Street Art Adventures

Hey guys! Sorry that I’ve been so slack with posting. I can’t really say that I’ve been busy, but I just haven’t done anything exciting sooo I’ve been being busy doing nothing. Anyway I have done something worth noting! Today my friend and I walked around Christchurch on a street art hunt. OK that doesn’t sound particularly exciting but the photos are so cool and I love street art so here we are. In the aftermath of the earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 in Christchurch, this city has had such cool ways to funk it up and use the destruction and lack of buildings and do innovative things in it. Such as re:start which is a shopping ‘centre’ made out of shipping containers painted cool colours. Another was the Christchurch Stands Tall giraffe sculpture trail where 49 tall giraffes and 50 small giraffes were decorated by artists, schools and businesses. Around Christchurch for the last couple of years there has been the rise street art festival. They invite street artists to do murals across the CBD to bring interest and aesthetics into the otherwise grim city. Here are a few pics by some.

There was also an exhibition at the YMCA it’s fun to stay at the YMCA  which was super cool! It involved a room that was half graffiti and half normal with banksy pictures in it..

There were also these massive spray cans with 1 metre high murals ‘coming out if them’. Every so often the sound of a pray can being shaken and sprayed would come out and the lights made the art look as though it was dripping!

Here are a few more pictures of cool things that I saw

this really cool art of lorde was my favourite of the day!

p.s. to see cool pics like ^ go follow my Instagram accounts @sarahk8woods or @sarahkatewoods 

Bean Queen Salad

The other day I went out for lunch with my mum and we had some delicious salads. As I am always looking for new ideas to eat healthily, I noted down the ingredients and yesterday I made my own version of the two salads! This one has kidney beans, chick peas and cannellini beans, but you could change this bean combo to suit you. I used my mean green dressing to dress it.

Firstly, I emptied my can of bean mix and my can of kidney beans into a bowl.

In the original salad it had bits of mandolin(ed) zucchini. I don’t have a mandolin but I do have a Betti Bossi Veggie Twister and this worked perfectly! I just had to chop up the zucchini after I twisted it.

I then finely chopped some red onion, diced yellow pepper and added the dressing to the zucchini and beans in a big bowl.

It was a very delicious salad and perfect for summer. It’s super quick and easy which also helps!

Ingredients

2 cans of any beans, drained

1 large zucchini or 2 small zucchini

1 yellow pepper, diced

1 small red onion, finely chopped

herb dressing

Method

Drain the beans and put in a large bowl. Mandolin or veggie twist or FINELY chop zucchini and add it to the beans. Stir in all remaining ingredients and serve!

A Mean Green Dressing

This parley dressing that I have adapted is perfect on salads or even on fish. I love making homemade food and this dressing is definitely satisfyingly easy and tasty! It’s so quick to whip up and you could change the amount of ingredients – if you desired – to make small batches, but I like making a big batch and keeping it in the fridge. I use this dressing on a brown rice salad and a bean salad which I have plans to share with you guys very soon. Another edition to the recipe that you could make would be lemon juice- although I haven’t tried it i think it would add a yummy dimension to this already delicious dressing.

The original recipe asked for dijon mustard as well as wholegrain/seeded mustard but I just put more wholegrain mustard in because it is my favourite!!

This dressing doesn’t have an exact quantity of parsley but just use a lot .. you can always add more extras to balance the flavours but don’t be measly with the parsley!

Put the parsley in the food processor and add 3 tbsp of wholegrain mustard, 1/3 cup of cider vinegar, 2/3 cup oil (I used rice bran), 1/8 cup brown sugar and black pepper. Whizz it all up- the longer the better!!

Spoon the dressing into desired containers- I use jars because you can easily spoon it in and out.

Now top on all your favourite salads!!

Ingredients

1/3 cup cider vinegar
2/3 cup oil
1/8 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp whole grain mustard
Parsley (LOTS!!)
Black pepper

After washing and drying the parsley, put it in the food processor with the remaining ingredients. Whizz up until desired consistency – the longer the better! Spoon into jars or bottles and store in the fridge. Enjoy on salads!

Thank you so much for reading! x

You’d Never Know It Biscuits

I don’t know about you but (I’m feeling twenty-two) (sorry- love me a little Tay Swift) I love wholemealy, healthy tasting biscuits over super sugary, chocolate ones. These are my favourite biscuits! I have changed the original recipe quite a bit to make them more healthy and (in my opinion) make them yummier. They originally had 1 cup of sugar, chocolate chips and not that many walnuts. But never fear- I have made them jam packed with walnuts and sultanas, removed the chocolate and quartered the sugar and doubled the dry ingredients. 

One of the other things that I love about this recipe is the walnuts! Walnuts are one of my favourite nuts and just make these cookies heavenly! I have a walnut tree at my house so this is a great way to use the buckets-ful that we have. I love cracking walnuts whilst watching youtube videos, listening to music and reading 🙂

Preheat the oven to 190°C and line 2 trays with baking paper. 

First of all, you need to put 2 cups of rolled oats in the food processor until they are in a flour like consistency.

Add 2 cups of wholemeal flour, 1 tsp of baking soda, 1 tsp of salt and 1 cup of walnuts (preferably halves) to the oats.

 Add 1 cup of sultanas or any dried fruit of your choice- I think that cranberries or apricots would be really nice. 

Whizz up 2 eggs, 1 cup of oil and 1/8 cup of white sugar and 1/8 cup of brown sugar. I like to replace a little less than a quarter of a cup of the oil with water but you can do whatever.

Add that to the dry ingredients and mix.

Spoon walnut sized balls of the mixture onto the prepared trays. I made 23 biscuits but it really depends on the size that you want them.

Ingredients
2 cups Rolled oats
2 cups Wholemeal flour
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking soda
1 cup Walnuts, chopped
1 cup Sultanas (or other dried fruit)
1/8 cup Brown sugar
1 cup Canola oil
2 Eggs, large
1/8 cup White sugar

Preheat the oven to 190°C, with the rack just below the middle.

Measure the oats into a food processor fitted with the chopping blade and process until they resemble coarse flour. Transfer the processed oats to a large bowl and add the wholemeal flour, baking soda (make sure there are no lumps), salt, sultanas and walnuts, and stir to combine.
Put the oil, egg and the sugars in the food processor and process until pale and creamy-looking. 
Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until thoroughly combined.
Using two spoons, drop small walnut-sized piles of the mixture onto oven sheets lined with baking paper and squash. 
Place one tray at a time in the middle of the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool the cookies on a wire rack.

Store in an airtight container.

Summer Holiday 14-15

I think I’m in denial about going back to school in less than a week. I can’t believe that the holiday has gone so quickly- but of course I can because this happens every holiday. The three holiday phases I go through are 1. at the start and I feel as though I’m going to be on holiday forever 2. in the middle when it still feels as though you have heaps of time and the holiday is going slowly 3. when it feels as though you’ve had 2 days away from school and that I didn’t make the most of the glorious freedom. I always dread after new years because then it’s reality that the holidays will be ending.

Even though the reindeer headband is broken I don’t let my Christmas spirit become broken.

That being said- I have had the loveliest holiday ever this year! Starting in Christchurch and not really doing anything from the 9th to the 23rd- when we left to my grandparent’s farm for Christmas. I LOVE CHRISTMAS! as you can probably tell from the pic above^..

I had such a lovely christmas. I love being around my family and the happiness that there is on Christmas and everyone feels united in merriness! Plus, the foods pretty good too. Here are a few cute family pics-

I got so many amazing presents such as:

ironman timex move x20 sports band

plenty cookbook by Ottolenghi

Isabella Anselmi koka sandals

and more fabulous presents! I was so spoilt! (I might do a Xmas haul?)

On the 26th we went to Wanaka because my sister was starting work as a barista the next day. I love being in Wanaka because there are so many lovely walks to go on and obviously swimming in the lake is so lovely! We had such lovely weather- there were only a couple of grotty days when we were there for 3 weeks! My mum and I climbed Mt. Iron quite a few times which is always very satisfying, we also went on this walk from Glendhu Bay to home twice which took us about 2 and 3/4 hours.

my legs hurt just thinking about it!

the view from Mt. Iron

I love swimming at the lake- it’s so refreshing and the perfect temperature. We mainly went and swam at Bremner Bay which is close to home and has shade from the hot sun. The only downside to swimming there is that you have to walk so far out to get to a decent depth. My cousin bought himself a GoPro and I took the liberty of taking a few selfies on it (I’m so kind) and I thought I would share them with you..

               

The other thing that I really love about summer is the food. for one the salads that i have had over the last few weeks have been drool-worthy and for two the summer fruits are heavenly! A week ago we went to Cromwell to stock up on apricots, nectarines and cherries- so divine!! I love stone fruits and berries so much and they are what I have been living on since then… though sadly we are nearly all out!

In conclusion this has been the best summer holiday yet! Thank you to my family who have made it so special and lovely.

love you all xx

tramping through paradise

a couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to go on a tramp in the abel tasman national park! it was the most beautiful place I have ever been (not that I have been to many places) and i loved the fantastic experience. until the day before i went i myself had no idea of where it was in the south island, (bit naughty I know!) so I thought that I would share my newfound knowledge and show you where it is!

on the first day we drove from Christchurch to Kaiteriteri and got there in time to put up our tents in the rain- good ol’ NZ summers never let me down. even though it was raining the ground was really hard and so most people couldn’t put their pegs into the ground and only a few forward-thinking people brought hammers… let’s just say they were suddenly VERY popular people. I was tenting with one of my best friends and with my dad’s words ringing in my ears “if you damage the tent you will have to pay to get it fixed” (and my eyes only seeing my money going down the drain) I took on the majority of the putting up of the tent. however when she did help I would give her an easy job and I swear I must of said “push not pull!!!!!!” a thousand times!

here is a picture of a lovely abode! It was really nice and was the perfect size for two. it was always so lovely when it was put up and you had made it up for the night. a tad more depressing when you had to pack it away and load it onto our already heavy packs! with the prospect of having to put it up ALL over again looming over our heads.

that ^ is Kaiteriteri and it was so stunning! the next morning we packed up and went to the beach to catch a water taxi to Awaroa to start the tramp. the water taxi ride was so much fun! here are a few pics-

we were lucky enough to see a seal eating an octopus!

and of course a quick pic of me with the seal! #besties

we then had to set out on the tramp. burdened by our heavy bags and so on. i found out that i was really quite naive about the whole thing. when i imagined what we would be doing i had imagined walking on the flat next to the beach the whole time.

apparently not.

it turns out that 1. you walk through the bush not the beach and 2. that it is definitely not flat and instead you find your calves aching from up hill and your whole body aching from down hill, a lot of aching all round really!

but of course the upside to it being up is that you get the most SPECTACULAR views.. here are some-

the highlight of the trip was of course the beaches! omg i didn’t know that nz had such beautiful beaches and thought that I could only get my hit of golden sand on the Gold Coast, Australia! but these beaches were, dare I say it, even more beautiful than broadbeach and surfers paradise in the gc. i think- although the sand was amazing- the reason that i say that is because they were sheltered from waves and were more like little pockets of paradise.

I miss it so so much and can’t wait until I get to go back there! I definitely recommend that everyone who has the opportunity to do it to do it! until next time abel tasman, and thanks for the great time!

xo

a little bit about me…

as you can tell from the name of my blog- my name is sarah, this name seems to suit me perfectly, although most names do suit people somehow we just grow into the stereotypes of our name don’t we? apart from a select few that you think.. really? are you sure there wasn’t a mistake on your birth certificate?.. but i think that sarah does suit me and other sarah’s seem to fit the same kind of personality. according to one of my friends i greeted them for the first time by saying “hi i’m sarah, which means princess” , the embarrassing thing is that that was only a few years ago. opps! When i was in my first year of school there was another sarah in my class, it didn’t help that i was sarah p and she was sarah b- not the most distinctive titles. so i became sarah-kate (kate is my middle name) and now whenever i see people or parents from when i was younger seem to call me sarah-kate. it’s a cute wee name and i wouldn’t mind if it was officially hyphened!

here’s a picture of wee sarah-kate – all i wanted for christmas that year were my two front teeth!

i was born in australia and lived there until i was three. i don’t really remember it too well, but one memory that i am certain is that my best friend at preschool was a boy named oil and one day i found him under the slide with another girl! i know dramatic! since then i have never had a boyfriend, i must be emotionally scarred for life. not really but as i look back over the years i had some really horrendous crushes and i only feel pure embarrassment about them. anyway back to the subject.. i don’t have an accent- although lots of my friends say that i say here and hair weirdly so at least i have a small reason to be thought of as exotic. i moved to new zealand when i was three- which was my mum, dad, sister and brother’s home country and now my home country- go the all blacks!

look how pretty new zealand is ^

i love to dance around and listen to music. i am obsessed with instagram. i am a clean eater and have lost 10kgs (more about that later) and i am a wannabe blogger! i think that this blog will be full of recipes, lifestyle stories and hopefully i can touch someone out there reading this and be a positive influence somehow! please feel free to comment on what you would like to know or give me any tips- considering this is my debut and i am a true newbie in the world of blogging!

thanks for reading! x