as promised, the sugar-free, grain-free cheesecake recipe (plus a recipe for kale chips)

I’m a girl firmly against the idea of tofu sausages. And the like. Bastardising food is somehow naff, no? But sugar free cheesecake is a mighty fine exception to that rule. I’ve ranted on Twitter about this cake – which I made with my beautiful friend Claire – and promised to share the recipe. So, here she is (and, yes, Jo, I’ll make it for your birthday!).

photo9 as promised, the sugar-free, grain-free cheesecake recipe (plus a recipe for kale chips)
photo by Johnny Abegg

Now, once again, our measurements are VERY imprecise. Claire and I literally “added a bit of this, added a bit of that”. And it simply worked. So have faith! Feel it with your fingers!

Sarah + Claire’s sugar-free nut cheesecake

First make the base (meals and nuts can be substituted for any others you have lurking in the cupboard):

  • 100g of dessicated coconut
  • 110g of shelled pistachios
  • 150g of almond meal
  • 4 “generous” tbls of butter…which is to say, keep adding more butter till you get a nice gooby consistency

Preheat the oven to about 160 C. Stab-mix or blend pistachios until they are semi-fine chunks, add to a mixing bowl with the coconut, almond meal, and room temperature butter and rub until the mixture is an even, thick consistency. Then press into a baking paper lined spring form pan. cover the base and sides with your mixture to an even thickness  – you may need more or less of the mixture depending on the size of your pan. Try to keep it an even thickness – about 1/2-1cm.

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The surprising joy of hitchhiking

This week in Sunday Life I hitchhike

Picture 152 The surprising joy of hitchhiking
photo via katespade.com

My life is often overlaid with a certain degree of mistimed chaos. Which means, from time to time, I’m forced to hitchhike.

Take Thursday. I was due at a meeting at 7.30am, but in timing my morning I failed to factor in that I’d sold my car the day before. Readers of this column might recall I often run as a form of transport. So off I set in my sneakers. However, halfway into town, I realized there was not a chance in a blue fit of making my meeting in time.

So I hitched. Some lovely old blokes – on their way in to town for a swim – stopped. They cracked retiree-like jokes about my being the best thing they’d picked up all morning, and I laughed. Because it was fun. And so I hitched home again.

The last time I hitchhiked I was running (literally, again) late for a ferry in Cronulla. Two pimply teens in a circa-1990 Holden Commodore picked me up. Much to my delight, the back seat was upholstered in the Union Jack and the entire cabin interior had been lined in the Southern Cross motif. The boys, apprentice boilermakers, had handstitched the vinyl stars on themselves. And they stopped to buy me an icecream because they thought I might be hungry.

Ensconced on my Australiana throne I was treated to the most enlightening insight into the Aussie male predicament. They were so likeable and open, I wanted to take them home with me, which, admittedly, is a little Ivan Milat-creepy.

You just don’t see so many hitchhikers these days. Which is something a few commentators have been lamenting of late. The nerdy commentators behind the  blog phenomenon Freakonomics outlined reasons for the decline earlier this month.

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friday giveaway: 10 double passes to see “we need to talk about kevin”

Over the summer I’m going to do a number of Friday giveaways. So stay tuned! Last giveaway, Lisa Corduff won free tuition with the Institute of Integrative Nutrition course in NYC. (Sorry to everyone else who was keen to win…for those of you still thinking of doing the course, if you enrol between now and November 24, you get an ipad2!). This week, I’m giving away

10 double passes to We Need To Talk About Kevin

Simply subscribe to my newsletter before Monday 5pm AEST.

Picture 18 friday giveaway: 10 double passes to see "we need to talk about kevin"We Need To Talk About Kevin is screening in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra, starting from the 17th November and the 10 double passes will be valid for all these locations.

I’ll announce the winners on Monday, and send your tickets next week.

The film is based on the book by Lionel Shriver and stars Tilda Swinton, which is enough for me! It’s the story of a Mum coming to terms with the murders her son commits. Every single review I’ve read of the film gives it a full-star rating. It was a critics’ and audience favourite at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival and…did I mention is star’s Tilda Swinton? Shriver describes the adaption as “stunning”.

And happy 11.11.11 !!

Check out more here and some reviews here. Here’s a wee preview….

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question: is it really ok to eat fat?

You know I quit sugar, right? And you know I’ve stuck to it? And you know I’ve written an ebook on how to do it?

Picture 151 question: is it really ok to eat fat?
photo via pinterest

For those of you who haven’t read it yet, the main thrust of my 8-week program is replacing sugar with fat. It’s an approach I really find worked for me, and for many others. But I keep getting asked:

“is it really ok to eat fat?”

“how can you say saturated fat is OK?”

“how much fat do YOU eat?”

Alright. Let’s clear a few things up, then…

1. This short video sums up a fair bit of the misconception around saturated fat:

The gist is this: in the 1950s, a random scientist called Ancel Keys published a dodgy study that told us saturated fats were bad. The study was a total furphy. But we latched on to it. It’s important to realise that at that time the edible oil industry in the US seized the opportunity to promote its polyunsaturates. The industry did this by developing a health issue focusing on Key’s anti-saturated fat bias. With the help of the edible oil industry lobbying in the United States, federal government dietary goals and guidelines were adopted incorporating this mistaken idea that consumption of saturated fat was causing heart disease. This anti-saturated fat issue became the agenda of government and food industry groups around the world.

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a super pretty sugar free macaroon slice…

I discovered a wonderful world out there the other day. A world I had been oblivious to (I’ve been oblivious to a lot of things recently). A world where some beautifully talented and curious and dedicated food bloggers have quit sugar and taken to experimenting with sugar-free recipes. I’ll be profiling a few here going forwards, so stay tuned.

Picture 13 a super pretty sugar free macaroon slice...
photo via scandi foodie

I came across Maria’s blog Scandi Foodie after interacting with her her sweet tweets recently. Maria is a props stylist originally from Finland, now living in Sydney. Her elegant food philosophy and styling have been influenced by her Scandinavian background, and she specialises in healthy, feel-good food. Feel-good food. Yes, I like it. And the Scandinavian aesthetic and social outlook is just TALKING to me right now.

And what about this recipe!!!! A very fine use of coconut products and a clever invention all round, don’t you think? The rhubarb? A fruit? Well, technically it’s a vegetable (and one with lots of health benefits, so say the Chinese) and doesn’t contain much sugar at all.  It’s very tart, so you may wish to “sweeten” it with a little stevia. I reckon you could also use frozen berries, if you wanted. What say you, Maria?

sugar free rhubarb macaroon slice

Base
  • 100g quinoa flakes
  • 50g coconut flakes (no sugar added)
  • 50g rolled oats*
  • 1 tablespoon raw pure cacao nibs (total sugars 3.6g/100g)
  • 80g virgin coconut oil
  • 2 large egg whites (free-range,organic)
Filling
  • 200g rhubarb, cut into 1 cm slices
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Top
  • 3 large egg whites (free-range, organic)
  • 50g fine desiccated coconut (no sugar added)
* You could make this totally gluten-free by using uncontaminated oats, or simply replacing the 50 grams of oats with more quinoa flakes.

Preheat oven to 180C and line a 25cm x 15cm baking tray with baking paper.

For the filling, place the rhubarb and ground cinnamon, along with a dash of water (a couple of tablespoons) into a small saucepan. Bring the mixture to boil, then let simmer while you make the base and the filling. Stir the mixture every now and then and just let it cook until quite thick. Set aside to cool.

For the base, place the quinoa flakes, coconut flakes, oats and cacao nibs into a food processor. Grind the ingredients into a fine-ish mixture, then add the coconut oil and grind until the mixture comes together. Beat in the egg whites. Spoon the dough in the baking dish and, using your hands, spread on the baking sheet into a 1-2 cm thick base.

For the topping, beat the egg whites in a clean bowl until thick. Carefully fold in the coconut.

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a *fresh* technique for working out your life values

This week in Sunday Life I find my sweet spot

klaus pichler a *fresh* technique for working out your life values
Photo by klaus pichler

It always surprises me when I come back as a “glass half full” type in aptitude tests because there are few people more down on positive thinking than me. I blame it on vision boards. Seriously, those silly craft projects geared at manifesting husbands and mansions really sullied the whole movement.

But there’s also this, and it’s something the psychology fraternity is coming around to: shape-shifting our thoughts – turning frowns upside down and all that jazz – takes too much energy. And seems pointless, in the wash of it all.

Recently in this magazine New York writer Sara Eckel wrote about her time in the single wilderness bombarded with those messages about sunnier-fying your outlook to attract the bloke. Eventually she found her bloke. Not because she shape-shifted, but because she simply met the right bloke, the one who loved her for her sometimes cloudy outlook.

Sure, it’s no fun dragging around a ball and chain. But nor is trying to turn said ball into a bunch of bouncy pink balloons.

What about simply mustering strength, picking up the damn ball and continuing forward, carrying it close to your chest?  Yes! Continuing forward!

Crudely, this is the gist of the “new wave”of behavioural therapy. Called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), it goes beyond the positive psychology model and gets us to accept (rather than challenge) our emotions via mindfulness exercises, and to commit to life by identifying and following our values. Dozens of controlled studies show ACT to be more effective than other form of therapy for everything from eating disorders to schizophrenia.

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5 inspiring things to learn about writing from Kate Grenville (a podcast)

I’m running an occasional series with creative people I admire who have a spark of unique “dive-into-life”-ness that I think we could all learn from.

Picture 20 5 inspiring things to learn about writing from Kate Grenville (a podcast)
pic via sandstone flies

This week Kate Grenville is my guest. Kate is one of Australia’s best-known authors, having written eight books of fiction and four books about the writing process. Her best-known works are the international best-seller The Secret River (my Mum’s favourite book) The Idea of Perfection, The Lieutenant and Lilian’s Story, which I reckon every kid of my generation read at school. Her latest book is Sarah Thornhill…you might’ve read it? Her novels have won many awards both in Australia and the UK, several have been made into major feature films, and all have been translated into European and Asian languages.

She shares some lovely thoughts on how she does what she does….

[display_podcast]

Some points I loved:

* She doesn’t wait for inspiration. She just sits and writes and trusts that this process alone will produce.

* She writes to a routine. She sets the alarm for 5:30 and writes for an hour. She doesn’t care what comes out, but again trusts that some of it will be useable. She then goes back and collates all the bits and pieces and jig-

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my little black book of natural therapies

I get asked rather often what therapies, of all the ones I’ve tried – and I’ve tried a few –  I personally use and recommend. So I thought I’d post on it.

I’ve tried just about every therapy in Christendom. It’s an occupational hazard. From the noise of it all I’ve distilled things down to a bunch of smooth routines and approaches.

123701 3 600 my little black book of natural therapies
Photo by Steven Klein

As a general approach, I keep to a morning routine. Routines are good. They create a firm launch pad and determine the tone of the day.

I also do some regular maintenance stuff. Sometimes I think to myself, “my parents would never do this kind of thing…they’d just get on with it”. Also, it can get expensive, all this “maintenance”.

But I justify it thus:

I do a lot, am engaged in a lot, and I need help to ensure I can keep doing what I love to do.

An athlete gets regular physio. TV stars get blowdries. A rally car driver gets their car serviced. I get regular treatments to keep me well and open and energised.

I rotate the various therapies, according to what continues to keep me open and intimate with life. I’m also a little challenged by the idea of taking good care of myself (I forget and burn out very easily) and so some of these healings are about getting into that space. Being intimate. This is important. I don’t buy nail polish or magazines or shoes or throw cushions. I prefer to do this kind of thing.

My daily practice:

Meditation. I practice the vedic style (with a mantra, 20 minutes  twice a day). I’ve blogged about it here. My teacher Tim can be found here.

Exercise. I move every morning – a mixture of walking, jogging (I’ve taken to barefoot running), yoga, ocean swimming and home weights. I also ride a singlespeed bike. My thing is this: I set out to move every day for 20 minutes minimum. It’s the “every day” bit that matters to me, and my aim is to simply get blood flowing and to feel fresh and to get into the outdoors. I don’t focus on “getting fit” or losing weight. It’s also about flow and agility and feeling vibrant.

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why i get excited about coconut oil (plus coconut sweet potato!)

Coconut oil is getting a lot of very good press lately…much of it from me! I thought I’d clear up WHY it’s good and WHAT I do with the stuff. This first post will tick off the former.

Picture 1 why i get excited about coconut oil (plus coconut sweet potato!)
Coconut oil roasted sweet potato…recipe below

So, know this:

It doesn’t make you fat

Coconut oil is a short-medium chain saturated fat. But saturated fat is bad, right? No. Not the naturally occurring saturated fats, like coconut oil. It’s the artificially adjusted trans fats you want to avoid, like vegetable oils and seed oils. I’ll be posting on this next week, if you’re not quite convinced! Also, when I mention coconut oil, I’m talking virgin coconut oil, not the hydrogenated version (which is bad).

In fact, it helps you LOSE weight

How so? Coconut oil is mostly made up of medium-chain fatty acids (MCFAs), also called medium-chain triglycerides or MCTs. These types of fatty acids produce a whole host of health benefits:

  • MCFAs are smaller. They permeate cell membranes easily, and do not require special enzymes to be utilized effectively by your body.
  • MCFAs are easily digested, thus putting less strain on your digestive system.
  • MCFAs are sent directly to your liver, where they are more readily converted into energy rather than being stored as fat.
  • MCFAs actually help stimulate your body’s metabolism, and increases the activity of the thyroid,
    leading to weight loss.
  •  Coconut oil is nature’s richest source of MCTs (50 per cent of which is lauric acid). This is important as MCTs are proven to assist metabolism and burn fat.

It stops sugar cravings and energy slumps

Your body sends medium-chain fatty acids straight to your liver to use as energy. This means that coconut oil

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