Five Minute Prune and Goji Balls

You may have gathered by now that I love my food. Since I have been on my diet I very seldom reach for anything sweet - just in case I binge. So when I came across these healthy balls during Jean Haile's Women's Heath Week, I decided they would be perfect for my afternoon tea sweet fix. The recipe makes 25-30 small balls. I take 3 to work in a zip lock bag and my afternoon snack is less than 150 cals. The full recipe is featured here: http://www.jeanhailes.org.au/magazine/2013-magazine-vol-2/11-raw-cacao-and-prune-balls.

The only change I have made is to omit the unhulled sesame seeds the balls are rolled in - I found unhulled seeds impossible to find in Gympie and normal sesame seeds just get stuck in my teeth. Oh, we also call them prune and goji balls as raw cacao is too much of a mouthful.

As we had leftovers last night for dinner, I made these during the ad breaks for Sleepy Hollow which I watched with my boys.

Prune & Goji Balls

                           

Ingredients:

1 cup raw almonds
1 cup pitted prunes, roughly chopped
1/4 cup raw cacao powder ( I got this and the goji berries from my health food store)
1/4 cup goji berries
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Grind the almonds in a food processor until you have your desired texture. I like my balls crunchy so I chopped them roughly.

Add all other ingredients and process for a few minutes until combined. The goji berries stay whole which I like but you could process them beforehand if you wanted to.

Next is the messy part. The mixture is quite sticky so I keep a small bowl of water nearby to moisten my hands as I go. A small teaspoon is all you need for each ball. Once rolled I place them in the fridge on a plate covered with plastic wrap until they are firm (usually overnight) and then individually bag them into small ziplock bags or wrap in cling wrap.

There you have it. A very yummy and healthy afternoon treat full of antioxidants and fibre.

Cheers
Tanya

Almond Berry Oatmeal

All you need to make a beautiful healthy breakfast

This is my weekday breakfast. It is kind of a ritual for me now. I put it on before I water my gardens and go for my walk. When I get back it is perfectly creamy and just the right temperature for eating. I adapted this from a Curves Complete recipe. I attend the local Curves gym after work four nights a week and follow their diet program for $20 a week. Bargain! I have lost 7kg in three months and still counting. Here is the link if you want more information http://www.curvescomplete.com/ or I will probably do a blog about it in the future.

Almond Berry Oatmeal

This recipe will serve 1 person. It is very good for you and the cinnamon in particular serves to boost your metabolism.

Ingredients

1/2 cup quick cooking oatmeal

1/4 cup slivered almonds

1/2 cup berries of your choice ie. strawberries, mulberries, blueberries. (If I don't have fresh ones I use frozen ones which still works out fine)

1/2 cup almond milk (skim milk is fine also)

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 cup water

Sugar or Stevia

For the first step, I place the oats and water into a deep microwave bowl. I use an old small mix-master bowl. The reason I say a deep bowl is that I have had it overflow and make an awful mess in the microwave.

Microwave on high for two minutes and then mix in a little of the milk and stir.

Next place your berries on the top, add the cinnamon and slivered almonds. I sometimes also add chia seeds of lsa (flaxseed mix) at this stage for extra fibre. Add the rest of the almond milk and stir, then microwave for further 3 minutes on high. Go for your morning walk.....

When you return you will have a berry-coloured bowl of almond oatmeal. Give it a stir and add milk according to how thick or runny you like it. I then add two teaspoons of stevia to sweeten. Heat for another 30 seconds if too cool.

Sit down with your coffee and enjoy!!

Cheers
Tanya

Mulberry Pancakes

Our enormous mulberry tree which survived the late frost

One of our favourite traditions at the farm is the annual mulberry picking. Last year my husband, Paul cut the tree right back after the frost so we did not get very many berries. But this year is a different story...we had plenty of rain all through winter and it was very mild with only a couple of smaller frosts.

On the weekend we managed to pick a large bucketful of mulberries. There are still tons more on the tree that are not yet ripe so I figure we will get another two weeks before they are gone for the year.

The shame with mulberries is they only fruit for two to three weeks and then they are gone. They also don't keep for long in the fridge if you pick them ripe, so they need to be cooked or eaten (no problems there) as soon as possible. I keep them in the fridge in a recycled strawberry or blueberry punnet to have with my oats for breakfast and the rest I stew up to make pies or our all time favourite family breakfast....

Mulberry pancakes

The first step to prepare the berries for stewing is to wash them in cold water to remove any dirt or pests. The next job is to remove the stems. If you pull the stem out you will end up with a pretty squished berry so I usually just cut the tips off with a sharp knife and place the ends in my compost. Your fingers will be very purple by the end of this process and people say you can remove the dye by rubbing your fingers with a green mulberry but I have found this doesn't work...and it's a waste of what will grow into another ripe mulberry! A liquid soap or hand sanitiser will do the job effectively.

For this batch of stewing I had the following ingredients:

3 cups mulberries
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

As the berries will release a lot of juice when cooking you don't need to add a lot of water but we like to pour the syrup over the top, so this quantity will allow for that.

Place your clean and de-stemmed mulberries in a saucepan over low heat and simmer covered for about 20 mins.

I like the berries to still hold their form and be firm in the stew but if you like your berries mushy you could stew for a further 10 mins. 

I then make a basic pancake dough with the following ingredients:

1 egg

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

pinch salt

1/2 cup milk

It is important that the dough be quite thick and well mixed because you don't want to squish the berries too much by over-stirring. You can then add about 3/4 cup of stewed mulberries (the rest we freeze for pies/cakes) or according to your taste, and stir in. Add more flour if the mixture is too runny, then cook in a butter-greased frypan over medium heat. This recipe served nine of us with two to three pikelet-sized pancakes each.

To top it off we serve the warm pancakes with ice cream, a few fresh berries and syrup drizzled over the top. Yum!! Any other suggestions for what to make with my frozen stewed mulberries?

After a full belly of pancakes, I then drove to the duckpond markets to buy fresh eggs (fixing the chooky pen is on my wishlist) and seedlings. I came home with two litres of worm fertiliser (hmmm worm farm for Christmas?) from the organic gardener and the above seedlings which include kale, beetroot, red onion, parsley, nasturtium, english spinach and an artichoke (wrong time of year for here I think?) just for fun. Now to finish those gardens.....

Cheers
Tanya

Passionfruit Cordial and Cherry Tomato Relish

This is a selection of the produce I collected from the garden whilst getting the beds ready for planting. The satisfaction of being able to put together a box of produce from plants that had been forgotten was motivating, spurring me on to get the ground ready for planting. I am beginning to see why so many people are passionate about this whole gardening/simple living thing. I even posted this photo on my Facebook page to my friends because I was so pleased with myself (what a dag, hey?).

The passionfruit vines hanging from the gum trees have a ton of fruit on them so I decided to make cordial and still leave some passionfruit for eating. My kids love spooning the flesh out and eating them as they are. They don't last long in the fruit bowl. 

Passionfruit Cordial

This is a favourite of my husbands and very simple to make. 

Ingredients: 

1 1/2 cups passionfruit pulp

1 cup lemon juice

1 cup sugar

2 cups water

Method:

Place lemon, sugar and water in saucepan on low heat until sugar dissolves. Bring to boil and then simmer until thickens slightly, approx 5 mins. Add passionfruit pulp and simmer for further 5-10 mins.

Let the mixture cool, and then sieve into a jug to remove the seeds. Then put it in a bottle and place in the fridge to keep. I prefer to use a glass bottle but plastic would be fine also. The mixture is very concentrated and sweet so you only need a little mixed with water. This quantity should make up 4-5 litres of cordial.

Any further suggestions on what I can do with so many passionfruit? I am thinking a passionfruit slice may be the next venture.

***

The cherry tomatoes are from the vines which seem to pop up wherever they please.  I think we planted some once and the birds have spread them everywhere.

                       

The camphor laurel tree caught this bale of mulch during
the last flood...more cherry tomatoes!

The tomato vines on the ground where they are supposed to be (haha) have just got a touch of frost so I am harvesting the fruit while I can. Together with the few chillies and spring onions, I was inspired to make tomato relish.                                                     

Cherry Tomato Relish

To be completely honest with you, I have never made relish before. It is not something I eat a lot of but my husband likes it and I recently bought some for a chicken pasta recipe which was delicious...so why not use my own next time? I wasn't even sure if cherry tomatoes were suitable for a relish because of the amount of skin you would end up with versus large tomatoes. I Googled and found this Donna Hay recipe at Eat Little Bird (which is a fabulous blog with tons of beautifully presented recipes).

I varied the recipe slightly to include my chillies and spring onions (because I wanted to use as much of my own produce as possible of course), which I added to the red onions and garlic.

As for looking jammy, well my second confession is I have never made jam before either ( I know, sheltered life, right?), so I just waited for this mixture to thicken a little, and whilst it appeared runny when I poured it into the jars, it did thicken in the fridge.

I found the relish to be very tasty. I particularly liked the red wine vinegar flavour and the chilli added a bit of bite. It did not last long in the fridge before it was eaten so I will definitely be making another batch. Mental note to educate myself on the intricacies of proper preserving so that I can store this type of produce in the cupboard and keep it for longer...another project to add to my growing list :)

Do you make relish with cherry tomatoes? I would love to hear some variations to this recipe or any other specialties to be made from cherry tomatoes. There are still bucket loads to harvest.

Cheers
Tanya