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Hi everyone, today I have an extra special treat for you, a lovely guest post from Alissa over at Not Just Apples! We have shared guest posts today – check mine out over on her blog for two very tasty recipes and leave us some comment love! Over to Alissa…

G’day to all Laura’s lovely readers! Today’s post comes all the way from Australia - where I’m currently spending six months enjoying the exciting fruits and vegetables this sunny country has to offer…

My name is Alissa, and I write the blog Not Just Apples, it’s such a pleasure to do a blog swap with Laura - I’ve admired her food journey for many months now, and it’s so exciting to experiment further into raw foods together.

I’ve created a few raw dishes in the past, like dill sauerkraut, cinnamon almond milk or green monsters - and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to try out more raw food recipes. The freshness, flavour and nutrition in living foods really make it such a winner for me - and the more uncooked food I get into my diet the better I feel! I always try to eat something raw at each meal, and love nothing more than a giant raw salad packed full of fruit and veggies.
So, today I want to share with you a raw food lunchbox that I enjoyed recently, as well as a recipe or two:

♥ So here it is - mock tuna with macadamia mayonnaise, guacamole, celery flax crackers with vegetable crudités, raw cookies and a fresh Ozzie mandarin.

♥ I unashamedly adore raw vegetable sticks, because they have so much crunch and juiciness to them. Raw beetroot is way sweeter than cooked, and has a lovely texture when eaten raw

Celery flax crackers were a new and successful experiment for me - inspired by Ani Phyo. I don’t yet have a dehydrator, so I baked these in a very low oven with the door ajar - pretty easy alternative, though not exactly great for your energy bills I imagine (I’m very jealous that Laura’s going to be getting a dehydrator soon!)
To make these crackers:

♥ Place 1 cup diced celery, ½ an onion, diced, ½ cup ground flaxseed, 1 ½ Tbsp olive oil, ½ Tbsp dried oregano, ¾ cup water and a little salt and pepper in a blender, and mix until thoroughly combined. Spread the mixture out on greaseproof paper in circles or large rectangles, and dehydrate for 4-6 hours, cut into triangles and dehydrate again for a few hours until crisp.
You can use this mixture to create thin wraps, or thicker pizza bases (my personal favourite!) too - just only dehydrate for 4-6 hours.

♥ Mock tuna salad with macadamia mayonnaise was a recipe I used from Ani Phyo’s Raw Food Essentials book - p192 & p198. It’s basically carrot and celery pulp, and then the mayo is made by whizzing up macadamia nuts with water, minced garlic and a drop of olive oil (which turns out to be so good, you’ll want to eat it always). The combination of the two is irresistible!

♥ Raw cookie dough is a new found thing for me too! How have I lived without it for so long?? It’s so easy too - you just have to stir together a few ingredients sort of roughly until it combines, then roll into balls and eat them up!

This particular batch were cinnamon, raisin peanut butter - and wowee they were good. I took some inspiration from Fran at High on Health and Averie at Love Veggies and Yoga, to create the ultimate flavour packed dessert.
So, to create these, all you need to do is mix together in a large bowl: ¼ cup ground flaxseeds, ½ cup ground almonds, 1tsp cinnamon, ¼ cup raisins, 1 Tbsp peanut butter, 1 Tbsp honey, a few drops of vanilla extract and ½ - 1 Tbsp water (enough to bring the mix together). Once it’s come into a ball of dough, roll them out, and store in the refrigerator until required.
Well, there you have it - a raw food lunchbox Not Just Apples style!

Before I go, I’ve got a few more ideas for how you can incorporate raw foods into your lunchboxes at home:

• Gazpacho tomato soup
• Chia seed pudding
• Kale chips
• Nori vegetable wraps
• Oregano and thyme aubergine
• Pear and radish salad with basil pesto
• Lemon cashew cream with fresh berries
• Julienned celeriac with chives and raw mayo
• Marinated garlic mushrooms
• Fruit leathers
• Dill sauerkraut

There are so many options on what you could have, it’s hard to know where to start - but those are some of my favourite ideas, and definitely where I’d begin!

So, I wonder, what are your favourite raw food recipes? What would you bring with you in a living foods lunchbox?

Thanks for reading - I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Thanks Alissa, I know I’ll be trying out a few of those recipes!

Hi everyone, hope you have had a good week! While I am in NYC I have a couple of awesome guest posts lined up for you looking at travelling, staying healthy and managing with a vegetarian or vegan diet. Today’s guest post is from the lovely Nicky from Disco and Love:

Hey everyone! I am Nicky from www.discoandlove.blogspot.com and I am honoured to have been asked by Laura, whilst she is living it up in NYC, to talk about how I coped with being a vegetarian whilst on my trip to Paris with my family.

I have eaten a vegetarian diet for almost 6 years now and eat mostly vegan purely for taste reasons except for greek yogurt and cottage cheese as I need plenty of calcium for my bones. Before going to Paris I wasn’t entirely aware of the French cuisine other than the famous ‘frogs legs’ and ‘snail’ dishes that people joke about. When I arrived in Paris though it soon became known to me that their cuisine is very much meat based. Every French bistro we passed had meat and more meat and if it wasn’t meat, it was fish and seafood which I also don’t eat due to an inherited intolerance to seafood. It seemed like the only way that I was going to get by was to find other types of cuisine which was a shame to have to do as I like to eat the traditional dishes when I’m in a country!

Lunches were easier to deal with as salads are available anywhere in the world really so I settled for some lovely lunches – especially one at a place called ‘Cojean’ in the famous Printemps department store.

Cojean are known for being a healthier, stylish fast food type café and they certainly had quite a selection! I ended up getting a limited edition festive salad (as I went at Christmas) which was a mix of lentils, chopped up apple, raisins and pomegranate served on a bed of greens along with a big bowl of mango and papaya. It was delicious!

However dinner was obviously where there were more problems to find food that I could eat but I also had to consider my family who are not vegetarian – my Dad and brother are big meat eaters (and I won’t change their decision on what they prefer to eat as this is their choice) but my mum is more vegetarian in taste. We ended up settling for Thai one night, Chinese another night and the last night we did find a French café that was a chain of restaurants called Le Paradis du Fruit, whilst not exclusively vegetarian, were seen as ‘healthy’ and therefore offered plenty of vegetarian options. They did lots of dishes with quinoa, avocado, hummus, falafels, lots of veg and fruit so I was very happy and at the same time, so were my meat eating boys!

However some things I learnt from the trip which I will take into consideration when travelling to Europe:

• Be prepared by packing some snacks – I ended up going into a supermarket and buying dried fruit and nut bags, cereal and yogurt to keep me going!
• Research beforehand names of restaurants in the area where you know the menu if you can see it online
• Learn how to say ‘I am vegetarian’ in the language!
• Ethnic cuisines (i.e. Thai, Indian, Chinese etc) always offer some type of vegetarian dishes so if in doubt, look for these!

I did have to treat myself to the famous Laduree macaroons of course!!

Yum!

Thanks Nicky! What are your experiences of being a vegetarian / vegan abroad? What’s the best thing you’ve eaten while travelling? That’s for all of you to answer not just the veggies! I have to say that eating pizza and ice cream in Italy was amazing!

Hi everyone, hope you have had a great weekend! Today I have my second guest post on the theme of travel, staying healthy and managing a vegetarian / vegan diet. Today’s guest post is from the lovely Emma from Sweet Tooth Runner:

HELLO lovely readers!! I’m Emma and I blog over at Sweet Tooth Runner!

The lovely Laura asked me to write a guest post for her blog, which is SUCH an honour, because her blog is amazing and I LOVE it!! Anyways, my guest post is going to be all about how to stay healthy on your holidays!  

I travel a LOT. Especially as a musician, I often go on tours, and went on one last month to Germany. You can read more about it here.

Like Laura, I’m a vegan, and that is something I do find VERY difficult when travelling, especially in Europe! This was the best meal I was served when in Spain:

A few veggies with a knob of butter on the side. Brilliant!

This was on the last night, but on the first night it was salad with chunks of chicken on it…!!

So Tip #1: Be prepared! I took a TON of food with me to Germany!

All the essentials for me (*cough DARK CHOCOLATE cough*) as well as vegan-friendly treats to share with other people, like biscuits and sweets. The highlights were snack bars, nuts, a pack of pitta bread, non-dairy milk cartons, and…

…10 sachets of oats!! They came in very useful in the meat-and-cheese heavy breakfast buffet! 

I especially recommend taking healthy snack bars! They become an absolute LIFE saver, especially if like me you’re a vegan who needs to eat every few hours or you turn into a Hangry Beast!!

Tip #2: Try to get in workouts where you can! Okay, so this isn’t essential, but it certainly was for my sanity! Normally, I would’ve run, but at the time I was injured, and my hotel had no gym, so I made do with a room workout!

I’m telling ya, ‘luggage rows’ aren’t easy!

Before I left, I printed off a copy of this workout:

It’s a good workout! If you can though, running is a GREAT way to explore a new area, and hotel gyms are obviously a great place to get in a good workout too!

Tip #3: Carry a BIG bottle of water around with you!! Staying hydrated is SO important, especially if you’re wandering around sight-seeing for hours in a hot country! And drinks are usually pretty pricey if you’re staying in a popular tourist area! So giant reusable bottles of water are the BEST for this!

Tip #4: SLEEEEP!! This is something that I seriously don’t get enough of on ANY holiday, with early mornings and late nights….

Especially if there’s jetlag involved, getting some shut-eye whenever you can is SO important!! I’m not usually a napper, but on holidays, I nap whenever I can, because otherwise I know those 4 hours of shut-eye that I get at night are gonna catch up with me sooner or later!

And my final tip, try to eat as much healthy and fresh foods there as you can…

…because if you’re anything like me, holidays tend to be a time of consuming WAY too much sugar!

So getting in some fruit and veg balances it out and makes it all okay…right?  

Thanks Emma! Those are great tips! Do you have any top tips for staying healthy whilst travelling?

Hi everyone, I am currently on my way down to London town for my exciting mini trip! While I am away I have this fantastic guest post from one of my blogger best mates and KHGS sponsor Tamzin from Salad and Sequins. I’ve been reading Tam’s blog for years and have met her several times. She is one of the nicest people and writes what I think is one of the most original healthy living blogs out there – so please check it out! Now over to Tam…

My Courgette, Coconut and Chocolate Chip Loaf + A Fab PHA Workout

Hello Keeping Healthy Getting Stylish readers, my name is Tamzin and I write the blog Salad and Sequins. When Laura asked if I would like to do a post for her I jumped at the chance! I love Laura's blog, all the recipes, ramblings and health tips are great. We have actually met up a few times too which has been so much fun, I only we wish we lived closer to each other so we could meet up more!

Today I am here to share with you one of my favourite recipes and a favourite PHA (peripheral heart action) workout. I'm going to start with the workout, the PHA workout system is great for toning up and losing weight. Basically this system pushes blood around the body in different directions raising the heart rate quickly and making you burn more fat you can look it up here.

After a 5 minute warm up using a barbell do this:

• 12/15 Shoulder Presses
• 12/15 Weighted Squats (barbell resting on shoulders at the back of the neck)
• 12/15 Upright Rows

Then immediately afterward 1 minute each of:

• star jumps
• high knees
• mountain climbers

Repeat this sequence 3/4 times for a killer full body workout!

Now onto my recipe. This loaf is so so delicious I know your going to love it! You can also adapt it by adding your own mix of nuts and fruit, plus changing the courgette for carrot is a winner too..........

Tamzin's Courgette, Coconut and Chocolate Chip Loaf

Ingredients:

• 1 + 3/4 cup spelt flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup desiccated coconut (unsweetened)
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup golden syrup
• 1/3 cup walnut oil
• 1 medium sized courgette
• 2 eggs

Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl, mix all wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

Grate courgette and add to dry ingredients, then add wet ingredients and mix. Add mixer to a loaf tin and sprinkle a little extra coconut on top. Bake in the oven for 60 minutes. I checked mine after 40 then left on a lower heat for an extra 20 minutes as it was still wet in the middle. When your poker comes out clean the loaf is cooked.  Leave to cool then enjoy a thick slice with a cup of something hot : )

Well all that is left to say is thank you to Laura for letting me come by and share this post with you, I hope you have enjoyed the read. If you get the time why not pop over to Salad and Sequins and let me know if you do the workout or try my yummy recipe!

Question: Have you ever tried PHA training?

Hope your all having a great Monday! Tonight I’m off to do some final Christmas shopping so I’ll leave you with a link to my guest post on the wonderful Katie’s blog Peace, Love and Oats.

Check out my delicious healthy easy home made chocolates!

Hi Everyone, hope your having a great weekend!

I’m having a chilled out night in with the hubby but head on over to Salad and Sequins to see my guest post for the lovely Tam :-)

Come back tomorrow to see more of this:

Yep, home made pumpkin puree!

Well I’m off to finish my chocolate, have a great evening :-)