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Is there a better way to start your day than with a heavenly green smoothie? These magical ‘sunshine in a glass’ creations are guaranteed to give your body, mind and spirit a delicious energy boost and get your skin glowing and your eyes sparkling.

In summer I love experimenting with all of the gorgeous stone fruits available (mango, I miss you!), but in winter the choices are more limited. During these months my go-to smoothie recipe is the ‘Kiwi Sublime’ because all of the ingredients are easy to find (and inexpensive), which means less time trawling the markets in the rain and more time curled up in your favourite armchair with a great book. ☺

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The coconut water provides an extra hydration boost to counteract all that time spent huddling in front of the heater, and the tangy combination of kiwi, lemon and ginger provide an extra zing to keep you smiling through the gloomy winter days.

Kiwi Sublime – makes 2 smoothies:

♥ 350ml coconut water (for extra hydration)
♥ 1 frozen banana (peeled and broken into pieces before freezing)
♥ 5 kiwi fruit, peeled and halved
♥ Juice of half a lemon or 1 lime
♥ 1 tsp grated ginger
♥ 3 large handfuls of English spinach
♥ Ice (optional)

For an extra boost of sparkles and nutrition, try adding Spirulina or another green Superfood. You’ll find Spirulina (and coconut water) at your local, friendly health food store, along with all sorts of other yummy, healthy treats.

Blend all ingredients on high until smooth, pour into glasses and enjoy. Cheers!

Recipe by Bex from Vegan Sparkles!

For more green smoothie goodness, check out the Green July post & the Wellness WA Green Smoothie Database!

Be well,

xoxo

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Crushes are abound this week! And I’m excited to share with you the top 5 things that are making my body sing with delight, as always I’d love you to share what’s making YOU go yay this week – so please leave a comment below and share the good feelings!

♥ Organic Muesli & Coconut Water for Breakfast

I’m not much of a cold cereal girl. Give me porridge or a green smoothie and I’m good to go. So I’m not sure what drew me to this organic muesli when I spied it on the shelf, but I knew it had to be mine. With all organic ingredients and not a preservative in sight, I was very happy to discover that it is also incredibly tasty. Sulphite free dried apricots, raisins, coconut, sunflower seeds, almonds and pumpkin seeds are all added goodies which make this super delicious. My breakfast this morning was a triple whammy of organic goodness, with the muesli + C coconut water + soy milk all being of non-pesticide origin.

As an added bonus this brekky made me feel awesome and gave me lots of sustained energy. It’s a keeper!

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♥ Eskal Raspberry Vegan Chocolate

Sweet baby hound dogs this stuff is delish. I’m always on the hunt for healthy chocolate alternatives; and this raspberry dark chocolate treat definitely does the trick. So much so in fact that the three blocks that I was sent for consideration all managed to disappear within the space of a week… “Dark chocolate is good for your health!”. The bitter-sweetness of the chocolate, mixed with the crushed up bits of raspberry make this my latest fave. YUM!

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♥ Iridology and VLA and Naturopathy Consultation at Endota

Things got a little Frankenstein-y when my current naturopath, Marnie Downer, ran the verrrry interesting VLA test on me! I learned that for optimal health and wellness I should put on 4 kilos (!!!) – 3 of them muscle, 1 fat. I also found out that my cells were all nice and plump, which is a good thing. And that my cellular age is 26 (I’m currently 27.999), but we can get this down even further if I get my muscle mass up. Marnie operates out of Endota Spa Perth CBD & also a clinic in Mt Lawley. I will be doing a more thorough review soon, so stay tuned!

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♥ Sauna and Steam Room

One of my favourite parts of going to the gym is heading to the steam room and sauna after I’ve taken a yoga class, completed my mini weights routine or done my Couch-to-5K session! I absolutely love, love, love the glow that my skin gets afterwards, and I find that it completely relaxes me and I feel great for the rest of the evening. The only thing is that I’ve found I don’t sweat in the sauna! I don’t know why, maybe I am not staying in there long enough. Any sauna experts care to share their tips? Everyone else in the sauna is sweating up a storm and I’m there dry as a soy bone. Enlighten me if you can! 🙂

Thanks for reading about my crushes, I would LOVE to hear yours! Please share your current joy snippets in the comments below.

Be well,

Annette

xoxo

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I’ve never been a three meals a day kinda girl. I love to eat when I feel like it, and this involves quite a lot of snacking and grazing throughout the day. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but there are definitely times when the snacking habit I’ve gotten into works against me! Sometimes it’s hard to say no to a bit of chocolate, or a sneaky vegan sausage roll instead of something healthier.

So! I’m always delighted when I come across new and healthy snack options that promise to help me overcome my need for chocolate and instead satisfy my sweet tooth with something more nourishing.

Enter Modern Day Hippie, the latest DIY snack range on the market proving that guilt-free treats are just a food processor away. All you need to do is blend, roll and refrigerate and a whole stack of treats will be ready for you in an hour.

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My housemate and I tried the ‘Sweet and Simple‘ flavour to start with, which contains apricots, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, agave, coconut oil and vanilla extract (all organic). As you can see in the photo above the apricots haven’t been gassed with sulphur dioxide (a preservative which helps dried apricots maintain their orange colour), this is a very positive thing health wise as sulphur dioxide, or preservative 220, isn’t good for your health.

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Dry ingredients into the blender! Unfortunately just after this, we discovered that you definitely need a food processor in order to make these balls, so we transferred the ingredients over to our new Thermomix!

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The sachet of wet ingredients before being added to the mix.

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Post-Thermomix. Note: you can still see a lot of the whole ingredients here (sesame seeds etc) I recommend processing until they are completely broken down and joined together as it tastes even better… see below.

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As you can see, the balls on the left have been processed for longer than the ones on the right and were easier and tastier to eat. We made 35 small snack balls all up and enjoyed munching on them throughout the week.

The cost for the mixes is $13 on the Modern Day Hippie online store, which I think is a great price for the number that it makes and how healthy they are! I’m going to be trying the Choc Cherry one next, can’t wait! 🙂

Do you like the look of these healthy, organic snacks?

* Products provided for consideration.

Be well,

Annette

xoxo

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In celebrity nutritionist Kimberly Snyder’s (above) book The Beauty Detox Solution, she advocates drinking her glowing green smoothie every morning for increased health, vitality and radiant skin. Being a smoothie lover and willing to try anything that promises glowing skin and extra energy, I jumped on the green smoothie bandwagon and set myself a goal to drink her infamous smoothie for every day in June.

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Every Saturday I would head down to the local farmers market to pick up all the organic produce I needed to make the smoothies for the week. The total cost usually amounted to around $35. That’s $5 per smoothie- bargain! I would prep all the ingredients on the weekend.

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I’d come home and chop everything up, put them in individual bags and freeze the 7 portions to save time on weekday mornings. Each night before I would take a bag from the freezer and leave it to defrost in the fridge overnight.

So, overall how did it go!? I ended up drinking the smoothie everyday in June up until the 27th (When I jetsetted off to Melbourne for a food filled weekend :P)

How did I feel by the end of the month? Absolutely FANTASTIC!

When I first started I was skeptical that the smoothie would be filling enough to keep me going throughout the morning, however it was surprisingly satisfying. When I sipped the smoothie throughout the afternoon (as a snack) I had a constant level of energy (and no afternoon sugar cravings!). Another bonus- it kept me extremely hydrated. And my skin? Well I only got 1 pimple the whole month. No complaints from me there!

Knowing that I’d had over half my recommended daily intake of fruit and veg before 10am felt great and I would recommend that everyone try this smoothie at least once!

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Kimberly Snyder’s Glowing Green Smoothie

Ingredients


♥ 1 & 1/2 cups water

(add more water to make smoother)
♥ 1 head organic romaine lettuce, chopped

♥ 3-4 stalks organic celery


♥ 1/2 head of a large bunch, or 3/4 of a small bunch of spinach

♥ 1 organic apple, cored and chopped

♥ 1 organic pear, cored and chopped

♥1 organic banana


♥ Juice of 1/2 fresh organic lemon



Optional


♥ 1/3 bunch organic coriander (stems okay)


♥ 1/3 bunch organic parsley (stems okay)



*Note: I added parsley but not coriander. I also usually added about 1 teaspoon of honey or bee pollen for added sweetness and nutrients.

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Directions 



♥ Add the water and chopped ingredients into blender and blend until smooth.

*Note: I halved the recipe and found this made enough for 1 L of green smoothie every morning and occasionally leftovers to sip on during the day (depending on how much water I added).

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My other tips:

♥ I thoroughly recommend spending one morning per weekend prepping all ingredients. It keeps fresh in the freezer for 7 days and saves so much time during the weekday mornings.
♥ Drink the smoothie cold. If making fresh I suggest adding lots of ice.
♥ Make sure to blend the smoothie well. Otherwise you’ll end up with chucky, grainy bits that are not very nice. Add more water if it looks sludgy.
♥ Drink the smoothie slowly, relax and enjoy it. Drinking too fast may lead to that bloated uncomfortable full feeling.

Article by Kavisha, self confessed ‘health foodie’ who believes a little dessert is good for the soul. She is currently studying for her Master of Wellness at RMIT University and blogs at Style My Coconut.

♥ Beautiful Purple Kale!

Hola! So, how ’bout this weather we’ve been having? I’m a big rain fan – so long as I’m warmly tucked up inside, complete with dressing gown, socks and a cup ‘o herbal tea. Venturing out into it is another story.

These past few weeks I’ve been flu-stricken and in the final two weeks of my Public Relations course, as well as having taken on an internship at an agency 2 days a week. Needless to say things have been HECTIC and I haven’t been able to update as much as I’d like. That doesn’t mean we’ve been laying dormant though, we have SO many exciting things in the works… so as always, stay tuned, and check out the wonderful bits and pieces that have been rocking my little wellness world this week! Xo

♥ Purple Kale

Pictured above is the cruciferous vegetable of my eye this week, the delightful purple kale. When I spied this beauty at The Boatshed Market in Cottesloe on the weekend, I could not contain my excitement! Granted, the whole trip to Boatshed was exciting as I’d never been there before and it is just AMAZINGLY well stocked with fresh produce. Pricier than your average store, but I feel like it’s worth it.

This violet vegetable has been on many adventures this week, being mixed into a smoothie one day, gently steamed the next and is about to be made into some delicious kale chips! A+++. Love me some alterna-kale.

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♥ CNR Cafe Vegan Breakfast

My new favourite. So many vegan, vegetarian and raw options at CNR that your mind just might explode! The vegan breakfast (above) is in-cred-ible, and it’s available til 3pm all week. Including Sundays. I will be doing a proper review of it shortly, but it is definitely one of my new faves to head to when I have some extra pennies in my pockets. The vegan brekky is $18, so not the cheapest morning eats in town, however it is insanely delicious and filling, features macadamia & pepper nut cheese, house made beans, toasted ciabatta, pan fried mushrooms and tomatoes, caramelised onions AND potato chippy things.

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They also do a killer green smoothie, breakfast of vegan champions! Check them out.

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♥ Stuart Watkins’ Bali Yoga Retreat

If you’re looking for an incredibly inspiring yoga filled getaway, then look no further. Join Stuart Watkins for 7 days and 6 nights on the north-east coast of Bali at Villa-Boreh with daily yoga, sun drenched relaxation and an array of soul nurturing activities including jungle treks, secret waterfall visits, hot springs and dolphin hangouts! Vegetarian and vegan meals will nourish your body, yoga will nourish your spirit. Find our more details here!

What’s inspiring you this week? Please feel free to share with me and spread the crush-love!

Be well,

Annette

xoxo