Highlights from a Festive Weekend

Evening everyone! How have all your weekends been? Sorry I've been a bit absent - weekends go so quickly that I like to spend as much time doing stuff with the family, rather than sitting on my laptop.

This weekend has felt quite Christmassy - I have to keep reminding myself that it's not even December yet!

I started the weekend by making almond milk. Ok, that's not particularly festive, but it is something I've been meaning to do for a while!

I followed Laura's directions, and sweetened the milk with 3 or 4 pitted dates.

I also made the almond pulp cookies Laura linked to in the above directions, but I was too impatient and so burnt them, oops, next time I will actually cook them at super low temperatures like I was supposed to!

On Saturday afternoon, my Mum, Izzy and I went to the local college's Christmas Fayre. We went last year and there were loads of food/cake stalls so I was really looking forward to this. Unfortunately, it seemed to be smaller this year. There were only two baking stalls and one selling jams/chutneys. No sign of either the marshmallow sweet bags or the balloon making man - both of which Izzy had remembered from last year and had been looking forward to! I did manage to buy a few things though. Cake pops that had been made by the after school cookery club (we ate these last night, hence the poorly lit photo). The insides of these was madeira cake and melted mars bars - tasty, but slightly sickly.

I also, of course, couldn't resist buying some cupcakes. The stall I bought these from was a bit disorganised though - they claimed Izzy's (with the stars) was lemon, and Liam's (the purple rose - it reminded me of our wedding cupcakes!) was vanilla - which luckily was correct, but they told me mine was "either pumpkin or carrot" so I was most disappointed when it turned out to just be plain cake! The icing was nice though, with desiccated coconut on, I took the red man off as he looked a bit too gelatinous for my liking!

I also bought a couple of jars - one of plum and blueberry jam, which I haven't tried yet, and one of apple cider butter, which is just amazing. The lady who sold them had business cards with pretty much just her phone number on it, saying she took orders large or small, so I may have to buy some more apple butter! I did look into making it myself, but it seems to be quite a lengthy process. She sold me this jar of amazingness for only £1.30 which seems a good deal to me!

I had some of the cider apple butter with this morning's breakfast - french toast, a microwaved diced cinnamon apple, a little agave and lots of apple butter.

Absolutely divine! I think I'm going to get through that little jar way too quickly!!

Back to yesterday though, and the other Festive thing of the weekend. Last night we went down to see the town's Christmas lights being turned on. The school newletters on Friday had given all the children a raffle ticket to win £100 voucher from the local toy shop, but only if they were there when the draw took place yesterday evening. A good ploy to get more people to turn up, but it meant that it was so busy that we couldn't get close enough to see the entertainment that was put on for the children. We also could barely hear the raffle as the speakers weren't working. Ah well, at least the lights are pretty!

Poor Izzy was a bit disappointed afterwards as well, as we'd decided to eat in town after the lights were turned on. However the best laid plans and all that - despite it only being 5.45pm, Toby decided to start screaming, which meant that eating in the family-friendly pub was out. And then the local chippy ran out of chips! We had to make do with pizza from Co-Op in the end, but promised Izzy we would go for a pub lunch today instead.

*****

After a super snacky day yesterday, I woke up this morning deciding that I would have three amazing meals (+ the cupcake from the Christmas fayre), but no more. I did pretty well until Liam tempted me with store-bought, nothing special, chocolate brownies just now! Apart from that though, I had the amazing appley breakfast I've already shown you. Then, for lunch, we went to the pub and I had a small Mediterranean vegetable pizza (I didn't remember until I was eating it that we'd had pizza last night as well!):

and, the main reason I like this pub, a side of sweet potato fries:

So good!

After we lunch, we went for a walk along the seafront. It was slightly chilly, but so pretty! I love getting some sea air whenever possible, a good way to remind ourselves of how lucky we are to live so close the seaside (even if it does mean we're hours away from Wholefoods, haha!!)...

On the way home I picked up a takeaway coffee from Costa - roasted hazelnut latte. I stuck to tap water at lunch so figured this was "allowed"!!

Not quite as good as the gingerbread flavour in my opinion, but still really good. And with the added bonus of not having loads of grated nutmeg in the last mouthful - win!

This evening we had Mama Pea's Quinoa Courgette Lasagne for dinner, which was great, but the photos were not. I can't wait to get our camera back from repair - my little sister's camera is doing a good job, but cannot handle the poor winter lighting.

What is the best thing that you have done this weekend? Is it getting Christmassy where you live? I was chatting to one of the local shop-owners a couple of days ago, and he was saying that they have to put decorations up to coincide with the turning on of the lights. I don't think he was too keen on how early it was though - I'm sure the lights didn't used to be turned on til it was December did they??!

Bank Holiday Sunshine

I hope everyone in the UK has been enjoying the bank holiday weekend? We've had fun the last two days, enjoying the sunshine. Saturday was a bit miserable (which I solved by making caramel sauce!) but yesterday and today have been wonderful!

Despite my sweet tooth, I've been waking up fancying savoury breakfasts recently, specifically eggs. Yesterday I had two slices of seeded toast with raspberry jam, plus two scrambled eggs...

This morning I also had two scrambled eggs, with one slice of seeded toast + pure spread, and an avocado nectarine 'salsa'...

These were both delicious, I love the egg-jam combo, and this morning's avocado was so creamy, delicious!

Lunches have also been great. Yesterday, Liam had a long shift at work so had requested a "light" lunch as he's usually too tired to eat much. I aimed to please with a summery salad (plus it meant I could spend more time in the garden before starting to cook!) - spinach, quinoa and basil tofu, plus mozzarella for the others...

This was really tasty, warm quinoa with cold spinach and tofu was a great combo, and it was filling without being too heavy. I also drizzled a little sesame oil in the quinoa for extra flavour, yum!

Today Liam had the day off work, so we went out for lunch. I had a sweet and sour vegetable stir fry with noodles...

...plus a bowl of sweet potato fries for everyone to share...

The sweet potato fries were, of course, amazing! The stir fry was nice - the vegetables were really fresh - but there was a bit too much sauce for my liking.

After lunch, the others had ice creams on the seafront...

but I went to Costa instead and got a iced vanilla soy latte...

Mmm, real coffee! I switched to decaf coffee a week or two ago as every time I had a latte I was getting horrible making-me-double-over stomach pains. However, when it started happening after some of my meals as well, I started to realise that it usually occurred when I had a lot of dairy. So the last few days I have been using non-dairy milks, avoiding cheese etc (although still eating trace amounts of dairy in cakes and chocolate chips!) and I am pleased to report that, so far, I've had no stomach pains. And (more importantly!!!) this coffee caused no problems, so I can start having caffeine again, yey!! :-D

I haven't really eaten proper "dinners" the last couple of days - yesterday I had lots of snacks during the afternoon. Including, but not limited to, several coconut cakes topped with raspberry jam...

and an Alpro Soya vanilla dessert with pb & chocolate chips...

So I ended up having dinner pretty late, and still fancied something sweet. Enter porridge made with a mashed banana and peanut flour, topped with Julie's peanut butter granola...

I think I should have cooked the granola for a minute or so more as it didn't get very crunchy, but it was still so addictive - I ate the whole batch over the course of the evening!

Delicious, I want to try baking lots of different types of granola now - so easy to make, I can't believe I haven't done it before!

This evening, I haven't actually had any dinner yet. We didn't end up eating lunch until 3.30pm as Izzy was awake at 4am so had a 2.5 hour nap in the middle of the day! I have made muffins this evening, but I will wait until I can take photos in better light to share that recipe tomorrow. I ate one of those straight out of the oven though, and will go and get more food once I publish this, I just don't know what I fancy/can be bothered to make!

We have made the most of the sunshine to go to the play park lots over the last two days. Izzy had been desperate to go for days but the weather kept preventing us, so as soon as we saw the sun was out yesterday, we knew what we had to do! Yesterday, my sister and her boyfriend joined me and the children - we went at 9.30am on Sunday morning, so the park was still nice and quiet!

Today, Liam and I took the children to the park twice. Being a bank holiday, it was much busier, but we still had fun. We first went this morning...

We had then planned to go straight for ice cream, but both children were very tired (aka grumpy!) so we went home for them to both have naps. We came back to the park on the way home from lunch later on...

I'm so glad we managed to fit in lots of fun this weekend! I doubt the sunny weather will be around for that much longer (it is already quite chilly even when the sun is out) and Izzy goes back to school next week anyway. She's really looking forward to going back, but I'm a bit sad - it's been fun to have her around more and not have to stick to the routine of the school run!

How has your weekend been? Did you do anything special today if you had a bank holiday? Oh, and I wanted to say 'have a great time' to all of you that are meeting up in Manchester tomorrow - I've been reading all your tweets and wishing I could be there...if only it wasn't so far away/so expensive to get there! I look forward to reading all about it on your blogs though! :)

WIAW - Lunch at the Beach

Morning everyone! It's What I Ate Tuesday Wednesday again! Thanks to Jenn, as always, for hosting such a fun party! :)


Before I get started, I just wanted to mention the horrific riots that have been happening in the UK the last few days. I have to admit, I'm not always the best follower of the news (when I do get a chance to sit down, I tend to prioritise reading blogs, oops!) but to be honest, I've found out more on Twitter than I've been able to find on the news anyway - the news I've read seems to be giving a very limited version of events? Either way, I can't believe everything that has been happening, it is so horrible :( I know there are some bloggers that live in the affected areas, so I just wanted to say that I hope you're all keeping safe, my thoughts are with all of you, and let me know if I can help in any way.

Moving on to lighter things for now...

After being away for a few days on holiday, I was extra glad to use my coffee machine yesterday morning...hello caffeine!

Then it was time for breakfast. Whenever I eat this for breakfast I always think I should make it more often, and yesterday was no exception! I wanted to use some of the reduced blueberries I'd picked up, as well as my new sunflower seed butter...

... so I made Averie's delicious Microwave Blueberry Banana Oat Cake! Topped with sunflower seed butter and more fresh blueberries...

This is so tasty and so filling, love it! :)

Late morning, we made the most of Liam having an extra day off work, and the sunshine, to head down to the beach.

We first played on the beach...

Mr Grumpy!

But he can smile really!

Toby hates the feel of sand on his feet so spent the whole time on our laps or the body board!

Before eating lunch at my Mum's beach hut. I had my favourite - egg mayonnaise salad from a local sandwich shop. It has cooked pasta, potato salad, coleslaw, couscous with raisins, leaves, grated carrot, beetroot, sweetcorn and red onion, topped with lots of egg mayonnaise...

This is so full of flavour, and really filling - I sometimes share a pot with my Mum, but this time my Mum and I got a salad pot each, but gave some to the children...more food for me, yey!

After lunch, we headed to the park to play for a bit and then went home via Costa. I had a vanilla iced latte and a banoffee cupcake...

The cupcake was great - lots of cream cheese frosting (my favourite) and toffee sauce in the middle, *drool*...

I think having a Costa in town is going to be an expensive habit!! Luckily I can only really go in when Liam, or a friend, is with me as navigating through the small entrance is a bit tricky with Toby's huge pushchair!

Once home, I had a couple more iced coffees...

I'm loving my coffee routine at the moment! I make a pot of coffee in the morning, have one or two mugs hot, and then put the rest of the pot in the fridge to have iced with milk and vanilla stevia drops. Yum!

As usual, I had a snack whilst cooking dinner. There was only one medjool date left in the pack so a bit of a smaller snack than usual...

but I was glad as it meant more room to eat the amazingness that was dinner!! Creamy coconut daal with some spinach stirred in at the end, topped with crispy fried paneer...

This was fantastic! I've had mixed success with cooking daal in the past, sometimes finding it a bit bland, but this recipe was perfectly spiced. The paneer added crunch and extra bulk, I was full after this plate!!

I didn't think I'd need an evening snack after that dinner, however just as we were about to go to bed, our wedding photographer arrived with our wedding photos!! So a late-night snack of rhubarb fool was needed to sustain me long enough to look through the photos!

We're going to look at them properly later when Liam gets home from work, but there are some really nice ones in there :) Can't wait to sort them out properly for albums/blog posts etc!! :-D

And that was the end of my Tuesday! I'm trying to eat a bit more consciously today as my sweet treat consumption has been creeping up lately! So far today I've had a nice big breakfast, so I'm going to see if that will keep me going til lunch! Lots of housework to be done as our landlord might be visiting this week, so that should keep me busy/distracted!! & with that, I better get on, make the most of the rest of Toby's nap time!!

What was the best thing you ate today/yesterday? And does anyone have any personal recommendations for websites/companies you've used to print photo albums? We decided to organise the printing of our wedding album ourselves to try to save some money, so we have a CD with the edited photos on which we own copyright to, but we need to decide what to do with them next!