A Muffin – Recipe

I’ve had a new muffin recipe in the making for a while now. Inspired by chats with my awesome peers at Nature Care College. (Where everybody gets as excited as me about healthy food!)

I really wanted to create a muffin that would taste delicious, while also being packed full of nutrition. I wanted the muffin to be; Gluten Free, Sugar Free and Nut Free.

Finally at version 234 (seriously! I’ve been eating A LOT of muffins) I took my experiments out of the house and over to visit my lovely friend Quinny. We had them for morning tea and I am happy to report they were hit!

So… I thought it’s time to share this recipe around, so you can all enjoy them!

Ingredients:

• 3 X poached pears, mushed up.
• 1 cup of ground linseed, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds.
  (I just placed the whole seeds in a small coffee grinder, which I got from Kmart the other day for $12! It took 20secs to grind them up)
• 4 eggs (I always use happy healthy eggs! Pasture raised is best)
• 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
• ¼ cup desiccated coconut
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla
• 1.5 teaspoons of Baking Powder

Topping: (optional)

• Sprinkle of desiccated coconut
• 1 X poached pear sliced

Create:

• Mix everything together.
• Place in Muffin tray (these little guys will rise so only need to fill ¾ of the way)
• Bake on 180 for 12mins
• Cool on rack for 10mins
• EAT!

Updates for 2013 : ) + $12 consults!

My little blogs have been taking a back seat of late… have you missed them? I’ve missed writing them…

I’ve been super-busy with my FINAL year of college. Yep that’s right, my final year!! This year college has been AWESEOME! We are bringing together all of the content from the previous years and getting into all the juicy stuff.

I am feeling extremely lucky, grateful and a little blessed with how 2013 is shaping up and can’t help but be reminded, that when you -  Do what you love….things just really start to flow. 

So what’s flowing for me…

Well first up – I have been spending some time in the nutrition clinic at college, which has been both challenging and fun.

Did you know you can come and see me in the nutrition clinic at Nature Care College for just $12!?

At the moment we have some special equipment in the clinic to test and measure your progress. Using this test we can produce accurate data about your body composition (muscle mass / body fat / skeletal tissue), cell membrane health, hydration level, amount of fluid retention, degree of inflammation / toxicity and your biological age. These tests usually cost between $80-$150. So $12 is a bargain!! And you get to see me If you are interested call Nature Care today and book me in. (My hours there are Thursday’s 2-5:30)

In other news –  I have just landed a 12-month internship. YAY! This is seriously exciting! I will be working with and learning from one of Sydney’s leading naturopaths, Angela Hywood, from Tonic Australia. Angela specialises in Thyroid Function and Autoimmune Disease and is well known as Sarah Wilson’s Naturopath of choice. I am so excited to start my internship which will commence on June 14^th.

I am also VERY excited - to be joining the team at EngageMe as their in-house food coach. EngageMe is a new business focusing on corporate wellness solutions. Headed up by my good friend, Brian Quinlan and his beautiful wife, EngageMe is shaping up to be Sydney’s corporate world solution to getting more out of its employees. If you feel like your work is lacking some engagement right now, why not check out the website and send it on to your HR department **Shameless Plug!!**

You may also notice I have been working on a “new look” website. It’s still in the making and the photos are placeholders, slowly but surely it’s all coming together.

Hope you are all doing what you love and letting it all flow. Having an awesome 2013 peoples..!

X

The after school snack!

I recently had a conversation with my 13 year-old niece (Taylor) who confessed, that when she is at school she -

“Just doesn’t have time to eat!”

WHAT!!?

“Well Aunty Jane, there are so many friends to talk to, things to do – I have more than one group of friends and I have to walk around to visit them all!”

After pondering on this some more, it made me realise that this was just the way it was and changing this behaviour just wasn’t something in my power. When I think back to when I was a teenager at school, I’m pretty sure I was too busy to eat too!

Thinking about it even more, made me realise the importance of the “after school snack” if teenagers are not eating throughout the day, are they coming home starving? are they craving an after school snack? and what are they eating? is it healthy? after not eating all day and then binge eating when they get home, are their snack choices doing them more harm than good?

Enter the experiment…

I recently met Mark, the owner of iFIT gym in Bondi after chatting about his clients and his business he asked me to host a little “snack attack” session with a group of girls that trained at his gym after school.

The goal of the session was to find out what kids currently eat for after schools snacks and entice them with some healthy snacks and capture their thoughts.

So here’s what happened.

There were 14 girls involved. I prepared 5 healthy snacks for taste testing.

• Homemade meatballs
• Lettuce cups, with cheese and cucumber
• Handful of snow peas
• Olives
• Sliced apple with brazil nut butter Spread

Each of the girls was given the following worksheet to capture their thoughts after the “taste testing” of each snack.

What I learned.

After school the kids usually snacked on a range of things including; A Cheesy Mite Scroll from Bakers Delight, A piece of Fruit, Sushi, A packet of chips, Sandwich and biscuits.

The results of the snacks test:

The Snow Peas were a HIT – reporting a rating of 10 out of 10 with most of the girls. They loved the “crunch”

It’s a great idea to just fill up a little zip lock bag with some snow peas cut in half. That way the kids can eat them the same way they would eat a packet of chips. Prepare them in the morning and have them ready in the fridge waiting for them when they get home.

The Meatballs came in second with a 8.5 out of 10. The girls were really keen to get their Mums to make these at home.

The good thing about the meatballs is that a big batch can be prepared on a Sunday night and then just kept in the fridge ready for the hungry teenager when they get home. Note: The girls ate these cold.

Lettuce cups with cheese and cucumber 8 out of 10. “I LOVE IT!” was one of the comments

Note: I was given very specific feedback here. “Jane please slice the cheese nice and thin!” Whoops! I used a good quality Cheddar Cheese here. Again with this one, you cut up some cheese and cucumbers at the beginning of the week and its so easy for them to just help themselves after school.

The apple at brazil nut butter was very well received, about a 6 out of 10, with those that could eat it.

There were a large number of girls with braces and therefore unable to bite into the apple. : (  

Olives – these guys got a very mixed reaction and a few 0 out of 10’s.

Poor little olives!

So there you have it, at least 4 new healthy after school snacks, rated by the kids themselves. Easy to prepare in advance, easy for them to help themselves and cheap too!

Enjoy : )

Be. Good to their body

If you are unsure what to feed your family why not book a coaching session with me.