Do you love to cook? Maybe you are not a natural cook and each meal is a chore? Let me help you find the LOVE.
My second recipe book has had a bit of an evolution, and most recipes that I planned to include have gone out the door. The book reflects my journey into a more defined way of eating, namely gluten free.
The book began life titled The Mother’s Kitchen as a spin-off, if you like, from when I was editor of The Mother magazine. It no longer felt appropriate to call it that when I gave the magazine to someone else. I then called it In My Kitchen, but that didn’t feel quite right. I have to thank my friend Denise for inspiring the title Love From My Kitchen. It feels good to me on several levels: food is love. I serve with love. I create meals with love. I hope you enjoy the book as well as the title. I expect to publish in the Autumn.
Pea and Mint Fritters
Lemon Cornbread and Lime and Blackbean Chilli
Although the book won’t have pictures or photographs, you can see some of the recipe photographs on my Facebook page:
If you loved The Mystic Cookfire, you won’t be disappointed with Love From My Kitchen. If you’ve not yet got a copy of The Mystic, what the heck are you waiting for? More than 280 plant-based recipes! Chop! Chop! Or should I say ‘chomp chomp’?
https://veronikarobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Updated-logo-colour.png00Veronika Sophia Robinsonhttps://veronikarobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Updated-logo-colour.pngVeronika Sophia Robinson2015-07-25 06:43:232015-07-25 06:43:23Love From My Kitchen
I’m sitting in my writing room sipping hot lemon water, and sunshine is streaming through the window. Birds are whistling. Creating a beautiful life begins right where you are: by creating a beautiful day. My new non-fiction book, I Create My Day, will inspire you to embrace your life and be the master of your destiny. Feel free to join my Facebook page for daily doses of inspiration.
https://veronikarobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Updated-logo-colour.png00Veronika Sophia Robinsonhttps://veronikarobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Updated-logo-colour.pngVeronika Sophia Robinson2015-07-25 06:34:102015-07-25 06:34:10I Create My Day
My mother had a gift for making home a beautiful sanctuary. What I learnt from her is that home is a sacred space, and regardless of whether we live in a castle or a tent, the intimate surroundings in which we ‘undress’ from the world says a lot about what goes on in our interior landscape. Our home is an accurate reflection of our inner realm.
I find when I’m feeling a bit scratchy and irritable it’s because things aren’t neat and tidy around me. Sometimes it’s easy to neglect the house when I’m caught up in answering emails or other admin things which suck up my time…or being chief chauffeur to my teenage daughter. The quickest way to shift my mood is to tidy, clean and declutter. When I prioritise that over everything else, calm settles over me again. In a world which thrives on more, more, more, the real beauty is to be found in less, less, less. When I walk into my home and the rooms are clean and tidy, I find myself melting and feeling totally relaxed. This is how I want to feel every time I’m in here.
I was reflecting on our childhood home, and how my mother pretty well raised us eight children on her own (my dad worked overseas for much of the time) and yet, I do not have a single memory of our living space ever being messy or dirty. Not only was our home clean and tidy, it carried a vibration of calm and beauty. Classical music was often playing on the stereo, and large, lush pot plants brought a sense of nature indoors. Incense filled the rooms with the scent of something mystical and magical.
Not only did my mother create a nurturing and beautiful home, she also managed a 700-acre property (again, while my dad was overseas) with dozens of horses, and maintained a thriving 4-acre garden.
She didn’t have a cook, nanny or gardeners. But you know what else she didn’t have? Social media. My mother lived from her heart, and created a life of beauty all around her. And she did so without distraction. Her focus was on creating a beautiful home and family life, and within that vision she found herself, and was immensely creative.
I learnt about living in community by being part of a family where everyone contributed to the smooth functioning of daily life. Not once in my childhood were dishes left on the sink. After each meal they were washed, rinsed, dried and put away. Laundry wasn’t left lying around. It was folded/ironed and put away. I actually did a lot of ironing in my childhood! Toys weren’t scattered here, there and everywhere. And yet, I don’t remember my mother having to nag us into tidying. If you were old enough to play with a toy or eat a meal, then you were old enough to take responsibility for tidying away. My mother created all our meals from scratch. We didn’t have take-away meals or processed foods. Sometimes I wonder how my mother managed it all, but then I remember: she got up early each day to meditate and do yoga outside on the grass before sunrise. By the time us kids woke up, she’d already squeezed each of us a fresh orange juice.
One of the things I hold most dear in my heart is the beauty-infused childhood my mother gifted me through her mindfulness. One of the words which keeps coming up in reviews of my new novel, Sisters of the Silver Moon, is: beautiful. I can only assume that is a legacy of the home life my mother so joyfully created for us. You can buy my new novel on Kindle or paperback. I hope you enjoy it, and that it fills your heart and home with beauty. ~ Veronika
Five-star reviews of Sisters of the Silver Moon
Veronika Creates My Day
I have a favourite earthenware mug that has the words ‘I Create my Day’ on it. Having read Sisters of the Silver Moon I need a new mug that says ‘Veronika Creates my Day’. I was transported into a reality that I became totally involved in. I was surprised and a little sad, on finishing, that the characters were no longer part of my day. I enjoyed the mix of family conflict, herbalism, community, bees, tea, knitting and a life well lived. This was an easy, pleasurable read that connected me with new friends and I’m impatiently looking forward to the sequel.
A Beautiful Story
I really enjoy Veronika’s writing, both fiction and non fiction. This is a beautiful book. The narrative flows so well that you quickly get caught up in the story and don’t want to put it down. I would love to know women like these characters. I could have easily sat and read this in one go if work and family life hadn’t got in the way. I can’t wait for the next one.
Love, love, love it!
This wonderful book is a complete slice of heaven, a book to truly lose yourself in. Family connections, friendships, love and relationships. Full of the beauty of life, even in the darkest of times.
I love this book so much
I loved this book so much. I love the little moments of beauty in it, and I loved and felt for each of the characters. I didn’t want it to end.
Another beautiful book from Veronika Robinson
When you get to the last page you are going to be mighty relieved there is a sequel!! Beautiful characters that I totally fell in love with!!
A simply beautiful story
A simply beautiful story. It pulls you in, like being drawn into a warm embrace. Can’t wait for part 2!
As a writer, I find it’s important to get away from the keyboard and live life. I am blessed with being a speed typist and someone who doesn’t suffer writer’s block, so when I come to the keyboard to write, that is precisely what I do.
Having two daughters born twenty-two months apart meant I learnt to effectively manage what precious little time I had to myself. My girls are 19 and 17 now, and I’ve had years to develop the skills in how to work well and productively. I have a workaholic nature, but in recent years began to give myself some slack and go and play. I’ve come to recognise it’s not only okay to head off for a swim, meet a friend for lunch, take a two-hour walk by the river, or read a novel in the sunshine ~ but it’s vital for my growth, well-being and productivity.
Playtime, as with self-care, is essential for keeping inspiration alive. I love to cook, and although it’s a requirement to put meals on the table, it’s generally a pleasure, too. Many ideas for writing come to me as I’m slicing up a vegetable or stirring in the seasonings. I can’t begin to tell you how many sexy men I’ve conjured up by breathing in the earthy scent of cumin.
The Mystic Cookfire
I’m a highly sensual woman, and am always guided by how I feel, see, smell, sense, hear and taste the world around me. My primary source of creative inspiration is Nature. Whether it is the waxing Moon sliding across the sky or a red squirrel scampering atop a 300-year-old moss-covered stone wall or being woken at 3.40am by birdsong, I am filled and nourished and sustained by the gifts all around me.
The level of abundance that fills my soul is not connected to a bank balance. I love, and am loved. There is no price that can be put on such things.
It’s an important part of my writing day to step into the garden and ‘talk to my plants’. I tell my baby plug plants that they’re beautiful, and how damn proud I am of them for surviving the torrential downpour the night before. My starflowers thrive, and I am grateful that I chose them as the symbol/name of my publishing business (Starflower Press). Starflower means courage.
I breathe in the scent of lavender, and admire the fennel leaves. I gasp with delight when discovering the radishes are ready to harvest. I pluck a mangetout and savour the crispy sweetness of each bite. Sometimes, I just need to sit in the sunshine, my feet bare on the grass, the birdsong all around me, and breathe in the gloriousness of life. How does this help my writing? It connects me. It grounds me. Gratitude for this wonderful Earth that we live on is vital to me, as a person and as a conveyor of messages, and being one with Mother Nature plugs me back into my true being faster than anything else can.
Barefoot, I walk from one end of our garden to the other, taking in all the goodness around me. It’s easy to think of creativity as something we ‘do’, but it’s also something we receive. For me, being in Nature is a gift that I constantly take into my whole being. How could I possibly know how to create if I am not one with the Great Creator? The Breathmaker didn’t just breathe life into human form, but into every living thing/creature. Closing our eyes and remembering our interconnectedness with all of life is a beautiful way to reclaim our sacred self and our creative heart.
My home is filled with the love of friends and their creative acts. I have such beautiful hand-made items that instantly take me to a good place in my heart whenever I see them. Being surrounded by creativity, and supporting other people’s creativity, is as vital as anything we produce ourselves. There is room in this world for everyone’s dreams!
I spend a portion of each day exercising, whether it’s taking a long walk by the river, using weight-resistance machines in the gym, aquafit or swimming, I find these times allow me to go inward and explore my rich inner terrain. Exercise, at first glance, doesn’t seem like a creative act, but we bring as much pleasure and leisure to it as we choose. Astrologically, leisure is found in the same ‘house’ as creativity (and children). It is what makes us feel alive. Exercise is only a chore when we don’t enjoy it. My favourite ways to exercise are walking and swimming/aquafit, and that’s where I put my focus. And in turn, they give me the opportunity to let my body rather than brain take the focus for a while. It’s the yin and yang of the writer’s life: in and out, cold and hot, slow and fast, body and brain, feminine and masculine.
Life is such a beautiful dance, and it is such a privilege and honour to have sensed my calling in life at such a young age, and to have followed that dream.
If the idea of creativity seems alien to you, I can’t recommend The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron highly enough. Our art comes in so many forms, and is expressed in as many ways as there are living creatures. Is a bird’s nest less creative than the beautiful artwork Sara Simon creates for my books?
Is Sara’s art less creative than the Grand Canyon?
You see, it isn’t about bigger or better, or less or more; it is about what moves us. It’s what causes us to release a part of ourselves into the world. It might be the way you decorate your house so it becomes a home, or the way you make your bed and how you plump the cushions or tend to your pot plants. Perhaps creativity is the felt doll you made this morning, or the soup bubbling on the stove. Maybe it is the flower essences you’re crafting. Own your creative soul.
Humanity can heal from its pain with one creative act at a time. Let’s unite. Let’s share the love in our heart through our varied ways of expressing the soul.
For twelve years I published a niche parenting magazine. If you’ve not ever read it, I can safely say it was a magazine you either loved or hated. It rested on the foundation of conscious parenting and prioritising the biological needs of children. I attracted a faithful readership, with some subscribers staying with my husband and I for 12 years, long after they ‘needed’ the magazine.
About 2005, editing the magazine.
What I learnt from that apprenticeship is that the same ideals apply to my life as a novelist, especially as I am an independent author. As writers or publishers, our readers ‘feel’ our vibration at a level beyond our understanding. It isn’t “just” about our writing or the material we produce. It is about who we are. We can’t be one person at home and another in public. Our authenticity reaches out into the ethers. Our values and all that we hold dear, they are there, infused in the energy we emit to the Universe. There’s a lovely saying that does the rounds of Facebook: Your vibe attracts your tribe. This doesn’t just apply to friendship! It applies to every area of life, and especially as a writer or publisher.
My writing room
Do you want to attract new readers? Do you want to increase sales? Do you want to be a magnet for a certain type of readership? Look at your vibe. Examine your values. And, get away from the modern world a fair bit. Walk barefoot on the grass. Smell the scent of leaves. Feel the wind in your hair. Get back in touch with Mother Nature. Ground yourself.
A road out of my village with lovely views of the fells
Often we spend so much time trying to reach out, that we forget to reach in! We are not the number of retweeted tweets or Facebook likes. We are not the size of a publicity campaign. We are not the number of books or magazines we well.
We are spiritual beings
having a human experience.
Regardless of our profession, We attract, and we repel. Like attracts like. It’s the basic law of the Universe. Want to gather your tribe? Then look at what you’re vibrating. Do you attract or do you repel? Only you have the power to change that.
https://veronikarobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Updated-logo-colour.png00Veronika Sophia Robinsonhttps://veronikarobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Updated-logo-colour.pngVeronika Sophia Robinson2015-07-08 09:26:062015-07-08 09:52:49Vibrational Energy: the Art of Attracting Readers
Tomorrow I am officially launching my third novel, Sisters of the Silver Moon. I might be an Aussie girl in England, but it seems pretty appropriate to give birth to my literary baby on Independence Day.
Being an independent author means freedom, but it also means taking responsibility for everything to do with your work. Responsibility is one of those heavily loaded words that often has people running for the hills, and yet if we embrace it then it changes its hold on us. We become the captain of our ship, rather than a hapless passenger at the mercy of the nautical conditions. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for someone to rescue us. It’s sail or sink.
As an independent author, you’re not just a writer, but a business person. Most writers would agree that all we want to do is write…but the truth is simple: if you want to be an independent author you have to do more than show up at the laptop. You have to do mind-numbing jobs like annual accounts or deal with the tax office regarding overseas royalties on foreign translations. Independence means building an author platform, and not relying on a marketing team to get your work into the hands of would-be readers. To thrive on being an indie author means you live your life outside of any boxes. You aren’t confined, unless you choose to be. It’s not a job for the weak of mind.
One of the most powerful things my dad ever said to me (he was an atheist), was that he believed in himself.
If, like me, you don’t want the limelight for yourself but for your work, then putting yourself ‘out there’ can feel like a daily chore. If you’re an author, you must promote yourself as an author/novelist/writer as equally and as passionately as you do any of your literary work. You MUST believe in yourself. Without that conviction, you may as well give up. Readers tune into authors. If you believe in yourself, and your writing, then readers will be drawn to you. (You still have to market yourself!) To understand your target audience means understanding yourself.
Who are you?
What has meaning to you?
What are your passions?
Who are you when no one is watching?
Do you live authentically?
Whether you like it or not, who you are is energetically imprinted into everything you put out into the world. If you don’t like yourself, change. Change now. Change every day. You have the power to be the best you can be.
One of my favourite quotes of all time is: “Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.”
Independence means you have the pleasure and pain of choosing the right image for your book. A picture paints a thousand words and you want to be sure the image on your book says as much as it possibly can about what is inside. It must be heartbreaking to write a great book only to have a publisher slap a generic or bland cover on the front. My pet hate is when I’ve picked up a romance novel and the guy on the front doesn’t remotely match the description the author has given. This would NEVER happen with an indie author.
Beautiful artwork painted by Sara Simon www.sarasimon.co.uk
The publishing world is changing with astonishing speed in ways we would never have once imagined. Even big-name authors are leaving traditional publishing houses in exchange for self-publishing and marketing themselves. That speaks volumes!
And while, for the average person on the street, the idea of being accepted by a big publisher means you’re a ‘real writer’, for those of us who work independently we have come to know and cherish all the benefits of autonomy even if our books aren’t sold in every bookstore chain.
One of my guiding beliefs (for my fiction and non-fiction writing) is that the right readers will find my publications. I know that most of my books have proved life-changing for many people, and so I trust (yet I still do the leg work) that books will always find their way into the hands of those who will appreciate them.
Writing is often described as a lonely business. I’m not someone who gets lonely. And, I love being alone. A lot. However, as an independent author it means that I need to step out of the writing room (or garden!) and ‘meet’ my readers. I thrive on solitude, and it is this rich inner world that lends itself so perfectly to the writing life.
With my daughter, the novelist Eliza Serena Robinson
Eliza’s trilogy
My author tour starts this Saturday with a book launch right here in my reading room (aka The Barn). The following weekend I’ll be reading and speaking in Lincolnshire and Harrogate. There’ll be other venues throughout the Summer, too. I’m really looking forward to sharing my new novel, and also meeting my devoted readers as well as meeting new readers.
At my desk
My writing style is evolving, but the themes which are important to me will always remain regardless of whether I write fiction or non-fiction: Nature, friendships, love, family, food, home, symbolism, metaphysics and so on. Being an independent author means I get to explore and experiment with my voice and my passions without censure. I value freedom, as much as learning from my ‘mistakes’ and seeing how I can improve.
On Twitter the other day, a reader said to me: “Your books are unlike any others I’ve read in terms of themes and references.” I really must paste that onto the notice board in my writing room. It truly made my day. Why? Because when I’ve approached traditional publishers in the past they’ve wanted to know which writer my writing was like. I wanted to yell: I’m not like other writers! Don’t box me in.
So, here’s to Independence Day, and tomorrow I’ll be sipping champagne and eating chocolate-dipped strawberries with friends as my new novel, Sisters of the Silver Moon, is officially launched. Here’s to freedom! Available in paperback and Kindle. Amazon, other online retailers, good bookshops, UK libraries, and signed copies www.veronikarobinson.com
https://veronikarobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Updated-logo-colour.png00Veronika Sophia Robinsonhttps://veronikarobinson.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Updated-logo-colour.pngVeronika Sophia Robinson2015-07-03 09:57:532015-07-03 09:57:53Celebrating Independence: the pros and cons of being an independent author
