Weekend Highlights...finally!

Ok, well I've finally found time to catch up from last weekend - both children asleep and Liam at uni as I start writing this just after lunch, however I have a feeling I won't end up finishing it until this evening as they wont sleep for long! At least if I get some of the post done it'll be quicker to finish off later on :)

I spent a lot of time outside at the weekend (by weekend I mean Saturday - Tuesday (yesterday) - the holidays kind of make all the days merge together), going for walks by the river...

and along the seafront...

as well as eating lots of food out! Saturday was my Mum's birthday so my Mum, my Grandma, both my sisters and I went out for a girly lunch. I chose to have butternut squash risotto which was topped with Parmesan and pesto...

This was quite nice, although to be honest I prefer the butternut squash risotto that I make, but I loved the idea of putting pesto on top, will definitely try that next time! I wasn't going to have pudding as I was quite full after the risotto, however I ended up sharing my Mum's chocolate brownie. Served warm with creme anglaise...

this was amazing, I loved the warm chunks of white chocolate in it...definitely worthy of another photo!

Delish! As I hadn't planned to have dessert, I also joined the other non-pudding eaters (aka my Grandma and the older of my 2 sisters who has given up chocolate for lent!) in having coffee... iced coffee for me...

this was one of 3 iced coffees I enjoyed over the weekend, and my 2nd favourite - nice flavour, but a bit too frothy - we heard it being blended for a long time!!

The best iced coffee by far was enjoyed on Saturday afternoon, whilst Liam and the children had ice creams. This was an iced cappuccino...

Delicious - good presentation, perfectly sweet and the right amount of froth! :) Sadly I also had an iced coffee fail on Sunday afternoon - an iced mocha...

The children and I had spent the afternoon at the park and walking along the seafront, then when Liam he finished work he joined us for an early dinner. This coffee may look pretty, but they hadn't added any sugar - instead serving it in sachets on the side - which of course didn't mix as the drink was by then cold. I now remember this from last summer - must avoid ordering iced coffees at this restaurant!! Luckily there was food to accompany the disappointing drink, and the food was much more pleasing...

soup & a sandwich deal - the soup of the day was cream of asparagus and I went for a brie with caramelised onion jam sandwich. This was really nice :) there wasn't much choice on the menu as we went at 5.30pm and the dinner menu didn't start til 6pm, luckily they had an afternoon menu running from 3-6pm otherwise we'd have had a stroppy daughter on our hands!!

I did also have some meals in the house this weekend. There were quite a few green smoothies so I'll just highlight the prettiest one...

I love the vibrant green colour! This had spinach, banana, mango and milk in it...yum!

On Sunday morning, I decided to use some of my new chia seeds to make my first ever batch of overnight oats. I used Angela's recipe for a carob banana version. I have to admit I wasn't too keen on it when it first came out of the fridge...

but after heating it up and putting it in a peanut butter jar, it was much nicer!

not much less work than making hot porridge from scratch admittedly, but I will give it another try with cocoa powder before writing it off completely, as I think it may have been the carob flavour I disliked cold.

On Monday morning, I was given breakfast in bed! :) I can't remember why Liam thought I deserved it, but it was very welcome! Total 0% yoghurt with cantaloupe melon and agave nectar...

This was lovely, the melon was perfectly sweet and the agave nectar took the tartness out of the Greek yoghurt...even better as I hadn't made it myself! :)

Savoury eat-in meals have been a bit random over the last few days. Sunday lunchtime we had one of my favourite junk food sandwiches - pappy white bread, slices of cheddar, fried eggs and tomato ketchup...

I love fried egg sandwiches so much, yum!

Monday lunch was a bit of a random mix - sesame & almond smoked tofu (fried in a little coconut oil), sliced avocado and some of a microwave veg pot...

slightly random, but tasty!

On Monday night I wanted to follow a recipe I'd seen in the recipe booklet that came with last month's BBC Good Food magazine...only problem was that I couldn't find the booklet so I had to make it up! It was meant to be jacket potatoes with mushrooms and broccoli mixed in, with baked eggs. However there was no way all the ingredients were going to fit back in to the potato skins, so I just baked the eggs in the scooped out potatoes...

even then they overflowed! I served the baked potato mixed with mushrooms & broccoli on the side, which I'd grilled with some cheese while the eggs were baking...

This was surprisingly tasty...not bad considering I thought it was going to be a disaster when I was pouring the overflowing eggs into the potato skins!

Last night was another tasty dinner, thanks to this Creamy Mushroom Gnocchi recipe over at How Sweet It Is. Mine was a bit of a simplified version - just frying off the mushrooms with some garlic and then adding cream, but delicious nonetheless...

served with tender stem broccoli on the side, this was really good. Liam and I loved it all, daughter ate all of hers and baby's mushrooms and baby ate all of his and daughter's gnocchi! At least between them it all got eaten!!

Yesterday we went to Crealy again (a relatively cheap day out as we have season passes, and daughter loves it!) I'd made packed lunches in a rush that morning as we had to leave earlier than usual as daughter had a check-up at the hospital first (all fine) so my lunch didn't turn out to well...over-cooked quinoa and slightly burnt roasted peppers anyone?!!

even with balsamic vinegar this wasn't great, I ate it anyway and then still felt the "need" for food so order a vegetable burger from the food bar...

mashed potato with peas, sweetcorn and carrots in a crisp coating...not the best, but kept the hunger monster away for a while!

Luckily the weather was nice so we could wander around outside lots...

and it was much quieter than normal - unheard of for the school holidays - so daughter and Liam got to try out the new(ish) water ride that normally has a super long queue...

Baby then had a nap, so Liam and daughter went into the inside play area while I enjoyed some time in the cafe - a latte and a chocolate brownie more than made up for the disappointing lunch!

The best part of the day!!! I did go on a few rides too though, the pirate ship is my favourite!

As if we hadn't had enough excitement/treats yesterday, when we got home it was unanimously decided that we needed even more fresh air...and ice cream...

a flavour I hadn't seen in our local ice cream shop before - blueberry - this was delicious, with real blueberries in it, yum.

All the sugar from the ice cream and brownie etc produced more munchies last night, so I snacked on some of the Conscious chocolate that my Dad brought me from London. This one was full of nuts, my favourite so far I think!

I loved this. I couldn't even really tell it was raw chocolate - Conscious definitely has the most "normal" texture of the raw chocolate brands I've tried.

With the exception of the delicious Chocolate Brownie Baked Oats for breakfast this morning, today's food hasn't been particularly inspiring - lunch ended up being a split of a yummy 9bar...

and a bowl of Waitrose banana, papaya & honey granola with milk...

this was really good - loads of oat clusters and I loved the chewy papaya chunks!

For dinner, the others had spicy taco mince from the freezer with rice, so I was able to have whatever I fancied...a serving of grease perhaps? Tasty grease though - fried eggs, toasted potato bread and garlic buttery mushrooms...

Yum! I love potato bread...and garlic mushrooms...and fried eggs! :)

Phew, lots and lots of food!! I wasn't expecting this post to be quite so long! If you can bare to read anymore, I do recommend you check out my post from this morning - the Chocolate Brownie Baked Oats were divine, and the post is a lot, lot shorter...I promise!!

Before I go, I've been trying out Twitter today...my profile is @PorridgeParsnip if you want to follow me...I hope to get into it a lot more as I go along, still more things to learn at the moment! :)

PS - after publishing this post, I just changed my blog header and am relieved pleased to see it has worked!! What do you think of it??? Liam designed it for me. I love the idea of it, and the photos, but think the text needs to be a bit bigger - "Porridge and Parsnips" seems a bit lost amongst everything else! Liam is super busy at the moment with his dissertation and another major project for uni though, so this header will more than do until he has time to adjust it - a big improvement on the plain purple text I had previously anyway!! :)

Chocolate Brownie Baked Oats

I woke up this morning with a horrible cold. Bleugh. Liam and the children have been ill for the last couple of days but I thought I'd avoided it, no such luck! Looking out of the window didn't help matters either - horrible grey compared to the lovely sunshine of the last few days! There was only one thing for it - a comforting chocolatey breakfast was needed to turn the day around and make the world seem like a better place!! :)

I decided on baked oats, a hug in a ramekin bowl if ever there was one. I also had fond memories of the lovely gooey chocolate-peanut butter-banana pudding I'd tried a while a go, from Jemma's recipe. Of course, being ill, I didn't actually check any recipes before making my baked oats, but luckily my memory was still working well enough for this to be a success!!

Chocolate Brownie Baked Oats
(inspired by Jemma and Katie)

• 2/3 of a banana (approx 65g)
• 2 medjool dates (approx 40g)
• 15g cocoa powder
• 25g nut butter (I used Cacao Brazilnut Bliss)
• 35g oats
• 55ml milk

Pre-heat oven to 190C.

First, put the banana, dates and cocoa powder in your food processor/blender...

and blitz until it's smooth, but still with a little texture to it (that makes no sense, I know!) I also added the nut butter to this and blitzed again quickly...

Add the blended mix to a bowl with the oats and milk...

and mix. The texture of this should be easily pour-able, but nowhere near as runny as normal porridge pre-cooking...

transfer the mix to an oven-safe dish...

and bake for 20 minutes at 190C. It should come out looking like this...

This was so decadent and delicious. When I next make it, I would probably add a little bit more cocoa powder as it wasn't quite chocolatey enough for me, but it was still amazing! The texture was so gooey and dense thanks to the dates, a lot like a chocolate brownie...

The perfect pick-me-up for mornings when you're not feeling so great! The kiddies liked this too - definitely a breakfast that resulted in them hovering around me hoping for bites!!

If you want a baked oats recipe that isn't quite so rich, earlier in the week I made a different variation...

Tropical Baked Oats

• 40g oats
• 60g coconut cream (about half a small tin, leftover from making a curry the night before)
• 50ml milk
• 20g agave nectar
• 20g dried mango, chopped
• 10g desiccated coconut

All mixed together and baked at 190C for 20 minutes...

topped with a coconut sauce made of 5g coconut flour and about 45ml milk (make the sauce just before eating, as the longer you leave it the more it absorbs the milk and thickens up, so then you need to add more milk again!)...

This was really refreshing. It had a soft flapjack texture, and was super creamy from the addition of the coconut cream. The taste was quite light though, the mango and coconut providing a tropical tang that cut through the richness of the oats!

Yum, between the smoothies I've been having recently and these baked oats, I've got breakfast sorted no matter what the weather/my mood is like!

Coconut Treats

Hope you all had a good weekend! I spent most of the time outside - got to make the most of the sunshine while it's here! :) I also ate lots of food, yummy at the time, but has left me feeling very sluggish and tired today. I will post some weekend photos soon, but for today, a quick post is on the menu as the house needs tidying - boring! We went to Lidl and Waitrose this morning, and as well as all the usual food, I picked myself up some coconut treats :)

I haven't tried the yoghurts yet, to be honest I haven't even looked at the ingredients list, I just picked them up in Waitrose on impulse! The other 2 items were from Lidl. First up, the coconut spread...

Sadly, this spread was in no way healthy. Sugar, oil, coconut, milk powder, cocoa butter plus other ingredients I don't want to can't remember! Basically a white chocolate nutella with dried coconut in, but oh so delicious! The whole 200g was eaten by me whilst cooking lunch, and then again straight after eating, oink oink!! Maybe it's a good thing it's one of the special, limited time only foods in Lidl - hopefully it won't be there to tempt me next time I go in!

The other coconut treat is something that I've been wanting to try for a long time - coconut ferrero rocher style chocolates...

there were more chocolates than this when I originally opened the box but I was too eager to try them to take a photo initially!!

These are delicious, they have the same crisp wafer coating as ferrero rocher, which is covered in desiccated coconut and filled with a coconut filling and a whole almond in the middle of each one, yum yum yum...

So good they deserve another photo...

At the time of writing this, there are 2 chocolates left in the box...but I'm sure they will both be gone by the time I hit "publish post"...I'm going to feel so bloated tomorrow!! Have a good evening everyone, I'm off to heave myself off the sofa before I turn into a white chocolate coconut myself!!

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 :)