Sort of recipes :)

If you know me, even in the slightest, you would know that I like things fairly... in order. I like to follow the rules/ regulations/ instructions/ anything, to a T and get kind of worried if I don't.

Except....

When I'm cooking.

When I'm cooking something for lunch/ dinner/ breakfast (baking is a different story- you must follow every instruction! Trust me!) and I have a recipe in front of me, I'll almost always use it as a rough guideline, examine the flavours and recreate my own version. Some times I don't even have a specific recipe in front of me, but I have several in my head so I mush them all together!

Either way, there is no measuring or weighing or trying to figure out what the heck a small- medium sized beetroot is. Nope. It's whatever starts to look good.

For example oats:

To make my oats you simply have to pour in some steel cut oats, add in a chopped banana, some chia seeds and lot's of almond milk and water and then let it bubble away for 15 or so mins before adding in some blueberries for the last 5 mins and more often than not most of the liquid is absorbed by then!

I know it's slap dash but it is the only area in my life where I'm not a total control freak with numbers and measurements buzzing around my brain. It's actually the only time in my life when my brain is just there. Not full of thoughts/ worries/ random. Running sort of shhh's my brain, but cooking actually ties it up to a chair and gags it. How's that for imagery? ;)

Any way what I'm trying to say is for some reason, even though I don't follow any type of recipe or measurements when I cook, everything I make usually turns out delicious (in my opinion!) and also in my opinion I think this is what separates someone from simply cooking to being a cook.

 So I have a recipe for you today!
A sort of recipe. A typical Steph-style recipe!
It involves this:

 A hunk of slightly stale home made spelt bread (any bread will work)

And one of these bad boys:

A huge portobello mushroom! (from the farmers market of course!)

Any guesses?

If you guessed a stuffed mushroom then you are cooorrrreeeccctt!

 Simply take a hunk of bread (maybe 2 slices of regular stale-ish bread) and tear it up into a food processor:

 Add a dash of cumin, sprinkle of dried oregano and dried basil, pinch of cayenne pepper and a dash of ground cinnamon along with some pine nuts and whazz until bread-crumby!

 In a separate bowl place 125g rinsed four beans + 2 scoops of rinsed lentils + 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic, stir to combine:

Chop up some spinach and capsicum and add that and the bread crumb mixture to the beans and lentils:

 Along with 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of water. Then remove the stem from the mushroom, roast in an oven at 180 degrees celsius for 15 mins and then bring out to stuff!

 I also roasted up this little guy to go with my stuffed mushroom. Look how cute and little this eggplant is!

 Start spooning the stuffing mixture into the 'shroom and press down to fit lots in! If you still have quite a bit leftover, you can stuff just about anything! (tomatoes, zucchinis, eggplants etc. ) I simply found some little button mushrooms!

 Roast at 180 degrees celsius for around 20-30 mins (depending on how crispy you want your filling)

 Ta-da!

 Spicy, comforting, full of punchy flavours and meaty mushroom- yum!

 Served with some steamed parsnip, beetroot and oven roasted eggplant and mini zucchinis.

Very filling indeed. I was stuffed! ;)

Your turn!

Do you follow recipes?

Do you simply throw lots of ingredients into a pot and hope for the best like me?

Do you like stuffed mushrooms? I've got to say, I used to hate them... now I think they're pretty darn good. I guess I hated them because I hated mushrooms in general. And stuffing. Ha.

See ya later friends! Have a very very good day! Do something unexpected! :D

WIAW!! Veggies for the win!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

I think I should be congratulated for remembering what day it is, seeing as I'm still on holidays... I may or may not have just checked the day on the computer... but still, I was fairly sure before I checked!

Now, because it is Wednesday- how about an insight into my daily eats What I Ate Wednesday style. Featuring the eats of Tuesday. *cough*

Thanks as always to Peas and Crayons for hosting this awesome link-up each week!!

Pre-breakfast: 6:00am
2 dates before my run

Breakfast: 8:00am
By the time I was back from my looong run, dressed and showered I was ready for brekky!

Vanilla protein powder rolled oats (1/2 cup rolled oats, 3/4 banana, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, big dash of cinnamon, sprinkle of chia seeds and around 1 cup almond milk- heated on stove) and some blueberry fro-yo.

Served in an almost empty jar of cashew butter= perfection :)

The blueberry fro-yo was just a handful of frozen blueberries, rest of banana (1/4) and three big scoops of greek yoghurt, whazzed up in my mini food processor until smooth:

And of course matching spoons! Maybe next time I should switch them over just to mess with my mind! ;)

LOVE BLUEBERRIES!

Lunch: 12:45am

Oh yes. My famous grilled veggie sammy!

Home made spelt bread, hommus, spinach, grilled pumpkin, veggie burger, sliced tomato, grilled mushrooms, capsicum, eggplant and zucchini (all grilled) and then topped off with the other slice of hommus spread bread and squashed! In a sandwich press ;)

I will never ever tire of this sandwich- way too good!

Snack: 4:00pm

Chopped pink lady apple with some green grapes and glass of soy milk.

Ahh, fruit, thank you for tasting so good!

You too soy milk. Also, thanks for being full of protein and added calcium- good on ya!

Dinner: 6:45pm

Just feeling the veggies, you know?
Big ol' bowl of roasted potato, white sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, swede and beetroot, roasted with olive oil, cumin, oregano and basil for 45 mins at 180 degrees celsius served with some grilled tempeh and spinach:

This definitely filled me right up!

Aaaand that's what I ate!

What did you eat today?
Favourite sandwich?
Favourite roasted vegetable? Mine is either roasted pumpkin or roasted sweet potato. Sweet potato wins if it is a Japanese white sweet potato because that stuff roasted is... nope I can't even put it into words!

Hungry for more? Check out Peas and Crayons to see what everyone else is nom-ing! Bye!! :D

Othorexia... Uh Oh

It's a topic that's been flying round the healthy living community for quite some time now. On blogs, in magazines on the news... it's growing.

What started off as people becoming interested in a healthier lifestyle along with the uprising popularity of amazing ancient super foods and a number of celebrities associating their 'perfect bikini body' with a clean eating diet, has now sparked a new age of healthy living.

And that's great, right?

Well...

The beginning of this attraction to simply eat well and rid one's pantry and fridge of 'bad stuff', would have resulted in a happier, healthier and more energetic feeling and in turn a new sense of power and strength. Reaching for an apple instead of a doughnut, going out with friends to a fast food place and managing to order a salad instead of a burger, surviving a whole week without a single. Scrap. Of. Chocolate. Pretty much super hero strength right there.

It feels good, right? If it feels good, if we feel empowered and if we tell ourselves that we are doing what's right for our bodies, then who in their right mind would stop?

Enter Orthorexia Nervosa.

It's all well and good when you first start out on the healthy eating train and make sure you add in a few more salads to your week and begin to take awareness of how many cookies you're really having throughout the day, though things start to become a little sketchy when you find yourself always thinking about stuff like this and only eating salads for lunch everyday. Of course the problem isn't these things per se, it's the anxiety that correlates with these behaviours if something doesn't go to plan.

If you begin to break out in a sweat when you realise the only food available to you is something you deem 'unhealthy', or you purposefully turn down a lunch date with a friend because there is nothing at the restaurant you will let yourself eat, are you truly living healthy?

Health is so much more than just physical. It's so much more than the food that fills (or not) the plate in front of you. It's more than the amount of calories you consume at each meal and the number of spinach leaves present in your salad.

Is it healthy to turn down experiences with your friends and family because of the food available. Is it healthy to constantly worry about your next meal and what you 'can/ can't' have. Is it healthy to be controlled by something so controllable.

If health is actually split into three categories- physical, mental and social, then if you think about it, the health you are trying to obtain is only 33.33% of true health- not even half!

This is where I come in. It's all well and good for me to say things like the above statements. It's easy for me to preach a message I believe so strongly about. It's effortless, really, to write a post that tells you why orthorexia shouldn't control you. What's not so easy?

Admitting that I think it controls me.

When I first came across this unhealthy obsession I was probably at my worst of it. I dreaded going out to restaurants with friends and if we did I would probably end up bringing my own per-packed food from home. Whenever we went anywhere I had my own little lunch box. I never accepted any food made by someone else and got worried whenever I bought a processed item of food (like a pasta sauce or muesli bar) because I wasn't sure what was truly in it. I read about orthorexia and it was pretty much the definition of my life. For some reason I am only now able to see that. Back then I would shrug it off and tell myself I was being healthy, not obsessive, but I know now how wrong I was.

Now this post is getting a bit on the lengthy (and emotional) side so I think I'll start to wrap things up.

In finishing I want to look at my life today. I know I probably still show a number of signs associated with orthorexia. I know this and accept this. I still bring food to places I know won't have vegetarian options and generally to friends houses so they don't have to worry about buying something different for me. I still sometimes freak out a little bit when I read the sugar/ sodium/ ingredients list of some products that I may have used in my dinner moments before.

What's changed? Those moments are less and less frequent. I freak out for a second and then I move on. Life's too short to worry about a few grams of sugar. I can see the bigger picture now and while I'll always be on a quest to live my healthiest life possible, I know now that that also includes fun with friends and family and making sure my mental health is in check. Only then will I ever be able to experience true health.

I guess it's unfortunate I had that whole period of my life where I thought I was being healthy and I thought I was really happy, but like most aspects in life, you live and learn- usually the hard way! Now I've been at that extreme, I will be able to recognise if I ever go back there and that comforts me.

How about you?
Have you ever experienced Orthorexia? Do you experience it now?
What are your thoughts on true health?
Any other thoughts?

Bye for now folks- make sure you have a fabulous day! :D

WEEKEND!

Hi everyone! How's your day going?
Mine's been pretty good so far.
1. It's Sunday- I love Sundays- slow, relaxing
2. It's sunny- I love warm sunny Summer days in Aus
3. I had a glorious loooong run- runs always put me in a good mood
4. I just had one of my favourite breakfasts ever.

So yeh, it's been a good start!
It's also been a pretty good weekend too. For the first time ever (I feel a bit bad about this) the mother and I decided to visit the farmers markets for our grocery shop this week.

Why have I never gone here before? It's so cheap, filled with soooo many veggies and the veggies all look so good too! I love that they're not all perfect and glossy like in the big supermarkets- they look a lot more natural and honestly a lot tastier!

I might have gotten a bit excited:

Mushrooms, apples, peaches, mini striped eggplants, pears, pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, brussels sprouts, mini zucchinis, capsicum, tomatoes, mini zucchinis, avocados, swede, parsnip, beetroot and a massive white sweet potato!

This is going to be a good week on the veggie front!
I also picked up some Rooibos tea after hearing about it's amazing benefits ages ago and telling myself to give it a try ages ago and then only remembering to pick some up.. yesterday. ;)

I've never fully gotten into coffee much at all (I know I'm young- but most of my friends cannot function at school properly without their morning coffee!) so I think I'm growing more and more fond of tea. Time will tell!

As a use it up meal to get rid of all of my leftover vegetables from the past week, I made a big bowl of random:

brown rice and quinoa, grated carrot, steamed sweet potato, chopped capsicum, peas, spinach and chopped garlic tofu, sprinkled with some nutritional yeast and two dried figs on the side:

Dried figs... Mmmm....

My afternoon consisted of a really nice bike ride along all of the bike paths I could find, some reading, a bit of blog work, a few job applications (I am currently searching for some casual work for extra money) aaand a bit of blog reading.

Dinner was also a use- up- the- leftovers meal:

Wholemeal spaghetti with steamed pumpkin and parsnip, roasted eggplant and mushrooms, drained and rinsed four beans, spinach and Sacla tomato and garlic stir-through sauce:

For a quick throw together with random ingredients meal, this was pretty tasty!

And finally onto breakfast- the one that made my Sunday:
This guy:

Plus this guy:

Kiwi fruit fro-yo (1 chopped frozen kiwi fruit whazzed with 3 scoops of greek yoghurt and 1/4 banana)

= Happy Steph.

Does anyone else agree that food tastes 1000x better after a hard workout? I dunno it just seems to taste sooo good!

And that's been my week so far! Tune in for some delicious meals featuring all of my fresh farmers market finds!

Do you enjoy the weekend? Or are you more busy on weekends?
Do you have a use up the leftovers day when you go grocery shopping?
Does food taste better to you after working out?

Bye for now friends! Enjoy your day- whatever it is you are doing, do it smiling! :D