Banana Pudding from frozen bananas

I've been eating stacks of bananas lately. They've just been a high carb breakfast dessert and they go well with the chocolate recipe that hardens when it hits something cold. My excuse is that my stress levels are very, very high and I need carbs to bring them back down, the coconut oil for my saturated fats, and the cacao (I haven't been too naughty with my chocolate and having cocoa) for the magnesium. Magnesium for sleep, carbs for sleep, and yet I woke up twice this morning, both times when it was still far to early to function.

You know what else is fantastic for sleep? Gelatin. Instead of the thick slabs of steak or any other muscle meat high in inflammatory tryptophan, gelatin has anti-inflammatory glycine, which, in short, helps you get to sleep faster.

So I added some lovely gelatin into my life and into my breakfast dessert (a girl's gotta eat :) ). Now the question is: why the hell am I eating foods that promote sleep when I've just woken up??

The reason I've used frozen bananas is due to what I have on hand. Remember that humongous box/branch of 121 bananas I got at the beginning of the year? Well, we're nearly through them all. Nearly. And so that is where the bananas are from. Fun fact: did you know that bananas are meant to have seeds in them? I've seen pictures of it; it looks like an absolute pain to eat around.

Also. I may have made a mistake in my recipe when I made it. You see, I was following Fast Paleo's banana pudding (I don't think hyperlinks work on my phone, so here's their recipe http://fastpaleo.com/recipe/roasted-banana-gelatin-pudding/ ) they had coconut milk. It's just that I've had previous experiences of poor gelatin measurement, and so when I think I've made a trayful of jellies, what I've really made is an accident waiting to happen. I'd reach up and confidently slide the mini patty pan tray out of the top shelf of the fridge, thinking that all the goop would be gelatinified enough to stay intact, and a flood of goop would cascade down, liberally coating my top and the floor, as well as some of the fridge insides. This has happened on more than one occasion, mind you. I didn't want to make the mistake again (weak gelatin foods are REALLY sticky and gross). But my recipe turned out to have far too much gelatin, so I've scaled down in the recipe.

PS. That has honey on top, it didn't leak.

Banana Pudding from frozen bananas

3 bananas, peeled, halved and frozen

1 1/2 tbsp gelatin powder

2 tbsps hot water, optional

cinnamon, to taste

Take the nanas out of the freezer and chop them into chunks. It's easier than it sounds. If you want them roasted, sprinkle the cinnamon on now and pop them in an oven for 20 mins or until you can smell them. Mmm... If not, leave them out on the bench for about half an hour, or until they're pretty much thawed out.

If you haven't cooked the bananas, dissolve the gelatin in some hot water, and add as much water as needed until the gelatin is all dissolved.

Pop your soggy bananas, cooked or not, in a blender. As cinnamon if you didn't before, or if you want more. If your bananas are cooked, add the gelatin now. Purée on low until all the mixture had conglomerated and has come together to make one big happy breakfast dessert family.

Pour into moulds, or mugs, or thimbles if that's your thing. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until set.

Sweet Potato Souffle

It was one of those mornings where you don't want to get up for an hour.

So I didn't.

This brekkie (or meal for any time, really) is perfect for one of these types of mornings, ie, when you have time for it to cook but you're not bothered to physically do much. It's really simple and you could do it with your eyes closed - which is the state you're in to start with!

I based this recipe on a brekkie I tried one day. It was meant to be 'warm sardine and sweet potato dip' but the temp was put up too high for it to just 'warm up' so it turned into a souffle! Sardines have never tasted better! But the cucumber I was meant to use as the dip-holder tasted really boring in comparison. Anyway...

Grab your prebaked sweet potato and mash it up in an ovenproof ramekin or bowl.

Whisk an egg and mix it in. If you're feelin' fancy, dust in some cinnamon too.

In the same fancy manner, smooth out the top and pop it into a preheated oven and go back to bed for half an hour after all your hard work.

I tried to make some roasted macadamias to go with it...

and ignoring the fact that it's unstable and expensive I roasted them in macadamia oil. Like goes with like, right?

But... um... I spent too long doing nothing while waiting for my souffle to cook.

I put a little maple syrup on top of the souffle when it had about 7 - 10 mins left, but it didn't make all that much difference.

Take the souffle out of the oven and go back to bed for another ten minutes. It's hot. Believe me. And it's going to stay hot for a while.

Top with whatever you fancy. I spooned on a bit of kefir and tried some of my little bombs of burnt nuttiness.

NB. I only called it a souffle because it rose. Don't assume it's puffy and airy and doesn't weigh a thing. Take a scoop and see how almost puddingy it is!

Sweet Potato Souffle

Serves 1

1 1/3 cups baked sweet potato

1 egg

cinnamon (optional)

maple syrup (optional)

something creamy like yoghurt, kefir, double cream or coconut butter (or ice cream?!), for serving

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Mash the sweet potato in an ovenproof bowl.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, then add to the sweet potato.

Mix until combined, and add cinnamon and/or maple syrup if using.

Place the bowl in the oven and bake for 20 - 30 mins, or until a skewer comes out clean.

Serve with creamy topping.

This might be better with coconut flour to make it less dense, and maybe some baking powder to fluff it up. And maybe some baking paper too...

Books I Love: The Third Space

Guess what I found on sale yesterday?

This has been one of the many books I want, and one of the few books I would absolutely die to have, and I found it on SALE! I had to have it. Now, I read a few pages (and by 'few' I mean 2 - 4) pages before I go to sleep. That way, I'll actually end up reading it, and it might help me go to sleep. Maybe that only works with fiction books. We'll see...

Sleep Dosage

All week I've had pretty good sleep, relatively low stress levels, sliiiightly more carbs than normal, and I've had pretty decent energy - probably a 9 out of 10 for most days.

I've always held that I NEED nine hours of sleep to keep me sand and humanable, and that a loss of half an hour of that sleep leads me to catastrophe. That's always just been the norm for me, but in the last few weeks I've actually thought about that in a logical manner - this ain't normal.

Last night, I meditated for the first time in yonks and went to 'sleep' at 5 past 9, 5 minutes after bedtime, which doesn't affect me. By 'sleep' I mean I shut my eyes and started to get to sleep, but couldn't actually get to that stage because my train of thought is a fast moving, never stopping, loud and unignorable steam train rattling down a bumpy road. It probably takes me an hour to get to proper sleep every night.

Anyway, I woke up at my normal time this morning - 5.55am - and felt dead as a doornail. WOD not started. Food eaten miserably. Calculated correctly, I had the same 'nine hours of sleep' I have every night, but for some reason this morning, life just wasn't working for me. As I was leaving, mum said that I looked tired too, with a bit of an air of 'are you sure you slept at all?'

Something's wrong here. The government recommendation of 7-8 hours, and my personal recommendation of 9 hours, obviously doesn't solve the complete sleep and energy puzzle. There must be something deeper and more important to the hours of sleep you sleep for. I know that quality of sleep is really important, so I'll have to somehow fix that.

Goodnight.

Destressing is too stressful!

Hey guys! Just want you to all know that I'm not dead as of yet... I know I haven't been updating AT ALL in the last however-long, but I thought I should get up to speed with my life at the moment.

Just quickly as a bit of an intro, I'm finally down to my last spoonfuls of protein powder. Yay! Once that rice protein and rice milk (nearly finished that, not long to go) is gone, I can clean up my act and start going fully, FULLY grainless. That's not to say that the powder didn't teach me anything. I realised that protein powders don't make me gain weight (or lose weight) or get stronger or anything, and I learnt what powders act and may taste like. I've also learned to love smoothies, and how to add extra calories and nutrients into something without being able to taste it or drink a whole heap more. But most of all, smoothies have given me my post workout snack(y-thing). Before I had smoothies, I worked out, and that was it. So I bid farewell to my starchy smoothies and make way for new ones with paleo proteins, like raw yolks and raw grated liver (and bacon on occasion :) ). But one of the smoothies I really wanted to be weird and try out was a broccoli smoothie. It sounded ultra rich in protein and low in sugar, and I hadn't found any idea of it anywhere so I tried it this morning. The verdict? It sucked. It tasted incredibly bland, and no matter how much lemon juice I squeezed into it, it still didn't pick up any flavour, and my throat was sore and scratchy afterwards, even though I boiled the broccoli before. Another lesson: don't eat a whole cupful of broccoli at one time (if you get scratchy throats like me).

On a completely different note now. Last night, I tried to catch up on sleep and get my rhythms and sleepiness back in order. I've been super tired lately and no matter how hard I've tried, I haven't been able to get to bed aaaand fall asleep at a reasonable time. I think I've always had a problem where I just think and think and think for like an hour before my brain eventually realises I'm meant to be restoring myself. So last night I made a list of stuff to do to wind myself down. That included:
- have a shower after all homework, instead of after dinner (gives me more time away from work)
- do some yoga that'll make me sleepy, on my bed
- have a mug of hot tea
- meditate
- continue my normal bedtime routine
- heat up heat packs for my knees (they've been hurting since I've been wearing foot coffins for school - I wonder why)
- go to bed with my door shut.
I was all on time with the showering business, but because I wanted my tea directly after yoga, and I didn't want to wait for any boiling or steeping or whatever, I had to prep my tea before and after my shower (I hadn't opened the packet and it was loose leaf and it just took forever. So I was late, leaving me stressful and made me decide to leave out the meditation. I had to boil the kettle twice because I got out a tablespoon of tea instead of a teaspoon, for one mug... So I had to brew up extra tea and I worried about it all through my yoga, which made me more stressed out. The fact that the yoga wasn't helping me feel better physically also wasn't doing my mind any favours. A bit cranky at my quick yoga that did nothing for me, I sorted my tea and drank that sitting on the edge of my bed in the dark. It had mint, licorice root, fennel and calendula leaves, and it was ah-mazing. That was the best part of the whole night. I discovered a new love for this tea, and sweet mint teas in general (the flowers made it beautifully, sugary sweet). When that was sadly over, I got up, raced around to fix up the rest of my tea and heat up my heat packs, and when I got back I realised I had to do the stuff I do every night, with the blaring lights on. So I crossed off the day on the calendar, wrote down what I'm grateful for, put lip balm and cuticle cream on, plugged in my charger, and made my way to bed. The whole night's procedures had taken me an hour to do, and I was still not sleepy. In fact, I was probably holding more stress and additional anger/crankiness than I was before. I went to bed and, I must admit, I did go to sleep quicker and I had a dream (a sure sign - for me at least - that I've had a deep sleep), but I still woke up with a yawn. I guess, overall, every little thing did its part, but instead of being peaceful and letting it all work to 100% of its capacity, I only let it work 60%. My knees feel better, but only slightly. Yoga before bed stretched me out, but didn't calm me down. The shower got me away from blue screen lights, but didn't make me sleepier.

The idea I got from this is that you don't need a thousand things to get you to sleep. Less is more. During now and the end of the hsc, I'll inevitably lose sleep, and wasting my time trying to fall asleep better is not going to work. I'll just have to pick what method of sleepiness I want to pick up that night.

Tonight, it's meditation and another mug of that cooling, calming, homely tea.

Paleo Sausages, and The Recess Problem

Argh! School starts tomorrow and I'm up so late (for my standards anyway). I'm starting year 11 so there will be a humongous workload continuously being put on me for the next, say... 28 months? I think it's easy to say that the whole blog-daily thing won't be happening as well as I'd want it to. But before I go, I just thought I'd pop in for my daily blog post.

Today I discovered a sausage shop that sells sausages that are grain free (mostly), use intestines instead of plastic and have good ingredients. I bought a packet of their sausages for tonight and they were insanely good. I really want to try their pork, fennel and chilli ones, and the honey lamb with mint and rosemary. I got the plain beef ones, because my brother wouldn't eat one with funny flavours in it, and like I said, they were superb. If you wanna check them out, have a look at them here.

Wow it's late. I'll wrap it up quick smart.
With school coming up, we're going to have breaks for recess and lunch, which sounds all good and familiar and normal, but during the holidays I've gone from a snacky grazer to a predatory cavewoman who could easily thrive on two meals a day. I only found this page today but it really epitomises my outlook on not just what to eat and what not to eat as a primal person, but also how to live. Anyway, so with this random 'recess' thing where the general convention is to put something in your mouth, I've decided to make this time a bit more rewarding without food. So I'll have a drink instead. A good one that is, and not just water. Tomorrow I'm having fresh ginger and lemongrass tea in a cute glass bottle, and I'm thinking that my little nourishing drinks will consist of ice teas and juices in the summer, and broths and hot teas in the winter. I can't wait for that!

I might come on. I might not. I'll just see how everything goes, and if all goes well and the homework gets done and the assessments are checked a hundred times and the exams are all studied for, I'll give you guys a post.

:)

Meditating

I have been so stuck for blog post topics so you might have noticed that I completely missed Sunday’s post. And I’m not even sorry.

The whole year our religion class has been going to meditation fortnightly and today was the last time we ever got to go. I don’t think we get to do it in senior years unfortunately. But the 80-something sister sang a Christmas song to us and it was really really cute :) Anyway, meditation.

Meditation, scientifically, is something like bringing your brainwave rate thing down to a stage of half-asleep or something, but most people recognise meditation as something to fix your mind up somehow, whether that be calming you down or focusing your attention. There’s a thousand reasons why people meditate, but here’s the main reasons why I meditate:

- to improve my focus. I want to strengthen the part of my brain that yells CONCENTRATE at me when I’m doing some sort of hard-to-focus-on work, and I’m sure studies have backed up meditating for focus somewhere.

- it calms me. Just give me five minutes when I’m agitated or angry and after a little sit-down, I’m a little less agitated and angry.

- it's part of my sleep. Kinda like the calmness thing, I meditate last thing before bed because it really relaxes me. It gets me from a pace of working to a pace of slowness and usually sleepiness. Doing meditation before bed helps me settle down and it's like someone in my brain goes around and switches off every last switch during those five minutes.