Friday, August 23, 2013

Lamington Bites

Hello Hello!

Ok so next post, I'm really sorry but its healthy again.... :( i've never had to go on a a diet and well its taking longer than I first anticipated. A 2 week summer body doesnt actually happen the way you think it does... anywho what i'm making today is Sensibliss Balls! I know what your thinking.. what a gay name. I'm going to come up with a new one, how about Lamington Bites! (Amazeballs was also in the suggestion bin) I mean the only thing they have in common is chocolate and coconut but hey anything is better than Sensibliss Balls...

Now before I begin, these DO have the stamp of approval from mum and Alice. In fact they continuously demolish them before I can even blink an eye! All I can say is i hope the dates make them pay for it later....

And yes first time round I did make a mess. Dont try and do these in a blender... it DOESNT work!
Hand model? I think so....

Makes 27 and a half!

Ingredients:

1 Cup of Medjool Dates (i just used the cheap pre pitted ones because i had them in the cupboard)
1 Cup of Cashews
1/2 Cup of Almonds
1/2 Cup of Oats
1/2 Cup of Desiccated Coconut
1/2 Cup of Cacao powered
1 Tbsp of Coconut oil (now this really is BS cause I used almost 3....)

1. Measure out your dates and pop them in a bowl. Proceed to cover them in water and make a date soup for 15min while they soak, then drain.
2. In a food processor, blend the oats and nuts until they form a rough crumb. (essentially you could use any nut variation you fancy/ have in the cupboard. Peanuts? why not?! Macadamias? Hell yes! Just don't go for salted nuts or you may end up with something funky)
3. Add the soaked dates, coconut, cacao and coconut oil and blend until well combined.
4. Take a heaped tbsp of mixture at a time and roll it into a little ball. If the mixture is too crumbly, add another tbsp of coconut oil... or two... or three...
5. Once you have all your balls lined up nicely on a baking tray, take each one and roll it around in some extra coconut. Its also suggested to use Chia seeds or cacao powder to roll in aswell.

One thing to note, you must keep these little babies in the fridge! They are nicer chilled anyway :D

Next time I promise to post something ridiculously unhealthy like cheesecake....

Laters,

Dee




Thursday, August 15, 2013

Choconana Bites

Hello Everyone!

And so it begins, I have decided I have missed writing about my weekly adventures to exotic places that make you all drool with jealousy. So in leiu of that passing thought I have decided to continue despicable dee! Yes thats right you will now have the please of hearing about my sporadic cooking adventures (yes kinda lame and very broad term) on this beautiful web-based medium. No more insty pictures it will all be on here! Ok i cant promise you that one....

Anyway I thought I would start with something that reflects my mood this week and since I am trying to loose the spare tire I attained on my holiday, its going to be superduper healthfreak healthy! Alright, drumroll.... today we are making CHOCONANA BITES YAYYYYY(original recipe from www.recipe2healthy.com).


Now before you make this and judge me. Alice and Mum were not too keen on the finished result, but Alice is a picky food snob. The origninal recipe called them cookies but in hindsight they are more like Choconana oat nuggets. Anyway onto the recipe!

 MMMM MMMMM smashed up baby puke.... (really selling this one arn't I)
 Looking a little better I must say...
And Voila! All the work is done for you and its ready for the oven... he he he but seriously enough talk, here is the recipe.

Makes 24 with enough batter left over to taste along the way!

Ingredients:

  • 2 Ripe Mashed Bananas
  • 1/3 Cup Reduced Fat Peanut Butter
  • 2/3 Cup Unsweetened Applesauce (I used baby food)
  • 1 Tsp Vanilla Essence
  • 1/2 Tsp Salt
  • 1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
  • Dash of Ground Cloves
  • Dash of Ground Nutmeg
  • 1/2 Cup of Oats
  • 1/4 Cup of dry unsalted nuts of your choice! (crushed peanuts for me)
  • 1/4 Cup of Dark Chococochips
  • 1/4 Cup of Unsweetened Coconut
Method:

1. Preheat your oven to 180ish Celcius and line two baking trays with baking paper.
2. Next, Mash up your nanas with a fork and mix in the Peanut Butter, Applesauce, Vanilla and Spices
3. Add the oats, choc chips and coconut and mix until all combined
4. Finally, evenly place heaped tablespoons of the mixture on the trays and bake for 20-30 minutes.

Well, whether you try the cookies/ balls or not its up to you! But I hope you enjoyed reading about them at least :) I'll post another one when I get bored again and start procrasti-baking!

Till next meal,

Dee

Sunday, July 14, 2013

California Daze


15/07/2013

I have finished my trip! I am on the plane ready to come home! And I tell you what…. I AM READY! Too broke to think otherwise.

By the way I did a San Fransisco post a week or two ago but got no comments or likes so I am guessing that facebook screwed it up and not that you are all boycotting my blog or something... Feel free to read it :)

Ok first off I have to warn you! DO NOT catch red eye buses! FARRRRRRRRK that was horrible. I left at 11.30 and arrived at 7am and felt like I slept on the underside of the bus not inside it. I barely got any sleep but oh well.. From arriving in downtown LA, I caught another 2hr ride on public transport down to santa monica. May have taken 3 times as long but $2 is an awfully cheap taxi. Unfortunately my couchsurfer wouldn’t be off work until 7.30pm so I had to fill in time from 9.30am until then with all my bags. Ohwell I guess shopping and the beach it is.
I treated myself to a delicious breakfast, went for a peruse through the promenade and then headed down to the beach with my sophisticated hobo setup (I mean how many homeless people carry around a mimco tote?). Thankfully, with my head resting on my backpack and my arms draped around the rest I got a good sleep on the beach (sorry mum but I did get a little “sunkissed”, falling asleep does that to you).



In my quest not to catch anymore unnecessary buses (thanks to Kai and his obsession with them), I decided to walk the 35 blocks from the pier back to Steven my couchsurfer’s house. Took me a while but I had nothing better to do and felt guilty about eating the happy hour buffalo wings at the British pub on the way. Steven was lovely! He was the perfect host, offered me anything I liked from his overstocked vegan fridge (very Californian) and left me alone when I told him I just wanted to shower and head to bed for the night. The next morning he made me eggs and a kale super juice before I headed out for the day. Again I just headed down to the beach and the promenade for a shop.
I tried to do the whole run/walk 30km thing again but nup didn’t happen.. haha Santa Monica doesn’t have the same bay breeze that San Fransisco does so it was just toooo hot for me. Now this is where I get in trouble and blow all my funds on shopping and have to starve myself for the rest of the trip. Only kidding but not really…. But in my head it made sense because I have a lot of birthdays, namely 21st ‘s coming up and well its cheaper to buy things over here and entertain myself.

Well I made my way back down the 35 blocks with a new suitcase, 2 tops, a wallet, some jewelry and a couple of bra’s (only the necessities of course). Again Steven just left me to my own devices and gave me free run of his kitchen so I stayed at home, watched GOT and ate my delish tuna concoction in bed.

Next day was 4th of July, so I thought it would be better for me to book a hostel room for the night. I might have a little more fun with people my own age. Sure enough as soon as I checked in I met these two Aussie guys from Sydney se we headed to the beach with my left over bottle of smuggled mystery rum from Brazil and a bottle of coke and Gatorade for me. On the way down we met this ex-pat Aussie who invited us to a pool party in Hollywood hills. Sadly we had no way to contact her so we went on our way to the beach and then onwards to the Bungalow to continue on our celebrations with some locals. The Bungalow is this pretty posh bar/ beachside club where all the swishy gold diggers headed with their botox lips, boobs and sugar daddies hanging from their arms.
It was fantastic though, for despite being decked out in my thongs and zinc smothered face, I was invited to sit at a table with Kely, Dimitrie (loaded wog) and Nick who were more than liberal with their $300 bottle of vodka and champagne that I could not pronounce let alone spell. All I know is that as a non-champagne drinker it tasted damn good.  The rest of the night was spent learning from the best, meeting lots of gorgeous women teaching me how to spot a richy-rich hahaha. Since being distracted by my gold D’s I lost the Aussie boys so I decided to head back to the hostel. On the way I grabbed a soup and started chatting to this lovely Texan couple and their 5 year old daughter. So after exchanging numbers, emails and the promise to visit in the future, they left to put the little bubba in bed and I made my way back so I could collapse as well.

Now I was quite content in my comatose state after my massive day, but my peaceful sleep was not to be. At 1.30am one of the hostel staff came into the room and demanded Angela (the schizophrenic African woman) to leave the room after several complaints from the other girls in the room. Now poor Angela wasn’t hurting anyone with her muttering but no apparently she had to go. So after refusing to leave (I  mean where is she going to go at 2am) the polpol came up and escorted her out.
All in all I didn’t mind because the next morning when I demanded a discount for the disturbances, the reception staff happily gave me a 50% refund. WOOHOO! One more meal for dee! (I actually did spend it later that day at a really nice health food restaurant that was recommended to me).

So another day of traveling and walking around with my bags was ahead of me. I was now off to see Kami and Gamon (two 17yr old cuties I met at Coachella). It took me 3.5hrs, 3 buses and one train to make it to Westminister to find Kami’s mother’s house. These people are ridiculously nice and actually were accommodating me last minute after my couchsurfer bailed on me the day before. They fed me dinner and we chatted for hours before heading to bed.


So the next few days were all a little bit of a blur, I went down to Huntington beach with Kami and had a waffle sandwhich! WHAAAATTTT yeah that America for you..
Next afternoon after Kami’s work, Gamon came home with us as we hit Newport beach for a few hours. Before the beach though we headed to the “Childa’s” house. Now this is literally dejavu for me. The Childa’s is like a California equivalent of the Molan’s and Kami and Gamon are like little Alex and Emma minimee’s! I tell you it was a weekend of reliving highschool. Except this time I didn’t have to say no to everything! That night Gamon and Emily came over and we all just chilled in the garage drinking beer while listening to music.
A few times in the night the girls brought out the ukulele and had a little jam sesh. Kami would play and Gamon and Emily would improve sing. It was really really good, so nice and chill. Emily got really drunk and it was so funny to watch how Cadbury they all were! But meh I guess a semester at college teaches you a thing or two about hard liquor ;) (don’t worry girls, you will get there).

Next morning we all headed off to Disneyland! Wooooo I had so much fun! And thanks to Emily, I got in for free and we all got free fast passes to skip all the lines (fake anxiety on Emily’s behalf… brilliant!). We stayed the whole night, and got to watch the fireworks over the castle.
That night we all crashed at Gamon’s place before I had to pack up and leave. The gorgeous girl had kept my 25kg of luggage in her garage for 2months while I travelled around. Unfortunately I had to finda  way to pack it all into my suitcase… and yep I had to throw out a lot L no more shopping for poor little dee. One thing I was NOT leaving behind is Gamon’s present! Yes that’s right, she got me a vintage leather jacket to take home to the blustery Brisbane winter! I am the luckiest person ever! Free Disneyworld and free clothes!!! So much love for these girls.

Ok so from Huntington beach I caught 3 buses and a train back to west Hollywood, back to the hostel before my last couchsurfing stint! I was meant to meet up with some brissy boys but the slackers were homo and dogged it. That’s fine I was more than happy chilling in the hostel with my new found BFF roommates. I know I sound sarcastic there but im not, they were really really nice and we had a great chat while they packed their bags for the morning!

So my first proper day in the LA/Hollywood basin I went for a big walk to the walk of fame and then up to the Griffith Observatory.

It was unfortunately a pretty grizzly day and it was sooo humid! I was sweating like a mofo when I had finally reached the observatory! But it was worth it J On the way back down I decided that I deserved a cookie (after walking about 20km) so I urbanespooned a bakery and found the most amazing cookies ever! Literally. I have to give a shout out to De’Lushious (I think… just google it) honestly, MELT. IN. YOUR. MOUTH.

From there my next lot of couchsurfers (Ben and Justin) picked me up and took me to the sunset strip for a gig. We hit up the Roxy bar and watched INC. They were pretty good but to be honest I loved the supporting act! Sadly cant remember her name. But they were all really chill and trancey type music. The night ended with a trip to a taco truck (the amount of Mexican restaurant’s in California rivals the number of independent coffee shops in Brisbane, seriously they are everywhere!) and then bedtime at the house.

Day two in LA and I headed back down to Santa Monica to chill on the beach (another shitty overcast day ruined that idea), eat copious amounts of froyo (weather cant spoil that luxury) and have lunch with the girls before hitting up the Twilight Concert Sreies.


The band featuring was Surferblood which was pretty good but not as good (again) as the supporting act Terraplanesun! And yes I am proud to say that the drummer from Terraplane fully liked and commented on my instagram post! Booyeah! I’m in! pity he was my third pick out of the 5… guess beggars cant be choosers :P But all in all we sat on the pier ate kettle corn, drank and listened to fantastic music.

Day three (I feel like im writing a science report here: Day one…. Day two… Day three… lucky there is only 3.5days) in LA and I started off in Silver Lake (where the couchsurfers live). From there I walked down sunset boulevard past all the vintage shops (another fad in Cali), onto Hollywood boulevard, past the walk of fame again, down to the sunset strip and then back along Melrose (past more vintage propaganda) and along the “little Mexico” part of Santa Monica Boulevard.
It felt like I was back in Argentina or something! There was no English anywhere on the signs! Lucky I am a Spanish whiz now :P At the end of the walk (another 20-25km) I treated myself to a 500g pack of strawberries for 99c! Bit healthier than cookies but just as amazing! Exactly what I needed to quench my dying throat.


On my last night in the USA, I headed over to Hollywood hills area where one of my new “roommates” was holding a gathering in a place he was housesitting for a few days. It was a good night, I got to meet some more wonderful people, got to stay in an amazing house! The next day, my last day, I rest of the day I spent sleeping and eating the remanence of last night off with a remedy of fish tacos, a hazelnut malt, a shady garden and a cold shower before it was time for the airport which is where I am right now, sitting nice and snug in a perfectly air-conditioned, leather clad admirals lounge J . Spoilt I know.


Well, this is my last post L its going to be sad not having wondrous adventures to write about every week or so but I suppose it is back to reality and back to being an actual person… eek

Lots of Love,

Dee