A Day In My Life

hello friends!

i thought i would break away from the usual for my post today. so instead of sharing a recipe post with you i thought i would give you a little insight into how i spent my weekend.

of course majority of my day is spent thinking about food, eating food, planning what i want to eat and where. even when i'm at work (the source bulk foods in camberwell *melbourne) i am surrounded by ingredients and get to hear what other people love creating and dishes they wish to make. i love helping people find things they may not have tried or give them inspiration to branch out in their diets.

any way, i digress. here is a little insight into what i got up to on my weekend off, which was actually a friday and saturday.

Friday

as my partner works monday to friday i had the apartment to myself today, but decided to spend some time in the city/center of melbourne for a while.

my breakfast fuel for the day was bananas and a dandelion chai with almond mylk and coconut sugar.

i took the train into the city getting off at melbourne central shopping centre, not the biggest fan of public transport but i am getting the hang of it now and it isn't as scary as it used to be. 

made my way into lululemon at the emporium and picked up a new pair of leggings that are warmer than my current pair to wear to yoga. so far i have only tried a 10 day trial but i seriously think i have an addiction... and cannot wait to sign up! luckily my partner generously gave me a voucher at christmas for the studio at the end of our street.

i love walking the streets of melbourne, especially all those little side streets, filled with little boutiques and eateries. i made my way down to degraves street, to pick up a little vegan doughnut at doughnut time.

as it has been a few hectic weeks for both of us, my partner and i decided to have a good old fashion date night at home. so i took it upon myself to make sure we were fully stocked with delicious goodies. they had 2 vegan options the day i went and i decided to go with their vegan fox. its a simple doughnut coated in dark chocolate, pistachios and freeze dried strawberries. it was sooo good, but i am a bit of a doughnut fiend.

as you will see this 'weekend in my life' is far from the healthiest representation of diets but i don't eat this way all that often and therefore have no regrets! 

before leaving the city to head back home, i ducked into raw trader for the last of tonight's treats. they have an absolutely amazing range of raw vegan goodies, and if you are a little nervous about making these kind of treats but want to try them, this place is perfect!

i picked up an apple crumble cake, black forest cake and a trifle slice. We shared these later that night and the apple crumble was our fave, followed but the black forest cake. i'm not a fan of trifle and that slice tasted spot on, so i tried but couldn't eat it because it was so close to the original!

since i knew i'd be having a few treats later that night, when i got home from the city at lunch time i decided to get in my daily dose of veg.

i had a bowl of left overs from thursday nights dinner. veggie lentil bolognese with tri-grain pasta from work, the source bulk foods in camberwell.

so friday night ended with kombucha, popcorn coated in tahini, cinnamon and vanilla powder, shared treats from my trip to the city, while rugged up watching some of the new season of penny dreadful!

Saturday

so saturday actually started off with a sleep in, which never happens for me. i'm usually wide awake early on my days off to get the most out of my day, even if it's just to sit around watching foodie videos on youtube!

then one of my best mates messaged me asking if i wanted to catch up over lunch, so of course i said yes! 

my partner had gotten a restaurant recommendation during the week at his work, for an american style burger joint in richmond called the collection bar, that offered a vegan burger. so we decided to try it out, as our mate loves all things american!

this was the burger, and wholly moly, it was delishiously messy! and even though i haven't had the chance to try many vegan burgers, it was actually realllyy yummy! 

i tend to keep away from soy products because i know my tummy really doesn't like it at all, but decided the discomfort was worth it.

it was called a bbq tempeh cheeseburger, made up of a hickory smocked tempeh patty, with dill steamed onions, vegan cheese, dill pickles, and vegan burger sauce. sorry for the really poor food photo!

as a little snack to tide me over until dinner, i tried out a new to me snack bar. it was actually really good as well! i had a surprisingly good food choices day today, as i find a lot of these types of energy bar/natural food bars are hit or miss for me. most of the time they are a miss actually, i prefer to make my own. but this had a deliciously fudgy texture and good flavour pay off.

dinner ended up being a baked sweet potato boat. which has become a bit of a staple dinner recently, along with spicy lentil stews.

this guy was baked in the oven for quite a while (forgot how long exactly sorry!) until you could poke it with a skewer and feel no resistance in the flesh. also a gooey caramel begins to ooze out of the potato when it's close to done.

once it was baked i opened it up down the middle and spooned over a lentil bolognese i made while the potato was cooking, then drizzled unhulled tahini and nutritional yeast on top.




thankyou for making it to the end of this little adventure, and i'll hopefully catch up with you all again soon.

have an awesome day!

Cinnamon Courtney xoxo

Pumpkin Muffins with Cinnamon Icing

 

            Hello everyone!

            It's pumpkin season here in Australia, and I thought I would share with you a really simple muffin recipe, that's a great way to sneak some veggies into your diet.
            The muffin mixture doesn't have a strong pumpkin flavour and isn't super sweet. I made up two different batches, one with choc chips and icing (a sweeter tasting muffin), while the second batch was just the muffin mixture with nothing added. Both times they actually came out really tasty. If you wanted to, you could swap out the chocolate chips for dried fruit like sultanas or cranberries.

Pumpkin Muffins with Cinnamon Icing

Plant-based - Gluten Free - Dairy Free

Makes: 6 large muffins

Time: prep 10 minutes

Cooking: 20-25 minutes

Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup pumpkin puree

- 1 cup almond milk

- 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

- 1/4 cup coconut sugar
- 1 tbsp coconut oil

- 1 cup buckwheat flour
- 1/2 cup sorghum flour

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1/2 tsp baking powder

- pinch of Himalayan pink salt

- 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp ground clove

- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

- 1/2 cup chopped dark dairy free chocolate (optional, I also added another 1/8 cup just to top my muffins)

Icing: Optional, they are still tasty without it.
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 4 tbsp coconut nectar
- 4 tbsp hulled tahini

Method:

- Preheat your oven to 170C and line your 6 hole muffin tin or grease them with a touch of coconut oil.

- Pop all of the wet ingredients as well as the coconut sugar into a bowl and combine well.

- In a separate bowl combine all of the dry ingredients, before adding them into the wet ingredients. Stir this through until it's all incorporated, then fold through the chocolate chunks.

- Spoon the mixture into you muffin tins and pop the tray into the oven.

- Remove your muffins after 20-25 minutes or a skewer comes out clean. Allow them to cool in the tin for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- While the muffins are cooling you can make up your icing by combining all the ingredients into a delish paste. Them once your muffins are cool you can smooth over a layer of icing and presto they are ready to devour!

Let me know how you go if you do try this out yourselves, or post a picture on instagram and tag me with @cinnamon_courtney so I can see all of your recreations!

"There is nothing about my age that prohibits me from fulfilling my dreams" -Wayne W. Dyer

Chocolate Chia Mousse

            Happy Easter everyone! Or happy chocolate and hot cross bun weekend if you don’t celebrate Easter. I have a little naughty but nice chocolate recipe for you here today, that is my go to healthier version of a chocolate dessert when nothing but chocolate will do!

            Now I know a lot of people out there try out ‘healthy swap’ recipes and are disappointed because they taste nothing like the dish they are trying to recreate, I’ve been there too!

            So when I was testing out a chia pudding recipe, I was using almond milk and berries, which did turn out nice but not really what I wanted, I changed it up and used coconut milk and raw cacao powder… and was blown away. I had to force myself to stop eating the whole batch…

            It has an awesome light mousse texture but the coconut milk and raw cacao make it taste like it is a really decadent and rich dessert.

A little bit about C H I A  S E E D S ;

These powerful little seeds are jam packed full of omega 3, fibre and protein.

            ~ One tablespoon of chia contains 3 grams of omega 3 and 6 grams of dietary fibre. This helps increase energy levels, improve digestion and promote healthy hair, skin and nails. They also love to absorb liquid, they can absorb up to 16 times their own weight! This can increase your feelings of fullness after eating as well as helping your body regulate hydration levels.

            ~ As a vegan protein source they are also pretty amazing as they contain all nine of the essential amino acids, which are the building blocks in our bodies and essential for maintaining a healthy functioning you!

            ~ There is also no nutritional difference between the white and the black chia seeds so feel free to use which ever you like for this recipe.

Chocolate Chia Mousse

Plant-based – Gluten Free – Dairy Free

Serves: 2 people

Time: prep- 10 minutes

Setting- 5 hrs or overnight

Ingredients:

- 1/4 cup chia seeds

- 400ml or 1 ¾ cup coconut milk

- 3 tbsp liquid sweetener

- 1 tsp Maca (optional)

- 1 tsp Mesquite (optional)

- ¼ cup cacao/carob powder

- ½ tsp vanilla extract or ¼ tsp of vanilla powder

- pinch of cinnamon

- pinch of Himalayan pink salt

Top with:

- Fresh berries, shredded coconut and goji berries – it is quite rich so the fresh berries really help to cut through it.

Method:

- Add all ingredients into a jar and make sure you stir and combine everything well.

- Pop the jar into the fridge to set.

- Serve with a layer of fruit in the centre and then top with fresh berries, coconut and goji.

Let me know how you go if you do try this out yourselves, or post a picture on instagram with the hashtag #cinnamoncourtney so I can see all of your recreations.

‘When I decide to be happy, I attract great things I my life’ – Robert Holden

Source:

The Chia Co. – www.thechiaco.com