I was very excited to receive a large red box of chocolate from Cadbury Kitchen a few weeks ago. When I was contacted by them asking if I would like to review and create something with their new range of Real Chocolate Cooking range, it only seemed polite to say yes!

I first made these tasty little muffins for a nutrition & wellness event with some mums and their kids - they were gobbled up by all and I was very impressed I got the little ones approval too. The original ones were just a basic berry buckwheat and millet muffin...I refrained from nuts and oats for those with food intolerance. These are the ones with lots more things in them! How can you go wrong with raspberries, coconut, almonds, oats & 85% dark chocolate?

I am not normally a big fan of cheesecakes...I can never seem to steer myself away from chocolate desserts! However, this light ricotta based recipe is one that I really enjoyed...and I can't go pass citrus curd and fresh fruit.

Last weekend we had the annual Juice Plus+ conference in Newcastle. It was inspiring, motivating and very exciting - so much new research coming out and lots of awesome news.

Anyway, we drove up to Newcastle with some of our team members and I wanted to bring some healthy, light (but totally delicious) snacks for the ride. Something made with fruit seemed highly appropriate (Juice Plus+ is simply fruits & veg in a capsule).

One of these was these snacks that I made was ridiculously easy and healthy apple chips. Whilst they take a few hours to dehydrate obviously, they are certainly not difficult to make...it's not even really a recipe! So that's even more reason for everybody to make these!

Next time I make these, I'm going to sprinkle them with cinnamon...just because I LOVE cinnamon.

Since my mum is in Melbourne and I'm stuck up in Sydney...I made John's mum some of her favourite cookies for Mothers' day. (Actually I don't even like white chocolate and these could quite easily be on my favourite list too...not my top favourite, but pretty damn good. Certainly useful for carbo loading and getting some good 'guilt drive' to get through my first 8km run in a while!)

My own mum is amazing. Purely amazing. I love her, admire her, confide in her, cry with her, laugh with her and share everything with her...she is my best friend and mother at the same time. Happy Mothers' day Mary...I asked Pickles to give you lots of extra kitten love on Sunday :)

So Happy Mothers' day to all the wonderful, amazing and special mums out there! I hope somebody bakes you delicious cookies too!

I have been reading and exploring raw foods over the past few months and I am really starting to enjoy creating new raw dishes or mainly raw. I am not interested in being 100% raw but I certainly love the benefits and how my body feels when I eat more fresh vegetables, fruit, nuts, seeds etc... but even more so because I'm eating less and less of the processed foods. One day I will perhaps try a totally raw lifestyle...who knows!

Just in case you have been living under a rock or have just discovered the online food blogging world...then I'm sure you would have come across The Green Smoothie once or twice...or fifty-two times before. Well, yes I am totally on the green band wagon and enjoy my vibrant coloured drink every day, sometimes twice a day.

So I thought I would share my typical green breakfast smoothie. Since they are pretty straightforward to make i.e. leafy greens + fruit + water + extras; and don't really require precise measurements or a recipe - I thought a green smoothie video would probably just do the trick!

I came across this recipe on one of my favourite food blogs Anja's Food 4 Thought. I always find delicious and healthy looking recipes on her site and have finally gotten around to trying one.

I substituted a few ingredients with what I had in the pantry and also halved the recipe. These little bars are quite delicious, a lovely banana flavour with the crunchy nuts and bursts of sweet dried apricots. They stay quite soft with a little crunch on the edges and I think next time I would bake them as individual biscuits so that you get just a little more crunch!

Haha I know! I'm hilarious!

In all seriousness though, I was quite surprised that these were so easy to make. This was the first time I worked with yeast so I was a bit apprehensive. When I say apprehensive, I mean I couldn't wait til the morning I had planned to bake and started making the dough at 10pm at night and was subsequently up until 1:30am in the morning with a divine smell of cinnamon and sultanas and chocolate. So apprehensive but still can't wait!

On that note of sultana or chocolate - I just say why choose? Go both! I actually added in extra amounts to the recipe so these are packed full of sultanas AND chocolate chips. I also used half wholemeal flour, I was too scared to go the whole hog though. I thought this would make them too dense. Also replaced the butter with sunflower spread and the caster sugar with brown sugar. Added in allspice as well because, well just because I like my spices.

You need a good few hours though to allow for the proving and rising of the dough, but the ingredients are basic and the process is simple. The results are worth it; I will never buy hot cross buns again when I can make them fresh at home. (Except from my lovely friend Pip who makes the best hot cross buns at Baker's Delight of course...I can't beat a pro!)

I just wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and share these super easy and very delicious truffles...it's a bit hard to resist these little bites so make extra if you are using them for presents as I guarantee you will snack on them! A rich, decadent treat for the holiday season.

I made these delicious assortment of truffles as a present for John's sister on Christmas night. They all worked out really well and I like that the recipes aren't really particular with measurements...it's more a matter of adding a bit extra of dry or wet ingredients as needed. I admit I basically made these up as I went along so all the amounts are not 100% accurate but you should be able to get it right. These recipes are very versatile and easy to adapt in flavours as you like too...try some different combinations of nuts, spices and dried fruits etc... I wanted to do an apple pie flavoured one but ran out of time.

Each recipe makes between 20-30 truffles...I think...we ate a few on the way! Store all the truffles in the fridge to keep them fresh and the tasty.

We had a naughty breakfast the other morning. We ate half of this each (i.e. 2 serves) but 1 serve with some fruit and yoghurt makes it a better brekkie choice. But it was so good that we just ate it all haha I felt better with myself after going to the gym!

I got this idea of an apple pancake, but baked in the oven and found a delicious recipe at Taste and Tell which I modified to suit what I had at hand. It didn't puff up, but I can't say I was surprised after I changed so much of the recipe. It was still so amazingly delicious for breakfast though; the natural yoghurt cut through the brown sugar sweetness too.

Back to porridge, muesli or green smoothies though - I couldn't handle this much indulgence every morning!!

I made this delicious, sweet and crunchy loaf for my lovely Mum. The little bit of butter and sugar in it is well worth the taste, and smelling that golden syrup and dates baking is heavenly! Still I kept it more nutritious with the wholemeal flour as usual; the walnuts provide some great protein and healthy fats for the morning too. It's nice with some ricotta (which adds extra protein,) and topped with banana or apple slices. Perfect special breakfast with a hot cup of tea.

Excuse me I have to go steal a piece before I get back on the plane to Sydney!

*Excited to be featured on Glamour.com Health & Fitness blog by Sarah Jio; see it here!

After booking last minute flights down to Melbourne this weekend to visit my family and lovely girlfriends; I realised that I had quite a bit of perishable food that I wasn't going to be able to eat in the next 24hrs!

A delicious vegetable bolognaise sauce cooked in the slow cooker got rid of 5 tomatoes, 1 eggplant, 1 onion, 4 carrots, some sage and 500g beef mince. (I might put the recipe up here later as well.) It is in the freezer for when I get back on Monday; can't wait to have it with some wholemeal spaghetti! But I still had apples and bananas...so I decided that since I love banana bread so much for breakfast that I would make some to freeze as well. I like to keep the added sugar low, and found a great new 'Low GI' sugar at the supermarket recently. The almond meal and walnuts add some good, healthy fats to keep you satiated throughout the morning too. Of course, whole meal spelt flour for extra nutrients and no butter or oils.

(I'll be honest though, it didn't all make it to the freezer; I had a piece this afternoon and put two in the fridge for a quick breakfast tomorrow morning!)

The lovely Jenn of Jenn Cuisine invited me to do a guest post on her beautiful blog after she did a delicious one for Healthy ZOMTreats. Check out my yummy Honey Muesli Bars here!

The lovely and very talented in the kitchen Jenn from Jenn Cuisine has baked up these delicious looking muffins for Healthy ZOMTREATS using two of my very favourite ingredients - peanut butter and bananas. Particularly the bananas! Yum! Gluten free and healthy too, thanks Jenn!

What a beautiful birthday weekend away, I can't think of a more lovely way to start my 25th year. (Whew...that was hard typing that out! Still feels weird being 24 years old now.)

Really though, the Bombah Eco Cottages were just so perfect. Our lovely host Rob was kind enough to show us around the entire sustainable system of water filtration to the beautiful vegetable garden. He was so authentic and passionate about it that it was a real pleasure to wander through the property. Next time we are up there I would really like to just spend more time being there.

The Myall Lakes National Parks is full of juxtapositions; from the stringy barks and gum trees, to rich green ferns, to sand dunes and aqua coloured roaring ocenas. So much natural beauty...but I will just let the photos speak for themselves I think...

Anyway, first things first! My delicious Birthday Cake which was a simple variation on another favourite cake of mine. Since I had to take everything with me to bake, I couldn't do anything too crazy...but really, bananas are my favourite so this was perfect.

I would like to present the first 'Healthy ZOMTreats' post! These will become a regular feature on ZOMTBAKES where I will be challenging other food bloggers to create delicious desserts and baked goods...but there is a catch:

A ZOMTreat should use healthier ingredients, beautiful fresh and seasonal produce, local produce, natural sugars, 'good' fats etc... just as happy a treat as possible for your body!

I would like to introduce the lovely and talented Erin from fresh365! Erin cooks up a fantastic collection of vegetarian recipes on her blog. She uses delicious seasonal, organic and local products and her dishes are beautifully photographed. Droolworthy material!

These little bundt cakes were a bit of an experiment which turned out pleasantly delicious. The best part was that I totally made this up AND they are pretty healthy little things. I really wanted to try out the flaxseed egg substitute that I had made the day before and I am really pleased with how these came out.
These little ones made it all the way up a rather steep hill to a pretty little lighthouse with amazing views. Unfortunately, the boy and I were too full of chicken salad baguettes to eat them...so they had to trek all the way down again! Don't feel sorry for them though...they weren't forgotten and were just enjoyed with a cup of coffee (before dinner...oops)