End of my Unprocessed Challenge!

So Sunday ended my unprocessed challenge!

I can't say that I was completely unprocessed the whole time. The first 6 weeks I was, but the last couple of weeks I have stuck to unprocessed meals, but allowing snacks of rice crackers & other such nibbles that are somewhat processed.


I'm pleased that I could largely stick to this challenge, and feel like its made a positive difference in the way I view food.
It has made me realise how little processed foods I generally eat anyway!

That said, Monday morning I had raisin toast with fig jam & strawberries on it for breakfast! hehehe & I can't wait til our family BBQ at the end of the week when I'll have some Veggie Sausages! I don't mind a treat every now & then!


The last 2 weeks I have relied heavily on frozen leftovers, making bigger batches & fall back easy meals. I have also been going out a lot for meals - I think that comes with this time of year!

Here's the last collection of unprocessed meals that I'll be sharing for a while!

Soaked oats with raisins

Carrot salad with bean burgers & oil-free home fries.

Spinach chocolate smoothie

This is an example of the most processed that any of my meals have been: Canned baked beans with store-bought bread!

Bread bean pies with corn    

Chick peas with spinach on mash

Stir fry

Potato salad with chick peas, spinach & home-made tofu sour 'creme'

Corn pasta with lentils and spinach!
Still undecided if pasta is processed or not!!!!

Week 8 Unprocessed

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeek 8 felt like it dragged on for a bit.
I found it really hard to stick with completely unprocessed foods. Maybe its the time of year. Maybe I just feel like I need to constantly be cooking. I largely kept to my aim but I did have some fruit toast and other nibbles this week! I am still sticking to unprocessed meals though, but just including some snacks as well!

Here's a collection of the meals I've had:

Leftover bean loaf with a roast potato and salad.

Cheezey Brown Rice

Strawberry yogurt with oats (blended strawberries and dates!), I still prefer the blueberry flavour that I often have more!

Tempeh and mushroom stroganoff with home-made tofu sour cream served over Slim Pasta. The Slim Pasta is definitely a different texture and taste than regular pasta! It wasn't awful, but I definitely wouldn't choose it over regular pasta! This is the first time I had ever tried it.

Lentil stew with brown rice & steamed zucchini.

Chocolate smoothie - filled with fruit & spinach!

Back to blueberry yogurt with oats again!

Salad with red kidney beans

Iku lasagne with salad

Pancakes - regular weekend breakfast for me!

Can't go wrong with an easy stir-fry! Just toss in all the leftover vegetables from the week.

I made a chocolate nut cake for a party we went to this weekend.

You can find the recipe on the mouth watering vegan blog.

I altered this recipe slightly - just changed the type of nuts and added some rice syrup to help the cake hold together.

It was very very rich. The topping was amazingly delicious!

The nut mixture pressed into the tin

Spread the icing on top

Decorated with raspberries

It does look rather spectacular!!!

Week 7 Unprocessed

I haven't taken as many photos this week. I'm repeating a lot of meals & have had a lot of leftovers! Enjoying the challenge whilst at the same time feeling a little frustrated by it! I don't want anything majorly bad, I just want to have some rice crackers or convenient nibbles here and there..... but I plough on!

Here's some meals from the past week:

Polenta with bean and eggplant loaf.

Cinnamon, raisin soaked oats

Leftover bean & eggplant loaf with salad

Chickpea & veg medley with potato mash & mushroom gravy

Banana & tofu mousse with strawberries

Chocolate smoothie (full of greens and fruit of course!)

Pizza potatoes (recipe from The Starch Solution book)

Leftover sauce from the pizza potatoes put onto a baked sweet potato!

Tofu bacon with sprouts & roasted capsicum on a wholemeal bun

Polenta with spinach & mushroom

I enjoyed a gingerbread house making morning this week also! Wish I'd taken pictures prior to wrapping it! This is going to be the centrepiece on our family Christmas table & then the kids can devour it!

We enjoyed a weekend away camping! Down in this valley:

Making potatoes, camping style ;-)

Something so beautiful and peaceful about just getting away and having a chance to enjoy nature!

Reading in front of our campfire = So relaxing!

Sooooooo nice to just sit in front of the fire & watch it! It is incredibly relaxing! One thing that I can do that can turn my mind off and just 'be'.

The visitor we had in the morning!

Question of the day:
Is there something that you do that just turns your mind off and relaxes you?

Week 6 Unprocessed

A collection of my meals & kitchen experiments from week 6 unprocessed..... well, mostly unprocessed to be totally honest! Did you read my confession??
 
Just over halfway through now and just 4 weeks til I end this challenge. So I'm going to aim for a completely unprocessed week again coming up!

Soaked oats with strawberries and my nut-seed milo

Bulgar pilaf - recipe from the FOK cookbook.

Berry green smoothie

 Banana cake made from recipe in FOK cookbook

Sometimes we just need a big full plate to fill us up! This is water fried potato slices, with okara burgers (I added tofu too), polenta Crumbed Mushrooms and steamed veggies.

 Peanutty Noodles

Oats with blueberry 'yogurt'.

Steamed zucchini with home-made tomato sauce, herbs and nutritional yeast.

Mashed potato with adzuki beans & mushroom gravy.

Oats with banana and 'cherry and cocoa yogurt'. Hmmmmm, not as nice as I thought, will stick to my blueberry yogurt I think!

Pineapple-prune cake

Spelt spaghetti, mushrooms, capsicum & onion with home-made tomato sauce.

On the weekend I attempted home-made bread for the first time! Currant and cinnamon loaf. Was soooooooo delicious! I love the smell of fresh bread filling the home as it bakes!

Please ignor my awkward kneading face :-S

Leaving the dough to rise.

Seriously - is there anything as good as fresh crusty bread?!?

Fudgey Slice

To advent or not to advent is the question??

You see, technically my unprocessed challenge doesn't end til 16th December.....

What would you do?