Kiwi Banana Green Smoothie

I had intended to share a delicious creamy green spinach sauce that I often make to put on gnocchi, but I didn’t get around to making and photographing it. Instead, I opted for a fairly quick and easy green option so as not to miss out on today’s prompt – a simple smoothie. The combination of banana and kiwi fruit give a nice balance of sweet and sour, and it’s a nice liquidy one which is refreshing and easy to gulp down. So without further adieu…

Kiwi Banana Green Smoothie
(serves 2)

1 banana
3 kiwi fruit
2 cups spinach
6 large fresh mint leaves
1 tsp spirulina (optional)
1 Tbsp hemp seeds (optional)
1 1/2 cups water
Handful of ice

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!

Rosemary Syrup & Rosemary Gin Fizz

Hello and welcome to Vegan MoFo 2016! Isn’t it great to be back here? For those who aren’t aware, MoFo stands for Month of Food, and it’s an annual event during which everyone talks about vegan food every damn day. Sound good?

From the Vegan MoFo website:
As the world catches on that vegan food really is the best choice for animals (suck it, humane meat!), the planet (bite me, melting ice caps!) and people (piss off, heart disease!) let’s show them what vegan eating is all about.

I wasn’t planning to participate this year, as we all know how time consuming it can be and frankly, I haven’t even been posting once a month let alone once a day since who knows when. But at the last minute I had a change of heart – probably a bit of FoMo to be honest – and signed myself up. HOWEVER, I am aiming low – I know I won’t be able to do a post a day this year, so am going for a couple a week instead. I’m just glad to be a part of it, as despite the stress it is always so much fun.

This year there are three options for participation – choose your own theme, go with the weekly themes provided or stick to the daily themes. I didn’t really give myself enough time to plan my own theme, so instead I’m following the weekly themes while sometimes touching on the daily prompts. The first week’s theme is “treat yourself”, and as we move into the warmer weather I thought what better way to treat myself with a refreshing cocktail, while giving a big cheers to all participating this month, in whatever capacity. Happy MoFo!

A nice and easy one too! First I’ll hit you up with a recipe to make rosemary sugar syrup, after which you can make these babies until your heart’s content. For this recipe, I’ve used castor sugar to produce a nice clear syrup, but you can also use raw sugar for a golden brown syrup – this is lovely in cocktails with darker spirits.

Rosemary Syrup

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
5 sprigs rosemary (approx 10cm)

Stir sugar and water together in a pot, then slowly bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve sugar. Once sugar has dissolved, add rosemary sprigs and boil for a further minute. Turn off heat, cover, and allow to steep for 1-2 hours. Keep refrigerated.

Rosemary Gin Fizz
(makes 1)

60ml gin
15ml fresh lemon juice
15ml rosemary syrup
Ice
Soda water (approx 90 – 120ml)

Pour gin, lemon juice and rosemary syrup into a cocktail shaker with some ice and shake.

Pour over ice in a glass, top up with soda water. Garnish with fresh lemon and rosemary.

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Banana Chai Spice Smoothie

It is well and truly smoothie season. Over the past weeks I have shifted from eating mainly porridge brekkies to total smoothie town. I alternate flavours regularly, but lately this one has made been amongst the reruns.

Banana Chai Spice Smoothie

1 frozen banana
1 1/2 cups almond milk
1 date
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Pinch of black pepper
1 tsp maca
1 tsp chia seeds

Place all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Enjoy!

Music for your Mouth: Hot Chocolate

We all know Hot Chocolate. We all love hot chocolate.

I am not going to go on about stuff today, because I am really tired. Instead I will show you pictures of my hot chocolate.

I have been going mad on the cashew milk lately, it is just so creamy that it makes everything velvety and amazing.

I had planned to do a giveaway today, but I haven’t organised it and as mentioned above, I am tired, and have also been sick this week. Hopefully I will get around to it in the next couple of days. Sit tight!

Also please note my mum’s beautiful mugs that I borrowed for a photo shoot. She has had these since I was little and they are my favourite.

Spiced Hot Chocolate
(serves 2)

2 1/2 cups cashew milk
1/4 cup dark chocolate, chopped
2 Tbsp cacao powder
2 Tbsp agave nectar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
Dash of cayenne pepper
Marshmallows to serve (optional)

Place cashew milk in a small saucepan, then remove a couple of tablespoons of it and place it in a small bowl. Add cacao powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne. Whisk with a fork until the mix becomes a thick slurry, then add it back to the rest of the cashew milk. Stir in agave nectar and vanilla.

Heat saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until it comes to a gentle simmer. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Stir until combined. Pour into mugs and top with marshmallows.

Heading West

We left Darwin on a rainy afternoon – the first real hint of the wet season approaching. I say rainy, but this was not your regular rain…it was drenchworthy with massive bolts of fork lightning and possibly the loudest thunder I’ve ever heard. It was something else.

After revisiting Katherine and stocking up on supplies, we started travelling west towards the border. Unfortunately, ZZ decided it was the perfect time to BANG and break down in the middle of nowhere (between Victoria River and Timber Creek to be precise). I shouldn’t be mean…it was not his fault. We had had him serviced a few days earlier in Darwin to prevent any potential situations like this one from occurring, and the guys didn’t put the points in correctly. Isn’t that always the way? Breaking down after having it tuned up? So frustrating!

Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers. A lovely couple and their kids who were on their way home from a holiday in Bali took pity on us and pulled over. No party had any reception, so they agreed to call RAC on our behalf when they got to the next town. About an hour later, the guy appears again in his car. He had called RAC only to be told that it would be about 3 hours until someone could get us (and it was already 4pm and we were stuck in not the safest of places just over a bridge AND there was a storm on the way), so he bought a tow strap, drove back and towed us into town (and got saturated in the rain and would not accept any money for petrol or the tow strap). The goodness of people! We were able to track them down when we went through their home town a few days later and gifted them with some beer and chocolate.

We were stuck in Timber Creek for two nights, which, while far from the end of the world, it wasn’t the most exciting time of our lives. We had also brought no fresh fruit/veg, as there is a quarantine at the W.A. border and we were planning on being over there pretty quickly. The only store in Timber Creek was attached to the Roadhouse/caravan park, and they were charging $9 for a piece of watermelon. Crazy.

Finally the local mechanic was able to sort us out and we were on our way, driving straight to Kununurra, just over the border of Western Australia.

We were pretty stoked to be over the border and on the move again, as after a couple of overcast days providing some relief from the heat, it was really starting to get hot and sticky again. We pulled into Kununurra and went and immersed ourselves in the fruit and veg section of the supermarket, getting excited by all the options. After running all the necessary errands, we enjoyed some delicious tofu and salad wraps on the grass, then popped by Wild Mango (a café we had parked in front of) to enjoy an icy cold fruit granita.

This one was citrus flavour, full of freshly squeezed juice. It was so delicious and super refreshing. I wished that it would never end. Mmm icy treats.

Then it was time to plan the next leg of our trip, destination: Broome. Stay tuned for more..

 

Wild Mango
20 Messmate Way, Kununurra W.A.
Open 7 days, breakfast and lunch

A Bundy Rum and Cola, thanks

***I just realized that this post was still a draft! This was Saturday’s post…I did try and upload it after a few Bundies so maybe that was the issue….
Today’s locally sourced ingredient is a bit of a stretch…

As we are in Bundaberg, the home of Bundaberg Rum, we figured that we needed to go and have a drink at the local and really immerse ourselves in the spirit (ha ha) of the town. A lot of businesses here seem to be called “rum city” this or that, like rum city hairdressers or rum city dry cleaning services and so on. They are really proud of their produce. We settled on the Grand Hotel, as it sounded like it would suit our needs.

Bundaberg as a town on the whole is pretty unappealing to me, it seems kind of dreary and not very colourful (though I have spent most of my time working inside of a shopping centre). This could also be due to the massive flooding that occurred earlier in the year – the town kind of looks part under construction.

In saying that, we certainly met some colourful blokes at the pub, fresh out of the big house and looking to have a good time. They were a bit much for us after a while though, so we focused on what we were there for.

Our first drink was the classic Bundy and Rum with Coke. It went down pretty well, as knock off work drinks usually do.

Next we decided to go the pre-mixed variety and go with a ‘Dark and Stormy’, which is your Bundy Rum mixed with Ginger Beer. I actually liked this better than the original.

After the novelty wore off, we decided that Rum wasn’t really our favourite drink and moved on to something else. The end.

Sickness and Watermelon juice

I have managed to contract a sickness from the boyfriend, which he got from a guy he was working with, who got it from his kid. Sharing is caring huh…

So I’m super scratchy throated and runny and sore nosed and TIRED and the last thing I could think of today was an amazing food post for you all, so I’m going to draw on the little backlog of posts that I have from the last two weeks or so that I haven’t yet had a chance to put up (yes, I came with backup).

Back to Gympie for a moment – while we were there I got a few bunches of mint from the area. One day we had some watermelon that needed to go (seriously, it took up about half of our tiny fridge) so I made this yummy juice to enjoy in the sun. I wish I could teleport to this picture, where I was healthy and had a juice in my hand. Ohh those were the days…

The juice barely warrants a recipe with a mere three ingredients, but hey, I’m gonna give ya one anyway.

Watermelon and Mint juice
(makes about 3 cups)

4 cups chopped watermelon
1/2 cup (packed) mint
Juice of one lime

Add all ingredients to a blender and blend. Add some ice if you want it a bit on the chilled side. ENJOY!