Lettuce Lunch Wraps - Julie Buckley

This is a versatile recipe where you can use up leftovers from your fridge or whatever vegetables you have on hand. Iceberg lettuce or cos lettuce leaves work well for the wrap

Ingredients
1 cos lettuce washed, remove thick stems 
Leftover cooked chicken, ham, bacon
1 ripe avocado sliced
2 tomatoes sliced
½ cup roasted capsicums drained
1 cucumber thinly sliced
½ cup sprouts
Smokey almond hummus:
½ c ground almonds
1 Tbsp tahini
½ tsp smoked paprika
1 clove garlic crushed
¼ c water
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
2-3 sun-dried tomatoes in oil finely chopped

To make the hummus combine the ingredients together to make a thick paste using half the water initially then add a little more water to make it more spreadable if needed as the almonds soak up a lot.

Lay a sheet of baking paper on your board and arrange lettuce leaves overlapping if they are not large. Spread a layer of almond hummus or a good quality mayo over the leaves leaving a good border free for wrapping. Add the cooked chicken or ham and vegetables down the middle of the leaves. Using the baking paper roll the leaf wrap up tightly and secure with toothpicks or string to hold tight. Cut in half and enjoy.

Healthy Eating

-Julie Buckley (Coach/Chef)
Diabetes Clinic New Zealand

If you know someone who would like to reverse pre-diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes get them to message the Diabetes Clinic here https://m.me/diabetesclinicnz

or visit www.diabetesclinic.co.nz

Salmon salad with Tahini and lemon dressing - Julie Buckley

Salmon Salad with Tahini

There is nothing that says summer more than fresh colourful salads. The more colours in your salad the more nutrients you are eating. This salmon and vegetable salad is dressed with tahini and lemon dressing and is a complete meal.

Use what you have on hand in your garden or fridge. Bacon and chicken are both great options instead of salmon and vegetable options are limited only by your imagination.

Salmon salad with Tahini and lemon dressing

Salad greens - enough to cover your plate or platter
400g salmon fillet skin on and pin bones removed
2 zuchinni cut into bite sized pieces
2 carrots cut into even size pieces
1 red onion peeled and sliced into wedges
1 red or yellow capsicum cut into large cubes
1/2 avocado sliced or diced
4-6 eggs soft boiled
100g green beans
100g cherry tomatoes halved
1-2 Tbsp olive or avocado oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Dressing
1/3c extra virgin olive oil
1/3c apple cider vinegar
1 clove garlic crushed
1 Tbsp Tahini
The juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp poppy seeds
1 Tbsp maple syrup (optional)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cut all of your vegetables into even sized pieces. Line a baking tray with baking paper and lay the zuchinni, carrots, red onions and capsicums in separate lines on the baking tray and drizzle with a little avocado or olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Bake for 20 minutes until just tender. Leave to cool while assembling the remaining ingredients.

Place the salmon fillet onto a baking tray and drizzle with avocado oil, the juice of half a lemon and season with salt and pepper. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until the centre is just cooked. Leave to cool before cutting into chunks or flaking with a fork.

Blanch the beans in boiling water for about 30 seconds then refresh in cold water to stop them cooking further. Peel and halve the boiled eggs.

To make the dressing blend all of the ingredients together with a stick blender.

To assemble place a bed of lettuce onto your serving platter. Place lines of your cooked and raw vegetables and the salmon and eggs in rows over the top of the salad. Alternate colours where possible. Drizzle with the dressing just before serving.

Healthy Eating

-Julie Buckley (Coach/Chef)
Diabetes Clinic New Zealand

If you know someone who would like to reverse pre-diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes get them to message the Diabetes Clinic here https://m.me/diabetesclinicnz

or visit www.diabetesclinic.co.nz

Facebook tips for business owners

If you are using Facebook to help promote your business here are a few more tips for you that will help you get a lot more engagement and success.

1. Post great content - I have said it before and will reiterate this one again. Make your content worth ‘liking’, ‘commenting on’ and most of all worth ‘sharing’. Good content gets engagement and the more your post is seen by the Facebook algorithm as something people are engaging with the more it will allow you to reach.

2. Be great at Replying - Reply to comments and messages as promptly as you can. Again Facebook provides recognition for this and will reward you with more views.

3. Place links in comments - Facebook does not like you linking away from your page. So simply placce the link in a comment under the post to avoid the penalties and get more reach.

4. Build your partners - Businesses who work together by ‘liking’, ‘commenting’ and ‘sharing’ each others post will get a far bigger reach than a business who ‘goes it alone’.

5. Post video - video is king, second to mulitple images then a single great image. Remember to leave the text to the text section and leave your images nice and clean.

6. Ask for Engagement - At the end of a great post don’t be afraid to ask for ‘likes’, ‘comments’ and ‘shares’.

7. Structure your post - A great heading or ‘Hook’ which is seperate from the main body of text encourages people to read on. A seperate call to action paragraph at the end encourages readers to take the action you would like. Space is the key here give each section space before starting the next.

8. Write posts specifically for engagement - You may want to run a competition or specifically ask people to provide comments. Make your intention clear and see the difference in your results.

Well, I hope you found this blog useful. If you did please ‘like’ my Facebook page and send me a message. ocne in my message system you will recieve regular tips on everything digital to help you and your business.

https://www.facebook.com/tonycuttingdigital/

Until next time

Tony C
Personal Coach / Digital Marketing Specialist
e. hello@tonycuttingdigital.co.nz
m. https://m.me/tonycuttingdigital
w. tonycuttingdigital.com

Instagram for business - what you should know

Can you promote your business with images? If so Instagram maybe a great platform for you. If you find it tough to come up with ideas it may just mean you need some inspiration. I suggest the first you do is signup (personal account) then search under the #hashtags you are most likely to be promoted through and see what results you would get i.e. how many other people are using those #hashtags. This will give you an idea of what, where and how to use Instagram for your business.

You can then connect your Facebook business page to your Instagram account and get started.

So, what is a #hashtag?

A word or phrase preceded by a hash sign (#), used on social media websites and applications, especially Instagram and Twitter, to identify messages on a specific topic.

#hashtags have a presence of their own. For example I live in Wellington, New Zealand. So one of the first #hashtags I would consider looking at are my local tags #wellington #newzealand and with a little research I would discover that #wellingtonnz is a very well used tag. If I post on Instagram and used these tags people also posting using these tags are likely to look through the feed for #wellingtonnz, they can even follow this #hashtag so any posts under this tag are promoted in their personal feed - objective find posts that are relevant (in this case local).

You can use #hashtags for all searchs e.g. The #digitalmarketing is one for me as it is relevant to what I do and it has 5.4 million posts. So when I have a relevant post where I use this tag I have the potential to hit quite a few people, building followers, likes and maybe, just maybe a sale.

Facebook & Instagram

Well, just in case you did not know, Instagram is owned by Facebook and is the number two social platform in the world for Business to Consumer marketing. Facebook is number one and by a long way. Instagram allows you to push you post from Instagram to your Facebook page, but Facebook does not allow you to this unless you are buying paid advertising. My advice do neither. Each platform has differences and to maximise your reach and message you need to posts different things using the rules that apply to each platform.

Making Instagram work

Build a great profile, include a great photo and in your details add your website address maybe your Facebook messaging system address or email and a bio that is clean and clear so people know who you are and what you are about.

It probably goes without saying, but if you want to offer a better, more attractive, cleaner feed for your followers, you’ll need to start with better pictures in the first place. Your ‘Wall’ tells alot about you to potential followers make sure you have great images with consistent quality e.g. if you use a filter for your images make it the same one.

FYI: Your wall is the block of pictures people see when they first check you out on Instagram.

Learning how to great photos using your phone is important, so is getting a phone that is capable of taking great photos.

Building your audience

When you start out you need to build your audience and the best way is to connect with people on Instagram who are interested in the same things you are promoting. This is critical no matter what marketing you produce. You might create the most beautiful Instagram content in the world, but if it doesn’t appeal to your target buyer, what’s the point?

Don’t talk at people, talk to them. It’s all about them your posts should be about the audience not you. Take this approach and you are going to be ahead of 95% of Instagrammers today.

Be consistent and persistance, two to three posts per week of high quality will work much better than bombing the market with posts every second hour. Also, don’t go missing make sure you plan your posts and you do post on a regular basis.

Check out your Business insights

To track whether you are getting things right you should look at your insights. You don’t necessarily want millions of people following you from around the world if you only provide local services or products. You maybe more interested how many people in your region are engaged with you.

As we mentioned Facebook owns Instagram, and they’ve introduced a similar ‘Insights’ tool to help ‘Insta’ Users.

The tool offers some interesting insights into the people following and interacting with your account. 

• Impressions: How many times your content was viewed

• Reach: Total number of unique accounts that viewed a piece of content

• Website clicks: How many clicks the link in your business profile has received

• Follower activity: How often your followers are on Instagram daily

• Video views: How often your video content has been viewed

• Saves: How many people have saved your posts

Insights also includes demographic information, so you can see where your followers come from, their age, and their gender.

With this, you’ll have plenty of information about your existing Instagram audience. 

I hope you found this helpful. If you would like to hear about more digital marketing tips please join my message system on Facebook here https://m.me/tonycuttingdigital

I’ll let you know when I post my next blog and you may even go into a draw to win some FREE 1:1 training either Face to face or via Zoom.

Happy Posting

Tony C
Personal Coach / Digital Marketing Specialist
e. hello@tonycuttingdigital.co.nz
m. https://m.me/tonycuttingdigital
w. tonycuttingdigital.com

Red Beef Curry with Cauliflower rice - Julie Buckley

It is a great feeling to be able to make a curry from scratch. This red curry is spicy so cut back on the amount of chilli you add if you don't like hot curries. You could double the sauce recipe and keep half in the fridge for next time.

Beef in this curry can be swapped for chicken, seafood, lamb or vegetables.

Ingredients
Curry paste:
1 small red onion chopped
1 stalk fresh or frozen lemongrass finely chopped 
1-2 red chillies deseeded and finely chopped (with gloves on)
4 cloves garlic peeled and chopped
1 thumb of ginger sliced
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
¼ tsp ground white pepper
2 Tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 Tbsp chilli powder
1 can coconut milk
2 Tbsp lime juice
1 cinnamon stick
Curry
500 grams beef rump sliced thinly
2 Tbsp coconut oil
1 eggplant diced
100 g snow peas
½ cauliflower grated or chopped in a food processor into rice

Place all of the paste ingredients except for the cinnamon stick and the coconut milk into a bullet or blender. Add 3 tablespoons of the coconut milk and blend until smooth. Heat coconut oil in a heavy based pan on medium heat and cook the curry paste until fragrant, about 1 minute.

Add the meat and cook in the paste until beef is just starting to colour. Pour in the rest of the can of coconut milk and add in the cinnamon stick. Simmer for 20 minutes and add in the eggplant. Cook for another 10 minutes until beef is tender. Finally, add in the snow peas and cook for 2 minutes making sure to not overcook to retain the crunch.

Heat a pot of water with salt added while the curry is cooking. When boiling add the cauliflower rice and cook for 4-6 minutes until just tender. Drain and serve with the curry.

Healthy Eating

-Julie Buckley (Coach/Chef)
Diabetes Clinic New Zealand

If you know someone who would like to reverse pre-diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes get them to message the Diabetes Clinic here https://m.me/diabetesclinicnz

or visit www.diabetesclinic.co.nz

Cherry Berry Chia Pudding - Julie Buckley

Chia seeds are a real powerhouse for their tiny size. They are full of nutrients and antioxidants and are a great source of fibre, making them very beneficial to the digestive system. Studies show they may be of benefit as a prebiotic in the gut by providing fuel for the healthy bacteria.

One of the most amazing benefits of chia seeds is they are high in alpha-linolenic acid which helps to maintain stable blood sugar and insulin levels by slowing the conversion of carbohydrates to sugar in the digestive system.

This recipe makes a great breakfast or have it for pudding if you like. Use any low carbohydrate fruit in this recipe, berries of any sort are a great option.

Cherry Berry Chia Pudding
Serves 4 people

1 400ml can of coconut milk or cream
5 Tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp vanilla essence
5 drops of stevia (optional)
1/2 cup fresh or frozen and defrosted berries (freeze dried are a good option too)
100ml water

Optional extras: Cacao or cocoa powder or nibs, cinnamon, ground ginger, spirulina powder, protein powder, LSA, activated nuts, toasted coconut, maca powder, bee pollen, hulled hemp seeds. Options are only limited by your imagination.

Mix together coconut milk or cream and water, stevia if using, and vanilla in a bowl. Whisk in the chia seeds, fruit and any other flavourings you would like to add. Reserve some of the fruit and/or flavourings to decorate when serving.

Refridgerate for at least 2 hours or make in the evening and refridgerate overnight.

Healthy Eating

-Julie Buckley (Coach/Chef)
Diabetes Clinic New Zealand

If you know someone who would like to reverse pre-diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes get them to message the Diabetes Clinic here https://m.me/diabetesclinicnz

Beetroot hummus - Julie Buckley

A beautiful dip that tastes amazing without chickpeas which can be high in starch. This one contains butter beans which are much lower in carbohydrate.

Beetroot hummus

2 medium beetroot scrubbed and cut into quarters
1 400g can butter beans drained and rinsed
1/4 c tahini (sesame paste)
1/4 c water
Juice of 1 lemon
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Place the beetroot on a baking tray and roast for 30 minutes on 180 degrees celsius. Cool and place in a food processor with the remaining ingredients. Puree until smooth adding a little more water if it's too thick.

Sprinkle with sesame seeds and a little more olive oil drizzled over and serve with vegetable sticks and seed crackers

Healthy Eating

-Julie Buckley (Coach/Chef)
Diabetes Clinic New Zealand

If you know someone who would like to reverse pre-diabetes or Type 2 Diabetes get them to message the Diabetes Clinic here https://m.me/diabetesclinicnz

Digital Marketing Tools - iPhone

If you are keen to become a competent Digital Marketer or Social Media Influencer you will need to understand and learn how to use the tools of the trade. One of your most important tools is your smart phone. My choice is Apples iPhone as it comes with a whole bunch of features that makes life so much easier for you.

Like any tool. I suggest you search out great training. I can help if you choose to invest in an iPhone.

My iPhone has been used for many projects and has helped me build my business. Once you have mastered how to use the functions and hold it steady your iPhone will be your go-to tool of choice.

Here are some handy tips to get you started.

Creating incredile still shots with your iPhone

Still life photography might seem tough, but it doesn’t have to be.

Use A Tripod For Perfectly Sharp Still Life Images, To get a beautiful still life, you must avoid camera shake. So for product shots especially your investment in a tripod will be well rewarded.

NB: Camera shake results in crappy photos.

This is because the best still life photos are taken in indirect light. So you’re not going to be taking still lifes under a bright sun. Instead, you’re often going to be taking still lifes indoors or in the shade. And these are places where the light is weak.

That’s why a tripod is essential. I like to arrange my still lifes on the ground. That way, I can shoot from a standing height. I recommend you do the same.

This also gives you a lot of flexibility when choosing a tripod.

Here is a great article on tripods from the iPhone photography school. https://iphonephotographyschool.com/iphone-tripod/

Use Indirect Natural Light For The Best Still Life Photography

But what light is ideal? How do you get stunning still life photos?

Use natural light. And make sure it’s indirect.

Because indirect light will result in soft and even lighting–perfect for still lifes and portraits. I love taking portraits with my iPhone in some of my favourite Cafe’s. The indirect lighting and iPhone ‘Portrait’ setting help me to create wonderful, natural shots of my clients.

Ana Hetem (Life Coach, NLP Practioner) Photo: Tony Cutting iPhone. Location Peppermill Cafe, Porirua NZ.

By “indirect” natural light, I’m speaking broadly. For instance, one of my favorite types of indirect light is window light. As you can see with the shot of Anna the indirect sunlight provides great lighting on my subject - Ana.

Ideally, the light coming through the window is indirect–that is, the sun isn’t shining straight through.

Another method of lighting your still lifes is to photograph outdoors–but only on cloudy days. Clouds act as a giant diffuser. They’ll make sure that your still life is lit softly and evenly.

The rule of Thirds

The final tip I am going to share with you today is a photography tip used by nearly all professional photographers. The rule of thirds is a "rule of thumb" or guideline which applies to the process of composing visual images such as designs, films, paintings, and photographs If you notice the photo of ‘Ana’ above she has been taken in 1/3rd of the photo. This allows for space and creates a story in terms of the location.

For more tips and tricks

If you are truly interested in becoming a Digital Marketer or Social Media Influencer please feel free to message me through my messenger system. I send out regular notifications to those in my messenger system providing more tips and tricks to help you get started.

Message me here https://m.me/tonycuttingdigital

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Tony C
Personal Coach / Digital Marketing Specialist
e. hello@tonycuttingdigital.co.nz
m. https://m.me/tonycuttingdigital
w. tonycuttingdigital.com