Weekend Highlights

I've decided not to post photos of everything I've eaten the last few days - I've eaten lots of standard foods like egg mayo sandwiches, a repeat of basil tofu, brown rice & peas, plus many grabbed handfuls of almonds and Brazil nuts. I seem to have become unable to go into the kitchen without grabbing a handful from the bag of mixed nuts in the cupboard! Plus the post would just be too long if I posted every single thing I ate - I've become a real snacker recently!

Here are the more interesting things I've eaten though...

Friday:
After the gym I never fancy a heavy breakfast, usually opting for a smoothie. Friday morning I had the energy to make it a bit more visually creative. Smoothie made of a banana and frozen exotic fruit mix (mango, melon, papaya and pineapple), layered with Rachel's coconut yoghurt, topped with a sprinkle of desiccated coconut...

this tasted as good as it looked! I loved being able to taste the individual flavours of the fruit and the yoghurt, although it has made me want to buy a whole new collection of glassware!!

The rest of my meals on Friday were less interesting, but I had some fun snacks! Total split pot yoghurt with honey...

I loved this! I loved that the honey was set, and tasted really good quality...it immediately carted my mind back to when I was about 11, and we went over to Portugal to visit my Auntie and her (Portuguese) husband. They both worked in the hotel we stayed in, and I remember most mornings my Uncle would make my Auntie breakfast...usually toast and yoghurt with honey and jam. I remember watching with fascination as he first mixed the honey and jam before adding the yoghurt...to my child's mind it seemed so exotic! I of course tried it at the buffet breakfast the next morning and it was delicious. The thickness of the Total yoghurt with the yummy honey reminded me of that...I think I'll have to buy some decent honey to enjoy with yoghurt more often :)

My daughter was still off school on Friday. The thing she was most upset about? Missing the fruit salad that was meant to be part of her school lunch! I know I could've made some up for her, but it was a treat for her to buy some, and for £2 I think this was quite good...

Tesco mini fruit platter - kiwi, melon, grapes, mango and pineapple. The children ate most of this (with baby squeaking to make sure he got his fair share!!) but I was left with some pineapple and kiwi, yum.

Saturday:
Another great breakfast. Katie's Pumpkin "Boatmeal" or baked oats...delicious.

I followed her recipe except I used 2 tbsp date syrup to sweeten it, and I added 25g of crunchy peanut butter from her list of optional extras.

This was amazing. I really enjoyed Jess' Carrot Cake Breakfast Bake and Averie's Microwave Blueberry Banana Oat Cake, but Katie's Boatmeal tasted the most how I thought baked oats should taste...I'm looking forward to playing around with different variations of this!! :)

the texture of this was so good. Not as "cakey" as the breakfast bake, but not as chewy as the microwave cake...I don't really know how to describe it...just soft, yummy baked oats...divine.

Dinner was the other highlight of Saturday. Not even a pre-planned meal - just a way to use up the kale that was delivered in our veg box. Stir fry with onion, garlic, ginger, kale, peppers and frozen soy beans, served with noodles, soy sauce and sesame oil (plus prawns for the others)...

Sometimes a big plate of veggies is just what's needed :)

Sunday:
My gym plans changed today (my sister was only free to look after the children in the afternoon instead of the morning as I'd hoped) which meant my breakfast plans could change...I took the opportunity of being able to have a heavier breakfast to eat a variation on yesterday's boatmeal. Chocolate-banana = divine.

Choco-Banana Baked Oats

• 40g oats
• most of a banana, mashed
• 50ml milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp Sweet Freedom, to taste

Mix all the ingredients and cook in the oven at 190C for 20-25 minutes. Topped with Rachel's coconut yoghurt and the rest of the banana. This was so good...

I love the texture of this, even without the crunchy peanut butter that yesterday's had. A great start to the morning (especially alongside an unpictured maple walnut latte!)...

I plan to make many more of these in the future...thanks for the inspiration Katie! :)

Going to the gym straight after Liam's lunch break (the only time my family could look after the children) does not really work well with our routine. I didn't want to eat the pasta that everyone else was eating for lunch, so instead I had a small smoothie to keep me going. This was really tasty and so simple. Just 1 small banana, 100g tinned pumpkin puree, 1 tsp cinnamon, 25g Meridian peanut butter and 5g agave nectar all blitzed up in the blender. So smooth and sweet, and surprisingly filling too...

When I went to the gym, there was only one other person there, fab! (not particularly surprising as it was sunny and the rugby was due to start) Unfortunately I couldn't do a particularly long work-out as my sister wanted to watch the rugby child-free, but I managed to fit in 20mins on the cross trainer (changing levels up and down every 2 minutes, this worked me really hard!) plus free weights, leg weight machines and 10 minutes on the rowing machine.

When I got home, my appetite was all over the place! I wasn't hungry when I got back, but equally couldn't last until dinner. I ended up eating about 5pm - leftover passata veg pasta sauce that the others ate for lunch, with wholewheat penne and nutritional yeast flakes...

I hadn't had nutritional yeast in such large quantity before (and I can't believe this is only 1 level tbsp!) but it was great...and the protein for calories is so much better than cheddar, yet it doesn't feel like I'm missing out, ideal! :)

As well as my recent nut addiction, I have also been eating lots of yoghurts. Since I went shopping a week ago I have finished the entire big tub of Rachel's coconut yoghurt, plus all the Total split pots I bought. I ate the last one this evening - tropical fruits...

this was nice, I liked that the fruit compote had chunks in it, and of course I still love the thickness of the Greek yoghurt. My favourite still has to be the honey version, but I prefer this to the blueberry (I didn't buy the strawberry one as I find strawberry yoghurts boring!)

So that's my weekend. A quiet one, but a good one. I hope you've all had a nice time too!

Sweet Potato and Kidney Bean Burritos

Today has been a yummy day! :)

Starting with a delicious, unpictured, maple walnut latte and swiftly followed by Averie's Microwave Blueberry Banana Oat Cake...this is so easy to make! I followed the recipe, except I replaced the brown sugar for 2 tbsp of date syrup. I was having serious peanut butter cravings - can't remember when I last had some - so I put a blob on this...

Delicious! The peanut butter went all melty so I could spread it all over the oats...yum yum. Completely different to the baked oats I made earlier in the week - with the milk and flour those were very cakey, whereas this was dense and chewy, really good :)

My daughter was sent home from school yesterday with a sore tummy, and was off school again today, so the day was a little hectic! Poor little thing, one minute she seemed fine, next she was screaming in pain :(

Looking back on today's photos I can't believe that the only thing I ate between breakfast and dinner was this bowl of Bear tropical granola with Rachel's Greek style coconut yoghurt...

this was quite nice, but I think I prefer my granola paired with soggier things - porridge/milk - this was a little dry for me.

Dinner was worth waiting for anyway - a while ago I'd seen a photo on Everyday Foodie's Blog which looked good - bean and sweet potato burritos. I had a quick Google and came across this recipe to base tonight's dinner on. I've been trying to introduce more beans into my diet, but as I'm not really a big fan of them, mashed is the way to go for now. The ingredients...

I didn't even bother to try to convert the amount of cups of kidney beans and sweet potatoes the recipe was calling for, but luckily 1 tin of kidney beans and 3 small baked sweet potatoes seemed to be enough for 4 burritos! :) Plus onion, garlic, ground cumin, chilli powder and soy sauce to add to the mashed kidney bean mix, and wraps obviously. Oh and cheese! Very important, but I forgot to include it in the photo!

I followed the steps in the recipe and then it was time to make the burritos. Fillings ready - mashed kidney bean mix, baked sweet potato filling, and grated cheddar...

I'd never had burritos before so the recipe stating "fold up tortillas burrito style" wasn't overly helpful, but I did my best! Kidney bean mash first...

then sweet potato...

then cheese...

and time to fold up...

and bake in the oven for 12 minutes...

These were soooo good! :) daughter wasn't hungry, but my Mum was on her way round to show us the bridesmaid dresses that had arrived (exciting!) so she had half a burrito too, and I had one & a half burritos instead of the one I'd planned to have, yum :)

I was a bit worried about them as there was about half the amount of sweet potato to kidney bean mix, but actually the sweet potato flavour was still prominent, it was all so tasty...

Yet another recipe that will be repeated :) Liam really enjoyed it too, although he ate his with lots of sweet chilli sauce too...so not needed!

*****

Yesterday was a much simpler day food-wise, I think after the delicious food overload that was Pancake Day, I was just craving basic foods!

I started the day with a Total 0% Greek yoghurt split pot with blueberry...

this was nice, the yoghurt was lovely & thick, and the blueberry compote not too sweet. A much lighter breakfast than usual...not something I'll be repeating often, don't worry!!

Wednesday mornings we usually go to toddler group, but baby was too tired - he was back asleep by 9.30am! I then got a call from school just after 11am, so had to wake him up to rush and pick poorly daughter up, bless her, she didn't seem like herself at all!

After sorting out and settling the children, lunch was just what I fancied - it may sound stereotypically "boring" - but tofu, brown rice and veggies was what I wanted. In this case basil tofu, brown rice and peas...

this was so easy - a one pot dish - I just cooked the rice as normal and added the frozen peas and cubed tofu a few minutes before the end of cooking. No need for a sauce either as the basil coating mixed with the remaining cooking water to make a pesto type sauce, delicious!



I also had a nice parcel in the post yesterday - after seeing a few reviews of Rawr chocolate around blog-land recently, I couldn't resist checking out the website. This chocolate was less expensive than some of the other raw chocolate I've seen/tried, so I decided to order some...

I think the packaging is great, definitely makes it stand out from other brands! After lunch I decided to try the Pecan Power...

it was already broken when I opened it, which made it perfect for having as a snack both after lunch and dinner! This was nice, I loved the taste, but texture-wise I prefer the Conscious chocolate I tried a while back. This was very soft - even the pecan had no crunch!  I put the second piece in the fridge and this improved the texture, it gave the pecans their crunch back although the chocolate was still more chewy than anything else... I'm looking forward to trying the other flavours to see what they're like.

For dinner, Liam made cottage pie for the others. I had a meat-free "chicken" fillet on top of sweet potato mash with lots of broccoli...

topped with a couple of portions of guacamole from the freezer...



this was great! I'm loving sweet potato even more than usual at the moment, and the sweet potato-guacamole-broccoli combo was really tasty :) the meat-free fillet didn't really taste of anything, but at least it provided substance I guess!

That's all from me for now, off to relax for a bit! Today has been really stressful trying to juggle both the children - daughter often screaming in pain and not wanting baby anywhere near her (not usual for her but I think she was worried he'd make her tummy worse), baby being worried about his big sister so trying to give her cuddles, me taking baby away so daughter wouldn't get even more distressed, then daughter crying because she wanted me (but not baby) near her at all times...gah...I was very glad when Liam arrived home...felt like I was being torn in two!!

Pancake Round-Up

My laptop charger arrived today! :) I don't think it's completely solved the problem unfortunately, but for now at least, it has provided me with computer access so I'm happy! :)

I hope you've all having a great pancake day?

Lots of pancakes have been eaten here...

It started with regular pancakes before the others went to school/uni - 200g plain flour, 2 eggs, 2 tbsp oil and 600 ml milk to make these beauties...

I had 2 rolled up with lemon juice and sugar...

Yum. Although a lot smaller than usual - the "non-stick" pan we normally use for pancakes decided it had enough this morning so we had to use the mini pan instead, they were quite cute, although it did cause much frustration for Liam (the pancake maker) as we were eating them twice as fast, whereas it was still taking him just as long to make them!!

I can't remember if I've told you about the water problems we've been having in the house recently? On Sunday they were doing roadworks and managed to burst the water pipe outside our house...so no running water on Sunday night. Then on Monday we came down to find water dripping from the ceiling in the entrance hallway, right by the light! So our landlord's brother came round last night to have a look and stop the immediate leak, then was back again this morning to finish fixing it. By the time he left at 10.30am I was starving again - 2 mini pancakes is not enough for breakfast!! So I used some of the remaining pancake batter to make a banana fritter/thick banana pancake... It went from this rather unappealing mess in a pan...

to this after half frying, half grilling (I didn't trust myself to flip it!)...

to this...

It tasted amazing, especially with the maple syrup. These photos don't really do it justice!

So good. And it's got fruit in it so it's kind of healthy right?! Who cares? It's pancake day...any excuse! :)

For lunch, I wanted to stick with the pancake theme, so decided to have a 2nd attempt at socca. Those of you who remember the disaster that was me trying to pan-fry socca, will not be surprised that I decided to oven bake it this time! I just mixed 55g chickpea flour, 110ml water and 10ml sesame oil (as I was going to be serving it with houmous) and put it into a cake tin...

and baked it in the oven at about 180C (I already had peppers roasting in the oven so just put it in with them) for about 15 minutes...

not bad...you'll have to wait a minute to see whether it came out of the pan ok!

Luckily for me, baby decided to have a super-long nap today 10.30am-1.30pm, so I had plenty of time in the kitchen to make the banana pancake (above) and lunch. As well as the socca, I roasted some peppers and made houmous. I decided on caramelised red onion houmous as it's my favourite shop bought flavour. I sliced and fried 2 small red onions, then blitzed them up with a tin of rinsed chickpeas, 1.5tsp sesame oil, 40g tahini, 2 garlic cloves and 5ml lemon juice..
.

plus water until the houmous reached desired consistency...

this is good, nice sesame flavour, but the onion tasted raw...I'll have to cook it for longer first next time...

So, time to plate up lunch. Not surprisingly, the socca didn't manage to come out in one piece (I'd forgotten to grease the pan which wouldn't have helped!!)

but once it was topped with houmous and roast peppers you couldn't really tell...



although admittedly it didn't really look much like a pancake then either! Ah well, it tasted good...socca didn't really have a strong taste but had a nice texture...any taste would have been overpowered by the "raw" onion flavour anyway!!

This afternoon, I snacked on non-pancake food...namely 4 chocolate biscuits (oops!) and a maple walnut latte...but non-pancake photos aren't going into my post today or it'll go on forever! Having not had access to my laptop recently, I've kind of got out of the habit of photographing every little thing I eat...I might stick to just posting photos of my main meals in future, unless I eat/make any interesting snacks of course! :)

For dinner, another version of pancakes... goat's cheese and leek crepes...which were based on a recipe in The Vegetarian Cookbook...

and were meant to look like this...

I simplified the recipe down a bit, cutting out salt pepper etc as I don't like using salt in cooking and we didn't have the other things. So I ended up just gently frying leeks in butter and oil...

Before assembling the pancakes. The recipe just calls for "savoury pancakes" and, in my experience, shop bought pancakes tend to work better for savoury bake recipes. However Waitrose were out of stock of their fresh crepes, so Liam bought dry good pancakes from Tesco. Bleugh...much smaller, thicker, and way too sweet despite saying they were suitable for sweet or savoury! Had to make do though, especially as our pan was in no way up to making more pancakes!

First I added the leeks...

then goat's cheese on top...

before rolling them and putting in baking dish...

Whenever I've made savoury pancakes in the past, I've put a white sauce on top of them before baking. However this recipe didn't suggest that so I just went with it as I was tired and wanted a quick dinner!

After about 5 minutes in the oven...

it was time to serve up...

typically I served mine last and it split everywhere. Daughter's looked slightly more attractive...

...or maybe not...they tasted better than they looked!! Everyone else really enjoyed these (baby scoffed the pancake super fast but wasn't keen on the leeks!) but I couldn't get past the sweetness of the pancakes. I ate a bit of the filling when I was prepping them though and that was yummy...I'm in a loving goat's cheese phase at the moment! :)

After dinner, Liam and daughter had yet more Tesco pancakes, this time with Nutella, banana and whipped cream...

but I contented myself with a few fingers of Nutella, then waited until the children were in bed before using the last of the pancake batter from this morning up.

My final pancake of the day... a blueberry and vanilla version of this morning's banana pancake... not quite the American style pancakes I'd planned to make (I ran out of time/sacrificed them for the banana pancake earlier!) but delicious nonetheless...served with Rachel's Greek style coconut yoghurt...

Yum. So many pancakes! I think my favourite was the banana pancake, but they've all been prettyy good! :)

Have you managed to enjoy some pancakes today? And are you giving anything up for Lent?

I made a last minute decision today to give up shop-bought processed sweet treats (...and breathe!) so, importantly!, I'm still allowed raw chocolate (some on its way to me in the post at the moment!) but not bought chocolate, bought cakes, bought biscuits etc...and if I make my own sweet treats I will try to replace the white sugar with a more natural alternative. A bit of a wordy one, but hopefully means its not too restrictive (I don't see anything wrong with having a sweet treat now and again, even in Lent) but will make me think about what I'm giving up, and also focus me back to healthy eating again...I think I need it after today's load of white flour pancakes!! Delicious, but so full and bloated now!