Sunny Weekend - Picnics and Parks

We have sunshine! :-D About time too!

We have made the most of the sun this weekend with lots of time spent in the garden, as well as a trip to the local woodland area (which was under water just 2 weeks ago!)

for a picnic...

Egg mayo sandwiches, pineapple and leftover cookies

and Izzy (trying to!) learn to to ride her bike...

They yesterday one of my teacher friends came to visit and we went into town for ice cream...

and a trip to the play park...

Hi Sarah! :)

Notice there are no children in this photo...Liam = big kid!! ;)

He likes to use Izzy as his excuse when possible though!

I have also been eating lots of summery foods. A delicious chocolate peanut smoothie in the garden one morning (just almond milk, peanut flour, cocoa powder, stevia and ice - we were out of bananas!)

and also lots of omelettes. I finally got round to buying a pan small enough to make omelettes in. The first day I was a bit overenthusiastic with my fillings - lots of stinky cheese and strawberries - it still tasted delicious but looked a bit of a mess!

The next time I just filled the omelette with some grated cheddar, then served it with strawberries and cucumber on the side...much neater!

Yum, looking at these photos, I think I'm going to go and make myself an omelette for lunch now! I also have an almost 6 year old nagging me that she's hungry, haha, I am loving the summer holidays so far (I didn't properly wake up until 9am this morning...bliss!!) but I will have to adjust to a slightly different routine with Izzy home. With Toby, he is very much a grazer so I don't need to worry about when we eat "lunch" as he has been snacking on fruit, yoghurt, toast etc all morning anyway. Whereas Izzy is used to having lunch at a set time at school each day so wants to stick to that!

Do you have your meals at the same time each day or do you just eat whenever you feel like it? Have you all spent lots of lovely time in the sunshine this weekend? Liam and I discovered that, whilst we have 3 (!!) new bottles of factor 50 suncream, we don't have any slightly lower ones for the adults - after all the rain we've had recently we haven't really needed it, but after this weekend we both have slightly pink shoulders, whoops, so need to get down to Boots today I think. I'm so careful with slathering the children in suncream regularly, but I need to take more care of myself too!

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 - Sunshine At Last

Hello! Happy What I Ate Wednesday!



Thanks as always to Jenn for giving me structure to my week... I can't believe it's May already!

Yesterday was actually the first sunny day we'd had in ages! I woke up fancying a smoothie, but after Monday's disaster I didn't want to risk making it before the school run, so kept my appetite at bay with a hot drink instead...

Despite the mug, this was actually chai tea - one of my favourite hot drinks at the moment. The mug is a new purchase though so I can't resist using it at every opportunity! :)

School run over, I came home to make a pretty and delicious smoothie...

PB & J Smoothie
(makes 1 large bowl)

• 1 banana
• 250ml milk
• 200g frozen raspberries
• 30g peanut flour
• few drops vanilla stevia/agave, to taste

I topped mine with a little bit of granola. It didn't really need any toppings but I like a bit of crunch. I loved this. I've been having peanut flour/banana/cocoa powder smoothies quite a lot recently. This version, with frozen raspberries instead of cocoa powder, was a fruity thicker version. The frozen raspberries gave this perfect eat-from-a-bowl thickness without the need for any xanthan gum. Perfect way to start a (hopefully) summery May!!

Lunch, a few hours later, was a bit of a random one. I couldn't decide what I wanted, but the felt the need for some protein and didn't want to put a lot of effort in. Enter veggie burgers, scrambled eggs with nutritional yeast, corn on the cobs and an orange for dessert:

This was actually surprisingly tasty. Hot food, which I wanted, but not too heavy.

Izzy was a bit upset when I dropped her at school yesterday morning (because I'd mentioned to her teacher that it is Nan's funeral today) so I decided to cheer her up with sugar when I picked her up in the afternoon. Not actually needed as she came bouncing out as usual, but the occasional doughnut can only be a good thing right?! ;)

Look at those sugary fingers!!

My only regret is that I didn't buy a third doughnut for myself, but I did end up eating about half of Toby's!!

When we got home we decided to make the most of the sunshine by going out in the garden, and Izzy persuaded me to open the box of ice pops... Cola (yuck, not a flavour I would choose!!) for Izzy:

Strawberry for Toby:

And raspberry for me:

I so hope this sunny weather is here to stay! Somehow doubt it though, good old British weather!!

After having the ice pop, I was still in the mood for something cold, so I made myself an iced latte...

This was a bit stronger than I usually make - I put almost a tbsp of instant coffee in a little hot water with some vanilla stevia, then poured that over iced milk. I like my iced coffee a lot stronger and sweeter than my hot coffee!

Dinner last night was a bit bland if I'm honest. I was lacking in inspiration but had some peppers that needed using. I also found out, after I'd started cooking, that we'd run out of passata which didn't help. I cooked some quinoa in veg stock and then fried some garlic, chopped peppers, added a tin of chopped tomatoes and some frozen broad beans. The others topped their meals with grated cheddar, but I stuck to nutritional yeast...

Meh. I tried to improve the meal by eating the orange stevia chocolate bar, but that wasn't very nice either! I gave up after that and just had my usual glass of squash before going to bed.

What was the best thing that you ate today? And what are your favourite things to do when the sun is out? Trips to to the park/beach or even just the garden, accompanied by ice cream and/or iced lattes definitely = summer to me!! :)

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!