The Clean F Word : February 2016

What I ate Wednesday

2:06 AM

Another week has flown by, I just can't believe how fast 2016 is flying by. This year has been totally crazy for me but i'm still feeling pumped about my health. My vegan lifestyle is still going strong and I couldn't be prouder. Now I just have to work on my exercise routine and i'll be satisfied completely.

As far as my exercise goes I have slackened off a lot. I really want to get into it but with my everyday job I just can't seem to find the time. I know that sounds lame and it's just an excuse but I am working on it and hopefully I can work some sort of routine that will work for me.

Today I thought I would share with you what I have been eating this week. This morning my husband and I decided to grab a cafe breakfast after we dropped the kids off at school. It was so good to be able to get out the house and have breakfast together before we both headed off to work (we both started later today). We went down to the Palace Espresso Bar at Southgate Plaza and I was a little worried about finding something vegan to eat but it was really easy. They have a super yummy vego brekkie which I chose and I just asked the girls there if we could have it with no eggs or butter. I then replaced the egg with a hash brown because I wanted to treat my outing as a special treat meal.

The meal was AMAZING!!!! I don't know what the chef did to the mushrooms but they tasted DIVINE!

For meal prep this week I made a huge vegan lasagne which will keep us fed for a couple of lunches and dinners. Lasagne is one of my favourite things to prep because it is so easy and you can change it up all the time with different veggies. This week I made one based on a recipe I found on Pinterest. You can find the recipe here: http://www.veganricha.com/2015/06/vegan-veggie-lasagna-for-2.html

The recipe is fantastic and you can add heaps more veggies with the mushrooms like zuchinni, capsicum etc. What makes the lasagne so tasty is definitely the Tofu 'Ricotta'. Oh my gosh........please give it a try you won't regret it. I also tried out San Remo's wholemeal lasagne sheets which were really nice.

Some other yummy goodies that have been made in my kitchen this week include a yummy Peanut Satay Tofu + Veg on pasta. I used a vegan satay sauce that I found at Coles supermarket called Yackandandah thai satay simmer sauce. This had to be the easiest meal of the week!

My husband made us a vegan pizza to share one night because the kids were away and we were having a movie night. He did an awesome job topping the pizza with all our leftover items like mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, fresh pineapple, spinach, onion and capsicum. We also used a vegan pineapple salsa that I found at the Everything Vegan store on Goodwood Rd for the base sauce. YUM!

To go with my cups of tea this week I grabbed a packet of vegan and gluten free gingernut cookies that I found in Coles for about $3 a packet. These were delicious and having these as my sweet treat with my tea just kept me satisfied. (my crazy sugar and chocolate cravings are slowly disappearing YAY)

Finally I threw together some sweet potato and corn fritters.......I am working on the recipe as I had a few issues with them but once the recipe is perfected I will share it with you all so please stay tuned!

Stay Happy and Healthy
Liane Xx

50 random facts about me!

6:42 PM

What I Ate Wednesday!

2:38 AM

This week I got into the basics for meals. We were on a little bit of a budget because I kind of went crazy last week on food. We went out for dinners a couple of times which is always expensive and then I went food shopping at Coles and ended up spending a fortune.......Basically I had started running out of staples like sauces, flours, pastas etc so it was a pretty big and expensive shop.

This week we went fruit and veg shopping at the Adelaide Central Markets. I didn't have a plan I just grabbed the basics. Loads and Loads of fruit and veg :)

Sometimes basics are just simple, easy and fun! So many people freak out when I say that I am eating vegan now. I generally get asked, "but what do you eat?" Or "but isn't that so expensive?".

My answer to the first question is that I eat the same as I did before just altered to be vegan. It's pretty simple. I eat lots of vegetables and fruit and I make fun meals all the time that taste just as good even better than when I wasn't a vegan eater. My answer to the second question? no! It is not more expensive. I had a $200 food budget for a family of 4 for one week before and now I still have my $200 food budget sometimes my weeks are even cheaper than before because my trolley is packed with food from the produce section instead of the aisles. Come on peeps! 99c a kilo for bananas, $3 a kilo for broccoli, 99c a kilo for pumpkins and sweet potatoes........how can you go wrong? What I save from meats and dairy I use to spend a little extra on non dairy milks, dairy free cheese etc. it's not hard.

Shopping at the central Markets for fruit and veg is usually much cheaper and also most privately owned fruit and veg stores have pretty awesome pricing. So it is always good to shop around and find your favourite locals. Big chain supermarkets are not the only people selling food out there :p

Here is my food shop from today:

I bought about 5 bunches of bananas today. I basically live off them now. So cheap, so quick and so good for you. I love filling my fridge after a day of shopping and seeing so many gorgeous colours.

Anyway back to what I have been eating........here is a peek of just some of the highlights from my week. This bagel and dragon fruit was my lunch today! Yum! The bagel was filled with avocado, vegan daiya cheddar, tomato and spinach. The dragonfruit is the first one I have ever tried and I am totally a new fan! They are so pretty.

And here is some other yummy dishes from my week :) seriously! This lifestyle is so damn good.

Stay Happy and Healthy

Liane Xx

Valentines Day 2016

1:16 AM

I love Valentines Day! Yes I know it's just a day where businesses profit from a silly day and everyone falls for it BUT I love the deeper meaning to it. I love that there is a day where people take that extra effort to show that they care, yes people should be showing each other all the time but sometimes life gets in the way and a little reminder like Valentines Day to be a little extra special is awesome!

Any thing that spreads love, kindness and affection is alright in my book.

So how did I spend my Valentines Day this year?? I spent it with my family having a Family Games Day! :D My husband and I both had the day off work and both our kids were home so we headed over to the in-laws for games day. YAY! It was so much fun and we are making it a monthly tradition which I am SUPER excited about. I love having family time.

We were having a late lunch and nibbles for the day so because my husband and I are now vegan we decided to take a big tub of watermelon and we also made some pizzas, one which was completely vegan. The other two had meat on them for the meat eaters but everybody loved the vegan one. YAY! The in laws also had some huge fruit platters........perfect day made!

Obviously being a Sunday, it wasn't just Valentines Day it was also Meal Prep day in our house so there was lots of awesome meals coming out of the kitchen. For work I made up a yummy Honey, Soy and Ginger Stirfry using the leftover veg in the fridge and ramen noodles.

My 12 year old son threw together some noodles as well with honey soy sauce and he also packed up a small tub of medjool dates, doritos and an orange. As you can tell I haven't fully converted the kids to vegan. As they are older I am letting them make their own decisions but they generally eat our vegan dinners etc and they are fairly healthy, but will sometimes have non vegan food items if they feel like it. I would never force anyone to do something they don't want to do so the best thing I can do is just to provide as much education on nutrition as I can.

As far as kids go, mine are pretty healthy and i'm proud.

My 16 year old daughter decided to make up some sushi rolls for her school lunch and I think they look GREAT! I wouldn't eat them because of the salmon but I was pretty impressed with her efforts. She made a big batch so she could eat them over a couple of days. She also took a big tub of mixed fruit including watermelon, strawberries and blueberries from what I remember.

Eating healthy is so easy!!

Back to Valentines Family Game Day.........here are a couple of pics I took while we were playing bingo! I was so much fun but I must admit my favourite game of the day was definitely Family Feud. Seriously if you don't have that boardgame yet I highly recommend it. It is awesome to play at parties with teams.