WIAW #49 Weird musings

Hidy-ho friends!

For some reason I'm having a completely fabulous day! (minus the monstrous mountain of homework in store for me this lovely evening)
See, Wednesdays happen to be one of my favourite days of the week... and it's the small things that do it for me! For example it's my day when I do speed runs (super-fast..haha... 30 minute runs) on the treadmill whilst simultaneously (like a boss) scrolling through awesome blogs. I therefore have more time in the morning to make a delicious brekky and shower and just breathe, and then choof of to school!
Yep. So in short (after in long) I like Wednesdays.

I also happen to like food. Which is superbly perfect for a Wednesday link-up the food blogging community and I like to call WIAW!! Thanks as always to Jenn for the awesome link-up!

P.S. These particular eats are from Tuesday, because today's dinner has yet to materialise. :)

Breakfast: 7:15am
I was feeling the chocolate. The rich, fudgey, awesomeness that is chocolate. For breakfast. No shame.
And so, I present to you chocolate: In it's awesome-est form!

Chocolate protein steel cut oats with coconut butter.

So. Much. Yum.
Of course rich. fudgey, heavenly chocolate can be a bit much on its own (even at breakfast ;) so I'm thinking kiwi-berry fro-yo is the only way to remedy this:

Frozen kiwi-berries + 3 big scoops greek yoghurt + whaz= deliciousness.

Match made in a chocolate-y frozen kiwi-berry heaven. Strange but good :)

I'm sure some of you who might have been reading my blog for a while now probably still don't understand my love for eating stuff out of cups. Neither do I. Maybe try it and see if you like it too. ;)

Incase you weren't already drooling:

Welcome. :D

Snack-attack: 11:00am

My beloved pot of peas. I don't think this snack will ever change for me. Until I create a pea shortage... which is actually pretty likely at the rate I go through them!!

Lunch: 1:40am
Tasty salad after a lovely ridiculously cold trip to the beach for PE (anyone else get extremely hungry after visiting the beach/ swimming?):

This marvellous tupper-ware of yum involved spinach, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, carrot (quite a lot of carrot... don't know why) and capsicum along with some microwaved roasted eggplant and lentil falafels!

N.O.M

Snack: 4:00am
Snack was....
fruit and soy milk!!

I seem to be capable of changing up my main meals, however my snacks... they're permanent. And proud of it.

A chopped pink lady apple with a big bunch of green grapes (all very different sizes for some reason?) and soy milk:

I do seem to rotate between the cups I like to drink my soy milk out of, however and have gone from coke glasses with curly straws, to tea mugs, to glass jars, to big plastic cups and now to these cute pastel mugs :)

Dinner: 6:45am
Dinner was a hit and also a miss. The hit was the roasted veggies... because seriously how could they ever be a miss. The miss, however, was a new fan-dangle grain thing I found at Coles...

That looks like slop. Alternately named Brown Teff Grain. For those interested, it tasted like slop too.

Topped with veggies (roasted pumpkin, sweet potato, potato, parsnip and swede with fresh rosemary sprigs) with some grilled plain tempeh.

It was all good until I decided to mix the veggies with the brown slop of doom...
Then it was sort of crunchy with a very- natural flavour

Followed by a small handful of raw brazil nuts, to get rid of the flavour... and because I was still hungry ;)

Aaand that's what I ate Tuesday!!

What about you?
Do you like/dislike Wednesdays?
Eat your food out of weird things? Cups/ bowls/ saucepans (it's been known to happen in my house hold :)
Ever tried brown teff grain? Did I do something wrong while cooking it?

Still hungry for more? Head on over to Peas and Crayons to see what everyone else has been eating this fine Wednesday!!

Bye for now friends! :D

If breakfast was a person...

If breakfast was a person....
We would be best friends.
We're both morning people, we're both fans of breakfast foods (eggs, yoghurt, cereal, oats, smoothies etc.) and we're both unforgettable! (Haha, that last one was mainly for breakfast- you should never forget breakfast!!)
This passed week has dealt out some killer breakfast (killer in taste not effect) and I feel like sharing is caring (and I also feel like that is an over-used cliche... that I just used- no shame :)

OIAJ (oats in a jar) made a come back twice this week (that's what happens when you have two jars of opened nut butters in the fridge that you alternate between each day- they both run out at the same time) and both times have been gooood.

Pictured above was some choc protein steel cut oats (1/3- 1/2 cup steel cut oats + 1 scoop choc protein powder + 1 heaped teaspoon raw cacao powder+ a few big dashes of cinnamon + 1 cup almond milk + 1 cup water- bubbled on medium heat, stirring occasionally for 15-20 mins, left to cool for 10 mins) in an almost empty jar of almond, sesame seed and chia seed butter.

Love a good chocolate-filled breakfast!
Lettuce not forget the cool side-kick though!

This cup of beauty was a BIG handful of frozen blackberries whazzed up in a small food processor with 3 scoops of greek yoghurt. So good!

Also very essential as the refreshing-ness of the berries makes the richness of the chocolate more bearable= you can eat more! :) Logic.

SPOON SHOTS!

My favourite type of breakfasts usually feature a smoothie too, however simply sipping sculling down a smoothy will do nothing for the hunger that torments my inner being (yep, hunger is that deep people) so smoothies go with something else that actually requires the use of my teeth. I am not an old granny yet.

They go especially well with coconut butter truffles! 1/2 cup muesli+ 1 tablespoon coconut butter melted with 1/3 cup almond milk in the microwave- 30 seconds- rolled into balls and placed in the freezer for 30 mins until set.

This bad boy was 1 large chopped frozen banana+ 1 handful kale and spinach+ 3 big scoops greek yoghurt+ juice of 1/2 squeezed orange- whazzed until smooth.

Inside view:

Let's just take a moment to appreciate that fudgey-ness.
Good.

Very good.

And finally... I cannot believe in all of my fro-yo creations I have never created this one:

The oats in this pic are just a bowl of my favourite oats.

Topped with a good amount of peanut butter. :)
The fro-yo?
Now, I've made mango fro-yo, I've made peach fro-yo, kiwi fro-yo, banana fro-yo, blueberry fro-yo, blackberry fro-yo, grape fro-yo and probably some others that aren't coming to mind. For some reason I have never, ever made...

PLUM FRO-YO!
Boy have I been missing out!
On the weekend I bought some seriously ripe and juicy plums and knew I was going to freeze them for smoothies. Then my brain eventually remembered my beloved fro-yo obsession. Happy days.

Not only is the colour amazing, but the taste- oh my green peas! Sweet, plum-y... perfect.

See what I mean by a good week of breakfasts? Yep if breakfast was a person we would be BFF'S (best foodie friends :)

What about you?
Do you love breakfast?
Favourite breakfast. Ever?
Favourite way to eat oats? In a jar? In ball form? In a bowl with spoons and spoons of nut butter? ;)

Bye for now friendly friends- have a great day!! :D

A few ways with cacao powder!

Who here likes chocolate? Everyone? Good.
Who here doesn't like the fact that eating too much (especially low cacoa content) chocolate will make us unhealthy? Most people- right? Me included! If chocolate didn't contain masses of sugar and other unhealthy (sometimes even unpronounceable) ingredients I'd be bucketing it down like I do spinach... and sweet potato.... and nut butter :)

My name's Stephanie and I'm a chocoholic! There it's out there! Judge me if you will!
Ok, drama-ing it down.

So what's a girl to do when she needs her choccy fix?

I mean I could go out and buy some sugar free, (tastes like cardboard) full-of-artificial-stuff chocolate bars. Or some 100% cacao choc (I never walk down the chocolate aisle so I'm not sure if my super market even sells it). Or I could buy raw cacao powder.

Now guys- raw cacao powder is where it's at. It's on point. It has swag and sass and a bunch of other recently popularized words I don't entirely know the meaning of. It's good stuff.

Don't believe me? JUST WATCH! (shout out to Bruno Mars, in case you missed that)

First of all when I saw raw cacao powder I don't mean cocoa powder.

There's a difference.
I mean the good, un-processed (and uttelry delicious!) kind.

It can be a little tricky to use though, as it is quite bitter on it's own, but I have a few recipes that might just help you out (and let you enjoy that chocolatey goodness!)

You've seen this guy before- he is an old-time blog favourite of mine and has been around since the beginning (last January). It's the super-thick, super-chocolatey green monster!!

Not the prettiest of colours, but one of =my all time favourite smoothies- taste, filling-ness and chocolate power.

Into your blender goes 1 chopped frozen banana+ 1/2 chopped frozen avocado+ 1 scoop chocolate protein powder (optional- make sure it contains raw cacao ;) + 1 heaped teaspoon raw cacao powder+ 1 huge handful of kale/ spinach+ sprinkle of chia seeds + sprinkle raw oats+ 1/2 cup almond milk+ tablespoon nut butter+ 3 scoops greek yoghurt (optional)- whazz it up!

Z-OMG so good!
Banana- for sweet-ness and ice cream qualities, avocado for creaminess and healthy fats, raw cacao for chocolate!

So that one kinda looks a bit too healthy though... don't you think? How about something that looks almost as decadent as it tastes? (I say almost because this bad boy tastes... bad! In an extremely rich, delicious and fudgy kind of way)

Chocolate coconut steel cut oats with a side of kiwi fro-yo

1/3 cup steel cut oats + 1 cup almond milk+ 1/2 sliced banana+ 1 scoop choc protein powder + 1 heaped teaspoon raw cacao powder + sprinkle of chia seeds+ big few shakes of cinnamon+ 1 teaspoon coconut butter (extra for serving) +extra water if necessary

To make- place everything in a pot, stir to combine, then bubble away on low-medium heat for 15-20 mins and then sit for another 10 mins. Pour into bowl (or cup;) and top with extra coconut butter.

Guys, this was so rich and chocolatey that I couldn't finish the last bite! Can you believe it? Your challenge is to be able to!

Finally ice cream. Chocolate ice cream.

 I always remember as a kid that when it came to choosing ice cream my flavours of choice would be crazy rainbow bubblegum flavour or banana or cookies and cream. Always. My brother on the other hand always chose the richest deepest chocolatiest chocolate flavour and I would never look at it with envy. Chocolate just wasn't that high on my list of food loves. I remember tasting his ice cream and not really liking/ disliking it either way.

 That flavour got locked in my brain though and a few years later, the cravings for chocolatey chocolate ice cream like the ones my bro used to get hit hard.

 So into my high speed, super strong, mini food processor went 1/2 frozen avocado, 1/2 banana (preferably frozen but I just used an un-frozen one), 1 big teaspoon raw cacao powder and two spoons of greek yoghurt, whazzed up to produce a beautifully smooth, creamy and chocolatey ice cream. Place in freezer for 30 mins to harden it up a bit (if preferred) or just eat it like soft serve! Ahhh, so good!

Those are just a small sample of my favourite ways to incorporate chocolate into my diet. I would say I consume chocolate in the form of my raw cacao concoctions about 3-4 times per week and it's only 3-4 times and not 7+ times because I want to make sure I don't get sick of it. I still want chocolate to seem like a treat! :)

Your turn:
How do you eat your chocolate? Regular choc bar/ raw cacao powder/ cocoa powder/ hot choc/ protein powder/ baked goods etc.
Do you think chocolate for breakfast should become a thing? I do.
Ever tried chocolate avocado ice cream? No? Go make it now.

That's it for today folks, I hope everyone has a good one! Eat some chocolate! Bye!! :D