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

The Things I Love Love Love!!

Happy Monday friendly friends!!

We're getting closer and closer to Christmas and are probably well under way with many celebratory dinners/ lunches/ catchups/ parties and just having fun!

And yet it seems that almost  every website I love to follow and frequent often (healthy living/ food blogs/ fitness etc.) are all centralised around one main topic at this present time; How to keep healthy/ maintain weight/ reduce kilojoules in this holiday season.

(finally learnt how to screen shot on a desktop!)

Now I'm not going to go off on a long rant about how the festive holidays and all the delicious treats and changes to normal routine only comes around once a year and should therefore be savoured and enjoyed, not stressed over and planned around to ensure you don't gain a single gram of weight!

Nope, I'm not going to go into that because I believe you are all smart enough to know that already and are instead focusing on the things (people and/ or food ;) you love these holidays! And so I am going to do the same!! :)

First of all, I love food. Food is healing, replenishing, rejuvenating, energising, tasty and down right happiness inducing. So these holidays I'm going to enjoy my food!

I love thick, chocolate smoothies:

 That require a GREAT amount of slurping energy to drink and also a spoon if required:

 I love bread and 'cheese' that doesn't give me a stomach ache (thankyou hommus, nutritional yeast and water) and tomato and combining them to make an old childhood favourite:

 Grilled cheese and tomato :)

 The crusty bit of my home-made wholemeal spelt bread topped with some vegan cheese, tomato slices and more vegan cheese:

 Popped under the grill at 180 degrees for 5-10mins until golden brown :)

 I also love my minions plate..

 I love super huge sandwiches filled with a rainbow of veggies:

 Hommus, veggie patty, spinach, grated carrot and beetroot, tomato, capsicum and avocado:

 And no, that is not a cucumber in the background, that would be my foam roller :P I was tricked for a second there too!!

 I love chocolate... especially for breakfast:

 Steel cut choc protein oats

 And I especially love warm, gooey oats with nut butter swirled throughout:

 I love, love, love roasted white sweet potato:

 As well as a big plate of ALL the roasted veg:

 And nothing can beat a cool refreshing smoothie bowl, topped with slightly warm, crunchy granola:

 Recipe here.

 And that's just the food!!
I love my friends, family, being together, watching corny holiday movies, baking, playing games, laughing, talking, soaking up the sun (Aussie Summer), the beach:

 I also forget how lucky I am to have a gorgeous white sandy beach at my backyard..

 And it truly fills me with so much joy to simply walk along the sand and just be.

Wow, that got a little lengthier than intended!

Your turn:
What do you love most about the holidays?
Best thing you ate this week?

I hope you all have a lovely day, be with those you love and as always; eat something delicious!! Bye for now friends! :D

PB2 and lovely links

Happy Sunday friendly friends!I hope you're all having a tremendous weekend so far (maybe getting some Christmas shopping done? I still need to start...)

Anywho, we don't need that kind of stress to think about on a day as relaxing as Sunday. No, instead we should be thinking about the really good stuff in life.

Like friends.

Family.

and FOOOD!

So when I was out grocery shopping yesterday I came across something that I had once again only seen on American blogs/ vlogs etc.

PB 2 ! I got kind of excited and spent all $11 (quite pricey!) on it to have my very own tester of the dried peanut spread creation.

So as to the directions I stirred 1 tablespoon of water with 2 tablespoons of PB 2, of course  quickly realised that i eat way more PB than that, added a bit more PB 2 and water and gave it a little try! Now I usually buy all natural peanut butter with no added salt or sugar and PB 2 actually has a little bit of salt and sugar in it, so the flavour was definitely a lot stronger and different to what I was used to, but I was pleasantly surprised how much it looked like PB and the identical texture it created when mixed with water!

I decided to top my breakfast of orange creamsicle oats (made with steel cut oats) with it (with some extra regualr PB dolloped throughout just for safe measure ;)

Yep, that's the dried stuff right there:

It was definitely a lot sweeter than I was used to and maybe a bit more peanutty? (I think maybe the salt brought that flavour out/ it was more concentrated in flavour having being dried/ sucked of moisture)

But I guess in the end, all natural, creamy, crunchy, honest to goodness peanut butter will always have my heart.

Because really- nothing can compare to that :)

And now, as it is Sunday I have some fabulous links for you to check out from the week that was!

Food:

Vegan Rustic Vegetable Spiral Tart

Creamy Beet Pasta With Beet Green Pesto

Apple Walnut Quinoa

Chocolate Peppermint Silk Brownie Bars

Gingerbread Banana Bread

Warm Salad with a Creamy Blueberry Dressing

Fitness:

10 Things People Who Exercise All the Time Know to Be True

What Month Are Top Marathoners Born In?

6 (Weird & Amazing) Workouts You Won't Believe Are Real

The 17 Best Foods to Eat after Exercising

Health:

Q&A Friday: Is orthorexia an eating disorder

Unhealthy Eating Habits To Ditch

20 Foods That Give You The Most Nutrient Bang For Your Buck

Good Reads:

Pregnant Runner Finishes Three Half Marathons, One for Each Trimester

23 Incredibly Disrespectful Things People Did To Food In 2015

What Does Your Favourite Smartie Colour Say About You?



I hope you found some good reads in there as  know I sure did! It always amazes me the sheer number of brilliant posts posted each and every week! Makes me very happy!! Enjoy the rest of your day, do something yo love and eat something delicious!! Bye for now! :D

Getting Oat-rageously creative!

Hidy-ho friendly friends.
I like oats, you probably like oats (unless you don't) so today you are going to enjoy a full post about...

OATS!!

YES!!!

Ok, ok I know oats may not be the most exciting thing in the entire universe but before you go jumping to such oat-rageous claims, hear me oat! (Ok, I'll stop now ;)

I love being creative with the different flavours I can add to my oats to keep them new and exciting (because let's keep it real here, I eat oats A LOT) and of recently I have come up with some rather delicious creations!

So read on below to find two of my (if I do say so myself) rather fabulous oat experiments that you just might like to try out yourself!

The first concoction to enter my bowl:

 Creamy lemon cheesecake oats:

Topped with a pool of melted coconut butter! Nom!

I've added citrus to my oats before (see orange poppy seed oats) so I already knew adding lemon to a creamy bowl of whipped banana oatmeal would be brilliant:

So into a saucepan went 1/2 cup steel cut oats with 1 chopped banana, sprinkling of chia seeds, zest and juice of half a lemon, 1 cup almond milk, 1 cup water- bubbled away on medium heat until all the liquid is absorbed (may need to add more). Then leave to cool slightly before adding in some greek yoghurt (optional) and transfer to a bowl (lined with coconut butter if you want the ultimate delicious experience) and top with more coconut butter!

Lemon-y, cheesecake-y, coconutt-y... this was a pretty good way to start off my day!

Big spoons is the only way to go:

I'll just let the pictures do the talking :)

My next oat success came in the form of chocolate... and orange.

Now, I was never really a big fan of the whole choc-orange combo.
My entire childhood was spent avoiding the deadly choc-orange chocolates in those mixed variety chocolate boxes people love to give as presents.
And then I made Mindy's tart for the first time and was converted. (If you're not a fan of chocolate and orange- MAKE THIS NOW- it is so good!

So these oats feature that traditional flavour of citrus and chocolate and boy-ohboy does it do it proud!

To make this guy I simply placed 1/2 cup steel cut oats in a saucepan with 1 chopped banana, sprinkle of chia seeds, 1 heaped teaspoon raw cacao powder, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 cup almond milk, 1 cup water, bubbled away until the liquid was absorbed (stirring every so often for about 15 minutes), before folding in 1/2 of an orange's zest. Then I folded in some greek yoghurt (again, optional) transferred to a mug (in thirds, as there was nut butter scattered throughout!) and topped with some cashew butter:

And once again, a big spoon of oats is utterly essential for full enjoyment of this flavour-packed delight!

There you have it! Two very different bowls of oats, filled with fresh, vibrant flavours to please anyone's palate and jam-packed full of wholegrains, vitamins, minerals, fruit, protein- it just doesn't get much better than a bowl full of dessert-flavoured oatmeal for breakfast!

Your turn:
Lemon cheesecake or choc-orange cheesecake? I don't think I can decide between them! It all depends on what I'm feeling like on the day!
Favourite oat cration you've ever made?
Typical ingredients you always add to your oats? Mine would probably be a thinly sliced banana. Nothing can beat that delicious creaminess with bonus sweetness!


I hope you all have a wonderful day, do something you love and, as always, eat something delicious. Bye for now friends!! :D