Wedding Planning - Bakery Visit and Meeting the Caterer

Today has been a busy day! We now have all the wedding food sorted though, so a big one to cross off the list! :)

This morning, Mum and I drove for almost an hour to visit the bakery we were hoping would do the wedding cupcakes. Old photo from my Exeter Food Festival re-cap post, but as I didn't take any photos today, this is what some of their cakes looked like when we first discovered the bakery...

we bought a few cakes to take home and they were fabulous, so on Tuesday I phoned the bakery to find out if they would be free to make cakes for our wedding (we had discussed at the Food Festival that they do cater for weddings). Anyway, this morning Mum and I went over there to discuss the details in person. At first I'd thought a purple version of the above pink cakes would be nice, but in the end we came up with even better ideas! We're going to have 80 cupcakes - 40 lemon cupcakes topped with purple icing, piped in a rose effect hopefully something like this...

(source)

(source)

and then 40 coffee cupcakes with cream icing and purple sugar paste flowers that the bakery are going to make themselves, something a bit like this...

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although I think they're aiming to make the purple flowers a bit like daisies. They normally order the sugar paste flowers from a catalogue but as they only come in bulk packs of 100+ they're gonna make them in-house...I'm sure they're going to be great! I'm really glad I took some images along, as alongside the bakery's ideas, they provided great inspiration!

The bakery also hire out big multi-tiered perspex stands for free when you buy cakes from them, and for the top tier they're going to make a small round Victoria sponge cake covered in fondant icing to match the cream cupcakes' butter icing, with some of the small purple flowers 'sprinkled' on top. I'm really looking forward to seeing the cakes on the day, exciting! It'll be nice to have a small cake to cut into, but the cupcakes will be easier to hand out - I'm hoping Liam and I can take the cupcakes round to the guests part way through the reception...hopefully it will give us more of an opportunity to chat to people as well!

The bakery itself was so busy - a queue out the door, and 3 A4 sheets on the wall with just Friday's pre-orders for collection (as well as all the walk-in customers obviously) We couldn't resist buying a couple of bits. What Mum and I both really wanted was the chocolate brownie tray bakes we'd got from the Food Festival, but there were none in sight! We asked after them and were told they were still in the oven but if we came back in 10 minutes we could buy some. The perfect excuse for a coffee! I had an iced one as I was really thirsty after all the cake chat!!

I don't think they'd added any sugar, but I still drank it without. It wasn't sweet, obviously, but it was still yummy...I'm trying to cut down the sugar I "need" to add into my drinks anyway (plus regular, non-liquid, sugar doesn't mix well with a cold drink), but I still need something in my hot coffees for now!

Back to the bakery. We did both buy a brownie tray bake - still really hot from the oven...

Yum, I'm saving our one for a treat for tomorrow - if we'd started it today I'd no doubt have finished it off on my own tonight!! I also got a caramel shortbread for Liam to take to work, and Mum got a raspberry and chocolate muffin for me and her to share...

So fresh and delicious! Almost too fresh if that's even possible - it fell apart a bit when I cut it in half! Yum!

After a quick trip home for lunch - egg mayonnaise on seeded toast...

it was time to go back to Mum's to meet with the wedding caterer. She was recommended to us by my Grandma as she caters for their Bridge Club dos, as well as catering at the local Cricket Club and the Rugby Club most weekends. I think she'd only done a few weddings - apparently she normally avoids them because of the stress involved! - so any apprehensive feelings she might have had probably weren't helped when Mum mentioned that I write a food blog so all her food would appear on here after the wedding!! Oh well, she still agreed to do it :)

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The above photo clearly isn't food, but it is purple - our wedding colour - and we're planning to have bows on our chairs like that and possibly table runners - I'm in a 'getting lots of ideas down' mood today! I do realise that the majority of the photos in today's post are not my own. Not what I usually do, but it's difficult to show photos to do with wedding planning as I won't actually have any photos of the food, cakes etc until the wedding day has happened! I like searching on Google for lots of different images for inspiration though, so this post will be good to look back on! :)

Despite hiring a caterer, we're still planning to have a cold buffet, and actually most of the food she suggested is what we had planned anyway - cold meats, coronation chicken, poached salmon etc. For the vegetarian options she's going to do some quiches and roast peppers, served cold, stuffed with a couscous/veg mix. For the salads she's going to do the standard green salad, mozzarella & tomato, and coleslaw as well as a mango & beansprout salad (her suggestion - a bit different - I'll be interested to try it!) and quinoa & roast veg salad (my suggestion - she was going to do more couscous but a) I love quinoa and b) we have at least one gluten-free person coming so this will cater for them. I don't think she really knew what quinoa was but she's said she'll buy a bag and experiment on her family so hopefully will turn out well!). She's also going to do bowls of baby beetroot (I will avoid so as not to risk staining my dress!!), hot new potatoes and little bread rolls. It all sounds tasty, and a lot less stressful than doing it ourselves!

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For desserts, she's going to make chocolate profiteroles, raspberry roulade and lemon souffle, as well as buying in chocolate lumpy bumpy cake - one of my sister's and Liam's favourites - yum!

(source) and the recipe too! :)

The only other food to sort is the canapes for the drinks reception. We are doing that ourselves though. Well, some of my Mum's friends will be hopefully! We're going to have smoked salmon blinis, with the blue cheese-fig pate we bought at the food festival for the vegetarian option...

Mum trying the pate before buying!

Not sure whether to serve the pate on blinis or little Ritz crackers though? I think the crackers would work better with the soft pate, but Mum is worried they'll go soggy, as the canapes will be made up in the morning and not served until about 4.30pm. We bought plenty of pate (it is sold frozen and can be stored in the freezer for, I think, up to 6 months) so we'll just have to do a trial run!

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a summary of our wedding food-to-be! This has been one of my main focuses in the wedding planning - I much prefer thinking about food than shoe shopping (which, sadly, is one of the tasks lined up for tomorrow!) although I'm sure on the actual wedding day I'll have so many other things to think about that I won't actually notice the food as much as I think I will!! At least I now know in advance that it should all be delicious! :)

Catch-Up From Yesterday

Sorry for the missed post yesterday - my laptop has broken! :( luckily it is insured, so I phoned them this morning and they are coming to collect it tomorrow. It's likely to be 14 days before I get it back though, nightmare! So I'm writing this post from Liam's Mac laptop, hopefully it will work - last time my laptop broke and I had to use his it only let me post one photo (!) so we'll see.

I'll write another (hopefully longer) post later, but this is just a quick catch up on yesterday so I'm up to date - got to take daughter to ballet soon. Plus I'm hoping the Mac might cope better with shorter posts!!

Unusually for me, I didn't really fancy breakfast yesterday morning. I'd had a latte before taking daughter to school, but by the time I got back, sorted baby out for his nap etc, it was 10am and I hadn't eaten anything. I didn't fancy yet another smoothie (every other meal recently seems to have been a bowl of blended berries!) and I wasn't in the mood for porridge. I ummed and aaahed about just snacking on almonds to keep me going, but luckily decided against that too as that would no doubt have led to a morning of snacking. In the end I turned to my freezer for help. And was reminded of the existence of peanut butter and banana muffins. Perfect. I just quickly defrosted/slightly heated one up in the microwave...

...and topped with blueberry jam...

this was just as tasty as I'd remembered. More like a bread than a cake, it was not too sweet but perfect when spread with the jam. I loved the taste of banana and the chunks of peanut. So good. Great for a quick easy breakfast when I don't have the time/inclination to make something more elaborate :)

Liam was only in uni yesterday to hand in a project, so he was home earlier than usual. I took advantage of that to go to the gym before it gets busy. Because I was going over lunchtime, I had a pre-gym snack first...medjool dates stuffed with PB&Co Dark Chocolate Dreams...

Delicious :) and I was extra glad I had them as Liam got delayed in traffic so I didn't end up going to the gym until 1.30pm!

When I got there it was totally empty - bliss! I decided to be brave and make the most of the empty gym to go on the treadmill for the first time ever! So after a quick 5 minute warm-up on the rowing machine, it was time to brave the treadmill! Now for all you runners out there (Mum/Sister/pretty much everyone else!) please don't laugh - I am not a runner!! Liam laughed when I told him my speeds - according to him I was barely above walking! But hey ho, this is what I did...

Treadmill attempt 1: (5 minutes total)
2 mins at 8 km/h
1 min at 7.5 km/h
30 secs at 7 km/h - fast walk to catch breath!
30 secs at 7.5 km/h
1 min at 8 km/h

This nearly killed me!! I was bright red, sweaty - way more so after just 5 minutes on the treadmill than 20 minutes + on the cross trainer!! I then did some free weights, leg weight machines etc before going back on again...

Treadmill attempt 2: (5 minutes total, 1% incline this time)
2 mins at 7.5 km/h
30 secs at 8 km/h
30 secs at 6.5 km/h - walking
1.5 mins at 8.5 km/h
30 secs at 6 km/h - walking

Again, exhausted, I couldn't run for the final 30 seconds!! I clearly don't know what I'm doing at all, so any advice re speeds/incline etc would be very helpful! :)

After this I did some more weights, 10 minutes on the cross trainer and then stretches before going home. So a shorter workout than usual (I was hungry for my lunch!) but I worked hard (for me). I can feel it today - my legs, especially my calves, are in agony!!

Once I got home, it was time for a (very late) lunch - I didn't eat til 3.15pm! A pepper and a courgette roasted in coconut oil, plus brown rice, 2 chopped boiled eggs and a little drizzle of sweet chilli sauce filled the gap...

This may sound like a bit of an odd combination, but it worked really well. The roast veggies were gorgeous, the eggs were my craving, the rice bulked it out and the sweet chilli sauce brought it all together! The only thing I would change is next time I would make my own sauce - there are loads of really nice ideas floating about blogworld at the moment but I didn't think about a sauce until I was plating up!

Despite a late lunch, I was still ready for dinner at the same time as everyone else. After seeing everyone's recipes for Cinco de Mayo, I fancied baked nachos! I used pre-cooked chicken in the dish for Liam and the children, so I made a meat-free individual portion for me. I simply mixed a can of chopped tomatoes with some salsa, and poured it over some tortilla chips. Topped with grated cheese and put in the oven for about 10-15 minutes. Topped with guacamole and sour cream dip...

This was super quick to make/throw together and really good. Liam especially loved it as his family apparently used to often have baked nachos when he was growing up, so it reminded him of them all watching rented DVDs together!

Good timing - off out the door to take daughter to ballet now! Very relieved Liam's Mac allowed me to post more than one photo, so hopefully I'll be able to post again later. We got lots of foodie wedding issues sorted out today that I want to talk about :)

Disrupted Day

Phew, today has been all over the place!

It started off well with a yummy breakfast - banana sweet "cream" (I so need to come up with a better name!)...

This is so good. Thick and creamy, but thanks to the Greek yoghurt and peanut butter, the protein content is pretty good so this kept me full all morning :)

After breakfast, baby and I headed to toddler group. I spent the time chasing after baby as he was either being pushed over by the older children, or trying to poke the babies in the eyes!!! At snack time, I resisted the biscuits and just had an unsweetened cup of tea.

When we got home, baby went for his nap. I had a latte and was just looking forward to having lunch in peace, when I got a phone call from school. Someone had pushed daughter off the pirate ship and she'd got a huge bump by her eye so could someone collect her please. Gah! Just when she was so pleased to be back at school after hospital/Easter holidays/bank holidays etc! Liam was an hour away at uni with the car. Mum was at work. Grandma in Portugal. Minor panic that I was going to have to wake baby up and drag him out in the rain, and then walk back with daughter whinging that she was too tired to walk! My only hope was my Grandparents. Luckily they were in and my Grandpa agreed to go straight away to pick her up...phew! Poor daughter came home looking like this...

Poor little girl! Luckily the swelling has gone down as the day has gone on, but it also has become more purple/black...she's gonna have a shiner in the morning!! She's been pretty much her normal self though - a little shaky when she first got home, but only a small headache and the eye area only hurts when touched...think we got off lightly. And, importantly for her, the incident occurred after lunch - she only has school dinners twice a week and today was one of those days - she would not have been impressed to have missed spaghetti bolognese and kiwi fruit (which she chose over flapjack, bizarre!)

Lots of extra cuddles and an Easter egg seemed to get rid of any lingering shakiness...

I hadn't planned to eat any. Especially as I still hadn't eaten lunch. But we all know how lacking my willpower is!

Thankfully I didn't eat all the above. But I did eat about half the chocolate egg, one foam banana and one (unpleasant) hard boiled banana sweet.

This completely messed up my exercise plans for the day. I had planned to go swimming when Liam got home, and still be back in time to cook dinner, but I can't eat for at least 2 hours before swimming else I get a really sore stomach and spend the whole swim feeling sicky. I also didn't really want to go swimming for the first time in months on just sugar, but if I ate proper lunch that would've pushed back the time I could swim even later. Excuses, excuses...swimming got postponed until tomorrow!

I eventually ate "lunch" about 3pm. Pasta mixed with grilled peppers Philadelphia and topped with grated cheddar...

Yummy cheesey carbs! :)

Of course by now, my routine had been completely disrupted, as I wasn't at all hungry when dinner-time rolled round. The others ate a prawn noodle stir fry, and I waited until after putting the children to bed before making a smoothie. Don't let the word "smoothie" fool you though. This was anything but a low-cal option. 250g frozen berries, a banana, a couple of handfuls of spinach, milk, cocoa powder, Sweet Freedom and xanthan gum into the blender...

topped with desiccated coconut, Jordan's fruit and nut granola...

...and an amazing blob of PB&Co's Dark Chocolate Dreams...

Perfection in a bowl! This was so good, the DCD sunk to the bottom, so for the first half it was a great contrast between cold smoothie and crunchy coconut/granola, and then the second half was delicious smoothie made even better by bites of chocolatey peanutty goodness! Yum.

I have to admit I have still been feeling peckish tonight. It's not hunger, just that I want to eat. I have resisted though! My Mum has been also eating healthily the last few days to support me, so I felt a bit bad that she'd resisted eating any of my little sister's box of chocolates, whereas I'd eaten half of daughter's Easter egg! Moving on from that though!

*****

Yesterday went pretty well food-wise and life-wise. I started the day with a smoothie that looked similar to tonight's. This one didn't have any cocoa powder in it though, and instead had a spoon of peanut butter blended into it...

I love starting the day with lots of fruit!

We all then piled into the car (a mission to get all 4 of us ready first thing in the morning!) to drop daughter at school before going to the registrar's to give notice of marriage. This was literally just a case of giving name, birth and parent details. We have to go back 2-3 weeks before the wedding to discuss the ceremony in greater detail, including getting approval for any readings and songs we want included.

After this we headed to a local cafe for lunch. Although it was a bit early for lunch being only 11am. So "brunch". Baby had a homemade flapjack with raspberry running through it. I had a bite and was very jealous of him getting to gobble the rest up! Liam had a bacon and poached egg bap, and I had a portobello mushroom, (roasted tomatoes) and poached egg bap. I think I got the better deal...

I removed the tomatoes (I was hoping they'd be little roasted cherry tomatoes, but they were big squelchy tomato halves. Yuck.) but the rest was divine. The mushroom was cooked in garlic butter and the poached egg was perfect - set white but runny yolk, just how it should be. I can be a bit funny about how eggs are cooked (runny whites = gross, overcooked powdery yolks = flavourless) and hadn't really thought about it when ordering, so was relieved the egg turned out so well!

So good. I could have eaten it all over again, but luckily Liam kept me on track - he didn't even let me buy one of their yummy cakes to take home with me!

Amazingly, I didn't actually eat again until dinner time. A combination of "first day of a new diet" willpower, and the fact that I spent a couple of hours of the afternoon asleep - I'd been awake since 4am stressing about table plans of all things (we haven't even sent out the invites yet, let alone got RSVPs back!) so a nap was needed. Speaking of the wedding, I have created a wedding tab (next to my newish recipe tab, underneath the blog header) to keep track of all the main posts I discuss the wedding in, as well as a to-do list I wrote on Monday which I will cross through as I go along to keep me on track!

Anyway, yesterday's dinner was the amazing Mama Pea's Quinoa Pizza Casserole, made even more amazing, although admittedly no longer vegan, by the addition of pesto coated slices of goat's cheese baked on top for the last 5-10 minutes. Divine.

The addition of pesto goat's cheese meant that Liam didn't feel the need to have any meat with this (he often supplements this meal with ham/pepperoni etc as he would with a normal pizza) so we all just had it with roasted peppers...

Delicious...

I tried to resist the leftovers in the kitchen, but it was impossible. Liam and I shared them so got another 'slice of goat's cheese + quinoa casserole surrounding it' worth each. Worth it at the time, but I was regretting it 30 minutes later when I went out for a 3 mile "wedding talk walk" with my Mum - serious stomach ache/stitch! Good idea of my Mum's though - her way of ensuring I at least get some exercise and distracting me from evening snacking... 2-3 times a week we're going to do a quick 3 miles or so of walking while we discuss wedding plans, instead of sitting at home talking whilst drinking tea and eating cake!! It was fun, although we got wet - the tide was super high so when we walked along the narrow path that is right next to the sea wall, waves came crashing down upon our feet!

Right, that's me caught up. Off to help Liam now - he has a uni project due in tomorrow, plus two jobs he's in the process of applying to, so he wants me to proof-read everything and help him write cover letters. Fingers crossed he gets one of the jobs, it would be amazing for him to secure a job close to home so near to the start of his job hunt! :)

Two Months To Go!

Today is exactly 2 months until Liam and I get married - 2nd July 2011, I can't wait! Although we still have sooo much to do -

• haven't even thought about flowers yet! 17/05 Booked one of Mum's colleagues, who also works in a florist shop, to make bouquets/button holes etc night before, and then decorate venue morning of wedding
• going to phone bakery tomorrow that I came across at Exeter Food Festival to see if they're free to make our wedding cupcakes (do have a back-up option if not) 03/05/11 - phoned bakery and they're free to make cakes, yey! Going to see them on Friday (06/05) to discuss in more detail 06/05 Cakes all sorted, very pleased! :)
• also need to phone hairdresser to discuss details and about her possibly her also doing my make-up (trial run of hair booked for next week - tick!)  Had hair trial (details here, although not 100% happy yet) and make-up trial booked for 28/05 so will also discuss hair again then
• going to registrars tomorrow to give notice for our marriage 03/05/11 - met with registrar, although do need to go back again 2-3 weeks before wedding to finalise ceremony details
• need to find, agree on and buy shoes for bride/bridesmaid (a big issue - I have really tricky feet to buy shoes for, and little sister and I have different opinions on heel height for bridesmaid shoes!!) 07/05 - have bought my shoes, still got to agree on some for little sister! 16/05 - mine and sister's shoes sorted...phew!
• still need to sort out male outfits - Liam's got his suit but needs shirt, tie and shoes, and ordered baby page boy outfit today but will need to check it, and get shoes 27/06 bought Liam's shirt, shoes etc last week and baby tried on his outfit yesterday so Mum's friend can turn trousers up...nothing like leaving it until the last minute!!
• meeting with caterer on Saturday but hopefully food is more or less sorted 06/05 met with caterer and discussed food, she's even going to experiment with quinoa to make quinoa salad! :)
• need to research and book a hotel to stay in for our wedding night 08/05 Mum has booked a room for us that my Grandma is paying for as our wedding gift, thank you both!
• lots of little bits like book for guest to sign, cushion to tie rings onto for baby to carry down aisle etc
• plus probably zillions of other things I've forgotten!
• ... some of which are:
• Buy wedding rings 20/06 Ordered wedding rings a few weeks ago and picked them up today, phew!
• Get my engagement & eternity rings adjusted (too big at the moment so constantly swivelling round on my finger!)  14/06 Got my rings back today, yey, I missed having them on my finger!!
• Make and send out invites (Liam in middle of doing this at moment) 09/05 - invites sent out - post here
• Choose songs & readings for ceremony, plus song for first dance - 03/05/11 - asked sister & Liam's sister, but not chosen which readings yet! 13/06 Readings chosen and we confirmed them with registrar today.
• Sort out table plan once RSVPs are back (stressful!!) - 03/05/11 - was awake at 4am worrying about this (!!) so have now provisionally planned all the tables, although will obviously have to adjust if some guests can't make the wedding 27/06 We are still waiting on a couple of RSVPs so haven't been able to do table plan yet...stress!!

EDIT 03/05/11: I thought of some more things to add to the list during the night, so I've added them to then end. I will probably keep updating this list, crossing things through as I go along, to use as a working list to help keep me vaguely on track! 

We have at least got our honeymoon booked (the weight loss challenge did not happen in the end due to lack of motivation time if you do read that post!) and we've also got the venue, photographer and DJ sorted...we got the big things done early, but loads of smaller things still to do!

As if all the above wasn't enough, today we had a dress(es) change of heart! I tried my dress on today for the first time since the middle of November, and eek, you can tell I've gained weight!! I just checked back and I was just over half a stone lighter then than I am now, and unfortunately all the extra weight seems to have settled back on my tummy :( I can, luckily, still fit into my dress but I struggle to breathe!! That's ok - healthy eating mission back on track, I can lose half a stone or so in 2 months if I focus. There are also a few adjustments I want to make to the dress, so Mum is going to phone the local dressmaker tomorrow. Can't give details at the moment unfortunately as Liam reads this blog and don't want to ruin the surprise, but I'm really happy with how I think my dress is going to turn out :)

The more costly issue is the bridesmaid dresses - turns out our daughter's flower girl dress (ivory with purple sash & other details) is a completely different "ivory" to my dress! And my little sister's dress, which is all purple but from the same range as daughter's, has never been one we were 100% happy with as it's a bit too formal/structured. It's nice, but not perfect. I did recently come across a dress I love for my sister though...

(source)

More the floaty look we were hoping for. So, new plan is to order the Coast dress; if it suits her and we all like it etc then we will send both the original dresses back and buy daughter a new dress in the right shade of ivory and accessorise it ourselves with purple sash etc. Phew, think my Mum is feeling the stress more than I am - not sure how much more her nerves can take!!!

Ok, wedding stuff over for now. Food! Looking at today's meals, you wouldn't know I was trying to lose weight!! Although, in my defence, a) I only ate twice due to getting up later/being super busy during the day, and b) I'd already bought dinner before I tried on the dress and truly realised how urgent the weight loss issue is!!

So first meal of the day, after the children miraculously gave us a nice lie-in - brunch - I ate this about 10.30am so, with all the running around to supermarket, dress trying on etc, this counted as lunch too. As it was a bank holiday, daughter had requested pancakes which worked perfectly as we were completely out of frozen fruits and bananas for smoothies/porridge (horror!! hence the need for supermarket trip!) American-style chocolate chip pancakes (recipe I followed here) topped with PB&Co Dark Chocolate Dreams and lots of maple syrup...

Mmm, so good. I had two huge pancakes, although I felt full after only one! I kept going though, sharing some of my second one with baby (who'd already had most of a pancake of his own! His little belly was solid afterwards but he doesn't seem to know when to stop - I thought babies only ate when hungry/stopped when full??) and finished it all...maybe I need to change my "must eat everything on my plate" mentality?! After this I felt a bit bloated and overly full, whoops.

Next up was a trip to Waitrose to pick up lots of fresh and frozen fruit & veggies. We waited for baby to have a nap first, so by the time we got back from the shop it was about 2.30pm, no one had had lunch and I was meant to be at my Mum's to try on my wedding dress! I decided that as I still felt full from the pancakes, I would have lunch later, but by the time we were done it was 5.30pm so I figured I could wait until dinner.

Dinner was a good one. On Saturday at the food festival, I'd eaten a Pie Minister pie which was delicious, so I kept an eye out for them at Waitrose. No luck. But then I was checking out the reduced section at the end and spotted a Pie Minister Matador Pie - beef steak, chorizo - perfect for Liam! I was just about to go off to re-hunt for the rest of the range when I spotted a reduced Heidi Pie too - result!

Liam ate his for "lunch" while I was at Mum's, and then he and the children had tuna sweetcorn pasta mayo for dinner - quick & easy! I had my Heidi Pie with some broccoli for dinner - sweet potato, goat's cheese, spinach, pastry - what's not to love?! Although at 608 calories just for the little (to me!) pie, it's a good thing I bought this before I tried on the dress!!

I love this. I'm not always a fan of pastry, but this one is great. I also love the texture of the sweet potatoes, and adore the strong goat's cheese flavour...

when I came across a big chunk of goat's cheese I couldn't resist taking a (badly lit) photo!

Mmmm, so good. It was delicious at the food festival, but even better at home - fresh out of the oven, on a plate instead of in a cardboard box (!) and with some green veg on the side, delish. Plus, despite the (to my eyes) small size of the pie, this was super filling so has kept me going all evening. I'll have to remember that tasty, slightly higher calorie food, is usually a better bet than bland, low calorie food. Hopefully for the next 2 months (and beyond!) I can discover lots of equally tasty foods that are a little lower in calories though...a happy medium!

I also need to start exercising again - remind me/tweet me/give me an occasional kick up the bum please? I have gym membership so it seems silly not to make use of it. The membership also includes use of the local pool. I used to go semi-regularly in the evenings, once the children were in bed, but got put off by having to walk home with wet hair in the cold & dark. Now the evenings are lighter again, I must re-start this...exercise that I enjoy is rare so I should really stick with it!!

A Few More Tasty Treats From Exeter Food Festival

I think it's quite obvious from the purchases I made yesterday (full review of my fantastic day at Exeter Food Festival here) that I have a very sweet tooth. With the exception of the delicious bag of nuts from Mr Filbert's, everything I bought was sweet. Which means I've eaten a lot of cake and chocolate in the last couple of days!!

This afternoon I couldn't resist trying the chocolates from Shute Fruit...

These truffles are made by mixing their homemade jams/preserves with melted chocolate. First up was the raspberry one, covered in coconut...

This had a great tangy raspberry flavour and a rich, fugdy texture. The coconut coating also provided a nice crunch to cut through the richness. Loved it!

Next was strawberry...

I'm not a huge fan of strawberry flavoured things, so wasn't expecting to completely love this (hence only getting one of this flavour to try) but actually it didn't taste much of strawberry at all! The lack of strawberry flavour was, for me, a good thing, as it allowed the incredibly rich chocolate flavour to shine through. Like the raspberry, this truffle also had a fudgy, almost sticky, texture. So good.

Finally, ginger...

My Mum had already tried this one, and said that while it had a nice texture, it didn't have a particularly strong ginger taste. I have to agree. It had an interesting texture - with pieces of ginger in it as you would get in a ginger preserve, but apart from when you bit into the ginger bits, you wouldn't necessarily know you were eating a ginger truffle.

Overall, these were all really good quality chocolates. I adored the raspberry one. 10/10. I could eat those over & over again! It took me a while to decide on my second favourite, but I think, for the flavour of the chocolate, the strawberry won it - although not necessarily for strawberry lovers! The ginger truffles were also nice but could've done with a stronger flavour. Yum.

This evening  (and indeed last night!) I also tried the white chocolate chip chocolate brownie tray bake from Olivers Bakery in Crediton...

Last night I ate some of this warm with double cream...

and this evening just room temperature on it's own...

Both versions of this were absolutely amazing. However surprisingly for me, lover of all things rich & creamy, I think I actually preferred tonight's version of the brownie as is. It's delightfully gooey and fudgy as it is, that covering it in cream is unnecessary. Plus when heated it seemed to thin a bit, and I preferred the rich firmness of it at room temperature. Delicious. I wish they were online! If anyone lives near Crediton I definitely recommend both their cupcakes and their brownies!!

Despite how it may seem, I have also eaten some savoury-ish foods today. Earlier on I posted about the smoothie I had for breakfast and the peanut butter & banana muffins. I ended up having two muffins, spread with blueberry jam, as "lunch" (as well as 2 slices of white toast with the huge leftover chunk of Taleggio cheese mid-afternoon, ahem).

Dinner was an easy but popular dish in our house - Cheesy Mustardy Broccoli Pasta Bake...

the top is normally slightly browner than this, but we were too impatient/hungry for the cheese to brown properly! This was my first portion...

I inevitably went back for a second portion almost the same size! I love this - the slight tang of the mustard cuts through the cheese sauce, and the pasta overload gives lots carby goodness! The above pasta + the brownie tray bake = a very good end to the day! :)

Second Breakfast - Peanut Butter & Banana Muffins

My first breakfast this morning was delicious - a smoothie that I shared with the children consisting of frozen blueberries, banana, spinach, cocoa powder, milk and Sweet Freedom...

topped with a small serving of chocolate granola for some crunch...

This was really good. Better than the last time I made the blueberry version. I think because I put the blueberries into the blender first, so they were at the bottom, they blitzed up smoother. The Cocoa Raspberry "Pudding" Smoothie is still my favourite, but this is now on par with the cherry version.

Despite this delicious first breakfast, I decided to make a second one. I was browsing through a breakfast recipe booklet I got at the Exeter Food Festival yesterday (full review of my fantastic day in case you missed it)...

There were loads of great recipes in this - which can be found on the website - I particularly like the look of the Hot Chocolate & Raspberry Shake and the Cinnamon Bagels with Fruit and Oat Compote. But the recipe I knew I needed to make today was for Banana & Peanut Butter Muffins. You can see the full recipe on the site, but I altered it slightly to reduce the sugar, increase the amount of oats and use coconut oil instead of butter (I'm still all out!). This is what I did...

Banana & Peanut Butter Muffins (adapted from Shake Up Your Wake Up)
(makes 13)

• 200g self-raising flour
• 50g oats (I doubled it to account for sweetener being liquid)
• 50g Sweet Freedom (reduced and replaced sugar)
• 3 medium ripe bananas
• 100g crunchy peanut butter
• 2 medium eggs, lightly beaten
• 25g coconut oil, melted until liquid if necessary
• 110ml milk (again reduced to account for wet/dry changes)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C, Gas Mark 6 (I did Fan 170C as that is the temp I always use for muffins - adjust for your own oven)
2. Line 12/13 muffin holes with cases (I used a 12 hole muffin tin, plus 2 mini silicone muffin cases)
3. Dry bowl: Sift flour into a bowl and mix with oats
4. In separate wet bowl: mash bananas, then mix with eggs, Sweet Freedom, peanut butter, oil and milk
5. Pour wet bowl into dry bowl and mix until ingredients are combined (don't over mix but equally there shouldn't be any dry flour left)
6. Spoon muffins into cases and bake for 20 minutes (check on them - I should have perhaps taken mine out a few minutes earlier)

These smelt so great when they came out of the oven...

and I ate one straight away spread with blueberry jam (note to self: if you don't wait for muffins to cool, they won't peel away from the case very prettily!!)...

The blueberry jam went so well with this (blueberry + bananas = good, pb + jam = good, so this combo was bound to be great!), I like that, presumably due to reducing the sugar content in the recipe, these were less of a sweet cake product and more of a breakfast muffin to be topped with jam, yum! I also love the peanut pieces in them, although it does mean that Liam won't eat them, so I'll have to put some of them in the freezer before I gobble up the whole batch!

Fantastic texture as well, soft and spongy and fresh...I do love baking! :)