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Susan Jane

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How to Spot a Health & Wellness Junkie

Don’t forget that laughter is one of life’s greatest and simplest of superfoods!

Plant-powered pixie or coffee coyote; here’s wishing your kitchen indecent amounts of giddiness and joy.

x SJ


photo credit Jo Murphy for Roost Books

How to Spot a Health & Wellness Junkie

1. Your bowel movements are practically Instagrammable.

2. You can name 27 uses for coconut oil, faster than immediately.

3. Honestly, you think Gwyneth Paltrow is a good actor.

4. You’ve had therapy on your solar plexus.

5. Raw fennel is your go-to snack on playdates. Harib0 is homicide.

6. You’ve stocked up on jade eggs for your Yoni.

7. Traffic jams are an opportunity to catch up on kegal exercises.

8. Dairy is evil. You’re certain that burrata is the bastard child of a Mexican tortilla and a Korean fungus.

9. Cold pressed parsley juice makes you feel like you could live forever. And if you don’t? You’ll die trying.

10. You can fix constipation with your ujjayi breath.

11. Your cleaning products are so pure, you can probably eat them.

12. You’ve made your own gut-healing, vegan, gluten-free marshmallows and made your colleagues eat them.

13. Your children say Namaste instead of thank you.

14. You’re not passive aggressive about other people’s food choices. Much.

15. Most restaurants don’t understand you. Even waiters trigger your IBS.

March 8, 2018
Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw, x For Freezer x

Gut-Loving Family Snacks

If you find feeding your family healthy food is as easy as foxtrotting up a glass wall, then this shortbread recipe is for you. Kids love it. Teens dig it. And adults can’t keep their mitts off it.

Try to find a local raw honey where you live – it will contain impressive antimicrobial and antibacterial properties. These work like a giant Pac-Man in the bloodstream. Heat treated, mainstream honey cannot boast the same benefits and can be cleverly adulterated. You might want to check out the honey documentary on Netflix right now. Creepy.

Our body will also appreciate the swag of vitamin C & antioxidants from your favourite berries. These should help slay any renegade free radicals loitering in our system.

Plus, you’ll find a consignment of vitamin E in almonds. This vitamin works synergistically with vitamin C, to pimp up our immune system and front line defence. How cool is that? I kept the best bit until last … a nifty cargo of live probiotics! You and I can neck probiotic capsules when our bodies feel like a Petri dish. But our little ones? They need our help.

This recipe is magical – enough to impress Hermione Granger.

No-Bake Probiotic Shortbread

Makes 30

  • 80ml (1/3 cup) extra virgin coconut oil
  • 7 tablespoons good runny honey
  • 250g (2&1/2 cups) ground almonds
  • 4 tablespoons raisins, dried blueberries, goji berries, and/or mulberries
  • 4-6 capsules of probiotics, or probiotic powder (I swear by Udo’s #NotSponsored!)
  • Pinch of ground turmeric (optional)

Gently melt the coconut oil with your honey. Try not to kill the honey’s health benefits with intense heat, if you managed to get your mitts on some fabulous local raw honey.

Tumble in the ground almonds and dried fruit. Now parachute each opened capsule into the shortbread dough and the optional turmeric for extra nutrition. Mix thoroughly.

Spoon onto a sheet of baking parchment, and squash together with the palm of your hands. Using another sheet of parchment atop, exercise a rolling pin over the surface and flatten the dough to a depth of 1cm or 5mm. Freeze for 2 hours.

When the kids return from school hollering for a treat, remove the dough from your freezer and carefully cut into chards of shortbread, just like the photo. These are designed to be eaten straight from frozen like ice cream cookies. They need no baking, and can be stored like this for up to 3 months. Thunderous hurrah!

February 13, 2018
Breakfast, Treats & Snacks, Vegan &/or Raw, x For Freezer x

Pomegranate, Pistachio, Rose Water Halva

Today’s wholefoods movement is often described as the 1970’s, resuscitated on kale powder and kimchi. Please! In the 1970’s, cooking skills sucked. We were too busy lovebombing the world with geraniums.

Forty years on, our culinary skills have been heightened and honed. So yes there has been a re-awakening of wholefood ingredients, but more importantly, we see this awakening wedded to badass kitchen skills. This ain’t no hippie culture my friends. This is punk.

Great swathes of perfectly sane people have turned their attention towards mindful practices, in search of a more socially responsible roast from capitalism. But taste is at the forefront of this movement. You’ll find we don’t just do sausies. We do slow pork, where piggies have been massaged with lavender, read bedtime stories and fed bottles of rooibos tea.

Nor do we do slicepan. We do house-cultured sourdough, from heritage grains harvested by moonlight. And we do not do instant coffee. We dry hump our monthly subscription box from 3FE where the coffee beans were raised on Bach, and lightly washed with tears of joy.

We are taking unrefined ingredients and celebrating them in their most authentic form, in contrast to society’s reliance on conveyor belts and chemicals. And we are doing it with unprecedented style and skill.

Welcome to the new age rhythm of funk – food punk.

Pomegranate, Pistachio, Rose Water Halva

Serves 25

  • 3 tablespoons extra virgin coconut oil
  • 125ml (raw) honey
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Pinch of sea salt flakes
  • 1 x 340g jar light tahini
  • 4 tablespoons pomegranate seeds
  • Handful of shelled pistachios
  • Rosewater (optional)

Prep a small rectangular container by lining with cling film. Lunchboxes are perfect. Set aside.

On a very timid heat, melt the coconut oil to a liquid. Gently whisk in the honey, using a fork, the vanilla and the flaky salt. Keep going with the jar of tahini, working at speed so the mixture doesn’t seize.

Lastly, tumble through the pistachios and pomegranate, reserving a couple to scatter along the top.

Scrape into your prepped dish and freeze for 6 hours. Just like ice cream, it must be stored in the freezer.

You can slice delicious shards from the block of pistachio and pomegranate halva once frozen, and serve on a platter to pass around the party. Spray with a little rosewater before serving. Celestial stuff.

February 4, 2018
A special announcement

Join me on Substack

Howdy! I’ll be deleting this website shortly. Gah! But please stay in touch – I so appreciate your loyalty and lovebombs.

You can continue to access my recipe drops over on Substack.  Hope to see you there, and to continue frolicking on this veggie-fueled dance floor.