Back...again and foods that fix me up!

Happy Saturday everyone!!
Phew- another night away, and back again!

This 'camp' was my year 12 study retreat in which we learned about our brains, various study techniques, did some activities, caught up with those we hadn't seen for the entire Summer and spent the night.

I think I've finally figured out why I'm always starving on camps for teens. See they give us heaps and heaps of carbs (I was so over rice and pasta!!) and yet no healthy fats at all. I ate my usual large servings of food and found that merely an hour later I was starving. And also, snack times revolved around brown fried foods (think sausage rolls, samosas etc.) and when I asked them for a piece of fruit they looked at me as though I was crazy.

I guess it is safe to say that I am glad I am home now for good for the time being as I've been missing on my nut butters, smoothies and large amounts of veg.

This is how I celebrated coming home after yesterdays return:

Two soft boiled eggs with multigrain hommus and avocado soldiers, sauteed mushrooms, tomatoes and capsicum and some nutritional yeast kale chips (wash kale, rub in nutritional yeast, bake at 180 degrees celsius for 10-15 mins until crispy.) with a glass of soy milk.

This helped ease the painful food baby/ bloat a little bit but I'm still hanging onto some nausea that's sprung up over the past few days. For some reason I feel like it was the overload of acidity in all of the dishes they served us and now whenever I think of lemon juice, or vinegar or something like that I feel quite queesy!

I also very much enjoyed preparing my own delicious breakfast in which I could add all the healthy fats and filling protein and veggies I desired!

That my friends is a black berry not-so-green green smoothie with a side cup of warm cashew butter granola :)

Into the Vitamix went 1 sliced banana (didn't have any frozen ones :() 1 handful chopped frozen zucchini, 1 massive handful spinach, 1 handful frozen blackberries, 3 scoops of greek yoghurt and 1/2 cup water- whazzed up until smooth!

When I woke up this morning I realised- to my utter disbelief- that I didn't have any nut butter in the house!!! So I grabbed about 2-3 handfuls of cashews, chucked them in a mini food processor and processed for around 15 mins (scraping down edges occasionally) until smooth and creamy. Voila! Single serving cashew butter!

To make the granola I mixed together around 3/4-1 cup rolled oats, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, sprinkle chia seeds, 1 tablespoon oat bran and 2 tablespoons cashew butter and almond milk warmed together in microwave, and rubbed until combined. Popped in the oven on a tray lined with baking paper at 180 degrees celsius and baked for around 15-20 mins until golden brown and fragrant and DONE! Delicious, cookie-like granola chunks for brekky!

Smoothie + cashew butter granola bites= Happy, happy Steph :)

And I most definitely need to keep my strength up today as tonight is....

MY BALL!!

Crazy stuff! I definitely do not feel like a year 12 student and have no idea where this ball came from (out of nowhere perhaps??) but I am super excited and can't wait to see the rest of my year group looking utterly amazing and beautiful! It's going to be great!

Your turn:
Do you find that when you go away there is a lacking of healthy fats on offer?
Favourite fix-me-up dinner you make when you haven't been eating your usual foods?
Any funny ball/ prom stories??


I hope you all have a great rest of your weekend, doing something you love, treating your body kindly and as always; eating something delicious! Bye for now friendly friends!! :D

Recently- The Food Front- Rawesome!!

Okidokie, I have definitely noticed I go through phases like there's no tomorrow!

So you know how I was loving on eating my smoothie bowls separated for a while there..
 

 Well apparently now my body wants a proper smoothie bowl... but with raw granola (ie. not oven baked) so:

 I whipped up a delightful smoothie of 1 frozen banana, a large handful of frozen honeydew chunks, a handful of frozen zucchini chunks, a handful of spinach, a handful of kale, 3 big spoons of greek yoghurt and some water to get it all moving!!

And topped it all off with a mix of uncooked cashew butter granola and uncooked peanut butter granola. Steps as follows:
Place a tablespoon of each nut butter into two separate small bowls, place a tablespoon of almond milk in each, microwave for around 20 seconds, add to one of two bowls, each with 1/3 cup oats, sprinkle chia seeds, small handful of no-added-sugar wholegrain cheerios (or other cereal/ crunchy thing you like) and stir to combine!

 Then simply top your smoothie (which has been chilling in the freezer whilst making the granola) with the soft, fudgey raw granola and ENJOY!

 P.S. Adding honeydew to smoothies is a good idea!!

 Very good indeed!

 But when you don't have time to whip up such an extravagant brekky?
Say, you are scheduled in to start work at 6:00am, so are up at 5:00am but still need a little first breakfast to keep you sane?

1 frozen banana:

 + greek yoghurt:

 = Quick easy and delicious!!

And then when break time rolls round- second breakfast!!!

 Yep, I made my raw freezer frudge brownie again (I really don't like cooking things do I?)

To make this delicious bad bowl, simply place 3/4 cup oats, sprinkle chia seeds, 1 scoop of choc protein powder, 1 teaspoon raw cacao powder, dash of cinnamon, 2 dates, 1 heaped tablespoon peanut butter (or any nut butter) 1/3 cup almond milk (add more if required) to a food processor and process to combine (until thick and sticky)- transfer into a small container lined with baking paper, cover and freeze for a few hours or overnight!

 He may not look like the prettiest brownie, but boy, this guy tastes so gooood! Think of the fudgiest, richest, chocolatiest brownie you've ever tasted and I reckon this guy would give it a run for it's money. And it's good for you too! Bonus!!

Brownies for breakfast? Yes, please!

 The take-away from today's post? Steph's current new phase is raw foods. Or that healthy foods can-and do- taste amazing!

You can take your pick ;)

What about you?
What's your favourite frozen fruit to add to smoothies?
Ever tried uncooked granola? Are you a fan?
Ever had brownies for breakfast? The healthy or... less healthy kind?

I hope you all have a fabulous Monday in whatever it is you are doing (I'm heading out to breakfast!!) be brave, take risks and smillleee :) Bye for now friendly freinds!! :D

P.S> Don't forget to eat something delicious!! Thought I had forgotten didn't you? ;P

Weird Food Habits!

You have em', I know I have em', almost everyone in the entire world has em'!

Whether it be biting off the head of whatever animal shaped biscuit you're eating, saving a certain flavour 'til last, planning out the perfect amount of milk for your cereal bowl, eating around the outside of the bread to save the middle, soft, fluffy bit until last (I am guilty of this):

Those are the middle bits of 2 delicious toasted wholemeal crumpets with crunchy PB and raw cacao hazelnut butter.

.. or even (this example courtesy of my mum) not being able to enjoy a cheese and tomato toastie without a glass of ice cold milk (she literally puts ice cubes in there!)

Whatever it is, we all have weird food habits (I know I have MANY!) and so I decided to scour the internet to find some of the craziest food habits people have to make me feel a lot better about mine for our entertainment! :)

First of all- many, many more people than you would suspect pour orange juice into their cereal instead o milk...

Hmm, don't know how I feel about this.

Another thing that a large group of people adhere to is shaking milk before they drink it:

I mean, I don't actually drink cow's milk anymore and so I do in fact shake my soy milk and almond milk cartons, but when I did drink milk, I didn't even think to shake the bottle first?? Maybe I should have?

This one I just don't seem to get:

People who fold their pizza slice in half before nom-ing. I mean, it's a perfectly brilliant triangular slice that allows half your mouth to experience the intense flavour of the toppings as soon as it makes contact with your taste buds. Folding it- you just get crust!?

And then there's the even more atrocious:

Seriously!? It's pizzaaaaa!

Ok, now we need to go back to cereal... because...

Yep, ice in cereal is a thing. And a very celebrated one at that!

Along those lines of ice and things that generally shouldn't go with it: Ice cream and fries

I'm just kidding though- I totally used to do this!!

On the topic of strange fast food combos:

The banana on pizza movement is gathering quite the following!!

And finally all the wrong ways to eat these foods:

 Kit kats have breakable sides for a reason!

 Nature created oranges in separate sections. NATURE!

String cheese. If you don't string it , it ain't string cheese!

Now, all of this is in good jest- you do you! Eat however you want. I'm definitely not one to judge:

 I've always separated my 'cereal and milk' (even when it became granola and smoothie).

 I used to lick all the flavour off barbecue shapes and then eat them plain because I thought they tasted better.

And just to throw my brother and sister under the bus:
My  sister used to toast some bread, spread on nutella and then fold it in half to enjoy (once again on the tasting only crust thing- I'm sure it's a lot more common that I seem to realise!)

And my bro pours himself a big bowl of cornflakes, fills it up with milk (to the very top) and lets it sit for around- not exaggerating- 20-30 minutes!

My Dad you ask? Lets just say there will be barbecue sauce on everything he eats. Everything. I'll just leave that with you to roll over in your mind for a bit!

Oh, and my Dad's morning cereal of choice is crushed up Weet-bix on the bottom and Nutrigrain on top soaked in milk for a little bit as well.

So you see, we're all weirdos but if that's how you enjoy your food, then what's the issue?

Your turn:
What is your strangest food habit?
Ever put orange juice in your cereal/ What is your favourite way to eat cereal?
How do you eat pizza?

 I hope you found this as utterly hilarious and a little shocking as I did. Now- enjoy the rest of your day, smile lots and as always; eat something delicious (even if others might not think it is!! ;) Bye for now friends!! :D

WIAW #85 Summer eats edition!!

Hello, hello friendly friends!

Happy Wednesday and more importantly... happy What I Ate Wednesday! A day when bloggers of the world unite to share and drool over a full day of eats and most likely become quite a bit hungry along the way!
Thanks as always to Peas and Crayons for creating this link and the various bloggers who host the link-ups!!

Now, onto the FOOOOD!

Breakfast: 7:30am
Breakfast was accompanied with the warm Summer sunshine and heat after quite a sweaty 45 minute run (trust me- it. was. hot!):

 Involving a lovely refreshing and hydrating creamy cherry smoothie (with some spinach and frozen zucchini added in there for extra veg and volume!) and some peanut butter granola on the side, because I'm a weirdo! ;P

May or may not have filled my smoothie jar up a little too much prior to sitting in the freezer to thicken for around 15 mins:

 Super refreshing, tasty and exactly what I needed to refuel after my run!

 Happy, happy days!

 P.S. The granola was still warm :)

Lunch: 12:30pm
I was a little peckish come lunch time so I chopped up half a white potato and half a medium white sweet potato, drizzled in olive oil and roasted in the oven for 40 mins at 180 degrees celsius.

 I also chopped up some raw veg sticks to dip into some mashed avocado with lime juice:

 And a HUUGEE bowl of popcorn on the side (and that wasn't even all of it!)

Snack: 3:50pm
Fruit was on the brain come afternoon and my beautifully ripe and gorgeously sweet watermelon was calling to me from the fridge..

 So I chopped some up, along with a small pink lady apple and a handful of red grapes:

 So good!
Dinner: 6:35pm
Dinner featured some quinoa pasta with sauteed veg (eggplant, mushrooms, onion, garlic, peas, spinach etc.) with some lentils, mixed beans, tinned tomatoes and nutritional yeast:

 Not the most appetising looking meal, but mighty tasty!!

 And totally hit the spot- was not hungry after this big bowl!!

 Then I was done for the day!

All in all, a wonderfully delicious day filled with many good eats, delicious foods and a happy stomach!

Your turn:
What was the best thing you ate this fine Wednesday?
Favourite post sweat session food/ meal?
Pasta- tomato-y/ sauce-y/ creamy? I'm much more of a fan of tomato/ pesto/ other sauce based pastas... creamy ones just never really appealed/ appeal to me (unless of course it's creamy avocado pasta!)

That's it from me today folks, I hope you all have a lovely day, do something you love and eat something delicious!! Bye for now! :D