London Day 3 - Wholefoods!

Well, a few days later than planned, but I finally have time to sit down and write about our third, and final, day in London. Izzy is at a birthday party and Toby is having a nap...so let's do this! :)

We woke up on our last day and quickly finished packing up our stuff. We had to be out of the hotel by 11am, but actually checked out at 9am - we were hungry for breakfast! We'd originally planned to lug our suitcases around London for the day, but when I checked our train tickets I realised that the train left at 4.30pm instead of the 3.30pm that was in my mind, so we decided to use the "extra" hour to leave our suitcases at the hotel and then come back for them - so much easier!

After we'd checked out we headed to the place I was most excited about - Wholefoods!! Only a 10-15 minute walk from our hotel...possibly one of the main reasons we'd stayed there ;)

We headed upstairs first for breakfast...

French toast with caramelised bananas and dark chocolate for Liam...

and French toast with caramelised apples, strawberries and pecans for me...

Plus coffee of course...after not having had a single coffee the day before, I happily slurped this iced coffee down even though it was unsweetened!

After we'd finished eating our delicious breakfast it was time to head downstairs...where I spent the next hour or so wandering around with my mouth wide open and lots of "wow"s being gasped!!!

Liam's favourite area!

Nut butter making machines!

Had to get some of these - I miss marshmallows!

So what did I end up buying? I was quite surprised actually - I was expecting to spend about twice what I did...I was obviously more restrained than I'd realised!!

Crispy things...

Raw cacao & cinnamon kale chips, tangy apple crisps, sweet apple crisps, pear crisps, sour cream & onion popchips (and also some BBQ ones for Liam) and 3 cheese Diva popcorn. So far I've eaten one of the bags of apple crisps, which I loved...

and the kale chips, which I didn't like at all. I was really disappointed about that as I love homemade kale chips and I've also had a cheesy version of that brand which I adored, but something about the savouriness of the kale trying to be sweet did not sit well with me! Izzy didn't like them either, but Toby still gobbled them up, albeit not with as much enthusiasm as he shows for my homemade ones!

I also bought some sweet bars etc...

Vegetarian marshmallows - coconut and vanilla, Booja Booja raspberry truffles (I was so happy to see these, been wanting to try them for ages!), Spiru-tein cookies & cream sachet (they didn't seem to have any sachets or tubs of the PB Swirl flavour, boo!), Luna bars - white chocolate macadamia & nutz over chocolate, Pulsin raw chocolate brownie (I've had these before but love them), Conscious goji & coconut raw chocolate and OmBar coconut raw chocolate.

I seem to have a bit of a mental block about eating my Wholefoods goodies - as once they're gone they're gone - so I haven't even tried the marshmallows yet (but have checked the dates, ha, no way I'm letting those go bad!!). I have eaten some of the Booja Booja raspberry truffles though. I'd tried to order these into my local store a while back, but I could only do it if I bought 3 boxes at once, which seemed a bit extortionate, so I'd been looking forward to trying these for a while...

Rich, velvety, strong raspberry flavour...totally delicious! I am very impressed at my self-restraint with these - they have to be kept in the fridge and I've only been eating one at a time. I think there are still about 3 (out of 8) left in the box!

The final Wholefoods purchase that I've photographed (although I'm sure there must have been other things that I've forgotten about...sorry!) was a slice of raw pumpkin pie. Liam bought a piece of toffee crisp cake to eat on the train, and I bought this but ended up saving it til the following day as I ended up buying too many different options for my "train food" as you'll see in a minute! This was a perfect way to try to combat the post-"holiday" blues anyway...

This was amazing! It didn't taste like traditional pumpkin pie - it was nowhere near as sweet for one thing - but it was so rich and creamy, I loved it! And seeing as I still have a dozen tins of pumpkin in my larder from last Autumn, I really have no excuse not to recreate it soon...!

Overall, I've been really pleased with my Wholefoods haul. Although I did get home and realised that I hadn't bought - or even, to be honest, noticed - any PB&Co nut butter - how did that happen??! Luckily I still have a jar of DCD from a recent American foods order!!

Right, back to the last day in London. After we'd finished our shopping, we went back upstairs for a juice before leaving Wholefoods. Liam had an orange, carrot and ginger juice...

and I chose a green smoothie which had spinach, pear, kiwi, apple, cucumber and lime in it...

This had great flavour but was a bit bitty...my blender gets them smoother!

After our drinks, we caught the tube from Kensington to Oxford Street to do a bit of shopping. New clothes for Liam & then Selfridges food hall for me...!

I got my sushi fix for the train - I had sushi of some description every day that weekend!

And also macarons - this time a salted caramel one from Pierre Hermes (verdict: better than Laduree, but the Sunday market one was my favourite)...

We also got more fro yo - from Pinkberry...

I had salted caramel fro yo with cherries, crispy crepes and peanut butter crunch...divine!

We then made our way to Waterloo, and I did some last minute panic present shopping for Izzy (we'd already bought her some cute Red Riding Hood wooden book ends, but hadn't found any jewellery - her requested gift - so I ended up buying her some hair flowers from Accessorize instead) and spent some time in Starbucks whilst Liam went back to get the suitcases. I hadn't been to Starbucks all weekend, but desperately needed somewhere to sit down, and the fact that it also meant I had an iced chai latte and a cheese and mushroom croissant (can we call this late lunch at 3.30pm - fro yo alone is not enough!!) was an added bonus...

All too soon it was time to head home. The train was much more crowded on the way home so we had to share a table seat with someone else, but luckily he left the train before too long so I felt more comfortable about starting eating! I'd somehow ended up with 3 different dinners to eat on the train, all from Selfridges...

Sushi - avocado rolls and omelette...

Spanish - avocado salad and vegetable tortilla...

and a huge salad from Chop'd (also in Selfridges)...

This place was fab - you chose your base (green leaves and potato for me), 3 "basic" ingredients (I got egg, cooked beetroot and sweetcorn), one deli ingredient (falafel), and then you could also add a dressing and seeds, so I chose sunflower seeds and mango dressing. They then mixed it all up for you, although you could choose to have the dressing separately which I should have done really as I didn't eat this until near the end of the train journey. Still crunchy and tasty though! You could add more ingredients to your salad too if you wanted, for extra cost, but even the standard option had plenty of choice. I was ready for some vegetables by this point!

We got back home just in time to say goodnight to the children (Liam's Mum was in the process of putting them to bed when we walked in) which was nice, they were so excited to see us which made the end of the weekend away slightly more bearable!! ;-D

Phew, end of post! It was such a fantastic weekend, I hadn't been to London in over 10 years before this time, but we definitely don't want to leave it so long again until our next visit! I've also already started making a list of things I'm hoping Dad will buy me in Wholefoods for my Christmas present (!!), the raspberry Booja Booja truffles are top of the list, mmm!

Have you ever been to Wholefoods? What things would be top of your list to buy? I was most excited about finding the Booja Booja truffles and vegetarian marshmallows, but I also loved all the snack bars - so many to choose from!! I was tempted to get a Wholefoods "box" from the salad/hot bar, but as we were there at 10am and I knew we'd be going to Selfridges food hall at a more food-appropriate time, I resisted. Liam wanted to try the wine! It was quite cool - you could buy a glass of various sizes in store, to try before you chose to buy a bottle, or just as a drink I suppose. I just completely bypassed that area as I don't like wine, but Liam called me back to show me!

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!