friday recipe + a giveaway!: buckwheat pasta with winter veg and walnuts

I remember trying buckwheat noodles for the first time when I was about ten (that was thirty years ago!) my 'hippy' aunty cooked them for me and I thought they were delicious, for 'hippy food'.

Now I'm all grown up I still have a taste for hippy food and when Orgran contacted me to see if I'd like to create a recipe using their buckwheat pasta I said sure! And the good thing is a lucky reader can win some too along with some other Orgran goodies.

Buckwheat is a great alternative for anyone wanting to avoid wheat and gluten because despite its name buckwheat does not contain wheat. Or gluten. I like this pasta because it holds its shape and has a slightly nutty taste to it.

All the other ingredients in this dish I bought at the Wednesday market in Main St Mornington where there is a fantastic range of organic, seasonal fruit and vegetables. Plus I found delicious Victorian walnuts fresh out of their shells.

I'm running a day behind with this post so we have a Friday recipe instead of Thursday recipe and weekend reading will appear, well, on the weekend!

School holidays started today and we are on the road to stay with friends in Bermagui.

I hope you have some fun things planned, like staying in your pyjamas and not having to pack lunchboxes!

Now on with the recipe and the giveaway. The recipe is more for grown ups, if your kids like kale and cabbage and garlic and walnuts with pasta give them a high 5 from me. And for those with kids who don't like all that, pesto is perfect with this pasta too.

ORGRAN GIVEAWAY DETAILS

For your chance to win some Orgran buckwheat pasta and other Orgran goodies to the value of $25 just leave a comment below telling me your family's favorite pasta topping and the winner will be selected by random number generator and announced here next Friday July 3rd at 8pm. Please make sure that you are contactable by email. **This giveaway is now closed. The winner is Kellie from dear olive.**

*sometimes readers can't work out how to leave a comment, you can click on comment and then select 'Anonymous' and then leave your name and email address in the comment if that makes it easier for those who don't have google accounts. Now I've probably really confused you.

Buckwheat pasta with winter veg and walnuts 
Serves 4

Ingredients

1 red onion thinly sliced
12 walnut halves chopped and toasted in a fry pan
3 cloves chopped garlic
1 packet Orgran buckwheat pasta
6 kale leaves chopped (about 2 cups)
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
1.5 cups finely shredded cabbage
lemon zest and juice of 1 small lemon
3 tablespoons olive oil
sea salt + cracked pepper

To make

Cook the whole packet of the buckwheat pasta to directions on packet.
The key to not having mushy gluten free pasta is to set a timer and drain the pasta immediately, don't fall into the trap of thinking oh an extra minute won't hurt while I finish chopping the onion - it will hurt!

Heat a large fry pan over a medium heat and pour in the olive oil.

Cook the red onion until it is soft and transparent.

Add in the garlic, cabbage and kale and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add in the pasta, lemon juice, lemon zest and parsley, stir until combined with the vegetables.

Stir in the walnuts, season with salt and pepper and give another splash of olive oil if it is looking a bit dry.

If you love parmesan you might want a bit of that grated in too. Mushrooms would be nice too! Oh and peas! Pretty well endless ideas...and of course chilli if that's your thing.

Serve + enjoy.

giveaway: the healing feeling ebook and 3 DVD set

It's been a while between giveaways here and I'm excited about this one! 

One lucky winner will receive The Healing Feeling ebook created by my friend Samantha Gowing Australia's leading spa food chef, nutritionist, passionate organic advocate and business mentor extraordinaire. Plus her 3 DVD set that covers: food as medicine, recipes, health tips and for those in business the DVD's include Sam's social media and online marketing secrets. 

Some of you will remember I went to the Melbourne launch of the print version of The Healing Feeling late last year at the Sustain natural and organic expo. I was so happy to buy my copy hot off the press because I know this book represents a lifetime of work for Sam and for its great, nourishing content!

Anyone who is a sucker for a cookbook that tells a story will love The Healing Feeling. With her trademark humour and positivity Sam shares her story of going from being an award-winning restaurateur and publican to becoming a therapeutic chef as a result of losing her beloved father Dennis Gowing to cancer. For the past 15 years Sam has been teaching and celebrating the ancient wisdom of food as medicine and this book is an extension of that. You'll find beautiful full colour photos, health giving recipes and remedies on every page.

Here's how to enter: 

1. Like Sam's Food Health Wealth facebook page and leave a comment here to let us know you've done so. 

2. Like The Wholefood Mama facebook page and leave a comment here to let us know you've done so (if you are already a liker of my page, thankyou! You are still in the running just leave a comment below)

3. Share the giveaway on social media and leave a comment here to tell us you have.

And for those sensible people who want nothing to do with facebook (it's not as bad as you think, really it isn't! I am a late adopter who is a convert!) simply leave a comment below.

The winner will be chosen by random number generator this Friday May 2nd at 5pm and announced on this page. Good luck!

This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Melanie! Please email me nikkifisher@iprimus.com.au so I can forward your prize. Thanks to everyone who entered.

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While I'm here, Sam is hosting two great events one in Melbourne and one in Sydney that I thought might be of interest, particularly as I know many bloggers are writing ebooks and one of the events covers just that topic.

How to Self-Publish Your Passion - Melbourne Event 

Samantha Gowing, Dr. Nat Kringoudis and Andrew Watt are successful self-published authors and experts in their respective industries of food, wellness and entertainment. In this four hour seminar they team up to share their self-publishing know how. Promising plenty of fun and inspiration, but importantly they pack in loads of practical information about:

-        the process of self-publishing your passion both online and in print

-       the pitfalls and how to avoid them

-       marketing essentials for promoting your book and maximising sales opportunities

Saturday 14^th June 2014

10am – 2pm

$97

Venue: Donkey Wheel House, 673 Bourke Street Melbourne

Lead Me to Success with Samantha Gowing and Therese Kerr - Sydney Event

An evening for entrepreneurial women who want inspiration, motivation and practical advice about health, wellness, the organic industry, self-empowerment and leadership. 

Wednesday May 21st

6pm - 9pm

Venue: Hub Sydney, Darlinghurst

$97

a giveaway: springhill farm gluten-free bake your own bread

Good gluten-free bread where are you hiding? If you've ever bought gluten free bread off the shelf you'll know what I'm talking about. First there are the additives (so many numbers!) and then there is the taste, or should that be lack of taste, or real bread texture. In my experience gluten free bread off the shelf is more like not very nice cake or like eating a rubber sponge.

Late last year I was in a foodstore in Melbourne and spied Springhill Farm gluten free bread baking flour. I bought a packet thinking it would be a handy thing to keep in the pantry for when we ran out of bread.

We are not a gluten free family but we don't buy any wheat products. We usually eat bread made from millet flour from our local health food store that does contain gluten. A quick lesson in which grains contain gluten: wheat, rye, barley, oats and spelt. My friend Sam Gowing likens gluten to glue, it is the element that sticks things together. When you think of it that way it is little wonder that some people find gluten difficult or near impossible to digest.

Back to Springhill Farm gf bread. I baked the loaf and was really pleasantly surprised, the result was a dense real bread that compared to a sourdough loaf.

Fast forward to this month when I was contacted by a PR agency (this is part and parcel of being a food writer long before I was a blogger) asking if I would be interested in sampling the entire Springhill Farm gf bread mix range: original, seed and fruit. Yes please.

So sample we did and impressed again I am, impressed enough to share with you and even better to really share with you via a giveaway of the complete range of gf bread mixes (valued at $17.60) courtesy of Springhill Farm.

The packet contains the gluten free flour, along with the seeds or fruit depending on the loaf. To make, you supply the yeast and sweetener to activate the yeast (I used a spoon of honey), a pinch of salt and lukewarm water. The directions on the packet call for mixing using an electric mixer with a dough hook, if like me you don't have one of those I did it by hand and it worked out just fine.

You can enter the giveaway twice:
(sorry international readers this giveaway is only open to readers in Australia)

simply leave a comment below, particularly love to hear your gf bread experiences (entry one)
and/or like The Wholefood Mama on facebook (entry two. be sure to leave a comment saying you have hit the 'like' button)

The winner will be chosen using random number generator and will be announced in this post on Thursday 16th May 2013 at 8pm est.

COMMENTS CLOSED - The Winner is #1 Sonia from Natural New Age Mum. Congratulations!

Good luck!

Springhill Farm gluten free bread mixes are available for purchase online here

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.