GreeNZ Health Insurance Policy

Blending made smoother!!

We did it!  Bought ourselves a health insurance policy - a Breville Boss Blender!  Yay!  I am in awe of all it can do!  Nutbutters, smoothies, green smoothies, mill flour, frozen desserts - and more!  I have always wanted to make green smoothies and our food processor just does not do the job, at all!  All itty-bitty!  It makes smoothies, but a bit roughly!!  But then, it was never meant for that!

I always thought I would eventually succumb and buy a smoothie maker, even went to an in-home demo of a Thermomix - what a machine!  It did all, including washing itself and cooking the food!  But at NZ$2 500.00, I could definitely not justify buying one!  Hell, that would be half the deposit on a mortgage of a modest home!!

From this.........

To this, in seconds!

Best basis for any smoothie: 1 or 2 bananas, very ripe, for max flavour and texture.

We checked out models on the net, compared performance tests, prices, functionality........... simply, to totally confuse myself!  Then we decided to head on into the Big Smoke to see what a Boxing Day sale was all about!  After sitting in traffic for half an hour longer than necessary (accident en route) we were amazed at the shopping frenzy!  I checked out the blenders - and then I saw him!  The Boss!  And I knew it was love at first sight!  At $100 discounted, the price was less than half of the Thermomix, still pricey but I knew it was the one for me!
  

Banana, frozen peaches, vanilla and gooseberry blend.

So, so smooth.  A real smoothie!

A little coy smile, a wave of side hair tendrils and my husband was convinced.  We brought the Boss home and it took 2 days before I could bear even opening the box!  My first attempt at a green smoothie was less than mind-blowing, but as I was limited to ingredients found on hand, it was not bad.  The taste test of a green smoothie is all about texture!  My processor would whisk away at a 1/4 of the speed of the Boss, and leave you with unblended, stringy green gunk, totally unappetising and unconvincing to say the least!  Albeit a bit green-tasting, my Boss-made-green-smoothie had the smoothest texture and I know I can improve on flavour as I get more green-savvy!

First attempt, using ingredients on hand.....

Apple with skin, cucumber, silver beet, kale, celery, carrot, lime,
blueberries, stevia and coconut water.

May not look inspiring, but a powerhouse of nutrition
at a quick touch of a button!

Looks like a mug of spirulina but tastes a lot better!

 The Boss is the health insurance we have bought into and is the powerhouse of nutrients that we will be consuming, hopefully at least 2-3 times a week, full of chlorophyl, Vitamins A,C and K, potassium, magnesium, manganese and iron! 

The garden is bursting with fruit; nectarines and berries: strawberries, black currants and blueberries.  All great for eating fresh, or in a smoothie.  Yum!

Soaking calendula flowers in coconut oil for balm

Strawberry cage, netted against marauding birds.

A typical berry harvest every 2 days.  Great for smoothie making!

First harvest of nectarines comes in!

To die for; fresh, succulent sweet nectarines!  Taste sunshine!

After bouts of blending, it's out into the garden, weeding, mulching, planting, sowing, watering, picking or just watching!  I LOVE summer!

Phewf!  After all that blending, I need a holiday.  

Shanti stands guard over the emerging seedlings, watches them grow!  She looks exhausted from the hard work!

Guess Shanti thinks she needs a break too!

  

Cruelty-free Christmas Feast

Crimson Pohutukawa Sentry stands guard at Beach Road Harbour jetty, New Zealand's Christmas Tree!

Note the bee coming in to land on a sea of crimson

Red puffballs of colour bedeck our coastal trees, why - it must be Christmas!!

Twas the night before Christmas though, when the Man of the House, inspired by River Cottage, a TV cooking show, decided to cook up a feast - exotic Asian noodles with beans and roasted peanuts with Toasted Sesame Oil.  This is an event of Magnitude 5 on the Richter Scale.  Hasn't happened too often.  Said guy is a salad maker, not comfortable near the stove!  I applaud all these cooking shows with men as the star role model in the kitchen!  Bring it on!  I've reserved a spot in front of the TV for Monday night's show of River Cottage for him, in the hope another inspirational dish might result!

Nothing sexier than a man in the kitchen!!

Exotic, Sexy Asian Man-cooked Noodles

The day before Christmas, I prepared some dishes for our celebratory family meal on Christmas day.  They are tried and true recipes that form a bit of a tradition in our home, and which the kids have always looked forward to.  They are caponata, rice salad and 3 bean salad. 

Home-made pita with organic white flour and ground chia seeds

 Our traditional Christmas breakfast dish is a cupful of oats soaked in 2 cups of natural yogurt, along with spices of choice (I use a medley of cinnamon, cardamom and ginger) and handful sultanas.  This is soaked overnight in the fridge.  In the morning, I grate a peeled apple and add that with a tablespoon of honey and stir it all together.  It's a lovely cold breakfast that keeps you energized until lunchtime!

Yogurt soaked oats, spices and sultanas.

Total Vegetarian Feast

3 Bean Salad Recipe
3 tins different beans, drained and rinsed
1x green and 1x red capsicum chopped
1x onion, chopped
1 handful sultanas
Throw above ingredients into a heat-resistant salad bowl

Marinade:
125ml each, Apple Cider Vinegar, sunflower oil and soft brown sugar
Boil marinade for 5 mins till sugar is dissolved.
Pour marinade over salad mix and allow to cool.

Best eaten the next day but will keep in the fridge up to 3 weeks (as if!!).

Cruelty-free meal.  A taste sensation!

Caponata
2 cups diced celery
1/2 cup olive oil
1 medium eggplant, cut into cubes
1 large onion, chopped
1/3 cup wine or ACV vinegar
1 tspn sugar
2 Large tomatoes, peeled and diced
1 cup water
1 Tbspn capers
1/4 cup pimento-stuffed olives
1 can sliced ripe olives
2 Tbspn minced parsley
salt to taste

Cook celery first in oil, till soft.  Remove with slotted spoon and cook eggplant till browned and tender.  Add onion and cook till soft.  Remove from pan, adding to celery.  Put vinegar, sugar, tomatoes and water into pan, cooking for 5 mins.  Return veggies to pan, stir in olives, capers and parsley.  Cook uncovered on low heat for 20 minutes.  Add salt to taste.  Cool and serve at room temperature.  Keeps in fridge for 2 weeks (as if!!).

Rice Salad
2 cups cooked Basmati rice, while still hot, add:
1/2 cup melted butter or olive oil,
1/4 cup vinegar (ACV)
1 tspn salt
1 tspn black pepper

Cool, then add:
1/4  each chopped green and red peppers
1/4 cup chopped parsley
4 stalks diced celery
1 small cucumber, chopped
watercress or radish, finely chopped
Toss all together, garnish with olives.

I pride myself on the knowledge that nothing with a face or a mother had to die for us to celebrate in style!  I shudder to think of how many cows, sheep, pigs, turkeys, ducks and chickens lost their lives over the festive feasting season across the world!  A massacre of mammoth proportions.  If there is one New Year's Resolution you can make to help climate change, why not adopt 3 cruelty-free meals per week?  Do the planet and your body a massive favour!  I am planning 2-3 green smoothies per week as a health boost. And a plan to slow things down a little in my life -; life in the stress-free lane!   How?  Still thinking on that one..........

Empty plate.  Seconds anyone?

We had the traditional gift-giving session and delighted in showering our family members with small tokens of love and appreciation for one another.  True to form, my daughter had hand-made her gifts - brilliant artworks.  Our son's talented girlfriend too, painted a stunning art piece for us.  Our son gifted me with a companion for Stumpy Feldenkrais, the garden gnome he gave me last year!  I think I'll name him Bashful Feldenkrais!  Why Feldenkrais? Cause they look Norwegian!

The art of giving and receiving with gratitude and love!

Later in the day, we went for a walk and a few doors away from us, I spied this great little postbox festooned with accessories of the season!  The spirit of Christmas is everywhere!

No junk mail required, but a Merry Christmas to all!

Hydrangeas.  My Christmas Roses!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas celebration
with loved ones.   Look out!
Here comes New Year celebrations!!

Christmas Capers, made, bought and found!

Our fake Christmas tree which we bought when we celebrated our first

New Zealand Christmas, that has stood the test of 20 years!

Made

 Sitting beside to our 20yr old Christmas tree, decorated by our daughter, I reflect on the Christmases past and what it means for us as a family.  It's a time of giving and receiving, of loving and being loved, of remembering special people in our lives, of feeling blessed, grateful and restful.  All this, surrounded by tokens of familiarity - decorations reflecting a person having given it or made it, or a time - often representing the ages of our rapidly growing children.  The presents under the tree - made or bought, with a loved one in mind. The anticipation of their reaction.  Christmas.  It's all that, and more.

The cut-off legs for denim jeans-shorts and a
re-used coffee pouch star (my favourite recycling project)

Simple, naive tags.  Gift tags for pressies, 
sewn together with scraps,
recycled bits and made with love!

Quick to make and all materials used are "throw-away" stuff, re-purposed.

I have always asked my children to make our Christmas presents.  I told them to save their pocket money, and to show us how much they appreciated us, to make us a gift instead.  This has seen us receiving the most unusual, well-thought out and unique gifts over the years.  A lot of them are still in use, or displayed with pride.  There was a gumboot rack, shaped cedar wood necklaces, neck pillows, recipe book holder, paintings on canvas and even a record, tie-dyed t-shirts, ukulele stand and more.  From their angle, our children have enjoyed sneaking off to the shed, or barricading themselves in their rooms for a week or two before Christmas, making the family tokens of love.  We have in return, bought items which were useful, items we knew they needed (never just what they wanted), along with tokens of our love - hand-made, of course.  This resulted in them being impatient for the opening of their hand-made gifts - to see our reactions, rather than their being impatient to open their own presents for themselves!  The joy of giving reinforced!

This year, I created a new kitchen gift:

GreeNZ Nut Salt Recipe

3 cups un-washed, natural sea salt (with minerals still intact)

1 cup almonds

1 cup sesame seeds

1 cup pumpkin seeds

1 tspn green leaf stevia powder

1/2 cup Brewer's Yeast (good source of B vitamins)

1/2 cup dried Basil

Roast nuts in oven for 1/2 hour on 160deg.C  (optional)  Blend first the cooled nuts, then add the rest of the ingredients in a food processor to mix.  Package in wide-mouthed jars and use a teaspoon to sprinkle liberally over food.  Why not get your protein hit, alongside your condiment shakings??

Beautiful rhubarb 

While our citrus harvest has declined in magnitude (still a few oranges left), we have found ourselves without much fruit on our trees during the last 2-3 weeks.  Luckily rhubarb has come to the rescue, with black currants ripening enough to pick a bowl-ful this morning.  Strawberries are fattening up nicely, but unfortunately, time has been against me in regards to building strawberry bed enclosures.  The minute they ripen, the birds get them - here today - gone tomorrow!  So it is with delight, that my helpxchange friends, Rodrigo and Maria, from Chile, managed to build an enclosure this morning before leaving on their next travel adventure.  I can sense some strawberry delights coming in the next 3 days or so!

To make rhubarb compote, I wash and chop my rhubarb stems up into 1 cm pieces, add them into the pot and pour 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sugar over.  Simmer with a lid on, until they soften.  Do not add any water to the pot.

A great little treat; rhubarb and yoghurt for breakfast or dessert!

 We have enjoyed a few spring artichoke treats.  Not your average culinary treat in NZ - most people don't know what to do with them or simply can't be bothered by the fiddliness of getting to the heart of the matter ('scuse the pun!).  They are a token of Spring, and should really be eaten before they open fully to reveal such breath-taking beauty that I don't mind losing a few to experience this floral beauty!

Globe Artichokes

Artichoke Lunch, with garlic butter lemon dipping sauce, and salad.

There'll be days like this, now that the sun has finally decided to Shine!!

Bought

Time at home over Christmas means I can get all those 101 little chores done that I never get time to do during term time.  Like repainting the outdoor table which we have had for ages and needs a new paint job every 2 years to extend it's life!  This facilitates spending time outdoors eating al fresco.  I have recently had a few surprise gifts - someone else's discarded unwanted goods give me a thrill when I can find use for them in my world!  Like a new little handbag that fits over my shoulder and leaves me 2 free hands when out and about.  I spied it at the local opp shop for $4, and a beautiful red scarf for $2!  What a gift!  A thrill!  I can't bear to enter a shop where everything on the racks are multiple clones of one another!  Finding an Opp Shop treasure is like being in Aladdin's cave of wonders and picking something that speaks to you!  Often, the items SCREAM to me!  Pick me, pick me!

My newly aquired pre-loved handbag and scarf.

Found

The other little treasure I found brings me much joy and is also so functional!  Driving down one of our side streets, I spied a little table on the kerbside.  Aha, I thought, that would do nicely for my student daughter when she goes flatting.  Stopped to pick it up and gasped in surprise as I saw the intricate inlaid woodwork masterpiece that was the table top!  Perhaps I won't give it away, I think I shall keep it - Love at First Sight!  Reminds me of a Dutch painting!  There is a small piece that is lifting and a missing piece but hardly noticeable.  Looks like a museum piece!  LOVE my piece of street art!!  Makes a handy little coffee table!  A Christmas gift to myself, from the Universe of Abundance!

My street-gifted Christmas pressie

My 4 week term break will see me out there in the garden, with the birds and bees, flowers and trees.... sowing seeds, planting summer veggies, harvesting yummy plums and nectarines (mid January), painting and maintaining our little paradise. 

 Oh, reading too!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Inspiration in Hamilton's Gardens

Our children both study in Hamilton, an hour and a half away from us.  We have just had the occasion to visit them there.  We never tire of the gardens, candy for the eyes and food for the soul.  A morning at Hamilton's Gardens is inspirational! What a fantastic way to spend rate-payers money!  Well done, Hamilton District Council!!  This amazing public space is open to all, free of charge.  Allow yourselves at least 3 hours to see all the wonderful garden spaces.  Take a picnic and soak up the sunshine while admiring the mammoth creative genius that has gone into creating and maintaining this botanical wonderland!  Below is a gallery of snapshots to capture the essence of this magical place.

Ducklings bask in the morning sun, at the lake edge.

Making shadows on the carpet of flowers.

A glimpse of a bridge in the distance, reflected perfectly in the canal.  

The rose arbor.

A delighted fat bumble bee burrows busily in the beautiful blooms.
Methinks there's inspiration for budding poets in this beautiful space!

Fat, well-fed pigeons also enjoying the sunshine.

Beautiful avian "ornaments" in the English Garden.

I definitely want to try my hand at making one of these handy little garden support structures.

The Indian Garden

Peaceful reflection within the walled Indian-inspired garden.

The Maori Garden fencing provides security against marauding neighbours.

A great way to educate family members what to pick in the edible garden, when sent to collect something for the busy cook!

Neat rows of vegetables flanked by nasty-insect repelling marigolds in front.

Great support structure for rambling raspberries.

Emerging peas are given protection against marauding birds, as well as a structure to climb up.

Small canes spaced close together to support peas.

Brilliant Bean supports.

What ingenious garden architecture!

A bit of garden-path art in the edible backyard garden.

The movable Chook Tractor/ Chicken Run

Garden-Art Scarecrow guards the edible crops.

Anyone for a seat?  A concrete and mosaic resting place to contemplate the next gardening move.  Every garden should have one!  Note the mobile phones and old garden tools embedded in the seat.

Pappa, Mamma and Baby plant supports.

On our way to Hamilton, we stopped to take a picture of some cows in a field of yellow buttercups.  While taking photos, another car came screeching to a halt on the side of the road behind us, and out hopped an old fella who whipped out his mobile phone to also take a few shots of the cows.  In 5 minutes he had asked a host of questions and told me his entire life story, before hopping back in his car, waving farewell and rushing off again!  It's a funny old life!

We spied this beauty in the field on the way to Hamilton.

"Blessed are those, who delight in the small daily miracles of life."  quote by Mwa.