I’ve subscribed to the new monthly foodie’s delight, Europe In A Box.

The box came – oh happy day!

Europe In A Box has been set up by my friend and fellow healthy food-loving blogger Ms Slimalicious.

Each month subscribers receive a box bursting with interesting, hard-to-find European treats. There is also background information and a small gift.

Look at the lovely things inside the March box.

This sweet little bottle will make a lovely gift for a friend.

The Gouda Cheese Bites were absolutely yummy and we scoffed them before I had a chance to take a photograph.

So unfrofessional!

Once tasted never forgotten!

Here we have a bove a packet of Spanish Hot chocolate, very sweet and chocolatey.

And my favourites, the French and quite outrageous caramel biscuits. They taste completely of caramel, very novel and very good.

But I did manage to get a photo, thank goodness.

There was also a lovely little Eiffel Tower Keyring and these very pretty cards.

Merci beaucoup!

Europhiles, you’ll love this subscription box service.

I’ve just made three cups of hot chocolate for myself and the teens, heated and whizzed in the Thermomix. A big treat.

I must try this hot chocolate for breakfast, in a bowl, and with baguette and jam.

Just for a bit of armchair travelling at home.

Treats are important, don’t you reckon?

No, no and thrice no!

It’s not your sex life I’m interested in here.

It’s whether you bung it on when you’re training with your PT.

You know, groan and grimace a bit more than necessary, so that they’ll go a bit easy on you.

These PTs do like to make you work hard.

You’d think it was their job or something!

I know that exercising with weights is supposed to be hard.  And it’s the PT’s job to keep adding the weights on and on.

It’s all mental, I know that!!

Buy sometimes, we mums have had a rough night, an even rougher morning and don’t even mention the night before.

And no coffee!

So yes, sometimes I do whinge and groan and screw my face up… and just make out it’s a wee bit harder than it is.

Oh go on, tell me I’m not alone!

Do you fake it with your trainer?

With anyone else??!! 

Look, it’s this simple. I just HATE throwing edible food away.

Rarely do it. Re-use, recycle, feed it to the starving teens. Anything but throw good food away, even into the compost bin. Terrible waste.

So breakfast at our place this term is shaping up to be: rye bread toasted, Weet-Bix or muesli, milk or fruit juice and fresh fruit.

I do love the kids to have some fruit at breakfast time. Canned fruit for those days when we have no fresh.

And so one day I got back from the school run to find the table strewn with dirty dishes, including half a soggy Weet-bix and some about-to-moulder peach.

It just made sense to blend it all up and drink for brekkie.

Wouldn’t you do the same?

Peach Smoothie – With Leftover Breakfast Weet-Bix

200g peach
200ml almond milk
Half a soggy Weet-Bix
One scoop vanilla IsoWhey Complete

Chuck all in the blend and whizz away.  This made two large glasses of smoothie, which is just what I needed as I’d done a 6am cross-training class.

Jeez, it tasted great and I wished I had had it straight after training… but then it would have been a different leftovers-free smoothie, so that wouldn’t have worked.

But I must get some protein in more quickly after my workouts.

 What brekkie leftovers would work in a smoothie for you?

All-Bran anyone??

This post was tragically not sponsored by Weet-Bix. Note to Weet-Bix, will write for food.  I was sent the Iso-Whey Complete French Vanilla and am enjoying trying it out with lots of other flavours. Not all leftovers!

This is a blogvertorial for Digital Parents Collective and SPC.

If only our family fruit bowls always looked like this… but sadly….

Because I’m a housewife superstar, our family fruit bowls are always full to brimming.

Not!!

We run out of fresh fruit very regularly, at which point I start to panic about what fruits to put into the kids’ morning teas and lunch boxes.

You can usually find me scrabbling around in the kitchen drawers, looking for:

dried apricots

dried cranberries

sultanas etc

Last week the kind souls over at SPC and Digital Parents Collective took pity on me (or on the kids, perhaps?) and sent over some Fruit Crush-Ups to try.

I have to be honest and say that I hadn’t seen or tired this brand before.

Verdict? The kids love them.

They’ve especially loved to have a frozen one put into their lunchboxes, they say it’s perfectly chilly by lunchtime.

Fruit Crush-Ups Fast Facts

Each pouch contains half a serve of fruit

No artificial flavours or colours pr preservatives or sweeteners (thank you!)

Cap is resealable so no mess- unlike other fruits!!

RRP is $1.29 per pouch

Six child-tastic flavours: mango, banana, mixed berry, fruit salad, tropical and strawberry

Winner – 2013 Product Of The Year

Consumers voted SPC Crush-Ups ‘Product Of The Year’  which means this new product is certainly off to a flying start!

We were sent four of each flavour and these are all that’s left after just a few days. Those blooming kids!!

Any Downsides?

Just my usual problem of trying to keep snacks safe from prying little and large hands. My four tend to devour snacks faster than I can buy them.

And of course there’s the packaging, we do prefer not to be throwing packaging in the rubbish bin. But at the same time, packaged foods can be a lifesaver, or a lunchsaver in this case.

SPC Fruit Crush-Ups Giveaway

You could win eight pouches of each flavour of Fruit Crush-Ups, that’s 48 pouches. Should last a few weeks… hopefully!

Just fill out the Rafflecopter form below. There are extra entires if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter.

Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Congratulations  Sue Su’a-Luausu, you have won this giveaway!!

Do you have a secret lunch boxes snack for desperate times?

Or are you never that disorganised!!??

I’ve just signed up to a brand new subscription food service: Europe In A Box  and I’m looking forward to receiving the first box of goodies.

This new subscription food service is the brainchild of French expatriate, now Sydney-based blogger, Ms Slimalicious, AKA Cyndie Herrador.

I’ve followed Cyndie’s blog for over a year and love her enthusiastic approach to eating well and a healthy lifestyle.  Cyndie and I have met up and continued our online conversations about food and health and life.

It’s great to see her starting on this new venture.

I’m all for eating well, really enjoying what I eat… and also very much for trying out new foods.

If only that ran in the family!

Do have a look at this new business, I’m sure Cyndie will soon become your  favourite French expatriate. 

‘ Europe in a Box promotes cultural diversity and celebrates European-Australian cross-cultural exchanges, through the love of food.’

I’m in love with the beautiful images on the Europe In A Box website.

To find out more, I fired off a few questions to Cyndie

1.       How are you sourcing the items?  (I bet this is the best part!!)

Europe in a Box products are sourced from carefully selected importers in Australia. Some of the products are also directly shipped from Europe and especially from France.

Each product is hand-picked and selected for their authenticity and quality. My exploration of world food has grown through my experience of living in five countries (France, Morocco, UK, Japan and Australia) and visiting more than thirty others.

2.       What sorts of things will you include?

Europe in a Box is all about discovery, so each month you’ll get a box filled with totally different products.

The contents of each box revolve around several culinary destinations in Europe including France, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, UK, Spain, Sweden, Greece and many others.

Only branded imported European products (in their original packaging) are included in the box and Europe in a Box is vegetarian friendly.

Each box includes:

• 3x hand-picked full-size gourmet treats, each originating from a different country in Europe (with at least one French product per box) – mostly confectionary and dry pantry items – ie: biscuits, pasta, crackers, preserve, chocolate, …
• 1x authentic drink imported from Europe (200 ml or 330 ml) – ie: beer, cider, sparkling wine or a non-alcoholic beverage
• Additional samples to introduce you to new tasty foods – ie: tea, lollies
• 1x keepsake gift in every box – ie: stationary items, small souvenir
• Educational, cultural and culinary information (because we believe the story behind the product is what takes it from the ordinary to the extraordinary)
• Free Shipping

3.       Will you have seasonal items eg for Xmas?

Yes, definitely! We will also have some limited edition boxes for special event like Bastille Day.

4.       How long have you been thinking of this? I have been working on the business plan, marketing strategy, website and sourcing since October 2012. Europe in a Box was born (registered as a company) in November and was officially launched on February 6^th, 2013.

5.       What, in a nutshell, is the secret of the French lifestyle in terms of healthy eating? The secret is to eat for pleasure but with moderation. French people love their food but also know it is important to make balanced choices and to watch the portion sizes.

Right, when my box of food comes, I shall eat with with pleasure, but also with moderation. I promise Cyndie!

Are you a Francophile?

Which is your favourite European cuisine?

PS Not a sponsored post, I’ve subscribed to this service for the sheer love of good food.

I’ll be honest here, until about two years ago, I’d NEVER have used any type of shake or protein powder.

I was very sniffy about them – judgemental even.

Real food is best, shakes are nonsense. Just a teensy bit of rigid thinking there.

But then I read two blog posts which got me sitting up and thinking.

The first was the gorgeous Diminishing Lucy’s post about using shakes to kick start her weight loss from 2010.

The second was Susie’ Burrell’s To Shake Or Not To Shake from 2011.

And then I won my 9 weeks of personal training at VisionPT and started using some protein powder almost daily, generally in the mid-arvo as a carb-cravings buster.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve tried a couple of types and whilst I do find them useful, the flavours have never appealled much.

That was my main impetus to take up an offer from IsoWhey to trial their IsoWhey Complete nutritional protein powder.

I was send one large tub of the Double Chocolate flavour and a sachet each of the Strawberries and Cream and Banana Smoothie flavours.

The IsoWhey website is full of information, there are many videos to watch and an ebook to download. The idea is to use the protein powder as a meal substitute and that’s what I did.

IsoWhey’s nutritionist Janine also called me and gave me some good advice, particularly about adding in some extras to the shake.

A shake made from protein powder with half water, half soy milk, plus avocado and yoghurt made a fab brekkie on the run for me.

IsoWhey – What Worked For Me

It’s so quick to shake up a breakfast, lunch or dinner.

I found this really useful on some of my more hectic days.

I enjoyed making up various smoothies with different ingrediants added to the protein powder eg frozen berries, some ground almonds, bananas.

The shakes did fill me up.  They contain a low GI fibre, probiotics and digestive enzymes in addition to the whey protein.

I lost 400g in the ten days I was using a daily shake, and am happy with that.  I’m a firm believer in slow and steady, and anyway not unhappy with where I am just now.

I like the sensible approach of the advice on the IsoWhey website. No miracles promised. The focus is on lifelong health, fresh food and a healthy combination of nutrition, good food and exercise. 

IsoWhey – What Wasn’t So Good For Me

I had thought I’d try a week of the Fast Track programme using two shakes a day to replace two meals. But in fact I couldn’t stick to that, partly because I did miss real food and also because I ended up going out more than I expected for breakfasts and lunches and didn’t want to miss out. (But made sensible choices, honest!)

IsoWhey is very proud of its natural flavours, but I need more chocolate in my chocolate! I liked adding cocoa powder to the shakes to suit my high choc requirements.

NB 5g of cocoa powder has just 12 calories and 3g of carbs, I tend to add 10g. Yum!

Next time, I might try the French Vanilla flavour as that might be more versatile than the chocolate. If I was using IsoWhey long term I’d buy a tub of both to get some variety.

The Conclusion

For me, using a shake as a meal replacement can work well, especially as a way of having a light eating day as part of my general weight maintainence.

I’ll keep up having protein powder as a mid-arvo snack on days when I exercise a lot, or when I can feel munchies coming and want to avoid them.

Sometimes I made the shakes with a hand blender, sometimes in the Thermomix, and other times just with a shaker cup.

 I’ll keep on adding extra ingredients to the shakes though.

How do you think a bit of spinach would go with the chocolate one?

With a bit of avocado and some extra cocoa?

I reckon it could work!

Do you use protein shakes?

What’s your advice to newbies?

Thanks IsoWhey for sending me samples of your product to review.

There’s a Scottish expression ‘aye at the coo’s tail’ which means you are always late to get things done.

That’s me.

Liz at Last Chance Training nominated me for a Liebster Award last year.  It’s taken a long while, but here we are at last!

Here’s what you have to do:

1. Write 11 random facts about yourself.
2. Answer the 11 interview questions you’ve been given by the person who nominated you.
3. Create 11 new questions.
4. Nominate 11 bloggers and mention them in your post.
5. Go and tell the person who nominated you, along with the people you’ve nominated about your post.

Rightyo then, off we go.

11 Random Facts About Me

1. It took until I was about 46 before I actually sweated at a gym.  Oops.

2. I was the first woman to be in charge as Diving Officer of the scuba diving club at Oxford University. Always handy with a snorkel.

3. I’d love to be a person who is great in a crisis, but actually I am not.

4. My prize for being top in English in Year 8 was ‘The Hitchkhikers Guide To Europe.’  I have never told my mother of the many scrapes my friends and I did get into when hitchhiking back in the 80′s. Note to my kids – don’t hitchhike!!

5. My first job was in a sweetie shop in the village where Ilived. The career went entirely downhill from then on.

6. The best TV presenter I ever worked with was Ray Martin, on The Midday Show about 25 years ago. He was warm, genuinely interested in his guests and his staff and just a good bloke.

7. I’ve never sniffed cocaine, you’ve got to save something for the old folks’ home. No seriously, I’m terrified of drugs, they destroyed my brother’s mind.

8. I saw a small shark when ocean swimming off Manly beach last week!

9. Have a secret desire to write in poems in verse, like I used to when I was at primary school.

10. I genuinely don’t have a favourite child out of the four of them. They all annoy me equally!!

11.  Recently, I am losing the will to work. Straight up, I have struggled as a mum, but it gets so much easier as the years ago by. So much so that now they are all at school, I feel I am getting quite good at it.  And I’m being tamed by housewifery. It took a while.

Here are my replies to the questions Liz set:

1. If you had to go out for dinner with either Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott, who would you choose and why?

Julia Gillard, as I’ve already had a meal out with Tony Abbott.  When I first came to Sydney in 1987 a mutual friend from Oxford days had set up an introduction. Tony Abbott was working at The Bulletin then, he kindly bought me a pizza one lunchtime and gave me some top tips for getting into the media.  I still owe him a lunch.

2.What’s the most adventurous sport you’ve ever tried?

Scuba diving, but only some parts of it. My mate Dorothy and I were once diving the very deep German wrecks in Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. We were exploring inside the wrecks, using a reel and line to find out way out. Dorothy’s legs got tangled in the line with only four minutes before we had to go up. I managed to untie her quite calmly.

3.What’s the best James Bond film you have ever seen?

I’d love to say Skyfall but I haven’t seen it yet.  Totally can’t answer this as it’s been far too long!

4.When was your last baking triumph?

The Healthy Chocolate Cake posted on my other blog, and I must post it here too. It’s absolutely yummy and has no nasties.

5. And cooking disaster?

Probably what’s in the oven right now, I’m too scared to look.

6. Are you ruled by your heart or your head (as Pauline says, “please explain”)

Ah, good question… it used to be by my heart, and also and more strongly by my impulses. But one of the MANY benefits of being older and wiser is learning to think things through rather than just acting all the time. My hubby is also helpful with that. Can be annoying but… I’d be lost without his sensible opinions and ideas.

7. Do you have any regrets over your career choice?

Fantastic question!!  Yes and no… My career in TV suited my personality down to the ground. But it certainly didn’t suit motherhood, especially the particular circumstances I am in with kids with extra needs and an amazing, disappearing husband. I think this means that my personality, so suited to TV, isn’t so suited to the demands of motherhood.

But luckily am getting used to it slowly as I wrote above, after almost 16 years.

8. Do you like dogs?

Yes, but we don’t have one as hubby says no, we have enough wild little creatures dashing around the house.

9. Have you ever tried martial arts?

Briefly, when about 13, I tried judo, learned some useful lessons in self defence but haven’t done any since.

10.  Have you taken any measures to improve your personal sustainability (eg recycle, use public transport)

Yes! Try never to throw out food, have three compost bins on the go, recycle everything possible. I am trying to make up for having four kids.

11.  What is your opinion of  Global Warming?

It’s happening and more needs to be done.  Waste less is my motto.

My eleven questions:

1. When was the last time you felt really proud of yourself?

2. What’s your answer to the obesity crisis?

3.  Have you read any great fiction recently?

4. If the Queen came to tea, what would you serve her?

5.  Where would you like to travel to with your kids?

6.  Are you scared of spiders? Sharks?

7.  Did you study hard at school?

8. Have you cyberstalked your first love!?

9.  Cats – for or against?

10.  Has blogging improved your life?

11.  Where will it all end up?

The 11 bloggers I am nominating

- sorry if this annoying, I know it can take time… but you can always ignore, or be like me and take your time!

Carolyn from Desire Empire

Di from Life is Di-Licious

 Grace at With Some Grace 

Johanna at ZigaZag

Kylie from A Study In Contradictions

Lee at Mummy Issues

Linda at My Journey

Mairi at MairiStones

Rachel from The Kids Are All Right

Robyn at MrsDplus3

Zanni at Heartmama

I tried to check your blogs to see if you had done this Liebster award before, but some of you don’t have search functions.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the read, I know I’d love to read your answers.

Take it easy!

Seana

Just a wee visual indulgence here. I do love taking photos of gorgeous food, almost as much as eating it.

And my eating has become so much more mindful since the children all went back to school. Funny that?!

Cold turkey salad, the turkey is leftovers from a Steggles Shortcuts Thigh Roast. I was sent the range and blogged about that here. Then simple veggies and some leftover beans, a bit of balsamic vinegar and a splash of olive oil. Slurp.

I lightly steamed beans and used some here and kept the rest for the kids’ dinner, tomato from the garden and some mixed leaves. A very light lunch for a day when I wasn’t very hungry but fancied some crunch.

These bowls are huge by the way. I do love a bucketload of salad.

It’s good to feel full. Don’t you think?

This little beauty was breakfast out at a cafe.

Sourdough, pesto, grilled haloumi, avocado and roast tomatos.

I would so much rather eat gorgeous food that is good for me than hoe into white bread or shovel down a bucket load of creamy pasta.

But it DOES take time and effort to eat well and to enjoy eating.

Hope you are loving your food today.

Seana xx

Oh, I do love a meal out and there have been too few of them recently.

Yes, it’s the food but it’s also the lack of work I love, no washing up, no shopping/cooking.

Just the change in routine does me good.

And at a Thai in January, I realised that I haven’t eaten rice for a while.

And I’ve got no intentions.

Not that rice is bad, it does have some minerals and it gives you energy.

But I just don’t need it. The kids can have mine.

At first I used to feel a bit embarrassed about just hoeing into the main meals, but I’ve got over myself.

Does anyone fancy a Thai?

Cos I do.

Will you be eating a great big pile of rice?

So the health and fitness goal that has seen me through summer has been ocean swimming. I’ve been training with Can Too with my goal swim being The Big Swim, from Palm Beach to Whale Beach on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.

And yes, it was big, and bloody hell, the surf was big.

The swim was on Sunday and I’ve been mulling on what to write about it for this blog.

Then I realised that I’d poured my heart into this letter to the kind people who joined me in raising nearly $2000 for Cure Cancer Australia. So I thought I’d share that here too.  here’s what I wrote:

Hello kind, generous friends and family,

Seana here, I wanted to let you know that I survived the savage sea with no shark bites and only a few zillion sea lice stings.

The sea conditions for The Big Swim yesterday were quite ferocious. There were massive dumping waves at both Palm Beach and Whale Beach which I would never have got through intact without assistance.

But I asked for help and got it, and the swimming conditions around the headland were good. It was rainy and a bit misty with a big rolling swell, I loved that part.

Thank you so much for donating to Cure Cancer Australia. 

Can Too has raised over $500,000 from their programs so far this year and almost $11 million dollars overall.

Can Too does all the organising of sports training and all the money raised by participants goes directly to Cure Cancer Australia, funding dozens of young Australian researchers.

The ocean training I have done has been fantastic, and I can’t recommend it to you highly enough.  And yes, it is addictive.

When we were being briefed before the swim, Annie Crawford, who founded Can Too and who lost her dad to cancer when he was in his 50′s, reminded us why we were there.

“We’re all here because we have someone in our lives who is having treatment or who has died of cancer. We all know who we are swimming for.  When you’re out there and you have to dig deep, remember that what you are going through is NOTHING compared to what that person went through or  is going through.”

I actually loved the swim itself, only the dangerous surf conditions scared me. And I did think of the family and friends who have died of cancer, or who have survived with treatment.

Nothing makes me feel so alive as swimming in the ocean, nothing.  I am grateful to be here when others aren’t, glad my kids have me here on the planet when kids we love very much have lost their Dad.

And so I will definitely be doing this again.  Both the swim and donating money I earn to Cure Cancer Australia, whilst pestering others to donate too.

Thank you so much for being part of this salty sea water journey.

This last picture of me with one of our ocean swim trainers. He wasn’t the guy who got me in safely this time, but he had done before during our Saturday morning training.

 If you ever think of doing a swim, run or triathlon, think of Can Too.

Before I completely dissolve into floods of tears here at the computer, I’d like to say a big thank you again.

And see you soon,

Love

Seana xxxxx

PS  Just a wee note on swimming not racing. It took me 1 hour 25 mins to do the 2.7km course.  1058 people finished the whole course and I was 9th last/slowest. Which is fine by me!!

The fastest racer did it in 29 minutes – crivens!

PPS Please don’t even think about doing ocean swimming without some surf and safety training, it’s SO different to swimming in a pool.