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Surviving Winter with Soup!

Winter is here and it’s the perfect time to enjoy warming up with a delicious bowl of soup. As soups are vegetable-based, they are a great way to ensure you’re getting much-needed vitamins and minerals over winter.

Soups also have high water content and are often very low-calorie so they leave you feeling full without having to eat the extra calories often found in heavier winter meals.

Best of all, soups are easy to make, affordable and totally delicious. Here are some of our favorite healthy soup recipes:

Creamy Cauliflower Soup

This recipe is a delicious and decadent vegetable soup, which is perfect for winter. The inclusion of cauliflower – a known cancer-fighting ingredient, and kale- a nutrient dense super food – makes it the perfect soup to stay healthy this winter.

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Carrot and Orange Soup

With winter comes cold and flu season, making it all the more important to up your intake of vitamins and minerals. This healthy and zesty soup boasts carrot and orange which are high in vitamin C, which is a known cold-fighting ingredient, as well as other key minerals such as iron and potassium.

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Immune-Boosting Congee

Congee, similar to a soup-style porridge, has often been used in countries like China to help aid digestive issues. Not only does this version help soothe stomachs, the inclusions of ginger and turmeric help fight and reduce symptoms associated with colds and other viruses. Best of all- congee’s heartier consistency makes for a delicious and filling winter meal.

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Chicken Soup with Spring Veg and Pasta

Chicken noodle soup has often been a popular choice of soup for anyone under-the-weather. This is largely due to it having mild anti-inflammatory effects, as well as being able to help reduce congestion. The use of lean proteins and vegetables in chicken noodle soup make it a nutritionally balanced meal to enjoy over winter. This recipe puts a modern spin on the popular soup so you can rediscover your love for it.

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Curried Red Lentil Soup with Dried Cherries and Cilantro

Lentils are incredibly high in fibre and protein. This helps you stay fuller for longer and also helps to stabilize blood sugar, making you less likely to crave sugary foods or crash in energy levels during the day. The recipe also includes coconut milk, which is high in flu-fighting vitamins and minerals like vitamin C, iron, sodium and magnesium. Coconut milk is also lactose-free making it perfect for those with allergies and dairy intolerances.

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Acquacotta

This traditional Tuscan soup is packed full of vegetables and is served with a poached egg on top making it full of sustenance. While the poached egg delivers an intake of lean protein, the inclusion of vegetables like garlic, tomatoes, carrots and mushrooms provides the all-important vitamins and minerals. This recipe also includes thyme, which provides numerous health benefits. Thyme has been found to help alleviate coughing and boost immunity making it the perfect ingredient to fight off the unwanted cold or flu.

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The Art of the Antipasto Platter

Gone are the days of soggy spring rolls and hot-on-the-outside, cold-on-the-inside party pies when it comes to hosting a party.

That was so early 2000s.

Thanks to the resurgence of the coolness of Italian culture, the antipasto platter has now become the party food of the moment.

Antipasto means “before the meal” and is traditionally served as the first meal of a formal Italian meal.

Traditional antipasto platters include cold meats, olives, mushrooms, anchovies, artichoke hearts, various cheeses, pickled vegetables and some form of bread to serve with.

However, when antipasto platters are done well they can be the pièce de résistance of an entire party.

Ask any Italian and they will tell you that creating the perfect antipasto platter is an art form, certain foods work well together, certain flavors clash and it is all about high quality ingredients.

At Peaches, we have all of the ingredients necessary to create the perfect platter for your guests.

And tag us in any photos of any of your antipasto creations.

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La Fondazione (The Foundation)

When you’re building a house, it is important to have a solid foundation to build the rest of the house upon.

The same is true for an antipasto platter.

Start with a great wooden serving board, or if you are looking to be really on trend, find a marble or colored serving board to serve as a base.

Once you have selected your base, you must then focus on the next most important level – the meats.

The cold meats will serve as a base for the whole platter.

Try some fresh prosciutto, mortadella and some Italian sausage – or if you want to get really fancy, find some beautiful bresaola (air-dried, salted beef) to complement these flavors.

 

Il Secondo Livello (The Second Level)

Once you have your meat, move on to the second level of your perfect antipasto board.

Add some beautiful cheeses in a variety of textures – pair your creamy Camembert with flavored cheddar.

If you are opting for something more traditional, stick with mozzarella or provolone.

When it comes to olives, go for a garlic flavor in a mix of brown and green.

Add in some pickled vegetables in a small bowl on the side – you don’t want these flavors mixing with the meats

Artichoke hearts are the next layer and should also be served in a small bowl because of the oil. The flavors of these artichokes are perfect when paired with the meats, so give it a try.

Another fantastic edition is eggplants and zucchini in oil. You can make these yourself with fresh vegetables, or you can buy them ready made.

 

Gli Ultimi Ritocchi (The Finishing Touches)

An antipasto platter is made in the final stages – these are the elements that pull all of the rest together.

Toast some beautiful Turkish bread covered in salt. This should be served warm so that your guests can pile on the cheese and cured meats.

An alternative to this is some fresh pita, cooked in the oven for about 10 minutes. It creates a great “cracker” style of bread.

For a sweeter touch, add in some fresh or dried figs. You could also add in a dip with some bread sticks.

The most important thing at this point is to look for the balance in your platter. And remember: people eat with their eyes, so presentation is everything.

Peaches’ Complete Guide to Healthy Living

There’s something truly magical about this time of year! Summers here and along with it so many delicious in season fruits: mango, grapes, cherries, apricots, melons and plenty more! But summer fruit isn’t the only thing that we’re excited about. January usually means something changes inside a person as they make the goals and resolutions for the New Year. We all know that the most popular New Year Resolutions usually centre around getting active and starting a brand new healthy lifestyle. And here at Peaches, we want to support and motivate anyone who has made the brave decision to embrace this new lifestyle. So we’ve decided to create the Complete Guide to Healthy Living, just for you!

It’s important to remember that everyone’s journey to healthy living is different. You just have to find the right way that works for you! The first thing that anyone in this position should do is set some goals. This way you know exactly what you want to achieve this year and also how to strive for it. A good tip is to write your goals down as a constant reminder. Whether your goals are about waking up that extra bit early to get in a morning run every day or cutting down on sugar, once they’re set, they can be achieved!

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Diets can be pretty tricky to figure out! If you’re looking to find out more about certain dietary requirements and what’s the right path to choose, make sure to check out our previous blogs on gluten and sugar free diets as well as veganism and vegetarianism.

Maybe a detox is the right option for you! Every detox is different, but they all revolve around cleansing your body and leading a life of better health. Some involve strict fasting or relying on one single source of nutrients such as the lemon detox. If you find yourself trying out one of these detoxes, make sure to cut down on the exercise to prevent nausea and dizziness. Detoxes are an excellent way to help you feel fresh and guide you further down the path of healthy living!

There are so many benefits to heathy living! So many in fact that it’ll make the switch to a healthy lifestyle so much easier for you! Some of these fantastic benefits include:

  • Increased energy
  • Increased self esteem
  • Lower blood pressure and cholesterol
  • Built up muscle mass, decreasing the chances of diseases such as osteoporosis
  • Improved sleeping patterns
  • Reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and type two diabetes

There are plenty of reasons to make the change to healthy living. Even though we’ve all heard it a million times before, a New Year can, in fact mean a new you! So if you’ve decided to make 2016 your year for new beginnings and a fresh lifestyle, Peaches is behind you 100%. Make sure to visit us soon to pick up all the fresh ingredients you need to achieve your goals.

And now we leave you with this last health tip. Check out these morning smoothie recipes that will help keep you motivate throughout the day!

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WIN 1 of 2 Family Passes to Adventure World!

 

It’s time to dig out your best set of coloured pencils and get your sharpeners ready because we have a great competition ready for all those little artists out there!

We’re giving away two family day passes to Adventure World! Imagine spending the day enjoying quality time with your family, checking out the exciting rides and attractions that Adventure World has to offer! Why not make a whole day of it and take some time out for lunch too? You could even bring a picnic packed with your favourites from Peaches!

All you have to do to win this amazing prize is show off some of your artistic skills! We’re calling on all our Peaches Kids to unleash their talent and creativity through this awesome rollercoaster colouring in sheet. We’re looking for a whole lot of colour and a whole lot of imagination! Our two favourite artists could be scoring them and their family a trip to Adventure World.

Make sure to have your entries back in store by Friday October 9.

Best of luck to everyone! We can’t wait to see what you all come up with!

You can download our colouring in sheet here. 

See the terms and conditions here.

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The Time is Ripe so far…

The Time is Ripe is our way of showcasing some of the amazing organic products we stock at Peaches Fresh, while giving our shoppers a chance to win! We love encouraging more people to eat organic and this week we will be sharing some of the great feedback and inspiration we have had on our weekly featured products.

Week One: Organic Pasta

In week one we showcased La Domenica’s organic pasta range and discussed the difference between store-bought pasta, and organically-grown pasta. Make sure you check out the blog post by clicking here. You’ll also find a quick and easy recipe for a Vegetable Garden Pasta using La Domenica’s Penne Regati.

We love this poem about organic pasta one of our Facebook fans shared with us!

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Week Two: Corn Chips

Week two brought us Garden of Eatin’ Corn Chips, which are perfect for a healthy snack. We asked entrants to comment on why they prefer organic food and we received some fantastic answers, such as:

“No pesticides etc, they taste SO much better, it supports the environment, it supports the farmers hard work, normally more nutritious etc etc etc!! What’s not to love?!”

Carmelle, via Facebook

We had one very creative follower create an acrostic poem for us.

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Week Three: Honey

Honey, I’m Home! In week three we shared one of our favourite honeys with you – Organic Fewsters Farm Honey. The Fewster’s Farm Honey originates from Muchea, a suburb in the W.A. shire of Chittering, where the honey is both extracted and bottled.

Check out these links for our favourite recipes made using Festers Farm Honey:
Oatmeal, Spelt, and Honey Scones by Healthy Chef
Fresh Fig, Vanilla & Honey Raw ‘Cheese’ Cake by Honest to Goodness
Honey & Cardamom French Toast by Simply Organic

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Oatmeal, spelt & honey scones! Delish!

 

Week Four: Organic Dairy Farmers Butter

Our week four featured product and competition is live on our Facebook page now! We are asking our fans to comment with their favourite recipes made with this delicious and healthy organic butter. Some of the entries we have had so far include Cauliflour Cheese, Organic Mashed Potatoes, and Healthy Choc Chip Cookies. The Healthy Chef has a great recipe for Choc Chip cookies, made with Dairy Farmers organic butter, proving that you can indulge without the guilt! Click the image below for a recipe!

Oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies, made with Australian organic butter, courtesy of The Healthy Chef.

Oatmeal, chocolate chip cookies, made with Australian organic butter, courtesy of The Healthy Chef.

Head to our Facebook page now for your chance to be in the running for a $100 voucher to spend at Peaches Fresh. And don’t forget everyone who purchases the weekly featured product in store will go into the chance to win a $500 organic gourmet hamper!

There’s only two more weeks left in The Time is Ripe, which means only two more chances to win! We’ve got some great products lined up for the next two weeks, so stay tuned to our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages so you don’t miss out!

We’ve got one more poem to share with you, created by one of our competition entrants, Aimee. We love seeing our fans get so creative with their love of organic ingredients!

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Fresh Product of the Week: Organic Pasta

Today is the day we launch Time is Ripe – inspiring all our fresh food fans to buy organic!

Each week we will be highlighting a different product and giving everyone who purchases it the chance to WIN a hamper filled with delicious organic goodies!

We are starting Time is Ripe with La Domenica Organic Pasta as the featured organic pasta of the week. Now, just how much difference can there really be between average supermarket pasta and organic pasta? Well, you may be surprised to know the answer.

Organic pasta is produced completely free from pesticides, fertilisers, and other unnatural hormones that can be harmful to you and your family. Organic pasta also provides more nutrients, fibre and has a natural wheat flavour. Something that most people haven’t given much thought to before is how many toxins and chemicals are used when growing wheat and grains used to make breads and pasta.

At Peaches we believe that the fresher the better, and we’ve found a delicious healthy recipe you can make using La Domenica Organic Penne Regati. All the ingredients in the recipe can be purchased at Peaches Fresh!

VEGETABLE GARDEN PASTA

200 grams of La Domenica Penne Regati

1 punnet of fresh cherry tomatoes

1 clove of garlic

2 1/2 tbs of Golden Range Olive Oil

1 ear of corn

1 zucchini (chopped)

1/2 capsicum (chopped)

Basil (sliced)

Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Start by heating up the olive oil in a pan. Cook the garlic clove and tomatoes until they soften. Put all the other vegetables in a separate pan and sauté for about 10 minutes. Once everything is ready, combine in one pan. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper, stir through some fresh basil and serve. Couldn’t be more simple and healthy!

This week we want to see you cook your own delicious and nutritious meal using La Domenica Organic Pasta!

Everyone that buys a packet of La Domenica pasta at Peaches this week will go into the draw to win a $500 organic gourmet hamper! Even better, our Facebook followers have the chance to win $100 Peaches voucher each week by answering our competition question.

So stay tuned to our Facebook page to enter the competition and let us know about meals you have created using our organic pasta range!

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Recipe courtesy of Yummly.

Time is Ripe Terms

The following terms and conditions apply to Peaches Fresh Food Market ‘Time is Ripe’ competition.

The competition commences 7am Wednesday 1st July 2015 and concludes 8pm Wednesday 12 August 2015.

The competition is to win a organic gourmet hamper valued at $500. This prize is not redeemable, refundable or transferrable for cash.

Customers must purchase the organic product of the week in one transaction in store at Peaches Fresh Food Market 195 Hampton Rd Fremantle.

Limited to one entry per transaction.

The competition concludes at 8pm on 12th of August. The following day at 10am the prize will be drawn randomly and the winner will be notified by email and promoted on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the website of Peaches Fresh Food market. If the winner has not claimed the prize within 7 working days, Peaches Fresh Food will redraw the prize until a successful winner has claimed the prize.

Spoil your Mum with a $200 Benny’s Bar & Grill Voucher!

Mother’s Day is a celebration of love for your mum, a special maternal figure in your life and the influence of mother’s in the world. There’s no better feeling in the world than showing your mum that you appreciate everything that she has done for you.

The one thing that springs to mind when we think about our mum is food! Nothing is better than a meal cooked with love by mum and there’s always a special dish she’ll make that you know is just for you!

We want to spread the love this year by giving one lucky person the chance to spoil their mum with a meal valued at $200 at Benny’s Bar & Grill on Mother’s Day, Sunday May 10.

Share your mum’s signature dish with us on Facebook to be in the draw.

One lucky runner up will win a Uccello Kettle valued at $69!

Enter here now!

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Garlic is nothing to sneeze at!

It’s that time of year again, when everyone around you starts sniffling and complaining about a scratchy throat… yes, it’s cold season!

With the average adult catching 2-4 colds each year, you need to do everything you can to avoid picking up the nasty virus. We’ve all heard the saying, “you are what you eat” and when it comes to preventing colds, there’s nothing more true!

When we’re sick, we don’t search for a pill bottle to help us recover, we go looking for our favourite herb, garlic! Garlic contains a whole list of vitamins that all promote healthy immunity. Garlic has high levels of vitamin C, although it may not be as much as citrus fruit, just 3 cloves of garlic will provide you with 5% of your daily intake. Vitamin C is important in maintaining cell walls as well as acting as an antioxidant to flush out toxins in the body.

The real cold fighting compound in this super food is allicin. But what is allicin? It’s what gives garlic it’s ‘hot’ flavour for one, but it’s also what makes garlic an antibacterial and an antifungal which is what helps kill colds!

The best way to get the most allicin out of your garlic is to chop, crush or chew up a clove as it is! We love garlic as much as the next person, especially roasted in a delicious pasta sauce, but the thought of chewing on raw cloves of garlic isn’t the most appealing idea.

That’s why we love Healthy Green Kitchen’s favourite sore throat remedy, garlic honey! When garlic has been infused with honey, you can barely tell that it’s garlic! All you need to do is get yourself some fresh garlic (we love fresh Tasmanian garlic) and some raw honey, Elixir Honey is a store favourite.

Visit her blog here to check out how to make this tasty remedy. Head to our Facebook page and let us know your home made cold remedies!

Make your mum breakfast in bed the healthy way!

How do you show your mum you love her on Mother’s Day? For us, I’m sure you guessed, we show her through food! Every special occasion (and lets face it, most not so special occasions) mum slaves away in the kitchen, creating the most monumental feasts, making sure to include everybody’s favourite dish. It’s only fair that on Mother’s Day, you make something from the heart for her and what mum doesn’t like a surprise breakfast in bed!

Why not make your mum her very own not-so-average breakfast in bed with some amazing buckwheat pancakes! Buckwheat is an amazing super food, with about a million reasons why you should eat it. Try this scrumptious recipe for Gluten Free Vegan Buckwheat Pancakes from Gluten-Free-Vegan-Girl:

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups almond milk (or other dairy-free milk)
  • 1 1/2 cup buckwheat flour
  • 1 cup dates, pitted
  • 2 tsp vanilla essence
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • juice from 1/2 lemon, optional but recommended

Blueberry sauce:

  • 2 cups frozen blueberries (preferably organic)
  • 1/2 cup dates
  • 1/3 cup water (more if needed)

Directions:

1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. Place the dates, almond milk, lemon juice and vanilla essence in a high-speed blender/food processor and blend until you have a smooth paste. Stir this mixture in with the dry ingredients until you have a relatively thick batter.

2. Heat up a non-stick pan on medium heat before pouring in about 1/4 cup batter per pancake. When the pancakes has started to firm up on the upward-facing side, flip around and cook on the other side until they are a deep
golden color. It is very important that you do not have a too high heat, as this will result in burnt and/or uncooked pancakes. Place the pancakes on a plate and place a towel on top to retain the heat. Repeat until all of the batter has been used.

3. While that is cooking we are going to make the blueberry sauce. Simply add all of the ingredients listed into a medium-sized pot and bring to a simmer. When the blueberries are no longer frozen (and the dates are soft enough to be blended) grab a hand-blender or transfer sauce to a regular blender, and pulse until properly combined. Pour this into a jar and set aside.

Now simply drizzle the sauce on to the pancakes, garnish with a handful of additional blueberries and enjoy!