Deliciously Ella’s Top 5 Kitchen Cupboard Staples

The queen of healthy living dishes out her top 5 food must haves

If you know anything about healthy eating, you’ll know everything about Ella Woodword (AKA Deliciously Ella) whose healthy living blog inspired everyone to rush out and buy a spiraliser.

With a massive following, and a best selling cookbook under her belt, Ella has opened a deli with her fiancée (Mae Deli, FYI). Did we mention she also has two best selling recipe books...?

We managed to have a chat with Ella outside of her hectic schedule to find out her Top 5 kitchen staples…

The wonder grain…

‘I always have oats – I make a lot of porridge because it takes only two minutes to make. I’ll also make overnight oats and birch mueslis. They’re really handy for baking things like flapjacks and make a really good flour. It’s inexpensive and easy.’ The one everyone is crazy for…

‘Avocados. I’m such an avocado addict – I desperately need them!’

Just like mama used to make…

‘I love brown rice pasta – if you get home at the end of the day, you don’t want to start fussing around – all it takes is a ten-minute pasta recipe. Chuck the pasta in, chop up some tomatoes, add some tomato purée and garlic and that’s it!'

Something a little sweet…

'I like dates because its something that’s quick and sweet. For a healthy lifestyle, I really believe you should never crave stuff. If you want something sweet, you should have something sweet. Healthy eating to me is a lifestyle, not a diet, and I’d never want anybody to feel guilty. You’ve got to have a balance. I feel like people can become to obsessive and can obsess for perfection. We’re all different and our lives are different, so you’ve just got to do what’s right for you.’

A little nutty…

‘A nut butter is essential. Paired with dates, they both go really well together.’

We’re stocking up already…

For Ella, a messy kitchen just won’t do. Teaming up with method cleaning products, here are her very Zen tips on how to achieve inner calm through the art of tidying up. Ommm….

Tidy it up!

‘If you’ve had a long day full of stress and you come home and it’s a complete mess, you wont feel good. You’ll feel a lot better if it feels calm as soon as you walk in. A tidy space is a tidy mind.’

Natural cleaning is the way forward…

‘Because there are so many products out there, I find that it’s a lot simpler to just get out a method spray and spray it all down.’

With natural foods come natural products…

'When I started changing the way I ate, I found that I was enjoying it and really feeling the effects of it in a positive way. It started becoming a part of me and the way I lived and I started being really conscious about beauty, like I was with food. There was no point in using products full of stuff that I was trying to avoid.’