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

not my mum's curry, image from here

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.