Just another day...

I always know when my mind draws a blank for any blog title ideas, that the day has been pretty standard. Today has definitely been one of those days. Aka I don't have much to talk about!

For breakfast, I started to make porridge on auto-pilot - got the bowl out, poured some oats in...and then realised I didn't actually want porridge this morning! So the oats went back in the box and I had a yummy cinnamon&raisin bagel instead, topped with crunchy peanut butter and apricot fruit spread...

So good, and a nice change from the usual porridge or smoothie.

Bagels are also quicker for me to eat, so I had more time to get ready before toddler group - we were so early we ended up doing a quick Lidl shop first (and the benefit of going shopping on the way to somewhere was I only bought as much as I could fit in the basket under the pushchair, bonus!). I resisted the biscuits at toddler group (although I can't say the same for baby!!) and just had a cup of tea, no sugar. I'm beginning to get used to the lack of sweetness, although it is the only time all week I have tea - at home I stick to my lattes, sweetened with various different options - agave nectar is my favourite at the moment I think, yum.

By the time we got home, baby had fallen asleep in his pushchair, so I put him into his cot and set about making my lunch. I had 2 avocadoes which were very ripe, so I made them into easy guacamole - just with lemon juice and sweet chilli sauce added...

I had some with my lunch and froze the rest in individual portions - felt very organised! Hopefully it will save me time for future lunches, and definitely saves waste and/or me eating 2 avocadoes in one sitting so all good! :)

Lunch was similar to yesterday, albeit not as pretty - roasted peppers, quinoa and guacamole...

Delish. I must try to have something different for lunch so I don't get fed up of quinoa based salads - they're so easy and tasty though! I think I preferred yesterday's version - having the peppers raw and the avocado non-mashed made it take longer to eat and therefore feel more filling, this was delicious too though.

Mid-afternoon I fell asleep on the sofa for an hour while baby was napping...not how I intended to spend my afternoon but probably needed!

It also meant I didn't eat again before dinner, as by the time I woke up there was only time to quickly wash up the day's dishes before Liam and daughter got home - doesn't that make my day sound interesting...not a usual occurrence however - Liam was pleasantly surprised! We then all spent some time in the garden as it was so nice & sunny today, cold but sunny :)

Dinner was one of my favourites, sweet potato and cauliflower curry...

I didn't have any rice with it today, it really doesn't need it...

this is so delicious, sometimes the old favourites are as good as trying new recipes :)

Once the children were in bed, I snacked on a Nak'd banana bread bar...

I'm not sure if I like this or not to be honest. A bit too sweet (even for me!) and even though the banana is natural, it tasted a bit like the banana medicine you used to get given as a kid...hmmm...think I'm glad I only bought the one of this flavour, there are so many other Nak'd bar flavours I like so much more!

And with that, I come to the end of my rather dreary post!! Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit more interesting!

Not related to today's post, but does anyone have any recommendations for cakes that they've made?? I usually stick to cupcakes but my Mum has asked me to bake a big cake for Mothering Sunday (a while off yet I know!) and as my fussy sister and Liam aren't going to be there, I thought I could get a bit more experimental rather than sticking to chocolate or lemon drizzle!! I've been looking through the BBC Good Food site, but there are so many different cakes to choose from, so any tried & tested recommendations (not just from Good Food obv) would be good! Especially as I can't really test it beforehand if I'm making one that Liam won't eat up, so I'll be crossing my fingers when my Mum cuts into it - I get so much more anxious making big cakes than cupcakes as you don't know how the middle will be until the host cuts into it! (as with my disastrous white chocolate mud cake on Christmas Day...luckily that was on the old blog so can be forgotten about!!!)

Colourful Quinoa Salad

Yesterday was a bit of a write-off food wise - I just couldn't seem to stop eating!! Probably the less said about it the better, but here are just a few of the (many!) highlights...

Unfortunately I did not listen to the biscuit tin telling me to "step away"!

Messy, but still delicious, chocolate peanut butter cups

Cheese and oatcakes - a late evening snack despite already having had a huge breakfast (oats in a not so empty peanut butter jar!!), lunch, dinner and many snacks/treats in between!!

Anyway...line drawn__________ moving on...luckily I managed to turn it around today!!

I started the morning off with a gym visit - an hour of cardio (rowing machine, cross-trainer, wave, cross-wave) plus 10 minutes on the arm cycle, free weights and leg machines. I was there an hour and half which is longer than I usually manage - making the most of Liam not going into uni today! :)

On the way home I ate a Nak'd cocoa mint bar. I then had a long soak in the bath, by which time it was 11.30, so I decided to start prepping lunch rather than having breakfast. Lunch was delicious...

a salad of lettuce, sliced pepper, avocado and cooked quinoa, topped with a little sweet chilli sauce...

this was so tasty! I love the warm quinoa with the raw veggies, will definitely be having this type of salad again! :)

After lunch, we wandered into town. Julian Graves had 50% off everything...I couldn't resist!

Desiccated coconut (not from Julian Graves, they'd sold out), rice crackers, sunflower seeds, almonds and mixed nuts...

yoghurt coated cranberries, milk chocolate coated dates, maple walnut coffee and some new bars to try - Nak'd banana bread plus the 9bars...hope these are as nice as people say they are!

When we got home I couldn't resist trying out my new coffee - a maple walnut skinny latte, sweetened with some agave nectar...

Yum, I could really taste the walnut in this, much more nutty than the hazelnut flavour...really good!

Dinner was bolognese - lentil bolognese with wholewheat penne for me, meat bolognese with white penne for the others...multi-tasking at its best!

This was really tasty - mine had onion, garlic, passata, half a veg stock cube, water, red lentils, grated carrot, Worcester sauce and a blob of marmite added at the end!

a much bigger portion than I was expecting it to make! I still topped it with some cheese though...

This really filled me up...or so I thought...

Unfortunately I think I spoke too soon when saying I'd drawn a line under yesterday's pig-out! Whilst writing this post, this has been opened and the whole 100g consumed...!

Whoops!! This was nice, I really liked the chocolate, but the cherries were a bit too chewy - and in no way comparable to Concious' raw cherry chocolate sadly!

My first "official" weigh in for the Honeymoon clothes challenge is on Thursday...a classic example of self-sabotage I fear! And now, of course, I want even more chocolate, gah!

Leftover Turkey = Yummy Curry!

After yesterday's 2nd "Christmas" Dinner, Liam and I spent most of the evening stripping the rest of the turkey for leftovers! We got lots...

I bagged this up into portions for the fridge/freezer (was clearly feeling organised for once!) and it made enough for 6 family size meals, plus there were already some slices in the fridge for sandwiches...yum...I love leftovers more than the actual roast! :)

On to this morning though and back to routine :( Liam starts work at 7am on Sundays and baby got woken by the alarm so it was an early start for all of us! After sorting out the kids' breakfasts I needed some fuel of my own to keep me going! I decided to do a repeat of yesterday's "pink porridge" with oats, Kara coconut milk and frozen black forest fruits...

topped with some dried papaya and a much needed blob of peanut butter!

to be honest the papaya was a bit unnecessary but the peanut butter was definitely a good addition...delicious! :)

Unfortunately an early breakfast meant I failed at the first hurdle with regards to no snacking. I need to buy some more fresh fruit to try to stave off the hunger/munchies! As it was I tried to prevent too much damage by having a Nak'd Cocoa Mint bar...

and then finished off the Nutella (luckily hardly any left!) and ate a whole 60g bag of dolly mix sweets...

bleurgh, I felt so sick after all of this junk! I've been really good at resisting the Nutella recently - admittedly because it's been so cold in our kitchen that the Nutella was solid until today so required chipping off and microwaving if you wanted it on toast!!

I bought this biscuit tin for Liam for Christmas, think it's more appropriate for me though!!

I filled it with Boost chocolate bars (his favourite) when I gave it to him and it's still more than half full...he has way more willpower/self-control than me!!

Anyway, back to today's food. I had no idea what we would be having for lunch as we were going over to my Grandparents to see my cousin who is visiting from Australia. They'd put on a buffet...

my main plate...

the mushroom quiche/tart was from Waitrose and really good, egg mayonnaise sandwich (I had another of these later), sausage roll (another couple of these found my way into my mouth later too!!), smoked salmon blinis and carrot sticks with dip. I also had one mince pie for pud and picked at some more of the carrot sticks and grapes. Lovely to see my cousin and nice food, only problem is that quantity of food wasn't huge but full of calories in form of pastry etc!

I had been looking forward to dinner all day...leftover turkey curry! :) I have to admit to cheating and letting curry paste do the bulk of the work for me. These were the ingredients...

2 small red onions, tikka masala curry paste, about 320g leftover turkey, tin chopped tomatoes and 2x 150g packs of mangetout, plus brown rice to serve with it. I have 5 more bags with the same amount of leftover turkey in for future use, so was pleasantly surprised to see how much turkey it contained once chopped up...

yum, can't wait til all the turkey inspired meals!! Anyway, back to today's curry! I first fried the finely diced onions in a little oil, added a couple of tablespoons of curry paste and the turkey, stirred all together then added the chopped tomatoes and another can's worth of water to get to this stage...

to finish the curry off I added the mangetout and once I'd taken the curry off the heat I stirred in a big-ish splash of double cream. This made a lot! I ended up having a bigger portion than I'd planned as I was worried about re-heating it again when it had already used re-heated meat, so had to eat it all up instead!

this was gorgeous, I do love turkey curry! :) does anyone have any suggestions for me to cook with some of my other turkey leftovers?? I have 5 more bags...I will definitely be making one batch of coronation turkey, and probably another turkey curry...so that leaves 3 more meals to come up with. Rest of the leftovers are in the freezer though so I have time for inspiration to strike!!

Once the kids were in bed, Liam and I couldn't resist some chocolate. We received a ridiculous amount of chocolate for Christmas, although worryingly a lot of it has now been eaten! Our baby "gave" our daughter a huge box of chocolates from Thorntons...

she had already opened them and eaten quite a few but tonight I had 4...or 5...must save the rest for her, although really I'm doing her a favour - her 4 year-old stomach would be sick on all that chocolate!!!

Liam and I then treated ourselves to a pud, he had his in a bowl but I had mine straight from the tub...

chocolate sponge pudding on top of half a tub of Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough ice cream...

this was so good! :) the chocolate pud stayed warm the whole way through which was great, made the ice cream all lovely and soft :)

I started off today trying to be healthy...it rapidly went downhill though and by this evening I was kind of thinking "may as well eat up the treats now so I can have a fresh start on Thursday"...we have so much rubbish still left in the house from Christmas! We gave quite a few boxes of chocolates away to people we've visited since Christmas but it doesn't seem to have made much difference...I will just have to learn to ignore it all I guess!

On the plus side I managed more than half an hour's reading this afternoon while the kids were playing happily together, so that's one resolution completed for the day! I was given a Kindle for Christmas which is great, has got me back in to reading and makes it so much easier to get back into a book whenever I get a spare 5 minutes. I used to love reading before baby #2 came along but don't usually manage to find the time these days!!