Camping Food~ Mariella

There are bits of ribbon, feathers, thread, leather and sequence all over the floor, costumes finished, bags packed, I am ready for AfrikaBurn 2013! The clothes were the easy part, the food, a little more complicated. We have one small gas fridge to share in a camp of 15 people so I prefer to not hog space by including too much food which requires refrigeration.

If you’re insulin intolerant, as I am, sticking to a grain free, sugar free (yip, that includes fruit) diet  when camping is a challenge and you have no chance unless you plan ahead.

This is what my menu looks like, but keep in mind; I spent more time working on my costume than on the shopping list!

Breakfast:  

See http://freshearthorganicfood.blogspot.com/2012/08/home-made-gluten-free-breakfast-cereal.html

By far my toughest meal this time as I usually depend on Yoghurt, I will be taking some with and I’ll see how long it lasts.

Snacks: The key to sticking with your diet choice is to not let yourself get hungry, so I’m making a point of keeping snacks on me like a basic trail mix,

http://www.freshearth.co.za/store/p-3898-soaring-free-foods-trail-mix-200g.aspx

Home made chocolate,

http://freshearthorganicfood.blogspot.com/2012/07/super-easy-healthy-snacks-on-move.html

which will be more like a messy melted moosh, as coconut oil melts quick in warm weather, slices of carrot, cucumber, red pepper, sprouts ~ dipped in organic peanut butter or Tahini, with slices of cheese. Pre-Dry roasting your desiccated coconut and sunflower seeds ads flavour, I do it at home so it’s ready to snack on and add to quick salads.

Lunch: Bean salad. A bean salad made from tinned beans takes as much time to prepare as a sandwich but, as tins are lined with BPA,  a plastic which breaks down easily and leaches into food, leading to health problems like impaired immune system, changes in brain chemistry, behavioural disorders, early-onset puberty, breast and prostate cancer, diabetes, insulin intolerance and obesity; we try to reserve them for camping only and prefer to cook up and freeze large quantities under normal circumstances. When camping, sprouts can really be your best friend.

http://freshearthorganicfood.blogspot.com/2013/02/keeping-healthy-with-sprouts-mariella.html

They don’t require a cold place, just fresh water twice a day so our salads will include lots of sprouts, avos and other vegetables that don’t mind being warm, like tomatoes, bought a little green and cucumbers.

Snack: Hot chocolate, made with cocoa, rice milk powder (my one calculated cheat) and stevia. And same as above.

Dinner: Our camp has the dinner thing waxed, we team up, depending on numbers and take turns cooking, so I plan dinner for one night and bring everything I need for that night, the day I’m on duty is also my keep kitchen clean and tidy day. That means that it’s my job to wipe the table whenever I walk past the kitchen on that day. That way, we all feel like we’re on holiday and have dinner served every night save one. It also means you do only one big load of dishes!

And most important of all is the water, we take Five liters of water a day per person. Two to Three liters for drinking and the rest for washing and cooking. There’s lots of tea in between and like I said, the home made chocolate in the tub helps, I am already calculating Sunday’s Pancakes by our trusty neighbour Nina as a rule breaker, and I’m very contented with the idea! With a little planning, I’m hoping the next week is not going to be all about food! See you on the other side of the dust! 

I'm excited about Afrika Burn 2013! ~ Mariella

The Dust By Jonx Pillemer

It’s that time of year again, when everyone you know who is going to AfrikaBurn is driving you mad! After sheepishly waiting for the excitement to hit amid a flurry of ecstatic friends, the bug has finally bitten…..today!

It was an arbitrary photograph of a particularly wind swept day on the playa with flags fluttering and downright tearing to smithereens in the gust of wind that did it! The thick swirl of dust making mud of the sunlight and condemning all who braved it to a week of scratchy eyes. Something about that picture man, it just hit home!

                               

And now I’m excited! But what’s so exciting about Afrika Burns? Well there’s everything I’ve already written.

http://freshearthorganicfood.blogspot.com/2012/08/afrika-burns-2012.html

But every year it gets better, like fine wine! Looking back on the first year, so much has happened and I’ve changed in so many ways. I’ve always taken an active role in Tankwa Town as team member for The Waike and then Domain, an interactive live venue to do what ever tickles your whiskers. This year, I have gracefully bowed out of any stress inducing activities and am going as more of a spectator than ever before. To go as a complete spectator is no good, and creates a vacuum in the eco-system that is AB, but my gift for this year is little and will be fun and quick to do! And so it feels like I’m going on holiday!

Looking back on 2009!

Next week I’ll share with you what food I plan to pack for the week, for a place with limited fridge space, and air that instantly ages skin and dries anything out in the open to crispy perfection within hours! But for now, I am simply allowing myself a moment to take it all in and remember and get excited!  

Luka's Birthday Party my way! ~ Mariella

It’s all over! And it may take an entire year to muster the courage to do it again! I had a long list of intentions and some fell by the wayside. I have, in the freezer, two full fully forgotten trays of fruit juice ice-cubes with Strawberry slices in and enough home-made magnums to last the month! But the rest went down rather well! I have a confession to make though, I didn’t manage to keep the sugar monster away, there wasn’t enough cake for the moms too and my mother-in-law miraculously manifested a cake she’d baked specially for the event, the day before. Gotta love grannies! 

This was my menu for the day:

~Sliced carrots, red and yellow peppers, cucumbers, celery with tahina and tsatsiki:

Tahina:

Equal parts Tahini and water

A glug of olive oil

Lemon juice to taste (everyone is different but use juice of one lemon for a cup of Tahina)

1 clove of garlic (a common mistake it to put too much)

Salt, paprika, cumin and coriander powdered spice to taste

Blend it all with a hand held blender and presto!

Tsatsiki:

Cut cucumber into itsy bitsy cubes, this is where people make their first mistake, grating it makes the mix very runny, whereas cubing doesn’t,

Cube one clove of garlic, little little!

Add salt, paprika to taste. I’ve seen recipes where they add a splash of olive oil on top, looks yum!

~Oven roasted Cheese crackers

Too simple to pass up, slice cheese into thin slices, put on cracker, grill for 5 min, serve warm.

~Pancakes with cinnamon and honey

~Date Balls and Chocolate date balls, my husband says that I make them a little too cocoa-ish so I tried to go lightly on the cocoa this time but I get the feeling it was still a little heavy handed, I think for kinds, it’s best to use very little cocoa in the date ball mix as it’s rolled in cocoa powder.

http://freshearthorganicfood.blogspot.com/2012/07/super-easy-healthy-snacks-on-move.html

~Fruit kebabs. When one of the kids got dropped off, I overheard him say to his dad that there won’t be any sweets at this party, this was the one kid who exclaimed, repeatedly, how delicious the fruit kebabs were!

~Iced tea.

Fresh mint and rooibos tea with fruit concentrate and as much honey as I could find in the house, (melted in warm water beforehand) One of the children took a sip and said, ‘This isn’t even nice!’ That’s seven year olds for you! I then proceeded to explain that that is how it should taste, once you take all the sugar out! I don’t know if I won him over but he did finish it!

 

~And then the Pièce de résistance, The Birthday Cake:

I wanted to try something new, so I googled and googled until my googler was sore! I even found a recipe where they elected to forgo sugar and wheat in favour of shop bought mayonnaise (which would have all that and more! Grim) Now, what I should have done was to peruse the Freshearth website where I would have stumbled upon the Low Carb Chocolate cake with Aubergine, 

http://www.freshearth.co.za/store/p-4181-low-carb-gluten-free-chocolate-cake.aspx

Always start the search in your own back yard, but what I did find and used, to the unending laughter of my son was this recipe and the kids didn’t throw it away!

Healthy Flourless Chocolate Cake

Adapted from a recipe at LowCarbFriends

Makes a 9″ one layer cake

Ingredients:

1-15 ounce can of unseasoned black beans

OR 1 1/2 cup cooked beans, any color

5 large eggs

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

6 tablespoons unsalted organic butter OR coconut oil

3/4 cup erythritol + 1/2 teaspoon pure stevia extract

OR 1/2 cup + 2 Tablespoons honey + 1/2 teaspoon pure stevia extract

OR 1 1/4 cup Splenda (using Splenda is not recommended)

6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon aluminum-free baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon water (omit if using honey)

Mint Chocolate variation:

2 teaspoons mint extract (in place of 2 teaspoons vanilla)

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Spray a 9″ cake pan with extra virgin olive oil cooking spray, or just grease it with a thin layer of butter. Dust cocoa all over the inside of the pan, tapping to evenly distribute. Cut a round of parchment paper and line the bottom of the pan, then spray the parchment lightly.

Drain and rinse beans in a strainer or colander. Shake off excess water. Place beans, 3 of the eggs, vanilla, stevia (if using) and salt into blender. Blend on high until beans are completely liquefied. No lumps! Whisk together cocoa powder, baking soda, and baking powder. Beat butter with sweetener (erythritol or honey) until light and fluffy. Add remaining two eggs, beating for a minute after each addition. Pour bean batter into egg mixture and mix. Finally, stir in cocoa powder and water (if using), and beat the batter on high for one minute, until smooth. Scrape batter into pan and smooth the top. Grip pan firmly by the edges and rap it on the counter a few times to pop any air bubbles.

Bake for 40-45 minutes. Cake is done with the top is rounded and firm to the touch. After 10 minutes, turn out cake from pan, and flip over again on to a cooling rack. Let cool until cake reaches room temperature, then cover in plastic wrap or with cake dome (I use an overturned plastic chip bowl). For BEST flavor, let cake sit over night. I promise this cake will not have a hint of beaniness after letting it sit for eight hours! If you are stacking this cake, level the top with a long serrated knife, shaving off layers until it is flat and even. Frost immediately before serving

~58g net carbs for the whole cake using erythritol/stevia.

~6g net carbs per 1/10th

~126g net carbs for the whole cake using honey/stevia.

~13g net carbs per 1/10th

Healthy Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Makes enough to thickly cover one layer, or fill and frost a halved stacked layer

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted organic butter, softened, OR 7 tablespoons nonhydrogenated shortening

1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon erythritol, powdered, OR 1/4 cup xylitol, powdered

5-6 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tablespoons half and half OR coconut milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Pinch of sea salt

Good-tasting pure stevia extract, to taste

Optional addition for a glossy finish:

1 fresh organic egg yolk

Preparation:

Cream the butter in a small bowl until fluffy. Powder erythritol or xylitol in a coffee grinder or Magic Bullet for a minute or two, until extremely fine in texture (reminiscent of powdered sugar). Let sweetener settle in grinder before opening the top. Stir powdered sweetener into butter with a spatula, then beat until smooth. Slowly blend in the cocoa powder (unless you want to redecorate your kitchen), vanilla, and sea salt. Beat in the half and half and egg yolk, if using. Add stevia, starting with 1/16 teaspoon. You’ll probably use less than 1/4 teaspoon. Just keep tasting and adjust sweetness to your liking.

~7g net carbs for the frosting, using erythritol

I had to double up to feed sixteen kids. My son is still giggling at the thought of the ingredients, I only told two of the parents and they giggled too! Have a look at the website I got it from. 

http://healthyindulgences.net/2009/05/healthy-chocolate-cake-with-a-secret/

It’s refreshing, in the meantime, since I fully advocate laughter as a real means of therapy, I am leaving you with this YouTube video a colleague sent me. If you have been in the situation where you have to change your diet as result of allergies, you’ll get it, if you haven’t, I’m sure you know someone who has. Have a look and ponder this, how do you milk an oat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9QbC41oQRo

Healthy kids Birthday Party preparations ~ Mariella

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions! I think that’s a little dramatic, given the circumstances, but it does get the point across! I have full intention to throw a completely sugar, additive, preservative, colourant and flavourant – free birthday party for my Seven year old boy on Saturday! It has to be awesome, delicious, inspiring, the stuff children dream about. And it can’t break the bank! These are my intentions! 

I'm wondering if I'll be able to pull off something like this without the usual suspects, sugar and colourant

Oh, and being the eccentric type, he’s asked for a Black and White Magicians Party, so at least the paper plates were cheap! Unfortunately Plett comes up dry in the Magicians for hire arena, so the entertainment for the day will have to come from me!

Rather relieved this only happens once a year!

So far I’ve come up with pass the parcel, wrapped in newspaper (black and white!), musical statues and a long treasure hunt ending with treats, little gifts and the cake.

When addressing the cake, it’s all about priorities. Most of the children coming to the party eat sugar from time to time and they all eat wheat, so it would be a waste of money and effort to bake a gluten-free cake just because we don’t eat gluten regularly! Last year I made a banana cake with xylatol and honey. It had less than half a cup of flour in it. It was basically a great big banana bread with exotic extra fillings. We made the icing sugar with honey, rice milk powder, turmeric (as colouring), and natural vanilla. It was a hit! But I put a couple of smarties on top for lack of cranberries you see, because I dreaded the thought that my son’s friends should see me in the same light as my daughter’s friends did back in the days when I really didn’t know what I was doing and dished out ‘everything-free’ experiments that not even the dog would touch!

 

So far the menu goes as follows:

-Pop corn

-Lays lightly salted

-Peanuts and raisins

-Sliced veggies with home made dips like hummus

-Veg Sausages

-Black olives

-Cheesie something melted

-Fruit kebabs, thought to chop up the fruit and let the kids make them as a game but there may be blood so i'm still deliberating that!

-Licorice 

-Date squares

-Homemade 'Magnums'

-Lemonade made with honey and organic fruit juice concentrate I get from a friend in Swellendam and ice-blocks with frozen berries inside 

-Pancakes rolled up and cut into slices with honey and cinnamon inside, served in a tray so they don't fall apart 

 
-chocolate date balls

-Something with peanut butter, not sure yet!

How exactly I will be making this black and white is another matter altogether! It's a small party so that helps. I’ll be delving into my usual Mary Poppins bag of tricks as well as hunting for new yummy ideas, I’ll give you the low down on Monday as to how I weathered against the temptingly convenient and very cheap allure of sugar and it’s other buddies! Wish me luck!

Clothes Swops ~ Mariella

In this great age of limitless availability and ever changing trends, it's sometimes refreshing to slow down and really access the full lifespan of the things we gather around us instead of buying and discarding at a rate of knots. When you look at your wardrobe and see nothing but outdated clothes that are either too big, too small or too familiar, your first instinct is to schedule some retail therapy but there are other, more enjoyable, more enviro-friendly options. There’s a great little event that happens in my circle of friends. It’s called a Clothes Swop! It’s really simple and works on the principle that one woman’s trash is another woman’s treasure...

You put all the clothes in a pile in the middle of the room, mix them all up, count to three and start grabbing! It’s such a laugh! Afterward, items get tried on and passed from one prospective new owner to the next until the perfect fit is discovered. What doesn't get claimed goes to the charity shop. 

If you have a very special item of clothing that you haven’t worn in ages but cant bare to just chuck in the pile, there’s a special one on one swop on the side.

It’s a girl’s only event, so, no husbands and no kiddies. Its an evening of chatter, confidences  yummy food and hopefully great new finds for your wardrobe. There’s so much ‘stuff’ in the world that we really don't have to buy new, and I’ve walked away from Clothes Swops with absolutely great finds in beautiful condition. 

It’s good to do it at the beginning of a season, so schedule one now! Just send an invite out to all your girlfriends to gather up all their unworn clothes and a delicious dish to share and look forward to a great girls night in!

What I want to know about GM food~ Mariella

In light of the signing of the Agricultural Appropriations Bill last week by President Obama, I am genuinely worried! This obviously does not concern me directly, not today, but it does present a widening shadow over the future of my consumer rights that I feel unable to control. This little bit of trouble snuck into the Bill, referred to as the 'Monsanto Protection Act', states that products containing GM ingredients no longer require labeling and makes it impossible for US federal courts to halt the planting and sale of GM crops should health concerns arise. I find this super scary!

In South Africa, we have no regulation in place stating that foods containing GM ingredients need to be labeled. There is something called the GMO Act, which merely concerns the controlled management and sale of GM crops. And then there is the Consumer Protection Bill, which seems to have conveniently omitted anything to do with regulating GM products!

Interesting that the very corporations producing and patenting GM crops and insisting on their safe use are the very same bodies insisting they be unlabeled. So where does this leave me as a buyer?

Firstly, you know how I go on about growing your own? Well, in addendum to this, its a great idea to grow the foods which are most commonly GM, failing that, I have started to avoid these foods completely. 

Most Common GM foods are:

Corn~ GM varieties have been created to produce a toxin which poisons moths and butterflies, resist herbicides, present high fructose levels to be used as corn syrup.

Canola~Resistant to herbicide (usually Roundup, also incidentally produced by companies producing the seed!)

Beetroot~ Same as above

Soybeans~Same same as above! Starting to see a pattern yet?

Cotton~Engineered to poison pests. These are not only used in clothing, but in foods like Margarine and vegetable oil.

 

Baby Marrow and Papaya are also high on the list and funny how most crops are genetically modified to better tolerate the use of Roundup....

The most obvious concern with GM crops is that, even though they have been deemed safe, they are being banned throughout the world based on mass crop failure and health concerns due to insufficient testing. If you are going to introduce a human gene into rice with possible future use in the pharmaceutical industry, I am going to want to see generations of testing before I even consider going near it, and then what are you testing it on? So far, there have been two tests which have chilled me to the bone, and both were done on rodents, which I find equally unacceptable:

“ This study was just routine," said Russian biologist Alexey V. Surov. Surov and his colleagues set out to discover if Monsanto's genetically modified (GM) soy, grown on 91% of US soybean fields, leads to problems in growth or reproduction. 

After feeding hamsters for two years over three generations, those on the GM diet, and especially the group on the maximum GM soy diet, showed devastating results. By the third generation, most GM soy-fed hamsters lost the ability to have babies. They also suffered slower growth, and a high mortality rate among the pups.

And if this isn't shocking enough, some in the third generation even had hair growing inside their mouths,a phenomenon rarely seen, but apparently more prevalent among hamsters eating GM soy.”

The Second test to drive the point home was conducted in 2012. Rats fed a lifelong diet of one of the bestselling strains of genetically modified corn suffered enormous debilitating tumors and multiple organ damage, according to a controversial French study which has lead to the petition by Influential Petition site Avaaz, which was signed by millions.

Scientists said the results raised serious questions about the safety of GM foods and the assurances offered by biotech companies and governments.

So what can you do today to deal with the encroachment of undercover GM foods into your home?

~Ok, I know, I know, I keep going on about growing vegetables at home, but really, a one meter space can yield all of the greens you need to keep your family healthy, tips on buying seed to follow in the next couple of weeks.

~Buy foods labelled 100%organic, which is difficult, but if you invest the time into finding the products that are right for you then you know where to go from then on. Even though these are sometimes more expensive, keep in mind that when you consume only the best foods, the quantity you crave goes down as your nutritional needs are being met and you see the long terms benefits in reduction in health care costs.

~Eat only Pasture fed Free-range hormone-free meat. In this regard, meat eaters may have an easier time of it, but given the recent meat outrage in SA, its advisable to find a local small scale outlet that you can trust.

~Shop at Farmer’s Markets as you have direct access to the person growing the food.

~Stick to Wholefoods and say goodbye to fastfood.

~Start asking questions, become your local supermarket manager’s best friend!  Ask for products which are not yet on the shelves and don't be afraid to get on their nerves!

We as consumers are always in a precarious position as we almost don’t want to know what goings on behind the shelves, but I’d rather be told by the shop owner before I consume the food than by a doctor, years after it’s too late. My rule of thumb is, the more natural it is, the better!