Coconut Friday

Hello there beautiful people!

I hope you are having a brilliant Friday, filled with brilliant Friday things and if you're still going to work/ at school somewhere/ not basking in the happiness of the freedom obtained from a Christmas holiday... then when you do finally get a break it will be so much sweeter anyway!!

Today, I'm back to that taboo topic of the time (alliteration.. I like it) otherwise known as coconut.

If you would like some more in depth posts on my thoughts and opinions surrounding all things coconut visit here, in a nutshell- I think everything in moderation :) Coconut oil/ butter etc.like nut butter or avocado is high in fat, but filled with so many other great properties that make me believe it's not the devil quite a number of people categorise it as.

Instead, I would like to shed light on a slight obsession/ overload/ happiness inducing use of coconut  I've unintentionally delved into over the past few days!

It all began with last night's dinner:

 Into a warm frypan went a heaped tablespoon of coconut oil, chopped eggplant, zucchini and butternut squash.
This was browned for around 5-10 mins until slightly golden and slightly tender.
Next went in some chopped mushrooms and frozen broad beans:

 After another few minutes I tossed in some frozen peas, corn, lentils and spinach, added a little more coconut oil and cooked over medium heat for another 5 mins until everything is nicely golden brown, fragrant and tender.

 And into a bowl ready to be devoured! (letting it cool for 20 mins because I'm a freak who likes cooled food :)

After last nights dinner, I woke up with the craving of some coconut butter in some form or other. Would it be truffles? Oats? Pancakes?
All I knew was that I had run out of my home-made coconut butter and needed to whip up some more, so when I was decided what to whip up, I whipped up a fresh batch of liquid gold white!

 It's so simple-pimple to whip up, you only need to half fill your food processor with desiccated coconut and then whaz for quite a while until liquid and smooth (I probably whazzed it all up for around 10-15mins)

 Then into a sterilised jar (ran out of jars, so used a mason jar mug instead :) lid on and hey presto! You can either keep it in the fridge or cupboard (I choose cupboard).

 And you can have fun tricking both yourself and others that it's a glass of milk! Slightly more fat than milk. Slightly ;)

 devoidness of coconut now corrected!

 Happy, happy days!

 Which brings us straight to this morning's breakfast:

 A super delicious bowl of raw coconut butter granola with s splash of almond butter:

 Simply some rolled oats, cinnamon and low-sugar cheerios with some freshly made, warm coconut butter rubbed in and then some almond milk poured in at the end:

 So tasty:

 Alongside that delicious bowl was a frozen orange creamsicle smoothie with a frozen banana, frozen orange, frozen zucchini, kale, spinach, greek yoghurt and water:

 Spoon shot

 Slightly better spoon shot:

 Happy Steph :)

So yes, these past few days have seen a reignited love affair between me and coconut and there have been no complaints from me!

What about you?
Are you a coconut fan?
Favourite way to use coconut oil?
Coconut butter- how much do you love it? (Yes, you can only love it! ;)

That's it from me today folks, have a fabulous day, do something you love and EAT SOMETHING DELICIOUS!! Bye for now friendly friends! :D

WIAW #83 A Typical Day of Eating!

Hididily-doodly everyone! I seem to be in quite the chipper mood this morning. Could it be the fact that Christmas is next week? Or the glorious sun-shiny days in store for the week ahead? Or the amount of added free time I have in front of me that hasn't been all that present in the past year? Whatever it is- I am one happy Steph and what's making me even happier today?\

WIAW!!

What I Ate Wednesday is a judge free link up created by the awesome Peas and Crayons where bloggers and blog readers can come together and drool over everyone's delicious eats from an entire day!

This particular day is actually Monday- a day filled with yummy eats, relaxing holiday-ness and stress-free living!

Breakfast: 7:15am
Breakfast has started becoming a little earlier than most holidays as I've been waking earlier (thanks overly-enthusiastic sun at 5:00am- just kidding- I love the sun!!) and doing some quicker, higher intensity Blogilates workouts.

 And this deliciously enormous, creamy and extremely thick green smoothie did the trick and quietened my grumbling belly!

 Into the Vitamix went 1 chopped frozen banana (super ripe and sweet :), 1 handful frozen zucchini, 1/2 chopped frozen avocado, 3 big scoops greek yoghurt, 1/2 cup rolled oats soaked in 3/4 cup almond milk for 15 mins with a sprinkle of chia seeds, 1 scoop vanilla protein powder, dash of cinnamon, handful of spinach and a handful of kale.

 Whazzed up until smooth and oh so mouthwatering. Note the spoon on the side. That's how thick I like my smoothies!

 And if you think smoothies don't keep you satiated and full for very long- give this one a try, even add in a scoop of nut butter for good measure! seriously I was full for hours!!

Lunch: 12:15pm
Come lunch time I was definitely ready for some grub and was really feeling the toasted sandwich vibe.

 As you all know my toasted sandwiches are never boring old two ingredient, throw-together, tasteless tragedies. Oh no, when I make a toasted sandwich, I make sure it is a good toasted sandwich! See here, here and here

 So in this guy was around 3/4 cup of white beans and lentils, drained, rinsed and heated up with some salsa before mashing up together, 2 slices of eggplant, capsicum, mushrooms all cooked in a pan until tender, some sliced pumpkin which was microwaved for 2 minutes and then placed in the pan to grill the outside, tomato slices, spinach, and hommus- all sandwiched between two slices of rye bread and toasted in a sandwich press until golden bornw and crip on the outside!

Snack: 3:30pm
I was really feeling the fruit when snack time was in order:

 So I chopped up some rockmelon, a pink lady apple and threw in some black grapes:

 Tasty, perfectly ripe, nature's candy!

Dinner: 6:45pm
Come dinner, I was ready for simple and delicious! So I forked a small white sweet potato, popped him in the oven for an hour at 180 degrees celsius- topping him off with some mixed nut butter I made that evening, steamed up some broccoli and brussels and poached two eggs:

 For the nut-butter all I did was literally find whatever raw nuts we had and popped them in the food processor to process on low (scraping down the sides every now and then) until combined, smooth and creamy.

 I think the mix was walnuts, almonds, cashews, pistachios and brazil nuts:

 After dinner, I was still a little peckish so I had two pieces of extra dark chocolate- so tasty and good!

And that is a typical day of my kinda eating!

Your turn:
Are you a smoothie lover? Favourite smoothie to whip up?
What would be the ultimate grilled sandwich for you? 
Favourite topping for a baked sweet potato? I think my all-time favourite will probably always be coconut butter- there's just something about that combo that just works. :)

Freezing in the Summer!

Hello, hello everyone!

First and most importantly... have you realised yet that Christmas is next week!?! WHAT!! I only sort of "realised" yesterday when my sister told me. Next week. Wow.
Luckily for me I got all my Christmas shopping (and also bought a whole new bed spread/ pillow mix for my room as well!) done yesterday, so I'm all set and ready to go and can simply focus my energy on what stunning dessert to create this year!

Now, secondly- onto the post!

Funny title, huh? Well, I promise you that the 30 degrees celsius plus days have not in fact left me freezing at all. What I'm referring to is taking advantage of the freezer (the considerably cooler box-y thing right by the fridge;) by freezer all manner of items.

I have this theory you see. I believe that freezing almost anything (there are some exceptions) takes that particular foods awesome-ness to a whole new level.

Exhibit A: Cream

Exhibit B: Frozen grapes

Exhibit C: Frozen banana

Exhibit D: Yoghurt

And that list goes on and on (you all already know my indisputable love for frozen peas)
 So it comes as no surprise that my freezer (well my designated shelf on the freezer) is chock-ablock full of food! This ranges from bread (both homemade and bought) to rolls, to various cut up fruits (think rockmelon, mango, honey dew, cherries, berries etc.) to veggies (beans, peas, corn, avocado, zucchini, spinach) to pre-prepared dinners, veggie patties, tofu and more!

I also love how I can prepare a delicious breakfast the night before, freeze it and enjoy something insanely delicious the next day with little to no preparation. For example this raw, high protein, filled-with-fibre, choc fudge brownie bar:

 Into a processor went 1/2 cup rolled oats, 2 tablespoons oat bran, 4 dates, 1 scoop choc protein powder, 1 teaspoon raw cacao powder, 1 teaspoon chia seeds, a dash of cinnamon, 1 super large scoop of peanut butter :) and enough almond milk to make a sticky glob :)

Then pressed down into a mini loaf tin lined with baking paper and popped in the freezer to freeze overnight!

 Popped out and wrapped in foil making an easy grab-and-go breakfast for a super busy day starting at 5:30am (where I had some fruit and yoghurt) and inhaled this glorious bar at around 9:15am for second breakfast!

 Seriously, it may not look like much, but this guy tasted goooood!

 Then I must have caught the freezing bug because when I came home from grocery shopping the other day I had these two fabulous guys:

 That needed to be cut up and stored away somewhere that would both prolong their life span and also raise their glorious tastiness that much more!

 By the way, that was one of the best tasting rock melons I've ever had!!

 Leftover halves were simply wrapped in glad wrap to be enjoyed fresh during the week!

 Scoop, cut, wrap, done!

 And then I realised I had a heck of a lot more perfectly ripe produce that needed freezing (think apricots, bananas, avocado, mango etc.) and this was the after math:

 Felt quite accomplished!

What about you:
Are you also of the freezer?
Favourite fruit/ veg to freeze?
Ultimate freezing hack you swear by?

I hope you all have great rest of your day! Eat something extremely delicious and I will be back next time with some more of the stuff we all love so dearly. FOOOD!! Bye for now friendly friends! :D

PB2 and lovely links

Happy Sunday friendly friends!I hope you're all having a tremendous weekend so far (maybe getting some Christmas shopping done? I still need to start...)

Anywho, we don't need that kind of stress to think about on a day as relaxing as Sunday. No, instead we should be thinking about the really good stuff in life.

Like friends.

Family.

and FOOOD!

So when I was out grocery shopping yesterday I came across something that I had once again only seen on American blogs/ vlogs etc.

PB 2 ! I got kind of excited and spent all $11 (quite pricey!) on it to have my very own tester of the dried peanut spread creation.

So as to the directions I stirred 1 tablespoon of water with 2 tablespoons of PB 2, of course  quickly realised that i eat way more PB than that, added a bit more PB 2 and water and gave it a little try! Now I usually buy all natural peanut butter with no added salt or sugar and PB 2 actually has a little bit of salt and sugar in it, so the flavour was definitely a lot stronger and different to what I was used to, but I was pleasantly surprised how much it looked like PB and the identical texture it created when mixed with water!

I decided to top my breakfast of orange creamsicle oats (made with steel cut oats) with it (with some extra regualr PB dolloped throughout just for safe measure ;)

Yep, that's the dried stuff right there:

It was definitely a lot sweeter than I was used to and maybe a bit more peanutty? (I think maybe the salt brought that flavour out/ it was more concentrated in flavour having being dried/ sucked of moisture)

But I guess in the end, all natural, creamy, crunchy, honest to goodness peanut butter will always have my heart.

Because really- nothing can compare to that :)

And now, as it is Sunday I have some fabulous links for you to check out from the week that was!

Food:

Vegan Rustic Vegetable Spiral Tart

Creamy Beet Pasta With Beet Green Pesto

Apple Walnut Quinoa

Chocolate Peppermint Silk Brownie Bars

Gingerbread Banana Bread

Warm Salad with a Creamy Blueberry Dressing

Fitness:

10 Things People Who Exercise All the Time Know to Be True

What Month Are Top Marathoners Born In?

6 (Weird & Amazing) Workouts You Won't Believe Are Real

The 17 Best Foods to Eat after Exercising

Health:

Q&A Friday: Is orthorexia an eating disorder

Unhealthy Eating Habits To Ditch

20 Foods That Give You The Most Nutrient Bang For Your Buck

Good Reads:

Pregnant Runner Finishes Three Half Marathons, One for Each Trimester

23 Incredibly Disrespectful Things People Did To Food In 2015

What Does Your Favourite Smartie Colour Say About You?



I hope you found some good reads in there as  know I sure did! It always amazes me the sheer number of brilliant posts posted each and every week! Makes me very happy!! Enjoy the rest of your day, do something yo love and eat something delicious!! Bye for now! :D