At Newsfix we love our treats, especially when they are homemade, healthy, organic and delicious - so we do hope you enjoy this recipe from regular contributor and local naturopath Katherine Maslen....

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup goji berries

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup warm water

1 cup raw cashews

1/2 cup coconut

1 tbsp unhulled tahini

1 tbsp chlorella powder (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Place goji berries and raisins in a bowl with the warm water and mix through. Leave for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

2. Meanwhile, process cashews on low in a food processor until chopped finely. Remove from processor and place aside.

3. Place soaked goji berries and raisins in the food processor with soaking water. Process into a paste.

4. Add cashews, coconut, tahini and chlorella to processor. Process on medium until well combined.

5. Roll into balls and toss in shredded coconut.

6. Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Who is Katherine Maslen?

Try this delicious and healthy banana and carrot cake recipe. It is wheat, sugar and dairy free, so it's great for your digestive health, detoxing or just as a healthy snack!

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups rye or spelt flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp celtic sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
2/3 cup macadamia, coconut or rice bran oil
1/2 cup xylitol or honey
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (around 3 large bananas)
2 large organic eggs
1 cup oats
1 cup grated carrot (around 3 medium carrots)
1/2 cup walnuts (optional)

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius.

2. Combine flour, baking soda, salt and spices in a large bowl.

3. In another bowl, combine banana, oil, xylitol/honey and eggs, beating together well.

4. Add liquid mix to flour mix and combine well.

5. Stir in oats, walnuts and oats. Combine well.

6. Spread into a greased cake tin.

7. Bake for 40 minutes or until you can stick a skewer in the middle and it comes out clean.

Many people think of grapefruit as being sour and unpalatable - but they can actually be quite delicious if served correctly. 

Grapefruits are packed full of powerful antioxidants such as vitamin C and citrus bioflavonoids. Pink or Ruby grapefruits are particularly high in antioxidants. They contain good levels of lycopene, the same antioxidant that gives tomatoes and watermelon their red hue.

Grapefruit helps detoxification, reduces allergies and boosts your immune system!

Many people eat grapefruit as part of their detoxification routine. Grapefruit is best to be consumed at night, after dinner, as it down regulates phase one and up regulates phase 2 detoxification, which naturally occurs as you sleep.

Try eating half a grapefruit or drinking 200ml of unsweetened grapefruit juice an hour before bed.

To improve taste, you can sprinkling cinnamon on your grapefruit, for an aromatic flavour.

You could even sprinkle a little xylitol on top to make it sweeter if you like.

Muesli is a great breakfast food, but most store bought varieties are high in sugar, preservatives and even artificial flavours and colorings. Making your own is easy, and you can change it day to day or week to week. Either have the ingredients seperate and make it on the spot or mix up a batch for a quick and delicious breakfast.

Step 1: The muesli base
Use some of the following as a base. As a rule, oats are great (unless gluten intolerant) and if you are gluten intolerant use only the grains marked GF.

Rolled oats                        Puffed amaranth (GF)                       Puffed brown rice (GF)
Rice flakes (GF)                 Natural corn flakes (GF)                    Puffed spelt
Puffed kamut                    Puffed buckwheat                             Puffed millet (GF)
Quinoa flakes (GF)            

Step 2: Add some nuts and seeds
Adding nuts and seeds gives your muesli protein. You can also add LSAP to your muesli to give it protein and beneficial fats.

Almonds                                Walnuts                                    Pepitas
Cashews                               Pecan nuts                               Sunflower seeds
Hazelnuts                              Macadamia nuts                       Sesame seeds
Brazil nuts                             Poppy seeds                            Chia seeds

Step 3: Add some fruit
Fresh fruit is best as dried fruit is quite concentrated in sugar. If you do have dried fruit, remember to have only as much as you would fresh (i.e. if you would eat 3 apricots at once then eat only 3 dried ones). Berries are particuarly beneficial, with frozen ones fine to use.

Fresh                                          Dried                                            Stewed
Blueberries                                   Goji berries                                      Apple
Rasperries                                     Apricots                                         Rhubarb
Strawberries                                 Sultanas                                          Pear
Blackberries                                   Figs  
Kiwifruit                                        Dates
Banana                                         Cranberries
Figs                                              Coconut

Step 4: Milk or yoghurt
You can either have your muesli with milk or yoghurt, or even both. Rice, oat or almond milk is best, but if you are having dairy milk make sure it is full fat and either A2 milk or certified organic milk.

You can make a bircher muesli by soaking your muesli overnight in apple juice or yoghurt, you can even add grated apple, grated pear or berries to the mix.

Use some raw unfiltered honey to sweeten if you like. Powdered ginger and cinnamon are also a great addition to your muesli.

This recipe was supplied by Katherine Thomas, naturopath and herbalist, from Wellness One in Milton, Brisbane.

Oliver Hildebrand finds that when it comes to the food industry in Australia, the world is more than just our oyster.

As a former employee in the deli section of one of the major supermarket chains during my student days, I was exposed to a cross section of people and their particular choices in food. To a certain extent it was possible to predict from a superficial examination of the customer some of the products he or she would take home. Parents with children in tow invariably buy ham or some other sort of lunchmeat; seedy looking twenty-something’s often request bacon and hashbrowns on a Saturday morning in an attempt to appease their troubled stomachs with offerings of grease; and stately looking middle aged women, draped in billowing chiffon and healthy collections of gold, appropriate smoked salmon and oysters with an ostentatious lack of concern for price. But every once in a while, a customer takes you by surprise.

“Number 42, customer number 42 please,” I said with thinly veiled boredom. He shuffled forward, back bent, eyes down, shuffling forward on thonged feet, muttering his orders to the floor.

“Half kiler devon… half dozen cheerio… 200 gram veal german” he twitched as he muttered, perhaps craving the clumsily rolled cigarette that sat perched behind his cauliflowered ear. I thought he was finished, when he added,

“And two of them dol-mardees.”

The juxtaposition of his first three orders (which are, coincidentally, described on the packaging as “Manufactured Meat”) with the relatively cosmopolitan dolmade struck me. Was this man broadening his horizons? Was this his maiden voyage outside the typically Australian fare exemplified by his penchant for food containing a 60:40 ratio of meat to flour? He was a regular, and on the few other occasions I had served him I do not recall him ordering anything so exotic. The items on his shopping list up to this point were mostly ones that would have been available when he was a child. The availability of and attitudes towards so-called ethnic foods prevalent 50 or 60 years ago were starkly different to today, when cous cous and semolina sits happily on the shelf next to the “Deb” instant mash.

Ask a member of the baby boomer generation what was served for dinner at their house and they will most probably describe to you a meal consisting of red meat charred beyond recognition and three varieties of vegetables boiled until all traces of flavour and nutritional value are removed. Such is the bland nature of our predominantly British cultural and culinary heritage.

63 year-old Robert remembers his mum’s repertoire including traditional dishes – grills, Irish stew, steak and kidney, tripe and lamb’s fry. “The exception was curry when my Dad cooked. He’d been in the Merchant Navy where they had Indian crews,” he explains. “I blame Mum for putting me off vegetables. It was not until I was older and out of home before I realised that vegies could be quite tasty, providing you didn’t boil them till they became flavourless mush.”

There are two essential parts to this recipe, first the caramel, then the custard.

CARAMEL

3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup water.

Combine sugar and water in medium heavy-based saucepan, stir constantly over heat without boiling until sugar is dissolved.

Bring it to the boil, boil rapidly without stirring for about five minutes or until mixture turns golden brown.

Pour into deep 20 cm. round cake pan. Hold the pan with a cloth and quickly tilt pan to cover base evenly. It is correct that the caramel sets at this stage.

It takes at least l5 to 20 minutes for the caramel to get to the stage of setting.

CUSTARD
6 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1/3 cup castor sugar
1 3/4 cup milk
300 ml. carton thickened cream.

Lightly whisk eggs, vanilla and sugar in a bowl. Combine milk and cream in pan, bring to the boil, allow bubbles to subside from edge of pan. Gradually whisk into egg mixture. Pour custard through a fine strainer over the caramel to remove any tiny specks of egg.

Place pan in baking dish with enough boiling water to come half way up side of pan. Bake in moderate oven for about 40 minutes or until custard is just set - it will set more on cooling. Remove from water, stand several hours to cool at room temperature before refrigerating overnight. This method will ensure the caramel will coat the custard when it is turned out. Turn into serving dish, serve with whipped cream.

The straining of the custard is really essential - it is amazing the amount of egg specks that are caught in the strainer - getting them out really does give a nice smooth texture. Always put the electric oven on at 150 degrees - quite slow - it helps with the texture of the custard. Test to see if it is cooked by inserting a knife gently into the top of the custard. It is a bit fiddly, but well worth the effort.

One final tip from the master, my grandma, "Once the colour starts appearing it must be watched otherwise it could burn quite quickly."

01/02/2009

18/12/08

Farmers of rare tropical fruits such as the mangosteen are predicting a much larger than average season after near perfect conditions this year, during flowering periods in April and August.

Experienced growers in the tropics since 1971, Kim and Anni Haskell, said that they have never seen so much fruit on the trees in the time they have been growing fruit in Bloomfield River, in North Queensland.

“You never can tell with a tree such as the mangosteen, sometimes they just wont even fruit, but this year and we knew we were in for a bumper season as soon as the tree came out in full bloom in August,” Mr Haskell said

The mangosteen or Garcinia mangostana, is believed to be a native fruit of the Sundras Islands and the Moluccas, historically known as the Spice Islands.

The fruit can only be grown along the tropical equatorial band, making the tropical Queensland an ideal place to grow and cultivate the fruit.

A typical internet search will provide one with many exciting claims about the Mangosteen, and more often than not the fruit is called a “superfruit”.

Mr Haskell said that while the fruit is indeed high in anti-oxidants, and rich in nutrients, he tries not to get caught up with buzzwords such as the much vaunted super fruit, wonder fruit or any other kind of fruit miracle, but he acknowledges that the fruit is hugely popular around the world for many reasons.

“I would say the greatest thing about the Mangosteen is the taste, although
many people around the world use the fruit, in treatments, supplements and Chinese medical practices, with the first recorded use of the fruit over 3000 years ago,” he said.

The mangosteen has enjoyed a steady rise in sales over the years as more farmers experiment with more with the rare tree in the tropics, and consumer awareness grows..

“Over the years we have supplied supermarkets, independent fruit vendors, and many
local and not so local restaurants.

Mr Haskell is sure that if he can help get the word out about the benefits of the mangosteen then the public will soon grow to love them.

He said he was hoping for more awareness of his product by everyday consumers at the local supermarket, and hopes an information pact sent to all vendors this summer will help spread the word about the fruit.

“The biggest issue with the Mangosteen is actually getting the word out there that that strange looking fruit at the supermarket really is worth a try,” he said.   

“One year we had an open market up here at Kuranda and we sold 20 boxes in no time at all, people just went crazy for them.

“They had never even seen them before and after just one try, they would take an entire box, so yeah, if people give them a go we think that they will really love them, as a treat, a delacacy, or for the health benefits.