Tuesday 21 June 2011

Blog Swap Goodies, Blondies and Random Eats!

I can't believe I haven't written a blog post since Thursday! Things have been so stressful around here in the run-up to the wedding (only 1.5 weeks to go!) I'm not sleeping well so at the weekend I made the most of Liam being here by having 3 hour naps when baby napped! & most days I'm not finding time to eat until mid-afternoon, not good! I'm making up for it in the evenings though! It's weird - I don't mention it often on the blog but I'm a daily weigher - most of the time my weight fluctuates on a day to day basis (normal) but for the last 7 days it has stayed exactly the same. I guess I must being eating what I need even though I don't have time to keep that close an eye on my eating at the moment!

Anyway, on to the photos... My meals haven't exactly been very structured recently so this might be a bit of a random assortment!!

Oh actually, first up, I received my blog swap package yesterday!! :-D Thanks to Jemma from Celery and Cupcakes for organising it all!


My swap partner was Megan from Simply Megan and she sent me some amazing goodies!!


Lots of nut butters:


I haven't actually tried any of these yet - I think I'm 'scared' to waste them as my meals have been a bit random since I received the parcel! I'll have to make a big bowl of porridge to sample some soon :)

I also received some bars:


Yum! I love that Megan chose all the peanut butter flavoured Larabars to send me!! :) I ate the peanut butter and chocolate chip Larabar yesterday and the Pure chocolate brownie today...both were delicious! I'd heard of Larabars before obviously, but had never heard of Pure bars - I think that was my favourite - dates, agave nectar, cocoa powder rice protein and a variety of nuts made a delicious fudgy brownie with pieces of walnut through it, amazing!

Megan also sent me gluten-free honey rice Puffins!


I've recently seen a few UK bloggers talking about peanut butter Puffins, so it was great to be able to try the gluten-free version! I had a bowl last night with sliced banana and the last of my Chocolate-Coconut-Brazil Nut Butter ...


So good! Thanks so much Megan, I hope you like all the things you receive from me in return! :)

In other 'important' news, I finally made Katie's Chocolate Chip Blondies on Sunday!


I made them whilst Liam was at work so that he wouldn't know the ingredients (!!) and was pleasantly surprised when he came home on his lunch break and liked them!


He didn't pick out the chickpeas at all, but he did notice the peanut butter! Luckily it wasn't too overpowering so he still liked them, yey! I kept quiet about the ingredients list until we'd finished off the rest of them Sunday evening. Between me, Liam and my Mum, this tin's worth of blondies soon disappeared!


When I did eventually tell Liam about the chickpeas in the blondies he was fine with it. He'd seen the chickpea skins in the food bin and was worried I'd put some kind of fish or frog spawn in them!!!!! He clearly hasn't understood the concept of 'vegetarian' yet, or indeed acceptable ingredients to put in delicious baked goods! With chickpeas not fish though, I'll definitely be baking these again - healthy + delicious = success!!

Final note-worthy thing that's happened over the last few days...baby had his first ever haircut on Friday (well apart from when I disastrously chopped his fringe, but that doesn't count!!) He went from this...


to this...

Not too much hair cut off (I was very attached to playing with the long hair at the back of his neck!!) but enough to make a difference - all smart ready to be pageboy at our wedding! :)

As I keep suggesting, most of the food I've eaten since I last blogged isn't worth mentioning. There were a couple of good meals though...

Tropical Baked Oats with pineapple instead of mango, served with fresh strawberries...


This didn't turn out of the baking dish well - it could've done with a few more minutes in the oven but because the dish was so full it was bubbling over...it still tasted delicious though, I do love baked oats more than regular porridge at the moment...the extra cooking time is worth it!

Chocolate Raspberry "Pudding" Smoothie topped with Eat Natural gluten-free muesli...


Mmmm, this is always so good! The muesli was a great addition too, the raisins were super juicy and provided a great contrast to the crunchy almonds!

After looking through all the photos on my camera, I think the above are the only ones worth showing! What can I say, breakfast foods are far superior to other meals! :-D The rest of the time I've been pretty much living off roast vegetables with gf pasta/quinoa and cheese/poached eggs etc on Genius toast!

I will be back tomorrow with a WIAW post - I'm hoping it will keep my meals a bit more structured tomorrow knowing that I'll be posting everything I eat! As well as all the running around for the wedding, I did also go to circuits again. As tough as last week - this new set-up is so much harder than the previous one!

Hope you're all doing ok! Apologies for the lack of commenting recently - I have been reading your blog posts, but usually on my iPhone while I'm lying unable to sleep in the middle of the night...my iPhone doesn't make it easy to comment at the best of times, let alone when I'm half asleep!!

8 comments:

  1. Hooray for the bloggie food swap- that package looks amazing- and how thoughtful to send you gluten free ones.
    I keep thinking about trying those chickpea blondies, but I am still a little freaked out by the idea of chickpeas in there. You always inspire me to give things a go.
    And love the baby's haircut- very cute.

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  2. I know, I was so pleased will all my goodies, yum! Just hope my parcel gets to Megan ok - first time sending food abroad - filling out the customs sticker freaked me out a bit!!!
    I honestly couldn't taste the chickpeas in the blondies at all, they were really good! The worst bit for me was skinning all the chickpeas beforehand (not essential, but apparently gives a smoother texture) - I hate the smell of chickpeas!!
    Thanks, he was so good at the hairdressers, and now whenever anyone mentions his hair he does a little twirl, so cute!!

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  3. Wow that looks amazing, I didn't know they made GF Puffins! And wait till you try the Cacoa Bliss - it's well-named :-)
    I agree about that weird chick pea smell... but how did you skin them - did it take ages?

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  4. No, nor did I, I'd only heard of the peanut butter ones people talk about on Twitter!
    They were actually quite quick to skin - I just rinsed them in a colander and then, while they were still in it, rubbed each chickpea and the skin just popped off...make sure you have a bowl handy to put all the skins in - they look like white waxy shells (of frogspawn if you're Liam!) Obviously haven't made the blondies with chickpea skins on, but have read that it makes a difference...apparently it results in smoother houmous too.

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  5. Aww aww aww! He is so adorable! Cutest face ever!

    And my mom was the same way with the blondies; she noticed the peanut butter right away, but not the chickpeas. So when I made the cookie pie, I used oil in place of the pb, and she said it was a million times better. (Who knew someone would like something more without pb!)

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  6. That package looks amazing, I am very jealous of all the nut butter goodies! I was sceptical about those blondies before reading this, but i think i will make them too and feed them to my boyfriend without saying anything!

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  7. Thanks Katie, he's a cutie! :) I could watch him for hours - best way to de-stress/smile!
    I'll give oil instead of peanut butter I try next time I make them, thanks for the tip, Liam doesn't really like peanut butter at all (strange!) but is getting slightly better!

    Hope you do give the blondies a go Leigh, they're really good, I'll definitely be making them again! Did you take part in the blog swap? Great fun! :)

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  8. Yay I'm so glad you loved everything! I actually just got back from visiting relatives so I'm gonna go check if I got your package yet :)

    xoxo

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