Category: Wellness

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Cauliflower Soup

This week, you, my faithful follower, would have noticed I’m a little late in posting.

It’s for a good reason.

Friends have spent the past ten weeks outside of Australia, travelling abroad, and they only returned home over the weekend. So, last night, instead of slaving over the keyboard, developing a post for this week, I was having dinner at their place and being regaled with lots of tales from their adventures.

From buying discounted clothing in Dubai to having a pub lunch in Cornwall, they entertained me.

But not only that, they also made the most scrumptious meal from a cauliflower.

My friend is a brilliant cook, and this is what she whipped up:

Ingredients:

1 brown onion, diced

1 large garlic clove, finely chopped

5 medium potatoes

1 cauliflower

2L vegetable stock

salt and pepper

nutmeg

cream

butter

Method:

  1. fry onion in melted butter until soft

  2. Add garlic. Cook further 1-2 mins.

  3. Chop cauliflower roughly. Chop 5 medium sized white fleshed potatoes roughly.

  4. Add potatoes to pan and boil 15 mins. Add cauliflower and 2 litres of vegetable stock salt pepper and nutmeg.

  5. Bring back to boil. Cover and reduce heat and simmer for. about 2 hrs. May need to add more water.

  6. Season to taste. Allow to cool. Blend until smooth.

  7. Stir in 1 carton of cream and heat gently.

It’s a lovely way to use cauliflower. Since they’re in season at the moment, they can be picked up in my home town for as little as $1 per head. This makes this particular recipe incredibly cheap to make, and the quantities, last night, fed three people with enough for left overs. Especially with a bread roll, this is hard to beat on a cold Winter’s night.

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The lost art of laziness

In much of our culture, laziness is frowned upon. Calling someone lazy is meant to mean they don’t do enough and are flawed in some way. I’d like to change this. For me, I’m putting laziness on my weekly goal list. And I’m even doing this without feeling guilty!

Being truly proactively lazy is a lost art, in an era of rushing around, being busy and working on being productive. But for me, being busy makes me tired and stressed. Don’t get me wrong. I love being on the go. Except to be proactive and healthy, laziness is a must.

In Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, the seventh habit says that self care is important to being proactive and is pivotal on whether someone can be effective in keeping to the other habits. Covey calls this seventh habit, “Sharpening the saw.” I’d like to give a shorter title – laziness!

So, my goal list now sports a new task. I’m aiming on keeping one day every weekend free for being seriously lazy. On this day, changing out of pyjamas is optional. I can turn off the phone, listen to my fave radio show, talk with my neighbour (the one who keeps me alive with homemade jam drops and cups of tea), and when ugg boots in Winter are mandatory.

I’ve done this because I am busy. And because I’d like to continue to be busy and be relaxed at the same time. I’m aware that being too busy can disconnect me from my values, and from those who mean the most to me. In order to achieve all that is important and to keep participating in life in a way that is meaningful, one lazy day a week is not wasted time. It’s as equally important to my being busy on all the other days.

So, put on your pyjamas, and if it’s cold weather, your uggies. Make yourself a cup of hot chocolate and park yourself in your favourite chair. Read that book you’ve been putting off, turn on the telly, and chill-ax. Start being lazy right now, and get some practice in for your lazy day.

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Happiness Ingredients

I have a new philosophy on life. It’s nothing too far fetched or out there, but it is revolutionary, in its own right.

Hearing people complain that their life isn’t what they’d like it to be, got me thinking. Because, in truth, we all become disillusioned at some point, and need some reality coming back at us.

So, here is my new philosophy.

Identify what makes you happy and do more of it!

It’s not ground breaking and makes perfect sense in a way that’s kind of obvious, but we all get off track and lose ourselves along the way.

So, how am I personally going to achieve this?

Well, firstly, it involves being real about who I’d like in my Life. The first person on my list is my Fur Baby, Milo. He’s definitely my fave person. Followed by my Family, especially my Mum, and my closest friends.

For those I’d like to spend quality time with this means that for Milo. I will endeavour to spend quality time with him, by taking him to the park each week, for a run and a sniff. I can even read a book while I watch him make friends. Another resolution is to spend one day a week with Mum and whatever other Family Member wants in. This isn’t easy as everyone is super busy, but it’s a goal close to my heart, so I’ll make the effort to fit them in.

Secondly, I would choose activities that talk to my heart. Funnily enough, it’s my writing that needs the most love at this point in time. And so it is my writing that I’ll give my attention to. Writing is kind of like owning a pot plant. You have to give it the correct conditions, with the correct amount of love and neglect to keep it flowering and looking its best. Well, my writing has had enough neglect. And so it’s going to be watered!

And, of course, my garden. I’ll endeavour to spend an hour a day in it, watering, weeding and talking to it, so that it too will sustain me spiritually and with enough to eat each week.

Lastly, to do more for my Happy, I’ll get enough sleep, and rest, and eat proper foods so that my whole body rejoices for me and with me.

So, spending time with my loved ones, writing, gardening, and looking after my own general well being, are the ingredients for my Happiness Recipe.

What are yours?

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ANZAC Day’s Dark Secret

Okay, here it is.

I have a Blog, and therefore, the option of turning it into a soap box when a good reason arises.

And today just so happens to be ANZAC Day.

Since it’s a national event, I’ll bring forward my posting to today, instead of tomorrow.

Growing up in Australia, I was taught that ANZAC Day was a time when we, as a nation, looked back and acknowledged how horrible war is, and how we need to work towards a world where there is no war.

It’s a line I believed and still believe.

War is terrible. It takes lives when people return from war too. A huge amount of men and women who return home from service suicide, as what they have borne witness to is indescribable and in a civilised world, has no place. PTSD, and other trauma related illnesses plague these brave people even when there is safety. Yes, war leaves scars. And the most terrible of these are the scars no one can see.

So, today, I’ll turn my Blog into a soap box, as there is something insidious happening when the nation mourns her dead.

ANZAC Day marks the largest recruitment drive in the Armed Services’ Calendar.

Yep. It’s the day when all those school children feel Patriotic, and when they turn the magical age of 18, they turn this feeling into the action of signing their lives away in order to be called up to serve their country.

The Cynic in me must speak out.

I said in my Welcome (check the other static page of Liz’s Everest), that I have values.

Well, if today is a day of mourning and an occasion to renounce war, seeing it as the crime it truly is, then as active members of our community, we need to speak out.

Today, we leave all things Patriotic on the shelf. Instead we embrace the youth of today and let them know about life, Real Life. And Real Life doesn’t involve wishing to die in a foreign land for a foreign power for a foreign cause.

So, stand firm with Life, and work against this evil. Stand up for what’s right, and email your local Member of Parliament, and ask them to stand with us, as we end this horrible crime.

Let us work towards Peace instead.

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Ikaria

Diet, exercise, a sense of purpose for living, plus close relationships all point to the Ikaria way of life. And this is significant in that people on this little Greek Island far outlive people in other areas of the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icaria

It’s possible to forgive yourself for not looking after your body, but it doesn’t mean that your body will forgive you. But there are some ways a person can turn this around. And it’s rather simple – just focus on these Ikarian characteristics:

Diet – this doesn’t mean that you deprive yourself of anything you enjoy. Everything in moderation. But, eating like the Ikarians means that you’ll consume more fruit and vegetables than any other food group. For a snack, grab an apple or mandarin. Carrots and other vegetables, dipped in hummus are also good substitutes for filling up on chips and biscuits, and all of these, especially hummus, are filling. And when cooking, add more vegies that any other ingredient.

Exercise – Ikarians are known for walking instead of driving. The practical benefits of this can be extended to cycling and jogging as all these forms of exercise take you from one place to another for very little, if any, cost. It also saves on petrol, which means less guilt towards the environment.

A sense of purpose – this is most important. This means having a clear reason to get out of bed in the morning. Having a sense of purpose, or a reason for living has even been found to be a key trait in helping people survive natural disasters. This characteristic of Ikaria can be adopted and brought into every day life through a myriad of ways, including volunteering, being involved with community, and is closely linked to the next point in this article.

Having close relationships – this means developing relationships not only in your family, but also with friends and in the greater community. One of the quickest and most effective ways I’ve found to do this, is to simply let people be themselves in your company. This doesn’t mean compromising your own boundaries, but simply looking at all individuals as though they are innocent, and maintaining a non-judgemental outlook.

So now you can enjoy life like an Ikarian.