Australia voted YES! Rainbow Pizza & Pancakes for Marriage Equality.

Although I’m not a member of the LGBT community, I believe in equal rights, and so, hearing that 61.6% of Australians had voted “YES” in the recent postal vote (legalising gay marriage) was overwhelmingly exciting.

Naturally, I decided to draw inspiration from the rainbow flag, which represents the LGBT movement, and make rainbow pizza and pancakes to celebrate.

If you want to make eye-catching rainbow meals, read on.

Rainbow Pancakes (makes 15)

We’ll start with the pancakes – since they are the simplest, and because everyone wishes dessert would come first.  These are the perfect breakfast or lunch (or dinner?) recipe.

You will need food dye, pancake mix, vanilla essence, fruit (to garnish) and butter for greasing.

Start by working off the pancakes you’re about to eat, and shake the pancake mix like crazy as per its instructions.

Once it’s ready, add 1 tsp of vanilla essence to the mixture (gives it a delightfully sweet tang) and pour 65g of the mixture into 6 different bowls. Add the food dye as follows:

Red – 8 drops red dye

Orange – 2 drops red, 4 yellow

Yellow – 5 drops yellow

Green – 5 drops green

Blue – 5 drops blue

Purple – 3 drops red, 1 blue

Then cook the pancakes over a medium heat in a frying pan. Tip: make sure you add butter to pan between each pancake so they don’t stick and burn (and earn a lovely, buttery aftertaste). You can also use coconut oil as a non-dairy alternative.

Voila! Garnish with berries.

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Rainbow Pizza (makes 8 pieces)

I like it simple so I decided to go with store bought pizza bases. If you can get them I recommend Bazaar Gourmet Pizza bases. You could also use a Cauliflower Crust, if you are looking for a lower calorie alternative.

You will need:

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  • 1 Pizza Base
  • Tomato Paste
  • Shredded Mozzarella Cheese (you can use light mozzarella if you want something healthier)
  • Colourful Veggies, my suggestions:
    • Red – Red Pepper (Capsicum) & Red cherry tomatoes
    • Orange – Carrot
    • Yellow – Yellow cherry tomatoes, Sweet corn
    • Green – Broccolini, Snow peas
    • Purple – Red onion, Cabbage (I didn’t end up using the cabbage)

After heating the oven to 220˚C, smear the base with tomato paste and sprinkle the cheese on top. Note: this is different to normal pizza recipes. The cheese needs to be put on first so the veggies stick but you can still see their beautiful colours.

Then, chop up all the veggies and place them on the pizza in a rainbow fashion.

Cook for 10 minutes and your pizza is ready!

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These recipes were so tasty, and incredibly fun to make. Let me know if you try it out, or have any other rainbow recipes 🙂

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xx

Baking a Giant ANZAC Cookie

For those reading who aren’t Australian, ANZAC Day is a Public holiday held to commemorate the first military action initiated by Australian and New Zealand forces in the first world war. Hence, ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

Traditionally, Australian’s bake ANZAC cookies (a sweet biscuit made of rolled oats and syrup) on the day, in memory of the soldier’s staple food which was a hard biscuit (no sugar involved) made with ingredients that ensured the biscuit wouldn’t go mouldy. Sadly, the soldiers didn’t get the sweet, warm, oaty crunch of the ANZAC biscuits we bake today.

Today, instead of baking lots of little biscuits I decided to make one giant cookie.

If you want to make it yourself; preheat your oven to 170˚C and mix 150g melted butter, 2 tbsp golden syrup, 1.25 cups of self-raising flour, a dribble of water, 1 cup rolled oats and 1/2 cup caster sugar together. Then use your hands to spread it into a giant cookie and bake for 17 minutes or until golden brown.

I had a slice of cookie with some hot cocoa (cocoa powder, almond milk and a squeeze of maple syrup) in my favourite ‘Life is Beautiful’ Mug. As simple as it is, I love having a funny/inspirational message on my mugs to start the day and this one has to be my favourite.

If you want an fun mug to cheer you up at the start of the day, I recently found these awesome ‘life is beautiful’ mugs. You have to admit they are absolutely adorable… if you’re a sucker for cute things like me. They would make a great gift as well!

Enjoy!! Have you made ANZAC cookies before? Comment below and we can chat 🙂

xx

The Cafe that Has it All

Wild Sage, Cammeray is a bustling brekkie, lunch AND dinner destination that you won’t want to miss. The menu has such a wild range of food options that even the fussiest eaters could find something to appease them. So bring along your pickiest friends, but if that hasn’t got you convinced their relatively – remember we are talking Sydney Lower North Shore guys – cheap prices will.

I went for breakfast with a friend and was amazed at the array of food options. I found it difficult to choose between their sweet chia pod with coconut yogurt/crunchy granola and their savoury ‘Healthy Bowl’. In the end, I decided to go for the savoury option which was a delicious fusion of avo, grilled haloumi, quinoa, spinach, poached eggs and a shot that had hints of ginger. It was even tastier than it sounds.

You’ll be sitting in a large open room, with lots of other tables so its a great spot for an event or a large group of people. The restaurant is decorated with colourful artworks and pot plants, hung amongst glass panes.

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For lunch, I recommend their chilli pulled pork slider bun, which is perfectly tender and will satisfy your spicy cravings. Pair that with a sweet beverage from their extensive drinks menu – perhaps their Pineapple/Mint frappe or fresh coconut water served in the shell.

And there’s more. For dinner, dress up and take a special someone to indulge in one of their share plates. I’m a sucker for good seafood so my favourites would have to be the seared scallops with aioli or the King prawns served with steamy garlic bread. I’m going to be honest with you, the mains do get quite pricey as the restaurant becomes more expensive for dinner. But, it will be worth it when, for $32, you can have Wagyu striploin or marinated lamb cutlets.

As much as I want to delve into explaining all the great food options available, it would take too long. Hop onto their swanky website (which is as beautifully crafted as their food) if you have further foodie questions you want answered (http://wildsage.com.au/)

Give this modern Australian cuisine a go, and enjoy a meal out with friends!

xx

The Ultimate Homemade Freakshake

Okay find your stretchy pants and prepare yourself for the treat of the year.

I love am obsessed with chocolate, and recently I’ve been wanting to devise the perfect dessert that will satisfy my cravings. For this dessert, I’m diverging from my usual healthy desserts and going all out. However, it still has a couple of substitutions from a traditional Freakshake for some extra nutrition benefits!

Credit to Pinterest for helping me discover the original Freakshake.

You will need:

  • 3 of your favourite chocolate bars – I chose Kit Kat, Twix Bar and Mini Toblerone
  • Plain regular donuts – try Noshu Donuts (they are 97% sugar free, low carb, high fibre and gluten free).
  • 3 scoops of Halo Top (DF options) or FroPro icecream
  • 1 cup coconut milk
  • 1/2 cup coconut cream
  • 2 tbsp Cocoa powder
  • 2 drops MyProtein Chocolate FlavDrops
  • You could even add a spoon of peanut butter to the shake if you are craving some nuttiness

Method:

  1. Pop three generous scoops of ice cream, coconut cream, the milk, peanut butter and the cocoa powder into a blender, and whip together. You can add bits more of different ingredients to get the best flavour for you!
  2. Pour the shake mixture into the milkshake glass.
  3. Decorate away! Go crazy poking the choccies into the creamy shake.
  4. Slide the donuts onto the straws and pop in (make sure to do this before the straws are in the shake, or as you fiddle, it may overflow).
  5. Enjoy!

And it’s as easy as that. Your perfect dessert for a cheeky treat.

xx