It's A Crealy Day...

Today's half term destination was Crealy. We have annual membership so we tend to go most school holidays - the children love it and, so long as we take a packed lunch and avoid the gift shop, it's a "free" day out.

I was in a bit of a rush to get ready this morning so I felt like I didn't have time to make porridge etc for breakfast. What I did eat probably took just as long to prepare anyway, but it was delicious so I'm glad I came up with it! A "banana split" with cinnamon peanut flour sauce, dried cherries and chocolate chips:

The peanut flour sauce worked really well as I could make it a slightly thinner consistency to spread easily (well, completely fill the gap between the banana halves really - I made lots!). I always find that peanut butter clumps if I try to spread it on cut banana. This was definitely dessert-for-breakfast...eaten with a spoon, this made my sweet tooth very happy! :)

Mum dropped Izzy back from her sleepover and we set off. Toby was a bit tired and grumpy, and Izzy hadn't gone to bed until 10.30pm at Mum's house (!) so we only stayed for a few hours - they are both having afternoon naps as I write this - but we had fun while we were there!

Free moving horse ride...

Balancing fun...

Ignore how washed out I look please!!!

And many other things that went unphotographed because the camera battery died we were too busy having fun!!

After a bit of outdoor play we went inside to the more Toby-friendly soft play areas and to have lunch. I had my new favourite wrap/sandwich filling - Philadelphia, thinly sliced basil tofu and cucumber. Plus pineapple juice, a clementine and a Nakd bar.

Random eating shots...

We must have got to the indoor part just early enough to get a table. By the time we'd finished eating there were adults standing around waiting to grab a table as soon as someone started packing up!

We went back outside after lunch anyway, but didn't last much longer. Liam took Izzy on a couple of the bigger rides while I took Toby for a walk to look at some animals, and then we called it a day and headed home. I like that we have membership so we don't feel that we have to stay the whole day to get our money's worth - if we'd done that today that would've lead to very tired grumpy children and stressed out parents!! ;-)

This post feels short as I haven't eaten as much food yet - I think I'll have an afternoon snack in a minute and then I'll have a late dinner when I get home from the gym. I'm posting now though as I'm sure I'll be too exhausted later...I'll let you know how Body Pump went tomorrow...wish me luck!! :-D

Do you eat many sandwiches? What are your favourite fillings? When I first stopped eating meat, I got into a bit of a rut with my sandwiches - always cheddar and cucumber, egg mayonnaise, or brie & grapes if I was feeling adventurous! I've been starting to enjoy sandwiches/bagels/wraps/pittas again recently though - grated carrot and houmous, basil tofu with cream cheese and cucumber, roasted veg and houmous... - they might take a bit longer to prepare, but the taste is definitely worth it. And I'll always love a fried egg, cheese & ketchup sandwich if I'm at home to make it...delish! :-)

Berry Good Snack Plate

Oh dear, lacking in title inspiration tonight!! Does that happen to anyone else? I sometimes spend so long trying to think up a title that I lose enthusiasm to actually write a post! So today I just decided to get on and write instead (leaving the above cheesy title behind, sorry!)

Liam was off work today so we went to "big" Tesco shop this morning. I had planned to take photos of any interesting foods I bought, but sadly there weren't many. Liam took the children to the cafe for cake while I did the shopping, but I hadn't even finished getting all the basics that were on the list before they reappeared with a grumpy Toby in tow, so I didn't get time to browse the aisles for "fun" things. I did stock up on Urban Fresh dried fruit though - they were on 2 for £3 so I got one pack of each - strawberries, cherries, mango and pineapple. Yum.

Let's start at the beginning though. I fancied something savoury for breakfast for a change. We had wraps to use, so I decided to make a breakfast burrito. I cracked some eggs ready to scramble...and then discovered that I didn't have any veggies to add in. For some reason scrambled eggs on their own in a wrap didn't appeal at all, so I stuck with scrambled eggs on toast. A bit boring maybe, but really tasty.

2 eggs, cheese and a ketchup drizzle. This kept me full for ages which is necessary when you're spending the morning grocery shopping.

Once we got back home, I used up one of the wraps for lunch. We normally only eat wraps cooked - quesadillas, burritos, enchiladas - but this was a really nice alternative to a sandwich. I spread the wrap with Philadelphia and then filled it with thinly sliced basil tofu and cucumber.

Liam had two wraps filled with ham, cheese and mayonnaise. No cucumber as apparently cucumber doesn't go in wraps??! Even he admitted that his were a bit boring and could have done with some "crunch"!

My wrap was really tasty, but I didn't feel particularly satisfied afterwards so I made myself a little fruit plate - a clementine, a few strawberries and some coconut yoghurt:

The yoghurt was really good. It was only £1 for a 450g tub and tasted almost as good as Rachel's coconut yoghurt.

We ate lunch pretty late so I didn't have my usual afternoon snack plate - I decided to keep it for an after dinner treat instead. I ended up getting really hungry though as we didn't eat dinner until really late (for us). Izzy is staying at my Mum's tonight, and Toby was really tired so we fed him on his own and put him to bed early. Liam and I then discovered that, despite going to Tesco today, we didn't have anything we felt like eating for dinner! He decided to go to Waitrose so I asked him to get me some fresh pasta and some salad, which he did, but he also came back with pizza. I ended up saving my pasta for another day and sharing the pizza with Liam. Normally we get two pizzas between the four of us and I eat 5-6 slices (pizza cut into 8) so, whilst pizza isn't ideal "health" food, eating only 3 slices is pretty "good" for me! With lots of salad - I ate the pizza first with just some of the salad, and then added more salad and a blob of houmous to the plate. That counts as healthy right?!! ;-)

And then the "berry good" snack plate for dessert - one divine chocolate cherry, Green & Blacks cherry chocolate, Urban Fresh dried cherries and...strawberries. If only we'd had fresh cherries to properly fulfil the theme!! ;-)

This was the perfect end to my food day. I'm not counting calories or anything at the moment, but I definitely feel more in control of my eating. Baby steps right?! Liam had a huge slice of cookie Oreo brownie while I was eating this plate, but I didn't feel at all envious - my food was just as, if not more, delicious! :-)

Do you tend to have a pattern with your eating? Whether intentional or not, do you find yourself eating at roughly the same times each day? I still have to very deliberately think about when I eat - otherwise I'd just spend every minute of every day munching! I'm fed up of having to take so much care over what I eat, so at the moment I'm just focusing on trying to only eat three meals and then one snack - usually either in the afternoon or evening. I "cheated" a little bit with the fruit plate after the wrap, but I decided that was still part of lunch! ;-) My eating has definitely been "better" recently though - I had no problems choosing to shop in peace rather than have cake in Tesco cafe, and I'm more than happy with my fruit and chocolate evening treat instead of huge slices of cake that still leave me hungry. Not perfect, and I'm still not exactly losing weight at the moment, but at least I'm not gaining any either right?!

Ok, time to hit publish and shut down the computer. I have a busy day tomorrow with a trip to Crealy and then Body Pump in the evening. I'm really looking forward to it! & thanks for all your comments/tips on the previous post! :-)

Valentine's Day Baking

Hello! Did you all have a nice Valentine's Day yesterday? We don't really do much to celebrate it, but as you probably all know, I do love an excuse to make lots of food!!

The food started before I woke up - I'd left out bread, Nutella and a "love" toast stamp (that Mum found lurking in her gift cupboard) for Liam to make himself breakfast. We never normally have Nutella as I can't be trusted around it so this was a treat for him!

We just used note cards that we already had rather than spending money on Valentine's cards...I'm sure Liam liked the pink really! ;-)

Liam Instagrammed a photo of his toast for me to see when I woke up, haha, he's learning!!

I made the children Nutella "Love" toast as well, but I fancied a different breakfast. Still Valentine themed of course - raspberry and coconut porridge topped with hm chocolate peanut butter (peanut flour, cocoa powder, agave, milk)...

This was delicious. I'm loving making lots of different sauces from peanut flour...they might stop me placing a Justin's/PB&Co order on iHerb for a little while longer!!

After breakfast it was time to get baking. I'd seen these slutty brownies (or cookie Oreo brownies as I like to call them in front of the children!) on quite a few blogs, and decided to make them as a surprise for Liam. I used my usual cookie recipe, and my brownie recipe for the different layers and, based on a suggestion in the Goodness Direct newsletter, decided to make them into a huge heart shape!

I made a double batch of cookie dough and split it between a square and circular tin (mine weren't quite the same size so I had to do a bit of trimming at the end - the square tin was 9.5 x 9.5 inches and the circle was 10 inch diameter). Izzy then helped me place the Oreos...

I then topped them with a double batch of brownie mix. I was very glad of my new huge mixing bowl!

There was a little bit of extra brownie mix left so I baked it in two mini silicone loaf pans for 15 minutes (the main cakes took 35 minutes) for the children and I to enjoy as a mid-morning snack. I may have eaten the 4th brownie before plating these up...! ;-)

Once the big cakes were completely cool and shaped into a heart, Izzy and I decorated them with a big piped line of Nutella (to draw the eye away from the join lines!) and these jelly hearts...

I officially buy these for the children (Waitrose sell these for, I think, £1.79 but I only buy them when Lidl stock them - they're not consistently available but when they are they're only 99p) but really I love them for me. They use pectin instead of gelatin and have a lovely soft set and nice strawberry flavour. Plus they're in little bags for good portion control!

We decorated these quite late so the photos are poorly lit - I will show you the photos I took this morning instead, by which time a good chunk of the cake had been eaten of course!!

Love is...

Coffee and cake, mmm!

The cake turned out really well, although the cookie is a little drier than I would have liked - the downside of cooking for so much longer than usual cookie cooking time I guess. The brownie layer is a little over-cooked at the edges, but super gooey and fudgy in the centre. Next time I would perhaps cook it for a few minutes less, but I was still really pleased with how it turned out. I gave Liam a tub of Cookies & Cream ice cream as well (and pear ciders = perfect evening!) to complete his gift, which hides any slight faults!

We didn't just eat cake yesterday evening of course - I made butternut squash and goats cheese enchiladas. This is one of our absolute favourite meals, but unfortunately it never seems to photograph well...

Still tasted amazing! :-)

There is no way we would (or should) get through all of the brownies before they go stale, so this afternoon I chopped up the square brownie and put it in the freezer. 16 individually wrapped brownies for Liam to take to work with him!

We're already half way through the circular brownies so I'm sure we'll have no problem finishing them off soon!

Liam gave me a couple of small gifts yesterday too - a notebook (which he suggested I use to write recipes in...weirdly I'd actually been thinking about getting one for myself for the very same reason - save my iPhone constantly getting covered in flour, oil etc when looking up recipes I make regularly!) and a box of chocolates...

I haven't had these chocolates since Liam gave me them for Valentine's Day 2 years ago...they are so good! Chocolate covered cherries, but these are proper fresh cherries - stalk and stone included!

I've only eaten one so far as I want to make them last as long as possible, but they are just as delicious as I remembered! :-)

Did you do anything special for Valentine's Day? What is your favourite type of chocolate? I like normal chocolate cherries, but I wouldn't say I love them - these ones are so great because of the fresh cherries. Other favourite chocolates that spring to mind are Ferrero Rocher (and the white coconut version) and fruit cream type chocolates (but not orange creams - when we used to get boxes of Roses etc as a child, I would eat all the strawberry creams and my Dad would eat all the orange ones!). These days I hardly ever buy boxes of chocolates though - I treat myself with bars of dark chocolate instead!

Snack Plates + Exciting Exercise

I have been loving snack plates recently. They seem to be keeping my afternoon munchies under control. Whilst I am obviously still snacking, at least I'm deciding in advance what to eat rather than just eating anything and everything in sight! I had one on Thursday but mentioned it could have done with some nice chocolate, so on Friday I stocked up!

The Galaxy cookie crumble was for Liam to keep him sweet, the rest for me! :-D

I've only opened the mint and the sea salt so far but they have been featuring in my snack plates quite a lot. I'm impressed with myself though - I've managed to stick to eating two squares at a time (admittedly sometimes more than once a day) which is a huge improvement for me. I always worry when buying chocolate that I'll eat it all immediately!

A couple of snack plates that I've managed to capture on camera...

Lindt mint chocolate, brazil nuts, dried strawberries and blueberries.

Lindt sea salt, apple and a sauce made up of peanut flour, cinnamon, agave & milk.

I loved the peanut sauce with today's plate. I keep seeing Courtney eating honey cinnamon peanut butter and this was pretty much the same thing. So tasty and, as I have a big bag of peanut flour in the cupboard anyway, it's much cheaper than buying lots of different jars of flavoured nut butters!

I haven't actually taken many photos of my eating today. The children and I had a chilled out morning at home. They watched Anastasia DVD and I did the annoying thing of taking photos of them...they looked so cute!! ;)

Toby likes to go behind the sofa & lean over the back rather than sitting on it!

Then this afternoon we went out for ice cream (I had a latte, but also some of Toby's lemon meringue ice cream, yum!) before Izzy's swimming lesson. I hadn't been planning to take her as it's half term and I wanted a break, but I persuaded myself to make the effort and I'm so glad I did. Only Izzy and 2 other children turned up so the teacher was able to pay more attention to each child, and Izzy got moved up to the next stage :-) I've thought that she's been ready for a few weeks, but the teacher had to go through a checklist before she could move up, so I guess there was more time for that today. It does mean a later lesson though - we won't get home until 6.15pm on swimming days now! Part of them growing up...I'm only just getting used to after-school activities so I'll just have to re-organise our after-school routine a bit.

Once we got home, I made pasta bake for the others but didn't eat any myself...as I was going to the gym! Haha, first time in ages. I'd actually been thinking of cancelling my membership but now I'm going to give it another month to see how often I go. Tonight I went with my sister, Sarah, which was good motivation - now she's moved back to our town I'm hoping that I might start exercising more often again...she's a good influence! And - the exciting exercise mentioned in the title - Sarah mentioned that she and her boyfriend were planning to go to Body Pump on Friday so I'm going to tag along! After reading about lots of you going to Body Pump I've really wanted to go, but our local gym doesn't do the class. I can't don't drive so I haven't been able to try it out, but as my sister and her boyfriend are going I'm going to go with them. Excited! :-) Some weeks Sarah & I are going to try out Boxercise on a Thursday instead - it will be good to try out some interesting classes and hopefully find things I really enjoy so that exercise becomes something I don't always have to force myself to do.

Have you ever done Body Pump? What should I know?? How do you decide what weights to use? Etc etc!! And any other recommendations for "fun" classes to try? Once it gets warmer I want to start swimming again too - that's one exercise I do actually really enjoy, but the thought of the 15 minute walk home in the cold with wet hair is not appealing at the moment! Whenever I say that to my Mum, she does point out that I could dry my hair at the pool so I suppose that is a bit of an excuse!! ;)

The first day of half term...

...has been a good one!

It started with the long-promised pink smoothie...

This was so thick that it was more like ice cream - Izzy thought it was such a treat to have it for breakfast!

The smoothie was just a banana, lots of frozen raspberries, milk and a little agave...so simple but so tasty!

Just before lunchtime, Izzy's Godmother, Sarah, arrived to visit. She lives 4.5 hours away and had a further 2.5 hours drive to go to her parents' house after she left us so she only stayed for the afternoon, but it was really nice to see her.

This was the only photo without Izzy pulling a funny face!!

I wasn't sure what Sarah would want for lunch, so I got lots of salady bits for us to choose from...

Add half a bagel and lots of egg mayonnaise and you get a delicious lunch! :-)

We spent the afternoon chatting and watching Aladdin - it was nice to chill out and catch up with Sarah - I hadn't seen her since our wedding!

By the time she left it was a bit late to start cooking so we just gave the children toast with peanut butter and blueberries (*ahem* bad parents!) and had the leftover salad for us.

Liam had his last bagel with the salad, but I saved mine for dessert, mmm!

After I took this photo I closed the bagel up and went back into the dining room. Liam asked, with a disgusted voice, what was in it. His disgust was confirmed when I said peanut butter, banana and raw honey, haha...it was really delicious though!

Random question of the day...what would be your ideal bagel filling/topping?? I normally stick with peanut butter and jam or peanut butter and mashed banana but this combo was fantastic. Three fillings instead of two can only be a good thing right?! ;-)

No Bread In Sight!

After writing last night's post I gave myself a kick up the bum and decided that today would be a better/more veg-full day! I do know how to incorporate more veggies into my diet, it's just finding the motivation to actually do it that I struggle with. But that's silly. I need to eat more fruit and veg so that I feel less tired and have more energy to play with Izzy and Toby <--- good motivation right there :-)


I had an earlier than usual start this morning (thanks Toby!) so had time to make porridge for me and the children. I would normally add frozen berries to porridge but Izzy doesn't like them so this was just cooked with sliced banana and then topped with dessicated coconut, brazil nuts and maple syrup. I need to go food shopping soon so we were a bit lacking in fresh fruit toppings, but this was still a much better breakfast than I've been having recently...

After I'd done the school run, I decided to make a pot of coffee...I needed the caffeine as Toby had been awake at 1.30am and then awake again chatting to himself since 5.30am! My coffee machine wasn't playing fair though - for some reason it suddenly started producing coffee at triple speed and quantity which made for a hot bubbling mess?! Luckily the pot still managed to "catch" enough for three coffee cups...this mug makes everything seem better too - coffee love :-)

I started getting hungry again just before 12, so rather than have a super early lunch and then keep eating throughout the afternoon, I cut open this grapefruit that I've been meaning to eat for ages. I love grapefruits but am too-often guilty of buying them and then not getting round to eating them...so wasteful...no more!

I ended up eating the other half as well. These weren't quite as sweet as I remember red grapefruits being, but I still managed to enjoy them without sugar, yum!

An hour or so later I made lunch. This may look slightly unappealing (the water from the mushrooms made the eggs go a slightly grey colour!) but it tasted fantastic. I stir fried one chopped pepper and a few chopped mushrooms, and then scrambled in 3 eggs (I was hungry!). Finally I stirred in some super ripe, super stinky brie just before eating...

I quite often make scrambled eggs as a "comfort food" but I usually just quickly cook them in the microwave and eat them with toast. This was much more flavourful and filling...a new regular lunch I think! :-)

My worst time for mindlessly eating is 4pm-6.30pm - when we get home from school until Liam comes home and we can eat dinner. Instead of just grabbing the first thing I could reach, this afternoon I made myself a little snack plate and kept it in the kitchen so that I could keep going back to pick at it. Like I said, I need to go shopping so this wasn't as colourful as I'd like, but it was still tasty. Dried 'Urban Fruit' strawberries, more brazil nuts, a Fudge bar (chopped up to last longer!) and the last 2 fresh cherries:

This lasted me until about 5.45pm and then I managed to resist eating anything else until dinner. Big improvement for me! I need to get some decent dark chocolate in though - a few squares of Lindt sea salt would have been much more satisfying! :-)

Dinner was served the second Liam walked in the door...it was quite nice to actually be hungry for dinner for once. Quinoa with roasted peppers, basil tofu and a little grated cheddar stirred in to make a melty sauce.

For some reason whenever I cook quinoa I either cook too much or not enough. Today was a not enough day but I did eat Toby's (cold) leftovers as well as this.

I was still a bit hungry so after I put Izzy to bed I made Jemma's Choco, PB and Nana Pudding. This is currently chilling in the fridge...looking forward to eating it soon! :-)

 

Here's to another good day tomorrow! I always used to meal plan, my dinners at least, a week or two in advance but I've got a bit slack at that lately. I've re-started jotting down the following day's meals on my phone each evening though. I may not stick to it, but at least it gives me something to fall back on if I find myself staring blankly into the kitchen cupboards!

Do you plan your meals in advance or just decide what you fancy on the day? If you don't meal plan, how often do you go food shopping? I always find that if I don't food plan, I end up running out of fruit & veg towards the end of the week...either that or popping into Lidl each morning for food to cook that day. When I meal plan I can usually have a better idea of what I need to buy - I do still pop to the shops for milk etc 1-2 times a week, but the fewer supermarket trips the better at the moment. Toby has taken to climbing out of his pushchair at every opportunity and running around the aisles which doesn't make for an enjoyable shopping experience!!

Two Dinners and One Cake

No WIAW post for me today as Jenn has declared February "Love Your Veggies Month" and, to be honest, I haven't been eating enough veggies this week! I'll try better for next week Jenn, promise! :-)

In all seriousness, I haven't been feeling too well the last few days so bread has been the main feature in my breakfasts and lunches - lots of unpictured scones, boring cheese sandwiches etc. I did take a photo of yesterday's breakfast - this reminded me of the holidays to France we used to go on when I was a child - croissants dipped in hot chocolate, mmm. Lidl brioche rolls aren't quite authentic French croissants (!) but they did the job...

Hmm, I don't think this photo really portrays how delicious this was!!

Moving on... the title of this post mentioned two dinners. Whilst I haven't been eating many vegetables during the day, I have made sure to get some in to our evening meals. Last night I made what Izzy has called "Extra Special Macaroni Cheese"...

Extra Special Macaroni Cheese
(serves 3-4)

• 225g macaroni (I'd actually run out of macaroni so used a mix of macaroni, brown rice twists and corn penne!)
• one bunch of asparagus (230g) chopped into 1.5 cm pieces
• 40g butter
• 40g plain flour
• 480ml milk
• approx 75g houmous (optional)
• approx 100g cheddar, grated

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C.
2. Cook pasta according to package instructions. Add the asparagus for the last 4 minutes.
3. To make the white sauce, melt the butter in a pan and then add the flour. Stir and allow to cook for a couple of minutes. Add the milk and whisk thoroughly to remove all lumps. Add the houmous and half the cheese and stir again. Simmer the sauce for 4-5 minutes to thicken.
4. Drain the pasta/asparagus and put into a baking dish.
5. Pour the sauce on top and mix to combine.
6. Top with the remaining grated cheese and put into the oven.
7. Bake for approx 20 minutes until the cheese is golden.

This was just what I was looking for. Comfort food, but with an added feel-good factor from the asparagus. Haha, or maybe I just love asparagus! The houmous perhaps wasn't strictly necessary, but it needed using. It did add an extra flavour to the sauce, but you could use mustard instead if you wanted...I tend to switch between the two.

Dinner number two was this evening. I haven't been very organised with my meal planning lately. I knew I was going to cook something with kabocha squash as I'd got Liam to chop it for me last night, but I didn't know what I was going to cook. In the end I settled on this risotto, but with a few changes based on what I had in.

Kabocha instead of butternut, leeks instead of onion, mangetout instead of spinach and brie instead of goats cheese. Hmm, not exactly the same risotto but just as tasty!!

The kabocha made this even creamier than butternut squash, and the mashed squash stirred into the rice also turned the risotto a bright curry colour! I'm not a big fan of cooked spinach so actually preferred the mangetout - it kept some of its crunch and went really well. I felt like I was getting lots of veg in too, which was needed after the rest of today's meals!

Dessert for the last few days has been in the form of Chocolate Frosted Traybake by The Pink Whisk.

Liam has been taking a couple to work each day and the rest of us have been enjoying them for afternoon snacks. So good. And all gone now sadly...I need to make more of these soon!

Yum. These were really easy to make as well - I do love the "melt all the ingredients in one pan/bowl" method to save on time, and washing up.

What are your favourite/easy ways of getting fruit and vegetables into your breakfasts and lunches? I'm usually pretty good with dinners as I know that Liam and Izzy will be eating them too, but I need to take better care of myself during the days as well! I think I will try to start chopping extra veg when I'm preparing dinner, which can then be used in the following day's lunch. Hopefully it will seem like less effort that way.