Blogger shout out!

Happy Friday everybody! TGIF, am I right (well, everyday feels like the weekend for me.. have I mentioned I'm on holidays? ;)
Speaking of hols.... I now have plenty of time on my hands, meaning plenty of time to make delicious breakfasts, lunches and dinners!
So without further a do, a post given to you, that's truer than true, about food.. woohoo!
For breakfast this morning I made a Running with Spoons creation (blogger shout out!)
It was her recently posted banana bread mug cake!

And my own recipe for mixed berry yoghurt (thawed mixed berries, 1/2 banana, 3 spoons of greek yoghurt-whaz!)
I microwaved my cake for a bit long- but it was still really good!

And of course my amazingly difficult recipe for berry yoghurt was awesome too ;)

Lunch time!
I love telling people I had something for lunch but not explaining it any further and watching their confuzzled faces :)

Example: I had a hot dog with fries yesterday for lunch :)
WHAT!?
Well... a wholemeal spelt hot dog roll with some hommus, 2 mini veggie sausages, salsa, plenty of salad and sweet potato fries:

Gotcha!
It was soo tasty though (I think my healthified version is even better than the original!)
Sweet potato fries:
Drizzled with olive oil and roasted at 180 degrees celsius for 25 mins-ish:

I bet you can figure out how I managed to make the hot dog- bun, hommus, spinach, tomato, veggie sausages, salsa:

 Om Nom:

Dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner, dinner,dinner, dinner- BATMAN!
Wow, there must have been something in that banana cake!
Dinner was an original recipe of mine:

Oven baked bean balls!
Ingredients:
1 pearl onion sliced
2 button mushrooms sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
5 semi-dried tomatoes
1 sprigs worth of rosemary leaves
3/4 cup red kidney beans and lentils (drained and rinsed)
extra water

Method:
 1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius, line a tray with baking paper
2. Place everything but the beans and water in a small frypan with 1/2 tablespoon olive oil:

3. Place on medium heat stirring until caramelized:

Hello flavour!
4. Place beans, lentils and onion mix in a small food processor:

5. Whaz until smooth- adding water until it looks like this:

6. Use a spoon to form into balls and place on a baking tray:

7. Bake in oven for 25-30 mins until golden brown:

8. Serve with anything you like (spaghetti, sauce, veggies)
I served mine atop a steamed veggie mash with peas and spinach:

With a little salsa over the top:

Yum!
Breakfast, lunch, dinner and no sign of pre-packaged convenience foods!
Have a great day! :D

Winner, winner chicken(less) dinner!

It's pretty obvious (judging by the number of recipes) that breakfast is my favourite meal of the day. Dinner is probably my least favourite.
Usually, I've come home from school, or wherever, have done some homework and want a simple esy dinner, like roast veggies, a mixed veggie mash or even just eggs on toast.
So I sometimes get a surprise when my creative pants stay on that little bit longer and I make a truly awesome (delicious) dinner!
Some recent ones include:

A baked sweet potato with a side of chili pesto pasta, steamed greens and cannellini beans topped with some vegan cheese (heated in microwave for 30 seconds)
Super colourful, veggie-filled and more importantly mout-wateringly good!

* Sorry about the awful pictures (automatic flash alert!) but dinner is at night time, night equals no natural light and light box is too far for my lazy body to walk ;)
I still think it looks pretty yum!

My other super good dinner was... a hot dog! Of course knowing me, I changed it up a bit!

My 'hot-dog' dinner turned out to be a spelt hot-dog bun with some hommus, spinach and tomato, topped with one of these awesome vegan sausages and some salsa!

On the side was some roasted potato and celeriac and also a pumpkin mash with spinach and the other sausage I cooked up, torn apart.

Again, the horrible photograph does it no favours at all, but trust me when I say it was good!

Now I need to get back to my simple-pimple dinner of roast veggies and quinoa (that I'm preparing at 4:45pm) so dinner will be ready when I come back from Zumba! (7:30pm) Does anyone else love cold roast veggies?
I hope everyone had a good Monday and it's not long now until holidays! (for me at least;) :D

Aussie Day Barbeque! Carrot Sausages :)

Hi there friends!

In case you hadn't realised, or in fact, live in another country, yesterday- the 26th of January- marked the founding of the colony of New South Wales in 1788... in other words; AUSTRALIA DAY!

 And if there is one guaranteed tradition on Australia day... it is the great Aussie barbie! (Barbecue, for all you out of the Aussie slang loop ;)

Ok, I'll stop bombarding you with random pics of strangers celebrating Aus day and instead get onto the topic of this post.

BARBECUES!

See, as a vegetarian, I have found some really great veggie sausages over my years, whether they be made with soy, beans, mushrooms, rice, lentils- whatever the case may be I've had some good ones. However, there comes a time when a girl simply craves something as close to nature as possible. And no, I'm not talking about meat. Because when one does not eat meat, one substitutes in something else...

Yep, you guessed it- veggies!

But what would be the right shape and texture and general appealing-ness of a regular sausage??

Yes, my friends, I made carrot sausages... and they were delicious!

I first came across this genius idea from Clean Eating Veggie Girl's blog where she made carrot hotdogs by steaming some carrots, rubbing them in a marinade and then pan frying them.

So I decided to act upon that idea and transform it into my own carrot 'hot dog'.

Carrot Sausages

Ingredients:
2 medium carrots, peeled and cut on both ends to form the most sausage like shape
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 teaspoons white vinegar
1 teaspoon garlic
1 teaspoon onion flakes
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line a tray with baking paper
2.Heat some water in a deep fry pan until simmering
3. Place the carrots into the simmering water and boil for around 15 minutes until slightly tender
4. Meanwhile stir together the oil, garlic, onion flakes, paprika, vinegar until combined
5. Remove cots from water, pat dry with a tea towel and place on tray
6. Rub with oil mixture and place in the oven for 40 minutes or until golden and tender:

7. Leave to cool slightly and then transfer to plate/ bun and enjoy!!

This is what my Australia Day barbecue dinner turned out to look like:

Carrot sausages on a spelt bun with lettuce and salsa with some spinach, grilled eggplant and charred corn on the side- so tasty!

I also cannot describe the amazing aromas from these 'sausages' as they cooked and if I closed my eyes and bit into this hot dog I would have a hard time accepting them to be merely cooked carrots!

Next time you want a barbecue but not the heaviness of meat? Try one of these bad boys! Still full on flavour with all the goodness of a regular ol' carrot!!

Your turn:
Are you a fan of barbecues?
Favourite veg to barbecue with?
Ever tried carrot sausages?

That's it from me today folks, I hope you all have a brilliant day, take risks, show love and SMILE! Bye for now!! :D

Food Heaven

Could you excuse me for a minute.
Thanks, I was just trying to come back down to Earth after some floating around in food heaven! :)
It all started with a new find (it's probably been there for a while! But it's a new find for me) at the grocery store:

Linda McCartney's vegetarian (vegan friendly too!) sausages!
They went into a cheap white bread hot-dog bun...
You don't believe me do you?
Ok, they went into a GINORMOUS salad! Yum!

I think there was everything and anything I could find chucked into this bowl!
There was oven roasted potatoes, steamed carrot and beetroot, peas and corn, chopped capsicum, chopped avocado, drained and rinsed lentils, kale, spinach and 2 vegetarian sausages, crisped up and golden-i-fied in a fry pan with some olive oil! That's it. :)

Super tasty, and with the addition of these wonder sausages- it wasn't plain at all!
It was just huge :)

With lots of pretty colours:

And even though I am a HUGE veggie fan- this guy stole the show!

It tasted meaty- which was a little scary, I must admit- but not exactly like meat (confused?) it was really well seasoned and had AWESOME texture! YOU.MUST.TRY.THIS!

I wasn't out of food heaven yet though, breakfast brought me right on back!
I was flicking through different blog's recipe pages and came across Katie's recipe for voluminous oats. My tummy went 'Yes, please!' It looked totally delicious and just like Katie, I prefer my oats cold rather than hot too!
But, unfortunately it was already morning.
I never let small obstacles get in my way though!
I jumped out of bed and created my own version!
Ingredients:
1/2 cup of oats
1 tablespoon chia seeds
1 tablespoon LSA mix
1 teaspoon coconut butter (optional) and
1 very thinly sliced banana
1 cup (maybe more) milk of choice (I used oat)
Method:
1. Place everything in a saucepan . I let it sit and bubble for a few mins, then whisked away until the banana disappeared. It was still pretty runny (but still gloopy) but I poured it into a shallow bowl and placed in the fridge for about half an hour, stirring about every 10 mins.
VOILA!

Super creamy, super thick! Oh. My. Word :)
In the background you can see a batch of some home-made peanut butter granola!
Take a handful of muesli and some multi-grain cheerios (optional) and place in a bowl with a splash of milk and 1 teaspoon peanut butter (or any nut butter). Place in microwave for 20 seconds, rub into muesli, bake on baking tray in oven (180 degrees celsius) for 10 mins. Crumble with fingers, leave to cool slightly.
I then transferred my AWESOME oats to a pretty mug:

 Added a splash of soy milk:

And some delicious nutty granola:

Holey-Moley! Soooooo good!

Best mug of oats I've ever eaten in my life- and I've eaten a few!

I loved the textures. I loved the flavours. I loved the temperature. I LOVED this brekky! The oats were unbelievably creamy:

 Paired with delicious crunchy peanutty granola:

Food Heaven.

I hope you all have a fabulous week- maybe we will see each other in food heaven! It's a pretty good place!
:D