Kefir Tropical Smoothie

Kefir is the new "old" food on the market for health! It has been a part of traditional cultures for thousands of years for its health benefits. Now it is becoming popular for boosting the immune system and restoring the intestinal flora in the digestive tract. Here is a smoothie that is healthy and tastes delicious. It is a wonderful way to get all the beneficial bacteria in your daily diet. The yogurt in the recipe adds additional benefits.

What You Need:
1 15 oz. can pineapple chunks, with juice
2 bananas
1 apple, diced
¼ - ½ cup coconut water
1 cup yogurt
½ - 1 cup kefir
6 ice cubes
Coconut flakes, unsweetened

Pour the pineapple chunks with the juice into the blender. Slice the bananas in chunks and put them in with the apple, coconut water, yogurt and ice cubes. Blend on ice setting until smooth. Then add the kefir and stir or blend in on a slower speed. It is recommended to put kefir in last to maintain the active bacteria. Heat and too much whipping will destroy them. Top with a sprinkle of coconut flakes.

The pineapple is full of vitamin C. The bananas and coconut water provide an excellent amount of potassium, which is so important during the hot weather months, or when you are recuperating from illness. The apple has fiber and vitamin C and supports the heart and cardiovascular system. Yogurt and kefir both have good bacteria but have different strains. Kefir has more strains of bacteria than yogurt and also has good yeasts. These are all essential to reestablish in the digestive system.

So make a kefir smoothie every day to keep replenishing all that good bacteria. Your immune system will thank you.

©2009 Shanna Ohmes

Kikis altogether 2008

Us singing Kiki happy birthday. i made that beautiful coconut!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1CDxS9odTo&hl=en

Greenlife Grocery in Asheville NC on Merrimon Avenue Downtown

GreenlifeGrocery.com is the one of the main places for healthy groceries and great prepared food near downtown Asheville. It is located on Merrimon Ave right across from Staples and Bojangles. One of my friends runs in there all of the time looking for their Coconut Creme Cake. They have been in the area for years. They have a lots of parking, a seating area outside, and a seating area inside to the right. Great business! The Pioneer Building, the first building of the 5 Points Village, is near completion and about 1000 feet away from Greenlife Grocery.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agJM4leDfIc&hl=en

Castle Cake

This cake was a castle cake made to go with Disney Princess dolls. The family loved the look of fondant cake, however didn't want to spend a lot of money. This cake was all buttercream with coconut filling. It was very simple to make and I didn't need to spend several days to make. It took longer to assemble the towers than anything else.I covered the tower toppers with melted red chocolate so that sprinkles could stick.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSykJTMA2-o&hl=en

Best Cupcake Recipe - Part 4

www.momisblogging.com , It's important that it is not too dry - mine were once and I ended up with what resembled Rock Cakes - they still all got ate though, http



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0uryjwNGso&hl=en

What Did You Eat Today That Made You Tired?

Most of us think we eat a healthy diet with an occasional treat to reward ourselves for being so good.

Great! But does your healthy diet look something like mine did:

Breakfast: Two thick slices of white bread with a healthy spread, not butter! Marmalade or marmite as well.
Snack: Low fat crisps, cup of tea with milk.
Lunch: skipped it as was too busy, or maybe grabbed a low cal cheese and onion Sandwich on Granary Bread from the shop as I did not have time to prepare lunch for work. Can of something Diet to drink.
Snack, coffee and sugar as I was tired, maybe a cake as well as I had been working hard!
Dinner: Large bowl of pasta with pesto, cheese over the top, garlic bread. Trifle or cheesecake.
Glass or Two of wine to reward myself(again) as I had worked so hard and deserved it.

What's so wrong with that? It's a normal days food, I'm a vegetarian, so you may want to add a chicken, steak, gammon, maybe some fries and a take away burger to it as well!

So what is this typical days food missing, how can you stop the mid afternoon slump, the stubborn fat that sits around the belly and how can you have more energy?

1. Cut the Breakfast Bread & Cereals. Some of us are glutent intolerant and aren't aware of it. Try something completely different, after all, who ever said you HAD to have a bowl of cereal with milk?
Try: Poached eggs on wheat free bread. Left overs from last nights stir fry. Tomatoes and a chicken breast. Wheat free Porridge with Coconut or Almond Milk

2. Cut: Snacks of diet drinks, crisps and chocolate which make you tired.
Try: Handful of Almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds. Make your own Hoummus and take it to work in a small tub with some sliced carrot. Drink more water, have a 2 litre bottle with you and sip it throughout the day

3. Cut: Skipping meals, This drops your energy and you will eat more later in the day.
Try: Prepare lunch at home to bring to work so you dont grab a fat filled mayonnaise covered sandwich. Make your own chicken breast wrapped in a Romaine Lettuce leaf for lunch. Wheat free pitta with hoummus or avocado salad filling.

Drink from your water bottle.

4 Cut: Coffee and Cake. This will make you feel even more tired and crave even more sugar later on in your afternoon.

Try: Sipping water from your bottle, add some lemon juice to make it taste different. Handful of nuts. Make a healthy cake with polenta and rice flour and almond milk.

5; Cut: Pasta. Again, you may have a gluten intolerance, and it leaves you bloated and tired
Try: Replace with Quinoa, a great protein enriched seed which can replace pasta very easily. Eat with roasted veg or have on the side with lean meat. Gluten free pasta made with brown rice is delicious and doesnt taste any different to other pasta, leaves you without a bloated belly and you dont get that tired feeling! Drink water.

So, have a look at what you eat, take a typical day and write it down in your diary. You may surprise yourself!

Just making some simple changes may change the way you feel, give you more energy for work or to spend more time playing with the kids. its not that difficult, I did it, and I was a picky eater. Tastes change as you change your eating habits for the better

My Bootcamp clients have noticed the difference and see results every week. Some hated cooking and now give ME recipes to try! The transformation has been amazing!

Pumpkin Rice - Children's Health Food

Pumpkins are very popular in cooking. It can be fried, boiled, steamed, baked and even roasted. Small pumpkins can be eaten as squash or zucchini. Mashed pumpkin can be used in soup. In Middle East, pumpkin is used for making desserts such as halawa and yaqtin. In China, the leaves of pumpkin are used as an ingredient in soups. In India, kadu ka halwa is made from pumpkin, butter, sugar and other spices. In Japan, some take the pumpkin to serve as tempura. In Australia, pumpkin is commonly roasted before consumed. In Italy, pumpkin is used with cheeses for ravioli. In Thailand, small pumpkins are steamed with custard, sugar and coconut milk mix to become a Thai dessert - pumpkin custard.

Usually, kids like to eat pumpkin. It might be due to its sweetness taste and the cheerful color - orange. My kid likes to eat pumpkin meals as well. My wife started feeding him with pumpkin meals since he was 1 year old. Now, he is six years old and still likes to eat pumpkin very much. Pumpkin is his favorite food, and no matter the meal prepared in soup, porridge, rice, steam or stir fry, he will always ask for pumpkin.

I would like to share with you one of the simplest and easiest way to prepare pumpkin cooking. You can prepare it in meal box and let your children bring them to school. Normally, I will add it with green peas to make the dish looked better and also more nutritious. Here is the Pumpkin Rice recipe.

Cooking Methods: (servings for 4 to 5 people)

Ingredients:

a) white rice 160g rinse clean and take off the water
b) Pumpkin 220g removed skin and cut into cube
c) Chicken breast 130g cut into cube
d) Dried mushroom 7 pcs soak till soft, rinse off the water and cut into cube
e) Dried prawn 35g soak till soft, rinse off the water
f) Onion small 5 pcs, cut slices
g) Water 350ml ( including water of soaking mushroom &dried prawns)
h) Green onion few

Seasoning materials:

a) Soya Sauce 1 ½ tbsp
b) Dark Soya Sauce 1 tbsp
c) Salt half of tsp
d) Sesame oil 2 tsp
e) Pepper 1 tsp

Method:

1. Marinate chicken breast with few starch flour and soya sauce together with sugar for about 30 minutes.
2. Heat up the oil, fry onion small until fragrance and ready to use.
3. Heats up the oil again, fry fried prawns with low flame and add in mushrooms continue by put in the chicken. Stir fry till half cook; add in white rice and the seasoning materials. Put into rice cooker and add in water and cook till 80%.
4. After that, add in pumpkin and onion that fried earlier and cook the rice till dry.
5. Loosen out the riceï¼OEput some green onions when ready to serve.
6. Completed.

Cooking Tips:

1. Australia pumpkin normally easy to cook than local pumpkin, hence don't cut too small, around 1.5cm to 2 cm will do.
2. Separate the fried onion to two servings, one can pour into the ingredients while half cook, another servings can use when ready to eat. This will help the taste.
3. Chicken breast can replace by chicken thigh.
4. Water levels that use to cook rice depend on the type of rice that you use. Use the normal cooking water level as reference
5. Use fresh mushrooms, put them into hot water, then rinse off.
6. if use pot to cook, you can follow the same method (1) to (3), put all ingredients (except pumpkin & fried onion) into pot, put in appropriate water and cook till water is boiled. Don't use too big flame, change to medium flame till water dry off, continue by low flame and add on the pumpkin and fried onion. You may want to stir it from time to time so that the rice won't stick to the pot.