Make ahead meatless balls!

Hello friendly friends!

I hope you're all having a lovely week and today I'm going to make your day even better by throwing at you (well, not literally) a tasty recipe for some freezer friendly super tasty bean balls made with lots of sauteed veg in garlic and onion-y goodness!

So, without further ado- here by the recipe!

Sauteed Cabbage and Eggplant Bean Balls!

Ingredients:
1/2 small brown onion, chopped
1/4 medium eggplant, chopped
1 heaped cup shredded cabbage
1 heaped teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
3/4 cup red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup lentils, drained and rinsed
Handful spinach
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
sprinkle of dried chili flakes

Method:
1. Heat the oil and garlic in a medium saucepan over medium heat until fragrant:

 2. Add the onion and eggplant and saute for around 5 mins until golden and slightly tender

 3. Add in the cabbage and cook for a further 5 mins until the eggplant is soft and cooked through
4. Place the sauteed veg, beans, lentils, spinach and nutritional yeast and chili flakes into a food processor and process to combine (not too much, you still want some bean and veg chunks for interesting texture!)

5. Stir to combine and then transfer to bowl

 6. Form into balls, wrap in glad wrap and place in freezer until required:

 7. When you want to nom on one of these delicious bean balls, heat up a frypan/ heat up the oven and cook until golden brown on the outside.

I ate mine for lunch with a fresh salad of cucumber, tomato, spinach, alfalfa sprouts, bean sprouts and green capsicum:

And it was delicious!

What about you?
Are you a fan of bean balls?
Favourite add-ins? I love to spice things up with cumin/ coriander/ cinnamon etc.

That's it for today, I hope you have a fabulous day and eat something yummy!! Bye for now friends! :D

The Smoothest Smoothie and Links You'll Love!

Hello and happy Sunday to all you gorgeous people!!
Firstly;  I think I've been using my Vitamix wrong! See, I've been making smoothies that look like this by simply switching the machine on and changing the speed:

Don't get me wrong, they've been amazing and smoothie-like, but I just didn't get why everyone get expressing there love for never having a smoothie so smooth after getting their vitamix's.

Then I simply turned it on the High setting and approximately 3.5 seconds later this happened...

Oh. My. Word.

Hands down, the best smoothie I have ever had in my life.

It was the epitome of the word SMOOTH.

 Sharing similarities with that of soft serve ice cream and light fluffy clouds.

 I just need a moment.

Ok, we're good. But yeah, I found out how to properly make smoothies in the vitamix and now I'm ready for ALL the smoothness!

Into this particular mix was 1 large chopped frozen banana + 1 beautifully ripe chopped frozen mango + 3 big scoops greek yoghurt + 3/4 cup water- whazzed together (on high) until SUUUPER smooth!

Eaten alongside some peanut butter truffles (3/4 cup rolled oats + 1/4 cup oat bran + sprinkle chia seeds + 1 teaspoon cinnamon + 1 1/2 tablespoons PB +1/3 cup almond milk- PB and almond milk heated in microwave for 30 seconds before stirring into oats etc.- placed in freezer for 20 mins to firm up)

Smoothie thick enough to need a spoon- just the way I like it :)

 Also great for dipping:

So very full right now :)

Alrighty, so that was brekky!

Now onto some awesome links from the week that was!!

Links:

Food:

Extra Thick Sweet Potato Hot Chocolate (Paleo, Vegan & Gluten-Free)

No Bake Carrot Cake Protein Bars (Paleo, Vegan, Gluten Free)

Fudgy Adzuki Bean Brownies with Coconut Whip

Homemade Puy Lentil and Mushroom Vegan Sausages

Dairy-Free No Churn Pumpkin Spice Ice Cream

Maple Cashew Coconut Fudge Squares (Raw, Paleo, Vegan)

Fitness:

The Right Way to Get the Abs You Really Want For Summer

Even When It’s Hard to Run, You Should Run

How Lazy Ladies Can Get the Perfect Body

Health:

7 Foods To Eat For Your Best Complexion Ever

How to Feel Less Bloated by the End of the Day

POP Songs in REAL LIFE when Losing Weight is Hard

Funny:

17 Brilliant Things That’ll Keep You From Ever Having To Share

17 Snacks That Do A Convincing Impression Of Fries

I hope you have a fun/relaxing/enjoyable rest of your Sunday, ready to tackle another great week! Bye for now friends!! :D

When you don't have it for 3 weeks...

Happy Saturday everyone!!

I hope everyone has had a fabulous week and are just as excited to tackle the next one (and if you're not- pump yourself up so you become crazy positive and annoy absolutely everyone around you! ;)

Now, I'm one of those bloggers who scrolls through her recent pictures and decides on blog posts from there. This can get a bit redundant when you see the seventh photo of roasted veg (on several different occasions) and are thinking to yourself- 'Nope, there is no way I can work that into a post'

Not my pictures- but kind of what it ends up looking like to me anyway!

(If you're interested in posts where I have talked about roasted veg, see here, here, here and here and there's more!!)

So anyway, back to me scrolling through endless pictures of my food.

As I mentioned before recently, upon returning from Africa, I have definitely been craving all the foods that normally make up my diet (ie. VEG!) and so really, it shouldn't have come as a surprise when I came across picture after picture of...

OATS!

You and I both know I go through phases with oats. If I'm in an oats phase I'll eat them every second day. If I'm not, they will hang tight in the pantry for a good few weeks untouched (awesome that they last!)

So after 3 weeks of no oats (apart from the traditional plain soup-like ones they served us occasionally- which I still ate because, hey, I needed my energy!) I guess I'm going oat-of-my-mind with some cravings!

Second day back:

 Lemon blueberry steel cut oats with coconut butter:

 New favourite oats :)

Day after: My second favourite bowl of oats:

Creamy vanilla and cinnamon banana steel cut oats:

 Topped with all the almond butter (and some spread throughout :)

Few days later: Overnight oats!

 Or perhaps some super fresh, delicious and sweet watermelon with a side tub of peanut butter?

 Just kidding:

 Choc protein overnight oats

 With quite a lot of crunchy PB left in the jar. Problem? I don't think so! ;)

And finally this mornings- which I shall be naming Strawberry Shortcake!

Into the pot went 1/2 cup steel cut oats + 1 VERY ripe banana + 4-5 VERY ripe strawberries + sprinkle of chia seeds +fresh vanilla pod seeds (sub in a small dash of vanilla essence) + 1 cup almond milk + 1 cup water- bring to the boil, stirring occasionally until liquid has been absorbed (around 20 mins)

 Sweet, strawberry-y, lusciously swirled with smooth creamy almond butter and filling the house with  a warming smell that can only be likened to strawberry cake baking in the oven.

 There were also butterflies and rainbows and angels singing.

 Too far? Any who, it was delicious and has only made my hankering for oats even stronger!

 Happy days :)

What about you?
What's on your craving/ repeat-practically-daily list at the moment?
Do you find you go through oat phases?
Favourite way to use strawberries in cooking?

I hope you have a lovely rest of your weekend, make the most of it, smile, laugh and eat delicious food! Bye for now friendly friends!! :D

My 3 weeks on carbs! ...and what I learned

I feel like I've said this a lot lately (no kidding!) and yet I'm going to say it again. I've just returned from Africa and the amount of life lessons, knowledge and experience I've returned with has been monumental.

I'm guessing a food blog is the not the place to go into depth about the harrowing poverty and confronting encounters and utter joy/ pure happiness on kid's faces who had nothing and all the other indescribable sights I witnessed.

Instead, I think a food blog is a perfect forum to go into depth about some of the experiences I encountered with the food (being blessed with a bit of a sensitive stomach and all!)

Just kidding- I know it's me ;)

I had a few concerns before embarking on the trip to Tanzania:

1. There wouldn't be enough protein for me and I'd have to eat meat to ensure I didn't get sick.
2. There would be mainly unhealthy sugar-laden foods that would mess with my stomach.
3. There wouldn't be enough food to cater for my hangry double side of me.
4. I can't remember any others but I was a bit of a nervous wreck.

In case you're reading this and thinking; 'What is wrong with this girl?' Please refer to this post where I go into depth about a time in my life where I struggled with eating and living to perfections (that is NOT living by the way!) and it's true that parts of that crazy old part of me still resurfaces and can create some food angst in me.

But here's something crazy that happened on the trip. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted and what my body was telling me it wanted. And I survived.

Shocker, right?

But seriously, it's probably been a good few years since I've allowed myself to relax like that and just enjoy... life. And the people around me and the utterly delicious food in front of me!

It became evident very early on that African cuisine focused around fats and carbs. Emphasis on the carbs.

But the beautiful thing about African cuisine was it was all fresh. Unprocessed. Made from scratch merely hours before. That included the breads, scrolls, buns etc. We would walk past the kitchen window and see the cooks rolling out great masses of dough that we knew would feature in our next meal, warm and fresh and delicious.

As I've mentioned before, this trip was demanding. It was hot in Africa (surprise, surprise) and we would spend full days outside doing some sort of activity or another. Food was fuel to keep us going and the white bread and white rice and white potatoes and other carb-y goodness were what we needed to get through. Often I would find myself finishing a meal (be it soup/ stew/ stir-fry) and reaching for a buttered bread roll afterwards because my body instantly felt replenished after I had eaten it. It didn't take long for me to realise the carbs (even though they were white- not something I'm used to) were what I needed to power through.

There would be days where I would have 4-5-6 pieces of bread. I inhaled the delightful warm cinnamon scrolls at breakfast, thickly spread their home-made salted peanut butter onto my fresh toast, laughed as I ate the Vegemite scrolls they'd whipped up especially for us with one of the girl's tubes of Vegemite she had brought over.

African cuisine uses a lot of beans. And veg. And mushrooms. And there were always eggs at breakfast and yoghurt. Protein was not an issue. There was also A LOT of food. And I did not shy away from going up for seconds (or thirds) the food was just too good!

I was probably the easiest to feed out of all the students because this was my kind of diet, and I reckon I could live in Afrcia (especially after seeing them put bananas in a curry. Life complete.)

All this is to say that my trip to Tanzania opened my eyes again. Showed me what life is like when you step away from the constant analysing of food and just enjoy where you are, what you're doing and who you're with.

My body didn't grow/shrink at all during this diet change up and I feel that's because I listened to what it wanted (and did increase my intake- I'm fairly sure!). I didn't die. I didn't lose a limb. I didn't even cry (only when watching a sad movie on the plane).

Instead I was happy. I laughed and enjoyed the energy food had given me, proving me once more how gosh darn incredible food can be!

Now I'm really craving those cinnamon scrolls!!

You're turn:
Have you ever had a pivotal moment in your life that re-opened your eyes to the world?
Has a trip ever forced you to drastically change your diet?
Any bad food experiences in other places?

That's it from me today folks, I'm just thinking out loud thanks to the awesome Spoons for the link-up! Have yourself a wonderful day and do something nice for someone else- it'll alwasy bring a smile to both your faces :). Bye!! :D