Peppermint mango smoothie

I love peppermint tea, in fact I love all things peppermint.  I drink peppermint tea constantly through out the day from my first one in the morning with honey lady honey to last thing before I go to bed. In march when I was at Womad I had a delicious mango and mint green smoothie at a raw food stand. I have been trying to recreate it ever since, but no matter how much fresh mint I added I couldn't get the same intense mint flavor. I recently also invested in a peppermint plant while at the farmers markets, and although for the first two weeks it looked like I was going to kill it, my plant has now perked up enough for me to enjoy brewing fresh peppermint tea. That when I started to think, if the flavor I want is so much stronger when I brew the leaves for tea, why not put peppermint tea in my smoothie. And it worked, and it is delicious. 

Ok, so it is really cold here at the moment, and mango and bananas are not in season, but I couldn't resist trying out my idea. I bought a packet of frozen mango cheeks and a bunch of Queensland bananas and set about making a peppermint smoothie. 

Finnish Whipped Porridge

I love weekend breakfasts. Really I just love breakfast but I am always short of time in the morning for anything too fancy so weekends are the times to try new things. Often I like to start with a smoothie, as I am often waiting to see if Kev will want to go out of brunch when he wakes up, but this Sunday I felt like something fresh and light but more than a smoothie and that's when I found this. 

I can safely say I know absolutely nothing about Finland and absolutely nothing about their food. But I have been reading this blog for a while now and have been very intrigued by the mix of Finnish food and Australian ingredients. So when I saw this recipe I had to give it a go. I love porridge and I love semolina so it seemed like a match made in heaven. I couldn't find any nice looking rhubarb but I did get some strawberries, and since I had just invested in some coconut sugar (yes, it was a financial investment) I decided to use that instead of the stevia. Here is how it went.

Sleepy weekday breakfast

I've always been a morning person, but lately getting up and out the house is getting harder and harder. Not really a surprise given it is cold and wet outside and I'd rather sleep an extra half hour than get up and go for a run or get to work. In order to entice myself out of bed (and to get out the door on time) I have been preparing a delicious breakfast the night before. The breakfast of choice has been a kind of bircher muesli, but kept really simple. The best thing about it is the soaked oats become really creamy and almost milky. If you didn't know this was dairy free you would assume they had been soaked in milk.