weekend reading

We are in Byron Bay for the next few weeks, I'm looking forward to a haircut with Norico and lunch at Doma in Federal

River and Sol are looking forward to some Spaghetti Circus action

Recipe wise, Chickpea & chicken, coconut green curry sounds good to me

As does this slow cooked Moroccan lamb tagine

A great guide and list of recipes for starting a plant based diet with a family from Adele at Vegie Head

Thanks Kevin Murphy for supporting the Culture is Life campaign that my husband Pete is working on with Indigenous Elders around Australia to end Indigenous youth self-harm and suicide. If you'd like to support the campaign by purchasing some of Kevin's hair care products go here.

Pip Lincolne's A-Z of Blogging is a good read for bloggers

If you have your own business or are thinking of starting one I recommend signing up to Leonie Dawson's Business Goddess E-course ($79) the course includes Leonie's great resource 'The Magic Money Making Kit'. I am a member of Leonie's online Academy and I return regularly to this practical resource that is very user friendly and gets results. If you sign up via my link I get a commission.

Pete has taken Sol into Byron Bay and left River and I back at the house so that River can do his schoolwork (which is very keen to do. phew!) and so I can work on my ebook. So, I better get on with it! Happy wholefood weekend everyone.

friday in Brunswick Heads

We are calling Brunswick Heads home this week. Each town surrounding Byron Bay has its own distinct personality, I love this little town for its sleepy but not fully asleep relaxed feeling. I love that it is situated on the Brunswick River and that the ocean is skipping distance over the bridge. From our holiday unit we can walk to River and Sol's favorite beach, Torakina, and the park, library, cafes and health food store, it is a liberating feeling not to rely on a car.

My nan and her partner arrive today to spend a few days with us I am looking forward to seeing them and to a few free hours to wander the beautiful artisan boutiques dotted around Brunz as it is affectionately known.

The Byron Bay Writer's festival starts today. I usually love going along for at least one of the three days but this year I decided instead of spending a whole day listening to authors talk about the books they have completed I am going to use that time to finish writing my ebook.

I've listed Georgia Harding's blog Well Nourished here before, I love so many of her posts for their common sense and realistic approach to feeding families well. This is a fabulous post on children and snacking. A must read so informative and packed with really great practical ideas.

Do you struggle with your children pleading for food 'treats'? Read Georgia's post The Well Nourished Child - Treats

And I love a recipe that has nourishing and chocolate chip in the title.

Speaking of chocolate, have you seen Natural New Age Mum's seven sensational healthy chocolate recipes?

Thanks to Liz for the heads up on this great post about how to make sauerkraut. Fermented foods are the best for great gut health and cheaper too than probiotics in capsules!

Very excited this weekend to be celebrating River's 7th birthday with a bonfire on Saturday night and especially excited that Jay and her lovely family are making the trip from Bellingen. Then on Sunday, Jay and I are meeting up with Natalie who is in the Bay for the Writer's Fest.

Happy weekending to you and yours. Oh and if you are of the facebook world and haven't visited my page yet click on over. I hope you like it :) Bye for now xx

wholefood cafe love: federal doma cafe

When I lived in Melbourne and worked as a reviewer of cafes and restaurants, eating out was a daily part of my life. I enjoyed it at the time but am very happy to have moved in a different direction,  now cooking and eating at home for ninety five percent of the meals that my family and I eat. I still enjoy a coffee in a cafe most days but most cafe food leaves a lot to be desired on the wholefood front. Cooking at home is better for my health and bank balance. All that said, when we are in Byron Bay and surrounds there are more options available to eat out AND eat well. The Federal Doma Cafe is a fine example.

Last Friday, my friend Ruth, her twins, my boys River and Sol, and I started our day with haircuts by Norico, in her beautiful studio that overlooks a lush valley and coffee plantation. Her children played with our children and we each took it in turns to have a new do.

Two hours later we farewelled Norico and her children and took a short drive to the Federal Doma Cafe.

Order through the front window for take away or if you're taking a seat out the front. Head to the side door if you want to select from the ready-to-go sushi packs on the counter or to place your order and find a seat at one of the two inside tables or grab a cushion and find a place on the wooden floor of traditional Japanese doma room. The doma room is perfect for dining with small children.

My boys worked their way through sushi with avocado and then a version with tuna and crunchy tempura crumbs sprinkled on top before delving into a plate of cone shaped hand rolls filled with rice, avocado and haloumi. Ruth and the twins enjoyed a plate of teriyaki chicken with rice and salad. The coffee was perfect and though we didn't try dessert there were brownies or green tea panna cotta on display that looked worth going back for.

I deliberately avoided telling my boys that there were things on the menu other than Japanese food, but I'll share with you that there are home made burgers (meat and vegetarian), hot chips, and a daily specials board menu to choose from. 

The only, and I say only, thing that jarred me a little was that everything was served on disposable plates and coffee is only available in disposable cups, yes they were bamboo and biodegradable but still I just have a thing about how much disposable 'stuff' there is in the world and the message it sends to our children. There are other cafes around the Byron Shire that do this and the theory is that it is less taxing on the environment than washing plates and cups. I'm not convinced.

I digress though, a trip to federal doma cafe is well worth it. Perhaps take your own cup and plate.

silent sunday

postcard from the Northern Rivers shire

I've been thinking of you all, dear readers as we settle into our Northern Rivers rhythm wishing I could capture every ounce of the beauty and magic I feel when we stay here. Yes, magic. And possibility, I always feel a greater sense of what is possible when we are here. 

I feel so lucky to have not one but two incredibly beautiful locations to call home. I fell in love with Byron Bay and surrounds from the moment I arrived here eight years ago and have made some of my closest friends here. Do you have a home away from home?

The days are warm, the mornings cool enough for steaming bowls of porridge pictured above. And the evenings cool too, cool enough for lentil and veggie soup, dahl, and pumpkin, lentil and silverbeet lasagne. I'm working on the recipe for the lasagne for you. 

Our beyond generous friend, David, who we stay with is vegetarian, so for the time we are in his home we happily adopt a vegetarian diet. I am enjoying the creativity of coming up with vegetarian meals each night, ones that we will all enjoy. I was inspired to make nori rolls tonight because they tick both the boxes - vegetarian and everyone loves them. I think I'll be spending more time over at Veggie Mama this month.

I am conjuring up some Byron Bay wholefood posts featuring Peace Love and Vegetables, and Puremelt chocolate.

Love to hear your favorite vego recipes. Leave me some links in the comments if you have vego posts to share. Happy days xx

a giveaway: the unexpected guest

Ah breakfast. How I love you so. And today breakfast is sweeter because I get to give away to one of you lovely readers, a totally delicious organic range of muesli, porridge, and maple roasted almonds that is lovingly made in Byron Bay; which happens to be one of my favorite places in Australia and my home away from home.

Before we get into the oaty details I have to declare that I think blog giveaways are a bit like anchovies - people either love them or loathe them - this is the first giveaway to happen here and while  considering whether to go down this path or not I figured one of my main missions is to encourage people to eat well and if I can send some nutritious, wholefoods your way then I am achieving my mission. So on we go with an exciting wholefood breakfast...

Thanks to Raw Materials and the unexpected guest for making this, the very first Wholefood Mama giveaway possible.

Adam Mander and Juniper Wikinson are the creative, breakfast loving duo behind 'the unexpected guest'. Their story of how it all began is a good one involving world travel, a talented ceramicist (Juniper), a mad keen surfer (Adam), falling in love and a darn fine breakfast.

Adam hails from the United Kingdom and Juniper from Canada. Their paths crossed in London and romance was born. Before meeting Juniper, Adam had travel on his mind and was about to pack up his surfboard and head to Australia in search of waves. "In the UK I was tired of traveling 5 hours to go surfing, we decided to travel together," says Adam. First stop was Sydney's famed Bondi where there are waves aplenty and as it happens cafes aplenty, cafes where unbeknownst to Juniper her homemade granuesli would soon be on the menu.

Adam says, "Juniper is a maker and a giver. The granuesli recipe is an age old Canadian one that Juniper tweaked, and when people would come to stay with us in Bondi they would leave with a bag of her granuesli." It didn't take long before Juniper was selling her gutsy toasted organic muesli mix of oats, nuts, seeds, and sultanas to 20 cafes. Adam who was working in advertising, prompted her to pick up the phone and sell some more. Once 50 cafes were on board it became clear they were in business.

"Pardon the pun but everything has happened very organically. In the beginning Juniper was traveling on the bus to hand deliver to the cafes in Bondi and around Sydney. She would step off the bus and walk around the corner to the cafe as if she had just parked her car. It has always been important to Juniper that what she makes is 100% organic, so the next step was certification which also meant a certified organic kitchen," says Adam. That's when the move to Byron happened. A friend in Byron who works in food had a certified organic kitchen that Juniper could work out of. And importantly, there's great surf in Byron too.

And the name? the unexpected guest, where does that come from? "Juniper is a ceramicist and when she was studying her art teacher said that 'one should always do an extra setting for the unexpected guest'. We liked that, for us food is about sharing and bringing people together, the more the merrier especially when you are traveling its all about making room at the table and meeting people," says Adam.

Go here and scroll down to see one of Juniper's hand made ceramic mugs and for her wicked extraordinarily delicious granuesli bar recipe.

(all of the beautiful photos in this post were styled and taken by Kara Rosenlund )

This delicious breakfast giveaway is open to Australian readers (sorry those reading from lands afar!)

The winner will receive the complete range:

1 x 300g certified organic gluten-free style muesli - sunflower kernals, dried cranberries, pepitas, sun dried Australian sultanas, maple roasted almonds, shredded coconut, cashew pieces, quinoa puffs, popped amaranth, brown rice puffs, buckwheat puffs and cinnamon. $14.95

1 x 400g certified organic freestyle granuesli - Premium rolled oats, wild Australian honey, mixed nuts (almonds, cashews, hazelnuts and walnuts), sun dried sultanas, sunflower oil, seeds (sunflower kernals and pepitas) shredded coconut, oat bran, cinnamon and natural vanilla essence. $14.95

1 x 450g certified organic scrumptious porridge - Australian rolled oats, medjool dates, coconut, currants, slivered almonds, rolled quinoa, millet flakes, vanilla bean, ground ginger, cinnamon and sea salt. $14.95

1 x 75g maple roasted almonds - almonds slow roasted in maple syrup. $7.95

Total value: $52.80

You can enter a maximum of four times:

• first entry - follow The Wholefood Mama (over there on the right)
• second entry - like The Wholefood Mama on facebook
• third entry - like the unexpected guest on facebook
• fourth entry - share this giveaway on your blog/facebook

Once you have done one or all of those, leave a comment for each entry. The winners will be chosen by the random number generator and will be announced in this post on Thursday 6th of December 2012 at 6pm est.

Good luck!

COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED.

Thanks everyone for entering.
The winner is #44 Kerry Santillo. Congratulations Kerry I have sent you an email.

sweet friday

Raw food chocolate tart and coffee anyone? This was the morning tea I indulged in at Brunswick Heads Health Food store (owned by our sweet friend David Shaw) last friday.

We slipped back into Melbourne yesterday and were greeted by sunshine and traffic aplenty. Looking forward to the weekend celebrating my dear friend Luci's birthday and then on Sunday resting up before school starts again Monday. One more term and River's prep year is over!

To keep the Byron Bay feeling alive here is my list of Byron inspired links:

- tired of thinking about what to feed everyone (yes even me who loves cooking has patches of this) then visit the Goddess of Babylon and swoon over fashion instead

- listening to Bay Fm 99.9 radio station in my car is reason alone to move to Byron permanently

- capsicum salsa made by Baraka foods was a delicious farmer's market buy

- breakfast at Harvest Cafe & Deli in Newrybar with our Byron buddies was an out of our ordinary fun way to spend a saturday morning

- wishing I had of made it to Naked Treaties new raw bar for a green smoothie

- I am obsessed with the Mamabake ladies, clever community minded Byron mamas who started a big batch cooking craze so they can eat well with their families and have more time to themselves. I'll be writing a whole post about this next week but I couldn't resist sharing it now.

Thanks too and welcome to the new followers who have signed up this week. So lovely to meet you here. If you are of the facebook world I have finally broken my resistance and started a Wholefood Mama page so you can pop on over there if you like :) Happy weekend everyone xx

organic friday

Just another blissful day in the Northern Rivers Shire...

-Started the day at Mullumbimby farmers market drinking coffee made from locally grown beans and eating baklava made with local macadamias, walnuts, local honey and rosewater - heaven scent! The makers of the baklava also make a wonderful almond hummus among many other spice inspired offerings. Visit their website Spice Palace to discover more...

-Watched this really fun clip (River and Sol love it) created by a talented man who is the son of a dear friend of mine (talent and creativity run in the veins of this family!) film makers, music lovers, and er cat lovers click on over and check out Rufus Tower (Jay do take a look and Jodi I think your family would love it too)

- Looking forward to immersing ourselves in the peaceful gardens at Crystal Castle next week

-Going to Spaghetti Circus is on River's wishlist

-And going to a yoga class overlooking main beach at Byron is on mine.

Happy weekend to you one and all. I hope you get some sunshine! x

ps photo taken at Brunswick Heads Health Food store owned by our friend David Shaw