Crazy for the Coconuts

Posted on January 12, 2012 by | 1 Comment

So while the balmy summer weather continues, the coconuts are still flowing in our house.

For today’s coconutty treat, I am making choco blueberry muffins. Sure to please everyone as an afternoon treat, or what the hell, even a breakfast treat, I clearly have no other food in the house!

For today’s batch I have used;

2 cups of self-raising flour

2 eggs

4 tablespoons of raw sugar…. completely up to your own taste as to how sweet you want these babies

half a cup of coconut flour

half a cup of coconut oil

Approximately 6 heaped tablespoons of Greek yogurt, I love Jalna.

I used a couple of handfuls of blueberries, which can be fresh or frozen. However I feel that a good 2 cups of any chopped fruit is really needed for the muffins to stay moist. The more fresh fruit you add, the less sugar you need.

Now for the hero ingredient, a choc-coconut spread by ‘nui’. It is gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan friendly and oh so delicious!

I added a heaped tablespoon of the spread to the mix and then made mouth love to the remnant on the spoon.

Blend together and then get your coconut cup cake on!

Really there is no excuse for not making muffin/cup cake combos, especially if you own any form of electrical mixing device. For 10 minutes of minimal effort and 15-20 minutes of laying on a deck chair time, it is well worth it.

Your children will love you, your friends will love you, your arse will love you… maybe not that last one, but no one can see your arse when it is firmly planted in a deck chair!

Megan Georgoulas

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Health, nutrition, organic food, Recipe, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , ,

I’ve got a lovely bunch of Coconuts

Posted on January 10, 2012 by | Leave a comment

The golden age of the coconut is upon us.

I had been suspecting this for some time, however now that I have seen that ‘Starbucks’ are offering a variety of coconut flavours with their infamous frappes, I know for sure that coconuts have gone mainstream!

Coconut based products are everywhere, and we seem to be making good use of the whole fruit… or is it a nut… for now let’s call it a ‘Drupe’

We are now commonly using the coconut’s milk, the flesh, the oil, even the juice or water. Perhaps next Summer us ladies will all be donning a coconut shell bikini? Now if this trend was to take off, I know who would start it…

The Victoria’s secret wearing, coconut loving, yummy mummy herself, Miranda Kerr. The rediculously hot supermodel caused quite a stir last year when she was misquoted as saying that her good looks were the result of consuming 4 tablespoons of coconut oil per day.

Shock horror, stop the press… a supermodel who actually eats and coconut oil no less…. why, isn’t coconut oil super high in saturated fats and feared by every ‘fat phobe’ who hasn’t left the 80′s? Could it be that oils are actually good for us? Well who better to listen to, then a chick in a bikini *

So just like the good little plebs we all are, without any further questioning we rushed to the shops to buy the latest and greatest by the truck load. Now at the time of Miranda’s coconut loving admissions, I just so happend to be working in a health food store, and the following is an example of every second conversation I had at said job for the next month…

Me: “Hi, how can I help you today?”

Customer: “I’m lookin’ for that stuff, you know, that stuff that supermodel eats, you know the one I mean?”

Me: “No, sorry”

Customer: “Urg, you know, that stuff she eats, to make her beautiful and skinny and stuff… Don’t you watch Today Tonight?”

me: “Sorry I have no idea what your talking about”

Customer: [Basically says the exact same thing perhaps with a slight variation]

me: “Oh, now I know what you mean… you’re talking about Miranda Kerr and Coconut oil…”

N.B. I did actually know what they were looking for from the get-go, but I was a weekend casual and getting paid by the hour….

Anyway, I digress…

With this sudden surge of coconut products one could become quite sceptical of the actual value of this tropical all-rounder. However, as a dairy-free household, we can’t get enough of it!

So on this balmy Queensland summer’s night, I decided to follow our Quinoa salad with my own take on a traditional Greek dish and crowd pleaser, Rizogalo or good old rice pudding.

I used 2 cupped handfuls of Aborio rice thoroughly rinsed. I then added one can or 400mls of coconut cream with 2 tablespoons of Agave syrup, 2 tablespoons of powdered cinnamon and a sprinkling of desicated coconut to really get in the tropicana vibe.

Stir over medium heat and continue to add extra coconut cream as it is absorbed by the rice. Just like a risotto, this dish requires a bit of attention to make sure it doesn’t dry out and burn… however with minimal ingredients, it is simple and quick to prepare.

Sweetness can be adjusted to taste. I also like to add some lemon rind to give it a bit of a zesty kick. Leave to cool and serve warm like a pudding, or my favourite is to refrigerate and eat like a scoop of coconut ice cream topped with a sprig of fresh mint. Crazy in the coconut!

* Meant with all due respect to Miranda who is actually educated about nutrition.

Megan Georgoulas

→ Leave a comment

Posted in nutrition, organic food, Recipe, Uncategorized, Women

Tagged , , , ,

Requiem for Caffeine

Posted on October 28, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Last night I dreamt of coffee.

Gloriously strong, smooth, dark, and did I mention strong, coffee. The smell, the ritual, the stimulation, ahh what a wonderful reason to get out of bed.

Today was my third consecutive day coffee free. Why would I play such a masochistic game I hear you ask? Well at 3pm this afternoon, I was asking the same question. I was actually asking this while rocking in fetal position in the corner, while my chilren threw sultanas at me.

So like any good addict, I caved and let the sweet caffeine, or trimethylxanthine, flow all over my adenosine receptors. Just like magic I am a functioning, albeit slightly hyperactive,  member of society.

Every now and then I make the decision to quit coffee. I do this mainly for health reasons, however I also like to keep tabs on the underlying addiction. The pain of withdrawal is a great reminder of why caffeine addiction is so insidious.

Some folks head into the desert with no food or water to find the truth, I think it is much easier and involves less sun damage, to simply stop drinking coffee. I like to watch the layers peel back and discover the true state of my nervous system and adrenals.

The exhaustion, lethargy, gloominess and outright bitchiness is quite overwhelming, along with the inability to remember the end of my …. ah … what’s that word … you know …. Sentences!

My other main reason for having a little holiday from my best friend coffee, is that… brace yourself for this… Coffee is a drug!

Coffee has positive and negative effects on the body, with many, often contradictory studies coming out recently. Some of the positive effects from these studies range from reducing the risk of aquiring alzeimers disease, to helping with headaches.

Were these studies credible? I do not know. Maybe they were being conducted by coffee starved individuals with raging withdrawal headaches, so yes, it goes without saying that coffee is going to help with that.

So it doesn’t look like I’ll be quitting coffee anytime soon. Maybe next time I take a ride on the coffee rehab bus a good adrenal tonic and a ‘kids-free’ week on the beach in the Maldives would help to ease the withdrawal pains….

mmm beach…

mmm Maldives…

I wonder if they do a good espresso martini there?

Megan Georgoulas

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized, Health

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Failing Forward

Posted on October 25, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Most of us are afraid of failure…

This post is about how failing in our yoga postures can be used as a metaphor for our everyday lives…

Falling into fantastic

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Uncategorized, yoga

Tagged , , , , , ,

Women are Awesome!

Posted on September 12, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Written by Supanova

Women are Awesome! features some of the 50 naturally awesome women who carved up Mount Washington in August, 2011. It hopes to inspire women to MTB and increase positive female visibility in the MTB community.

Please feel free to vote for my video here (see below) if you feel it worthy, and spread the word so that others can too – and support female participation in mountain biking and positive visibility in the media…for a change!

www.mec.ca

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Women

Tagged ,

Why Mothers Kiss Their Babies

Posted on July 18, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Article ‘Why mothers kiss their babies‘ from Birthing Magazine giving us the science behind nature. ..

→ Leave a comment

Posted in baby, Motherhood

Tagged , ,

Toddlers and squalor

Posted on July 11, 2011 by | 2 Comments

Written by Megan Georgoulas

When I first met my husband Frank, I believed my share house days were behind me.

No more over-flowing bins no one will empty, no more stacked dirty dishes no one will clean, no more stained carpets and dents in the walls, and the big winner, no more stinky toilets with lids up and wee on the seat!

Ah the golden days of designer furniture, ornaments and art, and beautiful sparkling clean bathrooms were all ahead of me.

That was until our inner city studio apartment world was rocked by multiple toddler mayhem and chaos.

Out to the burbs we marched and back into share house squalor we entered.

Sometimes I want to document on time lapse cameras just how much destruction and filth can be created by the boys in such a short amount of time. It is like they have some sort of innate programming, where their primary aim is to seek, destroy and stain!

I am in awe of seemingly spottless ‘toddler’ houses. Are they the result of obsessive compulsive cleaning syndrome? Are the children (and husband) trained maids? Maybe the kids aren’t allowed in the house until bed time? Or maybe they have a full-time cleaner, cook, nanny, personal assistant, child care and psychiatrist?!

Of an evening when the boys have finally gone to sleep and I am spending the rest of my ‘free’ time cleaning that particular day’s squalor, I try to remember that this too shall pass.

I remind myself that when they are teenagers, at least the mess and strange smells will be limited to their own bedrooms. They won’t always put everything they find in their mouths, they won’t always wee on the carpet or smear their dinner on the walls…

And this always brings me back to the fact that along with the bad stuff not lasting forever, neither will the good stuff. They won’t always fall asleep in my arms, or cuddle me in bed on cold winter mornings, or tell me they love me everynight as I tuck them in to bed. Remembering this puts the mess into beautiful perspective … Designer furniture can wait.

God bless our mess!

→ 2 Comments

Posted in Motherhood

Tagged , , ,

Yoga. Good for what ails ya.

Posted on June 29, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Written by Kat Skull

I once left a friend in incredulous disgust after telling him that I thought that we could achieve world peace if everyone did yoga. After a brief silence where the vein in his forehead began to ever so gently throb, he managed to splutter that this was utter nonsense (well, a word that meant ‘nonsense’, I’ve cleaned it up for your lovely selves). Ok, so perhaps world peace is a little idealistic but I truly believe that the world would be an infinitely better place if we all practiced yoga.

What makes me think this? Well, I know that I am an infinitely better person when I practise. 

Yoga had always fascinated me and when I finally began to practise back in 2007 I felt that I had found what had been missing in my life. It seemed to fill in a gap in my circuit and got things flowing again. My practice has ebbed and flowed in the past 3 years with regular yoga often being forsaken for ‘Life’ but it’s always waiting patiently for my return. Like when you’re a teenager and you stay out all night and upon your return home Mum is waiting with a cup of tea, marmite on toast and a cuddle. Welcome, satisfying and so comforting.

Working in a health food shop I find myself suggesting yoga for almost every ailment. Stressed? Yoga. Insomnia? Yoga. Want to lose weight? Yoga. Depressed? Trouble concentrating? Someone took your car park? Yoga, yoga, yoga. We live in a fast world where time is elusively lacking, convenience is paramount and if you aren’t stressed you simply aren’t working hard enough. “When do I have time to do yoga?” you ask. Without hyperbole I have to wonder how we can afford not to find the time. A glorious 60-90 minutes of you, your body and your breath. You stretch long-neglected muscles, massage your vital organs and breathe consciously. There is a complete surrender to the moment with nothing existing outside of you and your mat. Radical. If a class isn’t possible there is a wealth of short sequences available on the internet but the knowledge of an experienced teacher to put you on the right track is pretty invaluable.

I recently stumbled upon a series of FREE Podcasts by yogadownload.com that are awesome and available via iTunes. They require a basic working knowledge of the poses but novices can access the simply print the companion pose guide off. They go for a mere 20 minutes. Totally do-able! No excuses now my petals!
There are so many different types of yoga that there is a style for everyone. Whether you value the precision of Iyenger, the vigourous discipline of Ashtanga or perhaps the fluid dance of vinyasa flow there is something out there just for you! Half the fun is trying, and I challenge anyone to do a yoga class and not feel brilliant after. You don’t have to be vegetarian, wear flowing white robes or change your name to Petula. But you can if you like! You don’t have to be bendy or touch your toes. Yoga does not discriminate!  You simply need a mat, some time and a bit of a smile. You’ll leave class feeling like you have swept the cobwebs from your head and polished the cupboards of your mind. So go on, get out there and kick some asana!

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized, yoga

Tagged , , , ,

Franky’s Carob Cookies

Posted on March 29, 2011 by | 3 Comments

not so pretty, but oh so tasty!

Franky and the boys hit the kitchen yesterday afternoon, while I took some yummy mummy time out at yoga.

I returned home to the beautiful smell of freshly baked cookies, yum! I was so impressed by his tasty treats, I thought I would share…

Ingredients;

  • Half a cup of plain flour (you could also use a gluten/wheat free alternative)
  • Half a cup of Carob powder
  • Half a cup of butter (or a dairy-free butter substitute)
  • Half cup of sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 and a quarter cup of raw oats
  • 1 teaspoon of baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • Half a cup of raisons

In a blender, mix the raisons and vanilla essence, then put aside.

Then blend all the dry ingredients together to create a smooth flour, including the oats.

Then place the dry and wet ingredients together in a bowl and mix well.

Franky simply spoons out desert spoon quantities onto a baking tray, which gives them a rough look. You could pretty them up if you wanted, however the mix is quite moist, so I don’t think you’d be able to roll out like standard cookie dough.

Place in a pre-heated oven, approximately 170 degrees centigrade and cook for about 20min, or until they are firm to the touch.

The cookies should be nice and moist inside and melt in your mouth… scrumptious!

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Recipe

Tagged , ,

Vaccination: Show us the science, give us the Choice

Posted on March 20, 2011 by | Leave a comment

→ Leave a comment

Posted in Vaccination

Tagged