My Maca Bliss Balls

My Maca Powder arrived today and I could not wait to experiment with this new taste. Reading up about it on the web, I see it is said to have libido raising properties, that it can energise and lift your mood and other positive things and it tastes sweet and malty, what's not to love. So, after browsing a bit more, I created these truffles, a mish mash of other recipes tweaked and completely changed and mashed up and My Maca Bliss Balls, is what I have created!

This is what I did, all the ingredients are available to buy or order from us, by the way.

My Maca Bliss Balls

Soak 1/2 a cup of cashews and 1/2 a cup of walnuts in boiling hot water.

Take 10 pitted organic and Fairtrade dates and soak those in a separate bowl of boiling hot water.

Prepare the other ingredients.

Put 3 tablespoons of coconut butter in a container and put somewhere warm, or maybe put the container into hot water, so that it melts and add a drop of vanilla extract.

Then measure out 1/4 cup of Raw Cacao Powder, plus a 1/4 of a cup of Maca Powder and two tablespoons of Hemp Protein Powder.

Drain the water from the nuts and put the nuts into your superduper strong blender, not just any ordinary blender, otherwise this won't work. Then pulse and blend, until nicely combined.

Next drain the water from the dates and add them to the blender and then whizz away.

Keep blending and slowly pour the melted coconut butter with vanilla extract into the mix.

Then add the powders and blend well together, until it is all stodgy!

Put the mix into a metal container then put into the freezer, whilst you prepare the coatings for your truffles.

I used Cacao nibs on some, melted chocolate on some others and cacao powder on the ones that were left. 

It's pretty much up to you how creative you get and what you'd like to do.

Once you have your coatings ready, it's time to get the mix out of the freezer and start rolling walnut sized balls, you should get around 12 to 15 balls. Then roll them in your chosen coating, put them into the fridge and then ENJOY!!

I am now going to take these home to my family to enjoy and hopefully we will have a blissed out evening.

Please let me know what you decide to coat your balls with! (Hmmm, that doesn't sound too good but you know what I mean). xxx

Ginger, Lemon and Honey.

A magical recipe to help fight colds, flu, asthma and allergies.


For some months now, I have been suffering on and off from what has felt like an almost constant cold, in truth it's actually been a combination of respiratory problems including allergies and asthma.

I have to admit my asthma got out of control and I hadn't realised, as it only deteriorated very slowly. It took downloading an app onto my phone and filling in some questions, to realise that I needed to see the doctor about it. You can get the MyAsthma app here.

The doctor prescribed a higher dose of my usual asthma inhalers and allergy tablets and they've helped to some extent but I still felt ill and run down. I really wanted a special drink that I could make myself quite quickly, that could be made using readily available natural immune-boosting, decongestant ingredients, that would taste good and do me some good.

After years of doing the travel reports for Michael van Straten on LBC 97.3FM, I couldn't fail to be influenced by his passion for using everyday ingredients to target various ailments.

So, I turned to my very special Michael Van Strattan recipe books, for inspiration. In his book 'Super Hot Drinks', I found a great recipe for Ginger and Marmalade Tea, which I really enjoyed, despite hating marmalade! The marmalade was actually homemade and given to me by the man with the voice (and the marmalade), Robbie Stevens. But as I drank the tea again and again, I could taste the marmalade more and more, so I went back off marmalade again! Sorry about that Robbie!

After a while I managed to come up with the idea of using the ginger and substituting honey for the marmalade and then adding lemon for some extra vitamin C.

So if you're feeling rubbish and battling against coughs, colds and sore throats and you're looking for some natural relief, then this is what you need...

Equipment...
1 Mug
1 teaspoon
1 jug (Plastic or Pyrex)
1 grater
1 sharp knife
1 chopping board
1 kettle or pan to boil up water
Tea strainer

Ingredients
Tap water
Fresh Ginger root, not powdered ginger
Lemon
Honey, preferably local. (mine is from Broxbourne which is not to far away)

Now Do this...
Put the kettle on, making sure you'll only be boiling the amount of water you'll be using.
In the meantime, peel a piece of fresh ginger, about the size of your thumb.
Then grate this ginger into a jug.
When the water has boiled, pour it into the jug with the ginger in.
Leave it to stew, for 5 minutes.
In the meantime put 1 or 2 teaspoons of honey into your mug and a squeeze of lemon juice.
When the 5 minutes is up, hold the tea strainer over your mug and pour the ginger tea from the jug into the mug.
Give it a good stir.
Take your mug, sit down and enjoy. Make sure you take this with plenty of rest too!

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If you're feeling poorly, please do the above recipe and tell me how it helps you and get better soon.

If you're looking someone else, please let me know how it worked for them too.

Thanks for reading, wish you well. xxx