The smoothie bowls are back in town!

Hi folks, how are we all today? I'm pretty fabulous because it's almost Summer here in Aus. The good fruit is coming back in season. The bright sun is warming up the place and I've been craving smoothies like it's no body's business. Especially smoothie bowls!

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I started this blog back when it was Summer, so if you're a long term reader, you've probably seen a few of these bowls... however they seemed to disappear for a bit in winter in favour of my warm comforting oats!

Don't believe me? Here's a look at the past few weeks:

Cannot get enough!
This is my kind of cereal and milk!

All the granola in the pics are home made and you can find lots of different recipes for them on the blog here, here, here, here and here!
There are also heaps of different smoothie recipes on my recipe page:) So get cracking on those smoothie bowls. It sure does beat soggy flakes of processed stuff in bland milk!

I am not a creature of eating the same thing day-in-day-out, so I either change up the smoothie.. or change up the granola. Usually just the flavour of the granola, but the other day I changed it's very form!

My smoothie base consisted of 1 chopped banana (didn't have any frozen ones left) a handful of mixed frozen berries, a big handful of spinach, 3 big scoops of greek yoghurt and a splash of almond milk all whazzed up in a blender until smooth. Poured into a bowl and placed in the freezer until ready to eat.
I wasn't ready yet because I was making my granola.. balls:

:)
All I did was make a typical granola (1/2 cup muesli in a bowl with 1/3 cup almond milk and 1 tablespoon of peanut butter heated together in microwave and then rubbed into muesli) and formed into balls, before baking in oven at 180 degrees celsius for 15 mins until golden. Left to cool slightly because you don't want a warm smoothie!

 It's like the breakfast version of meatballs in sauce :D

Ok, probably not the best comparison, but you have to admit they look quite similar ;)

Before I go I wanted to leave you with a smoothie no bowl included that was absolutely fabulous and that you should make right away (It would work wonderfully in a smoothie bowl too :)

 This was 1 chopped frozen banana + 1 handful of frozen red grapes + 3 scoops of greek yoghurt (omit if vegan- or sub in vegan yoghurt) a splash of almond milk (it all depends on how thick you want your smoothie)

 It's extremely creamy and makes you question whether or not you added ice cream to the mix! Seriously, if I hadn't made this myself I would be interrogating the maker to prove there was no cream/ ice cream- frozen bananas are amazing!

Y-U-M

Your turn!
What's your favourite smoothie?
Do you like green smoothie? I know some people get freaked out by them- not me!
Smoothie bowls- best things ever or what?

Bye for now friends! :D

The midday meal

Lunch.
A hard topic that one.
It's not breakfast and it's not dinner, so you can't have solely breakfast foods or dinner foods. It's kinda got to be a mix of the two.
For some people. If I want pancakes for lunch I'll have em'! This past week however I've had some pretty great containers of lunch! (Tupperware is a saviour when packing food for school!)

This yummy looking box was quinoa, raw veg (carrot, capsicum, red onion, corn and tomato), with a parsley and coriander pesto-y thing (few sprigs coriander, few sprigs flat leaf parsley, a small spoon of dijon mustard, pinch of cumin, lots of spinach, olive oil and some lemon juice- all whazzed up in a food processor)

I felt a bit more like the veg of the cooked variety after that and so made a roast veg salad thing with roast carrot, potato, sweet potato, pumpkin, beetroot, suede and parsnip mixed with lentils and chili tofu and spinach:

:)

Check out this bit of pumpkin...

Seriously- that is my idea of perfection! Love roast veggies. :)
Weekend lunches have to be my favourite though. More time to make something awesome:

 Grilled sandwich with hommus, mashed pumpkin, spinach, veggie patty, grilled capsicum, eggplant, zucchini and mushroom, with some sliced tomato- all grilled in a sandwich press :D

 Everything that didn't fit in the sandwich! (I was quite hungry)

Nom.
Sunday's lunch:

 A hum-un-go-saurus salad with... drum roll please...
Spinach, kale, parsley, red cabbage, carrot, cucumber, strawberries, peas, corn and 2 torn up veggie sausages.

 No, I didn't even consider if everything would work together. I knew it would ;)

Sometimes I just crave a big bowl of raw veggies!

What would a lunch special be without a big ol' Steph sized sandwich!

 That, my impressed friends, is two slices of home made spelt/rye bread spread with hommus, topped with mashed lentils, spinach, avocado, sliced tomato, purple cabbage, grated carrot, grated beetroot and some cucumber. :)

Give it a hat... and then admire the beautifulness that is this sandwich!

Good thing I was hungry that day.

Wait. I'm always hungry...

Details :)

What about you?
What's your favourite lunch?
To you like big ol' salads?
Do you like putting those big ol' salads between two slices of bread?

See ya later guys! :D

Sunday Morning Scones!

Happy Sunday everyone! I love Sundays- long, relaxing, rhymes with funday... yeah! So in my chipper mood this morning I'm going to spoil you all with the breakfast I spoiled myself with because sharing is caring :)

Scones seem to be a thing now in the blog-o-sphere and I'm all for being with the things, so I decided to create my own version- not the triangular ones I've seen so much of, but the typical round British ones. I added strawberries too. :D

These scones were pretty darn good if I do say so myself. They brought me back to a time when my mum and older sister would whip up a batch (the ingredients were a little different to the ones I used) with some whipped cream and strawberry jam and then we would place the warm scones in the middle of the table and dig in. I never really liked them too much (they weren't sweat- what was the point?) but I would always spread on some butter, wait for it to melt then top with a small scoop of strawberry jam and nibble away.

I guess- linking back to this post- my taste buds must have changed somewhere along the years and I seem to remember the taste of scones and really want them! As always, I listen to my body and go with it. I know, my life is tough.

Strawberry Breakfast Scones
Wheat free, dairy free, vegan, soy free, added sugar free, absolutely delicious
Ingredients:
35g wholemeal spelt flour
25g rolled oats
10g oat bran
1/3 cup milk (I used almond milk) with 1 tablespoon chia seeds mixed in along with 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 banana mashed with a fork
2 large strawberries (3 smaller ones)
Optional- 1 tablespoon added fiber mix (LSA etc.)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line a small baking tray with baking paper, dust with a small amount of flour
2. Mash banana, stir chia seeds into milk with baking powder:

 3. Place the flour, oats, oat bran and optional fibre mix into a bowl and stir to combine

 4. Cut strawberries into small chunks

 5. Add banana and chia mixture to dry mix and stir to combine, then use your hands to mix through strawberry chunks

 6. Roll into balls and flatten slightly

 7. Bake for 10-15 mins, until hard on top and golden

 8. Transfer to baking tray for a few mins

 9. Cut in half and spread with anything you like- I went for generous blobs of almond butter :)

10. EAT! While warm- they taste better :)

 I served mine alongside some banana yoghurt (the other half of the banana whazzed up with 3 big scoops of greek yoghurt)

 These were seriously good. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside.

 They are more dense than regular scones, but that's just because of the different flours and quite frankly I prefer it!

 They sort of look like melting moments, so I guess you could call them melting moment strawberry scones!

 The real reason for the banana yoghurt? To act as the typical cream with scones

 Step 1.

 Step 2.

 Step 3.

 Step 4. NOM!

 T'was a good breakfast. T'was.

How about you?
Do you like scones?
Do you have a favourite type? I'm thinking of making pumpkin scones next
Do you like cream? Never have never will. Too many times has it tricked me into thinking it's ice cream and then left me disappointed!

Bye for now! Enjoy your Sunday! :D

Saturday happenings

Hi everyone!
Just dropping by quickly to recap the past few days and enjoy Saturday! (time to breathe and relax after the business of the week!)

This morning was a nice lazy morning because I could not move. Seriously. Ok- maybe I could move a little, but still. I blame yesterday, volleyball, net ball and hockey all in one day= Steph in a coma. :)

Usually on Saturdays I spend a lot more time in the kitchen at breakfast to make something extraordinary and delicious and a lot more time consuming than week day breakfasts. Today, however I couldn't get a post about oat bran and how adding lots of liquid gives you a big voluminous bowl out of my head and was really craving oat bran because of it!

I didn't realise you could add so much liquid to oat bran and it will still absorb it, resulting in a H.U.G.E bowl of filling oat bran! This bowl was 1/3 cup oat bran with a tablespoon of this fiber mix stuff, a tablespoon raw cacao, a big dash of cinnamon (probably 3-4 normal people dashes) and 1 chopped banana, heated on the stove with 1 cup almond milk and 1 cup water, whisking until thickened to liking.

And of course topped off with a big drizzle of mixed nut and chia butter :)
This was sooo good and sooo filling- all that extra liquid really does make a difference and I loved that I got to eat so much without cooking 1 cup of oat bran!

I ate my big bowl o' oats alongside some kiwi fruit yoghurt (2 kiwifruit, chopped and whazzed with 3 big scoops of greek yoghurt)

So that was good and comforting and made me smile, which was a handy thing... especially after waking up to find this on my leg:

Trust me the light does not do this giant of as bruise any justice. It's huge, it's egg shaped and it hurts! My guess is it happened during hockey last night... but you'd think I would have remembered something that caused a bruise that big!

Now I'm off to enjoy some ginger tea (I literally just put chopped up ginger in hot water), work on some blog posts, read some blog posts, get some study in for my physics, chemistry and English exams!

See you guys later! :D