A Healthy Gluten-Free Apricot Slice Recipe

* Gluten free | egg free | dairy free | no added sugar *

I wanted to make some healthy gluten-free lunchbox snacks today and came across this recipe - which is "free" of a lot of other things too - only to remember that my kids can't have either nuts or coconut at school. #damn! 

But I'm still making it - it won't last til Monday anyway cos it looks so yummy :)

Recipe: 

+ 250g dried apricots 
+ 1 cup desiccated coconut 
+ 1 cup almond meal 
+ 3 cups coconut oil 
+ 1 tbsp chia seeds (I used white) 

Soak apricots for 1 hr. Drain. Pulse all ingredients in a food processor until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Press into a lined slice tray. Chill for 3 hrs. Slice. Serve. Eat.

Voila!

Do you have any new fave recipes to share? 
Amber. XO

p.s. I have a new facebook like button at the bottom of each post! 

Can you see it's lil' blue self there? Please click on it and share the love :) 

Merci beaucoup! xx

150/365 Twenty Four Years

T and I started dating as baby-faced 15 year olds. 

And we just celebrated our 24th anniversary. 

Yes, I'm starting to feel old ;)

He had been away all week and we were very happy to have him home. Buster was at a sleep-over so it was just us... and and 8 year old. Hee Hee. #romantic. What to do?  Thai takeaway, good champagne and movies in bed. 

Happy days. 

p.s. I have a new facebook like button at the bottom of each post! 

Can you see it's lil' blue self there? Please click on it and share the love :) 

Merci beaucoup! xx

Paris Baby! The Sneak Peak Post

I've been talking about posting more of our travel photos recently, specifically some images from Paris. 

But I have a few boring techie delays. Namely that I need to sort out all of my drives and sync them to my new Macbook Pro. Which is basically code for: the Paris shots aren't on my computer! Boo.

Luckily, I do have some to show you - a few shots that I had posted to another blog while we were away but that most of my Rainbow Mama readers [ yes you, hellooooooooo! ] probably haven't seen yet! 

I miss Paris a lot... 

It feels a bit like some grand adventure I must have dreamt right now, sitting back in my own house here in Australia. But it wasn't a dream :) And I'm going to love revisiting Paris along with you when I finally put all of the images together. 

But until then - enjoy this sneak peak! 

Amber. XO

What's YOUR favourite city? x

p.s. I have a new facebook like button at the bottom of each post! 

Can you see it's lil' blue self there? Please click on it and share the love :) 

Merci beaucoup! xx

149/365 Looking on The Bright Side

Looking on the bright side...

The rain may makes things muddy but it also makes things beautiful :)

#BangalowLife

148/365 Sunset Soccer Monkey Business

Hmmm, yes, that's my child. #monkey

Rest In Peace | Maya Angelou

"Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud"

- Maya Angelou. 

1928 - 2014.

147/365 Summer's Late Echo

This weather is making it a bit too easy to ignore that we're only a few days off Winter here...

The Impromptu Beach Circus | Byron Bay

I love discovering little moments. This was one I had to capture. 

Beach jugglers, Byron Bay. 

146/365 Byron Sunset Over The Bay

Glory glory glory. Man - tonight's sunset was just insanely beautiful. #nofilter

When Your Friend Has Triplets? It's Triple the Cute!

We lived in Sydney the year our boys were four and six. 

It's funny living somewhere for just a year: you have to meet a lot of new people but you don't make many actual 'friends' in that time. [ Well, I didn't... Maybe you have a fabulous social technique! In which case you should share it with us so we can join the friend-a-thon :) ].

Anyway, so there I was. In Sydney. With two little boys. Among the people I met was another mama, Simone, who also had two boys. She lived on our street. Her eldest child was in the same class as my eldest child. And guess what?! We became friends. 

Not that we got to spend lots of time together - what is TIME when you have four small busy boys between you ;) - but we walked to and from the school, we celebrated the Winter Solstice, we drank the occasional cup of tea together. And I knew that we would likely stay in touch after that year had slipped past us. 

I also knew that she was hoping for another baby :)

We settled back into our country-life to the north and got busy homeschooling. Life shuffled along. And then I heard that Simone was expected a baby! Well, actually *three* babies to be precise. Wow! From a family of four to a family of seven... I [ still! ] can only imagine. And - they were all girls.

We did get to meet them when the the triplets were a few months old which was lovely but earlier this year we caught up again and I brought my camera along for an impromptu photoshoot. To capture our cool-cat boys hanging out together - yay! - AND the cute little ones, now two, also.

Here are some of the photos. I'm even going to see if I can remember which girl is which. Simone can tell us if I get it totally wrong!! Lol. My favourite shots are the last ones: where we tried to get our seven monkeys to get into the same photo. Funny.  

Oh! And I'm thinking of coming down to Sydney in a few weeks time. I might even take a few bookings  if anyone is interested :) 

  

Margot.

Tilly.

Rosa. 

Simone and her girls. 

Our biggest monkeys! 

Plus our middle two :)

Me, Simone and Tilly. I think! ;)

p.s. Don't forget to let me know if you're interested in booking a family shoot - I'd love to talk to you!

Love, Amber. XO

145/365 For The Kids... In All Of Us

A public invitation to play :) I like. 

Main Beach, Byron Bay. 

Recipe: Gluten Free Spinach Scrolls.

So, you might remember that I bought some lovely spinach at the farmers market on Saturday morning. I also had a box of frozen gluten-free puff pastry I wanted to try and well, it seemed like an obvious combination to me! I googled "spinach scrolls" and adapted this recipe from Souvlaki for the Soul. I omitted the walnuts because my boys' school has a nut-free policy but I would include them [ or maybe pine nuts, yum! ] if I was just making them for home-eatin'.

To start you need some kick-ass BEAUTIFUL fresh spinach. Okay, I lie - you *could* make this with frozen spinach [ I like to keep some frozen spinach in my freezer for smoothies and easy pizza toppings ] but the thing is that you feel like a super-mama when you buy a big head of green goddess goodness to feed your family so that's what I'm recommending ;)

INGREDIENTS:

+ 1 head of fresh Spinach [ wash + chop ]

+ Puff Pastry [ lay out to defrost if frozen ]

+ 250g Ricotta Cheese

+ 125g Danish Feta Cheese

+ 1 large free-range Egg

+ Salt and Pepper to season

* this mix was actually twice what I needed for the amount of pastry I had so you could halve it if you wanted - or do what I did and freeze the remaining spinach/cheese puree mixture in the freezer for another batch!

METHOD: 

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C. 

2. Blanch your spinach in a pot of boiling water. It only takes about 5 minutes. 

3. Defrost your puff pastry [ or make your own if you can! ]

I had been wanting to test this gluten free puff pastry from Simply Wize [ you can buy it at Woolworths if you're shopping in Australia ]. It's a bit expensive at about A$8 for five small-ish sheets but I was making these for Kingsley's school lunches and he misses out on so many bakery items so I thought it worth the splurge. I do however think I'll try my own gf puff pastry in the future!

4. Drain the spinach. You want to press out as much water as possible. Use a wooden spoon.

5. Add everything [ spinach, cheeses, egg ] straight into your food processor bowl. Blend til smooth. Season to taste. It's a bit of a pain to wash up the food processor but it makes this step super-easy!

6. Wow - Look at this glorious green puree you should now have! Spoon it onto your prepared pastry and spread it without getting too close to the edges. Now, roll up your pastry and then cut each roll into smaller pieces. This pastry was kind of small so I only got three mini-scrolls per sheet.

That step sounds trickier than it is - but you do need to be careful not to press too hard or you'll lose your filling!

7. Place all of your mini scrolls onto a non-stick baking tray and brush on a milk &/or egg wash [ we had left-over french toast mixture from breakfast so I used that! A little over-vigourously ;) ].

8. Pop your scrolls into the oven.  Sit back and clean up your mess enjoy yourself for the next 15 minutes. I found mine took a little longer to be perfectly brown so add a few minutes if you think they need it. 

Voila! 

Super-cute, yummy, healthy, lunchbox-ready spinach scrolls :) 

Take a bow.

If you make them - gluten-free or not - leave a comment and tell us how they work out! 

XO