The Foodie Post - A Healthy Chocolate, Banana and Strawberry Smoothie

Hello hello :)

Today I have another "Foodie Post" to share with you!

I literally just whipped up this smoothie about an hour ago, and it turned out rather well (if I do say so myself), so I figured I should document it before I forget the recipe! 

(Plus I had a punnet of fresh strawberries from the farmer's market and couldn't resist the opportunity to photograph them - strawberries are just so photogenic!)

I used almond milk for this recipe (I've been trying to eat a little less dairy lately) and it tasted great! I find almond milk works really well for smoothies and gives them a nice, slightly nutty flavour. I also used frozen bananas so the smoothie would be nice and thick without needing to add any yoghurt. 

The cacao powder adds a nice chocolatey-ness, but needs a bit of sweetening so I threw in two dates which worked perfectly. Obviously you can adjust to taste - this is just what I happened to use today.

Ingredients:

(Serves 2)

*2 frozen bananas

*A handful of fresh or frozen strawberries

*2 teaspoons of cacao powder

*2 dates

*Approx 300ml almond milk (adjust depending on how thick you want your smoothie)

*Cinnamon to sprinkle on top

Blend together, sprinkle over a little cinnamon, and there you have a yummy, chocolatey fruit smoothie!

Hope you enjoy - let me know if you give it a try :)

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

PS: You could even turn this into a healthy version of ice-cream if you wanted to just pop it in the freezer for a while!

Melbourne Travel Diary - Day 3

As you can probably tell by now, Tom and I love our food (particularly breakfast food) and we tend to plan our days around where we're going to eat! 

We'd been recommended a place called

Chez Dre

in South Melbourne, so we caught a tram and headed off in search of this French-inspired patisserie/cafe. Located in a revamped warehouse, the setting was perfect and of course the food ended up being delicious! I definitely recommend the french toast if you visit! 

Once we'd stuffed ourselves with food, we had a look around the South Melbourne Markets, and then caught a tram to St Kilda where we enjoyed some sunshine while walking along the beach, before going in search of the famous Luna Park (admittedly just for the photo - we didn't actually end up going inside!)

Then it was off to Chapel Street for some shopping (at least that was the plan). I've already mentioned this in a previous post, but we ended up walking almost the full length of the street before finding the actually "shopping area", so by the time we actually reached this part we were exhausted! - It's a long street!

 It was really fun just strolling around exploring the area though and coming across cute little places we wouldn't have found if we'd just caught a tram. My favourite find was this little bookshop that reminded me so much of something out of Harry Potter. The bookshelves towered to the ceiling and were all higgledy piggledy, and there were cats just strolling around or curled up in a chair! 

We walked through the Botanic Gardens on our way back and it was such a beautiful place, although it was starting to get dark by this point  so we didn't get to fully explore it - we'll be back though!

We ended the day with dinner at

Movida

- a Spanish tapas bar. The food was seriously

so good

and I highly recommend it!

So that's it for our Melbourne trip! I didn't take many photos on our last day (but it was a pretty similar thing - lots of eating and walking around exploring!)

I've actually just bought tickets to see Taylor Swift in Melbourne in December so I'm excited to be going back in a few months (although still kinda annoyed that she's not coming to Perth!)

There's still so many things to see and do there, so if you have any suggestions for next time, I'd love to hear them! 

I actually "vlogged" some parts of the trip too and have been slowly putting the clips together  (my editing skills need a lot of work though), so I'm toying with the idea of putting that video up.

I love watching vlogs on YouTube so I am kinda tempted to give them a try myself... we'll see if that actually happens :)

Anyway, I hope you're having a fab day!

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Melbourne Travel Diary - Day 2

We started off our second day in Melbourne by heading to the train station (stopping for coffee in Hosier Lane) to make our way to a cute little breakfast place called 

Little Big Sugar Salt

. I'll admit the only reason I picked this place was because of their Instagram photos, and luckily we weren't disappointed! 

The food was delicious - Tom's croque monsieur was the best, but my pancakes were pretty good too, and that blueberry (plus a tonne of other ingredients that I can't remember now) smoothie was so yum :)

After breakfast we walked around exploring the area and then of course had to do a little shopping!

We ended the night with dinner and a long walk (a

lot

of walking was done on this trip!) along the Southbank. A pretty awesome second day and a great way to spend my birthday!

My Style Diary - A Walk Through the Botanic Gardens

Hello :)

Happy Saturday!

I've just got back from work and finally have a chance to sit down and share another set of photos from our trip to Melbourne. Yay! :)

These were taken towards the end of rather tiring (but fun) day, as we were strolling through the Botanic Gardens on our way back to the hotel. 

Earlier in the day we had accidentally hopped off the tram at the wrong spot and ended up walking pretty much the whole length of Chapel Street (which is a bloody long road!)

We could have easily caught another tram, but we were having fun just wandering along and exploring... although it did leave me a little grumpy and with very sore feet by the end of it!

As we made our way back though, we decided to walk through the Botanic Gardens, and all traces of my earlier grumpiness disappeared. The gardens were just lovely, with brightly coloured flowers and beautiful trees with their leaves all yellow and orange and red. Such beautiful autumn colours. 

We were also treated to a stunning sunset with the sky and clouds over the city turning a gorgeous orangey-pinky-purple shade that the photos just don't do justice to! 

For my outfit I was wearing a new pair of jeans that I'd just purchased the day before. I'd been looking for a pair of comfy boyfriend-style jeans for ages and these ones are perfect. Paired with this quilted white jumper, a scarf and parka, it was a very comfy, relaxed outfit for a long day of walking and exploring. 

That's it for today

I hope you're having a fab weekend :)

Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Jumper - Dotti

Jeans - 7 For All Mankind

Scarf - Market in Cambridge

Parka - Forever New

Shoes - Converse

Bag - Jigsaw

My Style Diary - Hosier Lane

On our second day in Melbourne (which also happened to be my birthday!) we headed out to breakfast, and on our way to the train station stumbled upon Hosier Lane. Famous for its ever changing street art, this little lane had been on my list of things to see, so to stumble upon it without even looking was a bonus and set the day off to a great (and very colourful) start.

After wandering up and down admiring the awesome art, we grabbed coffee from

Good 2 Go

 - a little cafe in the middle of the lane where folk that have fallen on hard times are turned into trained baristas. It's a great program and the coffee was fab too :)  ...well it is Melbourne... of course the coffee is gonna be good!

Outfit-wise I was just wearing my standard black jeans and jacket, throwing in some colour with this bright scarf. Not particularly groundbreaking, but luckily we had a fun backdrop to keep things interesting!

Anyway, that's it for tonight.

I definitely recommend a quick trip to Hosier Lane if you're visiting Melbourne. 

 Lots of Love

Lauren

xxx

Jacket - Forever 21

Jeans - Country Road

Scarf - Sportsgirl

Shoes - Converse