IT'S TIME!

So I've had this blog for a while now (read, 3 and a half years!!) and throughout the entirety of this blog I have umm-ed and ahhh-ed over whether or not to become vegan, frequently posting vegan recipes and meal ideas and admiring all those vegans out there with their huge plates of plant-based goodness...

And so it might seem shocking as to why I didn't go vegan a long, long time ago. But I think there was this tiny part of my brain that doubted whether or not i could/ should give up all animal products entirely.

But the other thing was, I was basically vegan anyway (especially throughout this year as I finished up with school and had more time to think about who I wanted to be as an adult in this world. I was really only eating greek yoghurt as my everyday animal product and eggs maybe twice a week max! So really, the transition wouldn't be so hard at all...

Which is why... come Sunday morning I whipped up a bowl of berry oats and just... poured over some extra almond milk instead of the greek yoghurt scoop and haven't looked back!

Yep, ya girl is vegan now and let me tell you, even in the last few days I've already noticed my digestion is heaps better, my hunger levels are back, my appetite is roaring, I'm energetic and I'm just happy.

You know the post about how easy it is to fall down the rabbit hole of restriction?? Well now that I've told my brain I'm vegan it's sort of like broken down that food restriction barrier and I'm eating in abundance and ALL the good stuff too! Soooo many veggies and my creativity for cooking has returned!

Thus, the real reason for this post:

Put down whatever it is you are doing right now and go and make this bowl of vegan AWESOMENESS!! So awesome (and healthy) I even made it for lunch! Plus a sneaky secret ingredient to keep you full and firing for hours!!!

Rich choc protein granola with coconut yoghurt, frozen mango and fresh dates:

a splash of cold almond milk over the top:

Such a simple and out-of-this-world delicious meal to make and yep, I have the recipe right here for all of you to enjoy (and seriously- MAKE THIS NOW!)

Vegan Choc Granola Yoghurt Bowl:

Ingredients:
1 cup red kidney beans (told ya there was a sneaky secret ingredient)
3/4 heaped cup rolled oats
1 scoop Sunwarrior vegan choc protein powder
1 teaspoon maca powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
splash almond milk

Few scoops coconut/ soy yoghurt

four fresh dates (fell free to use dried dates I just happened to have the fresh ones from the grocery store the other day)

few handfuls frozen mango

Extra almond milk to splash over

Method:
1. Drain and rinse red kidney beans and microwave for 30 seconds
2. Add beans, protein powder, maca powder, cinnamon and almond milk to blender/ food processor and process until smooth and creamy.

3. Massage into oats and then spread onto tray lined with baking paper

4. Place in the oven at 180 degrees celsius for around 30 mins or until the granola starts to get a little crunchy on the outside and smells incredible!!

Little dark and crispy on the outside- just the way I like it!! :D :D

5. Leave to cool slightly and then layer up your bowl! First some granola, then some dates, yoghurt, frozen mango, more granola, dates, frozen mango, granola and almond milk- hey presto! It's the best-o!!!

Enjoy for breakfast, lunch or dinner and thank me after your done devouring this bowl of goodness.

Absolutely needed after today's leg day- the hanger was real!!

Now, as for the red kidney beans added to the granola? No my friends- you cannot taste them at all! In fact they even add another dimension of fudginess I often find lacking in typical crunchy/ dry commercial granola and that browns-like texture is just incredible! Trust me my friends- this addition is legit!

I can't wait to discover what other mad creations I am yet to come up with and am so excited to be excited about food once again (and EATING!!) so here's to the next amazing chapter in my life (I'm cheers-ing with this bowl of chocolate goodness by the way :P :D)

No questions today, just a fun happy post filled with goodness and foooooooodd!!

Have a wonderful day my friends (and eat something delicious!! :P :D :D)

Life Recently...!

Hello there beautiful food-lovin' people!!

I hope you're all having a fabulous day, doing something you love (even if it's just five minutes with yourself and a cookie... do it!) and making time to smiiillleee.

I realised that we haven't had a good ol' sit down and chat for a while and you're probably very un-up-to-date on my life! GASP!! So I decided to fill you in on Life Currently: Steph-style!

Life wouldn't be life for me without a current food obsession whereby every second day or so I eat said obsession. In the past we have had white sweet potato (that one never truly goes away, I just stop buying white sweet potato), which moved onto smoothie bowls, swinging into a cookie obsession (healthy, muesli, brekky cookies!) and now? Now we've moved onto creamy green substances with fudge-y, nutty, warm granola straight out of the oven:

It's become quite the obsession recently whereby every other day will be something else I haven't made in a while (pancakes, toasties, oatmeal) and falling back to green smoothie/ fro-yo/ 'ice cream' with granola.

This particular breakfast was a creamy mango smoothie with mixed nut butter granola and peanut butter granola:

 Obviously I hated it:

And then I changed things up!!!

Look at that! That's not a smoothie- that's creamy green 'nice-cream'! Frozen banana + frozen zuchini + spinach, all whazzed up together in the Vitamix until smooth :)

 The granola was simply peanut butter granola. But how can I say simply? This warm, fudge-y peanut butter granola is out of this world delicious and deserves so much more love and recognition!

Peanut butter warmed up with almond milk, stirred into around 3/4 cup natural muesli with ground cinnamon- into the oven at 180 degrees celsius for 15-20 mins until golden and fragrant- eat pretty soon afterwards for optimal enjoyment!!

 Pop a few on top of the ice cream and you have one delicious breakfast!

 My theory for my food obsessions is why I force myself to eat something else when I will absolutely love to eat the same thing and will enjoy eating the same thing more?

 It's all about one's happiness people :D

 Ok, so that's the food side- onto fitness!

You may remember my most recent posts about fitness are actually quite a few months old and discuss my decrease in mileage and increase in strength training/ Blogilates videos (HIIT type stuff, or if you're a Blogilates girl, PITT)

Well, it's been quite similar, however I have upped the mileage/ training- a lot more hill sprints and simple sprints around the park, mixed with 1 or 2 long runs in the week and some ab/ leg/ arm workouts (mainly Blogilates) on the off-days. There's also rest-days thrown in where I might just do an easy stretching/ workout video.

This passed Saturday I did one of my longest runs in a while- and I felt good. It just shows the ups and downs and changes of seasons in one's life and I sort of new the day would come where my body would once again love a nice, easy, slow run.

 An hour long run whereby an interesting, funny podcast got me through!

I've found that this combo of cross-training with strength workouts, HIIT and sprint workouts mixed with long runs has toned my body and left me feeling strong and healthy and ready to tackle the world! Or something along those lines!

Something un-health related? My hair's gronw pretty long over the past few moths and I'm kind of excited to have my long thick hair for the up-coming Winter- bring it on cold weather!

In all honesty, this is also a post whereby I try to make the blog a tad more personal with some pics of me- which I sort of cringe at sharing but know that I want you guys to know me better! So.. yep!

Your turn:
What's your current food/ breakfast obsession? How long has it been going for?
Green smoothie fan?
Current fitness favs?

That's it from me today folks (got a bit lengthier than anticipated!) I hope you all have a fabulous day, again- do something you love, and a s always; EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS!! Bye for now friends! :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

Two Bowls of Deliciousness!!

Hi there friendly friends and HAPPY MONDAY!

Yeah, sure, Monday has that bad stigma around it that being the very beginning of the work/ school/ uni/ whatever it is you do week, it automatically brings with it feelings of despair, angst and just plain negativity. But alas! I believe Mondays should be celebrated for what they are! the beginning of another week of opportunities, experiences and discoveries!! Who knows what the upcoming week will bring and without Monday to kick us off, we'd never find out!

And to also brighten your Monday a little further I have not one but two utterly delicious breakfast bowl recipes that will simply knock your socks off on the YUM-TACULAR spectrum, so grab that blender, magically freeze those bananas in record time and gift your taste buds with the creamy, dream,y fudge-y, sweet, dessert-like experience of either of these two happy-inducing and nourishing bowls!

1. The Raw Granola Green Smoothie Bowl:

 Who else loves my baby pink 'Seconds?' Bowl :) :)

This bad boy featured that ginormous mountain of uncooked, rich, fudge-y and nutty, nut butter granola with a big bowl of creamy mango banana green smoothie/ ice cream underneath for that creamy, sweet, refreshing factor!

 For the smoothie:
1 frozen banana
1 handful frozen mango chunks
1 handful frozen zucchini (trust me you cannot taste it and it just adds more volume to your smoothie bowl!)
1 handful kale
1 handful spinach
3 spoons greek yoghurt
- whaz until smoothy-smooth, pop in freezer to harden slightly

 For the Raw Granola:
3/4 cup rolled oats
1 handful wholegrain cheerios
1-2 tablespoons nut butter (I used a mix of crunchy PB and mixed nut butter- just split the dry ingredients into two bowls then making)
1/2 cup almond milk
optional- maca powder, ground cinnamon, raw cacao (choc sensation) or anything else you would add to granola for that extra flavour kick; above recipe is just the simple nutty-flavoured base :)

-Simply combine rolled oats and cheerios and any spices/ powders if adding to a bowl
-Place almond milk and nut butter in a small container and heat in the microwave for 30 seconds until warmed through
- Use hands and rub into granola until combined
-Place on plate lined with baking paper and pop in freezer for 10-15 mins

 Then simply grab your cold smoothie base, top with your cold raw, chewy, delicious granola and NOM!

 Seriously guys, this is so refreshing and satisfying and literally kept me full for hours and hours!! Happy, happy days!

 So creamy and delicious; breakfast never tasted so good!!

 Nom.

2. Our second out-of-this-world breakfast bowl features CHOCOLATE. For breakfast. Oh yes.

 This guy came about from a craving for a HUGE bowl of chocolate ice cream. Of course, probably not the most practical of breakfasts but then again, I'm Steph. The girl who will make anything she's craving. Just tweaking the ingredients a bit to make sure all those awesome nutrients are entering the body along with those delectable flavours!

 Thus enter the HUGE Choc Hit Green Smoothie/ Ice Cream bowl topped with roasted almonds (because, seriously, how good are roasted almonds- whole new deliciousness level!!)

 This also followed a rather sweaty Blogilates HIIT and cardio sesh whereby the need for something nourishing, filling and delicious was real!

 Into the vitamin went:
2 frozen bananas
1 handful frozen zucchini
1/2 frozen avocado
1 tablespoon mixed nut butter
1 handful kale
1 handful spinach
3 spoons greek yoghurt
2 teaspoons raw cacao powder
-All blended up together until smooth and creamy!!

 topped off with a small handful of roasted almonds for that crunchy, nutty, roast-y addition :P

 And enter one very happy Steph:

 Seriously guys, this just hit the spot- creamy, chocolate-y soft-serve ice cream for breakfast... plus like 2-3 serves of veggies hidden in there that are literally untraceable. This makes me very happy indeed:

 Fairly sure I ate this whole bowl with my eyes closed just taking in every flavour and happiness.

And there you go!

Most definitely go ahead right now (or wait til breakfast, sure) and make one of these two delights because you will not regret it! The greek yoghurt can easily be replaced with vegan yoghurt; soy/ coconut etc. or just opt it out completely. I use greek yoghurt because of the high protein levels (growing girl who loves to exercise!!) and calcium fro strong bones but feel free to swap and choose your own add-ins! (I know silken-tofu creates that creamy factor just as well!!)

Your turn:
What's your favourite breakfast of the moment?
Best breakfast bowl recipe?
Roasted almonds- yay or nay? I usually prefer raw nuts over roasted but when it comes to almonds; the roasted babies are just miles above the raw variety!

I hope you all have a truly lovely rest of your Monday; do something you love, be open to opportunities should they arrive/ slap you in the face unexpectedly (the best kind really) and as always; EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS!! Bye for now friendly friends!! :D