Christmas Baking: Chocolate and Cinnamon Swirl Pavlova

I just couldn't resist posting just one more Christmas baking recipe. Mainly because this one is a doosy! It's got everything, cinnamon spice, chocolate and what's an Aussie Christmas without cherries and a good pav. I made these as individual meringues for easy of serving. You could also bake these and give them as gifts wrapped in cellophane, especially if everyone is too stuffed after Christmas lunch to eat them!

Surving the silly season the fourth

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Christmas is stressful. No doubt about it. There's parties to attend, menus to plan, gifts to buy, outfits to be put together. So how do you stop yourself from tearing out you hair? Simple.
Chapter 4: Mind

Celebrate

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Today I'm spending the day being this glamorous.

Chirstmas Baking: Shortbread

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What's Christmas with out shortbread? This is my gluten free version I adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe. It's super buttery and super crumbly, make it once and you'll realise why its called the best shortbread in the world.

The best (gluten free) shortbread in the world
250g best (pref. organic) unsalted butter
3x(125g) of gluten free flour (I use one part rice flour, one part gluten free plain flour and one part corn flour to make up 375g of flour)
100g organic golden caster sugar
optional flavours: zest of one lemon, 2 crumpled dried lavender flowers, vanilla essence

Cream together butter and sugar then add flavouring if using. Add in flour and mix together with a spoon till well combined. Press dough into a baking tray and prick all over with a fork. Bake at 170C until golden on top (about an hour). Cut into fingers while still warm.

Surviving the silly season the third

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Over indulging is what Christmas is all about right? It's a time where all healthy eating goes out the window and come new year we're full of silly season remorse, swearing never again. Well this year there are a few things you can do to minimise your holiday hangover. We've already talked about food and drink now comes
Chapter 3: Suppliments

Surviving the silly season the second

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So we've covered food, the next natural progression is
Chapter 2: Drink

Christmas Greens

A few nice green ideas for your holiday table.

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Surviving the silly season the first

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Being one of my favourite things, of course I'm going to start with:
Chapter one: Food

1. Skip the deep fried finger food and stick to the fresher options such as sushi and cold rolls
2. Avoid the carby potatoes and such with your turkey and ham and save those up for pudding and cake! (Christmas is also a great time to try out gluten free baking as many recipes lend themselves to substituting flour for almond meal)

A "How to" for the silly season

Oh Christmas, what mixed emotions you bring. On one hand I love the food, the getting together of friends and family, the decorations, the sales and on the other hand, I hate the crowds, pretending to like people you haven't spoken to all year, untangling the fairy lights, bad cocktail party food and cheap alcohol. So here's my guide to stop you ending up a fat cranky scrooge this holiday season.
Chapter 1: Food
Chapter 2: Drink
Chapter 3: Suppliments
Chapter 4: Mind

Christmas Baking: Panaforte (Siena Cake)

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This is more a toffee than a cake. It's chewy, chocolatey and packed with dried fruit and nuts. With no flour in it, it makes an excellent gluten free treat. Because it's so dense it packs and travels well and so makes and excellent gift. I've used a few recipes (including one from my mother-in-law) to put this one together. It got rave reviews last Christmas. It takes a bit of time, but you have to try it, totally worth it, a labour of love.

'Tis the season

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Ah it's that time again and hasn't it come round quick! I love December. Warm nights, holidays, parties, my birthday and (of course) CHRISTMAS! With all this going on, its pretty easy to loose your head, so this month I'll be sharing a few tips and treats on the silly season. Hold on to you hats kids!

Sweet Tooth

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Sugar isn't good for you, but do you know what's worse? Artificial Sweetners. Aspartame (a common  artificial sweetner) is used in “sugar-free” products such as diet soft drinks and chewing gum. Since its discovery is 1965 it has been shown to cause several serious diseases such as: brain tumors, headaches, memory loss, seizures, liver disease, hearing loss, dizziness and cancer. It also worsens or mimics the symptoms of diseases and conditions such as fibromyalgia, MS, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, chronic fatigue and depression. Such a dangerous chemical, yet it is found in so many processed foods on our shelves today. Yet another reason to read those ingredient lists carefully.

Light hearted look

I love this Japanese ad, just gives you yet another reason not to skip that all important Chiropractic appointment.

Heart Health

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In case you didn't get the memo, I'm not a big fan of carbs. And guess who else back me up on this? The Italians. Yep those spaghetti eating, pizza inventing, cannoli lovers have done some research that showed women who have a diet high in refined white carbohydrate rich foods such as bread, rice and pasta are 2.25 times more likely to develop heart disease than their carb dodging counterparts. Good news for men though, the study found that men don't appear to have the same like between carbs and heart disease, bad news is men still have a higher rate or heart disease and death resulting from it than women. Still, heart health, yet another reason to put down that slice of toast.

Catch the happiness bug

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Did you know that happiness is contagious?
Yep, those guys at Harvard have done it again by showing that if one person is happy, it creates a ripple effect in the people around them, even if those people are complete strangers. It's a concept called "Emotional contagion" and has been studied and documented since 1994. Until this study, emotional contagion research dealt mainly with negative emotions, showing how contagious destructive emotions such as fear, sadness and anger are.

Cave men can cook

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What's not to love about prehistoric man? He's ruggedly handsome, a burly protector and he can prepare you the freshest, healthiest meal ever. An American study has shown that consuming a  paleolithic type diet similar to our preagricultural hunter-gatherer ancestors is good for us. A paleolithic diet is made up of lean meat, fruits, vegetables and nuts, and excludes nonpaleolithic foods, such as cereal grains, dairy and legumes. After just 10 days of this diet, researches found subjects had decrease blood pressure, improved glucose tolerance, decreased insulin secretion, increased insulin sensitivity and large and significant decreases in cholesterol, lipoprotiens and triglycerides. Who knew Early Man was sexy and smart! 

Salmon with egg and lemon sauce

Not my best picture, but you get the idea

I'm always looking for new ways to cook fish and salmon is my favourite. I found this recipe while flicking through an old greek cookbook of my mum's. It was a hit with Mr. Ox, although next time I may substitute the onions for leeks since we both found the onions a little strong. I opted for salmon but any firm fish would work well. The sauce is tangy and creamy (good for you too) and would work well with asparagus too. Serve it with a simple green salad and its a perfect summer meal.

Dairy and Calcium

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"If I don't eat dairy, how will I get Calcium for my bones?"
A common question I get asked.
Now a small amount of organic dairy is not too bad for you, for example I would choose real butter over margarine any day (I trust cows more than I trust scientists) but too much of anything (other than green vegetables) is not good for you.
But lets look at dairy and its claims to being so benificial to health.

Carbohydrates

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Now that I have explained the problems behind the modern day food pyramid, I wanted to answer some of the questions I get asked about the food "pie" I advocate to my patients.
First up is Carbohydrates. Or more correctly, Complex/Produced/Starchy Carbohydrates. Lots of vegetables such as carrots have a decent amount of carbohydrates as well, but I'm not so concerned about them.

Tales of the misunderstood: Low Fat Diets

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Low Fat, is there any other word combination I hate more? I think not. The idea of decreasing your fat intake is based on the lipid hypothesis which states that a high fat diet is the major contributor to cardiovascular disease. This idea was based on poor scientific evidence from the start and in recent years has been heavily criticized (for an informative and funny look at the situation, watch the documentary Fat Head).

Superfood: Watercress

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Watercress is an underrated herb in more ways than one. Recent studies show that watercress is packed with a natural plant compound called phenylethyl isothiocyanate (PEITC). With a name that complicated it has to do something good for you! PEITC is an anti cancer compound that works by turning off a protein called Hypoxia Inducible Factor (HIF). HIF is produced by cancerous tumors causing surrounding normal tissues to grow new blood vessels into the tumor, providing the cancer with
oxygen and nutrients. This protein plays a critical role in the development and spread of breast and other cancers. And just 80g of watercress is packed full of cancer fighting PEITC goodness, so get into it! To help you get started here is a fantastic watercress pesto recipe to try, serve it with grilled fish for extra cancer fighting powers.

Cabbage Rolls

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Is everyone enjoying mince week as much as I am? Even Poh had a little mince going on this week. This week has even got me looking up new mince recipes, I'm going to try a lebanese inspired meat loaf soon, will keep you posted. But really, a week isn't enough. I didn't post about meat balls, moussaka, dumplings or my awesome chili. But by special request by my dear friend I left back in Irealnd, I am posting my famous (well in our friend circle its famous) cabbage rolls, inspired by Jill.

Minced Beef Bola Curry

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This is perhaps my favourite mince meat dish, and my favourite curry dish, I make my mum cook it for me every time I come home and it never fails to impress. Which is why I have left it till last. This is my mum's recipe and as with most Sri Lankan dishes measuring is not really something they do. Its more "a bit of this" and "a splash of that" so all quantites are approximates, use less or more according to your tastes.

Meat Balls
500g lean beef mince
1/2 tsp minced ginger
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1 tbs sweet spiced vinegar
1 tbs Sri Lankan roast curry powder (or you favourite curry powder)
1tsp ground turmeric
1tsp ground cumin
1tsp ground corriander
1/2 brown onion finely chopped
salt to taste

Gravy
1 cup milk
salt and vinegar to taste
1 tbs Sri Lankan roast curry powder (or you favourite curry powder)
1tsp ground turmeric
1tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp minced ginger
1/2 tsp minced garlic
1/4 tsp sugar
2-3 stalks curry leaves picked from branch
2 cinnamon sticks

Mix all the ingredients for the meat balls. Roll mince mixture firmly to form bite size balls. Heat some oil in a fry pan and brown meatballs on all sides in batches. Drain meatballs on paper towel.
For the gravy combine all the ingredients in a sauce pan and cook on low heat until the gravy starts to bubble. Add the meat balls and simmer until gravy thickens and meat balls are cooked through (about 25min). Serve on steamed rice. This also goes well with pumpkin curr.

Minced Meat "Pasta" Sauce

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Today we're going Italian, well sort of, a friend of mine assures me that Italians hate vegetables in their bolognese! And by now you know how I feel about carbs, so I can't really call this a pasta sauce... But I do make this quite often and I eat it either by itself with a little cheese on top or over steamed green vegetables (I urge you to try it over a bowl of steamed green cabbage, its delicious, trust me). The addition of milk stops the sauce tasting to "meaty" and enriches the flavour of the tomatoes.

Mapo Doufu (Pock-Marked Ma's bean curd)

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Yes that's tofu, not mince meat but for the second recipe of mince week, I thought I'd share another mid week staple for us. I stole this recipe from Jill over at hey that tastes good. I love this meal, it possibly has a bit too much sugar to be called truly healthy, but it is really delicious. I like to fry my firm tofu first so that it doesnt break up in the dish, but the original doesn't have this step. I also add asian greens to it and sometime serve some steamed broccolini with it so that we don't need rice The quantities usually leave enough for left overs the next day for us.

Low Carb Shepard's Pie

Welcome to mince week! I'm starting off with one of our staple week day dishes, Shepard's Pie. This is great to make in the weekend and keep to re-heat. It also freezes well and the cauliflower mash makes it an easy low carb version too.  Serve with a green salad or some steamed greens and you're good to go.

For the love of mince

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I confess, I love mince.
What's not to love? Its economical and you can do so much with it! In fact I cook a lot with mince meat of different varieties and to show mince how much I love it I am dedicating a full week of posts to some of my favourite mince meat recipes. What's your favourite thing to do with mince meat?

Emotional Health

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I've talked about the detrimental effects of stress on your health before, and with Mr. Ox and I up and leaving our jobs, home and friends to move overseas, I feel like I have had my fair share of physical, chemical and emotional stress this year. Now while I keep the physical in check by being adjusted once a week (the perks of marrying a Chiropractor!) and taking care of the chemical by diet, I have always had trouble with the emotional stress, and I think that this is the case with many of us. We just take emotional stress and it's effect on us as a part of life, until one day we burst into tears for no reason. So I thought I would share some things that I found help to deal with emotional stress:

Change

 Growing hurts, anyone who tells you it doesn't is lying.

Words of Wisdom: Being Good

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 How good do you want to be? A question we don't really ask ourselves much is it?
While reading "It's not how good you are, it's how good you want to be." I came across these gems:

On being good:
"Talent helps, but it won't take you as far as ambition. Everybody wants to be good, but not many are prepared to make the sacrifices it takes to be great...Most people are looking for a solution, a way to become good. There is no instant solution, the only way to learn is through experience and mistakes"

Everyone is scared to make mistakes, so scared in fact that they don't even try. But mistakes are how we get better, how we grow and change and discover and become who we want to be. Today is a special day, the date is 10-10-10 a friend of mine came up with the brilliant idea of making today a day where you say to hell with fear and do something you have always wanted to do. So what are you waiting for?
"Fail, fail again, fail better" - Samuel Beckett

Food Groups

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 Vegetables Nourish

Protein Builds

Carbohydrates give Energy

Fruit Cleanses

Think about these when you plan a meal and thus what you want from that meal.

Food Filosophy

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Being a Health Care Practitioner who gives a lot of diet advice, I often get asked about my personal philosophy on food. It's pretty simple really, I follow a few little rules to keep me and Mr. Ox on track

• Firstly we follow the food pie as a general rule of thumb for each meal

Touch down!

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Hello all!
Finally we have arrived in sunny Darwin, so please bear with me while I deal with jet lag, the heat, snail paced internet and more creepy crawlies than you can poke a stick at!
Hang in there and keep checking back cause I've got some ripper posts coming up soon.

Mr. Ox's Birthday Brownies

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Every year I bake Mr. Ox birthday brownies. I use a Jamie Oliver Recipe that has more coco than flour, which is why this is a once a year treat. Makes them more special that way.

Happy Birthday Mr. Ox

My atoms and chemicals could've been made anywhere in the universe, but they were made here, near you. 

Near yours.  

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I am too lucky to have someone so good to me xx

Leaving on a Jet Plane

 

You know that feeling you get when everything goes perfectly, constantly and nothing's ever wrong with anyone or anything? Me neither. from here.

Today we leave Dublin after some horrible experiences with not nice people. But with the bad comes the good, we did meet some of the best people, friends who I will love, cherish and miss like hell until life brings us together again. Waving good-bye and smiling because it happened, so long Dublin.

Surprising

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I don't even like AFL, but I am Australian, so I did watch the Grand Final today, and boy, what a nail biter! I'm a little excited about next week...

Tales of the misunderstood: RDI

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Strolling through my local Tesco's the other day, I was struck by the amount of packaging that has RDI's displayed on them. RDA (or Recommended Daily Intake) are the amount of nurients required to keep an individual healthy. Or so we all think. In actual fact, RDI's are the levels of nutrients require to meet the requiremnets of 97%-98% of the population.
What does that mean?

Couldn't have said it better myself

I realised that I have neglegted to explain what it is I do (silly Chiropractor!)

So what is Chiropractic?

This excellent video explains it better than I can, so have a watch, its worth it, promise

Tales of the misunderstood: The Food Pyramid

Few things erk me as much as the Food Pyramid does. There are so many things wrong with it, yet it is advocated as the "gold standard" in nutrition and the path to healthy living.
So what's my beef with this type of diet?
First of all, let's look at how the pyramid came about. It was first published in 1978 in Denmark, but in 1992 the United States Department of Agriculture adopted it. That's right, it wasn't put together by doctors or nutritionists, but a government department who's aims are to meet the needs of farmers and promote agricultural trade and production determined what we should be eating.

Dreaming of the tropics

Since we are moving to the tropics I'm dreaming of floaty white cotton clothes. This All Saints dress fits the bill perfectly...now to convince Mr. Ox that I need it...

Mushrooms on toast

Having left my camera in London, I don't have a pretty picture to go with this post, sorry

Now mushrooms are not really a health food I am afraid...they are in fact a fungus and mold and fungus of any type is not good for the body. But I still love them. And on days that I am feeling homesick, longing for sunny Melbourne brunches down by the Yarra, I make this breakfast, inspired by Riverland one of our favourite Melbourne eateries. As with all things that are not good for you, this is more food for the soul not food for the body.  But once in a while we all need a little pick-me-up. The brioche is an extra special touch, you can get it from good bakers, or Marks & Spencers if you're lucky enough to be near one.

Thoughts on Health Care

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I was reading one of Dr. Chestnut's books the other day and he brought up an interesting point.
He said:

If you want to be happy, you study happy people,

If you want to be rich, you study rich people,

If you want to be healthy, you study health people

Chiropractors study Anatomy, Physiology, Psycology, Neurology, Nutrition; they study health.
Medical Doctors study Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Pharmacology; they study sickness and disease.
So Medicine and Chiropractic are totally different. Medicine in sick care, Chiropractic is health care.
So you need to pick your practitioner for what you require. If you need an expert in sickness and disease, you need a Medical Doctor, but if you need and want an expert in HEALTH, then what you need is a Chiropractor. You wouldn't get a plumber to wire up your house, he wouldn't have the right tools, so why would you get a sickness expert to fix your health?

Review: Temple Bar Food Markets

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Every Saturday Mr. Ox and I take our re-useable cotton bags down to the Temple Bar food market to stock up on our local organic veggies and meat for the week. Mr. Ox is partial to the coffee (the BEST in Dublin, hands down) while I love the warm apple juice (with a sneaky shot of apple brandy to keep the chill out) and the vegan wheat free treats. Shopping at these types of markets are good for the environment and for your health (not to mention the hip pocket) because you are buying good, local, organic, sustainably produced food from people who care, thus cutting down on transport costs and keeping Irish money in Ireland. No greedy global brand rapping and pillaging the earth with carcinogenic substances here. So do something good for yourself, the environment and the community and give your local market a go, I'm sure you will be pleasantly surprised.

Still alive and kicking

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Posting has been light on I know...I left my camera with my mum in London (slaps forehead!) and the in-laws are here for 2 weeks and then we're moving back to Australia (gasp) so run off our feet at the moment...but stay tuned...blog posting will resume...as soon as I get some time to scratch myself...

Missed me?

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Sorry posting has been a bit light on lately, Mr. Ox and I just got back from a week in London.
I have a confession to make...I hate London, well I DID hate London, until this trip.
This was my 6th trip to London and finally I found things to like about the city. To me its always seemed gray, dirty, cold, expensive with more Australians than Australia. But it has it's good points like:

Funny 'cause it's true

A Chiropractor friend of mine posted this on Facebook from this Chiropractic Clinic. It had this caption with it:

FDA approved, prescription drugs are the 3rd leading cause of death right behind heart disease and cancer. All three of which are largely preventable

 I laughed at it, but the sad part is that this is too true for so many people. I think it's time to take a step back and look at our daily routine. Are we doing things that make us sick? Have we forgotten the true power of the human body to heal? Do we really believe that health comes in a bottle from a pharmaceutical company? Or are we just too lazy to care for our greatest asset, our health?

That old devil called Stress

I read today that Mad Men star, Jon Hamm (he plays Don Draper) is suffering from a skin disease called vitiligo, which is an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks the cells that cause skin pigmentation. He says that it is due to the stress involved with filming the show. And you know what, he may be on to something...
We chiropractors talk about 3 types of stresses:

Apple Lust

Not these apples silly! These are organic pink ladies from the temple bar markets

I need a new phone...and I want an iphone 4. I've always loved apples, in fact my first computer was one of those rectangular bricks, and I loved it. My love affair with apple started WAY before they were cool, which makes me think of this article by one of my favourite Melbourne colomists, Danny Katz...its true, Mr. Ox and I are iWankers...

2 years and counting...

I know you're busy doing all the things you always planned to do but remember,
today is also the day that you kiss me.
Happy Anniversary Mr. Ox
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Happy Birthday Mum!

Before you were conceived I wanted you
Before you were born I loved you
Before you were here an hour I would die for you
This is the miracle of life.

- Maureen Hawkins 

I'm lucky enough to have a mum who loves me like this