Che-rry... Cherry baby!

Hidy-ho folks! Happy Saturday!!
You may remember from Thursday's Thinking Out Loud post that I mentioned picking up a bag of frozen cherries...
I have been missing out people! Why'd no one tell me how awesome (and cheap/ available- complete opposite of fresh cherries) frozen cherries are!?! This reminds me of the time I first tried a Medjool date and I felt like the world had been keeping one of the best tasting things in the world from me! (Yep, definitely the world's fault... not the fact that I suspected I was allergic to them :)

Any who, I first tried the frozen cherries whazzed up in a smoothie with a frozen banana, some greek yoghurt and almond milk:

Alongside some peanut butter bites (oats + chia seeds + cinnamon + oat bran + PB + almond milk- in the freezer for 30 mins)

And my life was changed.

I always knew I loved the taste of cherries but never thought how amazing they would taste in a smoothie!!

Of course I had to keep experimenting with them then- and you know what I threw them into next:

 A big saucepan full of steel cut oats!

 1/2 cup steel cut oats + 1 chopped banana + 1 handful frozen cherries + 1 cup almond milk + 1 cup water- boiled gently for around 20-25 mins until all the liquid was absorbed and then combined with 2 spoons of greek yoghurt:

 CHERRY CHEESECAKE OATS!

Topped with mixed nut and chia seed butter :)
Again- so , so good :)

Which brings me to this morning, where I was craving crepes and thought a smoothie would go nicely with that:

So, once again I whazzed up a cherry smoothie (a lot more yoghurt this time I think, as there seemed to be more this time) which, once again tasted phenomenal:

And went about making some crepes.
Started off great!

Then I tried to flip them...

Let's just say I enjoyed some delicious pancake scramble for brekky! However one of my crepes did turn out alright:

The other... not so pretty. So I dolloped on a lot of nut butter and called it beautiful:

It was lucky I made this cherry smoothie because it lifted my crepe-broken heart and made my breakfast 1000000x better. Good job cherries!

I'm also pretty stoked with how the first crepe turned out, so all-in-all it wasn't really that much of a pancake disaster :)

I also need to mention how much (for whatever reason) this nut butter tastes like melted white chocolate (especially with those oats pictured above!) I have no idea why, but I am not complaining! NOM!

Unfortunately all this cherry love is resulting in a quickly-dwindling packet of my frozen loves! Gasp! Ahhh well, I still very much have an obsession with frozen plums as well and have a few stocked away in the freezer to keep me going ;)

What about you?
Do you have a relatively recent fav food that you feel like the world was keeping from you?
Are you a frozen cherry fan?
Favourite way to use/ eat cherries?

That's it from me today folks- I hope you all have a wonderful day filled with lots of great eats and even more smiles!! Bye for now! :D

Dessert For Breakfast!

Dessert for breakfast.

It is most definitely a thing.

And it is most definitely real in my household!!

I've never really been much of a savoury breakfast person, although from the remarks and praise I've read from savoury breakfast enthusiast bloggers I have dabbled a few times changing out my sweet, creamy, gooey breakfasts for more savoury, crunchy, salty meals. So I haven't just waved them off without giving a good savoury breakfast a fair go.

I don't know. My body just seems to want a warm/ cold/ sweet/ creamy/ delectable dessert-type breakfast and when I do end up forcing the body to consume a savoury breakfast (*gasp*) I just don't feel as satisfied- or maybe a feeling of I'm missing out and whilst I do agree I crave less sweet foods during the day as a result; my body (emotionally probably rather than physically) is still upset I didn't give it what it truly desired. And that, my friends, is my scientific evidence that dessert-for-breakfast is a must. At least for me ;P.

So, for today's post, I thought I would showcase a few of my breakfasts from the week that was ringing true to the idea that I like myself a dessert-style start to my day for optimum enjoyment and energy!

So first up we have something I cherish so much in life. It has been there through thick and thin. Always present to warm up a cold morning. To stick to the ribs and fulfil that satiated contentedness feeling of fullness. To be eaten with lavish amounts of nut butter and livened with multitudes of mix-ins and fruits and flavours that make this food so versatile and exciting that a different bowl could be created Every. Single. Day.

Oatmeal:

This was a happy yellow mug filled with vegan vanilla protein powder zucchini oats, topped (and dolloped throughout) with creamy, nutty chocolate nut butter:

Simply chuck a serving (my servings are probably bigger than most) of steel cut oats into a saucepan with a scoop of vegan vanilla protein powder, 1/2 grated zucchini, 1 sliced banana, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 cup almond milk, 1 cup water and bring to boil, stirring every now and then for around 15-20mins or until liquid is absorbed.

Top with anything your heart desires!

This is just so good and delicious and NOM.

And it has a serve of veg involved (that you cannot taste at all by the way; simply adds more volume to your oats!! MORE BREAKFAST!!)

Our next dessert-like scenario involved a bowl, a smoothie and some crispy, crunchy, home-made golden granola:

The smoothie was simply 2 frozen bananas whizzed up in a blender with spinach, kale, 4 fresh mint leaves and some greek yoghurt- popped in the freezer until ready to eat.

Followed up by my delicious home-made peanut butter granola:

1/2 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 handful wholegrain cheerios
1 large tablespoon crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk

Heat up almond milk and PB, add to dry ingredients, rub through with hands, pop on baking tray, in oven (180 degrees celsius) for around 15-20 mins until golden and crunchy).

Top it off and voila!

Deliciousness in a bowl of food.

Next up we have our second dessert-oatmeal creation of the week, this one featuring double-choc, rich, protein banana oats in an almost empty jar of mixed nut butter (best way to eat warm oats!!)

To make this bad boy, I simply threw 1 cup rolled oats, 1 sliced banana, 1 scoop choc protein powder, 1 teaspoon raw cacao powder, 1 cup unsweetened almond milk and 1/4-1/3 cup water into a saucepan, heated, stirring occasionally until absorbed and then staring through some greek yoghurt for creamy, cheesecake and volume enjoyment!

Delightful, delicious, delectable. And chocolate. I mean, come on!

Lastly, I don't want to skip passed my beloved smoothies in the dessert for breakfast department as they are truly such an amazingly creamy, sweet, tummy-happy-inducing breakfast that tastes so much like a beautifully creamy dessert that one can't help but shed a small tear to the fact that this smooth, sweet drink contains so many nutrients, vitamins and minerals. That is truly a gift to the world if I ever did see one!

This huge greenie involved 1 large frozen banana, 1 handful frozen zucchini, 1 large handful frozen mango, soaked oats in almond milk, kale, spinach and water- whizzed up until smoothy-smoothy-smoooooth!

There's something just so satisfying about making a breakfast this big (you didn't see how much was left in the blender post-filling of this jar!!) and having a breakfast that just seems to never end!! My kind of meal!

Alrighty- I should probably wrap this up here before I get too overwhelmed by all this deliciousness and end up making one of these desserts for dinner (I won't be able to restrain myself in the end and my breakfast foods will occur for breakfast lunch and dinner if I'm not careful!) so with the happy memories of these meals once had, I shall bid thee adieu and leave you to whatever meal you have coming up next (soo hungry for dinner right now!)

Your turn:
Are you a sweet or savoury brekky?
Favourite savour breakfast to have?
Best breakfast you can think of eating right at this minute!? I could really go for a huge stack of choc chip pancakes right now... yep, dinner's looking promising ;).

I hope you all have a lovely rest of your day, look after yourselves, move your body in a way that feels good and fuel your body with the foods that make it feel goodbye. EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS! Bye for now friendly friends! :D

Secret project revealed!

You may have remembered in this post I talked about working on a secret project that I would reveal to you on a later date. Well today is that later date!
First of all though, I needed a good hearty breakfast to help me power through! (the whole 9 hours it took me! I did not do it all in one day:) And you know the bestest, heartiest breakfast always feature a little...
CHOCOLATE!

Super-duper green smoothie (1 frozen banana + a handful of frozen mango +kale+ spinach+ rice and soy milk)
and.... a cup of extremely chocolate steel cut oats:)

1/3 cup steel cut oats+ 1 scoop choc protein powder + 1 tablespoon raw cacao + dash of cinnamon + 1 cup (maybe more) milk of choice.
Bubble away for 20 mins (add milk if neccessary) then sit for another 10.
Then.. stir in some coconut butter for good measure:

YUM!
Now onto the project!
Initially I wanted to do a chalk board wall, but then I found a poster I had made ages ago and decided to wall-ify it...

 It's my little motivational wall now :)

So colourful.. perfect!
After a job well done I celebrated with PIZZA!
What kind of pizza? Well, there was pumpkin involved:

Which formed into dough:

Yes it's my famous pumpkin pizza dough!
Recipe for the dough is linked above. Then I topped it with-you guessed it- pesto ;)

Walnut and spinach this time.
I also topped it with some black olives, mushrooms, dried tomatoes, sliced tomato, capsicum, beetroot and vegan cheese:

And after 45 mins of resting the dough:

I punched it down, rolled it out and topped it off!

Placed in an oven at 180 degrees for about 30 mins:

And gobbled up:)

I hope you like my art (both with my wall and my food) and have a great weekend! :D

Trying something new :)

Hi everyone! Happy, happy Sunday!

 So true right? ^^
 I feel like time  scampering away at break neck speed and I just can't seem to get everything I want to get done! I blame school. It takes up 7 hours of my day, Monday to Friday and that's not even including the morning- getting ready for school and the afternoon- doing homework for school... no wonder I have no time for life!

But that's just me complaining. If I truly think about it, I'm so grateful I have school and an opportunity for an education which will hopefully lead to a job in my future.

Wow, this was not the kind of post I had in mind! I think I may be going off topic. What was my first clue? The fact that I came onto this little blogging platform to talk to you about buckwheat. Yep.

When I first tried buckwheat... I was not a fan. I don't normally say I hate things, but I really very much disliked this grain. I had it quite plain in an eggy-bake thing-o. It was gross.

So, there has been a bag of buckwheat sitting in my pantry for a while now. I can never bring myself to throw it out because it seems like such a waste... which is sort of ironic because I never even think twice about using it- it's an immediate no.

Something magical was in the air this Sunday morning however, and when I reached into my pantry for my tin of steel cut oats my hand deviated from it's intended path and started patting around for that abandoned bag of buckwheat kernels.

Look at all those benefits! Good job buckwheat! Source

It was an adventurous and daring act on my behalf but I soldiered on pouring about 1/2 a cup into my oat-making saucepan, along with 1/2 banana, 1 scoop choc protein powder, 1 heaped teaspoon raw cacao powder, sprinkle of chia seeds, a few big dashes of cinnamon, 3/4 cup almond milk and 3/4 cup water and then simmered stirring occasionally for 15-20 mins until the liquid was absorbed:

It smelled amazing. Good first sign!

After letting it cool for 5-10 mins, I scooped it into an almost empty jar of my home-made coconut butter along with a cup of banana/ blueberry yoghurt (the other half of banana+ small handful of blueberries + 3 big scoops of greek yoghurt- whazzed up in a small food processor until smooth)

It smelled good, it looked good, I was preeetttyyy hungry- the spoon went into my mouth...

Oh. My. Grape jelly! (Grape jelly is a thing... I just looked it up!)
On first bite I may or may not have sighed in pleasure at the taste of my 'oats'. I did by the way. I sure did!

There's something about the texture of buckwheat that makes my normal chocolate steel cut oat recipe so much more.... fudgier? Decadent? Rich? I dunno, but it was gooood!

I'm not going to lie though, as with all rich things you can only take so much, so it was a bit of a struggle for me to finish that jar (yeh, I know- me!) still I managed to get through it (you can tell I suffer, right?) ;)

And I'm not going to lie about this either- I really, really enjoyed this buckwheat porridge! If you haven't tried buckwheat before I would recommend going the sweet/ breakfast-y/ porridge-y route first because I'm still not sure if I could tolerate this pseudo-cereal on its own (I'll happily stick with plain brown rice and pasta for that!)

I just wish I had tried this buckwheat experiment before my first- I've been missing out for so long! I guess I'll just have to make up for lost time- oh well! ;)

Your turn:
Have you ever tried something, hated it and then tried again in something different and liked it? (I'm so good at asking succinct questions, hey?)
Have you ever tried buckwheat?
Favourite way to eat buckwheat?

Remember to have a lovely Sunday, relish any spare time you have and just have an all-round great day! Bye for now! :D