Food and Cookbook Deliveries

Hello everyone, happy Friday! I hope you all have nice plans for the weekend? :)

I have been a lucky girl in the last couple of weeks - I've received lots of deliveries (some paid for, a couple not) - I love getting post, especially when it's to do with food!! :-D

First, two weeks ago we got a veg box for the first time in a while...

Fruit - pineapple, melon, apples, pears, bananas and nectarines:

Salad - tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms and lettuce:

Veg - potatoes, swede (edit: or even a celeriac...thanks to whoever pointed out my typo!!), cabbage, onions, courgettes and runner beans:

They also sent us a freebie box containing cooked beetroot, eggs and spinach - all things I use regularly:

Thanks 5 a day box!

Next up is an order I placed on Amazon and was very excited to receive - cookbooks from three lovely ladies!

The first book I read was Mama Pea's Peas and Thank You. I love the mix of family stories, great recipes, and photos in this book. I have already made Cashew Carrot Ginger Soup (p.67), Teriyaki Tofu (p.163), and Macaroni Cheese (p.183)...all delicious!

Next up was Tina's Carrots 'N' Cake. I'm half way through reading this at the moment. There aren't as many recipes or any photos, but I'm really enjoying learning more about Tina - she tells her life story in a very down to earth way. The recipes she does share sound easy to make and delicious - I have plans to make her Edamame Guacamole (p.115) and the Chocolate Pumpkin Loaf (p.128) very soon!

Finally, Lindsay's Happy Herbivore Cookbook. I've only had time to flick through this one so far, but what I have seen looks great! The book, like her blog, focuses on low-fat vegan recipes, and has a good mix of recipes and photos - I do like to see what the finished result is meant to look like. I particularly like the sound of her Mexican Chorizo (p.147) using my favourite - quinoa - and I can't wait to make the Pumpkin Cheesecake (p.221) - I'm loving all things pumpkin at the moment!

Do you have any of these cookbooks? Or any other cook books you've read recently and would recommend? I'm glad I bought all these books, although Liam might not agree, haha - I do already own a lot of cookbooks!!

My next delivery was brought to me by my Dad - he went to Wholefoods in Kensington for me! :-D He managed to find a lot of the things I asked for, plus a few other snack bars he chose by himself - thanks Dad :) He got me Lucuma Powder and Maca Powder...

I haven't used these yet, but I will soon - I keep forgetting about them when I'm making smoothies quickly in the mornings!

He also bought me three jars of Dark Chocolate Dreams...

I'm already most of the way through the first of these jars, but seeing as I've had these for nine whole days already, I think that's pretty restrained (!) I did have a little incident with the jar and a spoon earlier this week, mmm, love it.

The final thing my Dad bought was lots and lots of snack bars:

So far I've eaten two Pulsin' raw chocolate brownies, which I love, one Pulsin' bliss bar which was quite nice, but I missed the nutty chunks that the brownie has, and one Cliff crunchy peanut butter bar which I wasn't so keen on - it tasted a bit too "protein bar" for me. Will try again soon though, I want to try one of the Mule bars next too - I've never had one of those before.

My final deliveries came from iHerb. Yesterday a package arrived which I hadn't ordered nor been charged for. I was a bit confused so I emailed iHerb - turns out an email had got lost somewhere in cyberspace saying that this was a gift for a previous post I'd written about them! Thank you so much iHerb! :) They sent me Justin's chocolate peanut butter, almond flour, and coconut palm sugar crystals...

I wanted to dig in to the Justin's chocolate peanut butter straight away, but then I remembered that I already have a DCD jar open so I restrained myself - having two jars of chocolate peanut butter open at once would be asking for trouble!!! Justin's will be next though! :) I did use the coconut palm sugar on this morning's breakfast - pumpkin porridge, topped with coconut sugar, blueberries and desiccated coconut...

This reminded me of the porridge covered in brown sugar I used to have as a child, but with a slightly lighter taste. Liam liked the look of the sugar crystals too, so I will see what he thinks later. Also, look at the coconut - I bought a few of those jars to organise my cupboard a bit better, need to buy some more jars though as I filled them all too easily!!

The final delivery came this morning - another iHerb delivery, albeit one I'd actually ordered myself this time. It still took me by surprise though - in the past, my iHerb orders have taken 13-14 days to arrive (using International airmail delivery). The gift parcel I received yesterday took 3 weeks to get here, but I only placed this order 9 days ago! Speedy! I mainly ordered to replace my beloved peanut flour which I'm almost all out of, but I couldn't resist making the weight up to 4lbs by adding in a small bag of apple crisps and a bag of freeze dried strawberries...

I can't wait to try these. I'm trying to avoid snacking today as I'm going out for dinner with Liam tonight (a very rare occurrence!) but I'm sure at least one of these bags will be opened tomorrow.

Phew, I hadn't realised quite how much money I'd spent over the last couple of weeks! With Liam's new job, he will be taking a slight pay drop, so I should probably be a bit more careful with my spending from now on. Some foods have become "essentials" to me now though!

Have you shopped at iHerb or Wholefoods before? Any foods that you buy time and time again? I've never been to a Wholefoods myself (sob!) so I have to rely on my Dad to shop for me - I do always ask him to pick me up some Dark Chocolate Dreams though, love it. On iHerb, I always stock up on vanilla Stevia drops, peanut flour and coconut butter as I don't like running out of any of those things. Because of the 4lb weight limit for cheaper delivery, I end up placing a small order every few weeks, which is when small products like the apple crisps also creep in!