Friday bits and bobs

Just checking in here, it’s been a week of readjustment and joy.

Sometimes news knocks us off balance, not because we are not happy about it, just because it means we need to change course a bit, reballance, reappraise, realign.

That is a good thing because it actually encompasses way more than the instigating factor, we rebalance everything as we adjust.

Often, most times, we don’t realise how stuck and repetitive we have become and this can (come on, usually right?!) be in negative patterns or in things that aren’t the best for us.

Over the yard arm drink, watching that boxed set again, beans on toast again, yet another sleepless night…

Whatever, they are not terrible in their own right although you might agree none of them are the best thing for you on a loop!

Maybe worth having a think and a look at your loops.

This week I have been doing a lot of dancing, yoga, guided relaxations, walking, it’s been gorgiously warm and sunny and lovely to walk in the autumn colours with the sun on your face. It is so good to move! I can’t stress it enough. It raises your metabolism, releases your happy hormones, lightens you and if you are trying to follow a routine it is quite meditative and takes you out of your loop because you are concentrating on something else. You don’t have to be a super duper dancer, just do what feels good to you. Move more than you did even if that means walking at a snails pace. Sometimes we need to push ourselves, a bit of firm and kind encouragment never goes amiss.

And so, a couple of easy, nutritious, non-inflammatory and satisfying recipes for you.

Simple soup

I have given ingredient ideas, it is not rocket science, be easy, a bit more or less will be fine, adjust to what you have, it is all good!

I actually made mine with a 6 inch piece of squash, organic so I washed but didn’t bother peeling it, half a left over parsnip, 1 leek 1 miso stock cube, a pinch of cayenne, lots of pepper.

1 Butternut, or almost any squash. Depending on size use a whole one or part – you can judge!

1 onion and/or leek

1 parsnip (or turnip, swede, carrot)

1 miso stock cube

ground pepper

pinch cayenne or another chilli of you fancy some heat.

Chop it all up, put in pan and stir a bit over heat with a splash of olive oil. Cover with water, add stock cube and seasoning. Cook until all tender and whiz it up. I used a stick blender so I didn’t have to wash a whole blender.

Souped up-

Throw in a handful of frozen peas. By the time you serve and eat they will have defrosted and make lovely fresh little pops in your mouth.

Stir in a handful of baby spinach, by the tie its is on the bowls this will have wilted and be a great contrast to the silkyness of the soup.

A chunk of goat’s cheese in the bottom of the bowl (Robin loves this) goes deliciously melty.

A great dollop of yogurt (I use live sheep’s, I find goats too tangy generally but it could be a nice contrat for the sweet squash) plopped on top, especially if you used chilli in it.

Sprinkle with diced avocado, tomatoes, red onions and fresh herbs.

Drizzle with herb oil or a good plain olive oil.

Wrap and roll

Take a wrap, any wrap – Robin had flour tortillas, I had dehydrated flax and courgette wraps. You could make or buy coconut wraps, use corn wraps, Nori sheets or rice (spring roll wrapper) sheets, even make socca pancake wraps (lots of recipes online). Lets face it if you are eating bread you could simply make it into an over stuffed sandwich!

Pile on some greens – I used water cress

Layer up with coleslaw – I made a big bowl the day before using sliced white and red cabbage, cucumber, onion, red pepper, cellery and grated carrot with home made mayonaise

Add sprouted beans I used mung beans (instructions below – they are EASY, CHEAP, NOURISHING and go with anything!!)

Wrap it up and eat.

Pimp it-

Sprinkle of  spices, chilli, salt and pepper.

Scatter lots of chopped fresh herbs – mint, coriander, chives, basil, lemony sorrel…

Goats cheese (or feta would be good) rounded Robins out.

Boost the benefits with some fresh garlic in the cl-oleslaw or runn–bbed over the wrap.

Spread some humus, recipe here Tweak… and twerking would help too!

Sprouting mung beans

2 TBS mung beans (they expand a lot!) rinsed and checked for any little stones

Soak in a bowl of water (start with warm water for sweeter sprouts) for about 8 hours or over night

Drain in seive, rinse and replace in bowl.

You could put them in a jar with some mesh over the top. It’s supposed to makes it easier (so the perveyers of jars with mesh lids say) but I always end up doing it using a bowl and seive these days -so I suppose I have found that easier!

Rinse twice a day until the little tails are the same size as the bean. You can go longer but use before they grow a leave, you just want the tail.

Snack on them as they are or sprinkles with some pink himalayan salt.

Great alternative to crisps splashed with a little oil, apple cider vinigar and salt.

Add to soups, wraps, salads, stir fries.

You could add to anything savoury really!

Happy weekend xxx

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Smash a mash.

Hello, hello!

How are you feeling? Have you followed anything here, changed anything?

Simply put, nothing will change unless you change something.

I know I am repeating myself but please don’t hold back until ‘all the bad stuff has been used up’, ‘after the holiday’, ‘after Christmas’ and all the other delaying tactics our heads can use. This is not a punishment!

Just choose better, mostly, now.

Right now stop reading and go and drink a big glass of water…..

Easy, useful, healthful.

Have a piece of fruit. If you don’t like biting into a juicy apple (pear, carrot, celery) cut one up and just have it on a plate next to you. Before you know you will have eaten it.

It’s the weekend in autumn, does that mean a comforting, big Sunday lunch or Saturday night pizza? OK, just change it up a bit.

Here’s a recipe to replace your stodgy mashed potatoes –

Multiply as needed but depending on the size of the vegetables this should serve about 4 or two for one meal and put the rest in a veggie soup tomorrow.

½ cauliflower

½ celeriac

Steam or boil (don’t swamp them with water, just enough to cover) with a lid on.

When tender, drain (drink the liquid or use it in your sauce or gravy) and put into a blender or bowl if you have a stick blender with

1 egg

A piece of butter, about 2 teaspoons or splash of olive oil

Pinch salt and a few grinds of pepper to taste.

Blend it all up.

Add, roughly chopped:

2-3 leaves of kale, calvo nero, chopped savoy cabbage or any dark green leaves

Pulse into the mash and serve!

Pizza

Replace your pizza base with slices of aubergine with a splash of love oil smeared over them and roast until tender. When ready top as you would pizza.

There are lots of recipes circulating for cauliflower pizza base, look one up.

Use a stronger tasting cheese and less of it.

Don’t use pizza sauce just put slices of real tomatoes, a smatter of salt and a sprinkle of herbs on as your tomatoe base.

Et voila!

Two things today –

EQUIPMENT

If there is one piece of equipment that I believe would help you have healthier meals it is a blender. A high powered one.

I use Vitamix and Blendtec. I have never used a Nutri Bullet but have only ever heard good things about them and they could be ideal for a lower price point and if you are not going to go the whole hog of grinding nuts, seeds, making flours etc. They also sound great for taking with you (I have been very tempted to get one for travelling, much easier than humping my Vitamix around!).

I am sure if you look on EBay or local second hand sale sites you could find any of the above at a good price because more people than I can count have told me over the years that they have a juicer in the back of a cupboard they never use and I am sure the same can be said for blenders.

REST

Whilst it is important to MOVE it is equally important to rest. If you are healing mentally or physically, recuperating, dealing with and overcoming autoimmune disease or any illness you need to push the toxins out and you need to rest to heal.

On the internet there are loads of guided relaxations, meditations, peaceful relaxing music. You need to look around and try to find what suits you, some really irritate me which is the opposite effect to the one we are looking for! It doesn’t mean they are all the same; Take the time and then use it regularly.

10-30 minutes of deep relaxation, especially regularly, will make you feel so much better.

If you are working and feel that fatigue or stress creeping in pop out for a breath of fresh air or to a quiet place (the loo even) and take a few minutes out to just stop thinking. It might help if you could put a short meditation on your phone and use headphones. Make it happen.

Listen to your body and trust it to tell you.

Have a fun weekend x

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Tweak… and twerking would help too!

Reminder

Doing this is your choice. Everything is your choice. Everything you eat, drink, think and do will effect how you feel mentally and physically. If you have an illness, an auto-immune problem, lack energy, have hormone imbalances, mood swings, lack of concentration, brain fog, constipation, acne – you fill in the words for you – you can change how you feel if you choose to.

You only need to tweak really – tweak a salad for a pie haha, no, I am kidding! Well I am not but there are better ways; Tweak a good pie for a bad pie (suggestion in the last post), roast some sweet potatoes with cumin and smoked paprika in place of fried potatoes. Use Make almond milk instead of drinking pasteurised milk, homemade almond milk its cheaper, fresher and more natural than prepacked. Top some roast aubergine slices with onions, red peppers, mushrooms, garlic and some goats cheese instead of pepperoni pizza and so on. Lots more ideas will follow over the coming weeks.

As you tweak and add in good stuff, move more,  sleep and look better you will be more inspired to do more of it.

Make it a habit to have a really fresh and juicy green salad with meals; if you don’t already love that you will start to. You just need a good dressing (recipes coming up over the next few posts) to make it just as you want it.

Be prepared

Be prepared for feeling a bit rubbish as you remove the bad. If you are used to drinking coffee and black tea all day, fluffy or stodgy white stuff (pasta, bread, pastry, cake, biscuits, pies you know what I am talking about) then as you remove them your body and head will probably complain a bit. Drink more water, rest if needed, move more to push the toxins through. Have warm salted baths to pull the rubbish out. You might be a bit bloated and windy (sorry) as you add more fibre to your diet – chew well, eat slowly, stop when full. Consider taking probiotics and digestive enzymes. You can find them in health food shops and online. They can help but you don’t have to. I take a course now and again and make my own probiotics which I eat and drink daily, more about that in another post.

MOVE

Walk, run, jump up and down on the spot, go for a swim, walk or run up and down stairs, dance, do whatever it takes and whatever you can to move. You need to use those muscles. They support you and hold you up, keep all your bits together. Moving raises your heartbeat, increases your oxygen intake, moves your lymph and so removes some of the toxins. It helps digestion, increases metabolism and mood. That’s enough for now, trust me, MOVE!

Humus Recipe

Drain and rinse 1 tin or jar of red kidney beans or chickpeas, put in food processor. Peel and chop 1 big courgette and throw that in too.

Add 1 big TBS Tahini,

Juice of 1 lemon plus a grate or two of zest.

1 clove garlic.

1 tsp cumin.

Pinch salt (GOOD salt!).

Blend adding a few drops of very cold water until you reach the consistency you prefer.

Serve as it is or with a drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice (please don’t be afraid of good oils, they oil your joints, your skin, feed your cells – olive oil, sesame oil, coconut oil, avocados all GOOD).

Serve with chopped veggies, in wraps preferably made from coconut or cabbage/ lettuce leaves, in baked sweet potatoes etc.

Bits and bobs meal

Last night I served this humus with:

Raw courgette, flax seed, physilium husk, onion powder wraps

Fried courgette, red onion, mushrooms, tomatoes, cumin and ground coriander

Chopped avocado, tomatoe, fresh coriander leaves, lemon juice

A pile of roquette and coriander leaves

Cherry tomatoes

Non dairy cheesy sauce made by blending soaked cashews, pine nuts, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, dash umboshi vinegar or a stoned umboshi plum, pinch salt and ground pepper. Actually I confess I used a few other ingredients (hence the interesting colour!), which have to remain secret for now, but that recipe will get you an amazing cheesy sauce!

There is no way you could feel deprived eating that!

Our diary for the last two days:

Monday

Me: corn crackers with butter and jam (homemade). Dates, soaked and sprouted almonds.

Robin: meusli type cereal (bought) homemade almond milk.

Both: 1 coffee with breakfast

Smoothie: celery, dandelion leaves, parsley, bananas, cherries, maca, spirullina, chia

Robin: Banana, Magnum ice cream!! (note to self make some sweet snacks to be at the ready!)

Humus (recipe in this post) carrots sticks and cherry tomatoes

Raw seed based Falafels with cucumber, tomatoes, tahini sauce wrapped in cabbage leaves.

Piece very delicious, old, hard cheese (using it up!) with Quince paste (homemade).

Apple cidre vinegar in water X 2, 1 ½-2 litres filtered water, green and red tea.

Walked over 10,000 steps (through forest, speedy), swam ½ KM (again, speedy).

Tuesday

Breakfast; Me as above, Robin whole grain toast.

Juice: celery, kale, cucumber, lemon.

Me: Chia pudding with homemade almond milk, banana, spirullina and acai.

Robin : Cereal with homemade almond milk and fruit. Ice cream (NB he is doing masses of physical work and when they are gone they are gone 😉

Grain free wraps, cooked veggies with spices, humus, chunky guacamole, Coriander and roquette from the garden, tomatoes, cheesy (non dairy sauce) recipes in the post.

Plenty of water, red tea, ACV in water x 2. Filtered water, green and red tea.

Walked over 10,000 steps (through forest, speedy), Me danced 30 mins, Robin active work. Ten minute meditation.

Wednesday so far:

Similar breakfast.

Smoothie using the large quantity of juice I made and stored yesterday with banana, mango, frozen cherries, pollen.

Boiled eggs (me 1 Robin 2).

Tonight I am not sure but probably heading for roasted veggies as I haven’t given it any thought and my hands are still covered in wax from renovating a floor!

Take it easy, be kind to yourself, keep hydrated and think about your left hand (see last post here Feel better!).

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Feel better!

First things first.

This post is the first of a few after the huge reaction I received to this Facebook post –

“If you are feeling tired, achy, demotivated, tense, cranky, ‘your age!!!’ Sleeping badly, looking and feeling bloated, sad, down, fat, floppy, grumpy, mentally fudgy, slow etc etc and would like to change that, pm me. Robin and I are doing a recharge, defrag, reboot and I’ll share what we are doing if you want to join in.
Lets peel back those layers, feel energized and find our shine!

What I am aiming for is to reduce inflammation ( a few flare-ups lately) calm my head, (can’t sleep properly as brain is whirling with ideas), calm stress (walls in wrong place, cracks appearing in ceiling of main house etc /:), reduce migraines ( Robin has been having lots of dream state and opthalmic ones lately) and in the process I’ll probably lose a few pounds.”

As this goes on I will get to the point of just journaling what I eat, drink, do plus share a recipe and maybe a bit of info. This post is word heavy just to get you going, sorry!

BE PREPARED
It is really easy to grab a piece of toast, a mug of coffee, a sandwich, a piece of cake from home, supermarket or motorway service station.
It is hard to travel or work healthily unless you are prepared either to just drink water and munch on fruit (which is a really good option if it is just for a day or so) or are prepared to be prepared.

Being prepared simply means having things with you that will taste good and do good.

FEELING STODGY                                                                                                                                                                       Have you noticed that when you eat stodge you feel stodgy?
If I eat bread for example I feel heavy and bloated. If I weigh myself up to 24 hours after eating bread, and I am talking about a bread roll rather than a loaf, I will weigh 1 – 1 1/2 kilos more than if I hadn’t. We have been away this week and I have eaten bread each day. Almost all the food has been cooked which probably means a heavyish hand with the salt (and not the Himalayan good kind), and from the second day I have been around 59.5kg. I normally average 57-58kg. All the time we were away, between 9.30am and 7.30pm, I have only drunk water and eaten a couple of pieces of fruit. I have not eaten excessively in the evening. I’ve had a few glasses of wine, a piece of bread with a reasonably healthy meal by most people standards.
I not only feel heavy I am heavier. That is because my body is holding onto water; It actually is bloated. The bloat is all over, inside and on the outside so if you think my tummy cells are a bit bloated, so will be my brain cells and so on. Not a good thing I am sure you will agree.
Today I am 59kg. Tomorrow I expect to be about 58.5kg. All that is simply not eating processed food or bread.

So when I feel stodgy I AM stodgy. I feel bloated because I AM bloated.

That is just my reaction. If people are doing this every day it is building and growing, water retention leading to high blood pressure, fat cells filling up leading to extra padding, less movement, strain on joints and organs….

OBSESSING                                                                                                                                                                                    So, secondly, food can be obsessive.
You can eat obsessively and you can ‘not eat’ obsessively.
You can find yourself not eating because there isn’t anything healthy (so drink lots of water and have some fruit until your find something good or do your prep!) and so not eating too often or eating whatever there is and then feeling bad about it OR even saying “I’ve blown it I might as well continue eating badly, gimme another pie!”.

None of those things are healthy in any way.

SO:
1, Be prepared.
2, Eat before you are desperate and monster mind takes over rational mind.
3, If monster mind takes over and you have eaten the pie (whatever your pie might be – ice cream, chocolate, cornish pasty, stodwich …) spin round three times and put it in the past! Continue in your new, healthy way.
4, DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP!
5, Every mouthful of food or drink you take can heal or hurt. Make each one count.

HAND TEST
Hold both hands up. Left hand good, right hand bad.
Raise a finger on each hand for relevant food –

I.E. I had two dates, 6 almonds, two crackers with butter and jam and a little coffee for breakfast.
Dates, almonds, crackers on left hand, topping and coffee on right hand. As long as the  left hand is ahead we are doing OK. As we move ahead you will need to borrow your right hand for the good side 🙂

THINK
If you are dealing with an Auto immune disease, are simply out of energy, over weight, stressed, struggling to be enthusiastic, depressed, anxious, find you haven’t laughed or even smiled in a while, wake up all night long, feel bloated, get constipated, wind, acid reflux, have cellulite, beer belly, menstrual problems, hormone problems, spots, dull hair, brittle nails… then what you eat will effect all this!
Think of each morsel you eat as something that is going to cause change for the better. Flood yourself with nutrients! We are made up of nutrients, every process in our bodies is aided and abetted by how we nourish ourselves.

You know that if you eat a quiche made from pastry, bacon, eggs, cream and cheese served with chips it will not have the same effect as a quiche made with a crust of blended nuts and seeds, filled with organic eggs, spinach, sweet corn, peas and capers  and served with a crispy, juicy salad (or to take it to another level a creamy filling of cashew nut cheese with tomatoes, wilted spinach, softened red onions and red peppers and sprinkled with capers) BUT I can assure you it will taste delicious.

The first will make you feel full, heavy and tired, the second will leave you feeling satisfied and the left hand will have all fingers up, the right will be close 🙂

SHOP
I suggest that today you shop for fruit and vegetables with a few extras;
This is my shopping list, some will not be available or not good quality so I will use it as a guide (I get as much as I can organic, the benefits are multiple) as well as stuff I have in my cupboards that you would do well to stock. Buy enough but not too much that it goes off before you eat it or the quality is compromised. If you can shop every few days its better.

Apples, bananas, lemons, oranges, courgettes, aubergines, parsnip, garlic, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, carrots, celery, red onions, avocados, tomatoes while they are still good, butternut squash (or any squash of pumpkin), mushrooms, capers (packs that salty punch!), any good salad leaves, actually I will be getting mine from the garden including dandelion leaves (and using self seeded herbs and roquette I discovered joyfully!), curly kale and/or spinach, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, almonds/cashews/walnuts (not salted – raw) Quinoa, tin chick peas, tin red kidney beans, tahini, dried seaweeds, tamari and/or Braggs liquid amos and/or nam shoyu for flavouring, really good olive oil, maybe add in some avocado oil, sesame oil, Himalayan salt, apple cider vinegar with the mother – the cloudy bit in the bottom which means it is alive! Any herbs and spices you like – I use a lot of cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, cayenne pepper, cinnamon. Maybe some organic eggs, goats or sheeps cheese (feta is a good one), kefir or live sheeps of goats yogurt, raw honey and agave or coconut syrup.

The main thing here is fresh, non-processed, clean, easy to digest. Any fruits or veggies you like with enough variety to cover lots of colours (eat a rainbow). Be guided by what you like, can afford, is fresh.

MAKE
Following on from this will be some recipes but for tonight use some of the your veg – carrots, parsnip, courgette an onion, a clove or two of garlic an apple or some blackberries (if you have access to figs I would use those, I freeze ours as well as blackberries to use all winter) – chop them up (wash and/or peel if not organic), toss in some olive oil, a sprinkle of salt and some spices, I would use cumin, smoked paprika, cayenne and maybe a bit of cinnamon and pop them in the oven for half an hour. Add some shopped mushrooms and crumble some feta over the top. Leave another ten minutes in the oven until all is cooked through.  You could plop an egg in for the last ten mins if you fancied and sprinkle some rinsed capers over the top for that extra bite!

Make extra to have for lunch tomorrow either just as it is or wrapped up in some kale or lettuce leaves with a dollop of yogurt on top and a sprinkle of cayenne for a bit of a kick.

NB Please have your doctor check out anything that is ongoing, seems strange, causes pain, where blood is evident – use common sense, I am not a doctor, I do not diagnose, I am a clinical nutritionist with 16 years of experience on myself and others who want to help themselves naturally and significantly. Also if you have had chemotherapy please take your doctors advice – if you go into a detox of any kind (this is clean eating and taken to an extreme could put you into detox) any chemo chemicals stored in your cells could flush out and your organs have to deal with that which could have a negative effect.

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Renovations dirty, frustrating, exciting

Do you ever have days when the thing you found so motivating and exciting yesterday is exhausting and overwelming today?

Welcome to my world!

I have been scared of heights for ever; I couldn’t go up the ladder to the first floor of the ‘little house’, the old tumble down house we are now renovating to move into so that the whole of the main house can be used for retreats, holidays and possibly B&B.

On Saturday, after months of attempts and a few days last week of “OK, Robin I am doing this, would you just turn the ladder that way then I will be OK?”….. I wasn’t. Then “OK, Robin would you put the scaffolding up under the hole and I can just climb up, easy!”….. It wasn’t, I didn’t.

So then he put a combination of ladder and scaffolding, then added planks, then stood on it all himself; no go.

So back to Saturday, I just decided and said to myself “I am a person who goes up ladders!” marched over, asked him to stand on the planks next to the ladder and walked straight up, hurrah!!!

Then I had to decide I was also a person who could climb down ladders. I did (eventually and with a few wimpers) and massive progress has been made.

All the bedrooms and bathrooms have been measured out and moved around until they worked. Of course all the windows and beams are not exactly where we thought, so I did a lot of moving around, toilets, basins, baths and showers juggled until there was enough room to get through a door and put a chair, a towel rail, a without going to the loo in full view of the garden etc.

It was fun and exciting.

Now it’s Thursday and Robin is still putting in the windows which don’t all fit (understatement) so have to be cut, filled, wedged and balanced to work inside and out on a crooked wall, a sloped sill, a wobbly lintel and two of us who think different things look best ha!

I have been putting more grass seed down on top of the seed that hasn’t sprouted – again. I am still wire wooling the floor in the main house, the electrician who has been promising to arrive for weeks didn’t turn up again (thats him out, enough is enough) and we are tired.

No amount of green juice, powdered or fresh wheatgrass or chia and aloe filled smoothies will help this mood – thank heavens for chocolate cake and juicy cherries! Raw, grain free, dairy free and energy boosting cake with cherries we picked and froze in the summer.

Sorry for the moan, better go and mow the weeds now while Robin calls the guy building the gate posts to ask where he is…..

Desri X

www.boutiqueretreatfrance.com

Instagram desrigoodwin

 

 

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Quick, tasty and bursting with energy.

Here are a couple of recipes for you. Easy to make. Quick. Very good and won’t give you that saggy feeling after eating it AND you will feel as though you have eaten!

I didn’t actually weigh or measure anything, just threw it all in. You can do the same or follow my measuements. When I need something to eat fast or have other things to do rather than enjoy the food prep I like to throw it all together, no fuss. I used what I had, there are substitution suggestions at the bottom of the post so that you can use what you have.

Falafel.

6 soaked sundried tomatoes chopped small – I didn’t wait for these to soak (I hadn’t planned to make this, if I had I would have soaked them an hour or two earlier). I put them in a cup of warm water when I started then used them as soon as I need them.

1/2 cup pumpkin seeds ground in blender or food processor or with elbow grease with a pestal and mortar.

1/4 cup pistachio nuts ground in blender or food processor or with elbow grease with a pestal and mortar.

1/4 cup hemp seeds

1 hand full of basil, parsley and coriander chopped

1 TBS chia seeds

Juice half a big lemon

1 TBS olive oil

1 TBS tomatoe soak water

1 tsp dried herb de provence

1 tsp ground cumin

Several grinds of black pepper

Good pinch of Himalayan or other mineral rich salt

Mix it all together and roll into balls.

At this point you could serve with the sauce or store in the fridge till later or dehydrate for a few hours and serve warm.

Tahini sauce.

1/2 cup Tahini

Zest of half a lemon

Juice of one lemon

3 cloves black fermented garlic

1 Umboshi plum, stone removed

1/2 cup warm water (or more if you want it runnier, wait until it is blended up to decide)

Dash Braggs

Blend it all up. If you do not have a high speed blender chop the garlic and plum finely or squidge through a garlic press then whisk it all up. Add more water if needed.

To serve

Plate with salald leaves, any salad ingredients you like, drizzle with the sauce, scatter with sesame seeds and nasturtium flowers – or any flowers or fresh herbs, make it pretty!

If you want to stuff it all in a pitta bread or a wrap. Wholemeal is best.

Substitutions

Braggs – pinch salt/ tamari/ soya sauce

Umboshi plum – Dash Umboshi vinigar or leave out.

Black garlic – one clove fresh, remove central shoot

Herbs de provence – Italian herbs, dried oregano

Pumpkin seeds – sunflower seeds

Pistachio nuts – wallnuts/ almonds/ pecans/ mix of all or any of these nuts/ more seeds for nutfree version

Hemp seeds – replace with any of the seeds or nuts

Sundried tomatoes – half a fresh tomatoes and 6 chopped black olives.

Fresh herbs – use any mix of the herbs I used, even just one.

Bon appetit!

 

 

 

 

 

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Give me a healthy spag bol recipe?

I was saying recently how great it is to see raw spiralised vegetables in the UK supermarkets and also why not make your own, so easy and cheap and fresh!

Use a vegetable peeler if you don’t have a spiraliser. Really, easy.

It’s perfect to use in place of pasta just with your favourite sauce on and also there are so many healthier sauces to be discovered.

Someone requested a recipe. I asked with or without meat and they asked for both. I LOVE giving people recipes and trying new things!

This weekend we had a friend staying who is keeping to a bit of a fitness regime, as we do, but it is lovely to indulge visitors so I decided to make a healthy meat version of spag bol. I don’t use meat very much at all but when I do it is organic, grass fed. I believe eat the best and a 1/4 of something good and more expensive is better than a lot of cheap not so good anything. I pack it with veg which also boosts the flavour.

This isn’t at all a traditional spag bol but it is a version of it that is a good substitute, very tasty and healthy. It is reasonably low in calories with depth of flavour coming from the anchovies and prunes along with the more traditional ingredients. I used the anchovies to replace the depth I could have had from pancetta (which is traditional) without the calories and fat. It has more hidden* fruit and vegetables than a traditional one and that is what we are after – *hidden if you had not made it and so know what is in it.

I served it over spiralised courgette and sprinkle it with a small amount of strong flavoured cheese – max flavour enables us to use less – I could have used the parmesan substitute I use on my raw version which is grated brazil nuts mixed with a small amount of crushed garlic and nutritional yeast – really delicious but of course it doesn’t melt the way cheese would. A good sub for melted cheese would be some cashew nuts soaked then blended with water, a dash of apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper and nutritional yeast. More of that when I post the raw vegan version in a few days!

Recipe for a healthy spaghetti bolognese

What I used:

500gms Organic grass fed beef

2 onions

1 red pepper

½ red chilli pepper

2 cloves garlic

5 anchovy fillets

1tbsp olive oil

1 stick celery

¼ tsp cinnamon

1 good tsp oregano

3 bay leaves

Salt & pepper

5 prunes chopped

Small pack shitake mushrooms (any would do but these are a bit more flavourful)

¼- ½ stock pot

500gm pureed tomatoes in box (would have used chopped if they had it or fresh in summer)

Fill box with water or half and half red wine and water.

How I did it:

Fried onions & garlic till soft

Added anchovies, stirred a few minutes

Added celery and peppers, cooked until soft

Added meat and broke it up until well mixed with the rest, cooked slowly adding the cinnamon half way through.

When all lightly cooked I added the tomatoes, carrots and wine/water mix along with a teaspoon of the stock pot, the chopped prunes, finely chopped mushrooms and herbs. If I hadn’t been using wine I would have added a bit more of the stock pot (or cube or fresh stock).

Heated until bubbling gently then put into a glass bowl with lid and into the oven for a couple of hours slow cooking.

I would have cooked on stove top but pan not really big enough (in holiday cottage!).

The result was a rich, thick, glossy and delicious sauce. Served with spiralised courgette it ticked all the boxes even for my husband who loves a really good, authentic spag bol!

We were all so hungry and ready for it after the rugby that I forgot to photograph the finished product. Should have served 5-6 but served 3 (two of them twice :).

For AJ – let me know what you think x

 

 

 

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Doing or going to do – that is the question.

Lets have a word about procrastination, avoidance, distancing.

A client came to me about ‘all the things he has to do, and that he was not succeeding or getting anywhere’. He felt between a rock and a hard place, nothing was working.

We spent a lot of time talking and have spoken many times before about other things. I noticed that one of his frequent sentences was:

“I am going to……”or, I will do …” and often, “I should have done….”.

He was very focused on all the different things he had to do and on the point that he was not good at multi-tasking instead of focusing on a job in hand. Therefore getting nowhere other than more and more depressed and worried and distanced from what needed doing.

I explained that an example of multi tasking could be talking the phone (clutched under the chin) talking to a client whilst feeding the baby in one arm and stirring the soup with another. Or, filling in your accounts on the computer whilst on speakerphone to a supplier and watching (and worrying about) your expensive employee chatting to their best friend on the phone, again.

I suggested that having various jobs or commitments, keeping hydrated and exercising are not multi tasking unless he was planning on lifting weights whilst riding on the sit-on mower and making deals on his mobile.

I also suggested, somewhat forcefully after he kept escaping from our conversation to all the things he will do, he only needs to do one of these various jobs at a time. It creates variety, which we all need. The jobs do not over lap at all and if each job was given an allotted day or time slot and done properly, whole heartedly and thoroughly he wouldn’t have to think about it whilst doing another job. Therefore no multi tasking required.

I advised that he take job A – (which is basically selling) and has a list of everything that is required, the clients list, items he needs to sell, his target written down clearly. Then on that job’s day he starts and does absolutely everything he can with all his resources to get the best possible outcome on that day. So e-mail, phone calls, post if all else fails. Explore every avenue and be creative (if a contact number is not immediately available look at every possible way you could get one or make contact). At the end of the day he may feel a little frustrated if he has not made any contacts BUT ultimately he will feel immensely satisfied that he did everything he could to the best of his ability during Job A’s time slot. No point worrying about it afterwards, it will not change a thing. Let all the hard work percolate until the next time it is Job A’s time slot.

Next day he takes Job B and applies the same intention, intensity and determination and so on.

Maybe as there are a few different jobs have 15 – 30 minutes just to address any e-mails or things to deal with such as if the best client in the world’s PA sends an email to arrange a meeting…

Then, when he is mowing the garden (or driving the kids to dance class or doing exercise) he can put some great music on or an audio book, drink a beer and multi task happily (beer drinking is not applying to the bracketed options obvs 😉 this then becomes recreational rather than part of the job pile.

Lets also talk about ‘job’, ‘task’, ‘commitment’. Make them fun/interesting/exciting and they become enjoyable. Who wants to just do a job compared to playing at chatting to people, finding out how people work, feeling successful and providing something that someone needs? Who wants to do a task or fulfill a commitment when they could be playing at mowing, singing their heads off drowned out by the engine, zoning out to their favourite tunes or being told a facinating and exciting story. Think about how to make what you do into what you want to do. Life is to be enjoyed not endured, how lucky we are to have it.

I worked in a shop at one point and it was so boring until I made a challange to be the fastest on the till (it was the olden days, you keyed the money in as you passed the products along the counter beside you) and to try to get as many people a day to smile. In the end I had lovely if brief chats with people who I got to know in a chitchaty way, and was the fastest cashier in the North – my till was always out by a few pence either way (always!!!) so I didn’t get a pat on the back but I did get a lot of smiles 🙂

The moral of the story is you can spend so much time worrying about that big pile of stuff over there rather than concentrating on jumping right on top of the smaller, more manageable pile of stuff right in front of you. Jump right into the centre of it, splat!, and sort out every tiny little bit of it then go over to the big pile, take what you can carry and put it where the little pile was and jump splat! into the middle of that one and deal with it. How satisfying!

Saying “I will do….”, “I am going to do….” and “I should have done….” is SO much better changed to “I am doing”.

I am drinking water and I am hydrated.

I am exercising and I am fit.

I am dealing with this now.

I am doing my best right now.

I am in control.

I am satisfied.

I am finding a way to enjoy what I do.

I am doing it, now, in the way that works for me.

I am I!

____________________________________________________________________

I am moving this blog back to Whatdesrididnext.wordpress.com. If you want to join me there I would be very happy! Thanks for reading.

Desri x

www.boutiqueretreatfrance.com

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What is that?

“It’s a Papaya”.

“What do you do with it?”.

Where shall I begin?!

Here’s a few things you can do with papaya:

1 Cut it in half and remove the seeds. These are very good for killing certain parasites in the gut, I know but you probably have a few…at least…. If you are making a smoothy keep a reaspoon full to add in, gives a slightly spicy tang.

2 Sprinkle with lime juice and just eat it. Delicious any time and a great start to the day.

3 Dry the seeds and use them in a pepper mill, they add a nice punch to food and extra nutritional benefits too.

4 If you eat a protein heavy meal, for example red meat, have some Papaya as a refreshing desert or starter. It is full of papain, proteolytic enzymes, that help digestion. It is also high in vitamins A, B and C, potassium, calcium and of course fibre which we love!

5 Delicious in a salad.

I make a big mixed salad using various leaves, all the summer standards such as cucumber, radish, tomatoes, onions etc and chop in a papaya ( or half, depends on the size and how many people!) and avocado.

Sprinkle with sea weed flakes and toss in a dressing of your choice. My fave for this salad is:  juice of an orange, about 1 desert spoon (to taste) Braggs, same of really flavoursome olive oil, tsp honey or agave, a crushed clove of garlic.

I sprinkle the whole thing with some chia seeds (to soak up all that lovely dressing) and help seeds.

6 Don’t throw away the skin! Rub in on your hands, your face, elbows, knees, all over. It softens your skin, eats away the dead skin cells, cleans it really. Leave for up to ten minutes (avoid your eyes) then rinse off; like a baby’s botty.

7 I went to an Ayurdedic retreat and it was served steamed (traditionally Ayurveda is not so cooked as depending on the dosha some people find raw foods harder to digest). It was actually delicious, I couldn’t tell it had been cooked so maybe it hadn’t been steamed much; I’d stick to raw personally.

So, there you have it, a few ideas to enjoy the magic of Papaya.

I think I’ll print it out on cards and carry some around with me to give to the people on the super market tills!

 

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Little woman, me?

Well I am little physically, 5′ 1 1/2″ to be precise.

I don’t like being called short but small, petite and little are fine.

That is not the issue. It is far more sensitive than that.

Yesterday I mentioned to someone how much I have always wanted a certain type of stove, the one that warms the heart of the house.

They said something along the lines of “your husband will have a fit at the running costs”.

I groaned just typing that.

Why, is it assumed that I would not have a fit at the running costs, pay the running costs, be responsible for the running costs, finance the running costs?

We had friends to stay a while ago and took them on a petit tour and passed the hotel de ville. The lady said “Our husbands should buy us a place like that”.

Our car has been called my husbands car and our house has been called my husbands house. Even my businesses have been called my husbands businesses on quite a few occasions!

I once had a male printer who had made a complete hash of my brochure printing – they went from mainly blue through a few balanced coloured to mainly red and back again through thousands of brochures. It doesn’t matter what the brochures were showing really, bad printing is bad printing, but they were clothing so highly important that people saw correct colouring.

When I asked what he would do he said nothing, he didn’t need to see them and indicated I was making a big fuss and condescendingly suggested I had a little chat with my husband about it! Well, you can imagine.

Needless to say I (not my husband) did not pay him.

When I laughingly told my husband about yesterdays comment (it was by a lovely man who would probably be really embarrassed at how it sounded, or think I was ridiculous for taking it that way 😉 he asked me ‘Does it bother you from a significance or a sexual equality point of view?”.

Such a horribly and annoyingly reasonable question.

I do hate, after all these years in business, that being female can make you so insignificant in a business and financial world. I also dislike that I still care and need that significance.

I wish I could calmly rise above it and be content with my own knowledge of my achievements.

Or maybe I don’t. I want to be thought of as super woman, divine wife, perfect mother, great business woman and I want one of those oil guzzling stoves for ‘my’ kitchen.

Oh…

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