Family Fun and Lots of Cake!

Yesterday was a good day. The morning was spent chilling at home and enjoying the sunshine. I made sure to have a proper breakfast - porridge cooked with a banana, topped with peanut flour sauce and strawberries...

There is porridge under there somewhere! My food scales need a new battery...I think I ended up using a bit too much milk!

Despite the filling breakfast, a mid-morning snack was also consumed whilst the children napped. (Note to self: daughter having a morning nap even if she doesn't seem tired is a great idea - stops the mid-afternoon grumpiness!!)

Shockingly (and sadly!) this was the last of the Chai Cheesecake Bites...yep, I ate the entire rest of the batch, by myself, yesterday! Ooops, but so tasty!! And a coffee from our new coffee machine. Love. I've started making a big pot each morning, drinking a mug or two hot, and then putting the rest in the fridge for iced coffee later in the day. Mmmm, caffeine!! :)

Once the children woke up, we headed to a local fete. We went last year too, but I have just spent ages looking for the photos with no joy, so instead of the planned comparison shots, this is just yesterday. Photos Liam took while I was queueing for lunch (at least they got to sit down!)...

And then the food finally arrived! (this was my 2nd trip - I'd already brought a pizza for the kids and a hot dog for Liam, but I ran out of hands!)...

The pizza was amazing. The dough was rolled out in front of me, topped and then cooked in an open wood fire oven. Yum.

Delicious, but not enough of it. I nabbed a slice of the children's pizza and then we moved onto the sweet stuff. The others had huge chocolate cookies...

and I had a delicious raspberry-almond slice...

followed by a very pretty, but overly sweet blackberry macaroon...

Why I needed 2 things when everyone else only had 1, I do not know. And that wasn't even the end of it as you'll see in a bit. I got sucked into the "so pretty, must try everything" mentality!!

After lunch, we then headed over to the play area. Daughter had fun with some of the 'circus toys'...

and on the bouncy castle...

whilst baby was quite happy munching on his cookie...

and sitting in wheelbarrows!

We bought some sweet treats before heading home. When I say we, I mean daughter and I...the girls are definitely the ones with the sweet tooth in our family! Daughter chose some fudge...

£2.37 for 4 pieces of fudge!! I made sure to slice it up to make it last longer!

Vanilla with malteser, rocky road, clotted cream and mango.

I, of course, went for cake. A gluten-free red velvet whoopie pie, and a peanut butter & salted fudge (!!) cupcake...

the whoopie pie was a bit disappointing - dry and lacking in flavour...

but the peanut butter cupcake was amazing!

I would've loved it even more if the sponge was peanut butter flavoured too instead of just vanilla, but the icing was divine! I wish Liam liked peanut butter so I could make these type of cakes, I'd end up eating the whole batch if I made them, which even for me would be a bit too much!!

Looking back, I can see I had 5 sweet treats yesterday. No wonder I am consistently gaining weight at the moment. Liam only had 2 - the chocolate cookie and a Double Chai Cupcake in the evening. In fact, I'm pretty sure I had a cupcake in the evening when he did too, so make that 6 things for me. Gah.

We'll end this post with delicious vegetables though. In the form of last night's dinner - the amazing Mama Pea's Courgette Quinoa Lasagne...

This was so delicious. Liam and I both went back for seconds. This photo does not do it justice.

Baby was too tired to eat with us last night, so he has his portion saved for today's lunch. Lucky thing. I started planning out the week's meals last night and asked Liam if he had any requests. His response? "Tonight's quinoa was good, anything with quinoa in" Success!! :)

I'm aware I've been a bit absent with regular blog posts this week. I had a couple of (non-cancerous) moles removed from my waist and my neck on Wednesday, and whilst the operations themselves weren't a big deal, it is near-impossible to keep those areas still enough for healing to occur, so they are still quite sore. By the time I normally write posts in the evening, my neck has had enough of supporting my head all day so I have just been spending my evenings lying still on my side on the sofa!! It felt quite a lot better yesterday though, so I will try to post again tonight with some of the many photos that have built up over the week - I hate having a huge back log of photos that I haven't posted, and I did manage some yummy meals this week that I want to share! :)

Have a great Sunday everyone!

WIAW - Lots of Cake and Tasty Pasta Bake

Apologies for my rhyming title - I'm clearly in one of 'those' moods! The title is true though - I have only eaten one savoury thing today, whoops!

Before I get onto the cake though, first things first - it's Wednesday - What I Ate Wednesday!



I haven't photographed everything I ate today, but I got the main things - including the cake - so we're good! :)

As baby is still covered in chicken pox spots, we had no plans to toddler group this morning. Boo. At least he's still smiling!

Anyway, because I was planning to go straight back home after the school run, I hadn't eaten breakfast. I had at least had a vanilla stevia sweetened latte - I like the stevia! :) Once we got to school, I bumped into 3 other Mum's who also take their younger children to toddler group - who all had chicken pox! All 4 other them (mine included) came out in spots the exact same day! One of the women invited me back to her house for the morning, which was really nice. The boys played in the garden and I drank several mugs of sweet milky tea and got to chat with another adult...being cooped up inside because your child has spots gets a bit tedious after a while!!

Of course, this meant that I ended up walking home - past Lidl and a bakery - at 11am, having not had breakfast. Dangerous. So my breakfast/lunch ended up being an apple doughnut...

a slice of battenberg cake...

and an unpictured golden syrup sponge pudding - by that time I was feeling too bleugh to even take photographs!!

So then I had an afternoon nap to sleep off all the cake. I will get back to slightly more healthy living next week, promise!!

When daughter got back from school we had an afternoon snack of buttered malt loaf...does that count as savoury/healthy??

Either way, I was definitely ready for some vegetables by the time dinner rolled round!! Daughter had requested a pasta bake, so pasta it was!

Pea and Courgette Double Cheesy Pesto Pasta Bake
(serves 3-4)

• 200g pasta
• approx 150g frozen peas
• 1 courgette, grated
• 30g butter
• 30g plain flour
• 360ml milk
• 1-2 tbsp red pepper pesto (I only used 1 tbsp because daughter is in a "not liking pesto" phase, but I'd advise using a bit more)
• 125g mozzarella, grated
• approx 80g cheddar, grated

1. Cook the pasta as per the pack instructions, adding the frozen peas for the last couple of minutes cooking time
2. Meanwhile, make the white sauce. Gently melt the butter, stir in the flour and allow to bubble for a minute. Then add the milk and stir vigorously. Bring to the boil and then simmer for a few minutes until beginning to thicken. Stir in the pesto, half the mozzarella and half the cheddar.
3. Drain the pasta and peas. Pour into a baking dish alongside the grated courgette.
4. Pour the pesto-cheese sauce on top and mix thoroughly.
5. Top with the rest of the cheese and bake in the oven for 15 minutes at 180C.
6. Enjoy! :)

This was really good. I normally only eat a quarter of our baking dish, but between Liam, daughter and I, the whole pasta bake disappeared in minutes! Must-learn-to-eat-slower!!

String cheesy pasta with some green veg included...what's not to love?!! :)

As if I hadn't already eaten enough sugar today, this evening has featured this bar...

I love Conscious chocolate - my favourite brand of raw chocolate! This bar was no exception - the flavour wasn't as intense as the mint or orange varieties I've had before, but I really enjoyed the chewy dried fruit flavour running through it, and the chocolate was as rich as always. Delish.

Do you find that if you don't eat a good breakfast, your day spirals downwards from there?? Even though my breakfasts are usually sweet, I need to eat a proper meal in the morning or my day does not go well. Well, depending on your definition of "well" I suppose! I really enjoyed my apple doughnut and the Conscious chocolate, but the rest of the cake was a little bit unnecessary! I think I'm going to have to try to fit more than just a coffee into my pre-school run routine, if only to avoid the temptation of the shops on the way back home!

Right, Liam and I are now watching a DVD he rented - Life As We Know It - so I really must stop blog writing/reading so I can focus on the film! Have a great evening everyone! :)

Liam's Birthday + Weekend Plans

Today is Liam's 23rd birthday :) I know we're only part way through the day, but the next few days are going to be super busy here, so I'm grabbing any opportunity to write a blog post when I can!

So for Liam, this morning started with breakfast in bed. I got the kids up and got daughter ready for school, made the children pancakes etc first while Liam slept, then daughter brought him up his cards & present and I brought him up this tray...

Chocolate chip pancakes with golden syrup, a latte and chocolate...because who doesn't want chocolate on their birthday?! Well, Liam it turns out. Or at least not first thing in the morning! He managed to just about eat the pancakes and drink the coffee, but the maltesers are getting saved for this afternoon!

After a lazy relaxing morning, Liam, baby and I went out for lunch. I had a brie & red onion chutney panini...

open panini = double the toppings = good! :) this was really tasty, lots of yummy cheese! Liam also had a panini, his with chicken, bacon, sweet chilli sauce and cheese on it. We really didn't need anymore food, but we somehow managed to persuade each other that as it was his birthday we should have cake! Enter birthday cake round 1...

Liam let me try a bit of his chocolate fudge cake which was amazing...

so rich and gooey, yum. Unfortunately my lemon meringue pie was a bit disappointing...

admittedly I'm a bit squeamish about eggs being cooked properly, but for me the meringue was not cooked enough. The top was quite nice and chewy, but the bit nearest the lemon layer was super liquidy. Bleugh. I also ate way more food than I needed to so felt uncomfortably full afterwards. Unusually for me I hadn't had breakfast as I'd been so busy making everyone else's, but I don't think I needed to compensate quite that much!!

Now we've had a couple of hours to let our stomachs rest, Liam's family are due round soonish, bringing another cake with them no doubt! I will try to resist as we have the delicious Manna chocolate brownies that I bought when I went to Exeter Food Festival to eat after dinner. I don't want to be too full from other cake to enjoy my brownie...I've been looking forward to it for weeks!

The rest of our weekend is exciting and food-filled too! Tomorrow Liam and I are going away overnight while my sisters and my elder sister's boyfriend look after the children. The best part of 2 days + 1 night child-free, bliss! It was their early wedding present to us - babysitting plus an overnight stay at a local hotel/leisure place - included in the package is dinner Friday night, breakfast on Saturday, afternoon tea on Saturday, champagne and a box of chocolates in the room, plus full use of gym, swimming pool, jacuzzi etc. I can't wait! :)

Finally on Sunday, it's my 25th birthday. I love that Liam and I have birthdays really close together as it means we can spread the celebrations out for four days. Not so good for my weight perhaps but hey ho, it only happens once a year! I'm not sure what we're doing on Sunday, but hopefully if it's nice weather we'll have a picnic lunch and then probably see my family in the afternoon. I like that we're getting to spend both our actual birthdays with the children and other family, but then get two days to ourselves in between. The perfect balance :)

So there we go, a brief (ish!) outline of my weekend plans! I'll try to check in at some point, but I'm not sure when I'll get the chance. So in the mean time, have a great weekend everyone! :)

Mother's Day

I hope you've all had a great day if you've been celebrating! Mine has been spent mainly with my children, and then this afternoon we took a cake over to my Mum's to share with my Mum, my Grandma and my sister...I love having my family all in the same town, makes getting together so much easier! :)

Liam left for work just before 7am this morning, and unfortunately the children got me up soon after...no breakfast in bed for me! I did however get a present that daughter had made at school (yey for her going back just for Friday morning - looks like that was good timing for making Mother's Day things!!)...a card with a rhyme and a gingerbread lady cookie...

I tried not to think about all the 4/5 year olds' hands that had gone into making this!! We shared it after breakfast (well, a latte for me, I was too tired to eat proper food) and it was actually surprisingly tasty :)

Once baby went for his nap, it was then time to bake... As Liam and the fussier of my sisters weren't going to be there this afternoon, I decided to make a slightly more adventurous cake than I'd usually be able to, and I'm relieved pleased to say it turned out brilliantly!! Parsnip and Maple Syrup Cake... I followed the recipe exactly except I used cinnamon instead of mixed spice as I wasn't going to buy a jar just for 2 tsp! Feel free to skip to nearer the bottom if you don't want to see step-by-step photos...not sure why I'm posting them (yawn!) except I took the effort to take them so may as well make use of them!!

First it was time to prepare the add-ins...

there was a lot of grating! Grated parsnips, grated apple, zest and juice of the orange, and chopped pecans...

*Note to self: next time grate the apple last so it doesn't go brown...not that it mattered for the cake, but it didn't look as pretty for the photo!!!

I then melted the butter, brown sugar and maple syrup...

in the microwave, to make washing up easier!

before whisking in the eggs and adding the flour, baking powder and cinnamon...

all stirred together...

then tip in the parsnip, apple, orange and pecans...

all mixed together, looked so good...

Into the sandwich tins...I didn't actually measure them as they're the only sandwich tins I have...they were a bit too full though so I'm thinking they're maybe a bit smaller than 20cm!!



and into the oven for 45 minutes...

The recipe is confusing as there are 2 different times in it, but as the comments suggest, 45 minutes is definitely the right one! So after 45 minutes they looked like this...

I think I should have let them cool a bit more in the tin before turning them out as they fell apart a bit, still salvageable though! :)

It was then time for lunch while the cakes cooled. Liam came home on his lunch break but we were both too tired to cook properly so just had cheese on toast...

I obviously had twice this amount!

Liam also brought home some flowers for the children to give me which I wasn't expecting at all - with daughter being in hospital etc we haven't been very organised lately so were just pleased she'd made something at school!

Tulips are my favourites, so pretty! :) apparently Liam was standing by the flowers being indecisive about colours - purple are my favourite and one of the checkout assistants suggested that orange would go well...I can't decide if she was right or not?!!

Obviously they haven't stayed on my cooker! Instead they're sitting on the dining table making the room look pretty, yey, I love having flowers in the house!

Liam also got my some Nak'd bars from him (I think he was feeling guilty for not having arranged anything earlier!!) a bit strange as I'm clearly not his mother, but hey, I won't complain about being given Nak'd bars! :)

I'm actually quite impressed that he bought me these rather than a standard box of chocolates...he obviously does occasionally pay attention to what I eat!! :)

Anyway...back to the cake...

In my hurry to get it ready, I actually forgot to take a photo of the filling! It was really simple though, just a 250g tub of mascarpone mixed with 3-4tbsp of maple syrup...

I was a bit worried that the mix would be a bit too runny to fill the cake, but actually once it was on the cake it was much sturdier than it had seemed in the bowl...

Ignore the dip bottom left - baby managed to grab a chunk out of it while it was on the counter!!! Still looked good enough to eat though...

I dusted it with icing sugar just before taking it round to my Mum's...managing to make a bit of a mess in the process!

Worth it in the end...

This was really tasty. My little sister (who I thought was less fussy than my other sister!) refused to try it, but everyone else - my Mum, Mum's partner, my Grandma, daughter and baby - really enjoyed it...

it didn't taste of parsnip at all, but had a lovely texture, next time I would put more pecans in it to give extra crunch. I was a bit worried about the maple-mascarpone not being sweet enough, but it went really well, yum. Although at 697 calories per slice (1/8th which is pretty much what most of us had) it's not one to be made too often!! When Liam finished work he came round and, slightly reluctantly, agreed to try it (he doesn't like carrot cake so wasn't expecting to like this) and actually liked it so much that he brought some of the leftovers home with him...success!! :)

Dinner tonight was nothing really worth writing about - we didn't get home from Mum's until past the children's bedtime so they had cereal and then we had meat-free burgers, chips and corn on the cob...

Healthy eating starts again tomorrow??! On a more serious note, I must start going to the gym again - I haven't been since daughter became ill about 3 weeks ago! Her antibiotics course finished this morning and her dressing came off her neck this evening so no more excuses. Liam oh-so-subtly pointed out the other day that seeing as I don't seem to be able to stick to a lower calorie allowance because I love food too much, I need to earn more calories by doing exercise so I can eat more. So true!