Creamy Pumpkin "Pasta" - A work in progress

It turns out that I have quite a flair for combining ingredients together in such a way that they taste pretty damn good.

I am currently working on a recipe for Creamy Pumpkin "Pasta".


I almost have it right, but not quite....

Reaching my Fitness Goal

Four years ago I set a fitness goal to run the 6kms around our local lake. A couple of things got in the way of this goal (a tumour and two babies to be exact), but since I am now fit and healthy I decided it was time to do it:


I made it around the lake without stopping in 37 minutes 40 seconds, which wasn't too shabby since I had a horrific head wind and I haven't been running much for the last couple of weeks.


The run was pretty uneventful, except for one thing...I had the most ridiculously freezing cold left armpit. I'm not sure what the deal with it was, but at one stage I actually remember thinking that if I had have gotten my groceries before my run, I could have just tucked a chicken breast under my armpit and it would have been frozen by the time I got home.

It feels good to have reached this goal especially since it is winter, which is when I usually stop exercising all together and chunk up a bit. Now I know I can do it, I guess my new goal will be to shave a bit off my time.

What are your winter fitness goals?

Fried (Cauliflower) Rice

This week I have felt like I should have the flu. I am a little achy, a bit grumpy and oh so tired! I have gone to bed super early nearly every night this week and still feel like I could sleep for a month.

I have been trying to make sure that the family eats plenty of vegetables to keep all of the nasty winter bugs at bay. It is lucky that they love my Fried (cauliflower) Rice, as it gives them all a good serving of veggies. The little guy loves this stuff and usually eats around FOUR bowls full. Even Matty is won over.

Here is how you make it...

Whizz up a head of cauliflower in your food processor until it looks like rice:


Select the ingredients you want to include. I am using frozen peas, bacon, onion, garlic and will fry up my eggs and cut it into pieces. I usually add in more veggies, but we're running a little low on them at the moment. Thank goodness the Farmer's Market is tomorrow!:


I fry up my bacon, onion and garlic:


Then toss that in with the 'rice' and my peas and egg pieces. Add a little bit of cumin (or other spice), some parsley (or other herb) and 2 tablespoons of olive oil and it's done once the 'rice' has heated up:

And boy, does it taste good!

Raw Brownie Balls

On Wednesday Corben and I cracked some walnuts to use in a raw brownie recipe. It was a LOT more effort than I anticipated it would be. Some of the nuts I couldn't even crack:

Initially I made the raw brownies as a slice, but I found it to be too crumbly. Then I decided I wanted to make brownie 'balls' instead, so that I could put them in the freezer and just get a ball or two out when I felt like I need a bit of chocolatey goodness.

So the next morning I put the brownie mix back in my food processor and added some more dates. I ended up adding a tablespoon of water as well because I couldn't get it to clump together enough to make balls....Yummy chocolatey balls of bliss....


Seriously, these are the BEST thing I have tasted in a long time. You should definitely make some, although I warn you now that it is pretty costly if you don't have any of the ingredients on hand.

Also, be sure that you check the credentials of your 'Shell and Nut Sorter':

The one I employed was a little dodgy to say the least and a bit of shell got put into our bowl of nuts. That resulted in little tiny bits of walnut shell in every...single...ball.... *sigh*

Getting back on track after an eating binge!

It is common knowledge that if you don't have something nice to say, then you don't say anything at all, right? But what happens if someone doesn't realise that what they have to say isn't necessarily nice and as a result you get hurt feelings?

I had that happen to me last week. Words like "overboard", "controlling" and "ridiculous" were thrown around by a couple of people to describe me and the things I do on a day to day basis. I must have been feeling a bit fragile as I took it to heart....and then I turned to my good friend, sugar, for comfort.....and then I broke my supermarket ban and bought piles of stuff we didn't really need. Awesome!

I am at the end of a four day sugar binge and I feel terrible, but I thought it might be a good time to share with you the ways that I get back on track when my eating becomes a tad undesirable.

First up I exercise, even if I don't feel like it. In the warmer months I go out for a run, in the cooler months I just jump on the exercise bike (which I hate, but I do anyway). I also try and squeeze in a bit of strength training while the kids are playing. Just a couple of pushups, pullups, squats, lunges and planks, which all add up by the end of the day. This helps improve my mood and makes me feel more positive about things.

I make sure I drink a tonne of water and green tea (yes, I do spend a lot of time going to the toilet) and on occasions where I have been indulging in a lot of grains, I make up a batch of ginger tea to soothe my poor achy breaky tummy.

I obviously concentrate a lot on the foods I eat, making sure I eat a pile of vegetables and other healthy things like coconut oil (which helps with the sugar cravings). I try not to eat any fruit for a couple of days as that tends to make me want sugar even more.

I spend a lot of time being nice to myself, thinking about all of the things I am grateful for in my life as well as the qualities I like in myself. I also try to tackle a project that I think will be fun and which also serves as a distraction of an evening when the desire to eat sugar is at its highest.

I get as much sleep as I possibly can, which isn't all that difficult since I am usually so tired from eating badly that I can barely keep my eyes open anyway. So I nap when the kids do and I go to bed nice and early for a couple of nights.

After about three of days I find that things start getting a bit easier and I slide back in to my normal eating habits of no grains and no refined sugars. It is pretty tough work but well worth it, especially if you are like me and get really, REALLY cranky when you eat too much crap!

I will leave you with this picture of a raw brownie that my aunty sent to me last week:

(image source)

Hell yes! I will definitely be making some of those!

Round 2 : Vegetable "Toasties"

So you remember the vegetable "toasties" failure, right? Well I thought I would give it another go after receiving a few suggestions from some lovely readers.

First up, I tried the suggestion of using baking paper to stop it from sticking to the sandwich maker:


While that worked, the baking paper resulted in the vegetables being steamed, which meant the nice crunchy outside I was trying to get was pretty much non-existent.

They also didn't come out in one piece:


Next I tried the suggestion of binding the vegetables with egg:

This method was looking pretty promising, with that nice and crunchy crust I was wanting....I even told Corben we "had it in the bag". Then I tried to get the stupid things out. Yep, you guessed it...:


Yet another pile of mashed up veggies.

It was about here that I lost my cool, said a few words my grandmother wouldn't approve of, and decided to bake the rest of the vegetable mix (without egg) in the oven to see how that went:


They looked disgusting:


So I whacked them in the George Foreman grill for a couple of minutes:


And they turned out awesome!

I am still kind of bummed that I haven't found a use for my old school sandwich maker yet, but there was another suggestion of using some sort of pastry to house the vegetable mix. Perhaps I'll see if I can find a suitable paleo recipe and try that out later in the week.

Paleo Banana and Coconut Bread

It turns out that Corben really loves banana bread. Who would have thought? I only found this out because he keeps stealing bits of my sisters piece when she has some.


Being the loving mother that I am, I thought I would try my hand at creating a recipe for banana bread that we could both eat. This is what I came up with:

Ingredients:

2 cups almond flour (I will probably substitute some of this for coconut flour in future versions. I just didn't have any on hand)
1/4 cup LSA (Linseed, Sunflower Seed and Almond Mix. You can get this at the supermarket or health food shop)
1/2 cup of coconut
2 large bananas
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 tspn vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius.
Mix all dry ingredients together in a bowl:


In a different bowl, mash up your banana's then add in the vanilla and eggs.
Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into that. Mix everything together well.
Grease the sides and bottom of a loaf pan with butter. I also placed a strip of baking paper along the bottom and up two of the sides. I am glad I did that as it made it easier to get out of the pan in one piece.
Pour your batter into the loaf pan:


Pop your bread batter into the oven for about 40-50 minutes to cook. It is fully cooked when you insert a skewer into the middle and it comes out clean.


We took a piece of this to my sister (who doesn't eat paleo at all) and she said it exceeded her expectations. The real test though, was whether Corben would eat it. I am please to say he gobbled it right up....then picked up the crumbs he dropped on the bench and ate them too. Guess we can call this one a success!

Dismal Failure : Vegetable 'Toasties'

Have you ever had an idea that you thought would be awesome but then when you try it, it turns out to be, well, not so awesome?

That happened to me today:


A few weeks ago I had an electrical appliance clean out. I got rid of my second blender, an old mixer and a steamer that hadn't worked for over a year (?), but I couldn't bring myself to get rid of my Breville sandwich maker. You know, the old school type, that cuts your sandwich into two triangles and seals all the sandwich filling goodness in with nice and crispy crusts:


Since I no longer eat bread, I needed to come up with something else I could cook in it. So the idea of a vegetable 'toastie' was born. It was simple enough - A mash of vegetables, herbs and bacon cooked in the sandwich maker, emerging with a golden crust that would crack as you took the first bite. Hmmmm delicious!

So I made my vegetable and bacon mash and gave the sandwich maker a hefty spray of olive oil before loading it up:


I filled it to the brim so when I closed the lid, the vegetables oozed out the side.


But when we lifted the lid, after waiting for a lot longer than I normally would have, this is what I saw:


Erk! Upon closer inspection, I did get the golden vegetable crust I was after, but it stuck to the top despite the hefty spray of oil. So after I scraped it all out, this is what lunch looked like:


It still tasted good, but it was a pretty disappointing result!

Ditching Sugar: My Journey So Far

You may remember that my Aunty and I declared April a "no sugar" month. Well I am now up to day 20 and I have to say that it hasn't been as easy as I thought it would be.

(image from Third Planet Food)

I had expected the first few days to be a bit rough and they were. I had the WORST headache, I felt sick and I was moodier than usual. While those symptoms have disappeared now, I still find myself wanting to eat sugar nearly every..single..day. That is something I wasn't expecting.

Perhaps naively, I had thought that the cravings would have disappeared by the second week and that I would be full of energy and ready to take on the world. That I would be able to easily walk past a coffee shop and not feel the need for a caramel cappuccino. Instead I find myself lethargic and perhaps even a little depressed.

So, how have I managed to stick to the whole 'no sugar' thing when I feel this way?

I think the key to sticking with it so far has been reiterating to myself daily why I am aiming for a sugar free life. For me, I want to be sugar free as a positive influence in my children's lives and to not feel like sugar has a hold over me. Everyone will have different reasons, so it is important to work out what your reason is.

I also have a good support system in place. While Matty still eats a lot of sugar, he is very supportive in my decision to try and ditch it. He doesn't tell me that "just one (biscuit/cake/lolly)" won't hurt. Instead he makes me think ahead and plan for situations where we know there will be a sugary spread for afternoon tea. I make sure I pack myself some nuts or vegetables or what ever else I think I might like to have instead and I take that with me.

There have also been a few things I have physically done to help me in staying sugar-free this month. Firstly, I threw out all of the food that had sugar in it. If it isn't there, then you can't eat it! I know some people have problems with throwing out food, but not me. If I don't want to eat it because of the effects I believe it has on my health, then why would I feed it to my family?

I have also created a list of fun things things to do. When I feel like sugar, I do one of the things on the list and usually the craving passes. This doesn't seem to work of a night though, when my cravings are so, so bad. So of a night, I simply give myself permission to eat whatever I want so long as it has no grains or sugar in it. Because I exercise regularly and am also breastfeeding, I find that the extra calories consumed don't really make a difference to my weight.

At this stage I am a little worried that come May I will find myself having some sugar since the self imposed ban will be off, so I am thinking that I might have to declare May another sugar-free month. I am guessing that years of consuming copious amounts of sugar will have taken its toll, so it is only to be expected that it might take a while for my body to repair itself.

So what about you? Do you think you could ditch sugar?