Summer Holidays Week #2

Last week I posted a re-cap of the first week of our summer holidays, so I decided to do the same again this week. It's a good way for me to remember all the things we have done - if the summer holidays continue at this rate, they'll be over way too soon!! The re-cap is a bit early this week as we are off on holiday this morning! :-D We'll be back on Tuesday, and I've set up a couple of auto-posts for while we're away, so hopefully they'll work!!

Monday:
Our daughter's 5th birthday. We had such a great day - relaxing in the morning, and then a trip to Crealy in the afternoon. Izzy seems so grown-up, especially since she started school in January. It was weird to compare similar photos - on Monday she rode a pony at Crealy, just as she had 3 years before on her 2nd birthday!

August 2008 - Izzy's 2nd Birthday

August 2011 - Izzy's 5th Birthday

Liam is pretty sure it was the same horse as well!

Tuesday:

One of my friends came round for brunch on Tuesday, bringing lots of croissants and pain au chocolats with her! I ate two croissants with blackcurrant jam, and some blueberries. Plus coffee of course!

Izzy insisted I took a photo of her as well, haha, I think she's getting too used to me blogging!!!

In the afternoon, I took Izzy to the doctors, and then Liam joined us after work for us all to go get late-lunch. We forgot the camera so I'll have to rely on Instagram photos...they don't do this meal justice!! A delicious butternut squash & goats cheese lasagne from the 'Posh' food van...

This was so full of flavour, I will have to try to recreate it when we get back next week!

On the way home we stopped at Costa - it only opened in the last week or so, so still a novelty - where I had a raspberry iced tea...

Loved this! Quite sweet, but I found it even more refreshing than iced coffee! They do a peach flavour too which I will try out next time!

Whilst I was cooking dinner on Tuesday, Izzy played in the garden (overlooked by the kitchen) - bubbles in mis-matched pyjamas anyone?!!

Dinner was inspired by Mama Pea's Thai Curry Fries but majorly simplified - I will have to try the real version some time!! As I've never seen pre-bought sweet potato fries in the UK (anyone??) I had to chop them myself - not so pretty and the knife gave me a blister on my finger - but still as tasty!

I coated them in a mix of coconut oil and curry powder...

and baked them for 30 minutes at 180C.

I also cubed a pack of paneer...

and fried it for about 5 minutes in a mix of coconut oil and (a little too much!) curry powder.

As with yesterday's dinner, I'm loving curry flavours at the moment! I also made a sauce by mixing a pot of Total Greek yoghurt, yet more curry powder, and a little agave nectar...

and served all the curry components with some simple broccoli...

This was so delicious. I adore sweet potato fries of any description, and the yoghurt sauce was great for dipping!

Wednesday:
Was covered pretty thoroughly in my What I Ate Wednesday post! The only thing I didn't share was a photo of daughter's hairstyle, so she wants me to post one now - pretty plait complete with new hair ties that she got for her birthday!!

Plus a new headband added just before we left the house...

Thursday:

My Grandma's birthday. We were meant to be meeting her in the morning, but as it was pouring for rain, we postponed until the afternoon, as I posted about here. After I wrote yesterday's post, Liam and I went out for the evening with my sister and her boyfriend.

We went for food first, and I couldn't resist getting the falafel and houmous pitta for the last time...

and Liam was persuaded to get the same too!

This is so delicious. I took a photo of the salad for those interested...

The way they served it, it was actually only 2 salads - the bottom layer had grated carrots, super plump raisins (Liam reckons they were too big to actually be raisins) and sesame seeds, then the top layer had leaves, red cabbage, poppy seeds, tomato...and presumably a few more things I missed to get up to the 13 advertised ingredients! Delicious!

After our pittas, we made room for some brownies that my Mum had recommended. We shared one pot between us...

These were so dense and filling - more like fudge than brownies! And with clotted cream too :-D

We then met my sister and her boyfriend. It was so busy at the pub where the band was playing that we ended up buying our drinks at a pub just along the seafront, then going back to the pub with the band to listen to them play! I had a few of these...

I was very impressed by all the add-ins, most pubs just add citrus to their Pimms, but this pub had bought in mint, strawberries and cucumber specially for this week, yey!

Ok, time to hit publish now! I'd already written most of this post yesterday, so just quickly added in the details of last night as we're now off on holiday!! I've got a couple of posts scheduled to auto-publish, so hopefully they'll work! If not, I'll "see" you on Tuesday...have a great weekend everyone!! :)