Excitement

So I tried to make mayonnaise and for the third time it failed me.

NEVER TELL ME I HAVE MIXED FIVE EGG YOLKS INTO OIL ONLY TO MAKE IT DISGUSTING AND OIL-SOUPY.

So I left it and came back to it after dinner. I tried it with another yolk but you're meant to add the oil to the yolk not the yolk to the oil. HALF A DOZEN EGGS GONE. 

There goes breakfast.

But I didn't want to waste my emulsion that was failing to thrive. So I gave him one last shot at becoming a well made, respectable member of our household.

This time I added the oil to the yolk like I was meant to, and prayed to the food gods that my baby would come to life. And he worked! However, just to keep him on the safe side, I kept him little. So I only ended up making half a little jar of concentrated fat. Yum yum :)

However, in the midst of all that initial tantruming, I made dinner (hence I tried it again after I ate). And what was for dinner?

Yams. Oh sweet yams, I would say that I love you more than sweet potatoes but most people don't understand you and thus I must categorise you two together into one amazing unit.

But I have not explored my yams enough to have found this before, and was I excited.

I partied around the room and yelled at my unenthusiastic brother to LOOK at my awesome psychedic yam.

Like, just look at it!

And so I roasted it with some little bity zucchinis and made some yummy chippies for dinner.

On a completely different note, this morning the Fairies that Cater for Women, Monthly (who have generally been very lazy when it comes to me) visited, and I won't go into detail, but I was ultra excited to use this pure piece of silicon.

However, it may have been the excitement that had gotten a hold of me. I'll try again tomorrow, after I work out how to get... a bandaid...

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.

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.

Experiments - or Lots of Posts I've Put Off

For some reason I just don't get around to blogging about some things. I think I'm just a little overwhelmed with study. I've tried a few new things, so I thought instead of writing separate posts for them all, I could just put it all under one post and call it a day.

1. I tried brushing my teeth with charcoal. Activated charcoal, not wood from a fire, silly. I read up and found that it adsorbs all the tannins in your teeth, so I decided to give it a go. I took a 'during' photo to show you how pretty I look:
                                        
but the result was next to nothing. My theories are that my teeth are stained with something that isn't tannins, or I didn't do it right. After I read up on it a bit more or something, I'll try it again, because I really hate normal toothpaste.

2. I dragged dad out to Harris farm markets and make him buy a $12 spaghetti squash. I've idolised it ever since I saw it on the internet, but I'd never been able to get it. So when I found it I battered my puppy dog eyes and got what I wanted :)