Arbonne Skincare {Review}

Within a week I had heard about Arbonne from three entirely unrelated people. It seemed to suddenly 'arrive' on the Australian market- although, most likely it did so about 12 months before I heard about it (as it turns out it has been in Australia for seven years...). I am definitely not a beauty guru, beauty blogger or beauty... anything for that matter but I do like to take care of my skin so when The Bookworm's sister in law became a consultant and was offering trial packs I jumped at the chance.

That was back in March. I used the products for a week and really liked them. However, I was pretty attached to the skincare range I have been using for years- Australian made and owned, cruelty-free. But my skin does not like Melbourne winters and as the cooler weather set in, and annoying little patches of dermatitis crept their way onto my visage, I decided I didn't want to go down the cortisone path again. There was a special on the the RE9 Advanced (anti-aging range) so I decided to give it a try.

Left to right: Smoothing Facial Cleanser, Toner, Intensive Renewal Serum, Eye Cream, SPF day cream, Night Cream

And document my experiment with some tired, Tuesday-night, make-up free selfies.

Prahran Pastry Palace {Abla's Patisserie, Prahran Market - Review}

Last week I was invited to try some of the traditional and new and exciting products at Abla's Patisserie in the Prahran Market. For those of you not in the know, the Prahran Market is Melbourne's Gourmet Market (yes, it deserves the capitals) with some of the plushest seafood, richest meat, freshest veggies and mouth-watering cakes, bakeries and cafes. You do need to check it out.

Now, before I go any further, a quick word on pronounciation. If you aren't from Melbourne it is important that you learn that Prahran is not pronounced poshly, like Prah-rahn, or Prah-ran...no, you need to pop on your best Aussie twang, flip the sound up into your nasal passages and run the word together. All together now.....Praaahnnn. Good work. Now the locals will understand you when you tell them you are spending the day there.

Back to pastry. I have spoken before about my fostered Greek heritage. I grew up eating baklava. I thought I knew everything there was to know about baklava.

I was wrong.

Baklava has multiple variations depending on the country (wikipedia has an extended explanation) but for the purposes of this review we will focus on the Lebanese approach, spelled baklawa and steeped in rose syrup.

I hope you've had lunch cause this is going to make you hungry.

Mister (VERY) Nice Guy's

I have a new man in my life. He is sweet, vegan, cares for animals, donates to animal welfare organisations, supports fair-trade where possible and is delicious. Wait, you know I'm talking about cupcakes right?

Mister Nice Guy's cupcakes have been hovering around my periphery for a long time- there is a stall at the Prahran Market (where I work sometimes) and they are sold in a bunch of cafes around Melbourne. There is a full listing on their super cute and very informative website (don't you just hate a website without much info? This one has pictures, descriptions, back story, the lot). But I had not tried them until recently for two (good?) reasons: cupcakes are rarely as good as they look (plus "vegan cupcakes? cupcakes need eggs and butter right?") and so far I had been able to talk myself out of the calories.

On World Animal Day (see here) they participated in the Edgar's Mission Vegan bakesale which is terribly worthy, so to support Edgar's Mission I tried a cupcake- Tiramisu. A-MA-ZING. Fortunately (or unfortunately for the willpower) their store is pretty close by.

Ugly Soup and fine wine

I love having people for dinner and usually like to spend the day in the kitchen cooking up something a bit different. Sometimes life has other plans.  On Sunday morning I rescued a young dog from running onto the road and spent the day looking for her family (I will write about this in detail another time). Which meant that I was racing home from the supermarket 20 minutes before my friends were due to arrive. The night called for soup. Ugly soup.

So it is actually a cauliflower and pistachio soup

What you need:
An onion (brown or red- I use whatever I have), chopped finely
3-4 cloves of garlic, crushed
A cauliflower, chopped up roughly
85g pistachios (a small bag from the supermarket)
A splash of olive oil
4 cups of vegetable stock (you may need a little more or a little less)

Vegan (raw) creamy zucchini 'pasta'

I don't like a food phase to go by without giving it a go and am quite interested in the raw vegan trend at the moment so here is my almost raw recipe (with raw options).

You will need:
1 cup of cashews, soaked in water for about 6-8 hours
1/2-1 cup of non-dairy milk of your choice (or if you aren't vegan then you can use regular milk)
1-2 garlic cloves
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 teaspoon of dijon mustard
chopped herbs- I used thyme and parsley because that is what I had in the fridge
2-3 zucchinis depending on size and how much 'pasta' you want.

Serves 3 as a stand-alone dish

Caramelised fennel salad (and beef ragu lasagne)

It is too cold for cold salads at the moment so I am exploring the warm ones.

I found a recipe for a potato and beef ragu lasagne and wanted a salad that would go well with so I went searching for inspiration.

I love fennel so I got some but the tender little baby fennels weren't available so I bought a giant big one and decided to caramelise it a little to make it a bit more tender (and warm:) and went from there.

Muesli Bars

When I was little my mum used to make homemade muesli bars. 'Little lunch' time would arrive at school and everybody else would be pulling out their Uncle Tobys muesli bar with the fancy packaging and the chocolate drizzle and I would have a homemade number wrapped in foil because my mum thought the bought ones were full of sugar and not healthy. Fast-forward 20 years and I agree.

Recently I got the recipe from her and made it up and gosh they were delicious. No doubt they were a lot healthier and less processed than the commercial ones but they were still had a bit of processed sugar and delicious butter. So here is a homemade muesli bar for the 21st century encompassing our society's hatred for refined sugar and dairy (not my hatred I hasten to point out but I do try to not eat too much refined food).