WIAW #82 Strange Cereal Habits

Hidy-ho friendly friends! Happy Wednesday to you all!!
I hope your week has been chugging along nicely and can you believe it's Wednesday already!

Anywho, Wednesdays are about sharing glorious full days of eats, drooling over other people's glorious full days of eats and linking up WIAW style! All thanks to the wonderful Peas and Crayons for creating this weekly link-up :)

Breakfast: 7:15am
Brekky this morning brought me back to my childhood...
When I was little I used to love Nutrigrain (Iron Man Cereal!!) However I did not like Nutrigrain when it got soggy- ie. placed in milk. So my oh-so-clever solution was to pour my bowl of Nutrigrain, pour a seperate glass of milk and enjoy the two separately... together?

I still got the taste of cereal and milk, however with the added benefit of an always dry, always crunchy piece of cereal!

So, how does this relate to this morning's brekky? Well I did it again! A little more Steph 2 Chef style though this time:

 A super thick and creamy green mango smoothie with a side of freshly baked, warm peanut butter granola, eaten separately because I wanted to enjoy the fudgey crunch of the granola and the challenging slurping through a straw of the super thick, creamy smoothie!

 You can find the recipe for the peanut butter granola here and the smoothie was a simple blend of frozen banana, frozen mango, kale, spinach, greek yoghurt and frozen zucchini with a touch of water to get it all moving.

 This breakfast did not dissapoint, however it's not to say I'm moving on from my beloved smoothie bowls :D

 Nope, just taking a break...

 And having a little too much fun with the thickness of my smoothie and it's resulting capabilities:

 :P
Lunch: 12:30pm
So recently the hangry monster has been visiting my belly, so lunches have been a little earlier and involving a few snacks while I create it (think nomin on a carrot whilst cooking up other veg).

 Today wano different. Come 12 o'clock and I was ready for food!
Enter high fiber spaghetti with grilled eggplant, capsicum, tomatoes, mushrooms and pumpkin with steamed spinach and garlic tofu:

 A few blobs of hommus were also stirred in afterwards fro good measure :)

 And for some reason I still wasn't entirely satisfied after that bowl of deliciousness so I had a small square of dark chocolate to round out lunch.

Snack: 4:00pm
At around 4 I noticed my stomach started to sing grumble again, so I chopped up some fruit!

 Hello perfectly ripe rockmelon and pink lady apple. Gte into my belly!

 Perfect pick-me-up to carry me through to dinner.

Dinner: 6:45pm
I was quite hungry again come dinner (seriously guys, I'm telling you! I'm gonna blame it on the increase in muscles I've started getting from my blogilates videos and fitness challenges :) so I roasted up some sweet potato, parsnip, beetroot, swede, baby carrots and brussels sprouts in coconut oil for 45 mins.

 To the roasted veg I added some broad beans, corn and mixed four beans:

 Quite tasty if I do say so myself!

 To round out the day and keep my stomach quiet throughout the night I had a cup of soy milk.

All in all a very tasty and nutritious day filled with a lot of good eats!!

Aaaaand that's what I ate!

Your turn:
What did you eat this fine Wednesday?
Are you a fan of soggy cereal? My brother is. He actually pours his milk into his cereal and then goes and takes a shower so it's a soggy cereal gloop. I can't even imagine eating it!
What do you nom on when you can't keep the hunger bug at bay? I kind of try and make myself snack on veg, but sometimes it's just not what the body wants. Soy milk, seems to be pretty good at quieting the monster though!

That's it from me today folks. I hope you have a loevely rest of your day and week. Do something you love doing that you haven't done in a while and tell someone you love them- everyone needs to hear that once in a while! Oh and... EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS! Bye for now!! :D

A breakfast Papaya!

Happy Monday friendly friends!!

You know, I can't think of anything better than starting off my week with a nice, easy run in the cool Sunny, Summers morning, followed by the prospect of not having to go to school and papayas.

Papayas?

Yes, papayas :)

When I was out grocery shopping on Saturday, I was perusing around all the glorious fruits coming onto the fresh sections shelves and couldn't help myself when I saw the large number of beautiful whole papayas at quite the low price!

So ofcourse I jumped on that, took my precious little fruit baby home and come this morning...

Enjoyed a glorious breakfast treat!

After slicing my papaya in half I filled it with banana cheesecaek ice cream and topped it all off with peanut butter granola.

And for your enjoyment too, here is the recipe!!

Ingredients:
Banana cheesecake ice cream: This one is completely up to you, I stuck pretty plain with simply banana and yoghurt, but feel free to add in some berries, cacao powder, protein powder or any other flavouring/ add-ins you would like!

1 large chopped, frozen banana
2 heaped tablespoons greek yoghurt (optional- adds cheesecake flavour)

Peanut butter granola:
3/4 cup rolled oats (I used rolled oats and a rolled barley and oat mix)
1 teaspoon chia seeds
optional- pinch cinnamon- to taste
1 heaped tablespoon peanut butter
1/3 cup almond milk (or any other milk)

Other ingredients:
1/2 papaya

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line a tray with baking paper
2.Make the banana ice cream by throwing ingredients in a food processor/ blender and blending until smooth (may need to scrape down sides). Spoon into papaya and place in freezer to harden up slightly until required.

3. Place the oats, chia seeds and cinnamon in a bowl and stir to combine. Place the peanut butter and almond milk in a small bowl and microwave for 30 seconds.
4. Rub warm peanut butter mixture into oats
5. Place raw granola onto tray and bake in oven for 15-20 mins until golden brown (and smelling amazing!!)
6. Remove granola from oven and leave to cool for 10 mins or so

 7. Once granola is cooled place on top of banana ice cream and ENJOY!

Leftover granola never goes to waste- eaten out of the almost empty greek yoghurt container! :P

This was such a lovely refreshing breakfast filled with all the beautiful flavours of fruit and Summer and peanut butter granola!!!

 Which is why it was eaten with a yellow spoon :)

It's funny how people either love or hate papaya... I get that it has a kind of funky taste, but I just love the sweet and almost creamy texture- I'm a fan papaya- good job nature!

 It didn't last too long...

Your turn:
What would be included in the best morning for you?
Do you ever stuff your breakfast into another fruit/ veg?
Papaya- yay/nay?

Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I enjoyed eating it (which would be quite impressive!!) and I hope you have a wonderful day! Eat something delicious!! Bye!!! :D

Sunday smoothie bowls and links :)

Hello friends!! And a big happy Sunday to you all!

I know I've been a little less present than usual on the blog lately, but things have been B.U.S.Y. (End of the year is crammed with so much stuff, am I right?). So I'll continue to pop in when I can (things should calm down a bit by the second half of this week)! In the mean time, I will leave you with some pics of my food (because that's what we do here!) and some lovely links to get you through a bored/ can't be bothered doing anything section of your day (we all have them!).

Say hello to breakfast!!

 Deliciously vibrant green smoothie (banana, big handful frozen mango, greek yoghurt, spinach, water)

Topped with some mixed nut butter and peanut butter granola (with cheerios!!)

And utterly devoured:

 Nom.

And that was breakfast!

Now I'm curious, what did you have for brekky? Comment below!

Now onto the links from the week!


Food:

Vegan Beast Burger & Cucumber Dill Salad 

Paleo Peppermint Chocolate No-Bake Bites

Thanksgiving Vegan Mini Pot Pie Jars

23 Healthier Versions Of Your Favorite Holiday Treats

Snickerdoodle Vegan Overnight Oats {Gluten Free + 6 Ingredients}

Fiesta Sweet Potato Nachos

Fitness:

Voices in My Head

3 Brutal Truths No One Tells You About Being A Fitness Instructor

Dorm Friendly Workouts Every Student Should do

Exercise is Not Punishment for Eating and You Do Not Have to Earn Your Food.

9 Ways to Make Fitness a Priority

Health:

The Health and Fitness Trends You'll Be Following in 2016

12 Signs Your Unrealistic Diet Is Making You Unhappy

7 Easy Ways To Eat Healthier This Week

Happiness:

21 Genius Ways To Eat Peanut Butter And Jelly

12 Insanely Easy DIY Christmas Treats That’ll Spread Some Holiday Cheer



That's all from me today folks, I hope you all have a fabulous, restful and rejuvenating Sunday, do something you love and eat something delicious!! Bye for now! :D

Thinking Out Loud- On Smoothie Creations

It's no surprise to you when I say I love smoothies.

(Almost as much as it is no surprise when I say I love nut butter. Almost.)

But I'm not going to lie; They are mainly of the same sort of fruit/sweet/extremely thick variety. Because that's the way I like them.

However being the creative food lover I am, I thought it was about time that I explored new tastes in the blended drink collection. (Especially now that I have my hands on one of the most powerful blenders in the market!! ;))

I've seen recipes with a whole bunch of random foods thrown into smoothies ranging from whole carrots, apples, pears, beetroots, cucumber, celery to even cooked and cooled veg, nobs of fresh ginger and even beans!

So, as part of my experimental segment of the week, I decided to concoct different types of smoothies with at least one ingredient I've never chucked in a smoothie before!

Here is hoe it played out:

My first experiment was Sunday morning, after a 10k run, on no fuel (anything over 10k and I usually have a snack)

So I was hangry.

Any who, I stuck to my goals and went about making a smoothie I didn't know if I'd like or not. It was pretty exciting!

Into the supreme blender went 1 stick of rhubarb, chopped, 1 medium banana chopped (I didn't have any frozen but I think it would have tasted better with a frozen one if you do so decide to recreate this), 1 extra large handful of spinach, 1/2 cup chopped frozen strawberries,  3/4 cup greek yoghurt, 1/2 cup water- placed in a blender and whazzed until super smooth!

 Et voila!
The rhubarb added to the smoothie was not bad at all!

Eaten alongside some peanut butter oat balls.

 The rhubarb added a nice tang to the smoothie and I couldn't even taste the cucumber or spinach= major plus for extra veg!!
 I will admit I didn't really love the texture the rhubarb gave it- a little gritty, but I think if I used a frozen banana and maybe some ice it would have been a heck of a lot better.

 But quite tasty, really hydrating and I just felt good after drinking it (I could tell my body was happy :)
The next one featured a surprise ingredient that I adore.

If you read my weekly WIAW, you may have noticed them popping up on numerous occasions every. single. time.

Yes, I am talking about my beloved peas.

Well, my beloved frozen peas to be exact!

 Instead of just eating them straight how they come... I decided to whaz them up into big green smoothie form!

 And it was mighty good!

 To create this extremely thick, creamy, mouth-watering green smoothie, I chucked into my Vitamix 1 chopped, frozen banana + 1/2 chopped, frozen avocado, 1 handful frozen, chopped zucchini, 1 massive handful of spinach, 1 scoop cashew butter, 3 big spoons of greek yoghurt, some oats that had been soaked in almond milk with chia seeds for around 10 minutes, a scoop of vegan vanilla protein powder and 1/2 cup of water

 Whaz, whaz, whaz until smoothy-smooth and enjoy!

(You'll need quite a large straw/ spoon for this one!)

Another couple of serves of veg in your morning smoothie for the win- spinach, zucchini and PEAS!

Lastly, a cool and refreshing addition to a smoothie that also becomes invisible in taste but adds volume and hydration;

 CUCUMBER! Specifically baby cucumber for me at the moment because that's what I happened to pick up at the store. :)

Like zucchini, cucumber has no taste when blitzed up into a smoothie, so was the perfect addition to my Strawberry Dreams smoothie bowl this morning!

Into the mix went 1 chopped, frozen banana, 1 massive handful of spinach, 1 handful frozen, chopped strawberries, 1 baby zucchini- cut in half, 3 spoons of greek yoghurt, 1/2 cup water- whazzed up until smooth:
Being in the freezer for 20 mins:

Stirring to combine the slightly hardened top:

On top I had a mix of cashew butter and peanut butter granola:

 And you know it ended up looking like this:

 So, those have been my recent smoothie adventures, adding in all sorts of different veg to my typical green loves. I must admit, this has sparked a bit of a smoothie bug in me and has started a mad buzzing of ideas in my brain as to what other crazy foods I can whaz up and make delicious!

Tell me:
What is your favourite go-to smoothie?
What is the weirdest thing you have ever seen/ have ever put in your own smoothies? Mine would probably be tofu. And it wasn't bad either!
Smoothie with a straw or spoon? I like the thickness needed for a spoon, but the effort required to slurp it up through a straw ;) Yep, I'm strange like that. :)

I hope you all have a fabulous rest of your week, take some inspo from me and whip up something a little out there and always to remember to smile, because life is so much better when you do! Bye for now friendly friends!! :D