Mocha Smoothie

This smoothie is an experiment. I'm making it for the first time as I write this post. I got myself a drink bottle blender from Kmart to try to trick myself into eating more healthy things. It's worked so far. I'm starting to get cocky... I mean creative. Let's get down to business!

Ingredients:

One Weet-Bix... Weet-Bik?? What's the singular of Weet-Bix? Anyway, pop one of those bad boys on in there.

Add about 200mL of unsweetened almond milk.

The idea is to make the Weet... thingy all soft.

Add five tablespoons of caramel yoghurt OR use natural yoghurt and half a teaspoon of brown sugar. I have caramel yoghurt because I made it, I'm not even sure if it's something you can get made-up already. Someone confirm/deny.

One slightly heaped teaspoon of cocoa powder (obviously any brand is fine, I have this one because the week I bought it I was pretending to be posh).

Roughly 100mL (half an adorable froggy cup) of coffee and all that's left is blending. I see no good reason why you can't use instant, filter, whatever. Even decaf if you can find one with a taste that doesn't make you cry.

Blend all that together in whatever blendage device you have handy and drink that sucker.

Well, I just had my first sip and basically what's happened is, I'm a genius. You're welcome.

Enjoy!

Cassandra Louise.

Meatless Monday - Breakfast Spread

This is an avocado-based recipe, and I'm going to spill the truth tea: I don't like avocado. I don't like the texture, it feels like oily flour. I don't like the taste, it tastes like green oily flour. So why am I blogging an avocado-based recipe? Because I really like this spread, I like it a lot.
I try to eat avocados, I hide them from myself in pasta sauces and mix them with cheese because they have a lot of good stuff in them and I should eat them. This recipe was my latest attempt to disguise the texture and taste and I believe it went well. The first batch of this spread I made did five slices of toast, but I think I could have made it go further.
You will need:

One avocado

Coconut oil

Ground cinnamon

Cut the avocado into little pieces and put them in a small bowl. Add to that one big heaped teaspoon of coconut oil, or two level teaspoons if it's hot and your coconut oil is runny.

Sprinkle with cinnamon. This is the yummy part and also very good for you, which you can read about here.

Give the whole thing a good mashing with a fork until it's smooth, creamy and spread-like.

Put the spread in an airtight container in the fridge overnight or at least for half an hour or so, which will cause the coconut oil to solidify and make the whole thing more... spready.

I've had this spread on toast with a fried egg on top and that was excellent, but obviously the spread itself is completely vegan. I think it would go quite nicely with some chopped hot tomato on top, too!

Happy Mashing!

Cassandra Louise.

Lemon and Peppermint Tea

On Wednesday night, I wanted to make myself a hot drink that wouldn't keep me awake or react badly with my very full tummy, so I decided to make a cup of lemon and peppermint tea. I was using my little tea-plungy-thingy, so ideally I would have liked to use fresh mint leaves from my garden, but it was dark and I can't remember which of my mint plants is peppermint and which is chocolate mint and I'm not brave enough to lucky dip where lemon is concerned, so I used a peppermint teabag. I cut two slices of lemon and put them in the infuser with the teabag and filled it with boiling water.

I let it brew for five minutes before I pushed the plunger down, removed the tab from the teabag to avoid a very-hot-water-based disaster in which water splattered in all directions, and poured the tea into a cup.

I put a little sprinkle of cinnamon in mine because I put cinnamon in everything. Cinnamon is sweet, tasty and good for you, so it feels like a win to me... unless you're allergic to cinnamon, in which case don't put cinnamon in your food and drinks, it isn't good for you (cinnamon allergy is rare).

I quite enjoyed this drink, rather than blending, it felt to me like I could taste lemon, then peppermint, then lemon, all with a subtle hint of cinnamon.I may try it again in the future with fresh peppermint.

Happy Teatime!

Cassandra Louise

Green Pasta - Meatless Monday

Last week for Meatless Monday, I shared this lasagne recipe which feeds six people, four very hungry people or eight people who are having a lot of salad with it.  This week I'm linking up with Little Wolff again, and sharing something that feeds just one person, and only takes one small saucepan to make.

To make my green pasta, You will need:

 Any kind of dry pasta.  I happen to have penne, so that's what I'll use.

 Frozen spinach that comes in little segments like this:

Half an avocado, chopped into bits.

Vegetable stock powder (or any stock of any kind.  You're clever, you can adapt it).

You'll also need olive oil.

Add water, 1 teaspoon of stock powder and a drizzle of olive oil in a small saucepan.

When the water boils (oh yeah, you'll have to turn the stove on), add about a handful of pasta, the avocado and the spinach all at once.  Yay!

Break up the spinach cube by poking it periodically with a wooden spoon.  Let the whole thing cook according to the directions on your pasta packet, which is usually about 10 minutes, then give it a good stir.

Drain off excess liquid if you prefer, or have it as a nice light broth.  A sprinkling of pine nuts would be nice in it, too.  This recipe makes about this much:

Which is excellent for a quick lunch for one person, and of course could be easily adapted to feed more.

Happy cooking!

Cassandra Louise.

Follow-up to that thing I asked you about...

In my last post here I was asking for gardening advice.  Some of you had some great suggestions!  I think I've worked out what the problem was, and I hope I've fixed it.
The soil was very sense and tough, which is a common problem in pots; it needed to be dug over and aerated.  Unfortunately it would have been very difficult to do that with the tiny little plants in the pot.  I did manage to save the largest silverbeet plant, which hopefully will take off now.  One silverbeet plant that I had to dig out and add to my compost (never easy for me!  I love all my plants!) was only two centimetres tall but had roots close to thirty centimetres long, so obviously the plants in that pot were trying very hard, they just couldn't take hold.  I've since planted some radishes and calendula seeds in the tub.  The radishes have already sprouted and seem to be growing a little every day so I think I have solved the problem.  The tub now looks like this:

And my darling little radishes look like this:

The main problem I had with my last lot of seedlings was transplant shock, so to avoid that I've decided to put my Autumn nursery in peat pots and egg cartons.

That egg carton at the front there has lettuce seeds in it.  I've put them in an egg carton and not a peat pot so I will have to do less thinning out later; when the little lettuces appear, I will simply plant the entire egg carton in one of my garden tubs, just as I would a peat pot, but longer.
That big round plastic pot there has/had a potato plant in it that I found in my compost bin.  Having had a dig around, I have my suspicions that the plant rotted in the rain.  I would still quite like to grow potatoes, please, so just in case I planted some more.
I checked the one potato in my pantry for eyes.  One eye!  Plenty!  I cut a small slice of potato with the eye on it and planted that in the pot.  It should be sufficient to grow a new plant.

Worst thing that can happen is I'm no worse off than I am now.
The other plants in my garden are all doing quite well.  Here's pictures of all of them which I expect you to look at and enjoy as if I were showing you a cute thing my baby did...

For those playing along at home, that's two kinds of tomatoes, chillis and strawberries.  No fruit on the strawberries yet, but since I thought it was dead for a while there that's ok.  The first few years are always rubbish for a strawberry plant, anyhow.
The herb garden is also going well but looks a bit stragly, so I'm not going to show you any pictures of it, much like it's my baby and it just farted or something.

Happy gardening!
Love to you all,
Cassandra Louise.

Things you may not know about menstrual protection

Hi everyone.  This post is mostly for the ladies, although I'm sure there are some men who would be interested from a scientific viewpoint.  It's a post about different forms of period protection, and I promise I will try to talk about myself and about actual periods as little as possible.  Hopefully.  I really don't plan these things.
Period protection has come a long way as can be seen here and there are many different forms currently available on the market.  Most women use disposable sanitary products, such as disposable pads of various kinds, and tampons, but reusable forms of protection are also available.
I'm going to be honest, when I first heard about reusable pads, my first thought was "Ewww!" even though it's clearly much better for both the environment and the woman's body, not to mention much cheaper over time.  This prompted me to do some research.
Disposable pads
There are pros and cons of every form of sanitary protection.  I believe a major "con" of disposable pads is the amount of plastic used.  Not much in one, but most women will need over 11,000 in her lifetime.  That's a lot of plastic.  That's a lot of non-biodegradable plastic sitting in landfill. I have worn some disposable pads that were so "plasticy" I could hear them rustling when I walked, and although I feel that nobody should ever feel embarrassed for being a woman, plastic rustling is not pleasant personal theme music!
Another negative is the amount of chemicals that one would not even think about, such as bleach, which is used to make the pad whiter, and therefore look "cleaner".  This bleach is in contact with your body.

It is worth noting that there is also the option of chemical-free biodegradable pads, such as these from Natracare and many others.

Tampons
Tampons are often thought of as being a better choice from an environmental standpoint, as they have no plastic backing, but they do contain a surprising number of other chemicals, including, once again, bleach, and they can contain polyester, which is still a form of plastic!  Some are, of course more natural than others, some kinds are made from pure cotton and there are some completely natural, chemical-free, plastic-free biodegradable options, which are better for both the environment and also your body.  If you choose to use tampons, look into organic cotton, such as these from Jolie and others.  Always read carefully, it is amazing what is considered alright to put into tampons, and therefore inside a woman's body.

Reusable pads
There are so many kinds of reusable pads it can be a little overwhelming!  Reusable pads were usual and normal until fairly historically recently, disposables becoming more common for the same reason that disposable nappies (diapers) became so popular- convenience.  Reusable pads need to be washed and made not just clean but sterile, preferably without the use of harsh chemicals.  There are many kinds, but they can be loosely grouped into "bought" and "home made".
I found some patterns for home made reusable pads here, and I imagine that some of those would be very comfortable, but choice of fabric would be very important, as fabrics can be very chemical also.
For bought reusables, just do a web search and you will find many brands.  Some of the websites I found look a bit "hippie", but so do I, and I'm perfectly lovely, of course!

Menstrual cups
These strike me as the best option environmentally, but I'm not sure about the idea of rinsing it out - although I do think rinsing the cup out would be more fun than washing reusable pads, although that's just me.  I found the FAQ section on the Mooncup website very informative and well put together.  I read through the questions and answers and am actually thinking about purchasing one for myself, but I think I need a little longer to fully come to terms with the idea.  There are also testimonials and reviews on the site which I will look into.  There are also other companies that produce menstrual cups, but I like that Mooncup is colour-and-chemical-free.  I think it's the idea that the flow is collected in a cup rather than absorbed that makes me feel unsure, but at the same time it's not drying to the walls of the vagina like tampons are, and doesn't collect the blood outside the body  and allow it to develop an odour like pads can.  There are no dangerous chemicals used in the manufacture and chemicals are not required to clean it, and again there's the point that 11,000+ pads and tampons would be kept  from landfill.
Honestly I'm still not sure.  I know, bad hippie!  I think menstrual cups are a great idea for any woman who can handle the thought of them, maybe me, maybe not.

I hope I have given you all a few things to think about, I know I'm thinking about a few things myself!
Love to you,
Cassandra Louise