I've already written about Week One here. And the last post was Week Two. Now onto Week Three...
My Week Two post ended on Thursday 4th August. On Friday 5th August we went away for a long weekend to Woolacombe. I wrote about the first part of the holiday here, and the second part in this post.
Our first proper day at home was Tuesday 9th August - a fun day at the beach that I covered in my What I Ate Wednesday post.
On the Wednesday, Liam was lovely - bringing me flowers and making me a smoothie. I was so surprised by Liam's kindness that I didn't post about the rest of the day. It was pretty standard, but some yummy food was involved. A cereal bowl with lots of blueberries and nectarines for breakfast...
and a delicious spinach, mozzarella and pesto quesadilla for lunch...
Izzy and I also snacked on some frozen grapes, sitting outside in the sunshine whilst Toby napped.
I love frozen grapes for a summer snack, so refreshing!
Thursday started with Izzy and I making a repeat of the smoothie Liam had made for me the night before. Lunch was a poached egg and jam sandwich...
The jam is a good substitute for ketchup, but egg sandwiches are always better with fried eggs. Liam prefers poached though, so sometimes I have to compromise!
For dinner we had egg fried rice with peas, soya beans and grated courgette...
Simple, but really tasty. The courgette released a lot of liquid whilst cooking, so this took a lot longer to cook than usual, but it was still really good!
Friday 12th August was Liam's brother's 21st birthday. We all went out for a meal at a Mexican restaurant, which was delicious. I love Mexican food, but had never been to this restaurant before - definitely one to visit again.
On Saturday I went to my friend's hen do, and on Sunday I had a few messy kitchen results, but some yummy food too!
It seems I've written more posts than I realised this fortnight! I don't want this post to be all about links back to old posts. The rest of this week is less covered though as my laptop broke on Monday night. So annoying, but luckily I was able to get it fixed over the phone, phew!
I did cover Monday in my What I Ate Wednesday post - I had a hospital appointment, so Liam and I had lunch out at a vegetarian restaurant first, delicious!
On Tuesday, we went to Costa for a treat. It's still a novelty as our town has only had one for a few weeks! I had an iced peach tea...
Nice, but not as nice as the raspberry version. And a mini pecan and banana bread...
I actually ended up having two of these as Izzy's bottle of Innocent smoothie filled her up so much she couldn't eat her banana bread. And, like my Mother before me (no offence Mum!), I am the human dustbin - eating any of my family's leftovers!
We did have a nice walk home to burn off a few of the calories though...
On Wednesday, I gave chia seeds another try. I prepared a half portion of Laura's Vanilla Chia Seed Pudding the night before, and in the morning topped it with peanut flour sauce and fresh plums...
I tried to like it, but I just can't. It's the texture that I dislike, so I guess there's not really any way to disguise that! I ate the plums and a bit of the top layer of the pudding (ie the peanut flour!) but there was no way I could finish it.
Luckily I had lunch plans on Wednesday so I knew plenty of food would be eaten before long! I went for lunch with my Dad, as well as the children of course. I chose a vegetable curry which came with rice and a poppadom...
and I also ordered a side of sweet potato fries! I know they don't really go with the curry, but I was so excited to see them on the menu - a new addition since I was last in that pub. Everyone shared them anyway so I only got to eat about half of them though - next time I go there I think I'm just going to make up a meal out of different sides, yum!
Despite the rather large lunch-time meal, when my Dad said he was going to order pudding I couldn't resist. I chose a slice of banoffee pie...
Not the best banoffee pie I've ever had, but I still loved it. Izzy was too full for dessert, but just like her Mother, didn't want to miss out. So she ordered sticky fudge ice cream. I don't think she was expecting it to be quite this big!!
Luckily, as you can see in the background, Toby was more than willing to help out!!
By the time we walked home from lunch, it was raining hard. Toby doesn't really understand the concept of his pushchair's rain cover...
Haha, makes me laugh every time! Normally he sticks his head properly out, and then complains when he gets wet!!
Dinner on Wednesday was everyone for themself. I can't remember what anyone else ate, but I had some dips Mum had given me with various things to dip in them...
I didn't end up liking the dips (the sweet potato one and the guacamole were too spicy, and the cannelini bean one had an odd texture) and Izzy ate most of my pepper, so this ended up being a very light meal. So it was no surprise, as shown in the post about my new hair cut, that I ended up eating half a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream that evening!
Thursday was also covered in the above post, so I'll move quickly on to Friday, which is actually my today. Liam and I are away for the weekend at a friend's wedding, so I am writing this post on Friday, but will publish it on Sunday.
Friday started with some wonderful pumpkin pancakes. I didn't really have lunch - instead snacking on various little things, like these peanut crackers that I picked up at the oriental grocery store on Monday...
These are so addictive - the peanut butter filling is really creamy and sweet. My kind of snack! I also had a couple of unpictured iced lattes.
Once Liam finished work, we all headed outside to make the most of the sunshine. We went down to the seafront where the others bought ice cream. I resisted as it was only an hour or so before dinner, very proud of myself!! Although of course this is how I should behave most of the time!! Despite being sunny, it was so windy on the seafront...the sea still looked great though.
We then went to the park on the way home. Liam loves the park as much as Izzy does!
For dinner I made a recipe from the Vegetarian Living magazine I read on the train on Saturday. Spicy (or not so spicy in our case) cashew and mushroom rice, with a blob of sour cream dip on top...
Despite the less than attractive photo above, I thought this was really tasty. As did Izzy - she ate all of her portion plus Toby's leftovers. Liam, however, has decided that he no longer likes cooked mushrooms, so spent the meal picking through the dish looking glum. I know he is still a much more willing/adventurous eater than a lot of people, but I really really hope this isn't the start of a slippery slope into fussy eating!!
Do you live with anyone who doesn't eat the same way as you do? Any tips with how to deal with it? Do you cook separate things for them or persuade them to try "your" food? I'm really reluctant to start cooking separate meals as that is what my Mum did when I was growing up - she ended up cooking 3 or 4 variations each mealtime, and both my sisters and my Dad are still quite "fussy" to this day (although one of my sister's is getting better due to her boyfriend cooking lots of vegetables for her!!) Plus I'm lazy, and cooking separately seems like more work. Liam does sometimes cook for himself though - when I go to exercise classes in the evening he'll use meat that's been in the freezer since January (!) to cook for him and the children, it's just not very often as I don't exercise very often these days! I think I'll go back to cooking vegetarian meals I know he likes - nachos, Mama Pea's sloppy josephines, Mama Pea's quinoa pizza casserole etc for a while to ease him back into my cooking!!
I don't think you're lazy! Personally, I think Liam's really lucky to have you cook for him at all and should be grateful to have a meal on the table: it's not your obligation (can you tell I have feminist leanings?) I think he needs to lead by example for Izzy and Toby too: if they can be adventurous with their food, so can he :)
ReplyDeleteI think I'd eat the whole packet of those PB crackers!
xxx
Thanks Jess :) Don't worry though - the reason I choose to do 95% of the cooking is a) I enjoy it, but also b) more importantly, it means Liam then does all of the washing up which I hate!! He does way more housework than me as well so I definitely can't complain about him, I just don't want to have to start making my meals more "fussy-friendly"!! I think part of it was that he was really tired after work though - he's usually pretty good at eating what I cook so hopefully the good habits will continue!
ReplyDeleteThe PB crackers are yum, I'm quite proud of how I'm restrained I'm being with them! Luckily they're individually wrapped crackers - they came in a long string like sweets I remember from my childhood, where you tear one off at at time as they're perforated? Rubbish explaination, but yeah, they're delicious! :) x
My boyfriend and I have been living together for almost 5 years, and when we started dating I was a vegetarian, and he only at fast-food junk. He has made a lot of progress towards healthier eating - since I won't put the crap and sweets on the store list to buy. I know he still eats less than healthy during working hours (and often has to eat lunch out "on the run"), but I keep hoping he might change that too. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteI do ALL of the cooking - as he is rubbish at it. He does grill a bit, but I have to completely prepare whatever it is we are going to grill, first. He's pretty willing to go along with whatever I cooked, but I can tell when he doesn't *really* enjoy it.
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