Tag Archives: healthy

Wholefood Hazelnut Carob Dream Recipe – The best Chocolate Milk ever!

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If you’ve been following me for a while, you may know that I have a major soft spot for Carob that goes back to childhood! It was the ‘chocolate’ of choice that my Mum would buy for me, and amazingly enough the wholefood ingredient of Carob itself is still one of my favourite creamy, sweet wholesome foods when I feel like a treat!

So, what exactly is Carob?  Besides being one of the most delicious earthy flavours/foods on earth, it is a legume ~ a bean that grows on a tree and is native to the Mediteranean and The Middle East. It grows in Australia among other dry warm climates and is one of the only known trees that can withstand severe drought without dying. It is a hearty, strong and resilent tree!

Being a legume, Carob is quite high in plant based protein, making it a great ingredient for Vegans and Vegetarians to incorporate into home-cooked recipes for extra oomph. Aside from it being nutritious, Carob is naturally sweet and creamy and when the bean is roasted and made into a powder, it is the perfect subsitute to Cacao or regular Cocoa powder for making Chocolate. It can even be a great substitute for sugar, as it has such a beautiful natural sweet taste.

Do you or your kids love Chocolate Milk, but want a healthier, cleaner, more nutritious option?

Well my friends, I have just the thing for you!

Hazelnut Carob Dream ~ aka: the best Chocolate Milk ever! 

It’s super simple to make, will keep in the fridge for 2-3 days after making and requires only four ingredients.

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups of soaked hazelnuts
  • 1/4 tsp of sea salt
  • 2 heaped tblsp of roasted carob powder
  • 4 cups of water (filtered water or spring water)
  • *a piece of cheese cloth or a nut-milk bag for straining the milk once blended. (Ask your local health food shop, most shops stock these bags.)

To make this delicious milk follow the following simple steps:

  1. Add soaked hazelnuts to your blender
  2. Add water
  3. Add sea salt
  4. Now blend on high speed for 2-3 mins
  5. Place your cheese cloth or nut bag over a large jar or jug.
  6. Pour the contents of the blender into the bag/cloth and strain out the fibre, so you just have the milk in the jar/jug.
  7. Once strained, place the solids to the side (you can reuse these in another recipe or compost them.)
  8. Next add the milk back into your blender to ‘Carob-ify’ it! :) Add your roasted carob powder and blend for 2-3 mins until blended and smooth.
  9. Next pour into a clean glass bottle or jar and drink or store in the fridge for when you feel like a smooth creamy snack!

Voila! So simple SOOOO and easy!!  Try this at home!

Nourishing, creamy, healthy and delicious.

Enjoy!!

With love and wishes of goodness to you and your family!

x Lorien

Vatta Balancing for the Festive Season

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“It is better to travel well than to arrive”.

 -Buddha

W-o-w-e-e-e ! :)

This is my official way of saying, ‘wholly molly, we are almost at the end of this calendar year- 2014’!

The spring air is warm and strong northerly winds are blowing out all the cobwebs from Winter. There is movement.

Jacarandas blossoming, animals coming out of hibernation to bask in the sun, frangipani shoots sprouting! Spring is certainly in full swing here in Australia.

Similarly,  the air is crisp and fresh, evenings are cool and the flowers are tucking themselves into bed for the winter in the northern hemisphere. (I have family in Canada who give me this inside info!) :-)

There is seasonal change happening everywhere! :) And it’s a glorious thing! Without these changes and cycles, we would not experience the richness and beauty that Mother Nature has to offer in all of her forms and expressions.

Vatta, the element of Air + Ether is present during seasonal change as well as times of the year where there is more activity happening – such as the holiday season.

In my personal experience and observation, seasonal change combined with the busyness leading up to Christmas/New Years can have us feeling:

‘Crazy, frantic, hurried, rushed, and scattered!’

We move fast to get things done, resulting in being short tempered and feisty when things get out of control.

Self-care, proper nourishment, meditation practice, time for rest and proper sleep are all things that can very easily slip by the wayside when there is so much to do and so much happening.

It’s tough to keep the balance!

Ironically, these are the very things we need to be doing – more than ever!

This time of year it is important to ~ ‘slow down’…

These might seem like ghastly words to hear – when your social calendar is filled every weekend until Christmas and your diary is bursting with ‘to do’ lists that scream at you every day.

Trust me on this one though…

Taking a moment to apply some ‘slow down’ to your day, will have you feeling more like this:

Energised, calm, centered, empowered and on-top of it all! You’ll stand out at the Christmas parties, as people will notice that you did something different this year. You don’t look frazzled. You are poised and calm, centered and glowing. You are radiantly grinning and proud of yourself for being peacefully productive this ‘silly’ season. :)

In Ayurvedic medicine, health is all about balance. Any type of change we experience – such as the change of season or a busy period in life can aggravate the ‘Air’ element of the body, known as Vatta Dosha. Vata loves regularity, stillness and warmth. When the weather is windy, irregular, too hot or too cold and dry – Vatta can get upset and start to run a muck! The busyness of this time of year can throw this element out of whack. The good news is that it’s easily balanced and corrected;

~5 Simple Vatta Balancing Lifestyle Tips~

1. Drink Warm Water & Nourish Yourself:

Wake up and drink 2-4 cups of freshly boiled warm water with a slice of fresh ginger. This will warm your digestion and activate your parasympathetic nervous system, allowing you to start your day in a relaxed way. It’s the best!

Make sure you take some time to nourish your body. Start the day with a yummy grounding porridge, buckwheat pancakes or veggie soup! Look after your precious body on the inside and out.

2. Stretch/Move Your Body Daily:

In your room or lounge-room, move your body. Raise your arms up above your head and reach to the heavens.  Stretch your body, breathing with your movement, becoming one with your body :).  Move, unwind, and tune in. Do this for a minimum of 10 minutes. Stretching opens the body and allows us to be in tune and feel good in our skin. Movement releases endorphins (happy chemicals) in the brain, making you feel good. After moving the body it is much easier to sit in stillness and focus within to de-stress through meditation.

3. Meditate/Sit and Be with Your-self:

Find a comfy cushion, bolster, blanket or towel to sit on. Sit on the edge so that your knees are lower than your hips. If you are new to the concept of meditation, don’t worry. Everyone starts somewhere and now is the perfect time to begin. Sit with your spine straight to allow for proper flow of energy, then close down your eyes and simply focus on your breath. Allow thoughts to come and go. They are not important here. All that is important is your breath, and your focus inward. If you can do this for at least 10 min at the start of your day, it will set the scene for a peacefully productive day ahead. Meditation is transformational.

4. Massage Your Feet/Body 3 times per week:

Cold pressed Black sesame oil is traditionally the Ayurvedic oil of choice. If you don’t have it though, you can use organic cold pressed olive oil, almond oil or coconut oil. To prepare the oil for your self-massage, simply warm your oil by placing the bottle in a bowl of hot water for a few minutes. Before you have your shower, massage the oil into your body. Oil is beautifully grounding and balancing. Your skin will eat it up and your nerves will too. Do this for 5 minutes then rinse off in a warm shower.

5. Take Some Deep Breathes:

Before you go out for the day and get into your work or your tasks… take 6 deep breathes. Write a note to yourself in your diary to remind you to move slowly. Remember that you don’t need to be superman or superwoman. You simply need to do your best and do everything with love. If there are things on your to do list that are not high priorities, then cross them off. Free up your time so you can focus on a realistic list of things to achieve. This is a hard one for the high achievers. You can do it though. :) There are 12 months next year to complete those tasks. Remember, there is no rush, everything in life happens in divine timing.

This season is all about looking after YOU – so that you can show up being present, clear and loving with your friends and family.

After all this is what is most important. Not how much we did, but how present we were.

“You give but little when you give of your possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

– Kahil Gibran

 Be generous this holiday season, fill your own cup so that you can share abundantly with those around you!

…Remember, nothing great is every built overnight. It is regula and consistent acts of love, that contribute to creating long-term health, wellness and joy inside! 

 Shine on!

x Love, Lorien

Warm, nourish, soften, mmm – Let’s talk ‘Ayurvedic Daily Routine’

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Let’s cut straight to the chase, to the juicy business of our day to day living.

Your body is a temple. It is sacred.

For your body, mind and spirit to function optimally, it must be cared for, loved, nourished nurtured and respected with consistency and regularity. Your body is relying on you to look after it. It will even talk to you when it is out of balance, to get your attention and make you stop, slow down, rest, have a cry of release and realise where you are really at.

In essence, you are a miracle and your body is the magical vessel that you have to express, shine, dance, sing, play, connect and experience the world and inter-react with.

In honour of your divine body, of all bodies, your incredible organs and wondrous nervous system that communicates and allows all actions, thoughts, movement, digestion, creativity, love and magic to take place within you ~ Ayurveda has some tips for us!

The ‘Daily Routine’ is a key ingredient in creating harmony, balance and wellness internally and externally.

I love these simple practices that slow the mind down, soothe the soul, nourish the body, mind and spirit on the deepest levels and provide an opportunity to connect within on a daily basis.

If you can only start with adding 1 of these 5 practices into you day to begin with, that will make a big difference in itself!

Without further ado… Let’s get to it:

  1. Wake up, spit in the sink any gunk in your mouth, gently brush your teeth, scrape your tongue with a copper tongue scraper (copper conducts the toxins the best, or silver or gold). See here for Tongue Scraping Tutorial 
  2. Drink warm water with fresh ginger, lemon and honey (do not add honey if water is boiling, only when temp is warm). Or simply drink warm water to flush toxins, warm your digestive fire and hydrate your brain to start the day.
  3. Self massage with organic black sesame oil. Warm the oil and apply to your body before you shower in the morning. Focus on the joints, massage in a circular motion and move from your feet to your head. A great practice for improving circulation, boosting the immune system, cleansing the lymphatic system, soothing and grounding the nervous system, nourishing the bones and muscle tissue and loving your body first thing in the morning or before bed at night. Have a warm shower afterwards, the heat will open your pores and allow the oil to penetrate deeper into the tissues offering greater nourishment and goodness to your cells! Yum! So good in autumn and winter particularly! 
  4. Eat something warm for brekky! Warm, smooth, light and soupy… A rule in Ayurveda is to eat your biggest meal in the middle of the day when the sun is the highest- and to eat light and easy to digest foods for breakfast and dinner to assist your body and allow for optimum digestion.
  5. Massage your feet before bed with warm sesame oil to ground the nervous system and promote a very very deep and delicious sleep! …Also putting your legs up the wall, a yoga pose called the fountatin of youth or virparita karani that will nourish your adrenals and kidneys, restoring natural energy and allowing your body to balance and melt into a deep yummy sleep! 
Incase your wondering about the ‘tongue scraping’… Here’s a little ‘tongue scraping’ video tutorial.

Have fun incorporating these beauties into your awareness and self-care, self-love regime! Your body will love you for it!

x Love, Lorien

Ayurvedic Superfood Energy balls!

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This was a new creation that I made for the recent SoulFire Spirit Adventure & Wholesome Loving Goodness retreat last week at Fraser Island. They were a hit!

Certified Organic Ingredients:

  • 10 Medjool dates1 handful of raisins
  • 10 Blanched almonds1/4 cup of toasted sesame seeds
  • 1 tsp of cinnamon1 tsp of cardamon powder
  • 1 tsp of fennel seeds
  • Half a tsp of ginger powder
  • 3-4 tblsp’s of coconut oil
  • 1.5 cup’s of desiccated coconut
  • A dash of organic vanilla essence
  • 1 tsp of Organic Brahmi herb (For the brain!)
  • 1 tsp of Organic Shatavari herb (For hormonal balance).

Method:

  1. Place ingredients in a food processor & blend for a few minutes until all ingredients are mixed.
  2. Roll into balls, and then roll the balls in a bowl of desiccated coconut to give them a finishing touch!

These balls are rich & full of energy. A great afternoon or mid-morning snack for a spicy, sweet, Ayurvedic inspired boost of energy!

Enjoy ♥ x

(Note: It is still possible to make these balls, without a food processor. If you do this, you need to cut the dates into small pieces and let them sit for a few minutes in a small amount of warm water to soften them slightly. Then cut the almonds into small pieces, add the other ingredients and mix in a large bowl with your hands! Keep mixing until creamy!)