Great big bowl of Mexican!

It's no secret.
I am a Mexican food fanatic!
Give me a choice between tacos and anything... and I will pick tacos.
Ask me what my favourite spice is and I will answer cumin (cinnamon doesn't count because it is not a spice.. it is a gift from somewhere magical).
Tell me beans are becoming endangered and I will cry. And then probably rush to the grocery store to buy every last jar of beans. And all the dry ones too.
So yes, I do love Mexican food.

 I'm sure it will surprise you then when I casually strolled raced into the kitchen, relatively hangry and decided that to satisfy my raging belly I needed to fill it with a big Mexican feast!
I wasn't sure I wanted tacos exactly, or nachos for that matter, and I'm still not entirely sure what a burrito is (Still looks like a taco to me!) so I decided to combine all my Mexican food loves and create this amazing bowl of awesome:

A Mexican flavoured rice bowl topped with vegan cheese and guacamole!
And just because I'm super cool- I'm gonna share with you this random mish-mash of food  recipe!

To begin my Mexican rice bowl I placed some cubed pumpkin (1/4 cup), diced onion (heaped tablespoon), 1/2 teaspoon garlic and 1 teaspoon of olive oil in a non-stick fry pan over medium heat for around 10 mins, stirring frequently:

I then added in 1/4 cup diced capsicum, 3 sliced button mushrooms and 1/4 cup corn, cooked for another 10 mins, stirring frequently:

When the pumpkin was tender and cooked through I added 1/4 tin drained red kidney beans and 1/4 cup lentils as well as 3/4 cup water and 2 heaped teaspoons reduced-salt taco seasoning.
After that had bubbled away for about 3-5 mins I added in some pre-cooked brown rice and some spinach:

Stirred to combine and cooked for another minute before popping in a bowl and topping with some vegan cheese and microwaving for 1 minute to 'set' the vegan cheese.

Once the bowl was out of the microwave and cooling, I mashed 1/2 an avocado with the juice of 1/2 a lime and then topped it all off!

Et voila!!

I cannot begin to describe how great this tasted and how satisfied I felt afterwards!

My inner Mexican was extremely happy :)

Your turn:
What's your absolute favourite cuisine?
Favourite type of Mexican food? Tacos all the way! Followed closely by nachos!
Guacamole yay/ nay? I used to hate guacamole and sour cream and so my nachos were pretty much chips and cheese... so glad that's changed!

I hope you all have a fabulous day, give someone you love a big hug and eat something yummy! Bye friends!! :D

My busy weekend!

Happy Sunday Everyone! More importantly- Happy Mother's day too!!

Unfortunately for my mum all of her kids were either working/ out during the day or working at night (sorry mum!) and when we are finally all together as a family... we are actually celebrating my brother's birthday (which was yesterday)! WE LOVE YOU MUM! (Shout out to her because I know she's always reading! :)

Now, onto the topic of working.
Having to start at the restaurant at 6pm means that I'm not really hungry for dinner (around 5:45pm) and this really throws me off. I really dislike eating when I'm not hungry. Really. However I know I won't be able to get through the shift without eating something substantial.

As a result I decided to whip up some soup! Easy to eat, light on the stomach, filling and satisfying :)

I made one of my all-time favourites: pumpkin and parsnip soup, topped with crunchy oven roasted beans and lentils (pretty much based on this recipe if you would like more accurate measurements :):

 It started off looking not so lovely:

1/4 onion caramelised + 6 big chunks pumpkin + 1 large parsnip (peeled and chopped) + 1 teaspoon cinnamon (I love cinnamon!) + 1/2 teaspoon ginger + a few dashes of nutmeg + cracked black pepper + 2 cups of water (maybe a big more- enough to cover)- boiled with the lid on for 10 mins and then simmered, lid off, for another 20 mins.
Whazzed up with a stick blender (I'm sure it would work in a food processor too) until smooth:

Poured into a bowl to cool for 15 or so minutes:

Whilst these bad boys cooked in the oven:

1 x 125g tin mixed four beans + 2 spoons of lentils, drained and rinsed and rubbed with 1 teaspoon cumin + dash of paprika- placed on a tray lined with baking paper and baked in the oven (180 degrees celsius) for 15 mins.

To be quite honest, I didn't mean to make that much soup, but hey it was mighty tasty!

Topped with some cracked black pepper just to finish it off:

Perfect :)

Topped with the crispy beans (these seriously make me forget about any crusty bread at all- so gooood!)

Then while I was eating this glorious bowl of mush, I just had to take a picture (even though I had to eat quickly to make it to work on time!) because it reminded me so much of my morning smoothie bowls:

Am I right? ;)

Happily filled and fueled (and still full when I returned home after a busy shift!)

This morning after a bit of a sleep-in (6:30am baby! Trust me- this is good!) I slowly went about a relaxing Sunday morning- ate two dates, popped on some running clothes, went for a nice and easy 8km run (very slow, but just what my tight muscles needed) and returned home to whip up some super-duper chocolate-y chocolate pancakes for my amazing mother!

This picture doesn't do these choc pancakes justice! They looked (and smelled :) so much better in real life!)

No, these aren't secretly healthy, filled with strange ingredients, 0 calorie cakes. Nope these are the real deal- just what mum ordered! Self raising flour, cocoa, egg, milk, a bit of grated chocolate and vanilla essence- with some caramelised bananas (sliced banana cooked in the pan with the pancakes and coconut oil) and drizzled with a chocolate sauce (cocoa powder, milk and maple syrup- microwaved until warm)
Served with a cup of English Breakfast tea and also a fruity glass of orange juice. It was awesome to see her smile as I placed this plate in front of her :D

My breakfast was definitely less exciting, but still delicious!

My perfect bowl mug of oats topped (a bit at the bottom, a bit in the middle and a lot on top) with some mixed nut and chia seed butter (love this nut butter so much!)

And at around lunch time today I'm back to work the Mother's Day lunch shift (hopefully it's not ridiculously busy!) and then return home to my bro's birthday dinner. Busy, busy weekend!!

What about you?
What do you eat when you know you have to eat but you're just not hungry?
Perfect mother's day brekky? Of course I reckon it changes for every single mother- so what would you make your mum?
Favourite type of soup? Also do you think it's possible to eat a soup without bread? I'm sure some people would say no! (looking at you mum ;)

That's it from me today folks (Boy, I did ramble on, didn't I?) I hope everyone has a great Mother's Day spent with those you love and filled with happiness and... LOVE!! Bye friends!! :D

Che-rry... Cherry baby!

Hidy-ho folks! Happy Saturday!!
You may remember from Thursday's Thinking Out Loud post that I mentioned picking up a bag of frozen cherries...
I have been missing out people! Why'd no one tell me how awesome (and cheap/ available- complete opposite of fresh cherries) frozen cherries are!?! This reminds me of the time I first tried a Medjool date and I felt like the world had been keeping one of the best tasting things in the world from me! (Yep, definitely the world's fault... not the fact that I suspected I was allergic to them :)

Any who, I first tried the frozen cherries whazzed up in a smoothie with a frozen banana, some greek yoghurt and almond milk:

Alongside some peanut butter bites (oats + chia seeds + cinnamon + oat bran + PB + almond milk- in the freezer for 30 mins)

And my life was changed.

I always knew I loved the taste of cherries but never thought how amazing they would taste in a smoothie!!

Of course I had to keep experimenting with them then- and you know what I threw them into next:

 A big saucepan full of steel cut oats!

 1/2 cup steel cut oats + 1 chopped banana + 1 handful frozen cherries + 1 cup almond milk + 1 cup water- boiled gently for around 20-25 mins until all the liquid was absorbed and then combined with 2 spoons of greek yoghurt:

 CHERRY CHEESECAKE OATS!

Topped with mixed nut and chia seed butter :)
Again- so , so good :)

Which brings me to this morning, where I was craving crepes and thought a smoothie would go nicely with that:

So, once again I whazzed up a cherry smoothie (a lot more yoghurt this time I think, as there seemed to be more this time) which, once again tasted phenomenal:

And went about making some crepes.
Started off great!

Then I tried to flip them...

Let's just say I enjoyed some delicious pancake scramble for brekky! However one of my crepes did turn out alright:

The other... not so pretty. So I dolloped on a lot of nut butter and called it beautiful:

It was lucky I made this cherry smoothie because it lifted my crepe-broken heart and made my breakfast 1000000x better. Good job cherries!

I'm also pretty stoked with how the first crepe turned out, so all-in-all it wasn't really that much of a pancake disaster :)

I also need to mention how much (for whatever reason) this nut butter tastes like melted white chocolate (especially with those oats pictured above!) I have no idea why, but I am not complaining! NOM!

Unfortunately all this cherry love is resulting in a quickly-dwindling packet of my frozen loves! Gasp! Ahhh well, I still very much have an obsession with frozen plums as well and have a few stocked away in the freezer to keep me going ;)

What about you?
Do you have a relatively recent fav food that you feel like the world was keeping from you?
Are you a frozen cherry fan?
Favourite way to use/ eat cherries?

That's it from me today folks- I hope you all have a wonderful day filled with lots of great eats and even more smiles!! Bye for now! :D

Thinking Out Loud- quirky carrots, salad sandiwhces, ripples and more!

Hi there friends!
I don't know about you but my brain is on the slightly crispy side... crispy in the sense of being deep-fired and then fried a little longer.
And then micro-waved.
Ever have those days? No? Great. ;)

I think it's only fitting that with such a random intro we should follow it up with a post about thinking.. out loud... Spoons style!

Let the random musings of my mind from this week begin!

1. I don't discriminate.

This right here pretty much sums me up.
So when my local grocery shop started selling weirdly shaped/ coloured/ down-right strange looking veg for a heck-of-alot cheaper price, I was over-joyed!
See, I'm the sort of person who would voluntarily buy a non-curving banana and a super curvy carrot... just because it's awesome! Now I get to do that for a cheaper price- YES!

I picked up a bag of tomatoes, onions and these carrots and to be quite honest they were pretty much exactly the same as the 'normal' ones on the shelf. Dissapointment!
I did find it amusing the range of sizes the carrots were though:

This guy was my favourite :)
And I used him to make...

2. A big veggie sandwich- Steph style!
Generally I will try out the normal way of making something (pasta with sauce and maybe some spinach, mac and cheese with mac... and cheese, cereal with milk) and then I'll scoff at it and make up something better (pasta with sauce, veg, beans, spinach etc., macaroni with mashed pumpkin, hommus, nutritional yeast, caramelized onion etc., home made granola with a super-thick smoothie etc!)

So I tried a regular ol' salad sandwich many years ago and now I make my own version.
It starts off with a spread of hommus and some lentils:

And then it's loaded up with ALL the veggies!

Spinach, rocket, red cabbage, grated carrot and beetroot, tomato, capsicum and cucumber.
Somehow I mange to get my mouth around this. What can I say, I have a flexible jaw I guess ;)

Sometimes though, the jaw needs a rest and bite-sized foods are in order.

3. Cinnamon banana truffle bites to be exact:

Wondering why my breakfast is being held in my hand/ on a window ledge? Well, that's where the sun was deciding to shine that day. And only there.
Any who the point of this point (ha! I wrote that, went to change it and then simply couldn't :) is not the truffles, because I've posted so many recipes for them, it's getting a bit ridiculous!

No the topic for point no. 3 is this:

Some delicious plum fro-yo (1 juicy, overripe, frozen plum whazzed up with half a banana and 3 big scoops greek yoghurt).

And what's so amazing about this (other than it's super delicious taste!) is the all-natural ripple I got that reminded me so much of strawberry ripple ice cream:

Boom! Made my morning (and I don't even know why... ripples are pretty :)

This reminds me that I also bought some frozen cherries the other day and if I thought adding frozen plums to things was good... well that's a whole post in itself!!

Aaaaand that's what has been floating through my head this past week!

What about you:
Do you sometimes purposefully buy weirdly shaped fruit and veg?
Proud crazy sandwich maker? I can't even tell you some of the things I've managed to stuff between two slices of bread... you'll be too freaked out!! ;)
Fan of ripples in your ice cream? When I was younger, if the ice cream didn't have ripples, it didn't have my attention- seriously, caramel swirl ice cream was where it was at!!

Don't forget to head on over to Spoons to see what everyone else has been thinking about! Bye for now friends :D