WIAW #35

Hidy Ho friendly friends! (Wow. Just wow, Steph)
How are feeling today on this fine Wednesday? Happy? Jolly? Christmas-y? I know I am!

In the glorious mood I'm in- I think I should talk about a glorious topic- FOOD! In particular- the food I have been nom-ing on. WIAW (on Tuesday) style! Thanks Peas and Crayons for this awesome link-up every week, where I always seem to find a fabulous new blog that I never knew existed!

Now onto the eats!
Tuesday was a day when the stomach wanted food. And a lot of it too. Hey- I'm only here to please!
So, bright and easrly, I skipped into the kitchen and nom-ed on a delicious medjool date and dried fig before lacing up my running shoes and going for a lovely run! Upon return, breakfast was created and bubbling away and lunch was being prepared too. Boy life's busy!
Breakfast:
On the breakfast scene was a big bowl of chocolate steel cut oats topped with mixed nut butter:

There was probably 1/2 cup steel cut oats with a scoop of choc protein powder, 1 teaspoon raw cacao powder, a few big dashes of cinnamon, sprinkle of chia seeds and 1/2 a banana with 1 cup of almond milk and 1 cup of water stirred in and then bubbled away on low heat for about 20 mins (left to cool for another 10 mins)

But that's not all. These weren't just chocolate steel cut oats, these were chocolate cheesecake steel cut oats!

Once they were done cooking I stirred in 2 spoons of greek yoghurt and let that sit for a few mins= deliciousness! It also makes it a bit more filling too :)

Can you believe I was still a bit hungry after this? Well I was! So I had a handful of green grapes  as well :)

Snack:
For my snacky snack at school I had a small pot of frozen peas. Yum. :) :)

 Lunch:
I sure was hungry when lunch rolled round as Tuesday happened to be our year day and we went ice skating. So after already running and then ice skating on top of that- feeding was required!

 This is a recycled pic because I was sort of in a rush but it's basically the same thing. A huuuuuge veggie sandwich with home made spelt bread, hommus, spinach, a veggie patty, grated carrot and beetroot, sliced tomato, capsicum, more spinach and top of bread. Yep.

Snack:
After school my snack of choice was a small fuji apple with some apricot and a glass of soy milk:

This apple was sooo crisp, sweet and delicious and the apricot was pretty good too!

Soy milk always tastes the same. Very, very scrumptious!

Dinner:
Dinner was another huuuge plate of food, (told you I was hungry) mainly veggies:

On top of a bed of spinach there was 2 scrambled eggs with garlic, pepper and garlic tofu, beside that was some steamed veg (pumpkin, swede, potato, parnsip and sweet potato and next to that was some roasted brussels sprouts and brocoli- so good!

Even after this mammoth of a dinner I still had a small handful of nuts because I was still a teensy bit hungry... (can you believe it!?!) you know what they say- growing boy girl! I'm lying- I think I've finished growing. Unfortunately I think I will remain this short.

What did you eat Wednesday? (or Tuesday, if you're like me)
Do you sometimes eat a lot on days you run/ work out/ do a lot of activities?
Do you like frozen peas?

Like snooping out what others are eating? Head on over to Peas and Crayons for even more eats!

Bye for now folks! :D

The greenery

Hi friends, how are we all feeling today?
I just want to jump in here and say I'm feeling great!I have a suspicion why as well!
Over the past few weeks I've been upping my consumption of all things green- and boy have I been feeling 1000x better!

Now, I've always been good at eating my veggies, but sometimes I forget about the green guys- the dark leafy greens, the broccoli, the brussles and beans (not the peas though- I always eat a lot of peas!) so I decided to make sure I ate a few more of these to see if I noticed any differences and I was a little surprised to see differences!

I definitely upped the amount of green smoothies I was consuming, as this is probably the easiest and most delicious way to get in one or two servings of leafy greens before lunch has even rolled round!

This mammoth of a smoothie was my absolute favourite- 1 large chopped frozen banana + 1/2 large chopped frozen mango + 2 large handfuls of spinach + a dash of almond milk (add however much to create your desired thickness- I like mine thick!) super simple and super delicious!

Eaten with some oats because oats are also delicious ;)

Avocado was another veggie that I seemed to forget I had lying around so I made it a priority to eat the ones hanging out in the fridge before they went brown and icky. In the Big Man's World style, I ate half a chopped avocado on top 2 wholemeal crumpets spread with Vegemite:

Along with some baked beans and 2 poached eggs with hommus.
This was so delicious, creamy, crunchy, salty... gah- I want it again now!

Perfection.

This breakfast was a double-whammy on the greens as it featured a delicious chocolate green thick shake (that not only contained spinach but also frozen avocado) with a side of blueberries and green kiwi-fruit.

I really do adore this smoothie and also the fact that the spinach goes by unnoticed ;)

Again- perfection.

More examples:
A delicious weekend lunch of home-popped popcorn (I simply place popcorn kernels in a saucepan with a lid and pop! I love popcorn!) along with a small baked sweet potato topped with mixed beans and with salsa, topped again with avocado and some spinach on the side with a few dollops of hommus:

This was soooo good! Why does sweet potato have to taste so good and yet make me so... orange!

So green :)

So good :)

Perfect little sweet potato bowl!

Lastly, I didn't want kale to go by unnoticed because it is my second favourite dark leafy green- after spinach and so here it is:

Spelt spaghetti with roasted veg (pumpkin, beetroot, parsnip, carrot, swede) grilled tempeh, peas and kale! I added the peas and kale to my boiling spaghetti a couple of minutes before I drained it.

I love the colour green go when cooked quickly! So vibrant!

So what have I been feeling? More energised, less bloated, less tired and grumpy, clear head, and a weird sort of healthy tummy feeling that I can't quite explain. In other words- happy Steph!

Talk to me:
Do you like/eat your greens?
What's your favourite way to slip em' in?
Favourite green smoothie recipe?

That's it from me folks! See ya later! :D

The weird things I crave

I am a weirdo.


Especially when it comes to food.

 You see, my favourite meal of the day is breakfast and in the healthy living blogger community, mine are pretty normal- oatmeal, smoothies, pancakes, oats in a jar (yeh my friends think I'm weird, but this is considered awesome in this blog-o-sphere realm!)

Even my lunches are pretty acceptable... most of the time. Usually sandwiches, salads, wraps etc.

I will admit they are usually huge... but pretty normal all the same!

So it can't come as a shock to the world that come dinner, any scrap of normalness that was buried deep inside of me, managed to scramble out and left a whole lot of random/ weird cravings and as a result a whole lot of random/ weird dinners. Don't believe me? Brace yourself for multiple plates of food I almost guarantee you haven't seen before.

Just kidding, that was just a Google search- so, yes... someone in the world actually does like chocolate and onion...

Ok- now onto my very own strange foods.
Exhibit A: The 'can't decide on what I'm feeling' dinner:

A plate of steamed brussels sprouts, roasted butternut squash dusted with cinnamon, some brown rice crackers that I dipped in:
Some very quick home made baked beans- some tinned, drained butter beans, tinned tomatoes, nutritional yeast and sweet corn all bubbled in a pot for a few mins.

Exhibit B: The 'so plain and bland it can't taste good but it's Steph's favourite!' dinner:

Spelt spaghetti with spinach and roasted veggies and some grilled tempeh:

Yummy! Said no one ever.
Except me :)
Who needs pasta sauce?

Exhibit C: The 'I can't be bothered cooking something elaborate, am craving a grilled veggie sandwich and seem to have a lot of brussles sprouts in the fridge' dinner:

A seedy roll with hommus, spinach, curried veggie burger and sliced tomato, toasted in a sandwich press with a side of roasted brussels sprouts and broccoli topped off with fresh sweet corn.

Definitely hit the spot. The spot being a hungry little monster borderline-ing on hangry.

Exhibit D: 'Craving the veggies... and the taco mince...' dinner!

This one's not too weird. The weird part is the combination of practically two separate meals. I didn't really feel like proper tacos- as in a wrap/ taco shell/ lettuce wrap, or just a plate of roasted veggies, so I made some taco seasoned vegan mince, lentils, spinach and tomatoes (fried in a frypan with some water until absorbed) topped it with hommus and ate alongside a bucket load of roasted veg (pumpkin, white sweet potato- so good roasted!- orange sweet potato, potato (ok lots of different potatoes), beetroot and swede.

So I guess I don't like full/ complete meals that come with a name (ie. carbonara, lasagne, curry etc.) I just kind of put random bits of everything on a plate and seem to enjoy it!

That's all that really matters, right?
Exhibit E: 'Everything I felt like on the one plate' dinner:

 Steamed potatoes with pesto, roasted garlic-y tomatoes and mushrooms and two poached eggs with the remaining pesto on top, with a side of dried apricots :)

 I love pesto, I love veggies, I love eggs, I love dried apricots. What's not to like?

Please tell me I'm not alone:
Does anyone else give up by the time dinner rolls around?
Are your dinners random or structured?
What is the weirdest plate of food you have ever put together because you just felt like it? For me that's got to be a bowl of steamed veg along with some buckwheat cereal flakes and some almond butter. It was good! :)

See you later! :D