Guys, I need to introduce you to someone. This person has just recently come into my life, and I can honestly say, I don’t know how I coped without them. They mean the world to me. They comfort me when I’m down, and cool me off when I’m hot. They sit with me comfortably for hours, not even needing to speak, and will just chill patiently, waiting for that special time in the evening when I come and see them….without further adieu, I give to you:
Pear and Strawberry Pudding!
Yep, this was the delicious dessert I made last night, and who I was referring to just now 😛 Oh boy. It was SO good..:
- a small ripe pear
- like..8-10 smallish strawberries (depends how much you like strawberries and the colour pink :p)
- 1 tsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
- 170g silken tofu
AMAZE.
———–
ENOUGH with the romance! Let’s move on to the joys of Thursday. Actually, Thursday hasn’t been particularly joyous today, not at all 😦 You know how they say bad things come in threes? Well, my first one was that cheeky parking ticket the other day, and the other two came today 😦
– MY BLENDER BROKE!!! Not the mini one, the actual real PROPER blender, the one I use to create my beloved EGMs 😥 I was halfway through blending my EGM today, when I smelt the burning rubber, heard the scream, and knew the inevitable had happened…*le sigh. I transferred the half blended contents into my reserve, REALLY DARN CRAP blender, and stood there for – literally – 10minutes, trying to blend just 2 or 3 strands of spinach and beet leaves. BOOOOO. Oh well. It did blend in the end…just:
Mangled date…
The EGM lost its’ magic today though, alas!
After breakfast, a really really [excuse my French] shit thing happened (Bad Thing Three), which I don’t want to blog about (nothing to do with food or anything though). Needless to say, it sure made me upset and I did become a tad woeful, if you know what I mean!
BUT!
I then rode Chika 🙂 And bless her, she so knows when to behave. Yep, she can be a cowbag and she can spook and be a div, but she never, EVER does it on a day when I’m upset. It’s like she senses I need her, so she puts on her halo, pricks her ears, and does her thang 🙂 After a 25minute fast hack round the trails, I came back feeling much better. In fact, I decided to look at the positives – after all, if my blender hadn’t broke, I wouldn’t now be thinking about raiding my savings and investing in a Vitamix….and if Bad Thing Three hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have appreciated Chika so much 😛 There’s always a positive! You just have to dig around for it sometimes 🙂
Lunch was lovely and a random mix – and I broke into my tempeh rashers at last!!
I’ve been wanting to eat these for AGES, and today – the time came……Not the most ‘real’ food ever, but hey – packed with protein and nobody’s perfect 😀 I had them with some roasted beans, as well as a pear, and roasted leek/turnip/celeriac/mixed spice:
It was very, very delicious! Note how the blasted cat stole my photography ledge…..
Dessert was a Cashew Cookie Nakd bar:
Why do I always forget how AMAZING these things taste!!?? Seriously, I’m stunned by my own foolishness sometimes.
The afternoon was spent read/Poppy walking in the forest (finished my book – needless to say, the waterworks were flowing at the end! Praise be for the coverage of trees :p), and doing some cleaning :O I really don’t clean enough…heaven knows why, cos it’s so satisfying when it’s done 😀 But then if I cleaned all the time, you’d never notice the difference…right?
Snack – ultimate comfort food – cereal and yogurt! And even better, the dusty crappy bit from the end of the packet (my favourite bit!!) – note how I got my photography ledge back 😛
Good times.
Dinner waaaas – basil tofu, with pink durum wheat, kabocha, parsnip and beetroot, as well as fresh basil and cinnamon:
Dessert, without a doubt, will be a Mama Pea millet muffin with some yogurt 😀 But now, I’m going to settle down with Big Brother and this:
—
OH! I almost forgot (though I doubt your lives are any more enriched by knowing this info :p – but today was a DVD day, so post my usual AM snack, I had an hour of DVD awesomeness :))
—–
QUESTION: Can you recommend a super super good blender/smoothie maker? Anyone have a Vitamix? I want to invest – I can either keep buying cheap-o ones that break within a year, or I can shell out once and for all and buy a darn good one. I’m thinking the latter 🙂
What’s your favourite chore? If I had to pick, I’d say washing up or hoovering. I love being able to see a difference 😀
—-
CAT PICTURES!
My cat after my heart – he likes garlic 🙂
Seductive Carter…!!
I love my boys 🙂
Ok, so Sainsbury’s were selling half price broad beans yesterday, and I bought them with the intention of making them nibbleable, like in my local tapas restaurant. So, I ask, any tips on roasting beans?
Hmm well I buy mine pre-roasted :p apart from when I roast chick peas – when I do that I just spray them and spice them and bake them 😛 The broad beans I bought pre-roasted just have vegetable oil and salt as the added ingredients, so I’d assume you’d just coat them in those two (and whatever other flavour you want) and then roast 🙂
Sorry about the blender breaking and bad thing number three! 😦 Glad you had a great ride on Chika though!
As for blender recommendations – I have a Kenwood one and it is really good. Hope that helps? 🙂
Question, have you got any Exercise DVD recommendations?
Hope you have a great evening!
Oh gosh, where do I begin!? Davina’s are generally good, though I normally mix and match and do 1 section from different ones. Ministry of Sound: Pump it Up, is quite good…as is MoS: The Ultimate Workout.Jillian’s 30 Day Shred – WELL worth it! Ummmm….there’s another one which is super and I can’t think of the name…eek! CLUBLAND, that’s it! That’s good too 🙂 And Mel B’s one isn’t toooo bad, though a little dull for my liking 🙂
I’m sorry about your blender and about bad news #3. No fun! 😦 Sending virtual hugs your way!
Your pudding looks amazing, though! I’ve been meaning to try making pudding or a smoothie using silken tofu.
Sorry about the bad news 😦 I agree, though – animals truly know when to offer comfort. Glad Chika behaved and put you in a better mood.
Your dinner is just plain gorgeous! And looks delicious, too.
Good luck blender shopping! I feel your pain – my processor is about dead, though I was sort of surprised to get as long a life out of it as I did, it being only $30 and all, haha.
I hope tonight and tomorrow goes better for you!
Wow that was a bargain! I don’t think even the cheapest ones here are that cheap! Good buy 😀
Aww, hope that ‘bad thing three’ wasn’t anything too terrible. Feel better soon! I am also in love with those Nakd bars, man are they the tastiest thing ever or what?! I’d say go with a Vita-Mix as they are supposed to be excellent but I’ve never had a decent blender so I don’t have any first hand experience!
I have a vitamix, and it is my BABY. I love, love, love it. They’re very expensive, but I think totally worth it.
That pudding looks so creamy!
I’m sorry about the bad news 😦 I hope it works out!
I love your cat pictures, though! So cute 🙂
Just so you know, garlic, onions, chocolate, and prok can make a kitty sick. ekkk be careful!
He wasn’t eating the garlic, he was just asleep by it 🙂 but thanks for the head’s up anyway!
so sorry about the crap stuff that happened. its never fun :(my blender broke last semester when i was at school, so i had no way of getting a new one. luckily it was near the end of the year and i didn’t have to wait too long for my green monsters!
i definitely agree with the bright side thing though…..this means… you should get a vitamix!! 😀
aaaaand my favorite chore is probably cleaning. i don’t mean like on-your-knees-wiping-the-baseboards cleaning, of course.. i mean going through my room with a trashbag and throwing out trash and DONATING the rest!! i love to give things to the charity shops. it just makes me feel good. but then again… i’m weird. especially seeing as the first few pictures of your cat holding out his paw made me think he was saying “come hither” 😛
Wow you make my cats sound saucy 😛
Yeah I love giving to charity shops! SO much better than throwing out decent stuff 🙂 99% of my childhood books went to Oxfam 😛
pink wheat! so pretty, but my arch nemesis }:(
that whole celiac thing.
fave chore-vaccuming i think.
blender-ha! the one i have is 34 years old and was a wedding gift to my parents.
it isn’t the best, but it does what i need it to 🙂
34 years!!??That’s hardcore!
That pudding looks SO yummy! I’m sorry your blender broke 😦 I think a Vitamix would be a good investment, all the bloggers seem to love them! 🙂 My horses act just like Chika, they always know how to cheer me up when I’m down by being angelic 😉 and your cats are adorable!
Favorite chore : washing dishes!
I know I comment on your cats each time you post pics, but they are seriously adorable! I’m such a cat person.
I’m sorry about the bad things that happened to you lately. Cheer up!
The VitaMix on order sorted the cheeriness out 😛
My blender just broke too! I was making a green smoothie, ironically enough, and it made an awful noise and then just…stopped. When I took it off the base, it leaked everywhere. I would LOVE to get a vita mix, but I need my vital organs and therefore cannot sell them on the black market to pay for a kitchen gadget!
But, regardless of the fact that you had an icky day, you should take pride in the fact that your dinner was gorgeous 🙂
Sheesh,all the blenders seem to be protesting today!
Oh gosh the colors in your dinner plate look absolutely beauuutiful! You so inspire me to try new eats, making them gorgeous with poppy colors. You’re fantastic, girl!
I told my mom I’m putting a Vitamix on my wedding registry….now I just gotta find a man 🙂
HAHA! It would help 😛
Your dinner looks delicious, as always, and I’ll definitely be trying out that pudding!
Sorry to hear about your misfortunes… glad you’re taking the old ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ to heart 🙂
Ehhhhh, tragedy re the blender ! Fortunately you have a back-up one! I’d splash out on a Vitamix if at all possible; I am considering one myself (and I blame KERF for it! 😉 ). I am using the blender on my Kenwood Chef, which is fine, but I’d really like to upgrade, as the Kenwood isn’t great for blending nuts and stuff…takes ages (by which time the smoothie is nice and warm…) and you still end up with nutty bits.
The cat pics are super cute again. Is Obama a bit camera shy?
Favourite chore…I quite like ironing. My favourite is de-cluttering…not sure if that’s really a chore, I enjoy it far too much!
She’s just incredibly difficult to photo 😛 plus, she only really sleeps, unless it’s night time, then she goes mad 😛
Oh dear, not good about your blender 😦
I have a Vitamix, and it is DEFINITELY worth it. It’s amazing! Really, you would not regret it!
I love your cats 🙂 xxxx
I can’t believe I haven’t read your blog until now! I love it! I ride horses too, and I’ve been looking for another healthy-eating-horse-riding blogger for months now! Hah, so cool. I hunted back through your posts a little bit and it looks like you ride dressage? And eek, sorry about your blender; I don’t know what I would do without my daily protein ice cream fix!
Hello! Ahh I’m so glad you like it 😀 Have you checked out Healthy Exposures? She’s horsey too, and has BEAUTIFUL photos!
Yep I do dressage, I love it 🙂 And I’m going to check out your blog right now 😀
I bought a vitamix back in February and I could never, ever go back to a regular belnder! I would def recommend ‘splurging’ on one. I love that you can make so much with it, and it comes with a wonderful recipe book too!
Sorry about the blender 😦 I was devastated when my broke down. Spreading green monster all over me 😀
Omg, your dinner looks awesome, so cute!
I wish I had your courage with food.