Day Out in Lyme Regis

Today has been a fantastic beach day! It started even before we left the house with a tropical smoothie...

This was just banana, frozen mango, desiccated coconut, milk and a little agave, topped with tropical granola. For some reason I almost always make my smoothies with frozen berries, but this was just as delicious! I loved the texture from the coconut as well, definitely one to be made again!

Mid-morning we headed over to Lyme Regis to meet up with my Dad and his new girlfriend. We got there just in time for lunch, perfect! I started with my favourite summery drink...they had Pimms and lemonade on tap, love!

And then ordered a baguette which sounded like the perfect combo for me - houmous and avocado:

This was really tasty. I've been craving avocado recently as I've had two sitting in my kitchen for over a week that have refused to ripen :( this helped keep me going until they decide to cooperate/I can buy more! I also had a share of the chips we ordered for the table...well, Liam and I ordered them but Dad ate the most! ;)

After lunch, it was time to hit the beach! Izzy had managed to extract a promise from the adults least used to being around children (!) so Dad and Chrissy went in the sea with her...

Izzy - "it's not cold, honest!"

I've cropped this one so you might be able to see Dad's face - guess he was pretty cold too!

Leaving the sea #1 - Izzy made them go in a second time after she'd been for a quick toilet break!!

Liam, Toby and I made the slightly warmer sensible decision to stay on the dry part of the sand!

Toby wouldn't even leave his pushchair...

Even with shoes on, he hated the sand. I suppose, for that reason only, we should be grateful that the beach where we live is mainly stony!

After Izzy had spent enough time in the sea, we wandered along the seafront for a bit until we came across a Fossil Fair...

They had lots of big fossils to look at/buy, and also some smaller stones which reminded me of similar ones that I used to collect when I was little. I even used to get a magazine that would send me tiny unpolished 'rubies' etc in the post! Izzy hasn't got an eye for which stones are more 'proper' than others yet, so she was drawn to the most brightly coloured ones...

and she also got to paint a little plaster ammonite...

Whilst Toby was more in his element on the stony part of the beach, chucking stones at little girls' heads if he'd had the chance in the sea!

When we first moved down to the South West, when I was 10, we used to visit Lyme Regis a lot. I associate it with two main things - fudge (we'll get to that later) and clotted cream on top of ice cream. Back then it was turkish delight flavoured ice cream, today it was coconut...

So delicious - the clotted cream goes all crunchy where it meets the cold ice cream. Not one to eat every day, but an amazing treat!

Everyone else stuck to cones of ice cream without the clotted cream (more fool them!!) and Toby had a tub of vanilla - the least messy option!!

Bit of a trek back to the car park after this, but we tell ourselves it was worth it for the views...

And the fudge that we'd bought on the way back...can't leave Lyme without it!

We were all quite boring in our choices today. Liam, Dad and Chrissy had vanilla, Izzy had clotted cream and I had nut sundae...

This looked more interesting, but was really just clotted cream with nuts around the edges. Still really tasty though!

Apart from the fudge, we didn't buy any "souvenirs" in Lyme, well, apart from Izzy that is...

Haha, not quite sure how she ended up getting bought so many things!! Well, the bookmark was a freebie that Chrissy got in her teaching pack and gave to Izzy, Dad paid for Izzy to do the "fossil" painting, and Liam and I got persuaded into buying her everything else! She is very good at coming up with reasons for why she should get what she wants!!!

We were all well and truly exhausted by the time we got home (quick fried egg sandwiches all round for dinner!) but it was worth it. Liam and I have decided that we must try to visit more local places over the summer...when you live down here you get a bit complacent but there are so many beautiful places that the children would really enjoy visiting.

Have you ever been to Lyme Regis before? Or any other seaside towns along the south coast that you'd recommend? We also used to go fossil hunting a lot in Charmouth when I was younger which was fun, must take the children when they're a bit older!

WIAW - Lunch In The Sun

Morning! Happy What I Ate Wednesday! I have another busy day planned today, but am feeling unusually full of energy this morning so decided to write this post before my friends come round at 10.30 - I'll no doubt be too tired again later! Anyway, this is WIAW so no more rambling...let's focus on the food! :)


I love the design for this month's WIAW - Jenn does such a great job! I didn't squeeze as many veggies in as I'd have liked this week, but I will definitely try to improve over the rest of the month!

This week's WIAW is based on Sunday. My friend, Sarah, was arriving at lunchtime so the morning was spent doing lots of housework! I can't actually remember what I had for breakfast, and can't find any photos of it, oops, so let's skip straight to lunch!

When Sarah arrived we decided to head straight out to make the most of the sunshine. We went to a local pub that has an outside seating area, and all had "pink" drinks! Pink milkshakes for the children...

...and pink ciders for us...

Strawberry and Lime cider - love this glass!!

As well as being my friend, Sarah is also Izzy's Godmother, so Izzy of course insisted on spending the whole time attached to her side. Haha, cute??!!

There weren't many vegetarian options on the menu (they'd even got rid of the brie and caramelised onion chutney sandwich that Liam and I both used to love) so I had a super cheesy goats cheese and red onion pizza...

This was ok, but a bit too weighed down with cheese. Not exactly the summery lunch I was after!!

After lunch we went for a walk along the seafront...

Well, a dance in Izzy and Sarah's case!

It was such a lovely day on Sunday - such a shame that the weather has changed for the school holidays, but at least we got to enjoy it while it was here!

We were planning to go to the park on the way home but it was sooo busy that we saved that (and ice cream!) for Monday. Instead we went home and relaxed for a bit, and then had dinner.

Butternut squash and goats cheese risotto...

Waitrose didn't have any butternut squash this time, so I used coquina squash instead. It was a much brighter orange colour, but it was also much sweeter than butternut. A bit too sweet really, but luckily the goats cheese provided a bit of sharpness to balance it out.

Sarah and I (once I'd checked that she wanted to keep the chai syrup as her birthday present) decided to try out the raspberry iced tea syrup alongside our dinner...

Another pink drink! This was lovely, and so simple to make - just ice + syrup + water. Makes me wonder why I pay so much for it in Costa - I'll definitely be glad to make this at home over the summer! :)

Once the children had gone to bed, Liam, Sarah & I opened the ice cream! I'd bought one tub of Ben & Jerry's raspberry white choc, and one cookie dough. Sarah chose to share "Liam's" cookie dough one, which meant that I ate the raspberry one myself over the course of Sunday eve and Monday, whoops! This was what was left after Sunday's eating anyway!!

Not a great photo, but delicious ice cream. The chocolate fudge core in the middle is really dark and bitter, then sweet vanilla ice cream with white chocolate chunks, and slightly sharp raspberry ice cream...perfect! :)

Do you eat differently depending on the Season? What foods do you like in Spring/Summer? Heavy cheesy pizza is definitely not spring like to me! Nor is risotto really but that is quite a "safe" option to give to meat-eating guests. Raspberry ice tea and fruity ciders in the sunshine however are perfect! After quite a high calorie weekend, I've been trying to eat a little lighter the last couple of days. Lots of yoghurt messes, wraps, salads, stir fries etc - more the type of food I like to eat when the weather is warm anyway. However, today the weather has turned cold again (luckily, as our fridge is broken, so all our dairy products are currently being stored in a cool box outside the back door!!) so I think I'm going to go make myself a bowl of porridge now, yum! Have a great Wednesday everyone!

Highlights from a Festive Weekend

Evening everyone! How have all your weekends been? Sorry I've been a bit absent - weekends go so quickly that I like to spend as much time doing stuff with the family, rather than sitting on my laptop.

This weekend has felt quite Christmassy - I have to keep reminding myself that it's not even December yet!

I started the weekend by making almond milk. Ok, that's not particularly festive, but it is something I've been meaning to do for a while!

I followed Laura's directions, and sweetened the milk with 3 or 4 pitted dates.

I also made the almond pulp cookies Laura linked to in the above directions, but I was too impatient and so burnt them, oops, next time I will actually cook them at super low temperatures like I was supposed to!

On Saturday afternoon, my Mum, Izzy and I went to the local college's Christmas Fayre. We went last year and there were loads of food/cake stalls so I was really looking forward to this. Unfortunately, it seemed to be smaller this year. There were only two baking stalls and one selling jams/chutneys. No sign of either the marshmallow sweet bags or the balloon making man - both of which Izzy had remembered from last year and had been looking forward to! I did manage to buy a few things though. Cake pops that had been made by the after school cookery club (we ate these last night, hence the poorly lit photo). The insides of these was madeira cake and melted mars bars - tasty, but slightly sickly.

I also, of course, couldn't resist buying some cupcakes. The stall I bought these from was a bit disorganised though - they claimed Izzy's (with the stars) was lemon, and Liam's (the purple rose - it reminded me of our wedding cupcakes!) was vanilla - which luckily was correct, but they told me mine was "either pumpkin or carrot" so I was most disappointed when it turned out to just be plain cake! The icing was nice though, with desiccated coconut on, I took the red man off as he looked a bit too gelatinous for my liking!

I also bought a couple of jars - one of plum and blueberry jam, which I haven't tried yet, and one of apple cider butter, which is just amazing. The lady who sold them had business cards with pretty much just her phone number on it, saying she took orders large or small, so I may have to buy some more apple butter! I did look into making it myself, but it seems to be quite a lengthy process. She sold me this jar of amazingness for only £1.30 which seems a good deal to me!

I had some of the cider apple butter with this morning's breakfast - french toast, a microwaved diced cinnamon apple, a little agave and lots of apple butter.

Absolutely divine! I think I'm going to get through that little jar way too quickly!!

Back to yesterday though, and the other Festive thing of the weekend. Last night we went down to see the town's Christmas lights being turned on. The school newletters on Friday had given all the children a raffle ticket to win £100 voucher from the local toy shop, but only if they were there when the draw took place yesterday evening. A good ploy to get more people to turn up, but it meant that it was so busy that we couldn't get close enough to see the entertainment that was put on for the children. We also could barely hear the raffle as the speakers weren't working. Ah well, at least the lights are pretty!

Poor Izzy was a bit disappointed afterwards as well, as we'd decided to eat in town after the lights were turned on. However the best laid plans and all that - despite it only being 5.45pm, Toby decided to start screaming, which meant that eating in the family-friendly pub was out. And then the local chippy ran out of chips! We had to make do with pizza from Co-Op in the end, but promised Izzy we would go for a pub lunch today instead.

*****

After a super snacky day yesterday, I woke up this morning deciding that I would have three amazing meals (+ the cupcake from the Christmas fayre), but no more. I did pretty well until Liam tempted me with store-bought, nothing special, chocolate brownies just now! Apart from that though, I had the amazing appley breakfast I've already shown you. Then, for lunch, we went to the pub and I had a small Mediterranean vegetable pizza (I didn't remember until I was eating it that we'd had pizza last night as well!):

and, the main reason I like this pub, a side of sweet potato fries:

So good!

After we lunch, we went for a walk along the seafront. It was slightly chilly, but so pretty! I love getting some sea air whenever possible, a good way to remind ourselves of how lucky we are to live so close the seaside (even if it does mean we're hours away from Wholefoods, haha!!)...

On the way home I picked up a takeaway coffee from Costa - roasted hazelnut latte. I stuck to tap water at lunch so figured this was "allowed"!!

Not quite as good as the gingerbread flavour in my opinion, but still really good. And with the added bonus of not having loads of grated nutmeg in the last mouthful - win!

This evening we had Mama Pea's Quinoa Courgette Lasagne for dinner, which was great, but the photos were not. I can't wait to get our camera back from repair - my little sister's camera is doing a good job, but cannot handle the poor winter lighting.

What is the best thing that you have done this weekend? Is it getting Christmassy where you live? I was chatting to one of the local shop-owners a couple of days ago, and he was saying that they have to put decorations up to coincide with the turning on of the lights. I don't think he was too keen on how early it was though - I'm sure the lights didn't used to be turned on til it was December did they??!

Vietnamese Butternut Squash & WIAW

I’ve decided to join in with all the What I Ate Wednesday posts that I've been seeing on people's blogs lately.





I enjoy looking at what everyone else eats, so it makes sense right?! Except that today, with the exception of dinner, my eats have been boring/non-existent!

So, let’s start with that dinner. I bought a butternut squash a couple of days ago and wanted to use that, but fancied something different than my usual (albeit delicious!) butternut squash risotto. After a quick search on BBC Good Food, I came across a recipe for Vietnamese Veggie Hotpot.



I substituted the green beans (which I don’t like) for frozen edamame beans and instead of using the half butternut squash to make 4 servings that the recipe called for, I used a whole butternut squash for 3 portions…oink!! :)



This was delicious, I loved the slightly sweet sauce. I ended up cooking the first stage (before adding the soya beans) for longer than the recipe said as I forgot to put the rice on first (whoops) but actually this was a good thing as it made the butternut squash nice and soft, yum.

So the rest of the day…

Breakfast was an unpictured latte as I didn’t get round to eating anything else. Silly as I love breakfast! I made up for it with a smoothie for lunch instead. I had this smoothie yesterday too…delish.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

• 1 medium/large banana
• 40g spinach
• 100ml milk
• 20g cocoa powder
• 40g peanut butter
• 15g sweet freedom, or other sweetener to taste
• xanthan gum

I didn’t take a photo today as we were in a rush to go out (I told you today wasn’t a good time to start WIAW posts!!) so I’ll show you a photo of yesterday’s instead, which was the same except 150ml milk and no xanthan gum so I could drink it from a glass (x2 of course!)



Today’s version was eaten from a bowl…both were absolutely delicious…any excuse to eat chocolate and peanut butter is fine by me!!

This afternoon we met up with some friends and headed to the beach. The weather was good, but kept randomly clouding over, so we opted to eat chips and ice cream rather than go swimming in the sea.



I skipped the chips in favour of a latte, as I wasn’t sure they’d be gluten-free, but I did enjoy some ice cream afterwards. The ice cream shop we went to states that most ice cream flavours are gluten-free and highlights the ones that aren’t. Ideal. I shared a tub of honey & stem ginger with baby.



This was good. Sweet but not too sweet, with lots of chunks of stem ginger running through it. Ice cream on the beach = summer! I love this view…



We’re so lucky to live so close to the seaside, I’m looking forward to many more trips to the beach this summer!

And so that concludes my first ever ‘What I Ate Wednesday’ post…I hope next week will give a better reflection of my day-to-day food – my meals are normally a bit more structured than today!!