213/365 The Simple Things

Being together.
Walking the dog. Together.
Quiet neighbourhood lane ways.
Together.

These are the simple treasures of my life at the moment.

What are your simple things? 
Amber. XO

208/365 Bangalow Glow

Good morning from Bangalow!

It's so pretty out there { and so chilly inside } I must go and get out into it! Have a great Thursday everyone. It's almost the we-we-weekend!!

p.s. I'm off the the Byron Bay Writer's Fest on Sunday. What are you weekend plans? 
Amber. XO

201/365 Freelensing In The Rain

I haven't been doing much freelensing  - a photography technique where you physically remove the lens from your DSLR camera to create tilt-shift inspired macro photography - recently { which is funny because I got seriously obsessed with it a few months back! See here and here } but when I saw this gorgeous leaf kissed by raindrops my mind jumped straight back to the idea.

Have you tried freelensing? Do you have any other fun photography tricks to share?  
Amber. XO

200/365 Bangalow Nights

Bangalow nights.

192/365 Home. First Light.

Home. First light.

The winter sun shines on this photo { taken in Thailand a lifetime ago } by our front door each morning. Such a beautiful way to welcome the new day...

179/365 Organic Miracles | WIN a Moringa Detox Day in the Byron Bay Hinterland

One of the funny things that can happen when you are completing a #365 photo challenge { like I am } is that some days you take a crazy amount of shots and put together an über-big post only to realise that you didn't save anything for the 365!

That just happened here :) Hello Creative Business Women's Morning Tea post!

So I went back through the photos I had edited from Sunday... was there anything pretty that didn't make the post? Ahhhhh, yes! Loooooooook!

This photo of the Organic Miracles iced-tea { avec masses of beautiful mint #love } came out of the final post because - well, because it was too green!!! Hahaha. I couldn't find the right spot in the visual rhythm of the story for a blast of green. 

I also didn't include this image, below, of Sahar from OM because I had two others of her in black and white { she is stupidly photogenic } - one featuring her gorgeous crochet dress - and um, yeah it was busting some green :) So I'm going to include it here now too!

Perfect. 

And then something serendipitous happened - I visited the Organic Miracles site to get the links I wanted for this post - and discovered their new competition... Oh! Win a Moringa Detox Day in the Byron Bay Hinterland? Yes please! 

And in the true spirit of sharing the love I'm sharing it here :) Details below. Get entering!

WIN A MORINGA DETOX DAY IN THE BYRON BAY HINTERLANDS

Organic Miracles is so excited to be sharing this very special day with you in the forest. This will be the first event of many at my beautiful abode in the Byron Bay Hinterlands. The day will be spent detoxing with a 6 juice cleanse, moringa tea, yoga, meditation, sauna, hot tub, body scrubs, nature rainforest walk and witnessing the miracle of life. I have been waiting to open my home to all women who would like to experience a day of true nourishment and connection. The first event is invite only and of course to our winner of the Moringa detox day. The winner can bring a friend to share this magical day in the rainforest. I will keep you posted with upcoming events.

TO ENTER: Please LIKE us and SHARE this post on Facebook or FOLLOW us on Instagram @organicmiracles, repost photo and hash tag #organicmiracles

The detox day will be drawn randomly on Saturday, July 26th 2014 and announced on the Organic Miracles Instagram page and Facebook page. The detox day will be held on Saturday, August 2nd 2014

Let me know if you enter and double-triple let me know if you WIN!

It sounds like it will be an amazing day. I may well be entering myself because believe it or not I actually didn't get to taste the tea on Sunday { I often miss things because my camera steals my complete attention!  Grrrr pretty photo / #teafail } and I just read that it was a mix of Organic Moringa, ginger, raw honey, saffron, lemon and mint iced tea. Le sigh. Add some yoga, a hot tub, body scrub and a dash of juice cleansing?! Booyah!

Do you like to detox?

Amber. XO

175/365 Weeds and Wildflowers

Creating a beautiful life is about being present, open, grateful. It's in the sweet little details.

You don't need extravagance.
Sometimes you just need weeds and wildflowers.

Yes?

172/365 Happy Sunday

166/365 Winter Days | Bangalow

Oh I do love that this is what winter looks like here { even if it's actually getting cold now! }

163/365 Byron Bay: Rainbows in Paradise

3:45pm | Byron Bay Hinterland. 

I don't have anything else to say (except that Blogger doesn't let you upload portrait images at a high enough resolution!!). 

152/365 Living The Country Life

Morning sunshine on dew. Newrybar. 

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

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

140/365 This World is a Dewdrop World | Issa Haiku

"this world
is a dewdrop world

yes... but..."

.露の世は露の世ながらさりながら
tsuyu no yo wa tsuyu no yo nagara sari nagara

~ Kobayashi Issa, Haiku poet. 1819. 

Wikipedia link here. 

134/365 The Edible Garden

I'm loving the beautiful edible garden outside The Roadhouse Byron Bay!
Does anyone know what this flower is? x

128/365 It's Easy Loving Green

I love living somewhere so green. 

I'm not such a fan of the red - our soil is renown for it's dense red colour - and when you live in a house full of white it's always a problem. Anyone who has been to our house knows what I mean! ;) Plus - it doesn't help that there seems to be an ant universe in our front yard; ant hills par excellence. I have always hesitated to disturb them but a woman has her limits! Watch out ants. 

But back to the green... 

Isn't green amazing?! Green is quintessentially soothing and calming yet revitalising and bodacious at the same time! Green is life. I love being surrounded by green. I am not a gardener, I have no green thumb. But I do need it in my life. 

But hang on, then there is blue... Ahhh, colour of the ocean and the sky. I'll get back to you later :) And pink/orange/yellow. Be still my heart. Okay, I'm just in love with colour (and the absence of colour if we are going there - I'm a big white-lover too). But, I'm fixating on the green right now.

What colours do you particularly love? x

109/365 The Surprise Picnic Guest

Why HELLO two metre long Goanna :)
Rocky Creek Dam. 

107/365 Snot Smoothies aka. Mucous Milkshakes

I pretty sure I've mentioned on here previously that my husband likes to request I make him batches of slime "for work purposes". Lol.

This time it was a request for Snot Smoothies (aka Mucous Milkshake). And well, I couldn't exactly refuse!! No children were harmed in the consumption of this vile delight*.

* as far as I know ;)

You can make your own Snot Smoothies too!

+ Freeze two ripe bananas
+ Add frozen banana and milk to your blender (or use a blender-stick)
+ Add green food colouring (we were disgusting and used regular ol' food dyes - but I do imagine you could use juice some Kale or other equally GREEN veggie and colour it that way :)
+ Blend until thick and creamy. Yum.

Voila! Snot-on-tap. Enjoy ;)

77/365 Home

Even though I loved being away, there's nowhere quite like home is there?! x

Friendship

As promised.  Aren't these two lovely.