WIAW - Blogger Meet-Up

Happy What I Ate Wednesday!



Thanks as always to Jenn for hosting the party! I've been looking forward to writing my post this week. I decided to base it on yesterday - when I met up with another blogger for the first time.

First though, breakfast. I was going swimming yesterday morning so I made sure to eat a proper breakfast first. Porridge cooked with mashed banana and frozen blueberries and strawberry slices, topped with some chocolate orange spread:

I hate how the frozen blueberries make the porridge look grey, but the taste makes up for it! The chocolate orange spread made a change from peanut butter, really sweet, it tastes just like Terry's chocolate orange, mmm!

After breakfast, I did the school run and then came back home for about 20 minutes. Luckily during that time my first ever Riverford veg box arrived...

Everything looked so fresh and what I have tried so far has been fantastic. This week I received spring greens, purple sprouting broccoli, asparagus, big mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes, onions and carrots. Yum! I quickly packed these all away and then headed out the door to take Toby to creche/go for a swim.

Rather than rush to fit in both the gym and swimming while Toby was at creche, I decided to just swim so that I had time to get ready after. Normally I have to leg it from the swimming pool to creche to pick Tobes up in time but I wanted to avoid going to the blogger meet-up with wet hair and big red goggle marks! After I'd swum 40 lengths, I bought myself a latte and sat down with my Kindle for 20 minutes...bliss!

Then it was time to pick up the boy. Toby had such fun at creche that he didn't want to leave, but luckily I was able to tempt him away with the promise of meeting another baby...

Amy from Amy Loves Food, with her cute baby boy Rowan! We realised a little while ago that we live quite close to each other, and this was the first time we met up.

We went to Boston Tea Party for a quick lunch. I had a vanilla latte...

and a wrap with roasted sweet potato, feta and pumpkin seeds, which also came with tortilla chips and dips...

The tortilla chips were a bit flavourless, but the wrap itself was really good. I've just been browsing the menu though and noticed that they do a homemade beetroot, carrot, courgette, pine nut and sunflower seed burger topped with halloumi, houmous and tzatziki and served with sweet potato chips...gutted...next time!

It was really nice to meet up with Amy and Rowan. Toby adored Rowan and loved playing with his tiny feet...

...and I really enjoyed chatting with Amy. It was so nice to be able to talk about blog stuff and recipes, as well as normal chat about children, where we live etc. I'm looking forward to meeting up for coffee again soon :)

Toby fell asleep on the way home (he was super tired yesterday!) so I stayed in the car reading my Kindle some more while he slept, and then went to pick up Izzy from school. An afternoon snack occurred when we got home - just 2 slices of banana malt loaf this time, spread with butter:

I love this, so delicious! I liked it with peanut butter as well, but it doesn't really need it, just a little butter (or even eating it as is) lets the natural banana flavour shine through better.

Dinner last night made use of some of the vegetables in the veg box. Even though all the separate components were really simple, this meal felt quite special, extra delicious! Good quality ingredients, cooked simply = win win!!

I stuffed the mushrooms with grilled pepper Philadelphia and baked them for 20 minutes, topping them with grated cheese for the last 10. The quinoa I cooked in water with a veg stock cube and the mushroom stalks finely chopped up, and I just stir fried the spring greens with a little oil, garlic powder and soy sauce. Yum. This was such a tasty meal, and after the previous couple of days I was definitely in the mood for some fresh veg!

I didn't take a photo of my evening snack, but I had a dark chocolate Alpro dessert with some desiccated coconut stirred in...got to end on a sweet note!

Have you ever met up with any other bloggers? Or do you talk to your friends/family about your blog? Amy was the first blogger that I've met up with, I don't know of any other bloggers that live near me so I was really excited when I recognised photos on her blog of the local area! I do talk to my family about the blog quite a lot, and a few of my friends know about it, but I don't tell everyone that I meet. I don't mind people reading it but equally it's nice to be able to tell people my news in person - I'll quite often talk to my sister about things (usually just boring things like what I ate for dinner the night before!) and she'll cut me off saying "yes, I saw that on your blog already", haha, I'm a bit known for forgetting that I've already told people things at the best of times, without them reading everything online first anyway!

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!

Sunday Morning = Coffee & Crumpets

On Friday, our wedding presents were delivered! :-D We only had a small gift list as most people chose to give us money or choose a present themselves, but a few people had requested a gift list to give them ideas. We were overwhelmed with everything that we received - our friends and family were so generous! One of the presents we were given was a coffee maker. I was very excited to try it out this morning. Sunday mornings can be a little trying in our house - Liam starts work at 7am, and the kids always seem to wake up even earlier than usual - or maybe it just feels like that because I know that around the country people are enjoying Sunday morning lie-ins! Today's early start was made a bit more bearable by this beauty though...

Mmmm, coffee...

I used this coffee as I had a sample sitting in the cupboard...

but I need to go to Waitrose later to buy some more ground coffee. Any suggestions? It's only the last few months that I've started drinking coffee so I'm a bit clueless!

Breakfast this morning was a good one - my 2nd mug of coffee with 2 crumpets - one with black cherry jam, and one with coconut butter...

Yum. I haven't had crumpets in ages! Both were delicious but I actually preferred the one with black cherry jam. I think I prefer the coconut butter on cold things like smoothies or cereal - I'm not so keen on the claggy/gritty texture it has when melted on warm things - good to experiment though!

The rest of this weekend has been pretty uneventful thanks to the rain - it's so horrible outside! Yesterday I didn't take a single photo of food that I ate...I always know the day's eating hasn't been so good when everything is too random and/or boring to photograph! Last night's dinner was actually delicious, but it was leftovers from Friday night. As per daughter's request, we had "that layered thing" - that'll be roast vegetable & lentil lasagne then!

I love this so much - comforting, but full of goodness from all the veggies and lentils.

Tasty too! Daughter is loving having more control over what we eat for dinner recently - she also chose the pasta bake we ate on Wednesday, and next week she wants cauliflower curry as well as another pasta bake...sounds good to me! :)

As well as receiving our wedding gifts, we also received our fruit & veg box on Friday. We haven't had one for a while as I'd postponed them during all the wedding chaos, being away on honeymoon etc. To be honest, I'd forgotten all about it until the confirmation email came through on Wednesday! There were some great products in this week's box though...

Lots of nectarines, bananas, pink lady apples and a melon...

lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, mushrooms and cucumber...

and finally potatoes, cauliflower, peppers, red onions, broccoli and candy beetroot...

Apparently the candy beetroot has pink and white circles through it when cut open. I like that our veg box provides seasonal produce, but usually puts in one more 'unusual' ingredient - another one I remember having was graffiti aubergine. It's a great way to discover new vegetables!

We've already used the peppers and the mushrooms in the lasagne, so now I need to plan some meals this week to make sure everything else gets used up. I hate wasting food, so find meal planning really helpful - otherwise if Liam had his way we'd live on baked beans on toast & pizza!! It's a good idea to have a healthy alternative in mind for his inevitable "what's for dinner?" question each evening!

Do you write a meal plan, or do you decide on the day what you feel like eating? I write a list on my phone of dinner ideas for the week, but switch it around if I don't fancy what is written down, or indeed if daughter has a better suggestion!

A Weekend of Baking

I love having time in the kitchen to cook for pleasure, without the time stress of mealtimes with children! Even better when I can bake without being left with loads of goodies to tempt me!! Today is my Uncle's birthday, and he is staying with my Mum today-tomorrow, so she asked me to bake her a couple of batches of cupcakes...I did them yesterday afternoon/evening when Liam was around to look after the children. The finished result...

chocolate-raspberry cupcakes (with a few non-raspberry ones for the fussy people *ahem* my sister and Liam!) and lemon drizzle cupcakes.

I made the chocolate-raspberry cupcakes first. First cream 190g (room temperature) butter with 190g sugar...

then add 3 eggs and 3 tbsp milk before blitzing again...

then sift in 150g self-raising flour and 40g cocoa powder...

and fold in by hand...

I'd heard about cupcakes with raspberries inside, so I decided to give it a go to make these a bit more interesting. To be honest I'm not a huge fan of chocolate cakes - I always find them to be a bit dry, especially compared to other flavours - but Mum wanted one of the batches to be chocolate based...so chocolate raspberry it was! I was a bit worried about the raspberries over-heating/burning from touching the pan, so I put a little cake mix in first, then a raspberry on top...

and then covered with the rest of the cake mix...

into the oven at 190C for about 20 minutes and...

with raspberries on the side of the raspberry ones so Liam and my sister don't get any nasty surprises!!

I covered them with chocolate butter icing, with another raspberry on top of the raspberry ones for decoration/identification purposes!

I made the butter icing was 180g butter, 360g icing sugar, 3 heaped tbsp cocoa powder and 3 tbsp milk. I had a lot left over though so you probably wouldn't need that much! A good snack for after the hard work was done! :)

The leftovers!

I was really pleased with the way these cakes turned out...

and when I ate one at my Uncle's birthday this afternoon, I was quite pleased how the inside looked too :)

not hugely raspberry tasting, and in my mind still a little dry, but good as far as chocolate cake goes and everyone else assured me they were delicious and not dry at all, so maybe I was being overly critical!

Last night, once the children were in bed, I also made lemon drizzle cupcakes. I base it on this lemon drizzle recipe. I keep all the ingredients for the cake the same, and just put into cupcake cases. It made 12 muffin sized cupcakes, plus 3 mini (or what most people call normal!) cupcakes...

into the oven at 180C for about 25 minutes...

I then drizzled with the juice of 1 lemon and about 85g of sugar (although for some reason last night I did it by eye and don't think I put enough sugar in as the crust wasn't as hard as usual)...

and then I piped lemon butter icing on made with 150g butter, 300g icing sugar and the juice of half a lemon. I also added a few drops of lemon extract into the cake mix and the icing for extra flavour...

I had lots of tins worth of cakes to take to my Mum!!

some of the pretty cakes...

As if I hadn't done enough baking yesterday, my daughter and I made another (double) batch of Kalyn's chewy chocolate oat cookies...

So out of all the baking I've done this weekend, this is what our family is left with...

the cupcake stand only holds 23 so we got to keep one big lemon cupcake plus 3 mini ones...shame the chocolate-raspberry mix didn't make any extras!!

My Mum was very pleased with her cakes...

So pretty! :)


In other non-baking food news...my weekend has included yummy breakfasts:

Eggy bread with sliced banana, sunflower seeds & agave nectar

Smoothie in a bowl made with banana, tinned pear, curly kale and frozen blueberries (plus Kara milk, a date for sweetness and Xanthan gum after the photo was taken)...

...topped with Bear tropical granola (this was delicious, although the green flecks were a bit off-putting at first!!)

and some delicious main meals:

"Use up vegetables" stirfry - pak choi, broccoli and green pepper with noodles and satay sauce, topped with cashew nuts...really good! :)

Baked sweet potato with goat's cheese (love this combo, much nicer than always having tuna sweetcorn mayo!)

Sesame & almond smoked tofu, roasted peppers and brown rice

Plus quite a few snacks:

Graze Jaffa Cake mix (dark chocolate buttons, orange infused raisins and roasted hazelnuts)

yummy leftover raspberries

Graze Lemon Meringue Pie mix (lemon infused raisins, yoghurt coated peanuts, mini meringues)

Another picture of the chocolate raspberry cupcake I ate earlier!

Plus many unpictured lattes! I also went to the gym this afternoon, not a hugely long workout again as my sister was looking after the children - just 10 minutes rowing, 20 minutes cross trainer, 6 minutes "arm cycling", plus free weights and leg weight machines...better than nothing though!

I've been relying a bit too heavily on my Graze box punnets for snacks recently. Now that my half price offer has run out I have cancelled these, and with the money saved (and probably a bit extra money on top!) I have re-started our fortnightly veg boxes - I cancelled them over the winter as didn't want a load of white potatoes. I'm looking forward to getting a regular supply of different vegetables again, will hopefully inspire me to get a bit more creative with some new recipes!

It's been a really good weekend, quite relaxed but fun :) I'm looking forward to the rest of half term, so nice to have some time away from the usual routine!

I can't believe how little of my baking I've eaten though - just one chocolate raspberry cupcake! I have plans to eat one of the smaller lemon cupcakes tomorrow, and I think my Mum's also planning to give back any leftover cupcakes after they're done eating tonight, as she's going away for part of half term... but I'm sure Liam and the children will gobble those up! My Auntie also made a birthday cake for my Uncle - chocolate with black cherry jam in the middle. They were eating this after dinner (which we didn't stay for as it was too late for the children) so I'm hoping there's a slice left of that for me to try too, looked good!

We're seeing my Uncle etc again tomorrow as they've invited us out for cooked breakfast before they leave. Not really sure what to do about that. I deliberately haven't eaten any meat/fish since that lamb salad on Thursday. I'm not ready to declare myself vegetarian yet, but equally don't want to eat meat just because of social convention. My Mum will be at the breakfast too and, after me being vegetarian for several years when I was younger, she would not be too impressed if I ordered the vegetarian version of cooked breakfast! I know it sounds wimpy, but until I'm certain of my views, and that I'll be able to stick to a meat-free diet within family life, I want to avoid confrontation as much as possible! I think I might tell a white lie and say I'm not overly hungry, then just order scrambled eggs or mushrooms on toast. We're not meeting until 10.30am and I'll be out all morning queueing for tickets for the ballet show my daughter's going to be in, so if I don't eat breakfast before I go out I'll be starving by the time we get to the cafe...will have to fill myself up on lattes!

I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow!