It Was All Yellow...

Apologies for the corny post title...it gives me a good excuse to show off my pretty flowers though! :)

My Mum brought them round for me this morning, yey, aren't they pretty? Reduced too, we do love a bargain in our family!! :) I was particularly happy as Liam and I have decided not to give each other anything for Valentine's Day this year. Now though, with these flowers and I'm planning to open a box of Booja Booja truffles tomorrow, I can still feeling like I'm being treated!! :)

The main reason for the blog title though is what I ate for "dinner" this evening...we'll get to that later.

Back to more important things...such as food...

A couple of happy coincidences yesterday meant I was "destined" to have my first ever smoothie in a bowl yesterday. I used to make smoothies all the time a few years ago but haven't made them in ages. Yesterday I had bought Xanthan Gum with the intention of thickening smoothies at some point, and Bear Granola packets (not that I realised then that they would end up on a smoothie!) Then when I saw Jess' blog post yesterday, her strawberry smoothie in a bowl inspired me! I couldn't find the recipe she referred to on Laura's blog so I just made up my own with what I had in.

In the mix:

150g frozen strawberry slices & blueberries

50g fresh raspberries (a last minute addition, hence not in original picture)

200ml Kara coconut milk

50g Meridian peanut butter

Little bit Xanthan gum

Topped with:

30g packet of Bear's Cocoa Cherry Pie Granola

The stick blender I'd been intending to use turned out to be in need of *ahem* a good clean after sitting in the cupboard for a couple of years, so I hoped my little Kenwood would be up to the job!

It worked! Although note to self: (I keep forgetting this!) put the blade in BEFORE the ingredients - I had to tip all this into a bowl to get the blade in...more washing up! Worth it though...

into a bowl...

I'd never had Bear granola before today either, hadn't realised it would have pink bits in it to perfectly match the smoothie!!

This was so yummy! :) Next time (and there will be many more!) I will increase the Xanthan gum and/or decrease the milk a little bit as it wasn't as thick as I was expecting. I will also probably give the peanut butter a miss as I could barely taste it, so would rather use the extra calories to have peanut butter with apple (or just on my fingers!!) later in the day. Delicious though, now I've realised how easy it is to make this in my blender it will feature regularly, a great start to the day, and kept me going til lunch, bonus!

Lunch was a simple baked sweet potato with tuna & sweetcorn mayo...

easy to have ready for when Liam comes home on his lunch break, but still very yummy :)

On Friday I bought all the veggies to go with Laura's Socca, which I didn't end up making, so I was planning to make that tonight after the rest of them had eaten up the greasy party food that had been in the freezer since Christmas. I took a few photos of their dinner to show how greasy, unappetising and, well, yellow it looked...

greasy yucky yellow food. But you know what's coming next right? I have no willpower! Whilst feeding the baby, I managed to shove in my mouth... 2 sesame prawn toast, 1 filo prawn, 5 butterfly prawns, 1 battered prawn, 2 onion bhajis, 4.5 cocktail sausages, and a few too many chips with ketchup. I am so annoyed with myself! I didn't even enjoy it, was just putting it in my mouth mindlessly whilst chatting to the others! Grrr. No healthy socca with veggies for dinner for me yet again!! I felt so bloated after this as well, we all did, I don't even know why I bought it...got sucked into the "party food for Christmas" I guess!

I did find time for a little more food this evening though. My computer crashed whilst I was in the middle of writing this post (which had luckily saved itself) so I got out some chocolate from the cupboard - Montezuma's Sea Dog (dark chocolate with lime and salt)...

I've never had Montezuma's chocolate before - love the pattern on it! Did make it hard to break though so I had more than intended...

and am now nibbling on the rest of it...whoops! [blush!] It is very yummy, reminds me of the chocolate lime sweets, you know the hard boiled lime sweets with chocolate inside? Yum. Not as salty as Lindt sea salt chocolate, but still has a little salty taste to it. I like! :)