The Mary Poppins Drawer of Possibility (+ a little giveaway)

Does this look familiar?…

{note the naughty puppy photo-bombing on the bottom right, joyfully attacking my plant}

Yes. It’s that one drawer in your house that is the family’s dumping ground. Need a hair elastic? A Panadol? An allen key to put together your new Ikea furniture? This is where you’ll find one.

I like to call it: The Mary Poppins Drawer of Fun.

I think I am a reasonably organised person, but for some reason The Mary Poppins Drawer of Fun is completely UNorganised – mostly with take away menus that have been tried (or the intention to try). And as we have moved house 3 times in the last 4 years, we have quite the impressive collection of Melbourne’s finest (and not so fine) take-away menus.

3 things no.3! || nanas, love & mandarins

Time for another edition of everyone’s favourite game – 3 things!

3 things I learnt/realised/randomly thought about this week || no.3

#1 Nana’s can be cruel

You know it’s time to book an emergency hair appointment when your 90 something glasses-wearing-nana says:

“Oh look at those roots Anna. Are you growing your hair out to go back to your natural colour?”

Touché Nana. Touché.

This is my Nana. See? I told you she wore glasses.

#2 That I quite possibly have had too many failed relationships

‘Nuff said really. Or if you now find yourself more intrigued read this for a laugh: The Tragically Failed Relationships Mix Tape.

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#3 Mandarins are a sometimes food

It’s mandarin season in Australia. I would like to warn everyone though that a mandarin is no substitute for chocolate during a craving. No matter what anyone tells you. (Stupid Nutritionists).

In fact, I think they should actually be eaten like this.

Friends for life (and in ma belly) … (Green & Blacks Organic & Fair trade Chocolate)

How about you? What things have you learnt/realised/randomly thought about this week?

x anna 

3 things no.2! || boobies, coconuts, birth

Did you like our first 3 things?

Well then let’s not stop now. Here’s edition no.2!

3 things I learnt/realised/randomly thought about this week || no.2

#1 LITTLE KIDS ARE funny HILARIOUS

I spent the weekend on the Sunshine Coast (Queensland) visiting my 3 nieces and nephew and apart from an education in Frozen, I came away with some gold-nugget quotes that are still making me laugh.

This is perhaps my favourite – from my 4 year-old nephew who I guess has had a lesson or two at Kindy on God recently:

“God is in your heart. Your heart is in the middle of your boobies”

 Fair enough.

My nephew. Always smiling (and always happy to entertain a crowd ie. the future Hugh Jackman?)

#2 I WISH I INVESTED IN A COCONUT TREE PLANTATION 10 YEARS AGO

Actually, also a Chia Seed farm, Quinoa farm, Cacao farm… I would be a bazillionaire right now.

AND have wonderful skin.

In addition to a coconut plantation, I would also have my very own human-coconut opener. This guy I met in Fiji collects the nuts from local farms, pays them a fee, then sells them roadside for weary travellers. Makes a motza he does.

#3 AN AUSSIE BABY IS BORN EVERY 2 MINUTES

That means that in the time taken to eat my lunch, 5 brilliant women have been to hell and back. 

Just holding my sanga to my mouth is often a hard enough physical challenge for me some days. Nice work ladies.

The sorella baby. THE cutest. Her mother is lucky she didn’t get put in my handbag after shooting the catalogue to bring home with me.

And that’s a wrap for another exciting instalment of 3 things!

I would love to hear what you have learnt/realised/randomly though about this week?

~ anna x

Think. Eat. Save.

It’s World Environment Day!

A stunning butterfly I found hanging out by my vegie patch

Celebrated every year on June 5th, World Environment Day is a campaign run under the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) aiming to raise awareness and bring about positive environmental action.

This year, the campaign’s theme is Think. Eat. Save – which encourages us to be more aware of our food choices, and the carbon footprint we are creating through such choices and waste.

The UNEP provides a couple of great ideas to easily get started:

“Purposefully select foods that have less of an environmental impact, such as organic foods that do not use chemicals in the production process. Choosing to buy locally can also mean that foods are not flown halfway across the world and therefore limit emissions.”   

We all know that we love organics at sorella & me! (Organic sleepwear anyone? Yes please!)

Our environment is clearly something we are all responsible for.  And every little bit helps.  On World Environment Day last year, we posted 10 really easy things you can start doing today to help the environment – check them out here.

So now to add to that list with this years theme, we are going to be more mindful about the food choices we make and what we waste more broadly – “Think before you eat and help save our environment!”.

I already try to buy organic food when possible, but I am going to try and understand more about seasonal fruits and vegetables too.  There is no point in buying a product that has been flown in from the other side of the world – even if it is organic. It’s easy to pop that item in your basket without thinking about it – but from now, let’s stop, think, and make an alternative selection if need be.

And my other goal is to finally start the compost I have been talking about doing for the past 2 years. Living in rental properties has stopped me from setting one up but it’s so important and can make such a difference. So these are my new goals.

For more ideas on greening your lifestyle, check out this great A-Z list from the UNEP.

And don’t forget to check out our friends at Sustainable Table, who have a heap of resources (and a couple of great cookbooks!) on how our food choices can impact our environment.

Do you have any green-tips you’d like to share with the sorella-hood? Perhaps you only shop locally?  Maybe you only buy seasonal fruit and vege? Whatever it is, we’d love to add it to our list!

 ~ anna

Get your velvet on – beetroot style!

Did you see Alisha’s post on the sorella & me facebook page yesterday in all its sugary goodness?

Alisha’s perfect and delicious cup cake…. jealous much?

Right at 3pm – in all our dropped blood-sugar states – she thought she’d share a photo of a delicious cupcake.

What a bi-atch.

In my opinion, not only was it rude because it was at a time when a cup cake would have gone down quite nicely (I am cranky when I am hungry), but also rude because there are many of us who are trying really really hard to convert to a sugar-free lifestyle – and succeeding or not, we don’t need a reminder of what we are missing out on!

So I hit Sarah Wilson’s latest sugar free cookbook for some inspiration to compete with my now very real and very present sweet cravings. I have unapologetically pushed my love for Sarah on you numerous times – see here and here for examples – and it’s crises like these that support my reason why.

And whoalah! I found an option I knew would come close to providing some sort of cake relief – and I just happened to have a couple of beautiful organic beets in the fridge ready for the taking. Now…. be open minded to a vegetable based cake. No one likes a vege-ist.  And anyway, you like carrot cake right?

I present:

Beetroot Red Velvet Cupcakes – from Sarah Wilson’s I Quit Sugar – Chocolate Cookbook

(And double bonus – they can also be gluten and dairy free if you need…..)

Ingredients (all organic where possible peeps!)

• 2 large beetroot – grated
• 1 & 1/2 cups almond meal
• 4 tablespoons raw cacao powder*
• 3 tablespoons of coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder**
• 1/4 cup rice malt syrup***
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (Gluten free)
• Pinch of Salt

For the icing – if you aren’t sugar free, you could do a normal icing.  If you aren’t dairy free you could do a philly cream cheese icing (aka banana or carrot cake).  If you are sugar and dairy free you could do a coconut cream or cashew cream icing (these recipes are also in Sarah’s book).

My variations:*

* You can never have enough chocolatey goodness – Call me crazy but I added an extra couple of tablespoons of cacao.  This meant I also needed to up the wet ingredients so added a touch more oil

** I can’t justify having vanilla powder in my cupboard – but open to invest in the future as many of Sarah’s recipes include it. So in this instance, it was a teaspoon of vanilla extract for me.

*** Taste the batter before you commit to the oven! If it’s not sweet enough add some more rice malt syrup. Everyone’s tastebuds are different and especially with the earthiness of the beets, you might want to up the sweet stuff to more easily convince friends afraid of a sugarless lifestyle and wary of your vegetables moonlighting as cup cakes.

The super pretty redness of the beetroot make this cake mix look more like a science experiment… but a delicious one.

Method:

Preheat oven to 170degs and grease a 12 cupcake tin. Blend together in a blender (or go crazy with a stick-blender, thermomix, food-processer…. whatever floats your boat), until nice and smooth.  Divide between the 12 cake tin and pop into the oven.

Sarah suggests baking for 40 mins (my non-fan-forced oven meant 160degs for me for just 25 minutes. BAM! That’s chocolate goodness in less time than an episode of Bold and the Beautiful…. I can’t believe Liam didn’t choose Hope by the way. Idiot.)

My little baby in all its red-guilt-free-glory:Enjoy!

~ anna

I quite fancy the idea of being Nigella Lawson’s sister!

Nigella Lawson’s new Book Nigellissima

It was my birthday yesterday, and my fiancé had no chance of winning the gift giving competition when my friend handed me a copy of Nigella Lawson’s new cookbook signed by the Queen of Cookery herself.

I quite fancy the idea of being Nigella’s ‘sorella’ (sister).

The message was as sweet as I expect her Nutella chocolate cheesecake will be (page 175).

There has been alot of discussion about the inevitable demise of physical books from our lives. Page-turning is a dying pastime and instead, more and more of us are finding ourselves giving up and joining the masses in tablet reading.  Even my future mother-in-law has recently acquired an iPad – and this paper-page turning aficionado has confessed that she loves it. It will only be a matter of time before we see a Kindle in her hands.

Kids in the Kitchen: Chewy Cornflake Slice

There’s nothing new about this slice but it’s such a winner for busy Mums on the go! Plus, it’s a brilliant recipe for kids who love ‘helping’ in the kitchen. My daughter loves making this because apart from the chopping and chocolate melting, she can do most herself. Her favourite step in her words: “mixing the gooey and chewy part!”

As long as you have the flour, cornflakes and the condensed milk the rest you can substitute from your pantry with any dried fruit or nuts, coconut is great, dried apricots and even oats – whatever your kids love!  We usually to make a different version each time.

CHEWY CORNFLAKE SLICE

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups corn flakes

¼ cup organic sultanas

¼ cup sweetened dried cranberries

¼ cup plain flour

80g pistachios

1 can sweetened condensed milk

A row (or 2!) of Chocolate

METHOD:

 1. Preheat the oven to 180C.  Line a baking tray with baking paper.

2. Chop or Blend the dry ingredients to own desirable size, and combine in a bowl.

3. Add sweet condensed milk.  Mix until gooey and chewy goodness is combined!

4. Smooth mixture into prepared tray and bake 180 degrees 25 minutes

5. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.  Set aside to cool slightly.

6. When slice cooled, add chocolate to the top in lined pattern using a fork and refrigerate to set.

7. Cut into squares to serve and fight your children for a piece!!!

Do you have a quick and easy never-fail recipe you make with your kids?

~ alisha

It’s a very pink day today. And it’s fabulous!

Today is ‘Pink Day’ at my “other job” when not working on sorella & me…as secondary school teacher!

Seeing 14-year-old boys with balloons for breasts and wearing pink bras, I’ll admit, makes me feel a little uneasy (!)… But their dress-ups and spirit is heart-warming and for a great cause – we are fundraising for Breast Cancer research as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And today, I remember my beautiful Aunty who lost her young life to Breast Cancer.

sweet pink ribbon biscuits!

Chocolate Chia Seed Cake

After a really random connection with foodie blogging team the The Nutrition Guru & The Chef ….{Tara recognised her hubby – The Chef part of the duo – in our photo of the Wasabi team at the Noosa International Food & Wine festival}…. we have been avid fans of their blog and Tara’s hilarious antics – cruise their facebook page for many hilarious examples!.

Recently on the blog, Tara shared a recipe (and some of her own cute pics) from Tania Hubbard’s gorgeous cookbook “Gluten Free…Grain Free…Food We Love” for a Chocolate Chia Cake – and I knew I just had to try it.

It was, as predicted (and as demonstrated by ‘The Chef’ apparently demolishing the entire cake in one sitting) – delicious.

So I couldn’t help but share it for our sorellas (even though I know many of you have now also signed up for the blog directly after my chicken soup post & have also liked their facebook page – good move!).

I have tweaked a couple of things to make it dairy and sugar-free for those of us with various nasty symptoms these things cause….but you could of course stick with Tania’s original recipe.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Chia Seed Cake

by Tania Hubbard via The Nutrition Guru & the Chef

Here is the original recipe by Tania Hubbard, for those who say yes to sugar and dairy, and my sugar & dairy free substitutions are below…. & the method is direct from The Nutrition Guru & The Chef (and do head over to see their original post for the nutritional facts for these ingredients – handy for guilt free cake-eating!)

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons chia seeds, soaked in 1 cup of water for 15 minutes.
• ½ cup raw cocoa
• 125g softened butter*
• 5 medium to large eggs
• 1 cup (175g) almond meal
• 1 cup coconut palm sugar, or your choice of sugar **
• Pinch salt
• 1 teaspoon bicarb soda

* I used ½ cup organic coconut oil – melted. The Nutrition Guru used ½ cup olive oil

**I used 3/4 cup Rice Malt Syrup – The Nutrition Guru used ¾ cup raw sugar. (Please note that Rice Malt Syrup is a grain based product and whilst it is gluten free, it is manufactured in many facilities that also use other gluten based grains in production, so please be careful with this one!)

The Nutrition Guru also added some dried cranberries (clever!). Next time I’ll be adding some dried apricots because I’m a sucker for an apri-choc combo (I also use organic ingredients where possible).

Method

• Preheat oven to 180C.
• Line a spring-form cake tin with non-stick baking paper.
• Soak chia seeds in 1 cup of water for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. The seeds will absorb all the water and swell to form a gel.
• Place all the ingredients in a bowl.
• Whisk to combine well & break up any lumps (at least 1 minute).
• Pour into lined cake tin.
• Bake in oven for 30-35 minutes or until it bounces back when pressed in middle.
• Let the cake cool for 5-10 minutes in the tin.
• Finish cooling on a wire cooling rack.
  

  Chia Seeds doing their gooey thang

A whisk will do but I like any excuse to give the old Kitchen Aid a whirl. It makes me feel like a pro. Plus I’m lazy. Just don’t over do it otherwise your cake will be tough!

Quick! Get it in the oven before I eat all the mix!

Get yours while it’s hot (because it won’t last long!)

Love this recipe? Get more from The Nutrition Guru & The Chef on their facebook page and blog. It’s choc full of recipes and great nutrition info.

And here’s the link to the Tanya Hubbard’s website. You can also buy her book here. We thank her for creating such a delicious and original recipe!

P.S Avoid picking a fight with the spring-form pan. It will win.

Is this a cake you’d be keen to try?

~ anna

Gettin’ bloggie with it!

If you’ve kept an eye on the sorella & me facebook page over the last few days you would have seen that Anna and I were fortunate to spend two days at the ProBlogger Training Event in Melbourne – getting our bloggie on!! The event brings 300 bloggers of all levels together to learn and network.

Anna and I really enjoy writing the sorella-hood blog and connecting with you all here, sharing our observations on ‘life’, and hopefully providing you a place to have a laugh (at our expense) or learn something new.  We were grateful for the opportunity to find out how do this better by attending the ProBlogger training – it was such a treat to take some time out to listen and learn from the experts in the country… as experts on blogging we certainly are not!

What we perhaps enjoyed the most was meeting lots of fabulous people in the blogging game. Many who have amazing stories to share, are very clever, and are very very funny!

So for a little round-up of our experience, we thought you might like to know a little more about who these people are that dedicate such a big part of their lives writing…. What are bloggers all about?

Here’s what we reckon:

1. Bloggers are generous & inspiring.

They have great advice and experience and are willing to share with others with open arms.  This is unheard of in many areas of life – You rarely have experts in their field so willing to help others succeed. It was incredibly refreshing.

One of the ProBlogger panel of speakers: From left to right, Eden Riley of Edenland; Mrs Woog; of Woogsworld and Lorraine Murphy from blogging agency The Remarkables Group

2. Bloggers feel like old friends

Bloggers feel like good friends you’ve known for ages. They are real people with real stories and they make it easy for you to feel a connection with them. We ‘know’ many virtually and it was wonderful to finally meet them in person, including Nikki from Styling You.

There were lots of chatting ops (usually over lots of food…See point 4)

3. Bloggers have great hair.