Food: why do you have to be so awesome?

Hi my name is Stephanie and I love food.
Hi Stephanie
Wow, that sounds familiar (cough cough)

 Yeh ok, I know...
Anyway- food is just soooo amazing! The way it tastes, smells, feels, looks, and the things that happen when you combine these features, or heat them up, or whip them or bake them or fry them or chop them or... ok you get the picture.
While I was making some meals recently I noticed all of the different things I did to my foods to make something new and exciting and create great flavours etc.

Like with a green smoothie; it's super simple to make, but it's the things you add together and the fact that you blend it right up that make it so tasty! I mean I wouldn't want to eat a bite of bana and then a bite of kale and them sprinkle some chia seeds into my mouth!

 And granola- by first creating a muesli by combining oats, raisins, and nuts and then rubbing in nut butter and baking in the oven you've created s masterpiece.

And further still, combining the two textures of crunchy and smooth and also nutty and sweet, you've got a party right there in your mouth.

I thought about oast and they intrigued me further- raw oats are great, but then adding a liquid and heating them up to create oatmeal- totally different! Then adding flavours and textures... well lets just say breakfast looks pretty inviting:

Chocolate steel cut oats with a side of PB+J yoghurt
Don't even get me started on the beauty of whipping up your own flavoured yoghurts- I'll just show you:

(greek yoghurt, frozen berries and peanut butter)

I've got to say though, it's breads that fascinate me the most- loaves, pizza doughs, flat breads, you name it- I think they're awesome!
So I experimented at dinner last night to create my own little flat bread... wheat free... grain free!

Whazzed up some yellow and green split peas, until I could sieve out some flour, added some chickpea flour and mixed.

Along with some olive oil, chopped chili, crushed garlic and torn basil and water until I got this:

(naturally green from the split peas :)
Flatten it out and place it on a hot non stick pan- flip when golden:

Y-U-M!
So I don't know why this sudden thought of how awesome food is and how far we have come to creating delicious meals with the use of all the things mentioned in my intro, but I'm just glad humans eat food (I guess I'm thankful we're not robots?) and that we also have creativity to make said food special!:)

I'm also super glad it's the weekend and hope everyone has a fabulous one! :D

The running debacle

Running.
Everyone seems to have an opinion about it for some reason.
You love it or you hate it and I mean LOVE it or HATE it with a passion.
If you didn't pick up from previous posts (which is valid as I don't talk too much about my running) I LOVE it. There is nothing else in the world that makes me feel the way running does (apart from maybe roller coasters...)
So what happens when a crazy running girl can't run?

I touched on this recently in a previous post, but lets back track...

Running first entered my life last year. Of course I always had to do the compulsory cross countries and all that in primary school (I wasn't very good- I stuck to sprinting), but it was not until mid- high school and starting a blog and reading other blogs that I thought I might try it out for fun!

So I went outside and ran. About 1km but still! I was puffed, but I was happy and already addicted. I ran and ran about 4 times a week sometimes more and increased my distance!

(one of my all-time favourite movies)

There are so many positives:

I was fit

My legs were toned

I could buy cool workout clothes...

but those aren't the reasons I run- they were just the bonuses.

I don't run to look good or brag to my friends. Although...

I definitely don't do it to impress people while I'm out running, however there are a few other reasons for that:

I also believe:

 So instead I:

I run because it makes me happy. I feel good and it's one of my ways of dealing with stress. I found the exercise I love and I do it.

Right at the moment though I've done something to my leg (a runners condition- of course- where one of my muscles is taking all of the strain because I have weaker hips or something) and I simply cannot run.
Of course I'm devastated and initially tried to force myself through the pain, but I knew deep down this wasn't healthy behaviour and my body was simply trying to give me a sign that it's break time.

Initially I was not totally ok with it and my mind sometimes slipped into negative thoughts like;
'You'll lose your fitness and everything else you've gained'
and if I walk for a bit or doing other exercises I might think;
'This is doing nothing- you're not even sweating.'
I know that I'm being silly, but you can't escape your own mind.

I do actually know that exercise doesn't have to make you slip over from your sweat to be effective and I know I'll regain my fitness-. I know my body needs a break and I'm ok with it, I just hope I can get back to my soothing stride soon! (Hey, hey alliteration ;)

I just thought I might share this on this wonderful Thursday, to Think Out Loud, along with the wonderful Amanda from Running with Spoons and everyone else linking up!

Any thoughts/ questions/ personal experiences are welcomed with open-arms!
Have a great rest of your week! (almost the weekend!)
:D

WIAW #17 Quick.. but oh so delicious!

Wowza this has been a whirlwind of a week. I don't feel like I've had much down time at all! Homework, school production, flute lessons, yoga classes, extremely long walks (to calm my restless legs that are itching for running!) and did I mention homework?
So when times like this happen, food preparation and time spent in the kitchen unfortunately decreases. I hate eating food that doesn't taste good though and having a cup of instant noodles just won't satisfy- so I make sure that whilst my meals may be quick and easy.. the taste absolutely awesome!
Here's a glimpse into a day-in-the-life:

Brekky:

Simple-pimple whipped banana rolled oats, made with banana, chia, oats and topped off with a generous drizzle of almond butter:)

With a delightful side of mango fro-yo!

Lunch:

 A really random salad of roasted celeriac wedges (made the night before) cooked millet, capsicum, spinach, bean sprouts and lemon juice. (I just threw stuff together.. it was quite tasty:)

Snack:

 A fuji apple with a glass of soy milk and a crazy straw (It always tastes better with a crazy straw!)

Dinner:
A delicious dinner whipped up in 15 mins:

 An omelette made with two eggs, 1/2 teaspoon garlic, nutritional yeast and some rice milk, poured into pan, left to almost set then topped with sauteed mushrooms, basil, tomatoes and pine nuts and folded in half for a few mins :)

 With a side of steamed greens and a brown rice cup:)

That was one good omelette!

What did you eat Wednesday?
Do you like quick and easy meals... are they still delicious?

See you all next time! :D

BREAKING NEWS!

And in breaking news.....
I HAVE INTERNET AGAIN!
So, yeh... I really only had no internet for 2 days, but 2 days was long enough to remind me just how much I rely on it!
Whenever I had a question I couldn't jump onto google. I couldn't talk to my buddies on iMessage. I couldn't do homework that required internet. I couldn't read blogs in the wee hours of the morning and I couldn't blog! I missed you guys!
What's more- heaps has been happening!

I ate a lot of good food:

Cinnamon steel cut oats in an almost empty jar of cashew butter and a side of frozen berry yoghurt (whazzed up in my mini food processor)

A baked sweet potato, fluffed up and drizzled with almond butter with a side of steamed greens, salsa and 2 poached eggs.

Frozen mango whazzed up with greek yoghurt topped with raw granola, sliced bananas and blueberries.

A mega stuffed wholemeal pita pocket (stuffed with a torn up veggie burger, sauteed mushrooms, chopped avocado, capsicum, tomatoes, spinach, hommus and salsa) and a side of fries (half a large potato cut into fries and drizzled with a little olive oil- baked at 180 degrees celsius for 30 mins)

And lastly an old favourite- AB+banana toastie with strawberries whazzed up with greek yoghurt.

In other news, on Thursday I went for my typical morning run, when I felt this niggling pain in my knee, I kept going thinking it would wear off and instead got worse and worse, where I had to stop after 5 minutes of running. I could hardly walk down stairs after that and my leg was really stiff so I went to the physio and after a painful massage and a few exercises, he said to stop running this week and do some exercises at home to strengthen other muscles so this doesn't happen again (apparently this type of thing is very common in runners). So yeh, I've been going a bit insane without my runs but I've made do with swimming laps at a leisure center and some purely twins workouts.

The other reason we rushed to go see the physio was because I was dancing in our school's performances of Cloud Street.  I'm a scary ghost-girl. See:

 Tis' me on the right (the left if you are looking at it- the one with brown hair!;) and my lovely duo partner on the left :)

Me doing a leap
 
As you cane see, lots happening and lots of fabulous blog posts coming up- isn't internet a great thing?
Now I'm off to go catch up on everything I've missed!
Ta ta for now! :D

END OF THE WORLD!

Hi guys, I have bad news.
Like the worst news ever.
On a catastrophic scale.....
Our internet has broken somehow. duh duh DUH!

Right now I'm blogging outside on the bonnet of my mum's car with a portable wi-if thingo and have a limited amount of usage.
Hopefully we will have internet by Friday(yes. F.R.I.D.A.Y!)
Bear with me ( it's been one day and life has already been tough) but blogging may be a bit on the low this week!
Thanks for understanding.. Or not... I won't be able to tell without any internet! See you soon!

Bye bye July!

July's gone and we are officially in August! Can you believe it!?!
I posted a lot in July (mainly because half of it was holidays!) and had some interesting thoughts/eats/nope that's it..

So let's have a look at the month that was...

July started out with me freaking out about having the very scientific illness, orange-itis 

I had a fabulous lunch at the Raw kitchen and did a restaurant review

 I had a few good recipes:

De-constructed cheesecake

Coconut butter

Berry dough boy smoothie

I though out loud a few times:

Vegans eat lettuce

 

Skinny=Happy

And even created a secret project- which is not so secret any more:

 

My inspiration wall!

And that was pretty much July! Lots of food, lots of craziness and lots of fun! Can't wait to see what's in store for August!

Bye for now! :D