Oooh, it’s so close! My I Quit Sugar Cookbook is almost here.

bacon and egg cupcakes, photo by Marija Ivkovic

And so I figure I might share this recipe from the book: bacon and egg cupcakes! Yes. Two ingredients + some clever assembling = fun breakfast. Astonishing stuff!

You can watch the video below, which was shot by my good mate Faustina (you might have seen her on The Voice?!) at Rokeby Studios in Melbourne.

While I have your attention, I’ll also point out that

today is your last chance to pre-order the cookbook and get 30% off + a special gift

Just click on the button below to take advantage…

You could say I’m a little obsessed with Sally Fallon. She’s the aunt I’ve never had (a lot of Y chromosomes in my family). The goddess of the kitchen I want to pull up a stool in. The author of the cookbook – Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats – with the zaniest subtitle ever. She’s also founding president of the Weston A. Price Foundation (for more on Weston A. Price go here), an organisation I have a lot of respect for.

image via culinaryporn.tumblr.com

She bangs on about eating whole food. Unadulterated REAL food, as our grandmother’s used to. And I really like to listen when she does. Because it’s real.

Oh, and FYI…Sally’s contributed a recipe to my I Quit Sugar Cookbook, which you can pre-order here.

Anyway, this morning I talked to her about enzymes: how eating them makes you age more slowly and gracefully and how to get more of them into your diet.

Listen in here:

Sally Fallon [ 18:06 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

For those wanting it nice and clear, here’s a cheat sheet for you

Why do we care about enzymes?

The short answer: they affect how long we live, and how well we’ll be in the process. This is how…

There are two types of enzymes for digestion

1, Digestive enzymes: Mostly manufactured by the pancreas, they break down food leaving the stomach.

2. Food enzymes: These exist in the raw food itself and they help our bodies break down that particular food as we eat it. Eg: lactase in milk helps us process lactose (which is why low-fat milk is such an issue…in the de-fatting process much of the lactase is lost).

Know this:

We have limited digestive enzymes in our bodies AND when these stores are used up, it ages us.

The aging process is the depletion of digestive enzymes, more or less.

Which means…

Eating food with lots of their own enzymes saves our bodies (our pancreases) from doing the work.

Thus saving us from aging more than we damnwell have to.

Here’s a bit of an idea for you…and a sneak peak at one of the recipes from my ….some drum rolling please…I Quit Sugar Cookbook!!!

a recipe from my book: coco-nutty granola

The cookbook, as I’ve explained here, is a follow-up from I Quit Sugar: A Sweet 8-Week Program. It’s a behemoth of a book: more than 108 recipes of nutritious, easy, sweet, whole-food eating ideas.

In two dot-points:

• It features clever, quick and densely nutritious breakfast ideas, sweet and savoury snacks, desserts, kids’ treats and some great “green” detox meals for aiding the conversion process.
• It also features contributions from some of my favourite foodies: Gwyneth Paltrow, Maggie Beer, My New Roots, Cannelle Vanille + many, many more.

Now. As a special early-bird offer to readers of this blog:

You can pre-order the book + get 30% off the retail price + receive a gift from Natvia!*

Natvia is a granulated stevia (my preferred safe sweetener) that can be easily purchased around Australia (in most supermarkets…in the baking section).

To be an early birdy, ahead of the pack and up for a sweet deal, click here…

* most sadly, the Natvia gift is only available to Australian residents

I made this a while back and shared the recipe with my friend Renee. In passing.

It’s the kind of recipe I’m packing my forthcoming I Quit Sugar Cookbook with. Simple, moorish, minimal-ingredients-required “assemblages”, brimful of nutrients and wholesome sweetness. Over the next few weeks I’ll be sharing some sneak peaks…on Instagram, my IQS Facebook page and Twitter. And to be sure:

The I Quit Sugar Cookbook is out next month.

To receive an early-bird discount and a gift, feel free to sign up here.

Meantime, back to the Raspberry Ripe.

During the week I got this text from Renee:

And this….

It’s seductive stuff. But I’ll tell you the interesting thing. If you ever find yourself indulging in this kind of sugar-free

Some might not call this cooking. Some, of course, might.

Regardless, I do like to challenge myself to prepare food with the least number of steps and ingredients as possible, and using everyday things around the supermarket aisle. Life is smoother with less. And with ingenuity.

I thought these might inspire you to come up with your own. In the spirit of simplicity, I’ve reduced the instructions to a haiku poem (remember these are the haiku rules: three lines of up to 17 syllables and use of a season word). Feel free to supply yours below…

1. Cheesy poppadums

* poppadums

* Parmesan cheese, grated

A chickpea ‘dum

cheese flutters like snow flakes

hit microwave for twenty

I’ve been working on a very exciting project. Can’t say too much yet…

Sprung! Delirious! Fuzzy, Marija, me and Lee eating dessert after 15 hours shooting

…Oh, OK, then. In a few quick points:

It’s a follow-up to I Quit Sugar: a sweet 8-week program.

It’s an e-cookbook of super simple sugar-free recipes.

It features a number of incredible contributions from some famous chefs and food folk I know you love, plus some e-tricks that will make the experience quite a bit of fun to read.

It will land on virtual “shelves” in a few weeks; you won’t miss it. But if you’d like advance notification, and to receive an introductory offer, sign up here (I promise we won’t be emailing you about anything else if you do!).

There is one other thing I’d like to share for now….about the making of the book…the way it’s just flowed into place. It went a little like this…

For the past year I’ve been experimenting with sugar-free dishes and ideas…really just because it’s been fun to do so…

Around the time I realised I was ready to write another ebook, I also realised I had enough great recipes to share with everyone. Also around this time I met two great women: Faustina and Marija Ivkovic. I’d e-met Faustina (Fuzzy) on Twitter ages back…she and Marija were visiting Byron and looked me up…they cooked gluten-free dumplings for me…and we chatted about how we loved working on projects with good energy…and I mentioned my nascent cookbook idea…and they said, “We want to help you”…and…I resisted at first because I’m not used to such generous offers…but…