Cooking Class in Maleny
The Sacred Chef was pleased to present a really enjoyable class and lunch to five beautiful women, who were attending as mother’s day gifts from their partners. The Sacred Chef cooking classes at the Maleny Cooking School, here on the sunshine coast in south east Queensland, are as much about being pampered with a delicious gourmet lunch as they are about cooking lessons.
Husbands purchased a Sacred Chef gift voucher for their wives and then we helped them select a yummy menu for the day. We made vegetarian Thai pastries with a cucumber sweet dipping sauce, rocket pesto, bacon and buffalo mozzarella thin crusted LSA pizzas; grilled pumpkin and baby spinach salad; slow roasted Thai style lamb shanks with jasmine rice; and dark chocolate tart with raspberry coulis and double cream.
It was a pleasure to meet five really lovely ladies and to serve them an array of sumptuous dishes. We toasted the good times with a morish Yarra Valley Pinot Gris. Sacred Chef cooking classes are a great way to discover new recipes, techniques and friends.
Roast Pumpkin and Spinach Salad
Autumn is ideal weather for a warm salad like this yummy example. At the Sacred Chef cooking classes on the sunshine coast we make salads like these as part of our menus every day. Come and cook and eat with us!
Warm salad of roasted pumpkin,
snow peas & pecorino cheese
• 150g mixed leaves
• 50g baby spinach leaves
• 50g snow peas
• 50g baby rocket leaves
• 1 tbsp fresh basil torn
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp extra virgin camellia tea oil
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• black pepper to taste
• ¼ Qld blue pumpkin chopped & roasted
• 100g pecorino shaved
Remove pumpkin from the oven & allow to cool for
10 minutes.
In a large bowl arrange your greens & basil leaves.
Toss through dressing ingredients. Arrange on plates,
then add pumpkin & top with shaved pecorino.
Serves 4.
©Sacred Chef.
Thai Recipes Sacred Chef Sunshine Coast Cooking School
At our sunshine coast cooking school, the Sacred Chef produces some of the best Thai food in south east Queensland. Learn to cook Thai in an abundant and generous setting, and have some very tasty fun!
Green Paw Paw Salad
• 2 cups shredded paw paw
• 3 small dried chillies
• 1 tbspn tamarind water
• 2 tbspns lime juice
• 2 tspns palm sugar
• 1 tbspn fish sauce
• 1 cup green beans chopped 2cm segments
• 3 cherry tomatoes chopped
• 2 tbspns dried prawn
• 5 small fresh chillies
• 2 cloves garlic
In a mortar and pestle grind garlic, chillies and salt
until fine. Add prawns and puree. Add tomatoes and
beans and roughly crush, then add fish sauce, sugar,
lime juice and tamarind water. In a bowl mix
together with the paw paw and sprinkle with chilli
flakes before serving.
Grilled Prawns w Ginger &
Lemongrass
• 12 med-large prawns
• 2 tbspns finely chopped lemongrass
• 2 tbspns finely chopped ginger
• 1 tspns salt
• 1 tspn palm sugar
• 1 corander root
• 5 white peppercorns
Sauce
• 1 coriander root
• 2 cloves garlic
• 5 green chillies
• pinch salt
• 2 tbspns lime juice
• 1 tspn palm sugar
• 1 tbspns fish sauce
Grind the lemongrass, ginger, coriander roor, salt
and sugar and peppercorns together and marinate
prawns in this for 30-60 minutes. Grill prawns for
2 minutes and serve with sauce.
In a food processor or mortar and pestle grind the
sauce ingredients: coriander root, garlic, chillies and
salt until fine, then add lime juice and fish sauce.
Serve in a dipping bowl next to grilled prawns.
©Sacred Chef
Hot and Sour Thai Seafood Soup
This one of my favourite meals in a bowl type of dish. You will need some large soup bowls to really do justice to this recipe. You can also come and learn how to make this authentic Thai dish at the Sacred Chef Cooking School, where we do a weekly Thai banquet style cooking class.
Hot & Sour Seafood Soup
• 1l Chicken stock
• 3 stalks Lemongrass
• 10 slices Galangal
• 8 Red Shallots
• 4 Coriander Roots
• 10 Kaffir Lime Leaves torn or sliced
• 6 Green Chillies pounded
• 4 Tomatoes chopped
• 2 cups Mushrooms sliced
• 500g White Fish sliced
• 1kg Mussels in Shell
• 200g Prawns
• 60ml Fish Sauce
• 4 tbspns Lime Juice
• 2 tspns Sugar
• 1 cup Coriander Leaves torn
• Salt to taste
In a large saucepan combine stock & salt then bring
to the boil. Crush lemongrass, galangal, shallots &
coriander roots in a mortar & pestle before adding to
the simmering pot. Add in fish, mussels, prawns &
lime leaves, simmer for 5-8 minutes or until mussels
are opened. Then add fish sauce, sugar and chillies.
Just prior to serving stir in your fresh lime juice &
coriander leaves. Taste and season with more fish
sauce or lime juice as required.
Ladle into bowls.
Serves 6-10
©Sacred Chef
Thai Cooking Class on the Sunshine Coast for Mother and Daughter
The Sacred Chef was pleased to present a Thai cooking class for a delightful mother and daughter, here on the sunshine coast. The opportunity to be a part of these important relationships, if only for a short while, are very satisfying moments, here at the Sacred Chef Cooking School, in Maleny. The transitioning of culinary skills from one generation to the another, is in my opinion, fairly vital for the succeeding offspring. Being able to cook for oneself and for others is an important ability to possess, if you are to nurture yourself and loved ones.
Tammie and Sarah chose a yummy Thai menu with seven dishes, which included baby green lipped clams in chilli jam; snapper fillet Thai fish cakes; green paw paw salad; crab and ginger rice paper rolls; king prawns in lemongrass and ginger; glass noodle raw veg salad with mint and lime; and sticky black rice to finish. These were unfamiliar dishes for them and they bravely took their taste buds where they had not been before.
We all had a great time in the cooking class and a lovely lunch experience afterwards. Glasses of chilled white wine - Pinot grigio and Semillion. Shared stories about families and lots of laughs. Mother and daughter took home a goodie bag of yummy dishes to share with friends and family.
Sacred Chef Cooking school on the sunshine coast, south east Queensland.
Sunshine Coast Cooking Class & Dinner with the Sacred Chef
High school teachers from Caloundra, joined the Sacred Chef for an evening cooking class and dinner. Six gorgeous women donned the red aprons and shimmied into the Sacred Chef cooking studio, here in Maleny on the sunshine coast, south east Queensland. The teachers had brought their students for a series of classes in February, and had now decided to enjoy some good food and have some fun themselves.
They brought some pink bubbles with them and glasses were handed around to help celebrate the evening. It was great to see these women, who worked together and had done so for some time, enjoying themselves outside of the workplace. Cameras were flashing and laughter continually broke out as friends found themselves in unfamiliar situations, rolling out thin crusted pizza dough and chopping up new ingredients. Math’s teachers were calibrating the tangents of patterns in the mandala of capsicum strips.
We made yummy vegetarian Thai pastries with a cucumber dipping sauce; red curry paste for our slow roasted lamb shanks; rocket pesto for our thin crusted pizzas with bacon and ricotta; a baby beetroot and asparagus salad; and a dark chocolate tart with raspberry coulis and double cream for dessert.
Sitting the ladies down at one of our dining tables, we began service, pouring glasses of wine and mineral water, and then bringing out platters of beautiful food, which we had all made together. Every guest received a card containing a message for the evening – I got “strength”. The girls had a great night out and shared some experiences outside of the usual hum drum. They loved the tender slow roasted lamb shanks in a creamy red curry sauce with jasmine rice. Dessert was the star attraction with melt in the mouth chocolate tart, double cream and raspberry coulis.
Goodie bags with extra serves went home with them for hubbies and each Sacred Chef Cooking School participant also receives a recipe pack full of notes and articles. “I am going to make this tart tomorrow!” was expressed by more than one teacher, as they headed out the door. The Sacred Chef has written a book about Soul in the Home www.housetherapy.com.au you can purchase this online and read it on your computer, as a professionally produced PDF or on your eReader.
Cooking Class Stars at Sacred Chefs
Diet Refers To More Than Just What You Eat
Some of you may know that the word diet, from its original Greek origin, refers to more than just what you eat – it actually encompasses a wider meaning, more like your way of life.
Comes from Greek diaita, “a way of life, mode of living.”
So changing your diet involves more than just amending what you eat, it means changing your way of living. For those who are embarking on a change of diet for health reasons, to lose weight or gain weight, I think understanding this broader meaning can help in making your changes more successful.
You may be thinking about becoming a vegetarian, or eating more protein and less carbohydrates, and you may be looking into doing cooking classes to learn more about that culinary dietary approach. I would advise you to remember that it is not just about learning new techniques and recipes - it actually involves a whole new philosophy. A new way of thinking about food, cooking and eating – a new way of being. At this time, if you wish to be successful in your new dietary approach, you need to open your mind and your heart to something beyond what you have been and known before.
Food and what and how we eat are all intrinsically tied up with our earliest beginnings, wound up with psychological spells from our childhood. Many of you would be familiar now with the term “comfort foods,” usually simple dishes or substances that provide emotional succour, by giving us the illusion of returning us to a time when we were little children feeling nourished and safe with mummy. In fact I see many people in the community seemingly permanently locked into these childish diets. The tradesmen still consuming flavoured milk and fast foods, even well into their thirties and forties. The receptionists still eating hot chips and drinking coke for lunch. The many people who are too scared to try anything new and still basically eat what their parents served them, when they were growing up.
You have probably heard the expression, “you are what you eat!” How we eat and what we eat defines who we are, as much if not more than any other factors within our lives. If you are eating mindlessly, processed foods made in factories, then you are not bringing a great deal of consciousness to your diet. My advice is to become aware of who is making your food, as much as what is going into the manufacturing of your food. To really revolutionise the quality of your life, learn how to prepare your own food and learn about good food and real foods. Take control of your life and your body.
The Sacred Chef cooking school on the sunshine coast is a great place to learn about good food and nutrition. We offer more than just new techniques and recipes, we offer an introduction to a new way of living, which is less dependent on processed foods from the supermarket. Making your own food means it tastes a hundred million times better than anything made in some factory for money and you know what is going into it. Awareness changes everything!
Molecular Gastronomy Class on the Sunshine Coast
The Sacred Chef presented a molecular gastronomy class on the sunshine coast for team members from SANOFI, the French pharmaceutical company which owns Nature’s Own vitamins. Despite the misty weather, here in Maleny, twenty one staff members were entertained by the Sacred Chef.
Beginning with blind folded sensory games, where participants were invited to touch, taste and smell a weird and wonderful selection of substances. Apart from being a bit of fun, the processes take the participants out of their cerebral selves and into their sensual bodies, which is important preparation for cooking. Prizes were awarded to those that could identify the most substances in each sensory category.
Corporate cooking classes are a great way to build team morale within companies and the Sacred Chef Cooking School, here on the sunshine coast, specialises in these stimulating days and evenings. On this particular afternoon/evening event team members prepared green pea ravioli and melon caviare in the molecular cooking studio – shiny spheres of pure flavour emerged from this kitchen laboratory. The green pea ravioli was matched on the plate by giant salmon roe and served as part of a 9 course degustation menu.
Lobster medallions were accompanied by fresh lime foam; chilled Andalusian gazpacho soup was served in shot glasses; fresh buffalo mozzarella was matched with turmeric & coriander panbreads & tomato & cumin chutney; oven roasted snapper fillets with roast garlic aioli; spanner crab fresh rice paper rolls with chia seeds & hoi sin sauce; and lots more.
A great day and night was shared by all – showing that you can have fun in Queensland indoors, despite the challenging weather!
For bookings and more information sacredchef@midasword.com.au
Poached Chicken in Banana Leaf
Poached Chicken in Banana Leaf
• 4 Chicken Thigh Fillets cut in half
• 8 Banana Leaf segments
• 8 Skewers
• 300ml Chicken Stock
• 400ml Coconut cream
• 1 Knob Ginger sliced
• 1 tspn Palm Sugar
• 3 Garlic Cloves crushed
• 1/2 cup Basil Leaves torn
• 1 tspn Sea Salt
• 10 White Peppercorns ground
Wrap your half chicken thigh fillets in a banana leaf
segment & secure with a skewer. In a large frypan
add your remaining ingredients & place over a
medium heat. Place the wrapped chicken parcels into
the poaching liquid & simmer for 12-15 minutes.
Serve the parcels on jasmine or sticky rice.
©Sacred Chef
Sacred Chef sunshine coast cooking school Thai cooking class featured recipe.
Take Control of Your Diet
One of the most empowering things that you can do in your life is to take control of what you are eating. If you are eating a lot of processed foods bought in the supermarket, then you are not in charge of what goes into your body. How much salt and fat is inside that product and what kind of fat is it? How does the chemical balance, which has been put in place by the manufacturer to preserve that product, react with your own metabolism? There are so many variables to consider when you are not eating fresh food, and equally importantly, preparing it yourself.
Learning to cook and discovering the nutritional make-up of foods can really benefit you in so many ways, including losing weight and feeling more alive. Recently there have been huge leaps in the understanding of nutritional science and how foods are processed by our bodies. The importance of certain essential fatty acids, like omega 3, and redressing the imbalance of omega 6 essential fatty acids in our foods, with too much soy, grain fed livestock and vegetable oils – all rich in omega 6 – in our diets, which is often something like 40 times that of omega 3. We are generally not eating enough oily fish, nuts and seeds in our diets today.
What is the result of this? Too much omega 6 causes inflammation within our bodies and what are some of the chronic conditions this causes? Arthritis – inflammation of the joints; cardiovascular diseases – inflammation of the heart’s arteries; strokes – inflammation of the cerebrovascular; and there is speculation that depression may be caused by inflammation of the brain. Diet/ what we eat and how we eat is the most integral factor in our propensity to develop diseases. A lot of foods in the supermarket do not address this and their prime reason for existence is to make money for their manufacturers – food technology is about durability not nutrition.
Food is your best medicine, not some vitamin pill or pharmaceutical – these are again mainly about making money for their manufacturers – otherwise they would be free wouldn’t they? My advice is take charge of what you eat and how that food is prepared. You will find it can also be highly creative and you may derive some pleasure and pride in the act of cooking a great meal – which is healthy and delicious. You can also save money along the way.
Cooking classes are a great way to discover nutritional information whilst having some tasty fun. My Sacred Chef cooking school, here on the sunshine coast, focuses on preparing food that is both healthy and delicious – you will also receive a take home recipe pack with additional nutritional notes and articles, which I wrote for magazines like WellBeing, Conscious Living and Eco Living Health Aware; plus you receive a free health magazine too!
©Sacred Chef
Every class is full of healthy information and great recipes.
www.nofreudnoprozac.org for more information about omega 3
Fig & Dark Chocolate, Macadamia Nut Muffins
Fig & Dark Chocolate Macadamia Nut Muffins
Delicious melt in the mouth muffins that are energy giving and healthy too.
- Flour plain 1 cup
- SR wholemeal flour 2 cups
- Baking powder 1 tspn
- Cinnamon ground 1 tbspn
- Butter 200g melted
- Linseed sunflower almond LSA ground 1 cup
- Coconut shredded 1 cup
- Macadamia nuts 1 cup chopped
- Eggs FR 6 beaten
- Honey 1 cup
- Vanilla Essence 1 tsp
- Raw sugar ½ cup
- Yoghurt 1 cup
- Milk ½ cup
- Lemon peel 1 tsp grated
- Figs dried 1 cup chopped
Preheat oven to 170C. Grease muffin trays and drop in muffin cases. Sift flours and add in to large mixing bowl, with spices, baking powder and melted butter, mix well. Fold in LSA, macadamia nuts, coconut, lemon and figs. In a separate bowl mix beaten eggs, vanilla, sugar, honey, yoghurt and milk, before folding into the bowl with the remaining ingredients. Mix evenly before spooning into muffin cases and baking for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Makes 18 to 24 muffins.
©Sacred Chef
Quick and Easy – Transformation Guaranteed!
Quick and Easy – Transformation Guaranteed!
We have all seen these words splashed across advertisements, books, and websites; and heard them coming out of the mouths of sales people everywhere. There are doctors, naturopaths, therapists, and other ‘so called’ health professionals, extracting dollars through the promotion of pills, courses and products – all claiming to do the hard work for you. Well here is the bad news, it’s not true and they do not work! There are no quick fixes in health, weight loss, and just about anywhere else in life. Ask yourself honestly, have you ever really taken a pill and instantly achieved whatever it claimed to do for you? Of course not, occasionally they have been an accessory and encouragement on the road to your goals – a bit like gym clothes really.
If you want a few guidelines in life that really stack up, this is point one – there are no quick fixes. Now immediately you have one structure in your life to guide you away from delusional situations, involving those who claim to be able to facilitate change in your life, instantly and without some sacrifice. This is not a case of mere exploitation with you and me as the victims; no we are actively involved in the whole fraud, because we want a quick fix too- as we do not want to do the necessary hard work to achieve change. We want to have our cake and eat it too – and we want to be thin and attractive at the same time, as we want to stuff our faces with cake. This is the modern dilemma of humankind in the consumerist age.
Quick and easy meals! Just 4 ingredients! Dinner in 5 minutes! Cookbooks around the globe are emblazoned with these headlines. What is the mass appeal of this message saying about us? Well maybe that we don’t enjoy cooking and that we would rather be doing something else. There are a number of issues here of course – mothers who are traditionally coerced into cooking meals for an often unappreciative family audience; singles who would rather work or play elsewhere and do not enjoy cooking for one; and those who do not know their tastebuds from their haemorrhoids, to name a few. However health is derived from a good nutritional diet and if we continue to take the easy option, popping a few multi-vitamin pills to prop up our neglected nutritional selves, we are heading for a state of disease. Quick and easy cancer in just a few years!
Become a Reiki master in 3 days! Learn to heal your emotional self in one weekend! Re-birthing in a single session! Wow when I flick through the pages of the monthly, throwaway, holistic journals I can see how easy it all really is. World hunger, victims of the devastation of war and suffering watch out – there is a Reiki master waving his hands right now. Refugees from the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, where our Australian soldiers are fighting now, are however not benefitting from these ads for instant transformation – in fact they cannot even get into our country.
Horny goat weed; fat blaster; tiger penis; snake oil – products packaged and sold in pharmacies, multi-level marketing pyramids, and TCM shops around the globe – all promising transformation in exchange for money. The health industry! We have doctors and pharmaceutical companies (who now own all the vitamin producers) on one side, ready to chop you up and medicate you with anti-depressants, and on the other side we have a mish-mash, containing a few good hearted healers interspersed with the providores of the all natural, quick fix, in various forms. The former bunch do not respect you at all and see you as meat, muscle and bone and the latter are predominantly ineffectual and unrealistic in their claims for you and for themselves – because in many cases their training has been as inadequate as the one they are now selling to you.
All however is not lost. Put down the newspaper, magazine, and mouse. Close your eyes and ask yourself – really ask yourself, where do I go next? What is the next step for me? How can I heal myself? Keep asking the questions – this is no quick and easy solution. Meditate upon the question and follow your fears into the unknown. It may take a lifetime but the journey is worth taking, and really you don’t have a choice anyway. It’s your life after all!
©Sacred Chef
Stop taking short cuts
Would you like to enjoy the taste of your food more?
Would you like to feel free to eat what you want to eat, without worrying about your weight?
Would you even like to lose some body weight?
Well you can by changing your mind set around how you prepare meals, cook and eat.
Stop looking for short cuts!
Quick and easy does not mean great tasting, it usually means bland and mass produced.
Spend more time sourcing your ingredients and produce at market. Try foraging for your food. Build up some anticipation by investing more energy in your impending meal.
Work harder in the kitchen, creating and cooking your meal. Don’t take short cuts when preparing your meal, make it a labour of love! This is where you earn your appetite, if you have not already been physically exerting yourself at work or in the garden. Go the extra mile or kilometre to ensure your dish is the very best you can make it.
The kitchen is a temple and great food demands a sacrifice. Surrender to the process and be totally involved in the creative act.
When you serve your meal and sit down to eat it, you, and whoever else is fortunate enough to partake in the consumption of it, will find that it tastes amazingly good. You have been involved in a sacred contract, offering your labour and intention in return for a magical alchemical transformation – turning lead into gold. Food tastes better when you physically work harder for it and when you are present during its creation or transmutation from base ingredients into a divinely inspired, delectable dish.
When you are cooking, say to yourself, “Be here now!” Make it your mantra in the kitchen. Be present at all times, do not disappear inside your head, thinking about irrelevant things. Be here now!
©Sacred Chef
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