A recipe shared + a give-away winner

Tags

coconut biscuit recipe, Evil Chest-Suppressing Lurgy, give away winner, Melbourne, poached eggs, Recipes

Greetings from mid-Wintery Melbourne with its gasp-inducing freezey mornings and evenings.

I was gonna write to y’all last week but instead I succumbed to the Evil Chest-Suppressing Lurgy that 80% of Melbourne seems to have, and spent three days lying on my excellently long couch with the cosy cushions, with multiple pots of tea, Buffy DVDs, poached eggs and… cravings. For baked goods.

Specifically, my own variation of my grandma’s coconut biscuit recipe. So, once I’d had enough of the horizontal resting and the snoozing I pulled a stick of organic butter out of the fridge to soften it up and got to it.

Baking while all fluey means two things:

1. You have to eat ALL the cookies (omnom nom). Coz it’s unsanitary to pass on your baked-in germs.
2. Much of the prep work – like creaming the butter – can be done sitting down. There’s always a work-around when you REALLY want a cookie!

So this I offer to everyone in honour of my recently departed and highly complicated grandmother (her recipe, adapted by me):

(Gluten/sugar free) Coconut biscuits

• 100g organic butter (room temperature)
• ½ cup rice malt syrup
• 1 egg
• 1½ cups of gluten free self-raising flour (or normal flour + baking powder)
• ½ cup of almond meal
• 1 tea spoon vanilla essence
• 1 cup organic desiccated coconut
• Optional: 2x teaspoons organic raw cacao powder (for chocolatey cookies)

Pre-heat oven to 220 Celsius.

Cream butter, then stir in rice malt syrup until smooth and blended. Mix in the egg.

Sift flour and combine with almond meal, stir in to butter/sugar/egg combo.

Add vanilla essence and coconut, plus (optional) cacao powder.

Make sure the mixture is on the dry side, instead of wet and sloppy. Add a little more flour if needed.

Grease baking tray, and drop small teaspoon-sized pieces of the mixture.

Bake for around 20 minutes only. Don’t over-cook or they’ll lose their coconutty flavour.

DONE! In no time at all, you have some very tasty and easy to make cookies that are delightful with endless pots of tea. 😉

 ~~~

On to the next order of business…

Give-away winner

Yep, I’ve been a little distracted so almost forgot to draw the winner of the Yoga Nidra give-away.

Being that I’m all fluey, forgive me for not doing a video to prove the integrity of my winning entry drawing process.

AND. The winner is…

***La Gitane***

Congrats! I’ll be in touch via email to get your postal address. 😀

And…a few lil updates from me

• This year has involved massive amounts of change for the good. This is still going on, but harder to write about because I’m still in it.
• My grandmother’s passing has brought others changes. Some that have already happened; others yet to come. Things I’d rather not talk about here but they are in the end, good things, too.
• I wrote an article for Nadine’s blog on how to heal PTSD. I was overwhelmed by some of the positive comments both on the blog post and in Nadine’s Facebook feed.
• I AM going to write an ebook on healing from PTSD. It’s coming. 😀
• I am no longer in trauma. I’m. No. Longer. In. Trauma. There’s a post coming on that one really soon…

A happy mid-Winter/Summer to you all, wherever you are.

And if you make my grandma’s coconut biscuits, please let me know!!

~Svasti

Soul food and photos – a #reverb10 compilation

Tags

#reverb10, beginners luck, Depression, foodie, Healing, images, obsession, Photos, Poached Egg Maestro, poached eggs, PTSD, self-portrait, Soul food, Yoga

Soul Food. What did you eat this year that you will never forget? What went into your mouth & touched your soul?
~ December 26 prompt

I confess: I’m not a foodie. I WISH I felt the passion for food and pouring over cookbooks that many of my friends do. But no. For me, food is mostly functional and when I’m enjoying a meal, it’s not the food I remember so much as the company.

However, there is a dish that’s inspired me this year: the humble and beautiful poached egg.

Eggs served on avocado, kale and spinach & topped with cracked pepper

Don’t you just think there’s something so wholesome and wonderful about them? I do. The way they look, all imperfectly wrapped up in a swoosh of egg white. The perky-to-runny yolks (depending on preference). The many elegant ways of serving them – my current favourite is toasted English muffins spread with cream cheese, whole grain mustard and rocket leaves and topped with the eggs, cracked pepper and shaved parmesan. Yum!

The inception of my poached egg obsession was the very special day CK and I planned for Shiv’s birthday in Sydney on 1^st January. Part of our plan was to make a picnic brunch, including the aforementioned eggs. Neither CK or I had much experience with them, but luckily I had chef-like friends who did!

So I watched keenly as one of my very good friends made our breakfast and days later at CK’s apartment in her tiny kitchenette, I was in the driver’s seat. The newly appointed Poached Egg Maestro! And call it beginners luck, but somehow that first batch worked out perfectly.

That’s when the real work began though: it’s all about the technique and being able to reproduce excellent poached googs on a moment’s notice.

So for many months of 2010, I’d make them for myself every weekend.

And here’s what I learned:

How to make awesome poached eggs

The first thing you need to know about making proper poached eggs is to use a deep frypan or a shallow saucepan. Add a dash of vinegar to the water and let it boil. Once it’s boiled, turn the heat down to a simmer so it’s not splashing hot water around violently while you try to slide your eggs in!

While you waited for your water to boil, you’ve already cracked open each egg into an individual cup (or do them one at a time and use the same cup). Use a spoon to make a whirlpool in the water and once you’ve got a good little funnel going, empty the egg into the middle.

It’ll swirl around for a bit before it gets down to the business of cooking. The artistry of poached eggs is in this part: how long you cook them for. The longer they poach, the less runny the yolk will be. But getting it right, understanding the way the yolk looks in its little white overcoat is something you can only learn through experience. By experimenting again and again.

Scoop your eggs out with a slotted spoon and (evil of all evils, I know) use paper towel to blot excess water off them. I’ve tried just letting them drain but it doesn’t work as well, unfortunately.

Arrange them to suit your tastes and serve!

::

Photo – a present to yourself. Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.
~ December 25 prompt

Can’t say I’m much for photos of myself. Never have been, actually. While I’m not sure if I’d be classified as having body dysmorphic disorder, the description sure sounds a lot like me.

The truth is that I’ve never been able to see myself clearly in the mirror or in photos. All I notice are my faults and it’s a rare day that I actually like a photo that I’m in (I am getting better with that however). So I’ve tended to avoid them in general.

It’s a thing that goes back to the years of my brother’s daily abuses. I’ve managed to work through most of the stuff he used to say and do, but not the stuff about how I look. The topic even came up unbidden in my last kinesiology appointment… it’s still alive and kicking.

My aversion to photos got an awful lot worse when I developed PTSD and depression – no prizes for working out why. Suffice to say there’s not a heck of a lot of photos of me from 2005-2010.

I know. It’s on my list of ‘stuff’ to deal with and my methods are yoga, meditation and kinesiology. Another thing I try to do is notice when I do think I look nice. I’ll eyeball myself in the mirror and say: Hey, I look really cute today! I know that might sound kind of vain, but if you’ve lived in my shoes then you’ll understand the necessity.

So this photo (a self-portrait with my iPhone) is very typical of my attitude to how I look and to having photos taken. Can I be in the shadows, please? Can we avoid looking too closely at my features? All of those things make me uncomfortable.

And that’s probably why I like yoga so much, too. Because it helps me see myself as a whole being –  inside and out – rather than just an external image to fret over…

That said, there’s this other photo I took of myself a couple of weeks ago. As a self-birthday present, I’d just been to the hairdressers for the first time in over three months and with a new cut and colour, I was feeling pretty good about the way I looked. Which is rare.

Looking at my eyes in that photo, I can see a lot has changed. I’ve accepted an awful lot more. I no longer look as sad or desperate, and there’s a softness to my expression. It’s a mark of change, and it’s also a mark of turning thirty-nine. It’s the first photo I’ve seen of myself in a long time that I’ve liked.

And I’d show it you you but the thing is as a rule I don’t put identifying photos of myself up on this blog, sorry! 😀

~Svasti

Back in the land of sun

Tags

Birthday Spectacular, Catatonic Kid, champagne, childhood delights, clammy skin, clumsiness, delirium, fever, IMAX, magic, New Years Eve, newly embodied friendships, Nurofen, poached eggs, ringtail possums, Seafood, Shiv, sunsets, swearing in Italian, Sydney, under the sea, wishy washy

So, I totally lied in my last post. And I’m confessing this while under the influence of a low-grade fever and several Nurofen tablets.

…How nice it’ll be to have a little holiday (just a week) in the gorgeously warm Sydney (as opposed to unpredictable Melbourne)…

At least, the weather made a complete mockery of the above. Bah!!

Sydney, it seems, is no longer reliable mid-Summer for perfect and continuous sunny weather. The day I left Melbourne was a perfect summery day and yet I arrived in Sydney to find rainrainrainrain! It’d been raining for days before I arrived, so no one can blame the weather on the Melbournite, okay?

In fact, Sydney probably had only two days (maximum) where the weather could’ve been described as Sydney-like (based on previous experience). Melbourne on the other hand, had decidedly nicer weather all week (*shakes head sadly*). Also, Melbourne had lightning to go with their (decidedly less special) fireworks.

Never mind! Sydney was fabulous for other reasons. Like… all the friends I got to see!

Stop one of four

Stayed with a fellow yogini (and very good friend) in Bondi. Yeah, she lives a short walk from that very famous beach. Not that I got to see it in all it’s glory this time. But we hung out, worked out, made food (she’s an awesome cook), did some yoga, puja and generally had some girl time. I seriously miss that girl now we live in different parts of the country!

Two of four

Hopped over to the other side of town to visit one of my favourite married couples, CB & B, just in time for CB’s birthday. Amongst other things, CB is a volunteer Wildlife Rescue Officer, currently caring for four adolescent ringtail possums. They’re the cutest critters! Also, there are two fully grown ringtails living in her front yard – CB hand-reared them herself and they’re so tame, I was able to help feed them (chopped up carrots and vegies) and pet them just behind their little furry ears, allowing them to wrap their deceptively strong tails around my pinky finger. Adorable!

And yes, that’s them below…

Three of four

Blog buddy adventures for New Year’s Eve! Yep, it was time to meet up with Catatonic Kid and Shiv. Just before my arrival and while the cab driver bumbled around and refused to look in the street directory (even though I asked him to do just that), I had a flash of panic. Turning up to the house of a complete stranger (in the flesh anyway) and staying two nights there? Ummmm…. *smallish freakout*!!

But of course, it was more than fine. It was fabulous! With some initial mutual nervousness out of the way, we swapped presents (thanks guys!!) and chatted while preparing for our evening picnic – watching the world-famous Sydney fireworks display (see photo at the top of the post). Although the weather looked dodgy, we had no other plans and lucky us – the rain miraculously held off.

A fun night was had by all, despite my nearly taking out an entire hillside of people via clumsily stepping on some plastic sheeting while trying to navigate the breadth of said hillside (it was kinda steep). A dude swore at me in Italian but Shiv vigorously defended my clumsiness (thanks again, hehe!). And despite Sydney police almost begging for the opportunity to arrest us while we were trying to leave peaceably somewhere around 1am – seriously! There were about five of them all lined up, making smartass comments at us. Perhaps to see if we’d fire up? Musta been a slow night! Anyway, all three of us managed to leave without the need for bail, and not suffering too badly from being in the midst of 20,000 people.

Next day was Shiv’s birthday… but really, I should let him talk about that one. Perhaps he’ll grace us with a post on the topic (*here’s the post!!*)? Suffice to say, CK and I pulled off a total Birthday Spectacular. We pretty much rocked the entire day! But let me use the following descriptive keywords: poached eggs, magic, 3D, childhood delights, under the sea, sunsets, seafood and champagne. I will mention one of the surprises – it was seeing Avatar at IMAX, which completely entranced all three of us. So incredibly magical!

It was brilliant to spend some time in the flesh with two online friends. We even spoke to a third on the phone for New Year’s (a rather late night for her!). All up, it was piles of fun meeting the people behind the blogs and it’s only the beginning for our newly embodied (as opposed to virtual) friendships…

Cheers you two, and thanks heaps for the excellent adventures. 😉

Four of four

Finally, back over the bridge to the north-side (no, due to people’s birthdays I was not able to coordinate my movements as well as I’d have liked…) to see another friend (JM), her hubby and her 13 month old baby boy. Have to say; by this point in my travels, I was pretty exhausted. So JM and I indulged in some girly chats lying on her bed, played with their very cute red haired/blue eyed bubba and just did some chillin’. Which worked for her, on account of the cold she and the little guy were getting over.

Unfortunately I managed to collect said cold… let’s call it a Sydney souvenir. Hence the fever I’m waiting out rather impatiently (*wipes sweat beads from upper lip*).

Regardless, I had a blast seeing everybody. Oh and while I was away, I managed to scribble down a bunch of plans for this year! I don’t call them resolutions, coz I reckon plans are things you can make happen. Whereas resolutions always seem kinda wishy washy to me.

Stay tuned, I’ve much more to share this week. And while I try to ignore my delirium and clammy skin, I think I can manage to get a few runs on the board. Or at least, draft posts in half-decent shape.

I hope y’all had an enjoyable Christmas/New Year, and that you’re settling into 2010 just fine.

~Svasti xo