Birthday celebrations!

Hello, hello everyone! How are we all today on this lovely Sunday?
Me? I'm already pooped- as is the usual case when I've run for 90 minutes and it isn't even 9:00am yet. But happy, healthy and feeling good none the less!

Especially after a filling and delicious breakfast to fuel up my body after said run:

My favourite bowl of steel cut oats with a big side of water!!

Some almond butter was spread around the bowl, then topped with the oats and dolloped with some peanut butter, because, you know, why not? ;)

Delicious!

So as you all have probably figured out by now, I have this thing for cooking. I sorta like it. A lot. I think the hint was in the title of this blog.

The thing that confuses people the most, however, is the fact that even though I'm a vegetarian who doesn't eat added sugar, tries to find alternatives to wheat and consumes zero cow's milk or cheese- I still love making foods with all these things in it. Yes that results in me not eating it- the part that horrifies people.

I cook/ bake/ create because I love to do that- cook/bake/create. Now, I love to eat too, just other things, that make my body feel good.

Therefore what's a girl who loves to bake and loves all things creative going to do when her birthday rolls round? (It's actually tomorrow, though school/ work sort of make it hard to celebrate)

She creates her own birthday cake of course!!

Presenting my 16th birthday cake:

The cake is alternating layers of white chocolate mud cake and dark chocolate mud cake with either a white chocolate ganache between the layers or a dark chocolate ganache.

Around the outside, there's white fondant, a bow made from pink ready-roll icing, smarties, and of course ice cream!

Well the ice cream may have been some more chocolate cake formed into a ball with a little extra melted butter and then covered in blue ready-roll icing, though it looks like ice cream all the same!

With a few sprinkles on top and of course a waffle cone!

Cake decorating is so much fun! (and pretty time consuming too:D)

So, no I did not eat my birthday cake, but I got to make it- which for me is just as good, if not better!

I did eat my celebratory birthday dinner though (which I cooked for myself as well- guys, seriously, I. LOVE. COOKING. This is like a present for me!)

A big plate of roasted veggies with some spinach and garlic tofu!

The veg was pumpkin, swede, beetroot, sweet potato, potato, eggplant, zucchini, red onion, mushrooms and asparagus all roasted in some olive oil with some fresh rosemary (at varying times) and then gobbled up!

A great *early* birthday with family, love and lots of good food!

What about you?
What is your favourite post workout food?
Do you like to cook on your birthday?
Best birthday cake you've ever had?

That's all for today, bye for now folks! Remember- everyday may not be good but there is something good in every day. :D

Food: why do you have to be so awesome?

Hi my name is Stephanie and I love food.
Hi Stephanie
Wow, that sounds familiar (cough cough)

 Yeh ok, I know...
Anyway- food is just soooo amazing! The way it tastes, smells, feels, looks, and the things that happen when you combine these features, or heat them up, or whip them or bake them or fry them or chop them or... ok you get the picture.
While I was making some meals recently I noticed all of the different things I did to my foods to make something new and exciting and create great flavours etc.

Like with a green smoothie; it's super simple to make, but it's the things you add together and the fact that you blend it right up that make it so tasty! I mean I wouldn't want to eat a bite of bana and then a bite of kale and them sprinkle some chia seeds into my mouth!

 And granola- by first creating a muesli by combining oats, raisins, and nuts and then rubbing in nut butter and baking in the oven you've created s masterpiece.

And further still, combining the two textures of crunchy and smooth and also nutty and sweet, you've got a party right there in your mouth.

I thought about oast and they intrigued me further- raw oats are great, but then adding a liquid and heating them up to create oatmeal- totally different! Then adding flavours and textures... well lets just say breakfast looks pretty inviting:

Chocolate steel cut oats with a side of PB+J yoghurt
Don't even get me started on the beauty of whipping up your own flavoured yoghurts- I'll just show you:

(greek yoghurt, frozen berries and peanut butter)

I've got to say though, it's breads that fascinate me the most- loaves, pizza doughs, flat breads, you name it- I think they're awesome!
So I experimented at dinner last night to create my own little flat bread... wheat free... grain free!

Whazzed up some yellow and green split peas, until I could sieve out some flour, added some chickpea flour and mixed.

Along with some olive oil, chopped chili, crushed garlic and torn basil and water until I got this:

(naturally green from the split peas :)
Flatten it out and place it on a hot non stick pan- flip when golden:

Y-U-M!
So I don't know why this sudden thought of how awesome food is and how far we have come to creating delicious meals with the use of all the things mentioned in my intro, but I'm just glad humans eat food (I guess I'm thankful we're not robots?) and that we also have creativity to make said food special!:)

I'm also super glad it's the weekend and hope everyone has a fabulous one! :D

Athletic eating.

Hello, hello friends.
No don't worry I haven't started eating competitions or stuffing my face in an athletic manner, or taken up sprinting and javelin whilst eating. What I meant by athletic eating was what I ate on the day of my school's athletic carnival :)

You might remember from this post and this post me mentioning that I couldn't run because I did something to my ITB band/ muscle thingy down my leg.

Well, I had signed up for 4 different running events and long jump before this happened, so with the help of my wonderful physio's remedial massage (I have bruises to prove how wonderful) and some acupuncture and some taping... I could compete!

Good to go!

I went equipped with a little chemist in my bag. Voltaren gel, snap ice packs and extra tape. 

The real way I prepared myself for today? A good hearty- DELICIOUS- breakfast:

 Chocolate steel cut oats and berry froyo (frozen berries whazzed up with greek yoghurt)

 Using this method, I heated up 1 tablespoon of cashew butter and spread it round!

Full of protein, complex carbs and good fats- I was ready to start the day!

Chocolate not up your alley?

How does overnight oats mixed with mango fro-yo sound:

 With some bananas split in half and smothered in peanut butter?

 Stirry-stir:

 YUM!

 In relation to how I did in the carnival... not great to be honest :D

I sort of expected it... I didn't lose anything (second last isn't losing!) and I did come 4th in the 800m (out of like 25 girls) so I guess I'm sort of happy, it just means no inter-school this year. I was pushing it competing anyway!

But there you have some great brekky's for a busy/ tiring/ energy requiring day!

What did you have for brekky?

Are you a sprinter or long distance runner?

How do you feel about acupuncture? (I might talk about this in a later post :)

See ya later! :D

WIAW #76 Back to Old Favourites!

Hello there lovely people!

The week is halfway over already, can you believe it!? Where has this year gone?? Any who, I hope you've all had a great week so far, ready to finish it off with a bang- and if not a bang, then atleast with some delicious meals!!

Speaking of, it's Wedensday and on Wednesdays we share a full day of eats! WIAW style!! Thanks as always to Peas and Crayons for the creation of this weekly link-up and all the bloggers who participate and allow me to drool over their fantastic eats!

Now onto the FOOOD!

Breakfast: 7:10am
Back into the school routine of up early, brekky early, pre-packed lunches the night before and being super organised!

Holding no negative influence over my breakfasts though- they're still as big and delicious and filling as ever!!

A big bowl of blueberry/banana cheesecake steel cut oats with almond butter and peanut butter spread throughout!

There's nothing like a big bowl of oats to warm your heart!

This was also eaten after a short (but intense!!) blogilates workout- new favourite fitness craze of mine in case you were wondering! Cassey Ho is just so enthusiastic and motivating- half the time I don't even feel like I've been working out for that long because she would have been talking about the weather or something else!! ;)

So these oats were even more enjoyable as a result! (everything tastes better after a hard workout!).

Lunch: 1:40pm
Sorry about the blurry photo, but it was actually the clearest one I got (my camera has been acting up a bit lately) but in that tupperware container was some roasted-night-before cold potatoes and sweet potato (so good!), spinach, lentils and mixed four beans.

This lunch will never get old!

Snack: 4:00pm
When I returned home from school today I was rather ravenous, so I chopped up a granny smith apple and some honey dew and crunched on that with a mug of soy milk to wash it down.

 Homework followed...

Dinner: 6:45pm
Cooking motivation= 0, therefore favourite low-maintenance meal to the rescue!!

 Two boiled eggs with spelt bread toast soldiers (hommus and avocado) and some oven roasted eggplant, capsicum, zucchini and mushrooms rubbed with minced garlic and roasted for around 45 mins at 180 degrees celcius.

 After dinner featured a piece of Lindt Excellence 90% chocolate because I am hooked!! So delicious! :)


Your turn:
Are you a blogilates fan/ have another favourite fitness youtuber?
Do you like to stir greek yoghurt into your cooked oats?
Favourite low-maintenance meal when you just cannot fathom cooking?

I hope you all have a great day, do something you love, do something cool for someone else and if all else fails just smile- you'll feel better for it! Bye for now friendly friends!! :D

WIAW #13

Hidy-ho everybody! It's Wednesday once again and I have managed to photograph everything that entered my tummy in the past 24-hours. I'm gonna call it-Breakfast to breakfast!
Not sure what WIAW is? Head on over to Peas and Crayons to find out!

Breakfast (24-hours prior)

I cooked up some steel-cut oats, which is something I've never tried before before quick-cooking oats are just so much.. quicker! Seeing as I have extra time in the mornings thanks to school holidays, I let these oats bubble away for a good 20 mins, adding some banana and pb near the end:

I alos made some berry yoghurt (mixed frozen berries, thawed, whazzed up with some greek yoghurt:

And that was breakfast!

Lunch:

This was pretty breakfasty (in everyone elses eyes but mine) it was a toasted whole-grain bun, which was filled with a sweet potato and cashew dip, grilled eggplant, grilled capsicum, sliced tomato, spinach and two poached eggs.

After toasting it was topped with some guacamole (1/2 an avo+ 1 teaspoon lemon juice+ some chives and chopped chilli, all mashed together)

Things got messy.. :)
Afternoon snack:

You guessed it! Fruit and soy milk!
Dinner:

Roasted white sweet potato wedges topped with some coconut butter, some grilled tempeh and a quinoa and carrot salad.

 I'm still not sure I like tempeh, but I keep trying to see if the taste will grow on me :)

The salad was just steamed purple and orange carrot circles and some steamed corn mixed with tri-coloured quinoa, spinach and lemon juice.

Back to breakfast:
This was today's brekky:

A green thickie with chocolate peanut butter granola :)
The smoothie's  based off this recipe minus the nut butter:

I also added some greek yoghurt (optional)
The granola...
about a 3/4 cup muesli mixed with:

1 tablespoon nut butter (I used peanut butter) a dash of cinnamon, 1 tablespoon raw cacao and about just under a 1/4 cup milk (I used oat milk)

Heated in the microwave for about 30 seconds and then stirred until combined:

Mixed in with muesli:

and baked in an oven at 180 degrees celsius for around 15 mins (it won't be crisp, but I like mine sort of doughy anyway :)

And combine!

Sweet creamy green smoothie + bitter, rich chocolate granola= goooood

You all know how this beautiful breakfast ended though, don't you...

Nice and ugly!
And there we go. 24 hours of food from me to you!
Don't forget to head on over to Peas and Crayons (when the link-up is up) to check out what everyone else has been eating on this fine Wednesday!
Have a great day! :D