It's A Smoothie Day...

As I posted yesterday, I had a bad smoothie experience earlier in the week, which gave me the final shove to buy myself a blender! :) I got it out of the Amazon box this morning...

After much comparing and reading of reviews, I settled on this Philips blender, I love the look of it, and the glass jar is heavy but reassuringly sturdy and easy to clean...so far so good! :) It's certainly been put to use today - back in January I had a day full of porridge, and today I decided to have a day of just smoothies...yum yum! :)

Luckily I'd been so distraught (!!) by my banana-less (and overly chunky!) smoothie earlier in the week, that I'd rushed out to Lidl to stock up on fresh fruit and veggies, so I had plenty of ingredients for these smoothies. I picked up bananas, a huge pineapple, a large cantaloupe melon, a mango, limes, pitted dates...

...and baby spinach, 2 avocadoes, a butternut squash, cherry tomatoes and a cucumber (the last 2 are more for packed lunches than smoothies!)...

...all for £10.71...I think that was pretty good value! :) as well as Lidl, we also have a Waitrose near to us, which I shop at for a lot of our chilled foods etc, but for quality of fruit & veg, Lidl easily wins...and it's a nice bonus that it tends to be a lot cheaper too!

Anyway, back to today...I started this morning with a simple smoothie I'd been wanting to try for a while, but had been waiting for my avocadoes to ripen...

Perfectly ripe! :)

and my blender to arrive...

In the mix...

Tropical Avocado Smoothie

• 1 ripe avocado
• half a mango
• approx 75ml milk
• agave nectar, to taste (I used 20g but have quite a sweet tooth!)

This was so creamy and thick, but smooth too, yey for my new blender! I topped this with a little desiccated coconut to continue the tropical flavour...

I loved the taste of this smoothie, sweet and creamy, yum :) it was slightly reminiscent of sweet guacamole...perhaps I should've saved it for my lunch or dinner smoothie, but whatever time of day it was delicious... I will definitely be featuring avocadoes in my smoothies again! :)

I then spent the morning completing most of my to-do list (Liam took baby out so I could have some time to make phone calls)...it is such a weight off my shoulders to have most of that done, just one or two more phone calls to make on Monday then I'm up to date (for now!). My morning ended with a trip to the post office to drop off a few parcels. This wasn't really a chore though as the weather was so lovely - I decided to walk the long way back from town...

I love this walk, especially when it's sunny...

blue sky...have to make the most of it while it lasts!

By the time I made it back home it was nearly time for my lunchtime smoothie. I wanted to try out my blenders abilities with spinach this time...

This one contained...

• 1 banana
• a couple of handfuls baby spinach
• last of my frozen exotic fruits (melon, mango, papaya, pineapple)
• 110ml milk (the frozen fruits made this thick and I wanted to drink it!)
• tbsp peanut butter

This smoothie was super green!

I didn't add any toppings to this one, just enjoyed it in a glass in the sunshine :)

this was really nice - a salty (from the pb) sweet combo. I tried it before adding the peanut butter and I could taste the spinach a bit too much for my liking (the first green smoothie I've even been able to taste the spinach in actually) but once the peanut butter was added it was delicious, and gave it a bit more substance too in terms of acting as a meal, yum :) I was also so pleased to see a pure green colour - no more spinach stems in smoothies for me!!

This afternoon (the last day of term - yey for all you teachers out there!) we went to see my daughter in her Easter parade. There was major panic last night when we realised she needed to take in a decorated Easter bonnet/egg this morning! Last night Liam and daughter papier mache'd a balloon to make an "egg", but when we went to decorate it this morning we discovered it was still soft, and even after a stint with a hairdryer it was not sturdy at all...fail. We then rushed round to my Mum's as she had a pink straw hat we could decorate...but after stapling many decorations to it, daughter decided it was too embarrassing to take in...aaaagh!! In the end, Mum drew a big egg shape on a piece of card and cut it out, which daughter decorated with a face and we stuck 'hair' and 'legs' to it...sorted! Of course, a lot of the children had bonnets but some just had painted hard boiled eggs so she didn't stick out too much...next time we will be more organised and not just skim-read the newsletters!

Once we got home, the children had a nap and then, after a quick dinner, daughter went off to her dance show and baby went to bed. Time for my final smoothie of the day! :) This time I fancied something chocolatey...

Carob powder and cacao brazil nut butter went into this, alongside spinach, banana and milk...

I added the brazil nut butter in last so it still had a bit of texture. This was a very sludgy colour...

Yummy though, I only wish there had been more of it!

I loved the texture of this - thick and creamy but with a slight crunch from the nut butter. Yummy tasting - 3/3 smoothie successes today!

Right, that's about it for today, time to get to bed! I've been really surprised today how I haven't felt hungry, and haven't had my usual cravings for multiple snacks mid-afternoon, I've even had a bit more energy than usual too, although that may be psychological! The smoothies filled me up and satisfied me, and were tasty and good for me too :) I will be back to solids tomorrow though - it's my Mum's birthday so my Mum, Grandma, sisters and I are going out for a girly lunch, really looking forward to it :)

Whole Foods Goodies

My brain sometimes struggles to formulate words for my posts (hence the lack of posting this week - I've been so exhausted so each night I've either spent most of the time relaxing in the bath and/or going to sleep super early!) but today I've got loads to say! I am however still really tired, so I will probably keep this post relatively short and then post again tomorrow...will see how it goes as I get typing!

Despite having a stressful week (loads of important phone calls to make, no baby-free time to make them blah blah is beginning to stress me and cause me not to sleep properly!) today has been really good! :) My Dad came down yesterday...bringing with him my (5 weeks early!) birthday present!! :) he was in London yesterday for a couple of business meetings and I begged him to go health food shopping for me before his train home! The most convenient shop for him to go to was the Whole Foods Market in Soho so this was what he brought me...

I am very impressed and grateful for all that he bought... I can't imagine my Dad in a health food shop!! I had texted him a list of possible purchases, and apparently he went into the store, found a friendly looking shop assistant, showed him his phone and then just followed the shop assistant around the store to all the products!!

All the goodies together...

I was so excited to look through all this!! I wish I lived nearer to London/could afford to visit so I could browse the stores myself, but Dad going shopping for me is a good substitute for now! :) While searching for stores near to where he'd be I also discovered Planet Organic's Website which I think I will be ordering from in the near future...order only needs to be over £30 to get free delivery, which I'm sure I'll be able to manage!!

Back to today's treats though! My main requests (especially as they can't be purchased on Planet Organic) were PB&Co's Dark Chocolate Dreams and Chia Seeds. Sadly the store only sold PB&Co plain crunchy and smooth varieties - boring! Dad did succeed with the chia seeds though - 2 packs so I hope I like them, looking forward to experimenting soon!

In the bag was also a jar of Cacao Brazilnut Bliss (to make up for lack of PB&Co Dark Chocolate Dreams) and a jar of pumpkin seed butter (they didn't have any sunflower seed butter...I'm quite impressed that Dad thought to get alternatives!!)...

I immediately (of course!) tried a spoonful of the cacao brazilnut bliss, it's quite nice but a bit grainy. I haven't opened the pumpkin seed butter...don't want to have finished up everything before my birthday even arrives!!

There was also a big jar of raw honey and a jar of pollen grains...

I randomly added the pollen grains to the bottom of the list after seeing them on a blog, not really expecting Dad to get them, and now can't remember which blog it was or how they used them, but will give them a try soon...got to have at least one random item in there!! :) looking forward to trying the raw honey too, yum.

Another alternative by my Dad (I am so impressed he even went into Whole Foods, let alone think of substitutes himself!!) - I'd asked for carob flakes, which they didn't have, but I'm looking forward to trying this carob powder...

And last, but by no means least...Conscious chocolate bars!! My favourite! :) Mint, Orange and Nutty...yum yum...

I of course had to eat one of these immediately! I chose the mint one...

I love Conscious chocolate. It has by far the nicest texture of any raw chocolate I've tried, and this mint one was no exception, really nice with a strong, but not too strong, minty flavour too :) I was very restrained and kept this in the fridge, just having one piece at a time, which made it last all day, delish!

All in all, a fantastic early birthday present, thanks Dad! :)

Another lovely surprise was that last night my sister and her boyfriend came round to give Liam and I our early wedding present! (2 early presents in 24 hours, bizarre but fab!) the present is from my other sister as well, and is for one night away at a posh country hotel nearby...my sisters thought it'd be nice for us to have a bit of a break before the stress of last minute wedding preparations! The package includes dinner, breakfast the next day, a bottle of champagne, chocolates and afternoon tea on our choice of day, plus full use of the leisure facilities (gym, swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna etc) and my sisters are going to look after our children while we go...bliss! We've decided to go for the Friday night of birthday weekend (Liam's birthday is 12th May and mine is 15th May so we tend to celebrate together!!) so we can spend the Friday-Saturday relaxing, but still celebrate Liam's birthday on the Thursday and my birthday on the Sunday with the children. Can't wait! :) So appreciative to all my family for being so generous, I'm so lucky to have them!!

Back to the food though...as mentioned earlier, I've been super stressed today. I don't really know why, I've got a super long to-do list and I've just let it all build up until it's too much and getting me really down. I hardly have any baby-free time to do anything in, so when baby napped this afternoon I decided to tackle the financial phone calls, but then couldn't find Liam's most recent payslip which I needed...aaargh!! Rather than acting like a normal adult (!), I headed for the food cupboard to ease my stress!! First a chocolate fudge flapjack bar...

This was ok, but not great. Luckily my semi-sensible brain kicked in and decided that sunshine and a smoothie would be more relaxing...

a simple smoothie of a banana, some frozen exotic fruit (melon, pineapple, mango & papaya I think), cocoa powder and milk, this was tasty. It also made loads - I had another glass then saved the rest for my daughter to have after school, which made her very excited, bless! I only managed about 10 minutes in the sun before baby woke up from his nap, but it still helped, as did sleepy baby cuddles afterwards! :)

After Monday's disastrously chunky smoothie...

...I've been a bit put off using my food processor this week...still intact spinach stems are not good!! I will post more on that tomorrow though... hint: I bought myself a new blender :-D it arrived this afternoon but I haven't even found time to open the Amazon box yet!!! I thought the my food processor would still be able to manage a pure fruit smoothie like the one I had this afternoon though, but it did not like all the frozen fruit - was leaking out round the top of the lid! Hope I haven't broken it - I still need it to make nut butters - but definitely the right decision to purchase a blender for my smoothie making!

Dinner tonight was something I've been meaning to make for a while to use up our huge amount of leeks (buying some the day before some more arrive in the veg box is not good!) I found a recipe on BBC Good Food for Spaghetti with leeks, peas and pesto. I didn't follow the measurements - just used the amount of leeks we had, the correct amount of spaghetti for our family, and just poured peas into the pan - but apart from that I followed the recipe. This made lots!!

Delicious...

I really liked this. It was simple but fresh tasting, I think I would add a bit more pesto in next time though for a stronger flavour.

Right, I think that's me done for tonight! I've got a couple of recipes that I will find time to share at some point over the weekend, and I hope to back tomorrow with some smoothies made in my new blender...can't wait to open it up in the morning!!