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

The Changing of taste buds?

Hello friendly friends!
Today I want to talk about something that truly perplexes me. Something that makes my brain hurt and keeps me questioning. How can one day I wake up and hate avocado and the next day love it? The same goes for mushrooms, pasta bakes, zucchini and olives.

Please explain!

I blame these little guys:

No that's not a pic of something from a coral reef- that's your taste buds people! And boy are they confusing little things!

Apparently you not only grow out of hating on certain foods (seriously- I was crazy to dislike avocado) you can also retrain them!
So your taste buds have a life cycle where they start as basic cells, develop into taste cells and die- all in a matter of around 10 days- 2 weeks! Nuts! (Something else I wasn't always a fan of!)
Makes sense about the re-training part. It also answers a lot of questions that constantly get thrown my way:

'Don't you miss meat?'
'How can you not eat sugar?'
'You can't seriously like the taste of spinach?'

 Nope, I don't miss meat because I haven't had it in about 4 years... so my current taste buds have never come across it's taste before.

I don't eat/ crave sugar because I stopped eating it a while ago- it was hard at first but after about a month I forgot how much I loved it and now most sweet foods taste too sweet for me.

Yes, yes I do like the taste of spinach. Never did as a child, but after eating it almost daily for around 2 years straight, it's started to grow on me (metaphorically)

Maybe I can simplify my answers down a little though...

My taste buds have changed.

 My life as a person who eats food (I know- weird) started with a preference for raw fruit and veg for every snack and toasted sandwiches/ vegemite sandwiches for lunch and whatever meat and veg was on my plate for dinner.

They used to call me bugs bunny because I would just walk around the house chewing on a whole carrot.

In my pre-teen stage I got into the junk food a bit more. Juice/ ice tea over water, chips, chocolate, lollies, biscuits, sprinkle sandwiches (yes as I got older I had sprinkle sandwiches) muffins, cookies- the list goes on and on- because that's what all my friends were eating.

 Things took a turn upon entering 13-14 years of age and now I prefer whole foods, a large variety of them- lots of veggies (cooked/ uncooked) and some health-i-fied versions of my old favourites. (Nachos, pizza, burgers etc.)
 

Black bean veggie burger

That's where my taste buds be at now- I can't handle too much sweet/ salt because I just don't have it too often. Because I've re-trained my taste buds.

I think this is what stumps some people when trying to like a new food/ trying to cut back on one they like too much and may not be the best for them in terms of health.
Persistence is key and when you think about it, it really only takes a few weeks to change a preference.

If two weeks is still too long, apparently burning your tongue kills taste buds too. Hot coffee/ tea/ chocolate for everyone! (Ok, no, I'm not going to endorse that!)

Fun fact before I leave:
You can't actually see your taste buds- the lumpy things on your tongue are called fungiform papillae with six taste buds buried inside it's surface tissue. Yeah.

So this is me thinking out loud!  Head on over to Spoons (creator of this awesome link-up!) for more great thinking!

Bye friends! :D

WIAW #32

It's the age old question isn't it?

Perplexes us all.
Not to fear though, it's Wednesday! A day nice and centered in between everything! It also happenes to be WIAW! Woot! A day of food lovin' and sharing! Let's hop to it!
Thanks as always Peas and Crayons for this amazing link-up:)

Breakfast:
After a dried fig and a dried date I set off at round 6:00am for a lovely long run before returning to make myself a delicious big bowl of green smoothie and almond butter granola:

The green smoothie was 1 chopped frozen banana + half a big juicy mango + 3 scoops greek yoghurt + 2 big handfuls (spinach and kale) + sprinkle of chia seeds + dash of almond milk- whazzed!

The awesome nutty granola on top was 1/2 cup muesli (plus some wholegrain cheerios) mixed with some milk and almond butter (which was slightly heated in the microwave) and baked at 180 degrees celsius for 15 mins:

Perfectly refreshing and unbelievably delicious!

Snack:
For my snacky snack at 11:00am at school was PEAS! Love peas :)

Lunch: 1:40pm (thanks school!)
Yes, this is a recycled photo, but I forgot to snap a pic and it was quite similar. (except for quinoa and eggplant) It was a salad with capsicum, tomato and spinach etc. with two hard boiled eggs:

Snack:
To keep me going at 4:00pm I cut up a granny smith apple, tossed on some grapes and washed it down with a glass of soy milk- happy Steph!

Why is fruit so yummy?

Same goes for soy milk- although it is a taste that had to grow on me.

Dinner:
At 6:45pm I sat down to this magnificent bowl of goodness:

Whole wheat pasta, steamed veggies (pumpkin, parsnip, sweet potato and swede) sauteed mushrooms and spinach, with some hommus and nutritional yeast stirred in for a delicious 'cheezy' sauce :)

Close up:

I was still a little hungry (yes, even after that big bowl!) I blame thank my run, so had a small handful of raw mixed nuts and then made my way upstairs, before running back down to grab my camera and snap a pic of the sky:

So pink and so lovely!

How about you?
What did you eat this Wednesday?
Is 1:40pm a ridiculous time for lunch or what?
Do you ever get blown away by magnificent sunsets/ rises? (I seriously have bucket loads of pics of sunsets on my memory card... I think I'll do a post on them later ;)

Don't forget to suss out what everyone else has been nom-ing over at Peas and Crayons!

Catch ya later! :D

Winners in dinners

Hi there! What's crack-a-lacking? Ok I'll stop with the Madagascar quotes :) and maybe start on this post...
Lunches may come in plastic containers full of deliciousness, but dinners appear on plates and bowls, full of even more deliciousness!
This past week I've wanted simple. I've wanted healthy. I've wanted veggie-filled. Most of all I've wanted YUM!
So that's what I made:

I was feeling the plain wholemeal pasta (does anyone else like plain jane pasta?) and decided some roast veggies would pair quite nicely with it. Also some added peas and spinach couldn't hurt, right?

I just like all the pretty colours in true honesty:)

Wednesday I was cr-aaaaaaving a veggie burger. Not so much the bun and lettuce and tomato sauce.. but the patty nonetheless! So I steamed up some pumpkin, parsnip, sweet potato, potato and swede along with roasting some broccoli and brussels sprouts, fried up a mild curry veggie patty and mixed it altogether with a few spoons of hommus on top for good measure:

Craving satisfied!

Thursday night being yoga night, means a dinner that's filling, fast and delicious... enter breakfast for dinner: (seeing as I don't actually eat stuff like this for brekky!)

  Wholemeal spelt toast, pumpkin seed whole wheat toast topped with vegemite, avocado and a poached egg with a side of baked beans and sauteed mushrooms atop spinach.
Can you tell there's two different breads? ;)
Pile it all on!

Of course I saved the best til last... the best being my favourite dinner ever.
Can you guess?

Clue #1 It involved pesto:

Clue #2 It involved vegan cheese:

Clue # 3 It was topped with steamed beetroot, parsnip and sweet potato, along with chopped red onion, capsicum, tomato, mushrooms and olives

Got it? Ok the last one may have been a bit of a throw off because I top my pizza with weird things.

Well, now you know what it is.

I didn't even show you clue #5 yet! Pumpkin pizza dough!

All rolled out and topped to the max!

Then baked to perfection (about 25 mins at 180 degrees celsius) and claiming the position of last weeks best dinner! :)

 Yum! I love doughy pizza! I mean thin crust... what's the point?

 Pizza makes me smile.

Nom.

Talk to me!
What's your favourite dinner. Ever. ?
What was the best dinner you had last week?
What did you/ have you had for dinner today?

Bye for now folks! :D

My thoughts on juice

Hi friendly friends!
Who here likes juice? A fair few of you right?
I used to L.O.V.E juice. I would drink glasses upon glasses of orange juice every day and if it wasn't orange juice it was peach ice tea. Like what even is water? (it makes me cringe to think of the masses of sugar I would have drunk each day)
When I had to pull back on added sugars, the only drinks I drank were water (Now I love water!) and soy milk and I just sort of forgot about juice. Then one day I found an old friend sitting idly in the fridge section of the supermarket.

Nudie juices!

No added sugar and all natural ingredients- it's seriously just fruit and veg... the way juice should be!
So I've been enjoying these on occasion when I feel the urge for juice.

Where am I going with this? Well the other day this guy crossed my line of vision and I went over to go check him out...

The front of him impressed, as did the back:

 So I threw him into the trolley.
A few days ago I was feeling the juice vibe and also chocolate (because when am I not feeling chocolate?) I put some rolled oats, raw cacao powder, chia seeds, cinnamon, choc protein powder and a banana into a saucepan with some oat milk and let that cook and cool for 10mins and then took my bowl of oats (topped generously with some almond butter) and new find up to my breakfast spot outside.

 Whilst checking out the back (well, photographing it for you guys) I noticed it said:
Servings per package: 2
Does this not bug anyone else? Who's going to buy a small juice bottle that size and go- boy, there is definitely 2 serves in this guy!
Silly serving sizes. I think I may ignore this one... or so I thought.

This is how much I could manage.
On first gulp, I was like 'Hmm, this is interesting.' Then it slid down my throat and left it's interesting after taste for my taste buds to fully consider.
Long story short- it was gross.
It tasted way too green (I know it's a green juice!) and seriously hurt my taste buds. My entire mission in life is to create ridiculously healthy foods that taste even more ridiculously yummy. This guy didn't fit the bill.

I was just thankful I had big spoonfuls of warm, gooey chocolatey oatmeal to help me out. :)

Moral of the story? I really like oatmeal.

That and I think I'll stick to nudie juice on the rare occasions the want for juice strikes.

Also green smoothies taste 1000x better than green juices in my opinion. Check out this one I made recently:

Most awkward hand positioning ever, I know- I didn't want to make a shadow :)

This was a green rhubarb smoothie- idea from this post.

It was one stick of chopped frozen rhubarb, 1 chopped frozen banana, a handful of kale, a handful of spinach, 3 scoops of greek yoghurt and a splash of oat milk all whazzed up until smooth.

What's that peeking in on the side?

Yes I drank my green smoothie along with a side of whipped banana oats ;)

What about you?
Do you like juice?
Do you make your own juice?
Do you pay attention to ridiculous serving sizes?

Until next time...
Bye! :D