Thursday 29 September 2011

Issues

I've been a naughty blogger lately and haven't made a post in ages.
I've made a list of all these recipes that I want to share with you and some epic craft projects I've been working on but to tell you the truth I've been a bit down in the dumps lately.
I've realised although I eat healthy etc. I have a really unhealthy attitude and relationship with food. And I've been trying to sort it out.
I also just came down with a cold so hopefully once I'm all better I can realign my exercise and food regime so that I can be physically and mentally healthy. I really need regime otherwise everything gets out of whack, its just the way my mind works. So at the moment I'm all over the place, having taken 2 days off work to recover and not being able to exercise and literally eating 24/7 not because I'm hungry (I'm actually the opposite) but just because I'm bored.  So much food shammeee agh! Do you get that? Where you just eat without care and then afterwards are so ashamed you just want to bury your head under the sand? It happens to me more than it should and trust me, I'm working on it. Ill be back up and running by next week hopefully so stay tuned. Ive got some really awesome things to share with you 

Beth xo

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Mexican fever

Driven by 3 things

1. Mexican night with some girlfriends on the weekend consisting of tequila, DVDs and nachos,
2. Fit Foodie Find's most recent post 'Healthy Fiesta Lime Rice'
and 3. A need for more exciting/nutritional lunches to eat at work

this recipe was born!!


Easy Mexican Rice and Bean Salad

Ingredients:
left over rice (I had around 1.5 cups left)
1 tin red kidney beans (can use any beans, these just happened to be the ones in the cupboard), rinsed and warmed through
1 tomato, diced
1/2 cucumber, diced
1/2 small capsicum, diced
1 avocado, diced
juice of 1 lemon (to help keep the avocados from browning)
2 Tbsp Salsa, I used Old el paso Medium Spicy bean salsa
1 Tbsp low fat sour cream

Mix all ingredients together and enjoy!

** I would also have added 1/4 cup fresh coriander, chopped and 1 cob of corn worth of kernels if I had them in the fridge.... but unfortunately I didn't :( but please do try it with these additions and let me know how it goes :)


Monday 19 September 2011

Dreaming

I love breakfast, this isn't a secret. I go to sleep thinking of, and therefore dream of, my breakfast for the next day. Now don't go assuming I'm referring to big breakfasts with sausages and bacon and other yummy goodies, although these breakfasts are also worthy to be dreamt about. No, I'm dreaming of oats and cereals and anything else that I can load heaps of different fruits and nuts into to make even yummier! 


However my favourite breakfast combinations change from time to time, last week I was craving overnight oats that had been soaked in chai tea and topped with apples and cinnamon. The week before it was your generic cereal, with bananas and strawberries and this week I am L-O-V-I-N-G museli with youhgurt topped with all sorts of goodies. Here was today's breakfast:


Ingredients:
1/2 cup generic museli (mine is the homebrand low-fat version with lots of dried fruits)
1 Tbsp chia seeds
1 Tbsp sunflower seeds
1 Tbsp phyto soy LSA mix from Nu Vit Health foods (basically a boost to my museli's nutritional value)
3-4 strawberries cut in small pieces
1/2 orange, segmented and cut into halves
1/4 apple, cubed
1/4 cup skim milk
2Tbsp low-fat vanilla yohgurt


Put all ingredients in a bowl (as above) then mix (as below) AND DEVOUR!




Yummo! Think ill be dreaming of this one tonight!


Beth xo

Tuesday 13 September 2011

Overnight oats!

I dont think that ive mentioned this but my inspiration behind this blog was Fit Foodie Finds and this was also where I first saw the idea of overnight oats. After looking at more food blogs I've come to realised they're a pretty popular blogging recipe so I thought today I would go with the norm and create my own.


Again, I don't really measure my food so basically its all approximate.

Ingredients:
- handful of oats (probally 1 C)
- 1 Tbsp Chia seeds
- 1 Tbsp sunflower seeds
~combine the above then cover with water then microwave for 2 mins
remove from microwave and seperate into 2 bowls (serves 2) then cover again with water then place in fridge overnight

In the morning i either have my oats cold or i microwave them to make them like porridge, this morning i decided to heat my oats up and then top with milk, honey, sunflower seeds and tinned peaches. Yummo!! I gave the other serve to my mum and she loved it, shed never had overnight oats before and thought it was such a brilliant idea!


Then later in the day, after work i went to the gym to do a well needed workout (I've been super slack lately) which look something like this:
- 3o mins cross trainer on interval weight loss program
- 15 mins on rowing machine on highest level
- 100 sit-ups each front, and sides
- stretches

Since i know i need to refuel after a workout but didn't bring anything with me to the gym i popped over to the Asian shop and bought a lemon bubble tea mmmmm 



But! I completely wasted my workout by going to the pub for dinner with my friends and having a parmi. Bad decision but oh so yummy! And I guess I did eat the salad... who am i kidding, I'm allowed to be naughty sometimes haha

Beth xo

Monday 12 September 2011

Moon lantern Festival '11

Wow im really getting the hang of this whole blogging business, today I took my camera on a little trip with me to the Moon lantern festival in Elder park after I finished work.




There were so many colours and smells wherever I went and there were SO MANY PEOPLE! I really hate crowds and after working at the  Royal Adelaide Show last week, this was particularly painful. However i did pop over with my friend Emily to make a paper crane and took a few photos of the already made ones. The aim of the project was to make 1000 cranes throughout the day... I wonder if they reached that.


Emily's crane (blue) and my crane (purple) being friends nawh




There were also many performance throughout the time I was there including amazing dancing like Bollywood and traditional Chinese as well as a performance from the Shandong Performing Art Troupe which blew my mind! Literally, some of the acrobatics they could do were unbelievable!
Karate demonstration, the kids were so cute!
While there I did try some sweet rice pancakes with a yummy peanut filling that burnt my lip because I couldn't wait to eat it but i was still pretty hungry when I got home so I decided to cook myself a nice quick omelet.


Now I'm the sort of person who doesn't really measure things when I'm cooking for myself so the following is all approximations.


Take no notice of the terrible lighting in my kitchen.
Ingredients:
- 1/2 tomato, diced
- 1/4 zuchini, diced
- 1/4 red onion, diced
- 1/4 small red capsicum
- 1/4 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 egg
- a splash of milk
- s+p
- small amount of lavender cheese
** note: you could put practically whatever you have in your fridge into this omelet... thats what I did bahaha




Basically cook all the listed veggies in a pan and meanwhile whisk egg, milk and s+p in a bowl then pour over the cooking veggies and crumble cheese on top. Then wait untill the egg is cooked.




I served my omelet on a peice of rye toast with rocket and 2 of my favourite sauces of the moment (I have a weakness for sauce).


I spreaded the Sriracha hot sauce on my rye toast and then drizzled my Alpine Berry Farm caramelised chilli balsamic vinegar on top of my rocket. Weird combination, but completely yummy! And of course I had this all with a lovely cup of green tea (:




I am officially in love with this mug... just sayin' bahaha


Anyways its off to bed for me, early start again tomorrow eep!


Beth xo

Sunday 11 September 2011

Steamboat

In 2007 my mum, brother and I traveled to Thailand to visit my dad (who lives in china). While there we discovered the steamboat at MK restaurant in the MBK shopping centre. It was so cheap and so tasty and we left absolutely stuffed! I remember we managed to feed the 5 of us for 50 bucks including drinks and the mountain of spring rolls and roasted duck (if you ever visit this restaurant you MUST try the duck, its TDF!). But since returning to Australia we haven't been able to find a restaurant that specialises in steamboat/hotpot until now! On one of my very lonely nights of reading food blogs i came across a review of go-in hotpot train on Hindley street so tonight, not revealing where we were going, I took my family there and wow were they excited!

It was a lot different to the MK's because it was set up like a sushi train but there was no sushi, instead an array of vegetables and noodles were rotating the table. We took our seats and chose our soup flavour (I chose hot and spicy schezchuan beef) and then our meat as they did not appear along the conveyor belt for OH&S reasons presumably. As each weird vegetable floated past we debated over what it could be and then, without agreeing on an answer, chucked it into our soup pots to trial.


 I ended up trying lotus root which was actually pretty tasty and interesting, my soup was super spicy though, can you see all those chillies?


My favourite things that i put into my soup were the mushrooms and deep-fried tofu squares which sucked up all the soup flavours.
Nice soothing Sugar cane drink to cool the pallet (SUPER SWEET)
 There was 3 options for drinks, the sugar cane, herbal tea and plum juice. We got the sugar cane to start which was sickly sweet and then we got the plum juice, but for some strange reason that tasted like smoky bbq sauce, so we didnt end up finishing that one...


My mum was grabbing things left right and centre to test out and of course when given the option of meats she chose all 3 types, needless to say my brother and boyfriend demolished the meat stack pretty quickly while mum and me smashed the veggies.

All in all it was a very lovely, reasonably cheap (under $20 ea) eat out. However, although the hotpot 'train' idea is brilliant, it meant that i had to yell across my brother and boyfriend to my mum to have a conversation with her, i would have preferred to be seated facing my family members, which there was an option to do, but those 2 tables were taken :(

Im now going to go for a hot shower and then take my full little belly off to bed!
Goodnight my pretties

Beth xo

Retail Therapy

The 2 last weeks have been super hectic for me, ive been working at my ordinary job in a cafe 8-3pm and then at the Royal Adelaide Show from 6-11pm. I swear i almost died from exhaustion. To reward myself for getting through the last fortnight alive i decided some retail therapy was needed. Me and my friend Maddi started our day at Nino's on Jetty road in brighton for Brunch where i ordered the Bruschetta and she ordered the Eggs Florentine. The food was okay but the highlight was my chai latte, warmed me up right through on such a cold morning.


We then made our way to Harbour Town to shop, here are some of my purchases...
$5 pink scarf

$15 hipflask that i didnt even want to buy but Maddi made me!
As you can probally tell i was in a pink mood today and i just love harbour town because its so dirt cheap! Then when i got home i made myself a scrumptious little snack of cruskits with 2 combinations: ham, lavender cheese, tomato, rocket and hommus and roast beef, lavender cheese, tomato, rocket and horseradish dip accompanied by a green tea with honey in my brand new birdy mug that only cost me $5 from typo! 
yummo!
Needless to say i scoffed this bad boy down in 10 seconds and my green tea tastes 10x better in a cute little mug! Now im just waiting for 7pm so i can take my family out to tea at the hotpot train in the city! So excited, i love hotpots! Ill post some pictures of the yummy food tomorrow :)


untill then, ciao my little munchkins!


Beth xo

Saturday 10 September 2011

Welcome!

Oh why hello there! Meet me!
Hello, nice to meet you!
Im Beth and I live in Australia and love being healthy!



Ive been reading food blogs as entertainment for the last few months (sad i know) and ive decided its about time i begin my own considering i cook often and would like somewhere to keep tabs on my recipes and healthy eating progress.





I never used to be interested in healthy eating untill the start of last year when i was 15kg heavier and my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. Having always been the 'healthy' one in our little 3 person family (mum, myself and brother) it came as a big surprise that she was sick but also gave me the motivation to change my habits and get healthy.
Dont worry kiddos, mums in remission now and were all trying really hard to be healthy eaters so that an illness doesnt strike us down again.


So future readers, prepare yourself for recipes, workout regimes and general thought farts that i have and enjoy yourself.