WIAW

There's been a lot of experimenting in the kitchen this week, some good, some bad. 

I started the day with a green tea and a yakult, my usual mix before making breakfast. And breakfast was pretty good considering I didn't have much in the food cupboard (panic...) but I always have oats! So I made a simple porridge with almond milk, chia seeds, frozen banana and topped it with some coconut butter at the end. Oh yeahhhhh. 

Then I headed to the gym for pilates. They made us pair up in twos for some of the stretches, which I always dread because it involves kicking my legs in the air and thrusting my pelvis into someone's face. My instinct was to keep apologising! But im glad I did it, at least its one way of meeting new people...

I always forget how much of a good workout pilates is, I started to feel the burn when I got home, so I made a green smoothie to re-fuel. This one was made with frozen spinach, 1/2 a frozen banana, 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder (sunwarrior) almond milk and cinnamon. I sprinkled some coconut and muesli on top. Mmm.

Then I had a coffee and a few carrots with hummus. Ive been struggling with ideas for healthy snacks this week, so ive just been overloading on carrots but its getting a bit boring. Then I remembered how much I used to love snacking on a couple of oat cakes with some smoked salmon, avocado or just with almond butter spread on top. They are so versatile and tasty, but there not easily accessible over here in oz, seems to be a bit of a specialist buy. So I made my own! 

Homemade oat cakes
Makes 12 cakes

Ingredients

140g oatbran 

140g rolled oats

75ml canola oil (or 1/3 of a cup)

pinch of salt

1/3 cup of water, or enough to help the mixture combine 

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and preheat your oven to 180 degrees. 

Combine all the ingredients together until you get a dough like texture and can lift out of the bowl easily. Add more water if you need the oats to stick together more. Flatten the mixture down and cool in the fridge for 10 minutes, this will help you roll it out later. 

Sprinkle flour on your work surface and take your dough out of the fridge. Roll out the dough, being careful as it can be crumbly. 

Using a round cookie cutter, cut 12 discs and place them on the lined baking tray. Bake in the over for 15-20 minutes. Leave to cool and enjoy with your favourite topping. 

I snacked on 2 of these with some almond butter, the best. 

After I cleaned up the mess id made in the kitchen, I started looking for new recipes at meal times. I found a really good one for broccoli and parsnip soup but having brought all of the ingredients I got home to find my blender was not working. Recipe fail. So I had to improvise....and this is what I came up with...

Healthy egg and chips! I roasted the parsnips in the oven with some courgettes, steamed some broccoli and served it with a poached egg on top. I would probably get linched for calling this egg and chip back home, but what do i care? im hundreds of miles away in the sun HA. 

We settled down to watch a film that evening, so desert was on the cards... I had some low fat greek yoghurt (I usually have total 2% but it doesn't exist over here!!! so I've settled for farmers market 50% less fat, the best ive found) with some blackberries, agave nectar and a slice of protein banana bread from Protein Pow. All in all a good days eats, considering I had hardly anything in the food cupboard and failed in the kitchen a couple of times...