Autumn breakfast options

Here we are back in coverage, enjoying a beautiful autumn on the east coast while parking up for the next couple of months in Kaikoura while himself does some work to restore the local rail network after earthquakes last October. It has been a busy 2 weeks of travelling from the bottom of the South Island up to nearly the top of the South Island while catching up with friends and family along the way.

Many of the aspects in our life took a back seat (such as school work, blogging and journalling) to the travels and socialising however domestic life continues regardless of the location or dwelling.  Dishes still need to be done, floors swept – yes, swept as we lack any modern devices at the moment to assist … soon though my dreams may become reality 🙂 – and food prepared.

I have continued to make our bread, which is a bit of a staple food now, and as I let you know the other week our ferments are still on the go.  Another staple I have been making at the moment is muesli so that now that some of the other cereals have been used up we have an option besides toast in the morning.  Muesli is a great autumn transition food before the winter porridge appears and is also a fantastic way to get a few more nutrients into themselves without much effort on my behalf which makes it a very appealing plan!

Warm and toasty out of the oven … hard for themselves to resist especially with some creamy raw milk we were given!

This muesli is super easy as it is really just chucking in what ever you like and then drizzling with oil before baking in the oven, of course you can also have a raw version by omitting the oil and oven part.  I have been making muesli for a few years with a honey and oil drizzle, then when the price of honey went up and we noticed the effects of honey on our youngest I began to just use oil without any objections.  What you don’t know doesn’t hurt you I say! 🙂  I do add a few dates chopped up and coconut so that is a fair bit of sweetness to soothe the soul.  Below is what I use to create our morning muesli however it is really just a guide for you to explore and create your own, dependent on tastes. I don’t use a measure either (sorry), rather I just chuck in a bit of everything with oats being the majority of the mix

Morning Muesli

Oats – largest portion

Pumpkin Seeds

Sunflower Seeds

Sesame Seeds

Desiccated Coconut

Dates – chopped

Almonds -raw

Olive oil or similar (optional: omit if you want raw muesli)

• Mix everything thoroughly, especially the chopped dates as they will clump together if not mixed into the dry ingredients.
• Drizzle olive over the top and mix well again.
• Bake in an oven at around 200 C, watching and mixing occasionally until it is golden brown.

Play and enjoy.  Until next time I hope this finds you all basking in the sunshine of life.

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz

A big day

I had plans of writing a recipe in here quickly tonight in honour of all our zucchini harvesting over the last week. However the day has brought with it its own agenda. Today my boy had to farewell his beloved chicken – Boney.

Boney having a ‘run’ around on our move North.

She was a great chicken who came when you called, followed you lovingly and travelled all the way to the North Island with us. It has been an emotional day.  We have been here before with my girl’s chicken last year so the kids were well aware that a trip to the vet, to see what was wrong, could possibly end with saying goodbye.  After lots of reluctance and talks about the vet helping either making Boney better or helping Boney be out of pain, we arrived, chicken in box, only to be told the worse. There was nothing the vet could do except give her a peaceful death.

It was hard, no doubt about it. It was bloody hard seeing my kids go through the pain of losing a pet they both loved. The interesting thing for me though was that in my head I was thinking, ‘oh we should go out for food now to mark it as a special time’ and just as I was clearing that thought out of my head, my daughter looked at me and said, ‘Now you should buy him a big chocolate bar’. WHAT???!!!!! When did food become the ‘go to’ thing to comfort us?

Spending some time with Boney before the vet.

Here I am thinking that I was not repeating my own patterns of using food as a friend when the whole time I have obviously been modelling something else.  Kids are quick, too quick sometimes, to see the behaviours we can’t catch in ourselves. How many times have they seen me stressed, upset or frustrated and grab for food? There are many times, I admit, that I have opened the fridge and cupboards looking for comfort food only to close them again as I work towards changing my habits. I guess though they see the action not the internal dialogue that goes with it. Isn’t is interesting that sub-consciously we are conveying messages and creating realities which consciously we stun.

Hope this finds you creating the best reality in your life that you can.

Arohanui

Y

What is a good portion size anyway?!

This is a question that has always had me a little stumped I have to say. I know that on each packet it says ‘serving size’ but who is that really for?  Surely if 2 biscuits are a serving for an adult they shouldn’t be a serving for a child. Should they?  Or what about the difference between someone who is in an office job vs someone who is active?  I’m a true believer of listening tour bodies yet I still have questions about my ability to understand what my healthy portion size should be. Should we be calorie counting, eating till we are 80 % full, eating more small meals or 3 bigger meals?

It always comes back to taunt me.  Recently even more so after my kids and I have been looking at healthy eating and found some great photos on the web.  These photos, from two different sites – what the world eats and what school lunches look like , showed school lunches from around the world and families shopping for a week.  What shocked me was how different the amounts of food were.  It is amazing just how little some families have for the week and just how much others have also the kind of food that they are eating.  None of the families appear in ill health externally yet I wonder just how their food is treating them internally – both in quality and quantity. I wish I was able to be  a fly on the wall to see how they allocated the food and how the live.

I know that I can do calculations to work out what my calorie intake should be each day and then eat accordingly.  The trouble with this for me is that I want my kids to see eating and listening to your body as a normal and natural thing to do; me counting calories each day for every meal doesn’t quite seem to fit this ideal 😉  I have also found lots of ‘diet plans’ which give you a week worth of recipes all calorie counted out however they very rarely account of those of us not eating meat, gluten, dairy, sugar etc.

When I became sugar free I was hoping that my appetite would guide me to the correct portion sizes, somehow it doesn’t really feel that it is as yet.  I get the difference between my cravings and my real hunger, sometimes though my real hunger seems to have me eating more food than others or than I would have thought I needed 😉  Maybe it is too early for my appetite bits to be back to normal after years of being massacred or maybe I have just conditioned myself and my stomach to my ‘visual’ portion amount. 

Food for thought and I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on this.

Arohanui

Y

www.becominghealthy.co.nz