Would You Like Some Peanut Butter With That?

This week, my eating has NOT been very structured! What with being in hospital until Monday, and then having decorators in...last night was the first meal in over a week that I was able to cook in my own kitchen! I made it a good one though - Mama Pea's Quinoa Pizza Casserole...

I topped mine with grated cheddar, roast peppers and basil smoked tofu, with some salad on the side...

This was sooo good! Loved by all - I had thought I'd have some leftover's for today's lunch but Liam went back for seconds and polished it all off!!

Until last night though, I have been eating more snacks than meals! I spent most of the week at my Mum's house (luckily she lives just round the corner!), we did have a few meals such as pasta with roast vegetables and pesto...

and baked sweet potato with broccoli, roast asparagus and grilled pepper Philadelphia...

the green veggies I'd been longing for!! :)

However there were also many many snacks! A lot of these were peanut butter based - I seem to be making up for the lost peanut butter time from when we were in hospital!! There were Oreo cookies, with peanut butter...

Apologies for the rubbish photo - I was too busy eating - delish!

There was also a Dairy Milk chocolate bar, with peanut butter...

A good combo, but would've been even better with dark chocolate...obviously lots more peanut butter was spread on this after the photo!

And in the same "snacking session" a banana was also spread with peanut butter...

I have also this week eaten six packs of, unpictured, Reese's peanut butter cups, less 2 cups that Mum ate, so 16 peanut butter cups total!! They were reduced from 60p to 29p in Waitrose on Tuesday so I bought 3 packs, then on Thursday they were reduced further to 19p so I bought the last 3 packs...looks like Waitrose won't be selling them anymore :( I know I can make much better quality versions though, I ended up popping these in one after the other...too addictive!!

* To avoid any possible confusion, I have clearly eaten more than the above the last week - there have even been some other meals - muesli, soup, toasted teacake out with my Grandma etc - but less photos have been taken than usual due to disrupted routine!

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Today I had it all planned out that I would get back to normality. Daughter was back at school for morning + lunch today (thank you so much for all the well wishes, she's much better now, she started improving as soon as she had the op, so we're just glad they finally realised what was wrong with her!) and I had planned to go to the gym. That was until we snoozed the alarm for 45 minutes and ended up having to rush to get daughter to school - got out of the morning routine habit! I just had no energy this morning, had been awake in the night blah blah blah, and couldn't face the gym. After taking daughter to school, I settled for a healthy breakfast instead...

This was a bit of an "eat up fruit that's been forgotten about while we've been out of the house" smoothie - 2 small overripe bananas, 2 overripe pears, spinach, frozen cherries, vanilla rice milk and xanthan gum. Topped with toasted coconut flakes and, of course, peanut butter...

this was fantastic! My smoothies can be a bit hit or miss (especially if I add protein powder, bleugh, not a fan of the texture!) but this was divine :) I have to admit it though that it pretty much just tasted of banana and peanut butter...but that's fine with me!! :)

Lunch today was a simple poached egg on seeded toast...

I was doing so well! Then Liam went to work and the peanut butter jar started calling to me from the cupboard!!

Medjool dates stuffed with peanut butter...

and then peanut butter based fudgy oaties inspired by Oh She Glow's Frosty No-Bake Glo Cakes. I simplified it down a bit, just mashing the last small overripe banana (55g), then mixing in 45g peanut butter, 20g maple syrup, 8g cocoa powder and 35g oats. I wanted a fudgy pudding so I didn't freeze the mix, in fact I only managed to put it in the fridge for 10 minutes before I could wait no longer! Topped with chocolate chips...

I shared this with my daughter for a tasty afternoon snack, it reminded me of something but I can't put my finger on what it was (annoying!) but it was super yum, lovely and gooey and chocolatey :) It also kept me going until after I'd fed the children, put them to bed and had time to make my own dinner.

The original plan for dinner was roasted butternut squash wedges thanks to Mr Waitrose...

but after spending some of the afternoon browsing Oh She Glow's Recipe Page, I found a way to add some peanut butter into my meal! Parsnips...

with yet more peanut butter, in the form of Peanut Butter Crusted Parsnip Fries...

with the addition of lemon & coriander houmous from this trio...

all cooked and put together...

this was delicious and, despite appearances, really filling. I'd been a bit worried that the parsnip fries wouldn't crisp up because the butternut squash took up a bit too much space in the baking tray, but these were perfect! I love the crunchy crust that the peanut butter formed :)

2 hours later I'm still full up, so hopefully that'll be me done eating-wise for today!

This weekend has the potential to be a bit food-filled - today is Liam & I's anniversary, but he has to work (boo!) so we're going out for dinner tomorrow night. Then Sunday is Mothering Sunday and I'm baking a cake to take round to my Mum's in the afternoon...details will be shared once made if it's a success!! I must just try to eat as healthily as possible - I feel so much better when I do - not sure where peanut butter falls in that though - it seems to have replaced my old addiction to Nutella!

Hope you're all looking forward to the weekend! It's going to be quite a busy one here - as well as the foodie occasions mentioned above, I'm also meeting a friend for coffee tomorrow morning, and going to see daughter (she's well enough to be in it, yey!) and my little sister in a dance show in the afternoon. Should be a good one :)