Vegan Chocolate Fudge and Coconut Cake (GF and SF) – dairy free

I made his cake yesterday and it was delicious! It was the first time I had used barley flour in cooking and coconut butter, and I thought both were great in a dessert like this.

Its a relatively healthy dessert if you feel like having something sweet and something chocolatey.

I would highly recommend serving it with fresh raspberries or some kind of raspberry syrup.

The recipe was taken from vegie head.

INGREDIENTS

1 and 1/2 Cups Rice Flour
1 and 1/2 Cups barley flour
1/2 Cup Raw Cacao Powder
2 Teaspoons Baking Soda
1 and 1/2 Cups Raw Coconut Sugar
3/4 Cup Melted Coconut Butter
1 Cup Coconut Milk
1 Cup Purified Water
2 Vanilla Bean Pods
2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC ( I would try cooking it at 180C)
2. Line a non-stick springform cake tray
with coconut oil
3. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and
sugar into a large mixing bowl
4. In a small bowl, mix the melted
coconut butter, coconut milk, water,
apple cider and vanilla together
5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry
and mix with a spoon just until
combined
6. Pour the batter into the pan and bake
for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer
comes out clean
7. If you would like to ‘ice’ the cake,
melt 1/2 cup dairy free choc chips and
1/2 cup almond oil in a small pan and
drizzle on top when the cake is
cooled

Stress management and its importance in our daily lives

A field that I get increasingly passionate about, is stress management.  Almost everyone in todays society is stressed, which is fine, since a little bit of stress seems to motivate us, which is great.

However managing and coping with stress is a major part of our lives, and how well we deal with coping can determine how enjoyable life is for us, even when faced with challenges.

So, here are a few tips on starting to deal with managing stress, this topic is huge and I will write more posts in the future, so consider this a taster of what is to come…

• Eat right for your body – find out what foods are nourishing for your body and eat more of those
• Sleep well – find out healthy sleep patterns and try your hardest to sleep right
• Have healthy boundaries in all relationships – seek to know yourself, and create healthy boundaries in all areas of your life
• Find someone trustworthy to debrief and reflect with – it is good to get thoughts out loud, since once spoken you realise truth, and get out of your head
• Do something creative in life – creativity is a great healer and a release for times that when you are stressed
• Enhance your communication and emotional intelligence skills – this may be your strong point, however if it is not, find courses or real life classes that can enhance these skills
• Try alternative health modalities, such as yoga, pilates, meditation – yep all great for enhancing wellbeing and reducing stress
• Be mindful, as much as possible – this means stay out of your head as much as possible, and be mindful of your thoughts and beliefs, stay in a meditative state as much as possible and stay present and in the now
• Listen to soft soothing or classical music, music that uplifts your soul, not music that crushes your soul and makes you anxious
• Get a massage or do some EFT or reflexology – always works for me – YAY!

Alrighty, thats all for now, feel free to post your thoughts on stress reduction and your experiences with implementing the above 🙂

Alternatives to sugar and sweet desserts

Here is a list of alternatives to sugar that I like to use, or desserts that I make from time to time, instead of indulging in a sugar packed treat.

• Maple Sugar
• Agave Syrup
• Honey
• Carob truffles, with either of the above sweeteners (plus nuts, Goji berries, almond meal and coconut)
• Chocolate or carob brownies (google a no sugar, no dairy recipe, there are plenty of good ones)
• Tomato sauce / Ketchup (ok this is not a dessert, but just putting this down so you know that the usual variety has heaps of sugar, and that you can either make your own or buy a sugar free option – although the store bought ones usually have artificial sweeteners which I really don’t like, so tend to make my own or just have mustard instead!)

Do you have any other favourites? Please do share 🙂

The health benefits of turmeric

Lately I have seen a lot of posts and blogs about the health benefits of turmeric.  Turmeric is used in ayurvedic medicine as a healing spice.  It aids digestion and is an anti-inflammatory.

Whilst i use turmeric in much of my cooking, such as on fried eggs, in tomato based stews, I have never used it for the sole purpose of healing.  Have any of you used it as a healing medicine, and if yes, what benefits have you noticed?

Thank you for sharing!

My thoughts on Joy and its connection to Wellbeing

Have you ever noticed that when something negative happens in your life, sometimes you disconnect from your source of joy? For example you don’t get a particular result you were hoping for in one area of your life, and this causes you to slowly put limits on the joy you experience in other areas of your life.

This is something I have noticed I have done in the past and still do from time to time and notice this behaviour in others as well, however I think that this placing a limit on our joy can slow the process of achieving our goal, or not being able to easily get back on to our feet again.  I feel that joy is critical to our wellbeing and for those around us.

I have been singing a lot lately, I am not a professional singer by any means, however it is definitely something that brings me a lot of joy when I do it, and I want to practice on a daily basis and hope to eventually be able to sing professionally, as well as do other work.

What is a source of joy to you that you may have disconnected from, or what joys do you bring into your life when another part of your life isn’t working out so well? Would love to hear your thoughts. 

 

Below is one of my favourite quotes from Abdul-Baha:

“In this world we are influenced by two sentiments, Joy and Pain.

Joy gives us wings! In times of joy our strength is more vital, our intellect keener, and our understanding less clouded. We seem better able to cope with the world and to find our sphere of usefulness. But when sadness visits us we become weak, our strength leaves us, our comprehension is dim and our intelligence veiled. The actualities of life seem to elude our grasp, 110 the eyes of our spirits fail to discover the sacred mysteries, and we become even as dead beings.

There is no human being untouched by these two influences; but all the sorrow and the grief that exist come from the world of matter—the spiritual world bestows only the joy!

If we suffer it is the outcome of material things, and all the trials and troubles come from this world of illusion.”

“All you need i…

“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” – Charles M. Schulz

Speaking of chocolate, when I feel like having a little cocoa hit, I either have some carob powder, or make some carob and nut and coconut truffles, or I have really dark chocolate that contains very little to no sugar.

I can no longer eat normal milk chocolate or even dark chocolate that has sugar in it, since it is too sweet for me. The other chocolate i eat from time to time is dark chocolate with coffee beans, again I hardly have coffee, and when I do it is usually decaffeinated. Apparently chocolate has magnesium, which our body craves from time to time.  

I think that a small bite of chocolate once in a while is OK, however eating it excessively, or using it as a source of energy is really unhealthy, so if you find yourself eating chocolate when you are low on energy, make sure you try something else, that is healthier and more sustainable in the long term. 

Fight or Flight

I had to take a close relative of mine to emergency today, and noticed that a huge aspect of the medical profession is to keep people as calm as possible, so both the medical practitioner or healer, and the patient need to remain calm.  It seems to be mostly the practitioners responsibility to keep people calm and provide the information necessary to keep them and their families calm. 

I noticed how much of a difference it can make to peoples health when they remain calm, it keeps the body stable and ready to heal it self. 

Some of you may have heard of the flight or fight symptoms, basically people fear something so much that they get into a mode where their body thinks they need to prepare for danger, and the reality is, that most of the time we are safe, and do not need to get ourselves into this state. Being in this state disconnects our thoughts from reality and disrupts our logical brain and the ability to reason as we usually would. 

Next time you have a medical condition, think about how much of your worry or panic towards it may be heightening the condition and then assess ways in which you can calm yourself down to aid the healing process.

All the best!

 

Chronic Fatigue

I thought I would share this video about chronic fatigue, something I feel that many people experience, I also feel that there are natural ways to remedy such a condition, two being meditation and yoga. Hope you enjoy this informative video.

The best teas to have in the evening

If you have ever wondered what teas or warm drinks are great for the evening, for a restful night and sleep, here are a few of my personal suggestions;

1. Peppermint tea: this is a great caffeine free tea, and if you have fresh mint or peppermint leaves, you can just add hot water to it and there you go!
2. Camomile tea: a very soothing option, and it goes well with honey or agave syrup.
3. Roiboos tea: this is a caffeine free option, and is the most similar to black tea out of all the herbal teas I have come across.
4. Decaffeinated black tea: I find that this is a great option when I really want the flavour of black tea without the caffeine at night.

Green tea with jasmine leaves is really lovely, however it still has caffeine and I find that at night I would rather not have caffeine.

Enjoy!

 

Different ways that stress can affect your health

Most of us know that too much stress is not healthy for our bodies. However sometimes we feel pain and forget that it might be from stress or worrying too much.

Whether its stomach pains, headaches, sore bodies, pimples, low blood sugar, high blood pressure, low blood pressure, allergies, any kind of pain really.

Of course it is not always stress related, but if you find your self in some kind of pain or experience an ailment, try and identify if your body is feeling some kind of stress at some level.

How else can you cope with the stress? Can you remove some of the stressors, can you find some support, how are you able to better cope with the stress, so that it does not affect you on a physical level?

Once you identify what is causing you the stress, you can then identify the best solution, whether its prayer and meditation, exercising, a fun outing with friends, more nutritious food, some time alone, whatever you feel will dissolve your stress.