Recipe: DIY Healthy, All Natural Soda Syrups

We're not big flavoured soda/soft drink fans, however, we do drink a tonne of soda water. For ages we were carting bottle after bottle of soda water home from the supermarket (and recycling bottle after bottle every week), however, we found an easier, more affordable and more environmentally friendly option - SodaStream! 

For a household of soda water lovers, the SodaStream Play was an instant hit and we constantly have a bottle made up in the fridge. 

The SodaStream Play is one of the latest models and we think it's super cute with its fun retro look - we chose a bright lemon yellow which is perfect for summer, however, it's also available in five other colours including red and grey!

The Play is the first SodaStream drinks maker to have the cool "auto-lift" slider and "snap-lock" mechanism so making a bottle of soda water is super simple. 

Just fill the reusable carbonating bottle to the line with water, pop your bottle into the machine and press down 2-3 times to carbonate. For best results, refridgerate the water prior to carbonating - that way it's super fizzy!

Best of all? You can add a little bit of designer style to your home for just $99 because this gorgeous machine was designed by the legendary Yves Behar.

But not everyone likes plain Soda Water - and not everyone wants a sweet drink that's overloaded with sugar. Sometimes it's nice to enjoy something different, so I decided that I wanted to create my own healthy, refined sugar free soda syrups to enjoy with friends.

Whilst SodaStream have their own Flavours (with great low sugar options!) I wanted to make something a little bit special - my own DIY Soda Syrups that were full of flavour without being full of sugar.

So I set to work to create something delicious - and I succeeded!

I came up with a super simple method for making a refined sugar free syrup using just about any type of fruit. For our friends, we created two special drinks - the Blueberry Fizz and a Strawberry Sparkle.

They are super refreshing and can be tweaked and changed to create whatever you like. For the more adventurous drinkers, I added in some fresh herbs for a flavour boost whilst others chose to keep it simple.

The best thing about these syrups is that you can add as much or as little as you like - it's totally up to you! All you've got to do is add some syrup to the bottom of your glass and top it up with a fresh bottle of Soda Water made in your SodaStream.

They're a huge hit with kids and adults and are the perfect summer drink. Because they're so quick and easy to make, I know they'll be making a regular appearance at the SIL house! 

So let me show you how to make these Healthy Soda Syrups >> 

How to Host Your Own Healthy Brunch Party! (with recipes!)

 I loveeeeeeeeee breakfast foods and I love entertaining - so it's only natural that I came up with the idea to host a Healthy Brunch Party! I wanted to create a menu that was healthy and gluten free but still absolutely delicious - and the whole brunch party idea is totally adaptable to suit a wide variety of food needs. 

As soon as I decided to host a brunch party, I knew what I had to have. After the success of our DIY Healthy Icecream Sundae Party, I knew I wanted to created a Yogurt Parfait Bar for our Brunch Party. 

These gorgeous Swish Plastic Martini Glasses ($6.95 each at Kitchenware Direct) made our parfait bar a little bit fancy - but totally kid friendly (and klutz friendly) too as they're made from unbreakable polycarbonate (and they're even scratch resistant!).

Then we needed our toppings!

I used a bunch of different sized square bowls to hold our yogurts and toppings with spoons and forks for easy topping! You can use whatever yogurts and toppings you like or have available. 

First we had our fresh fruits - juicy blueberries, watermelon chunks and sliced bananas. These are the last things you want to prepare (especially the banana) so your fruit stays nice and fresh. The watermelon and blueberries can be prepared in advance, but don't slice your banana until the very last minute or you'll have a brown soggy mess. 

For a little bit of crunch and a flavour boost we had shredded coconut and gluten free blueberry granola (Freedom Foods Crunchola - NOTE: this is no longer gluten free).

For our yogurt bases we had low fat vanilla yogurt and low fat plain greek yogurt.

And of course, regardless of how organised I am, I always forget something until the very last minute - this time it was some "sprinkles" - we also had chia seeds and cinnamon for adding that final touch to the yogurt parfaits. 

Just so everyone knew what they were putting in their parfaits, we had these gorgeous Limoncello Styling Tags ($4.95/12 pack). Holding them in place took some thought power - for the raised tags, we attached them to bamboo skewers which we stuck into tiny tea light candles placed behind each bowl. The ones at the front we simply stuck on with blu-tack. 

And what's a brunch party without muffins?! We went with two types of muffins for our brunch party - our favourite Buckwheat Banana Muffins (click for recipe)  and Mango Yogurt Muffins. 

Our muffins were piled up onto these gorgeous footed comports ($14.95 for the smaller one and $19.95 for the larger one) which I know a couple of our friends wanted to take home with them :P I'm a big fan of footed things at the moment - bowls, mugs, cake stands - you name it!

The mango yogurt muffins tasted incredible and I'm kind of addicted to them - but they're a little bit ugly so I think they might need some work. That said, if anyone wants the recipe, let me know and I may have to share them - just as long as you don't judge a book by its cover ;) 

Even though I like sweet breakfasts, I know that not everyone does - so we had to have a savoury stand too! Which is this 3 Tiered Cake Stand ($39.95)

On our savoury stand, we had; 

• Our Healthy Spinach and Ricotta Frittatas made in mini muffin pans 
• Our Healthy Crispy Potato Cakes which we doubled the recipe for and used half regular potato, half sweet potato and baked them in mini muffin tins. 
• Our Healthy Mini Sweet Potato and Feta Frittatas

We also thought about doing some Mini Bacon and Egg Sandwiches (cutting out bread, bacon and eggs with cookie cutters) but decided we had more than enough food for our little party! 

Other ideas we had for our savoury stand that you might like to use were;

•  mini corn fritters
• ligthened up deviled eggs
• savoury muffins 
• mini lightened up buttermilk biscuits 
• mini toasted sandwiches.

The possibilities are endless - we also thought of doing mini pancake stacks, mini baked donuts, french toast sticks, waffles - the list goes on and on. You can take all of your favourite breakfast/brunch foods and come up with a combination that works for you!

But tell me, what are your favourite brunch foods? 
And have you ever been to/hosted a brunch party?
I think pancakes are probably my favourite brunch food - and waffles, but I'm always too lazy and too hesitant to get out my waffle iron as everything sticks to it.

This post is sponsored by Kitchenware Direct, however, all opinions, recipes and ideas are Kristy's own and she has not been influenced by the company in any way.

How to Host Your Own Healthy, Allergy Friendly Sundae Party

These days allergies are so common. Too common. It seems like everyone knows at least a handful of people with allergies. I know how it feels to be left out because of those allergies, that's why I love coming up with creative ways to entertain that include everyone - regardless of allergies!

This summer, Target Australia asked me if I'd show them how we do summer entertaining - and what's better than an ice cream party?! We just do things a little differently here in the SIL house to make sure everyone can be included!

 Our little ice cream party was pretty much an allergy sufferers dream, it was; 

• All Natural 
• Gluten Free
• Sugar Free
• Nut Free
• Egg Free
• Dairy Free
• Vegan 

And perfect for a wide variety of diets. But how did we do it? 

Our secret weapon was the Yonanas Machine (available at Target) but if you can't get your hands on one, you can also use a high powered food processor or blender. 

We went for three simple flavours. You do get the best results for fruit soft serves when you add a banana (as it adds a creamy texture) but we had some banana haters joining us so we wanted to make sure they had options. 

All you have to do is pop your fruit into your yonana machine or food processor and whizz away. Before you know it, you'll have a deeelicious icy treat. 

SIL Tip: Make sure you slightly defrost your fruits before blending/putting through the yonanas machine or they may come out really icy. 

Next, we needed some toppings! We went for: 

• White and Milk Chocolate Chips 
• Granola (Freedom Foods Crunchola Granola is gluten free if you can tolerate oats - read more here NOTE: this is no longer gluten free) 
• Chocolate Rice Puffs 
• Sprinkles 
• Shredded Coconut 

And of course the sauces, 

• Homemade Vegan and Sugar Free Caramel Sauce
• Homemade Vegan and Sugar Free Chocolate Fudge Sauce

 Then, it was time to get creative! Our Sundae Bowls of choice were these super cute footed bowls from Target (currently on sale for $10.50 for a set of four) and we filled them up with our sundaes. 

The combinations differed from person to person - and there's no guessing who added melted PB to the list of toppings (obviously not nut free, but girl needs her PB!). 

We had everything from Banana with Chocolate and Caramel Swirls to Blueberry with The Lot and Watermelon and Coconut.

One of my favourites? Banana with Chocolate Rice Puffs, Coconut, Chocolate Fudge Sauce and Peanut Butter. Monkey Madness ;) 

Our Tips for Hosting Your Own Healthy Sundae Party: 

• Keep it simple - don't put out too many things, you'll overwhelm yourself and your guests 
• Make the "icecreams" in advance - The morning of our sundae party, we whizzed up our "icecreams" and then put them into clean containers. We then sealed the containers in a zip lock bag (this stops them from freezing too hard) and stored them in the fridge until we were ready to devour them! 
• Find out what your guests can/can't have - Make sure that everyone's safe by finding out exactly what everyone can or can't have - and be careful of cross contamination! 
• Enjoy! - Have fun with it and do it more often. This was the perfect party addition because who doesn't like a DIY Icecream Sundae bar?! 

But tell me, what would you put on your dream sundae?

I love chocolate, bananas, peanut butter and coconut so any combination involving any of those items (or all) is perfect for me!

Planning a Picnic Party for Everyone

Hi lovelies. Lately I've been receiving lots of requests for entertaining ideas for those with food intolerances, allergies or special food needs.

As you know, I'm the queen of food intolerances and also have coeliac disease so it can be incredibly difficult for me to feel included when it comes to food-focused events. A lot of times, I have to eat differently to everyone else and bring my own food - but if you're the host of an event, why not plan something that everyone can enjoy!

I love picnics and they're a perfect way for me to enjoy food with friends or family members as you can tailor your picnic member to suit your guests needs! 

So here are my tips for planning the perfect picnic!

Encourage everyone to bring a dish: 
This way everyone has something that they know they can eat and you get to experience a wide variety of foods. Recently we had a picnic with friends and I brought along my cheesy quinoa bakes, baked in muffin tins for portability and my apple crumble cake (with blueberries substituted for apples) which always goes down a treat and is gluten free, vegan, low fat, egg free and dairy free.

Bring a cooler/esky/ice packs: 
Make sure you keep your food cool and fresh in an esky/cooler or by packing your food with ice packs. I usually pack everything into containers and then put them out onto serving dishes so it's easier to keep things cool and not have anything go soggy.

The more disposable the better!

Surrey Houseware 
Disposable Tableware

The last thing you want when you get home after your picnic is to be washing dishes for hours. We usually bring disposable containers (recyclable is best!) and these days, there are lots of recyclable servingware options available. 

I was sent Surrey House disposable tableware and I absolutely love it. They're sturdy enough to hold heavier items and look great! We actually used the platters at home for a BBQ as it meant we could just throw everything away afterwards and didn't have to spend hours doing the dishes (don't you hate that - somehow I always get stuck as the dish washer!)

Think about who's coming
If you're planning the picnic or the majority of the food, think about everyone's food needs (I know, it can be difficult - but worth it!). When I know I have guests coming with an egg allergy or someone who follows a vegan diet or someone who can't eat tomatoes, I like to make things that everyone can enjoy.

An example for this is my Avocado Quinoa which is gluten free, dairy free, low fat, egg free and also vegan (as long as you don't add cheese, simply offer that as an add-on option!) and is usually a hit with everyone - even if they've never tried quinoa before!

Have things everyone can enjoy!

Surrey Houseware Disposable Bowl

I always like to bring things I know everyone will be able to enjoy - not just me or those with specific allergies.

One of my favourite allergy friendly snacks is popcorn! As long as you can eat corn, popcorn is a snack that everyone can enjoy. I buy salted popcorn which is gluten free, egg free, dairy free and vegan so there's not too many people that can't have it - plus, who doesn't like popcorn?!

Another allergy friendly idea are dips with veggie sticks. Have a variety of dips available so that everyone can have something they like. My beetroot tzatziki dip is a huge hit, though no dairy free - so if you're serving that and one of your guests is vegan or can't have dairy, bring along a dip they can eat such as hommus!

Don't forget the drinks!
I can't tell you how many times we've almost forgotten the drinks because we were so focused on the food! Drinks are especially important if it's a hot day or you're in the sun as you don't want to end up with heat stroke. 

Bring sunscreen/insect repellent 
There's nothing worse than a sunburn or a day spent swatting flies. When you're outside, sunscreen and insect repellent are must haves. 

Surrey Houseware serving dish
with sandwich fixings

Super Simple Picnic Ideas:

• Sandwiches for all - bring along your sandwich fillings, already prepared (think sliced tomatoes and veggies, cheeses, deli meats etc), rolls or bread (my favourite gluten free rolls to take along are Purebread's White Rolls) and drinks and you're good to go!

Bring a plate - ask everyone invited to bring along their favourite dish. To make sure you have a bit of everything, if you have a small number, ask each person to bring both a sweet and savoury dish - or assign certain dishes to each person. We usually have each person bring a dish and also have each person bring their own meat to barbeque.



More about Surrey House
Surrey Houseware create beautiful, functional and 100% disposable tableware which is also sturdy enough to use and take anywhere.

We've used it both at a picnic (as pictured) and at home when we had friends over (so you don't have to wash up!) and it stays strong even with moist ingredients (like the tomato) inside it. 

You can find out more at their Website - or follow them on Facebook. 

So tell me, what are your picnic tips?
What's your favourite food to take along to a picnic?

This post was sponsored by Surreyhouse, however, all opinions and tips shared in this post are entirely Kristy's own and she has not been influenced by the company in any way. All products have been tested by Kristy, her family and friends prior to posting.

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