WIAW #34 All The Yummy Food!

Why hello there! How are we today? Good? Good! I hope you're in a good mood, because it is Wednesday and we're linking up with the WIAW party! WOOP WOOP!

Now these eats may not be my prettiest, or most creative or most photogenic from my past week, but you all know we keeps it real on this blog and if this is what I eat in a day, this is what I'll show the world!
Lettuce begin!
Before brekky I headed out for a 25 min run with a tummy full of a 2 delicious medjool dates.
Upon returning, I was hungry for some real Breakfast!
Breakfast:

Breakfast was nice and big and filling- cinnamon steel cut oats with a side of grape fro-yo.

the oats were simply 1/3 cup steel cut oats with a few big dashes of cinnamon, 1 sliced banana, a sprinkle of chia seeds and 1 cup of oat milk + 1/2 cup water all mixed together in a saucepan and bubbled away for about 15 mins, then left to cool for another 10 or so mins. Topped off with some mixed nut butter.

This grape fro-yo was positively delicious and was super simple- a handful of frozen grapes + 3 big scoops of greek yoghurt, all whizzed up together in a small food processor until smooth.

I love creamy dreamy, cinnamon delicious oats in the morning!
Snack:

As I always seem to have super-duper big breakfasts, I'm never usually very hungry for a snack, but my school has recess at around 11:00am every day and I have a little snack-age then as I wouldn't be able to hold put until 1:00pm (or later!) for the lunch break.
Lunch:
Speaking of lunch...

Today's included some black rice along with some grilled mushrooms, capsicum, corn and zucchini with 2 torn up veggie sausages, spinach and salsa= yum-tacular!

I like looking forward to lunch and always make sure I've packed something filling, veggie-filled and most importantly delicious (generally ending up pretty big). I was definitely super happy to dig in to this packed luncheo.

Snack:
For my afternoon snack I decided to try something a little different and went with.... the exact same as always! Fruit and soy milk!

Nothing gives me energy and satisfies me to dinner like this snack of fruit and soy milk and it's just so yummy!

 3/4 chopped pear, some kiwi fruit and an apricot.

Glass of soy milk

Dinner:
In saying that, I was pretty darn hungry for dinner, wasn't too keen on much cooking and also had a sudden craving for fried eggs.
Enter dinner:

2 fried eggs, mashed pumpkin, beetroot, potato, sweet potato, parsnip and suede with some chili tofu and spinach stirred in after mash-fy-ing the steamed veg.

The egg-ies were just cracked into a slightly heated pan with some olive oil and cooked to my liking (half set/ half runny)

Super simple, but directly on target to what I was feeling. Perfect!

As usual on my run days I'm always extra hungry so I had a small handful of raw mixed nuts after dinner.

That's what I ate!
How about you? What did you eat Wednesday?

Don't forget to head over to Peas and Crayons for a snoop of what others have been eating on this wonderful Wednesday!

Bye for now! :D

Kitchen success stories

Hello, hello!
Don't you love it when you just have a fabulous day in the kitchen. Everything you create in there just turns out super good and yummy and you end up having fabulous meals all day long.
I'm not gonna lie to you guys, this is a rare occasion for me as I do like to experiment and most of the time my experiments are just a little too out there and taste a little... how shall I put it... interesting ;)
Not this day though! This day became one of those once in a blue moon days when everything turned out awesome. Breakfast and lunch in particular.
Breakfast came first...

 You've seen these balls before and they were just as good as the first time, so I was a happy camper. The over flowing yoghurt thing, however was new and soooo good. It reminded me exactly of peach yoghurt, but 1000 x better!

 It was 1 chopped and frozen extra ripe/ extra juicy yellow flesh peach with 1/2 banana and 3 big scoops of greek yoghurt. I whazzed the peach and banana up a bit first in my mini food processor and then added in the greek yoghurt so it was nice and smooth and creamy :)

 Then placed in the freezer with my banana truffles waiting for the truffles to set.

 I couldn't wait very long as I was fairly hungry after my run, so I had not very set truffles... but they were still pretty darn delicious!

 I also ended up having the drink my yoghurt a bit before I could stick the spoon in, so it wouldn't overflow :)

 Nice and filling and delicious- just the way I like it!

 Eaten together= happiness:

So I was fed happy and full of the delicious memory of breakfast for quite a few good hours before the stomach started up again.
I decided a veggie burger was needed.
Not just any veggie burger either. A pesto veggie burger!

The plain burger recipe is pretty much based off this recipe along with a serving of pesto stirred in.

If I can remember correctly I used about 1/2 tin cannelini beans + a few spoons of lentils (both rinsed and heated slightly in microwave) and mashed them up with some sweet potato, garlic, nutritional yeast, peas, corn and pesto and formed into patties. If I had any I would add some bread crumbs, but I didn't :(

I then placed them in the freezer to harden a little bit before chucking them into a hot pan to brown up on each side:

Not really in the mood for a bun (I know, I was in the mood for a patty and not a bun...:) I tore the pesto patties up and threw them into a salad with chopped carrot, capsicum, purple cabbage, cucumber and salsa:

Nom nom :)

Another super simple, yet incredibly delicious kitchen creation for the Steph-i-nator!
Such puurrtty colours :)

There you have it- one of those rare days where everything turns out great. Now we just begin the wait once more for the next one! ;)

Your turn!
Ever had a fabulous day in the kitchen where all your meals turned out great?
Do you like adding greek yoghurt to everything? Is it just me?
Favourite type of veggie burger? I must say I do love black bean burgers and lentil burgers and curry burgers and Moroccan burgers... I like them all!

Bye for now friendly friends! :D

A breakfast recap

Hello everyone!
On this blog, I've said a few times how I'm not a creature of habit, I like to mix things up and rarely have the same thing two days in a row and I'm not lying, however I do seem to have a sort of breakfast rotation starting to happen for some reason, with all of my favourites appearing once in my week.
What's on my rotation?

• A big bowl of oats (rolled/steel cut/ oat bran)
• A PB & banana toastie
• A smoothie with a wholemeal crumpet & nut butter
• Overnight oats (generally in a jar)
• And of course my beloved smoothie bowls

So it may come as a surprise to you to see what kinds of breakfasts appeared in my hot little hands last week...

A wholemeal crumpet with peanut butter!

Smoothie= nudie juice plus some black grapes :)

The next day I did something totally wild and made...

A smoothie bowl!
The smoothie was 1 frozen banana, half a chopped deliciously ripe mango, 3 big scoops of greek yoghurt, a big handful of spinach, a big handful of kale and a splash of almond milk, all whazzed up until smooth:

Topped with some cashew butter granola (1 tablespoon of cashew butter placed in the microwave with 1/3 cup almond milk for 30 seconds- stir then rubbed into 1/2 cup fruity muesli, spread onto baking paper lined tray and baked in oven at 180 degrees celsius for 15 mins)

Then of course made even prettier when I began to actually eat it:

Seriously though, smoothie bowls are just so fabulous, why would I take them off my weekly rotation?

I wouldn't :)

Ok, so you may not have been shocked by my first two breakfasts, but buckle in, this one is so unpredictable...

Ok, I lied again. Smoothie + OIAJ! (oats in a jar)
Now guys, this may have been the best smoothie I have ever made. I don't even know what I did differently, but it was super big, super yummy and just plain- SUPER!

Same recipe as above just with frozen mango, instead of not frozen and a tad more yoghurt I think?

Just admire the smoothie's beauty for a second.

Good admiring people. Of course the oats were great too. Based off this recipe and chucked into an almost empty jar of almond butter! Best bowl ever!

So what's in store for next weeks breakfasts? I'm not sure, it could be anything, I could have a complete personality change and have scrambled eggs and toast or a croissant (don't really like croissants though) or hash browns. Although I could be the exact same Steph and end up having the relatively similar stuff listed above (I always mix up the flavours) and the smoothie bowls will be going now where... especially now that I've re-stocked my frozen fruit supply:

 Bring on the yummies!

Tell me:
Do you love breakfast? It just so happens to be my favourite meal of the day :)
Do you often have the same thing every day?
Are you a sweet/ savoury breakfast eater? I am definitely a sweet, fruity kinda brekky girl, however every once in a blue moon I get the craving for the toast and eggs!

Ciao for now! :D

Eggplant Parmigiana!

Hello sunny citizens! (or should I just stick with happy people... I don't know, sunny citizens sounds cooler :)
Question:
Who likes parmigiana?
Unsure of what it is (really?) here is the definition:

Parmigiana is an Italian dish made with a shallow or deep-fried sliced filling, layered with cheese and tomato sauce, then baked.

I've always liked parmigiana, but only ever had my mum's veal parmigiana. I sort of didn't know it could be made with anything else until my big sister cooked chicken parmigiana one night for the family.

I became intrigued and did some research on the infamous Italian dish (now considered 'pub grub'). Apparently you can used pretty much everything as long as it's topped off with some sauce and cheese! Another thing that caught my eye was all the eggplant parmigiana recipes, so I decided to give it a crack.

Get ready for a super quick, easy, vegan, healthy and DELICIOUS eggplant parmigiana! 

 Oh, yes :)

To make this super simple, yet sensational dish, you will need:

Ingredients:

1 eggplant (as big as you like/ small, depending on amount of people your serving- to serve two I would use 1 big eggplant)

Tomato paste (again buy a tub/ squeezy bottle so you have enough for the amount your making- I used 1 sachet of tomato paste for 1 person)

Dried oregano & basil (to your taste)

Vegan cheese (1 quantity serves 1, so double/triple/quadruple quantities if necessary)

Cracked black pepper for top

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius and line a tray with baking paper.

2.Slice eggplant into 1cm thick rounds, place on tray and bake for 15 mins

3. Meanwhile make the vegan cheese (stirring the hommus, nutritional yeast and water together in a small bowl) and in another bowl stir the tomato paste and herbs together

4. Once the eggplant has been baking for 15 mins, remove from oven, spread on with a spoon the tomato paste, followed by the 'cheese' and then some cracked black pepper:

5. Return to oven for a further 15 mins, or until cheese is golden and bubbling. Remove from oven and leave to cool slightly before digging in!

I absolutely love making these for when I'm on the go and need dinner to come with me as I like them even better cold and they're pretty easy to pick up and eat. I seriously love the eggplant skin around the edges, as it goes all crispy and delicious after baking and the eggplant itself- hello creamy love!

So there you go- super simple, super healthy (healthiest parmigiana I've ever seen) and super super yummy! Definitely give this one a go guys!

And you?
Do you like parmigiana?
What's your favourite type?
Do you like eggplant? See, I never really used to like eggplant, but I think that was because I'd only had it steamed into a flavourless goop and didn't realise it could taste so good fried up/ mashed into baba ganoush/ grilled into a veggie sandwich/ made into this tasty dish!

I hope you have a nice and relaxing Sunday!

Catch ya later! :D