Going back to nature – my weekends in the country

As mentioned in some of my other articles I visit my country retreat almost every weekend. We bought this beautiful piece of Australian shrubs about two years ago. And yes, since then we have spent many hours fixing up the little house and cleaning up the land.

It is an idyllic 100 acres of undulating fields with eucalypt trees and native bushes. Even though it seems like I am working harder on my weekends then during the week at my job, it gives me a certain joy and sensation of achievement. We are still living a bit ‘backwards” and that is, I believe, what makes it so enjoyable. For once we do not have electricity. We use hammer and nails to build structures and only rely on the power inverter which we hook up to our car to do the jobs where we just cannot do without. A tractor is another luxury we ought to buy one day when we can find the right one for the right prize…

Even though I do have a fully (well maybe not as fully as in the city) functioning kitchen, I prefer to do my cooking outside on a campfire or in my pizza oven, which took 6-7 weekends to finish. I am not a labourer and bricklaying is not something I have ever done before, but I gave it a go and with lots of trial and error this oven is now my pride and joy. It makes the best pizzas and fantastic breads and roasts.

This weekend however I did some cooking on a campfire in a big cast iron pot. For the first time since cooking on fire, my dinner burned. It was disgraceful. And all just because I left the pot without supervision for 15 minutes to check on some sheep our neighbour gave us.

Our three little sheep…. Our neighbour had little to none grass left on his property and because we have no animals other then natives anywhere in the place he gave us three of his sheep to take care of. They are still a bit shy, probably because they grew up in a big herd with little contact to humans, but we are getting closer to them every week. If anybody has some tricks on how to get them to be less shy, I would appreciate some advice…

The best things in the country are by far, the fresh air and the wonderful starry nights. It is the most WOW experience to just lay or sit next to your campfire and stare into the sky. I have never seen so many stars, so clear and bright. My big dream is to build a couple of extra cabins and hire them out to visitors for holiday accommodations, but for now I will just enjoy it with friends and family.

But for now I am looking forward to 9 days in New Zealand, leaving in 4 days…

Another Happiness Ingredient = PEACE

As mentioned before happiness has many ingredients, one of them is peace. I am not talking about the peace between countries and nations, even though world peace would be a fantastic and idyllic event, no doubt about it. The peace I am talking about is the peace with ‘what is’. When we constantly argue with reality we will neither be at peace nor be happy.

Yes the world can be an unfair place and things don’t always happen the way you want them to happen, but arguing with what has already happened will not make you feel any better about the situation or yourself.

Most of the arguments arise only in our heads after the event. I am still a big offender of this; I am working on it though. You know the times when you have discussions in your head that will most probably never happen in real life. Or something happened and you play out how it could have happened if only…. (I am not the only one doing that, right?)

This is not living in peace with ‘what is’, and the best way to shut these inner arguments is by realising that you are having them in the first place. When I start the inner chatter and replaying of events, I now quickly remind myself that they are neither real nor important. We waste valuable energy every time we argue with reality.

I used to think that my boss should appreciate me more; and even though I might have liked a bit more positive feedback and recognition, the inner chatter arguing my points of why my boss should be more appreciative made me feel worse. It wasn’t that my boss didn’t like my work, nor do I know for a fact that he never appreciated me. The point is that I felt unappreciated but made it worse by whinging (Australian for whining) to myself that he doesn’t appreciate me. My thoughts made me unhappy. Fact was only that I didn’t see how much he appreciated me. And I told myself how horrible it is to work for him, whilst replaying events long gone of what I should have said and what he should have done.

You could find endless examples of this. “My husband doesn’t love me enough!”; “my mother hates me”; “my teacher always gives me bad marks because she doesn’t like me” ….

Your thoughts make you happy, and every time you have negative thoughts about who has done what, you argue with something that you cannot change or something that might not be real in the first place and will never come to pass.

This does not mean that we should turn a blind eye on incorrect behaviours, abuse or things that need attention. But instead of having the inner voice tell you all day that it was a horrible thing to happen to you, try and make peace with it. Ask your boss for a review, tell your husband you love him and wait till he replies with a ‘love you too’. Go and try to understand, why you are getting bad marks or why your mother behaves the way she does…. You might be surprised to see that it is nothing like the story you repeated over and over in your head.

I am working on this day by day, and it is not always easy to shut up the chatter in my head, but every day it gets easier to reason with what is and except it. Because every time I try and fight with reality- I loose. Time will not be reversible; the milk has been spilled, if you can’t change it- except it.

To inner peace

Three of my favourite parts of Sydney

I live on the outskirts of Sydney and don’t visit the city very often, but when I do go for a day out, I have to go to see three things.

I love the Opera House; there is just something about it that makes me realize that I am finally where I wanted to be for so long. When I first thought of coming to this country I was sitting in my English class in tenth grade. Our teacher made learning English interesting by introducing different English speaking countries and we discussed Australia for a couple of month. She brought in pictures of the Australian landscapes and we talked about the flora and fauna of the country. The Opera House was one of the things I really needed to see…

Ten years later I found my self getting off an airplane in Sydney. And though it took two weeks before I got to see the Opera House I immediately fell in love with it. My first glimpse was when I drove over the Harbour Bridge to meet the family I was working for. I only saw the tip of the structure but the light reflecting of the building reminded me of the beauty of glistening water. Now every time I see the Opera House I have that feeling of “wow - I made it”. And even though it has been seven years now since I first came here I still feel that way.

My next favourite spot in Sydney city is the Botanic Gardens, they are located right next to the Opera House and go for acres and acres of neatly pruned hedges, tropical plants, odd looking trees and the best view of the surrounding waters. The masses of plants and flowers astonish me every time I go. Not to mention the endless numbers of flying foxes that hang in the trees having a well deserved rest. One of my favourite spots within the Botanic Gardens is the Succulent and Cacti gardens. Jamie Durie a famous Australian landscaper has put up a structure of thick iron sheets to make this gorgeous garden patch. It has the feeling of the Australian outback and reflects the shear beauty of this dry country.

Number three of my favourite things to visit in Sydney city is The Rocks. The hustle and bustle at this historic place makes me feel alive every time I go. You can visit the Rocks markets on the weekends, where you can find hand crafted Australian products. It is known for its charm and good restaurants. You can even go and climb the harbour Bridge from here and see the Opera House in a different angle. Visit all the little boutique shops and spoil yourself with a good cup of coffee.

Next time I will visit the city, I will go to Darling Harbour and tell you about that, it is another must see in Sydney and packed with entertainment.

If you are not living in Sydney I can only encourage you to come for a visit, it is by far the most beautiful city I have ever lived in.

Naughty Lemon Meringue (lactose free, no butter, no milk)

One of my best childhood memories is our Sunday afternoon traditions. My mom and I usually made a cake, then the whole family went for a long walk and returned home to have a afternoon coffee and cake, or for the kids it used to be hot chocolate. I am all for traditions and even though times have changed and many traditions got lost, it is nice to keep some or just introduce new ideas and implement them until they seem like a tradition.

Centuries later and I am in a different country with different traditions, and on top of that allergic to milk (there goes the hot chocolate), but I still love some sweets and cakes. Unfortunately most cakes have milk and butter as main ingredients, so here I am inventing my own … This particular one I made yesterday; it is very sweet and scrumptious.

It is easy to make, but looks spectacular. I call it the Naughty Lemon Meringue, its sweet with a slight zest of lemons…

The cake is made up of three different parts, best to start with the lemon filling, then the sponge cake base and last but not least the meringue topping…

Lemon filling

1 washed lemon

1 washed orange

3 spoons of sugar

1 star anise

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Slice the lemon and half of the orange very thin; you can use a grater/slicer, but I found it tears the fruit apart instead of giving you a clean slice, squeeze the leftover half of the orange to get all the juices and simmer over a very low heat in a non stick pan with all the other ingredients of the lemon filling until the juice becomes thicker and the fruit slices softer.

Whilst it simmers away you can start the base…but keep an eye on the filling and don’t burn it

Sponge cake base

This is my basic sponge cake recipe and I use it for a lot of different cakes, it is easy and you don’t need to separate the eggs like other sponge cake recipes require…

3 eggs

3 spoons of water

125g sugar

125g plain white flour

1 teaspoon of baking powder

First beat the eggs, water and sugar to a fluffy consistency and slowly add the flour and baking powder. You need to mix this dough for at least 5-10minutes to get it nice and fluffy… then put in a baking tin lined with baking paper.

IMPORTANT: never grease the tin when doing a sponge cake, it will not bake probably, baking paper on the bottom of the tin will be enough, the edges of this sponge cake can be easily loosened after baking.

Now bake for about 10minutes in the preheated oven on about 200° Celsius. This cake does not have to get brown on the top; just insert a wooden skewer to see if the cake is finished. Don’t overcook it as it will have to go back into the oven once the meringue has been added… Whilst the sponge cake is in the oven, let’s do the meringue…

Meringue topping

IMPORTANT: use clean beaters, you need to wash off the sponge cake dough and use a clean bowl as well,otherwise your eggs will not beat to a fluffy mass…

4 egg whites (use the egg yolk in another recipe, maybe pancakes for breakfast?)

250g caster sugar

1 teaspoon of Vanilla essence

First separate the eggs and beat the egg whites till white peaks form, then slowly spoon by spoon add the sugar and vanilla essence. Beat until the egg white is thick, glossy, all the sugar dissolves and a long trailing peak forms when the beater is lifted from the mixture. Set aside

To finish the cake:

Take your sponge cake out of the oven, spread the lemon and orange mixture on the top. Then

spoon little mountains of egg white on the top, bake for another 10 minutes in 170° till peaks just turn brown. Loosen the cake from the cooled baking tin and arrange on a plate, to decorate use some grated lemon and/or orange skin and serve with strawberries.

Yum- this is by no means healthy, but the perfect naughty treat for ‘once in a while’ or even a special occasion.

Enjoy

Success is key to happiness!

Success can mean a lot of things to different people, it starts with the most modest things like negotiating with your daughter to wear something you would pick instead of their random choosing of a ballerina dress in the middle of winter, or actually packing your own lunch instead of buying it from the fast-food shop across the office.

When we conventionally think of success we might think of a new deal at work or a happy client, more money in the bank and the boss giving us a well deserved pat on the back.

To feel successful, I set little goals and when I complete them or stick to them I get a feeling of achievement – I succeeded and when I outdo my goal I feel even better about myself. The key is to set realistic goals, don’t raise the bar too high, but make sure you do raise the bar and actually have to achieve something to reach the goal. If your goals are too high you will set yourself up for failure and that comes with a really bad feeling of unworthiness. So stay realistic…

My goal five weeks ago was to loose some excess weight I had been carrying around for quite some time. I am not overweight or anything, just felt that I needed a good detox again and flush out my body to kick start a healthier routine. Winter always presents me with a nice gift of extra kilos, as it does to many other people especially women.

On top of feeling really sluggish I also came down with a cold and had some skin blemishes that I wanted gone. My goal was to loose one or two kilos whilst eating healthy and doing some walking daily.

Today I weigh myself for the first time and measured how many cm I have lost around my waist, chest and hips. I am so pleased with the results. I lost 4 kilos, and 17 cm all up and I didn’t even try really hard. I hope nobody put a spell on me like the one in the ‘Stephen King’ book ‘Thinner’…

I feel great and for the first time I didn’t starve myself or beat myself up every time I didn’t follow the ‘diet’ correctly. You can probably imagine how successful I feel today; it makes me happy. So this day can only be good….

My next goal will be to keep living healthy with lots of fresh fruit and veggies, less processed food and keep going for a daily walk. I also want to work on my family life and find more time for fun.

To Success!

The most important component of happiness is love

To experience true happiness requires many different things; even though money and materialism seem to be so important in our lives, they on its own cannot make a person truly happy. Good health, talent and success might also be vital distributions to ones happiness, but love, both giving and receiving, is the one most important part for me to experience happiness. Without love, all the others don’t matter. What is success, when you cannot share it with someone you love and what do you do with all the riches of the world if you are by yourself and have no one to turn to.

Love is the most important part of life and there is only one way of being loved. I am not just talking about finding a husband or wife but also about the love you might receive from your family and friends, neighbors and siblings….

To be loved means to be lovable and the only way to attract someone to love you will happen when you love yourself and develop a personality which is lovable. There is no way that you can make somebody love you, other then being yourself. If you try too hard to impress someone, it will show and if you are too occupied with your looks people will see you as shallow. I am not saying not to care about your looks, as that will get you attention, but looks is not all that matters. You need a lovable personality to keep people that love you in your life.

What do I mean by lovable personality? Well that is in the eye of the beholder… I might find someone who gives me space more lovable then someone who would be fixated on me, whilst someone else might find it very lovable… Only people that don’t pretend to be someone else and show their true nature will find someone that will love them the way they are. We all have different personalities and every one of us has some sort of lovable characteristics, we just need to find the right person to appreciate it. Once you have found love don’t let go of the things that made you lovable in the first place, keep working on your good trades to make the relationship flourish.

I have been in a relationship with a very special man for over seven years (seven year itch) and we still have to work on our good and bad sides to keep the love alive. A relationship doesn’t mean you have to quit your individuality. Your individuality was what attracted your partner in the first place. Yes we have to compromise in a relationship to make it work, but it does not mean you have to give up your beliefs and personality.

So wish me luck to overcome the seven year itch- it is not always as easy as it seems to keep the love alive, but we are constantly working on it.

Should Energy drinks be banned?

This morning I was listening to the radio, they discussed so called ‘energy drinks’ and if they should be banned. Supposedly some Australian schools have stopped selling them to students… I couldn’t believe my ears! Why the hell would you sell ‘energy drinks’ at a school in the first place? We all know they are pumped with caffeine and sugar, have absolutely no value and make kids hyper to an extend of serious heart problems. We wouldn’t serve espresso coffee to students why would we give them Redbull, V or Mother which have as much if not more caffeine? This is absolutely wrong and these drinks should have an age limit or be banned all together.

They are drugs, just as bad if not worse then alcohol. People get addicted, and if you have more then two or three you could have serious heart problems. Why not sell them in bottle shops with alcoholic beverages? If people old enough to understand the consequences want to drink them then fine, but giving them to children and teens that have absolutely no idea about the risks is irresponsible to say the least. This is putting kids at a great risk and even young adults that have it can experience health problems.

Mixing these ‘energy drink’s with alcohol is an even greater health risk, since the two ingredients seem to neutralize each other; at least this is what appears to the consumer when in fact the body is going ballistic with the mixed signals of lots of energy from the caffeine and perceived relaxation from the alcohol.

When I grew up I wasn’t even allowed cola or coffee, these ‘energy drinks’ are far worse in many ways then cola.

The other day when I drove to the gas station to fill up the car on my way to work I saw three different young adults all with a V (energy drink) in their hand. What do they think this is; morning coffee? It is by no means a healthy drink and to have it as breakfast to start your day is just not a good idea at all.

Here is my thought on ‘energy drinks’. These drinks do not provide you with energy; they only simulate the energy you already have in your body. Any stimulant only wakes up the energy that is already available in your body. So it wouldn’t give energy to a dead body, as the energy comes from within the body not from the stimulant itself. That might sound ok if you forget about one very important thing. The body has only a limited supply of energy, and even though we keep energy levels up by eating healthy food and exercise we are slowly using up all of our energy, which you could call live force. Once the life force is used up you are dead. So by stimulating your body to feel energetic you actually shorten your life. When you are tiered you don’t need a coffee or ‘energy drink’, you need rest and sleep. So instead of giving yourself a 'kick' every morning consider going to bed earlier and taking up yoga or meditation to get more resting time to balance your life and keep as much life force for as long as possible.

Gee, all this writing has made me tiered I am going to make myself a coffee… just kidding!

Stuffed capsicum recipe (vegetarian/ vegan)

Just had my dinner and quiet enjoyed it, so I thought I might share the recipe with you... This recipe is very versatile and you can add or leave out ingredients to your liking. Other vegetables you could add are peas, carrots, eggplant, broccoli, green beans, tomatoes as well as mushrooms. The more veggies you use the less rice you will need, you could also use different rice and go wild with combinations of different rice; I like wild rice and basmati mixed together, just make sure to boil them separately first as the wild rice gives the other rice a purple colour, which doesn’t look nice and it takes longer to boil. Mixing rice is easy just mix ¾ boiled white rice with ¼ boiled wild rice.

You need:

5 large capsicums (I like the red once the best since they are sweeter and more flavorsome, but any colour will do, you can even mix and match)

1 onion chopped finely

2 cups of boiled rice (if you have some leftover rice from the day before this is a great recipe to use your leftover, choose your favorite rice, wholegrain being the healthiest choice or Basmati if you like white rice better)

1 small zucchini in small cubes

2 gloves of garlic chopped finely

Parsley and thyme (fresh if possible but dried will do just fine)

Salt and pepper for taste

2 spoons of extra virgin olive oil

1 liter of vegetable stock

We will use four of the five capsicums to stuff; the other one we will dice finely and mix in with all of the dry ingredients, then press the stalk of the remaining four capsicums inwards and once detached pull it completely out. We can now get all the little seeds out of the capsicums and stuff it with the rice and veggie mixture.

We bring the oil in a big pot to a high temperature and slightly brown the stuffed capsicums from all sides, then put them upright so the stuffing does not fall out. Add the stock to almost cover the capsicums; slowly cook with the lid on till all capsicums are tender and the veggies are done. By that time the stock should be almost completely gone and if the juices run out before the capsicums are done, make sure to add either water or more stock so the capsicums don’t burn. Take out all capsicums and then use the rest of the juices to make gravy. This is a nice meal in itself but can also be served with more steamed veggies or salad.

Bon Appetite