Weekend Highlights...finally!

Ok, well I've finally found time to catch up from last weekend - both children asleep and Liam at uni as I start writing this just after lunch, however I have a feeling I won't end up finishing it until this evening as they wont sleep for long! At least if I get some of the post done it'll be quicker to finish off later on :)

I spent a lot of time outside at the weekend (by weekend I mean Saturday - Tuesday (yesterday) - the holidays kind of make all the days merge together), going for walks by the river...

and along the seafront...

as well as eating lots of food out! Saturday was my Mum's birthday so my Mum, my Grandma, both my sisters and I went out for a girly lunch. I chose to have butternut squash risotto which was topped with Parmesan and pesto...

This was quite nice, although to be honest I prefer the butternut squash risotto that I make, but I loved the idea of putting pesto on top, will definitely try that next time! I wasn't going to have pudding as I was quite full after the risotto, however I ended up sharing my Mum's chocolate brownie. Served warm with creme anglaise...

this was amazing, I loved the warm chunks of white chocolate in it...definitely worthy of another photo!

Delish! As I hadn't planned to have dessert, I also joined the other non-pudding eaters (aka my Grandma and the older of my 2 sisters who has given up chocolate for lent!) in having coffee... iced coffee for me...

this was one of 3 iced coffees I enjoyed over the weekend, and my 2nd favourite - nice flavour, but a bit too frothy - we heard it being blended for a long time!!

The best iced coffee by far was enjoyed on Saturday afternoon, whilst Liam and the children had ice creams. This was an iced cappuccino...

Delicious - good presentation, perfectly sweet and the right amount of froth! :) Sadly I also had an iced coffee fail on Sunday afternoon - an iced mocha...

The children and I had spent the afternoon at the park and walking along the seafront, then when Liam he finished work he joined us for an early dinner. This coffee may look pretty, but they hadn't added any sugar - instead serving it in sachets on the side - which of course didn't mix as the drink was by then cold. I now remember this from last summer - must avoid ordering iced coffees at this restaurant!! Luckily there was food to accompany the disappointing drink, and the food was much more pleasing...

soup & a sandwich deal - the soup of the day was cream of asparagus and I went for a brie with caramelised onion jam sandwich. This was really nice :) there wasn't much choice on the menu as we went at 5.30pm and the dinner menu didn't start til 6pm, luckily they had an afternoon menu running from 3-6pm otherwise we'd have had a stroppy daughter on our hands!!

I did also have some meals in the house this weekend. There were quite a few green smoothies so I'll just highlight the prettiest one...

I love the vibrant green colour! This had spinach, banana, mango and milk in it...yum!

On Sunday morning, I decided to use some of my new chia seeds to make my first ever batch of overnight oats. I used Angela's recipe for a carob banana version. I have to admit I wasn't too keen on it when it first came out of the fridge...

but after heating it up and putting it in a peanut butter jar, it was much nicer!

not much less work than making hot porridge from scratch admittedly, but I will give it another try with cocoa powder before writing it off completely, as I think it may have been the carob flavour I disliked cold.

On Monday morning, I was given breakfast in bed! :) I can't remember why Liam thought I deserved it, but it was very welcome! Total 0% yoghurt with cantaloupe melon and agave nectar...

This was lovely, the melon was perfectly sweet and the agave nectar took the tartness out of the Greek yoghurt...even better as I hadn't made it myself! :)

Savoury eat-in meals have been a bit random over the last few days. Sunday lunchtime we had one of my favourite junk food sandwiches - pappy white bread, slices of cheddar, fried eggs and tomato ketchup...

I love fried egg sandwiches so much, yum!

Monday lunch was a bit of a random mix - sesame & almond smoked tofu (fried in a little coconut oil), sliced avocado and some of a microwave veg pot...

slightly random, but tasty!

On Monday night I wanted to follow a recipe I'd seen in the recipe booklet that came with last month's BBC Good Food magazine...only problem was that I couldn't find the booklet so I had to make it up! It was meant to be jacket potatoes with mushrooms and broccoli mixed in, with baked eggs. However there was no way all the ingredients were going to fit back in to the potato skins, so I just baked the eggs in the scooped out potatoes...

even then they overflowed! I served the baked potato mixed with mushrooms & broccoli on the side, which I'd grilled with some cheese while the eggs were baking...

This was surprisingly tasty...not bad considering I thought it was going to be a disaster when I was pouring the overflowing eggs into the potato skins!

Last night was another tasty dinner, thanks to this Creamy Mushroom Gnocchi recipe over at How Sweet It Is. Mine was a bit of a simplified version - just frying off the mushrooms with some garlic and then adding cream, but delicious nonetheless...

served with tender stem broccoli on the side, this was really good. Liam and I loved it all, daughter ate all of hers and baby's mushrooms and baby ate all of his and daughter's gnocchi! At least between them it all got eaten!!

Yesterday we went to Crealy again (a relatively cheap day out as we have season passes, and daughter loves it!) I'd made packed lunches in a rush that morning as we had to leave earlier than usual as daughter had a check-up at the hospital first (all fine) so my lunch didn't turn out to well...over-cooked quinoa and slightly burnt roasted peppers anyone?!!

even with balsamic vinegar this wasn't great, I ate it anyway and then still felt the "need" for food so order a vegetable burger from the food bar...

mashed potato with peas, sweetcorn and carrots in a crisp coating...not the best, but kept the hunger monster away for a while!

Luckily the weather was nice so we could wander around outside lots...

and it was much quieter than normal - unheard of for the school holidays - so daughter and Liam got to try out the new(ish) water ride that normally has a super long queue...

Baby then had a nap, so Liam and daughter went into the inside play area while I enjoyed some time in the cafe - a latte and a chocolate brownie more than made up for the disappointing lunch!

The best part of the day!!! I did go on a few rides too though, the pirate ship is my favourite!

As if we hadn't had enough excitement/treats yesterday, when we got home it was unanimously decided that we needed even more fresh air...and ice cream...

a flavour I hadn't seen in our local ice cream shop before - blueberry - this was delicious, with real blueberries in it, yum.

All the sugar from the ice cream and brownie etc produced more munchies last night, so I snacked on some of the Conscious chocolate that my Dad brought me from London. This one was full of nuts, my favourite so far I think!

I loved this. I couldn't even really tell it was raw chocolate - Conscious definitely has the most "normal" texture of the raw chocolate brands I've tried.

With the exception of the delicious Chocolate Brownie Baked Oats for breakfast this morning, today's food hasn't been particularly inspiring - lunch ended up being a split of a yummy 9bar...

and a bowl of Waitrose banana, papaya & honey granola with milk...

this was really good - loads of oat clusters and I loved the chewy papaya chunks!

For dinner, the others had spicy taco mince from the freezer with rice, so I was able to have whatever I fancied...a serving of grease perhaps? Tasty grease though - fried eggs, toasted potato bread and garlic buttery mushrooms...

Yum! I love potato bread...and garlic mushrooms...and fried eggs! :)

Phew, lots and lots of food!! I wasn't expecting this post to be quite so long! If you can bare to read anymore, I do recommend you check out my post from this morning - the Chocolate Brownie Baked Oats were divine, and the post is a lot, lot shorter...I promise!!

Before I go, I've been trying out Twitter today...my profile is @PorridgeParsnip if you want to follow me...I hope to get into it a lot more as I go along, still more things to learn at the moment! :)

PS - after publishing this post, I just changed my blog header and am relieved pleased to see it has worked!! What do you think of it??? Liam designed it for me. I love the idea of it, and the photos, but think the text needs to be a bit bigger - "Porridge and Parsnips" seems a bit lost amongst everything else! Liam is super busy at the moment with his dissertation and another major project for uni though, so this header will more than do until he has time to adjust it - a big improvement on the plain purple text I had previously anyway!! :)