Raw chocolate Easter egg recipe

Here is a yummy recipe from my lovely friend, Jemma Gawned at Naked Treaties.

Ingredients
3/4 cup of raw cacao butter
1/4 cup of extra virgin coconut butter (oil)
1 cup raw cacao powder
1/2 cup dark agave

Method
In a metal bowl over a saucepan of steaming water or a double boiler on a very low flame (or in the sun if you’re still lucky enough to have any!), gently melt  cacao and coconut butter. It helps to chop the cacao butter finely.

Once melted fold in the raw cacao powder.

Once combined fold in the agave stirring continuously.

Pour into your favourite chocolate mold, add nuts, goji berries whatever you like! Or leave it simply and deliciously plain.

Place into the fridge to set. For a chunky chocolate that’s even more chocolately omit the coconut butter and use cacao butter only. Yum!

The dinner dilemma

Dinner is probably the trickiest meal to coordinate, unless you have a kitchen fairy, and sadly, few of us do. Most of us work full-time and cooking, especially if you have to shop first, is the last thing we want to do at the end of a long day. So what’s a busy person to do?

Plan ahead
Determine how many meals you need to prepare for the week and write a menu plan. This takes the hassle out of weekly meals if you know in advance what you are going to make. It only takes five or so minutes and will save you lots of time and stress during the week.

Do a weekly shop
Use your menu plan to create a shopping list and do a weekly shop. You can save even more time if you do your supermarket shopping online. Coles allows you to create shopping list templates and then it’s a simple as clicking a button to get all the things you need for your menu plan. It also really helps to reduce wastage if you only buy the things that you have a plan to cook that week.

Prepare easy meals during the week

Some easy options include:

• Frittata
• Soup and sourdough bread
• Casserole
• Pasta - add lots of veggies and a good quality protein
• Curry 
• Grilled fish and vegetables or salad
• Homemade pizza (use pitta bread)
• Stir-fry

Don’t feel guilty about using pre-prepared sauces (avoid ones with preservatives and artificial additives) if you’re low on time. It’s still a much better option to have a home-cooked meal using a packaged sauce, rather than eating on the go or getting take-out.

Invest in time saving appliances
A pressure cooker can cook a risotto, soup, casserole or curry 10-20 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum is a slow cooker, which will cook your dinner while you’re at work. A rice cooker will cook perfect rice in minutes. Brilliant.

Make take out a last resort
If you do order take out, then try for healthier options. Check out our blog post on healthy take out tips. 

Good luck! If you missed them, you might like to check out our previous posts on breakfast and lunch.

Let's talk lunch

Last week was all about breakfast here at Urban Remedy. In this next installment of our three-part series on meal preparation, we’re giving you the lowdown on lunch.

For many of us, lunch is the meal that we squeeze into a busy day of work or errands – the on-the-go sandwich or, worse still, the unhealthy snacks that we find in our proximity when lunch has gone out the window!

The trick to lunch is planning ahead and, if you make your own lunches, stocking up on lots of healthy food when you do your weekly shop.

The Sandwich

• The bread: a good quality bread is the solid foundation for a healthy sandwich. Opt for low-gluten grains such as spelt, kamut, and amaranth. If you’re OK with wheat, just go for a nice healthy wholegrain with minimal additives. Sonoma and Bill’s Organic (yeast-free) are great brands for bread. If ordering a sandwich out, go for wholegrain, multigrain, sourdough or gluten-free.
• The filling: we like tinned salmon fillets, poached chicken or tuna (1-2 times per week to avoid mercury overload) with a good quality mayonnaise (check the label for minimal additives) or a bio yoghurt and herb dressing, and most importantly LOTS of salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, sprouts, avocado etc). If you like your salt, go for rock over table.

Other healthy options

• Sushi, preferably with brown rice; add your own tamari sauce (wheat-free version of soy!)
• Salad with chicken or fish; add avocado and nuts (almonds, cashews or walnuts) and/or a small can of mixed beans to keep it filling
• Healthy soups for winter (more on this later)

On other occasions, we lunch out for business or pleasure – rich foods, alcohol, bigger portions… all the typical perils that come with ordering à la carte! Choosing your food when eating out can prove tricky if you want to hold onto that waistline… but we could write a whole blog on that, and probably will soon.

In the meanwhile, stay tuned for our dinner tips next week!

Let's talk breakfast

In our next three blogs, we take a look at the dilemma that is meal preparation. It’s all very well deciding to eat healthily but when it comes to actually planning and making the food that we eat, it’s another matter. Healthy snacks aside, it’s the three biggies we’re interested in: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Let’s talk breakfast first of all. Breakfast is the meal that quite literally breaks our fast – when we wake, it is usually a good 10 hours since our last meal and our bodies are craving quality nourishment to get them going. Breakfast is also the meal that sets the tone for our subsequent food choices. If you start the day eating rubbish, you’ll probably continue in that vein!

Here are some super healthy and delightfully easy breakfast ideas:

• Bio yoghurt (cow’s, goat’s or sheep’s) with a sprinkle of organic untoasted muesli (check the label to make sure there is no added sugar; the dried fruit will be sweet enough), a handful of mixed berries and a heaped tablespoon of LSA (linseed, sunflower and almond mix), chia or my personal favourite – Udo’s Choice Wholesome Fast Food (a pleasant-tasting powder full of super nutrients). Et voilà!
• Two slices of low-gluten bread (spelt, linseed etc) with whole butter and ABC (almond, brazil nut and cashew) spread. Add manuka honey (unlike normal honey it does not feed bad bacteria) if you like it sweet, or rock salt for those who prefer savoury.
• If you feel like something lighter, try a supercharged smoothie. We have some great recipes for you in our DIY Detox post.
• If you’re feeling hungrier than usual, you can always go for poached eggs on two slices of low-gluten bread with wilted spinach and a small can of salmon slices. It has taken a while but I have finally discovered a delicious brand of tinned salmon – John West, in springwater or olive oil, not brine.

Enjoy and stay tuned for our lunch tips!

10 reasons to drink green tea

Just a quick dose for you today. We recommend that cleansers drink green tea during the cleanse as it’s known for its detoxifying properties. Here are some additional reasons to add a cup (or three) to your daily routine.

1. Much healthier source of caffeine than coffee
2. High in antioxidants
3. Aids in weight loss
4. Combats fluid retention
5. Protects against heart diseases
6. Increases exercise endurance
7. Antimicrobial
8. Supports a healthy liver
9. Reduces inflammation in the intestinal tract
10. Promotes longevity

Wow. It almost sounds like that’s all you need to do. Not quite, but a very good start to a healthier and longer life.

If you find the flavour of green tea on its own not to your taste, you might like to try flavoured green teas. Some of our favourites include T2 Gorgeous Geisha, T2 Green Rose, and Lipton Mint Green Tea.

Enjoy!

How do you like your green tea?

Beat the bloat

It’s ‘beat the bloat’ week here at Urban Remedy – yes, a whole week dedicated to the dreaded bloat! We think it deserves it… after all, bloating leaves you feeling and looking significantly heavier than you are, and for a lot of people makes that ‘skinny jeans day’ seem almost unattainable.

Let’s shed some light, first of all, on what it means when we say we feel bloated. Essentially (if there is no underlying medical condition), bloating is caused by one of two things: trapped air (aka ‘gas’) in your digestive tract (common) or fluid retention (less likely and more frequently encountered in women around their time of the month).

Bloating due to excess air is often caused by bad bacteria producing gas as they ferment (ew!) and feed off sugar inside of you. We all have these nasty creatures in our gut; the challenge lies in maintaining the correct balance of good and bad bacteria, thus avoiding bacterial overgrowth – medically known as dysbiosis or candida (for overgrowth of the bacteria candida albicans). It is worth noting that food intolerances (wheat, dairy etc) can also cause excess gas in the digestive tract.

Most of us are victims of bloating caused by excess air – for some it’s a case of jeans feeling a wee bit tighter than usual; for others bloating can be so extreme that it makes the simplest activities seem unbearable. Whichever end of the scale you’re at, I’m guessing you’d be happy to say goodbye to the bloat once and for all.

Now it may not be possible to banish bloating forever but there are certain things you can do to help reduce its frequency and intensity.

10 golden ‘beat the bloat’ rules:

1. Chew your food properly to activate digestive enzymes
2. Eat your meals in a relaxed setting, preferably at a table
3. Minimize your water intake with meals (1/2 glass max) to avoid diluting your digestive juices
4. Drink filtered water as tap water kills off good bacteria
5. Boost your good bacteria with probiotics (in natural yoghurt or in supplement form for more severe bloating)
6. Avoid foods such as: lentils, beans, cruciferous veggies (cabbage, cauliflower etc), onions (red are OK for some people) and garlic
7. Minimize your intake of yeast (pizza, bread, pastries, yeast added to condiments and sauces, wine, beer) and malted foods (soy sauce, malt added to drinks such as soy milk)
8. Cut back on wheat and replace with other grains such as rye, spelt, quinoa, millet, amaranth…
9. Avoid artificial sweeteners (sorbitol, mannitol, aspartame etc) and sugar
10. Say no to chewing gum; when you chew gum, you swallow air!

Grow your own vegetables

This week I received a parcel in the mail from Amazon, containing a book called One Magic Square - Grow Your Own Food on One Square Metre by Australian gardener Lolo Hubein.

I bought this book as I live in an apartment and I don’t have a whole lot of space to grow veggies, though I’m desperate to grow my own food for many reasons, not least because I prefer the taste of home-grown, organic vegetables.

Breaking down the notion that gardening is complicated, in the chapter entitled ‘How to Get Started’, Lolo walks the reader through planting their first garden with pretty much everything they need to know in just over one page. After reading that one page, I could literally have gone out and planted a garden and I am no green thumb… yet.

It gives suggestions for over 30 different plots, including salad plots, curry plots, anti-cancer plots, stir-fry plots, pasta/pizza plots, berry plots and soup plots. My favourite is the autumn/winter curry plot containing kale, bok choy, cauliflower, fenugreek, onions, peas, carrots, rutabagas, daikon and coriander. All that in one square metre. Brilliant. I’m planting my first garden this weekend and am planning to start with one of the novice salad gardens, so wish me luck!

Community gardens
If you don’t have the space to grow your own, you might like to join a community garden. To find out more visit Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network.

So tell me, do you grow your own? What has been your biggest home grown success?