wholefood mama: michelle schoeps organic

Today's wholefood mama interview comes to you all the way from Sydney town. This story is full of real food photography that you will want to eat and a down to earth wholefood philosophy spelled out in a way that makes it all sound doable. If you don't know her already you will soon become a fan of this mama of 3 and her blog Michelle Shoeps Organic.

Michelle says:

"I'm a slightly crazed mother of three - aged 14, 10 and 4. We are busy busy all the time and most of the time my life is a blur but I still find time to make sure my kids are nourished and loved within an inch of their lives." 

1. Who or what started you down your wholefood/organic path? 

When I fell pregnant Max gently pointed me in the direction of eating only organic food, he wanted our unborn child to have the best. Then each one of my children were breastfed, breast was always best in our house and each one of my children hung onto them with dear life for as long as possible.

2. Can you tell us about your approach to feeding your family? 
Lead by example is my new thing. My life is dedicated to feeding them the best food possible, so that their bodies get stronger and healthier as they get older. What we try and install in them now (without pressure) will hopefully be ingrained in them when they are adults and have their own children.

3. What do you find challenging when it comes to following a wholefood path with a family? 

Not much. Our teenager is our only challenge and I think because I was so 'hardcore' when she was little that its pay back now. She finds it very hard with all of her friends eating crap food, she wants to be the same and fit in but unfortunately her body doesn't respond like other kids and she gets sick and very moody.

4. What would you say to someone who says they don't have enough time or money to eat organically and prepare meals from scratch? 
I would want to teach them and show them how. It's completely possible for anyone, if you buy seasonally and cheaper cuts of meat eating wholefoods can actually be cheaper than processed conventional foods. And along with the affects on your health of processed/conventional foods in the long term its much cheaper. 

5. What sort of foods do you remember eating as a child? 
My parents are European so full flavoured food, mainly German, French and Hungarian food. A lot of meat, soups and salads.

6. Who are your wholefood heroes and why? 
A lot of the people I respect on that level are just normal everyday people who are dedicated to their health, Aaron who owns the gym I go to Origin of Energy and Anthia my naturopath at Ovvio. On a foodie level it would Alice Waters because of her dedication to seasonal simple food and what she does for the greater community - edible garden etc…

7. Your three favorite ingredients and why? 
Artichokes, dark chocolate, organic raspberries. Just because.

8. Sugar or salt, which do you crave? And when you do what satisfies you? 
Both depending on times of the day and month. Salty would have to be cheese really stinky cheese and sweet would be dark chocolate, my ice magic would be my go to at the moment and if I want a bit together it would be pate on carrot sticks with a sprinkle of himalayan salt.

 

9. Favourite cookbooks and food blogs you'd like to share...

Anything by Tessa Kiros, Nigel Slater, Antonio Carluccio (he's a legend and his shows are my idea of the perfect meditation) Yotam Ottolenghi is a major spunk and his show is on the same level as Carluccio. I'm not a big blog reader I prefer a good cookbook and saying that I've had to stop buying them because I have almost 400 in my collection.

10. What inspired you to start your blog? 
Who - Heather Nette King. She's the reason it exists.

11.The photography on your blog is always beautiful. Any tips for taking great food shots? 
Good light, beautiful produce, a great camera and a good eye.

12. What are you loving about your life right now? 
Everything. I have the most incredible partner and children, so life is I'm happy to say perfect. We are in the process of editing 5 new Michelle Schoeps Organic mini episodes, I have an online shop selling my food/flower prints and in the new year I will start cooking classes from my home and monthly kids pre-made food boxes (with a girlfriend) using organic meat and veg from her farm.

You can also find Michelle on instagram and facebook

Before we go, here's one of Michelle's recipes. Remember ice magic? Can't even imagine what was in that stuff. For those who've never heard of it, ice magic was a chocolate topping you could buy in the supermarket (maybe it's still available) and when you squeezed it on top of ice cream it would set hard like chocolate. This is Michelle's very simple and oh so much healthier version...

Melt 1 tablespoon of virgin coconut oil to 2 tablespoons of dark 70% (we like it even darker) chocolate this is enough for two people, so double for four and so on.

I sprinkle a little himalayan salt in to the melted choc/coconut for extra yumminess. Then all you do is spoon it over your frozen fruit and in a second its crisp like a shell. I never thought ice magic could be so healthy!

Thanks so much Michelle for sharing your wholefood story here and for making my blog looks so good with your exquisite photos. I think we're all hungry now and would happily sit at your table for breakfast, lunch, dinner or ice magic! xx

Hungry for more wholefood mama interviews?...

      Jay Black from and the trees

      Kellie from dear olive

      Robin from Transition Farm

      Rachel Pitts from Hungry Girls

      Vanessa from slow heart sing

      Farmer Liz from eight acres

      Catherine from A Time To Create

      Renee from ki flow yoga
      Michelle from Norfolk Exposure

wholefood mama: vanessa from slow heart sing

Many of you will know Vanessa from her heartfelt and honest blog Slow Heart Sing. Vanessa and I have a few things in common. An uncanny few things in common actually. We both live by the beach, have two young sons, are both married to professional photographers who love to fish, we have both worked as food writers, both love yoga, grow food in our backyards and blog about real food and family life!

I love Vanessa's blog for its honesty, good humour and down to earth approach to real food and parenting. I'm looking forward to the time that I can share a meal with Vanessa in real life but for now I am really thrilled to share her interview with you...

About Vanessa

A half-English half-Egyptian girl graduates from a London uni in 2000 and, very confused, heads to Australia for a year. Meets a wonderful man, they move back to the UK, start a family and years later return to Australia. Several house moves and a very rocky couple of years eventually lead to the Central Coast of NSW.  

{Breathing sigh of relief!} We've finally found our home, here in our sun-drenched house, just by the ocean, with two boys Luca (5) and Kian (2) and a cheeky chocolate lab, Sydney (7). I write, I cook, I garden, I read more children's books than anything else, I dream of opening my own café, a deli, B&B and a cheeseshop too.

Who or what started you down your food writing and wholefood path? 

I graduated with a degree in Maths and French, and not the first clue who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. After a year spent in Sydney, I went back to London temping in banks and finance departments and absolutely hating it. A job came up for an assistant to the head of a food channel, and miraculously I got it. I eventually moved my way to editorial within the company, trained as a chef and studied journalism, then landed the job of Food Editor at Food and Travel magazine. I went freelance months later and have been ever since! 

From the word go, I believed in home-cooked food, made from scratch, and ingredients that make food sing: pastured meats, line-caught fish (as it was in the UK, now it's spear-caught by my husband), unrefined, stoneground, handmade, pure and simple food. I suppose I grew up eating homemade food, but I realised later on that nothing gives me more pleasure than cooking and most importantly, eating (!) this food. It's not a fad and it's not a way of eating. It's my definition of good food.

Can you tell us about your approach to feeding a young family?

There wasn't any change to how I cooked and how we ate when it was just Luca – he has a massive appetite and eats almost everything. I love hearing his standard 'can you make this again Mummy?', but Kian couldn't be more different. It was quite a shock. So my approach has had to change a little; I try and go with the flow and not focus on what Kian isn't eating. A very good breakfast, a half-hearted lunch and a piece of roasted sweet potato for dinner is all he seems to need. He's happy, he's healthy so my approach is to let it go!

What do you find challenging when it comes to following a wholefood path?

All the conflicting messages and the enormous focus on nutrition. I'm not saying the nutrition aspect isn't crucial – of course it is – it's just that we're all somehow expected to understand it all and put it into practice. The nutrition/wellness aspect of a food doesn't concern me as much as the joy factor. I know I'm being very simplistic here, but unless there are issues to address, we could all just do with using a little common sense and listening to ourselves. The science is all there but I don't need to know it all – it's exhausting and for me it takes away from food. The green smoothie/juice is a classic example; I was adding raw kale to my green juice for a long time before I started getting confused about all the messages that say raw kale is not advisable. Should I, shouldn't I? I stopped it altogether and have gone back to enjoying my homegrown kale the way I've always liked it, sautéed in a knob of butter. It's not an approach that would work for everyone – especially as there's so much talk out there on what is and isn't good for us – but I feel happier trusting in my instinct to make chicken liver paté because I want to savour it (not because it's necessarily nutrient-dense). I guess my approach comes from watching those who really enjoy their food, without stressing over its nutritional components: the Greeks, the Italians, the French and all the Egyptians I grew up with. Food was truly savoured. 

Oh, and eating out is another challenge – such a pain! I love eating out and it's so much easier to eat well out and about when you're living in London or Sydney. Where we live, the cafés mostly wax lyrical about double-certified organic coffee and yet it's all cheap bacon, cheap bread and sugary fat-free yogurt. I don't get it.

You have been experimenting with adding fermented foods to your diet this year can you tell us about how that is going?

Well the truth is, it isn't! We often start these things with the best of intentions, don't we, but if no one is enthusiastic about it apart from you, it's hard to keep it going. The boys were enjoying kefir smoothies but then suddenly they went off them. Kian enjoyed kefir with honey, but again he started to turn his nose up at it. No one would drink the kombucha I was making and I can't quite achieve the beautiful flavours I have tasted elsewhere, so I've given up with that too. We were drinking raw milk for quite a while but getting to that shop added unnecessary stress. It's really hard to focus on everything at once. While I was fermenting, the garden became neglected. When I pour myself into the garden, paperwork piles up. We're not meant to achieve it all – I take a simple approach and do what I feel like doing at the time. No guilt and 'should dos'. My health has dramatically improved with this approach. 

What sort of foods do you remember eating as a child?

I grew up in the Middle East so while my Mum cooked spinach flan, pizzas, cauliflower cheese and chicken pie, there was also a lot of Egyptian food. Stuffed vine leaves, meat stews, rice-stuffed cabbage leaves and eggplant, macaroni béchamel bakes, soups, lots of chicken and okra, and every now and again Egyptian biscuits and cake!

Who are your wholefood heroes and why?

My mother who baked and cooked everything from scratch without so much as a set of scales, who waited in long queues in Cairo when the flour and butter came in every six months, who carried and lugged shopping in 40-degree heat and who made the best waffles for us to eat before bed.

The Greek women, and all the other wonderful Greeks we met, who took Graeme and I into their kitchens nine years ago and gave us what is still one of our most memorable meals; the French who used to irritate me when I lived in France (aged 20) with their two-hour siestas and lunches (all the shops and banks would shut!), but there's nothing better than a long lunch (or a siesta for that matter) and of course Western society would be so much better off if we all followed their example, and finally everyone out there – farmers, growers, artisans – who are dedicated to growing, raising and producing our food with integrity, compassion and love because they're the ones who make it possible for us to eat good food.

Your three favorite ingredients and why?

Impossible question! But I'll pick three: butter, streaky bacon from outdoor-bred pigs and parmesan. I don't need to tell you why I love butter! With an abundance of leafy greens and herbs in my garden right now, I can rustle up something special with bacon and parmesan. Funnily enough though, I always had bacon in my fridge when we lived in the UK, but it's something I rarely buy here. I can't get hold of it easily – good-quality pork is very hard to come by. 

Sugar or salt, which do you crave? And when you do what satisfies you?

Depends on the time of day but I'm more of a savoury kind of gal! I'll take salty crisp-skinned roast chicken with a sticky oniony tarragon gravy and buttery kale over chocolate mousse any day, but ideally I'll have the two in the same sitting please!

Favorite cookbooks and food blogs you'd like to share…

My favourite cookbook authors: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Nigel Slater, Skye Gyngell, Tamasin-Day Lewis, Diana Henry. Oddly enough I follow very few straight food blogs that just offer recipes and pretty pictures. I need more. More depth, more insight, more stories and more real life. It feels full and rounded and it draws me to their food even more. I guess it's having a connection, and I always seek connection. Not Without Salt does that for me. This post explains what I'm saying perfectly. 

What are you loving about your life right now?

Living by the ocean, eating from my garden, practicing yoga, watching my boys grow and giving them the kind of childhood I feel passionate about, and feeling so utterly completely free.

You'll find the recipe for Vanessa's eggplant curry with green beans and lemon grass here.

Thank you so much Vanessa for taking the time to share your story with us. It is always inspiring to read how other mamas do this most important job in the world - nourishing our families! xx

(beautiful photos supplied by Vanessa)

More interviews with wholefood mamas...

Jay Black from and the trees
Robin Koster Carlyon
Renee McCready
Catherine from A Time to Create
Rachel Pitts
Kellie from dear olive

interview: farmer liz

We are in for a treat today. Some of us are just starting out on our wholefood journey, others in the middle and others are immersed in a wholefood way of life at every level. Blogger and hobby farmer Liz is featured here today sharing her wholefood story that is nothing short of inspirational. Settle in for a good read that by the end you'll be wishing you owned a cow to milk, and made your own cheese with the raw milk.

Liz is pictured on her farm with Bella the cow

Liz lives on eight acres in south east Queensland, Australia, with her husband Peter and two dogs. They have a passion for small-scale organic farming and producing and eating real food.  They keep chickens, beef steers, two jersey cows and a big vegetable garden. Liz writes a blog, called eight-acres, about their farm to both inspire and help others interested in self-sufficiency, sustainability and permaculture.  Pete and Liz both work full-time and spend their spare time on farm work, its a hobby that keeps them both occupied and fed.

harvest from Liz's garden

Who or what started you down your wholefood/organic/sustainable path?

Its been a long and slow transition!  I started about 5 years ago with a visit to a naturopath for help with stubborn acne.  At the age of 24, I really thought it was time I had clear skin.  The naturopath was great, she considered my health holistically and suggested many changes to my diet, including removing all processed foods, eating more vegetables and fruits and trying different grains.  I also cut out sugar and caffeine.  I felt so much better and my skin cleared in a few months, so I was convinced that diet was an important component of overall health (I started eating sugar again, but I can’t handle caffeine, it makes me shake).

When I moved to a small farm with my husband about a year later, we started a garden and got chickens, I gradually began to eat more and more of what we were growing.  It wasn’t until we got our cow and did a cheese-making course that I first heard about the book Nourishing Traditions, and when I read that amazing book, I started to get into fermented foods, sprouting and making my own stock.  I now also make all our bread.  At the moment I’m learning more about herbs and how to grow and use them every day.  No doubt I will continue to learn and change how I eat accordingly.

Liz's tea cupboard, many teas are from her garden

Liz's homegrown, home made sauerkraut with seaweed

What do you enjoy most about sustainable living?

I love growing my own food.  I love knowing that we have everything we need right here on the farm and that it is grown organically.  It is a lot of work, but it's usually enjoyable and always rewarding!

What do you find challenging when it comes to following a wholefood/sustainable path?

The hardest thing for me is living in a rural community, my nearest health food shop is a 2 hour drive away, so anything that we don’t grow and have to buy (such as organic flour) has to be bought in bulk.  There is also nowhere to go out and eat real food.  Everything is fried here.

What would you say to someone who says they don't have enough time or money to eat organically and prepare meals from scratch?

Eating whole foods doesn’t have to be time consuming or expensive, in fact it can be quicker and cheaper than eating processed foods if you know how.  Firstly the time issue.  You need to set up systems that work for you.  A few weekends spent creating a garden, and then allowing plants to self-seed will result in a garden that produces endless vegetables for very little ongoing maintenance time.  If you spend the time at first setting up good soil and an easy watering system, the garden will almost look after itself.

This philosophy applies to so many whole food concepts.  At first I thought that making real stock would be a lot of work, but then I figured out that I could use my slow cooker, I set up a system where I put vege off-cuts and bones in a bag in the freezer and when I need more stock, I can just tip the whole lot in the slow cooker, add some extra veges, top up with water and turn it on.  Learning and setting up a system takes time, but once its done, you will be surprised how quick it can be to prepare whole food.  My main advice is to choose one thing at a time and perfect it, for example, when I decided to make bread, I just focussed on getting that right for several months, I didn’t try anything else new in that time, until I had bread sorted.

As for money, again the set-up costs can be expensive, but they don’t have to be and the more you can grow yourself or buy in bulk, the more you will save.  You don’t always have to buy something new or the latest gadget or superfood in order to eat well.  Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t.  I bought a new worm farm to make compost for my garden, but many people make great worm farms from found materials.  I bought a second-hand ice-cream maker very cheaply from ebay so that we could use our own cream to make ice cream without all the additives.  I have a stick mixer that does EVERYTHING, so I don’t need a blender or food-processor, and I don’t have a thermomix (sigh!) 

Liz's home made ice cream and chocolate cake

Once you get a good system going and you’re producing much of your own vegetables (and eggs if you have space for chickens), you will find that your food bill reduces and that the initial investment was worth it.  Even if you still have to buy many staples like flour or dried beans in bulk, it will be cheaper than buying processed foods, I promise you! And for me, ducking out to the garden to pick fresh vegetables and collect the eggs is quicker than going to the supermarket.

Who is your wholefood/sustainability hero and why?

I follow an amazing blog called Throwback from Trapper Creek, Nita has a farm, a dairy cow and a massive garden.  She cooks from scratch, including canning and fermenting what she grows.  She has a great system to produce most of her own wonderful whole food and she is generous enough to share some insights into how she gets everything done.

Your three favorite ingredients and why?

Homemade stock – apart from being nutrient dense, the flavour of stock improves any meal

Herbs – I am just starting to learn about the healing properties of herbs, and I try to include some in every meal, which also adds wonderful flavour

Garlic – again, amazing health properties and tastes great

Sugar or salt, which do you crave? And when you do, what satisfies you?

Sugar!  I don’t actually like sweet things necessarily, but I love chocolate.  I eat it even though I know I shouldn’t (because when I did manage to not eat it for a few months, I felt great, but the short-term enjoyment always wins).  I try to eat the darkest chocolate I can buy, then I don’t scoff it so quickly.

Favorite books and blogs you'd like to share...

For books I have to recommend Nourishing Traditions.  I know that its tricky to follow some of the recipes if you don’t have your own cow or access to raw milk, but if you at least understand the principles, you can then adjust what you eat depending on what ingredients you can source.  
Also Gaia’s Garden, or the Permaculture Home Garden, which I think are two of the more accessible permaculture books, that will help you think more about setting up systems that are self-maintaining (particularly your organic vege garden!).

There are so many blogs that I love to follow, and they change all the time as new ones appear and others are neglected.  Throwback fromTrapper Creek is a favourite, and the others worth a mention are LindaWoodrow’s Witches Kitchen, and Emma from Craving Fresh, who both share some wonderful recipes from their own produce.

What inspired you to start your blog and what do you enjoy about blogging?

I started my blog because things that I wanted to know about were not on the internet.  When we got our first poddy calf, we had trouble getting him to take a bottle, and I found very little information to help us.  Also when we wanted to tan a steer hide, we couldn’t find any first-hand instructions.  That’s when I realised that the things that we do and the things that we learn through trial and error may be of interest to others.  I don’t claim to be an expert, but I at least want to start the conversation and get some information and ideas out there for other people to use if they need it.

What are you loving about your life right now?

Owning two dairy cows and starting to feel more confident about milking, managing the calves, weaning and making cheese!  Getting closer to self-sufficiency and constantly learning new skills along the way.

I mentioned that I bake my own bread.  I make a loaf once a week, and I’ve learnt the recipe by heart, because I just do the same every week.  I have tried sourdough, but I never got the hang of it, so I use a technique called “soaking” the flour and add normal bakers yeast.  I also use a bread maker for the mixing and first rise, but do second rise and cook the loaf in either the wood stove in winter or the BBQ in summer.

Here’s what I do:

Ingredients

330 mL rainwater

0.25-0.5 cup sunflower seeds and chia seeds

2-3 tablespoons of kefir (or whey or yoghurt)

1tablespoon of olive oil

1 teaspoon of raw honey

3.25 cup flour (I use 2 cups organic white wheat and the rest wholemeal wheat or spelt)

½ tablespoon of yeast

½ tablespoon of sea salt

Combine everything apart from the last two ingredients in the bread maker bowl first thing in the morning.  Shut the lid and walk away.

In the afternoon, around 4pm, add the yeast and salt and start the breadmaker.  I have modified a program so that the machine kneads the dough for 30 mins, then lets it rise for an hour, then kneads it again for 30 minutes, then stops.

Pour the dough into an oiled bread tin and cover with a damp tea towel, allow to rise in a warm spot for up to an hour. 

Bake in a hot oven for up to an hour.  You might have to experiment with some of the times!  And you could just cook it in the bread maker, we just don’t like the shape of the loaf. 

The time between mixing the dough in the morning and rising/baking allows the microbes in the kefir to start to work on the proteins in the flour.  The result is lighter bread without any bread improver and is similar to sourdough, except this recipe using bakers yeast instead of relying on wild yeast to rise the bread.  We have a slice each every morning with our breakfast egg, so one loaf lasts about a week.

Read more about how Liz bakes bread on her blog.

**if you don't have a bread machine, knead the bread by hand until it is elastic like.

Thank you so much Liz for taking the time to share your wholefood story with us. Now, where to start? Homemade sauerkraut has been on my to-do list for a while, how about you? I love Liz's tip to tackle one change at a time. What will yours be? 

wholefood mama: Rachel Pitts

What a treat it is today to have wholefood mama Rachel Pitts gracing this post with her wholefood story and delicious recipe. Rachel has a distinctive flair for inspired recipe writing and delightful food styling and it brings me much pleasure to introduce her story to you. Without further ado from me, its over to Rachel. Enjoy! And a very big delicious thank you Rachel for being part of this and sharing your words and photos here. Muchas gracias xx

Rachel Pitts loves to feed people, none more so than her husband and two young children, Greta, 3, and Finian, 7 months. She writes The Hungry Girls’ Cookbooks – petite handmade books that are a collaboration with two friends, illustrator and designer Katherine Bird and photographer Leah Holscher. She is also a freelance cookbook editor with recent books including the SBS Food Safari series. In her spare time Rachel loves to tend a small vegetable patch, and she somewhat sporadically posts stories and recipes on the Hungry Girls’ blog. In 2013 she hopes to have a lot more spare time!! 

where does your love of food and cooking come from?

Probably with a few memorable food experiences in my childhood – the giant box of apricots that Nana and Grandad brought down to us at Christmas, and nana’s Christmas pudding and Christmas cake, all of which I absolutely adored. My family wasn’t a big cooking family, but I realised as a young teenager that I could start to make delicious things myself and so I started making cakes, and then I think vegie burgers came next ... I loved the creative side of cooking and realising you could experiment a bit.

what are your favorite dishes to cook and why?

Dishes abundant with fruit and vegetables. Some people adore seafood or meat, and I love these too, but I think what I love most is the stuff of the earth. A simple bowl of silverbeet sauteed with onions and currants, a pile of ‘Persian carrots’ on homemade sourdough toast with a dollop of yoghurt, or a cherry-smothered chocolate pavlova that went down really well this Christmas.

kitchen gadget or appliance you can't go without? 

Our wok and our big, heavy mortar and pestle ... Staying at a holiday house over Christmas and trying to crush seeds with a hammer inside glad-wrap was not quite the same. So, these are essential items, but as for irreplaceable I’d have to say the one round aluminium cake tin that was my nana’s. All my fancy springform, non-stick cake tins age badly as their coatings start flaking off, so this simple cake tin is always the best. 

what do you hope to teach your children about food and cooking?

To be open minded about all food and see the deliciousness of just about everything! We eat really varied meals at home and I think this was challenging for our 3 year old girl (and us) when she first started eating, but now she eats pretty much anything and even a touch of chilli, which I’m still fairly amazed by. She claims she just doesn’t like ‘white tangy things’, by which she means horseradish, and I figure at this point in her life that’s okay. I want my kids to become good little cooks as that’s of course how you eat well and keep healthy. 

which cookbooks and food blogs do you turn to for inspiration?

I don’t find nearly enough time for reading blogs at the moment. I feel a bit out of the loop, although I do really like Trotski & Ash ... As for cookbooks, I find all the cookbooks/travelogues by Jeffery Alford and Naomi Duguid very inspiring, and also love thumbing through Moro and Casa Moro by Sam and Sam Clark. Otherwise, I love digging around in old fashioned cookbooks – little hardbacks with yellowed pages and no pictures, particularly ones on different cuisines.

a memorable food moment?

The night before I headed off on a four month trip to Nepal and India with a girlfriend, my partner, who is now my husband, made me the most romantic dinner ending with chocolate mousse for dessert. It was slightly daggy served in tall glasses with strawberries, but it blew me away! I think I knew then I should marry him. I still have a big soft spot for chocolate mousse.

Rachel's recipe: Chinese peanut and celery salad

photos by Leah Holscher

I’ve been slowly growing my repertoire of Chinese salads – cool, crisp numbers that are fresh with rice vinegar and the perfect accompaniment to dumplings, spiced skewers or steamed fish. This one features boiled raw peanuts (juicy and softly crunchy like water chestnuts) along with stir-fried celery, all suspended in a delicious dressing.

1 cup raw peanuts in their skins

11/2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine

1 tablespoon black or white rice vinegar

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon sugar

11/2 tablespoons oil for stir-frying such as peanut or sunflower

1 large garlic clove, finely chopped

1/2–1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (depending on their heat)

4–5 celery stalks, wide bottoms cut in half lengthwise, sliced

Boil the peanuts in a saucepan of water for around 15 minutes, until they have softened a little.

Meanwhile, combine the soy sauce, rice wine, vinegar, sesame oil and sugar in a bowl. When the peanuts are cooked, drain them and toss immediately in the dressing. Set aside for 30 minutes or longer to soak up the flavours.

Heat the oil in a wok over high heat and the garlic and chilli flakes. Sizzle briefly, then add the celery and stir-fry for 2–3 minutes. Add to the bowl of peanuts and mix well. You can serve the salad immediately or leave it to cool to room temperature.

Serves 4

more in the wholefood mama series...
wholefood mama: Robin Koster-Carlyon
wholefood mama: Jay Black