Farewell

Good gracious, I can’t believe that a) it’s the weekend already, and b) it’s JULY! This year is actually flying by…next time I blink I’ll probably be 30 and married with 10 children (though I sincerely hope not). Oooh let me add a c) to stuff I can’t believe – the fact that I’m typing a post out at all! I actually thought either my laptop or myself would have melted away today..it has been SWELTERING (praise be it was a designated no running day!!).

Which is why I was up tres early to get both horses ridden before the real heat kicked in 🙂 I had a quick breakfast before I went out:

That would be another ‘cake’ – ie, 1/2 cup yogurt blended with 1 cup cereal mix, and sprinkled with tree bark and grated cacao:

SOOOO GOOODDDDD!!

I then made the long, winding trek from my front door to the yard to get Chika ready. Bless the horses, they were both in bed when I went out:

I don’t think they felt like working 😛 but anyway, after some huffing and puffing, I managed to drag Fatty out of her slumber and threw some tack on her:

Gotta love the nose net! It helps control her ‘hay fever’ 😀

Anyway, Mrs was very good 🙂 Next up was Tig, who was equally good – but I only managed about 25minutes with him cos the heat was crazycats.

Needless to say I was proper hot when I got in, and although I wasn’t hungry I wanted ice cream…aka BANANA SOFT SERVE! Except, disaster struck….my mini grinder/blender died!

You know it’s bad when you can smell burning rubber and quite literally, a scream coming from the machine. Oh dear. Farewell, little guy. Farewell. Anyway, my banana wasn’t very well blended in the big smoothie maker, but I did the best I could:

And it still tasted FABULOUS, and was super refreshing!

My next mission was a trip into town – remember that job interview from Monday? Yeah, I didn’t get it 😦 BUT, a new Sue Ryder Care charity shop has just opened, so I’m going to volunteer in there 🙂 I figure all experience is good, and plus, I’ll be helping people 😀 Soo I went into town to fill in a few forms etc.

While I was out, I snacked on an apple – no photo, I’m sure y’all know what it looks like 😛

Lunch was truly scrummy! A 2 parter again – Part 1) 40g dry weight lentils cooked up, and mixed with roast parsnip, carrot and broccoli, on a bed of salad, tomatoes and spinach:

I let everything cool a bit, then topped it with balsamic. It was soo lovely and filling 🙂

For an extra protein/fruit/dessert kick, I blended together a whole load of strawberries with some silken tofu, cinnamon, 1/2 tsp xanthan gum and a tsp of agave, then sprinkled it with cinnamon and cocoa powder:

WOWZERS! It was like a deeply rich, fruity, thick mousse type thing….wonderful!!

Rest of the arvo – the usual. Dog walk, mucking out, and practicing my Ball Boy stance whilst watching Nadal v Murray. Anyone else think Andy Murray is kinda cute?

Yes:

No:

Yes:

Verdict? Have a vote 😀

Snackwise, I’ve had a whole load of strawberries…

…. and 2 tsp wheatgerm 🙂

Now, for dinner, I just had to do some repetition – After my chickpea fail yesterday, I wanted to redeem their reputation 🙂 Sooo I did roasted smoked paprika/cinnamon chickpeas, with seitan, broc-broc and agave coated kabocha and parsnip:

Reputation saved 😀 I like chickpeas again!! Super fabulous meal 😀

So what is everyone up to tonight? I’ve got a date with a Big Brother eviction – after all, NONE of my friends are home at the moment, so I’m somewhat alone 😥

Question: Do you think Andy is cute, or am I mad!?

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Random Update A) Obama ran away a few weeks ago 😦 She didn’t like Poppy..so that was that 😦 😦

Random Update B) You know how I always bang on about how pathetic Carter is about hunting, and how he likes butterflies and bugs? Well, he’s TURNED!! He caught, tortured, and half ate a PIDGEON today!! My baby has gone to the Dark Side 😥

Random Thing C) Hehe, normally, I get  a lot of searches from search engines which are just ‘brit chick runs’, that kinda thing. Yesterday though, I didn’t have any of them – check out what I had instead:

LOL!! Gotta love search engines/the people who search in them 😛

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Overnight Magic

Happy Monday! Did y’all have a good weekend? Glad to be back at work!?

(Warning: Be prepared for many, many photos in this post…..)

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I’ve had a pretty productive day today – I gave myself a slight lie in (all the way til 8.10 (!!)), at which time I – literally – jumped out of bed, thinking ohmygod I’m LATE!!, before realising I didn’t actually have to be anywhere, other than the kitchen for my usual pre-workout snack 🙂 It was a designated DVD day today, so I just did my usual and then had the most WONDERFUL breakfast!

I did an OSGs today (Oh She Glows, for..er, everyone…who is unfamiliar with the abbreviations I make up on the spot) – overnight oats, layered with banana soft serve….dreamy! Last night, I combined:

• 1/2 cup oats
• 3/4 cup Kara coconut milk
• 1 tbsp pea protein powder
• vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp chia seeds

This morning, I stirred in the end of a yogurt tub (1/4 cup?) and then layered it all with the banana soft serve, topped with Fru-Grains and grated cacao:

Holy Jasper, it was SO GOOD! I always forget how wonderful overnight oats are, and the banana was literally like ice cream. OVERNIGHT MAGIC!

After breakfast, I packed up a lunch (cos I thought I’d be out over lunch) and then my sister and I hit the town to do some food-baking-shopping. Big news for me: my mum is giving a course this weekend, to 20 people over 2 days, and being the teacher, she has to provide cakes and stuff. Guess who she asked to do the baking!? Me!! Yep, I’m going to spend Friday and Thursday baking away to cater for 20 – it’s going to be amazing! I’m planning a classic Victoria sponge, a chocolate tray bake, white chocolate and cranberry cookies (see my recipe page) and a fruity loaf. So I went into town today to stock up on the ingredients I’ll need. SO excited!!

Anyways, as it turns out I need not have packed my lunch up cos I was home in time, but meh. It was a good lunch!

First part: A pitta sandwich, made with red lentils, smoked garlic granules, roast kale/courgette/leek/parsnip, and the very last of the hazelnut hummus (and some vegan spread):

So good 😀

Second part was the rest of the roasted veggies and leftover lentils, as well as some salad leaves:

Good times 😀 Dessert:

Mmm 🙂

After lunch, I went on a reading-walk for an hour (I LOVE MY BOOK!!) and then shouted at my sister in the school for a bit (aka, helped her school Tig!), did the horses, played with my camera, and had a cereal/yogurt snack:

For mah dinner, it was all about the SWEET YAM! I was very excited to cook this beauty 🙂 I actually get unreasonably excited about cooking or finding a new vegetable. It’s rather sad really…maybe I need to live a bit more!? Anyway, I roasted my yam, and served it with apple sauce/maple baked tempeh, kabocha and parsnip:

Yeah. That’s sweet potato. I cooked the yam early, and had read that when it’s cooked, it goes syrup like and nice…but this is what it looked like:

Erh. Yam is poisonous if it’s not cooked, so that, combined with the fact it looked horrible and was dry as a bone, meant I threw it 😦 sad to waste, but it didn’t look good! So I had agave sweet potato discs instead 🙂

Dessert later on…something tasty….a muffin probably 🙂 and I think I’m going to go watch Gossip Girl with my sister now 😀 season 2, episode 3….exciting!!

(PS: I liked the 2nd Twilight film; those wolves are HOT!)

QUESTION: After all my sandwich talk yesterday, it seems there are loads of sandwich fans! So in the spirit of sandwiches, what’s your favourite combination? Does anyone like anything weird or gross?

What book, if any, are you reading at the moment? Is it good?

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As promised, here are a few of my first photos with the new camera; don’t judge me yet, I’m learning by trial and error!!

(I did change up the colours/exposure on the Carter one above)

(Kovac does have a dodgy eye, so don’t worry 🙂 It’s been treated and that’s as good as it’ll get!)

Isn’t he STUNNING!?

Phew! That’s a tiny tiny selection of about 350 I’ve taken 😛 if you’ve stuck with my up til this point, I thank you! 😀 If I had gold stars to give, you’d get one 🙂

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