Nearly the end

The 12Week challenge is coming to an end. Woot. But I have been doing well. Food wise I have been sticking to my meal plan and only having the cheats that I am supposed to. Now to carry that lifestyle over to my everyday life when the challenge has ended. 

Below are photos that were taken on the 26th October on a night out to dinner for a girlfriend's birthday. Was a great night and was nice to be able to wear a dress and look nice in it. 

Paleo life for me

Food art is the bomb so my first photo is my attempt at making my food as tasty looking as it does actually taste. Who wants to eat unattractive food right...!!! LOL.

Spinach, cucumber, capsicum, homemade guacamole and salmon with herbs. So yummy. Ultra healthy and utterly Paleo. Yep Paleo. It has been an adjustment. No wheat products and no dairy products. As much raw vegetables and salad as you can muster.

Sweet potato is one of my main sources of carbs. Love making and eating baked sweet potato with Turmeric and cracked pepper. Nice nice nice. 

I guess the one thing you have to do also is to have good food prep. The above photo is of my food for a day out and about. Yummo. Nice huh...!!!! 

My new meal plan rocks and really enjoying it - especially the banana in the morning. 

Enjoy your day. Might have to experiment with Paleo recipes and post up. 

It has started

The new 12 Week Challenge that I signed up for started a week ago. I have been working out hard all week and will continue to do so. Bootcamp was this morning but unfortunately I think I have done too much already this week and listened to my body and missed it. Spewing but need the rest. 

Hope you crafting advenures are going well. 

New dress - feeling fabulous

Yes I look awesome. LOL. My new dress. New outlook on life. Feeling really positive about everything. 

Hope you all are having an awesome week. 

Two days until I start the new 12 Week Challenge at Goodlife Fountain Gate. Looking forward to getting started. 

Yes I still have a Mummy tummy but hoping to change that. 

Update with photo

Even though I posted the other day I thought I would put up a more recent photo. I am not good at taking selfies but I was feeling super awesome on Wednesday when I took this photo so thought I would share. 

I am 4kgs lighter in this photo compared to last one. Gained lots of muscle and lost about 5% body fat. 

Sorry

Just an update on myself, seeing I haven't written anything here for a while.

I am currently focusing on my health and fitness and that means no yummy food or cards are being made. I have done a 12 week challenge at my local gym and the end result was the photo below. About to embark on another one on the 10th August to get to a much smaller version of me. Still the same just different size. 

Hope you hang around. I might get back to the crafting one day but for now it is on the back burner. 

Tyler's birthday card

Good evening. Has been a while I know. Sorry about that.

With my fitness at a low and my weight at another high I decided to get my health and fitness in check, thus I have stopped making good but naughty food in the effort to get to a place where I feel more comfortable with myself. 

I have however made a card for my eldest boy Tyler for his 8th birthday and of course he didn't even need to be told I made it as soon as he saw it. He loved it and knew I had made so made it even more special to him. I must admit this is an awesome card. I still have that colouring ability baby. Yay....!!!

I have had this image stamped out on card for a long time. This is one of my favourite all time Magnolia Edwin stamps. He is so adorable. Hope you like. 

Spaghetti Squash Lasagna

From my last post I am sure you have realized that I discovered Spaghetti Squash and I needed to use up all the leftover squash before it went bad in the fridge. I found a recipe for Spaghetti Squash here at Fort Mill SC Living and thought I would give it a try. Mine however is slightly different so will be posting up the recipe here as well. 

I love my vegies now so had to throw in a fair few as well as the one called for in the original recipe.

Spagetti Squash Lasagna (original by Fort Mill SC)

serves 6

327 cals

1 Medium spaghetti squash, cooked and prepared

500g lean beef mince

1 medium carrot, cubed

1/2 zucchini, cubed

1 cup kale, chopped

4 mushrooms, sliced

1/2 onion, chopped

1 can tomatoes

1 small tub tomato paste

1/2 cup beef stock

1 clove garlic

chili flakes

olive oil (I didn't use)

Cheese sauce

60g light tasty cheese

30g butter

2 TBS flour

nutmeg - dash

Preheat oven to 180/350 degrees.

Heat up a frying pan and add Spaghetti squash and cook on medium heat for 2-3 minutes until slightly brown. Remove from heat and set aside.

In same pan add carrot, zucchini, mushroom and onion and cook for 3mins until slightly tender. Add mince and beef stock. Cook until meat browns. Add garlic, tomato paste and canned tomato. Simmer all ingredients for 15-20mins until the liquid has reduced. 

In a saucepan melt butter and add flour 1 tablespoon at a time. Whisk both until smooth. Add milk slowly and whisk until thickened. Add tasty cheese until melted. Throw in your dash of nutmeg. 

In a square baking dish put in 1/3 of the meat sauce and add all of the spaghetti squash. Top the squash with 1/2 your cheese sauce. Add the rest of the meat sauce and the rest of the cheese. 

I actually added only 2/3 of the squash and then add 1/3 on top of the bulk of the meat sauce so it was - meat, squash, cheese sauce, meat, squash, cheese sauce. 

OMG this was so yummy. If you wanted to cut down the calorie count don't add the beef mince - it will cut you calories by nearly 150 cals. Enjoy.

Salmon, Snow Pea, Tomato 'Spaghetti'

Becoming addicted to Pinterest has it's downfalls and it benefits. One of the benefits is that you come across many foods that are healthy that you wouldn't think twice to look at at the Fruit and Veg shop. Well I stumbled across Spaghetti Squash on my surfing and thought I would like to try it. I finally found it at my local F&V shop. It has been sitting there for a week but I finally baked it in the oven (for an hour) and made my dinner with it last night.

If you know me you know that my favourite food is pasta but with my new lifestyle change I have removed pasta from the menu so finding this has been a godsend.

My favourite pasta sauce is one I created myself trying to have a healthier creamier sauce that didn't make me stack on the weight and this sauce is the bomb - at least for me it is. 

I made up one serving for myself and then could only eat half of it. This is a meal to serve two. I will be having the left over for lunch today I think.

Salmon Pea Tomato Spaghetti

1 small can salmon in springwater (95g), drained

5 cherry tomatoes, quaretered

5 snow peas, cut in to three

1 small can light evaporated milk

1 cup cooked Spaghetti Squash

1 Tbls olive oil

Fry the snow peas, tomato and salmon in the olive oil until just warm. Put in the milk and cook until it starts to thicken. Put in the Squash and cook to your liking. 

Total calories per serve is approx 250. 

Mine was 'al dente' so could have cooked longer but it I liked it. Easy Peasy. 

Nanna's 90th present

Question: What do you get a 90 yr old who requested no presents for her birthday...???

Nothing. You make something - to eat. 

My husbands Nanna turned 90 yesterday. She is the best Nanna you could wish for. Generous. Sweet. Loving and most of all she loves spending time with her great grandchildren. Because of this I decided she needed to have something nice to eat when she is having a cup of tea or wants a yummy bite. So I made Peanut butter cookies. These are roll out cookies and they taste divine. The second day around they actually don't taste too peanut buttery - they taste like shortbread. At least to me they did. 

I also bought some Reese's peanut butter cups and a couple packs of Nutter Butter biscuits. 

I surprised her by turning up when she wasn't expecting anyone to come over to visit. She loved it too. I am sure it will take her a while to eat them all but that is okay. She deserves something special for just herself. 

If you are interested in the recipe I got it here - Created by Diane. My tip is if you do use this recipe for roll out cookies you put he dough in the fridge. I could not roll out the first batch I made - it was too soft. Second batch was easy to cut out. Good luck. 

Dairy Free Caramel Ice Cream

The other day I said to a friend that she should be in the same city as me so she can come and try my Peanut Butter Ice Cream and she reminded me that she has to eat a dairy and gluten free diet. Oops. Totally forgot. So I thought I would look up some recipes for dairy free Ice Cream.

The first one I came across was this one. I don't know who it is by - I just printed it out. I will have to have another look but for now will just put the recipe on here. 

This is so yummy. I have acquired a taste for coconut milk and this is so creamy - very much like the dairy version. I reckon you should give it a try. 

Coconut Caramel Ice Cream 

Makes about 1 pint - I halved this recipe. 

Ingredients

2 cans of coconut milk (not lite)

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

6 egg yolks

2 tsps vanilla extract

Method

Combine 1 can of coconut milk, brown sugar, and the salt in a saucepan. Set over medium-high heat and bring to the boil, stirring occasionally so that the sugar dissolves. Once boiling, reduce heat slightly and continue to cook until the mixture has darkened and reduced, about 20-30mins. It should be very thick - like - lava resembling caramel.

While the caramel is reducing, beat the egg yolks in a large, heatproof bowl and set aside.

Add the second can of coconut milk to the coconut caramel and heat, stirring to integrate the caramel. When the mix is very hot, but not boiling, temper the egg yolks: slowly whisk 1 cup of the caramel mixture in to the bowl. 

Turn the heat to low and pour the tempered yolks back into the pot. Cook, stirring constantly, just until the mixture has thickened, 1-2 mins. Remove from the heat and pour into a heatproof bowl. Stir in the vanilla extract. Cover tightly and refridgerate overnight.

Pour custard mix into your ice cream maker and churn to manufacturers directions. Freeze for 4-6hrs before serving. 

I took this out of the freezer at about 4hrs and was very solid mix but melted quickly. So yummy. Enjoy. 

Happy New Year

To all my blogging, crafty and online friends - 

Happy New Year.

May 2013 be a happy and prosperous one for you all.