WIAW #84 Random, ridiculosuly easy meals! :D

Hidy-ho-ho-ho friendly friends!!

Christmas is getting lcoer and I'm getting excited!!

But before I get too excited, let's get back to basics with our favourite link-up of the week- What I Ate Wednesday! WIAW is a no judgement link-up for bloggers alike who wish to share a full days of unedited eating and drool over everyone else's delicious eats! Thanks to Peas and Crayons for creating this awesome link-up!!

Now onto the eats! (This selection of meals come from Monday)


Breakfast: 8:00am

I have a driving test coming up at the end of January so these past few mornings my gracious mother and I have been heading out in my little Micra (named Cherry) and spending a good hour mainly parking and driving around the quiet, barely awake streets.

When I get home from all this driving practice- I am famished!

A huuuge mug of cherry cheesecake oats with peanut butter and mixed nut butter in the middle:

All I did was simply pour into a saucepan some rolled oats, chia seeds, 1 thinly sliced banana, handful of frozen cherries and enough almond milk to cover (plus a little water), cook on medium heat until liquid is absorbed (stirring occasionally to prevent bottom-of-pan stickage), leave to cool slightly, then stir in a dollop of greek yoghurt.

Creamy, sweet, cherrrrriiieeeessss!

What more could a girl ask for??

Nom.

Lunch: 12:15pm
Recently I've been in a hangry phase. I'm always ridiculously hungry. So come 11:45am I was ravenous, so decided to start on lunch whilst crunching on a carrot.

Lunch was super simple and super tasty:
2 fried eggs atop some tomato slices with a side of oven-baked potato fried and a bowl of air popped popcorn:

Lots of air popped popcorn :)

Snack: 3:30pm
Ridiculously hungry once again and a bowl of delicious fruit to the rescue!!

1 cut up delightfully crunchy pear with some beautifully ripe watermelon and black grapes :)

Definitely hit the spot!

Dinner: 6:45pm
For some reason I was still starving come dinner time so I boiled up some high protein pasta, oven baked some eggplant, zucchini, cauliflower, mushrooms and capsicum, wilted some kale in the boiling pasta water and drained some four beans and lentils to add to the bowl along with a few spoons of hommus and nutritional yeast for creamy cheesey-ness factor:

Can you believe I was still hungry after that!? I had a glass of soy milk to quieten the belly and then I was done for the day!!

What about you:
Any funny driving test stories?
Favourite way to eat cherries? I think my ultimaste love of cherries is in a great, big, creamy smoothie!
Foods that curb the hunger bug? For me it's soy milk. Or dark chocolate :)

I hope you all have a fabulous day, that you're all set for Christmas and that you spend lots of time with those i your life you care most about! Bye for now! :D

The Things I Love Love Love!!

Happy Monday friendly friends!!

We're getting closer and closer to Christmas and are probably well under way with many celebratory dinners/ lunches/ catchups/ parties and just having fun!

And yet it seems that almost  every website I love to follow and frequent often (healthy living/ food blogs/ fitness etc.) are all centralised around one main topic at this present time; How to keep healthy/ maintain weight/ reduce kilojoules in this holiday season.

(finally learnt how to screen shot on a desktop!)

Now I'm not going to go off on a long rant about how the festive holidays and all the delicious treats and changes to normal routine only comes around once a year and should therefore be savoured and enjoyed, not stressed over and planned around to ensure you don't gain a single gram of weight!

Nope, I'm not going to go into that because I believe you are all smart enough to know that already and are instead focusing on the things (people and/ or food ;) you love these holidays! And so I am going to do the same!! :)

First of all, I love food. Food is healing, replenishing, rejuvenating, energising, tasty and down right happiness inducing. So these holidays I'm going to enjoy my food!

I love thick, chocolate smoothies:

 That require a GREAT amount of slurping energy to drink and also a spoon if required:

 I love bread and 'cheese' that doesn't give me a stomach ache (thankyou hommus, nutritional yeast and water) and tomato and combining them to make an old childhood favourite:

 Grilled cheese and tomato :)

 The crusty bit of my home-made wholemeal spelt bread topped with some vegan cheese, tomato slices and more vegan cheese:

 Popped under the grill at 180 degrees for 5-10mins until golden brown :)

 I also love my minions plate..

 I love super huge sandwiches filled with a rainbow of veggies:

 Hommus, veggie patty, spinach, grated carrot and beetroot, tomato, capsicum and avocado:

 And no, that is not a cucumber in the background, that would be my foam roller :P I was tricked for a second there too!!

 I love chocolate... especially for breakfast:

 Steel cut choc protein oats

 And I especially love warm, gooey oats with nut butter swirled throughout:

 I love, love, love roasted white sweet potato:

 As well as a big plate of ALL the roasted veg:

 And nothing can beat a cool refreshing smoothie bowl, topped with slightly warm, crunchy granola:

 Recipe here.

 And that's just the food!!
I love my friends, family, being together, watching corny holiday movies, baking, playing games, laughing, talking, soaking up the sun (Aussie Summer), the beach:

 I also forget how lucky I am to have a gorgeous white sandy beach at my backyard..

 And it truly fills me with so much joy to simply walk along the sand and just be.

Wow, that got a little lengthier than intended!

Your turn:
What do you love most about the holidays?
Best thing you ate this week?

I hope you all have a lovely day, be with those you love and as always; eat something delicious!! Bye for now friends! :D

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