Avo Crispbread

Well, Olive Pate is one thing, but you need something to spread it on. So here is one of my absolute favorite things to eat, mashed avo and crispbread.

Usually I just mash the avo in a dish with a fork, add enough lemon juice for tang and then add some of Mary-Ann's Garlic and Herb Salt to taste, love that stuff, makes everything taste great without that heavy garlic after affect.


This time we made a guacamole type deal with the avo by using the food processor to blend. We added juice of about half a lemon, some spring onions, a little finley chopped parsley and some of Mary-Ann's Garlic and Herb Salt.

I then got out the Salsa Corn Crispbread made by Orgran love this stuff too. I used to be a sucker for melba toasts or any kind of crunchy crisp breads, but then we cut out wheat/gluten from our diet, and I've since missed something crunchy like toast or the likes of. Really glad we found this stuff since it's gluten free and all, the Salsa flavour goes the best with Avo.

For the record I used to hate olives and Avo, amazing what you learn to love... Okay so I'm still working on the olive thing, but this pate is excellent. So did the olive pate first, then topped it with the Guac/avo then some sliced tomatoes and finished it off with da herb salt.


You can do whatever works for you, my wife turns hers into a salti crax delight, piling it high adding stuff like chopped red & yellow bell peppers and her chillie concoction....whatever, the point is to enjoy!

Olive Pâté

Been trying to do raw as much as possible lately, especially while it's summer, hot and easier to eat raw food, winter however is interesting without a dehydrator on hand. Yet even in the heat of the African sun where you almost crave raw foods, I find it's still difficult to keep things interesting. We've only started out researching the 100% raw way and find we run out of ideas for something quick, tasty, different and versatile. This is one of Mary-Ann's recipe's and I love that it takes minutes to make and I am yet to find someone that doesn't love it, even olive haters.

For the raw enthusiasts out there, yes, I know I'm using cashews, and that they're not classed as 100% raw but it's a good start and way healthier than anything found on grocery shop shelves, especially in South Africa.

A friend tried this at our place the other day and has been hounding me for the recipe, so B, this one's for you!

Olive Pate

Ingredients:

1 Cup Cashews

10-15 de-pitted olives (I mixed a few different types)

A little lemon juice & filtered water to help it blend (about a couple of tablespoons of each should do it, but just check the consistency)

Process the nuts in a food processor, I tried it in a blender and it worked just as well, but it seemed more liquid and lost the pate consistency, I also found I needed to add more liquid to get it to blend and needed to scrape the sides and under the blade a lot to get the nuts to blend, but it worked non the less and still tasted great.

Add olives lemon juice and water and blend further till it resembles pate, it actually looks like liver pate when done, but tastes way better.

Enjoy!

De-stone olives

Add olives to ground nuts

Voila!

Salad Platter

It's quite something to think that you can get excited about a simple salad, but this baby was delicious. Simply made up of sliced lettuce in the middle, grated carrots, cucumber, tomatoes, red pepper, onions, avo, olives and some sprouts, we added artichoke tops and a bit of chillie for a bite. You can also add grated beetroot but we found you need to grate it in the food processor it's one hecitclly tough vegetable.

In the beginning.......

Hi, This is Stephen and Denise and this is our blog expressing our journey to a healthier lifestyle after I, Stephen, hit a major bump in the road over 3 years ago. It’s a long detailed story which we will post sometime, but the short version is that after 15 years of no real exercise, bad eating habits and way too much work, I climbed on a rowing machine at gym and rowed for an hour. As soon as I stopped I immediately felt like I had done something to my chest, injured it in some way, yet being under the usual pressure at work with no real time to have it checked out I consequently continued through life for almost a full week. Till one day in the middle of chaos in the office my body began a loud shout for help in my direction. I sat back in my chair and thought “Oh God, what is this, a heart attack?” I immediately climbed into my car and headed in the direction of my local GP, calling Denise to describe to her the exact symptoms of a heart attack – dry mouth, tight chest, pins and needles – very scary, especially on your own in a car on a highway. As I progressed I found I was battling to breath, let alone talk or continue driving, I thankfully managed to find a cop that was ticketing someone on the side of the road. He passed directions onto a frantic Denise who by this stage was racing her way to my rescue. When she arrived they moved me over to the passenger seat and drove me to the nearest hospital with police escort. Thankful that I was still concious and had so far not seen my life flash before my eyes, or headed down any tunnels with bright, shining lights, I was rushed into the emergency room where I was poked and prodded for a series of tests. Two hours later I was released from hospital with nothing more than a “you’ve had a panic attack, go and see a heart specialist just to be sure, but you'll live” I was left with a sense of "Great news... ummm I think....but now what??" When I queried the frequency of these cases, since I was a newbie to all this, I was told that they treat at least 8-10 a day stating that people are just too stressed......