Thinking out loud- Life's positives and negatives!

Hello friends! It's Thursday, meaning I get to  jump straight into my weekly brain dump! Boy have I got a lot on my mind!

Thanks to the wonderful spoons for an awesome link-up!

Lettuce begin!

1. Remaining on the happy positive news.. guess who can run (a little bit) again!

No, not this guy.... ME! It took about 9 weeks to fully recover from my super tight ITB's- resulting in runner's knee and also 9 weeks to strengthen my hips, but I can now run for 10 minutes with not pain (this is big guys) I have to remember to go slow and eventually I will be back up to running 20-25k'S a day week ;)

2. This brings me back to my next point. I am very much a workout in the early morning kinda gal. I love the vibe I get for the rest of my day and not having to worry about it if I come home tired from school. This is pretty much how I managed to run the distances I was:

3. I want to talk about food now (best. segway. ever.) more importantly this:

This made me smile and I hope it does the same for you too.
4. With food now on the brain- the most frequently asked question I get as a vegetarian is not How do you live? Or where do you get your protein? It is actually; How did you give up bacon?
I googled bacon and saw that there is practically a religion devoted to it.
I mean I liked bacon when I ate meat and all, but honestly I found it too salty and I felt a bit like a dog just chewing my way through a piece. So the most common answer I give to that question is 'Quite easily actually.'
I'm not gonna pretend that we live in a world where everyone agrees with me (that would be boring awesome) because as I've recently found out we live in this kind of world:

5. On the topic of our world's loves, wheat flour is definitely one of them. It's unquestionably our flour of choice and I'm not too sure why. I actually prefer the taste of spelt flour and other flours like chickpea flour and almond flour are a lot more nutritious. I guess wheat and corn are mass produced and widely accepted, but it does make it hard for those of us who can only have it in small amounts, or not at all.

6. On the bright side, with the numerous other flours available out there, I can still enjoy pancakes! Without the wheat!
Does anyone else cut there pancakes into shapes when they eat them?

I seriously believe triangles taste better :P

7. Unfortunately no amount of alternative-to-wheat flours can save me when having to chop up a whole pumpkin:

I was literally like; 'Die, die, die!' as I was trying to axe my way through this beautiful kabocha.
Must have worked:

And yes, I did follow that small victory by parading around the house singing;  'We are the champions!' Even the small victories require a happy dance/song/ march around the house belting out a Queen song.

8. Aaannd that's about everything buzzing around in my head this week! Head on over to Spoons to see what others are thinking out loud about, or link up a post yourself- They are quite fun to write!

Bye for now folks! :D

WIAW #25

Welcome, wacky, warm blooded, weirdos (sorry ran out of w words) to the weekly, wonderful Wednesday, wonderland of WIAW!
Thanks Peas and Crayons for the wicked link-up!

What an intro eh'?
Ok, moving on... to the eats!
After doing this little workout (gotta keep my legs strong for running... NO MORE INJURIES!!!) I was more than ready for breakfast, my favourite meal of the day:

Almost forgot to snap a picture of this one (note the few bites missing) as my memory card was still in the computer. Quick sprint inside, then back out (I had ice cream people!) and snappy-snap-snap!

Chocolate steel cut oats, with a few cacao nibs thrown in:

 Cashew butter ice cream:

1 tablespoon cashew butter + 1chopped frozen banana whazzed in the food processor (scraping down sides) until smooth :)

Filled and fueled for the day I did some blog stuff, cleaned the pool (took a good couple of hours!) then went grocery shopping for some much needed veggies! By the time I arrived back home it was 12:45pm and I was Hangry!

This must have been the fastest, while at the same time still filling, lunch I've ever thrown together (that wasn't a microwave pie!)

Cous cous with carrot, peas, corn, tomato, avocado and a torn up veggie something or other I picked up at the shops. Whatever it was it was good- kind of like falafel :)

Snack:
For the rest of the afternoon I went about baking some cookies and a red velevt cake for the family whilst watching the Hunger Games (don't you just love holidays?)

 Cookies based off this recipe

 Check out how red it is!

Red velvet cake based off this recipe

After all that baking, I was ready for a snack:

 2 small kiwifruits with some black grapes and a glass of soy milk ;)

And yes, if you're wondering, that is my printer that my snack is on as it has the best light at 4:00pm in the afternoon!

Dinner:
Dinner was easy-peasy simple-pimple with some steamed veggies (sweet tater, tater, pumpkin, kabocha, swede, beetroot and parsnip) along with some toasted sesame seeds and pine nuts, dried cranberries, lentils, spinach and chili tofu:

 You can't really see all the other stuff because I did it in layers and the top layer happened to be steamed veg ;)

Quite tasty!

What did you eat on this fine Wednesday?
What's your go-to-quick-to-put-together meal?
What is your favourite word starting with W ;)

See ya later guys! :D
Don't forget to check out what everyone else is nom-ing!

French toast

Hello, hello! How have we all been good? Did you have a good brekky? Are you super full with a little smile playing across your lips?
Or is that just me?

When I was looking through some blogs, I came across the athletic avocado and this amazing french toast recipe. I knew I would be making that in the very near future.

Very near future:

I made a few tweaks to the recipe to suit my own tastes and also what I had on hand.
Here is what I did:

Ingredients:
2 slices of bread (I used my home-made wholemeal spelt bread)
1 mashed banana
1 big scoop of nut butter (I used cashew butter)
1 egg
1/3 cup of milk (I used almond milk)
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (plus extra for sprinkling at the end)

Method:
1. Using a rolling pin roll out your bread slices so they are thinner and longer. I placed mine between some paper towel, but it got kind of stuck- so if you have a better way please let me know.
2. Whisk together in a small bowl the egg, milk and cinnamon:

3. Set up your work station: So organised!

 Bread spread with cashew butter and banana:

 Egg mixture at the ready:

 Right next to a pre-heating fry-pan sprayed lightly with oil

4. After spreading on the nut butter then banana, carefully roll up and squish down slightly to seal.
5. Place in egg mixture bowl and turn to coat. Immediately place in frypan and do the same with the other slice of bread:

I would recommend placing the opening down on the poan first to seal it even better. Then keep turning with tongs or a spatual for a few minutes until golden brown all over.
6. Remove from pan and lightly sprinkle with extra cinnamon! Voila!

I served mine with some berry fro-yo (a handful of frozen berries whazzed up with 3 scoops of greek yoghurt:

Now I was never really a fan of french toast, I always thought it tasted kind of funny. That might have been because my parents didn't really eat it or make it when I was younger, so when I went to a friends house for a sleepover and had it for breakfast, my eyes were opened to the yumminess that is french toast. I just haven't made it since then (maybe 4 years ago) but now that has been resolved!

I love that they're roll-ups and not your typical french toast slice of bread.. makes eating them so much more fun!

This was a sad, yet utterly enjoyable last bite..

Also I would say the only way to truly enjoy this is to have an eating companion. Preferably one who stands 30cm away and whines at you.

No, sorry Ash... but don't you remember?

I think french toast will definitely bve making an appearance very soon on this blog again.. maybe a vegan version! Or a pumpkin one... or berry.. or choc coconut.. oh my goodness the possibilites are endless!

Do you like french toast?
Do you like to share food?

Kabocha obsessions

Hi friends! As you all know I go through periods of obsessions.
There was the pesto obsession: (still pretty evident)

 A cookie obsession (cookies for brekky is always a good idea :)

Don't even get me started on my smoothie jars!

So it will probably come as no surprise to you that I have recently found a new obsession.

Hello kabocha!

It was love at first bite when the amazing pumpkin first appeared on my plate in this post  and it has only been a week but here are other dinners I've enjoyed very recently:

 Roasted kabocha, rosemary potatoes, steamed broccoli+ salsa and steamed artichoke with nutritional yeast:

Roasted kabocha, steamed brussels sprouts, roasted carrot and potato, a magnificently ripe tomato and egg something or other and some more tomato on the side:

 I generally pride myself in mixing up my dinners, not having the same thing over and over... well... I guess with my new love of kabocha and sudden crazy veggie cravings, that's all changed this past week. :)

Cold roasted kabocha (tastes even better cold!) and potatoes and beetroot (roasted at lunch for dinner) with a big bed of spinach, topped with more deliciously yummy vine-ripened tomato and a torn up veggie sausage:)

I'm just a little bit curious as to what my next big obsession will be. Anyone want to hazard a guess?
I have no clue but in the meantime I've bought myself a whole new kabocha squash to enjoy this week ;)

What have you been craving/ eating in copious amounts recently?
Do you like kabocha? (don't tell me if you don't! Just kidding :)
Do you sometimes have the same thing over and over again? What is it?

Bye for now! :D