovery from kidney and liver diseases
5. And new research shows raisins are a good source of inulin which is great for colon health

Pepitas are even more exciting:

1. Pepitas contain amino acids and unsaturated fatty acids
2. Contain minerals such as calcium, potassium, niacin and phosphorous
3. High in most of the B vitamins, and vitamins C, D, E and K
4. Rich in beta carotene that can be converted into vitamin A as needed by the body
5. Rich in the eye protective carotenoid, lutein
6. Snacking on one handful of pepitas provides 9 grams of body building protein, along with manganese, magnesium, phosphorous, iron, copper and zinc

Here is an extract from naturalnews.com on some other health benefits of pepitas:

Pepitas are chocked full of monounsaturated oil that has been shown to interrupt the triggering of prostate cell multiplication by DHT, a product of testosterone conversion. The omega-3 fats found in pepitas are also being studied for their potential prostate benefits. The significant amounts of carotenoids in pepitas are of interest to researchers because men with higher amounts of caroteoids in their diets have a lowered risk for prostate enlargement. The high zinc content of pumpkin seeds adds to their prostate protective virtues. 

Another reason for men to eat zinc-rich pepitas is their effect on bone mineral density. Although osteoporosis is usually thought of as a women's disease, it can affect older men, a group that suffers 30 percent of the hip fractures. 

Pumpkin seeds offer powerful anti-inflammatory properties. The addition of pepitas to the diet was shown to work as well as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs in reducing symptoms of inflammation. And they did this without any unwanted side effects or threat to the liver. 

In fact, pepitas have recently been shown to be protective of the liver. In a recent study reported in the December, 2008 journal Food Chemistry and Toxicology, mice fed a mixture of pumpkin seeds and flax seeds showed their lipid parameters decreased significantly compared to controls. Plasma and liver fatty acid composition showed an increase of alpha linolenic acid and linoleic acid, monounsaturated acids, and a decrease of stearic fatty acids. Plasma and liver toxins decreased, and the efficiency of their antioxidant defense systems was improved. 

Phytosterols are compounds found in plants with chemical structures similar to cholesterol. When the diet contains high levels of phytosterols, blood levels of cholesterol are reduced. Phytosterols also enhance the immune system response, and can help reduce the risk of developing certain cancers. They are present in high amounts in seeds and nuts. Pistachio nuts and sunflower seeds are the richest in phytosterols, with pepitas coming in third of all the nuts and seeds usually eaten. 

The oil in pepitas has an excellent ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids. This ratio is important for cellular function and oxygenation. It is also why pepitas make hair glossy, skin clear, and energy levels high.

In a nutshell, they are A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!