No Gaga, No.

I’m really not feeling the new Lady Gaga song. Like, really, reaaally not feeling it. In my own nasty little way, I’m highly relieved she isn’t number one today. But seriously – does anyone else find that she annoys the heck out of them, or is that just me!!?? Heh.

——- AAANNNYYWWAAY ———–

My Heidi-Montag-esque makeover shoooould be coming tomorrow, I’m hoping – but we shall see 🙂 In the meantime, I’ll do a normal, pre-surgery post 🙂 And let me tell youz – there’s a lorra food photos I want to show y’all! I know that can be boring sometimes, but och ay, there’s been some scrummy stuff 😛 Let’s start from the beginning shall we? Walk with me….

(Now I totally have images of Hugh Hefner, walking through his Perv Mansion smoking a bubble pipe and wearing a dressing gown. Oh my mind is bleary, late on a Sunday eve!)

Friday

Bah, mucho stresso came on Fritag. I originally thought I was going to have a lovely relaxing day, going into town, getting a cappuccino, looking in the charity bookshops…til I got a phonecall which changed my life forever. Well, it changed my Friday plans at least. To cut a long story short, I ended up standing around the PC World carpark for a half hour, holding a laptop to give to my dissertation partner. Not fun times.

Breakfast was ace though! I tried out some new oatmeal that my delightful friend Jess sent me!

Maple Apricot Walnut oatmeal, to be precise! Full of chunks of walnut and a maple-y flavour and bits of plump dried fruit – it was the BOMB!

9g protein per serving too 🙂

That milkyish blob in the middle? Why, it was maple cream of course! Fresh from a cardboard box which was fresh from the hills of Vermont – tedious link, I know 😀

One word – ohmygod.

A pear was also consumed –

– why you need to see a picture of a half eaten pear is beyond me.

Equally so for a picture of tofu:

My only explanation is that the glaze on it (tomato puree, balsamic, maple syrup, cinnamon, soy sauce, and apple cider vinegar) was out of this WORLD!

Green Monster:

Craving: satisfied.

Saturday now 🙂

Well, the Holly’s Oatmeal oats yesterday kept me full for hours and hours and hoooouuurrrsss. Normal oatmeal on Sat – I was a Starvin’ Marvin’ after about 1.5hrs!

What’s with that!?

Despite the addition of melted banana with Mighty Maple PB & Co. And a Snackimal, for good measure :p

Oh well, the stomach gods demanded food, the stomach gods received food – in the mighty fine and dandy form of KALE CRISPINS and BLACK BEAN BROWNIES!!!

It was my fourth time making these, and I seriously love them more and more each time 😀 I even cut the sugar down on this version – 1/4c., not a 1/3rd (or maybe that was the agave I cut down..I forget) and they still turned out SO moist (errh), gooey and rich and delicious!

I’ve already had three 🙂

Now, here’s something else I made:

Wtf right? It iiissss:

Kabocha Squash and Peanut Banana Soft Serve!

Quite the moutful, to say and to eat, but ohholywozer was it iiiiiinncredible.

• roasted kabocha squash – 1/2 c. maybe? I left the skins on :p
• 1 frozen banana
• approx. 1/4 – 1/3 c. frozen melon
• 1/2 serving (15g) peanut flour
• a dash of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 2-4tbsp water (maybe more – it depends on your blender and how thick you like it)

Put everything in the blender, starting with the liquid at the bottom and the hardest thing on top, and BLEND.

Simple but oh so good! I wish my pictures could do it justice – I took a whole bunch, but the nasty yellow lighting in the kitchen + yellow food made for bright orange pics 😥

See? Bah.

There’s also been OIAJ action this weekend:

And more chocolate :p

Sunday now yah? (wow, I cannae believe how long it’s been since I last did a proper post..sheesh.)

Oh, today was a Bad Day. After the success of last Sunday’s 6mile run, and a random one in the week, I was feeling pretty pumped for today! I ate a huge massive apple, wehatgerm and a few other bites before I left, then set out on my merry way. Merry it was NOT.

The Angry Legs were back with a vengeance! Shin pain at times, calf pain at times, alternating the area and amount constantly. One minute my left shin hurt, then that would be ok and my right calf would hurt. It was nasty! There were a lot of tears on that run, a lot of tears…

By the time I got back, I was ready for some stir fried pear, yogurt and date syrup:

(that was really yummy!) And some good ol’ oats:

Whilst the oats were setting, my mum and I went on a 1mile cool down/stretch out walk, and do you know what she did? She offered to pay for a sports physio for me! I almost cried when she offered!!! So yes, this means that I have officially declared war on my blasted legs. Next week will be my 6th week of pain, and really – the joke is wearing thin. Tomorrow morning, I gather my ammo! (ie, make an appointment).

After breakfast, my mum and I decided to take the dawg for a walk in the forest. We thought we’d do about an hour/3miles.…but we got lost. Alone, we can navigate fine. Together? Not so much! We are masters of getting lost 😛 I’m surprised we don’t need a map to navigate our own kitchen sometimes.

So anyway – 5miles/1hr45mins later, we made it back to the car 🙂 We were both hangry for lunch when we got home!

I whipped up a pear-melon-vanilla-banana soft serve:

As well as other bits and bobs, but apparently that is the point where I forgot to photo anything else – abrupt finish, I know!! Other eats did include black bean brownies though, you can be sure of that 😛

Anyway – I have blog work, uni work and sleep work to do now 😀 so I be off. Fare yee well my loves 🙂

Question: Are you good at getting lost?

Best thing you ate this weekend? Mine was the kabocha peanut banana s-s, without a doubt :p orrrr the black bean brownies…..

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Shed some light

Hola chicas! (I am constantly thinking that phrase in my head; that’s what happens when you have a horse named Chika. FYI: Chica means ‘little girl’ in Spanish. See, my blog is so informative ins’t it!! Who needs school?)

Tuesday – the most blah-esque day of the week. Which means this might be the most blah-esque post ever too. I do want y’all to shed some light on something for me thooough – but more on that in a second izntityeh.

Non-blah things – a recreation of yesterday’s disaster-to-delicious oats!! Here’s what I did:

Oatmeal Rice Pudding (cos that’s what it tastes like :D) – based on Katie’s voluminous oatmeal trick.

– 30g oats + 15g rye flakes (or other flakey thing that does not get fat with water, like oats do – you want the chew!)

– 1.5 c. water/milk/mix

– 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

– tiny pinch of salt

– a buttload of cinnamon

– a small ripe pear

– sweetener of choice (maple syrup, brown sugar, fruit syrup, date syrup, agave nectar…your choice. BTW – did you know ‘agave’ is pronounced ‘a-gah-vay’?? Wtf? I always thought it was a-gave. BOOoOOOOoo 😦 no wonder health food store owners look at me funny when I say it. Hmph)

The night before – combine everything apart from the pear and sweetener in a bowl, and microwave for 3-4 mins on a med-high heat. Allow to cool, then fridge overnight. Don’t put it in the fridge hot, cos APPARENTLY if you put warm things in the fridge, the whole fridge temp gets higher, so come morning you’ll have rotten milk and meltyness everywhere, and feel very ashamed. Tip of the day …

In the morning – put the mix into a small baking dish, slice the pear thinly over the top, sprinkle with more cinnamon, and a drizzle of your sweetener. Bake in the over at approx. 160-180 degrees for approx. 25-35mins. Check it after 20 though! This dish won’t ever set like normal baked oatmeal – it’ll stay runny – but it develops the bestest eva texture, flavour, chew and creaminess 🙂

Take out of the oven, and let it cool for a while cos it WILL burn your tongue (and fingers, when you pick out the bits of pear like I did – I eat like a caveman) if you try to dive straight in 😀

I like to transfer mine to a bowl, then pour cold milk over – SO GOOD:

PEAR! It’s in there 🙂 It just does a mighty fine job of moonlighting as oatmeal. Sneaky.

See?

Creamiest thing ever. If you get bored waiting for it to cool, eat frozen grapes:

They are the best thing since fake oat based rice pudding. Ohhhhh yes.

Need more entertainment? Listen/watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cegdR0GiJl4 (I think this is the explicit version, so if you’re feeling precious and sensitive, maybe don’t watch it? / don’t blame me if you get offended, have nightmares, or become obsessed with this song and have it on repeat all evening :P)

Die Antwoord – Enter the Ninja. They played this on the ten minute take over on Greg James’ radio 1 show the other day, and he was all ‘oh no, terrible song, blah blah’ but…I love it! Anyone with me??

Oh yeah – since we’re talking about nuts and bolts (yes, we were. WE WERE.), lunch again moved on from the processed bars! Still rushed (seriously, where do my mornings go?? I don’t get it!) buuuut REAL food:

You don’t really need two pictures of the same thing, but I thought I’d give you two anyway. I’m generous like that 🙂

Remember back in the summer when I was obsessed with them!? Roasted and dried and salted broad beans, chickpeas and soya beans 🙂 made for a super tasty, protein packed quick snacky lunch (@3.10pm – darn the professor who skipped the ‘coffee break’ as he calls it….), alongside cauliflower/parsnip:

Those parsnip puffs…oh boy. SO sweet and puffy and soft! Holy crap I love parsnip.

Not as much as I love seeing my name in print!

My second article in the uni student paper, The Rabbit 🙂

So it was edited again, and they still missed the other ‘t’ off of my last name – but the editing wasn’t as brutal as the last article. I was pretty pleased 😀 I’m now just waiting for Women’s Fitness/ VegNews/ Runner’s World to start a bidding war over who gets to use my services next…watch this space….

——-

OH! I almost forgot! The thing I want you to shed light on –

Last night I couldn’t sleep, so i dug out my Brendan Brazer Thrive Fitness book for some..er…’light’…reading to send me off to nodland. I randomly opened it up to a page, and he was banging on about alkalizing v acidifying (seriously, are those even words, let alone spelt right? I’m seriously tired right now :p) foods, and how the alkaline ones are MUCH better for you, and help with recovery, from general exercise and injuries. My ears pricked up at that bit, seeing as I still have a case of Angry Legs, so want all the help I can get. He didn’t really mention much though about WHAT those foods are, so I was wondering; I know there was a minor blogtrend a while back about alkaline/acid foods, so I was wondering, a) what your thoughts are, b) if you know much about that method of eating, and c) if you’ve actually done it.

Acid vs Alkaline – shed some light plez!

—–

Now, for those of you that asked so kindly – my new CarBaby (still unamed – I want MORE suggestions people! MORE MORE MORE! They’re great so far, so keep ’em coming!) looks like this:

(source)

Not really. She actually looks like this, except a darker blue:

(source)  Note: that’s not my real car, that’s a google-fied image 🙂

A Peugeot 106 🙂 Cute huh? Well worth the three-figure sum I pad 😛 told ya she was cheap!

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Freya Say Relax

Yeah she does.

(source)

You know who needs to relax? Chika baby:

I adore taking photos of horse eyes 🙂

Poor thing, she is SO tense at the moment – after the hunt came through ‘our grounds’ (as the posh folk say :p) the other say – horses, hounds, horns – she’s been a tight ball of tension 😦 Soo today, to RELEASE the fury, I just took her in the school loose and let her do her thang 🙂

Ok, now I got a little carried away :p

How can you not get carried away, photographing Chika!!?? Good gosh I love this mare.

I lova ma baba.

—–

BOOOOOyeah. I finished testing all my five year olds for my dissertation project todayio! And let me tell y’all, what a RELIEF to have that job done! It was kinda fun today – the five year olds I worked with were super sweet (and smart as buttons) and so keen to do the task. AND the school was SO lovely – it made me want to be a primary school teacher! Seriously, it was impossible to feel sad in a school like that. Bright and airy and fun feeling. *Sigh*

Before I left, I fitted in (is that a phrase, ‘fitted in’? Hmm) a workout – Jillian Level 3 30 Day Shred, and a few random other circuits and sections, total time – an hour. I ate a monster apple before, and then had some delish oats after 🙂 Today, I cooked them with a scoop of Vega vanilla-almond mix for an added protein hit:

That would be my own personal crack cereal on top. I’m a cereal addict when it comes to brown crunchy varieties…

`Twas horrendously yummy.

On the side, I had a lil baby orange – now I simply have to show you this photo, as living proof that I could peel the whole skin off in one piece 😀

I still feel so very proud of myself, when I manage that 🙂

Then it was school fun, THEN a baby pear, which I started to eat and then had to chop up cos I still have that nasty mouth ulcer 😦

The sting was worth it though! That beast was full of juice 😀

THEN there was a walk/run, THEN I made a real, proper recipe!

Curried cauliflower rice and lentils!

Hmm..I’m not sure whether to do the recipe today, or do it in my next post as this one is already photo heavy…..maybe next post 🙂 Here’s a taster:

I was actually really quite proud of myself for making something so tasty and different! Maybe I’m clawing my way out of that silly food rut I’ve been in!!?? Herrrre’s hopin’.

Afternoon activities included horsey playtime, flooding the field with water after I forgot to turn the tap off [filling their field water] for the second time today – I like to do my bit for the environment…! -, and baking mocha chip muffins, minus the mocha:

They turned out pretty well considering I didn’t have any soya yogurt, so subbed with 3tbsp soya milk soured with lemon juice 😀 genius right!? I got that tip off of the comments bit on the webpage 🙂 Oh, I am so resourceful sometimes.

So I got my green in me today too, in a form other than muffin cases – a banana-kale-chocolateVegaMix-soya milk green monster:

Doesn’t everyone top their smoothies with bran flakes? No? Just me? Oh ok.

Which was the carby greeness to balance out a chocolate-ofied meal!

Cocoa roasted veggies, with tofu marinated in cocoa balsamic vinegar. Bliss.

(by the by – if you’ve never had a green smoothie, I urge you too! You can NOT taste the green! Start with a handful of spinach, 1/2 – 1 c. milk, and a banana (plus cinnamon, nutmeg, peanut butter – whatever you fancy) and go from there. It’s delicious!)

Obvs I continued the chocolate theme with proper good dark chocolate for dessert 😀

But now, bed time calls me. it’s 11pm on a Friday night, and I literally feel like I’m going to pass out with tiredness. Since when did I become such an old lady!!??

Question: Favourite way to relax?

When do you go to bed? Are you an early bird or a night owl?

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Under the sea

I have trouble sleeping!

A LOT of trouble sleeping! Last night I was practically falling asleep, I was so tired..yet I couldn’t actually sleep. My mind was busy with a billion different things (hence why I have a little notepad by my bed) and last night, I was thinking about blog posts. In a moment of sheer genius (or exhaustion?) I came up with a theme for my post this evening, so i quickly scribbled it down – ‘under the sea…swan lake…friday night…’….saayyaa whaaa-?

I had no idea what all that meant today :p

Til just now, when i looked at my photos, saw the sea spaghetti I ate, and everything came flooding back! See, look: sea spaghetti:

Funky stuff. Dry as a bone, soak it for an hour, it expands like mad and tastes like seaweed;

I paired it with my remaining tofu sea cake at lunch on Sunday:

Along with soy-sauce/garlic stir fried cabbage, and lots n lots (n lots) of veggies.

Can you tell I love my veg? Oh yes. It’s addiction. The sea spaghetti though…meh. I bought it AGES ago as a speshal treat for my fine self, had it once, then forgot about it. I think it had dried out a bit too much and wasn’t as impressive 😦 either that, or I’m losing my health-freak charm alas.

Do pancakes count as healthy? I think they do when you make them with spelt and some other flour and mashed banana right in the batter, with a yogurt/peanut flour/Dessert Dukkah sauce, 1/2 a mashed Nah-Nah, frozen grapes, and puff cereal:

Boi boi!

Obvs, as I liked these, there’s an abundance of similar photos. You know me…

Mini nubbin pancake:

Bliss! That was Sunday’s breakfast though – my rushed Monday morning breakfast did little for the imagination –

• 1/2 c. oats
• 1.5 c. water
• salt
• cinnamon
• vanilla extract
• cold soya milk splashed over at the end

I sat it on Women’s Running magazine so you’d at least have something interesting to look at 🙂

I love plain oats now 🙂 I also love frozen grapes:

And perfectly ripe bubbah pears:

Lunch ( a protein bar, an apple and a cup o’ coffee – yep, told you my eats were dull at the moment! I didn’t have time for anything else before my lecture :() didn’t hold me over thaaaat long, so 3hrs later, it was time for cereal+milk, as soon as I walked through the door:

Actually, the pear came first, cos I wanted to eat something before I did the important-immediate things I had to do asap when I walked in, but whatevz. Noone cares about chronological orders in this day and age.

Dinner was oats. Again. Cooked with carob powder, fruit syrup sweetener, salt, and cooked mashed butternut squash and cinnamon. No picture cos it was ugly and dull :p There was squishy roast parsnips covered in bbq sauce on the side though! Yum 🙂

Dessert today – yep, I’m still at the dark chocolate!

I also had a bite of a chocolate-banana muffin (E,D&BV baking) that I baked as soon as I got home:

Sadly, I wasn’t that impressed 😦 BUT I did change the flours from the recipe without altering anything else, so they were a little dry 😦 I also overmixed. Oh well!

—-

Now, back to the beginning of the post – my weird ramblings that I wrote on my pad? WELL – I remember now – I WAS going to say that the sea spaghetti reminded me of my favourite Disney film, The Little Mermaid (LOVE. it. I fancy Eric!), which reminded me of the highly underrated film cartoon The Swan Princess; dang that was a good cartoon! Odette, I used to love her 🙂 I was THEN going to suggest that you crazy folk head over to Blockbuster on your next Friday night and rent it…but now, this whole blurb doesn’t make as much sense as it did at 1.30am last night. Maybe I’ll stop typing.

—

Running update!

Still hurts 😦 tomorrow, I’m gonna phone up the Quack and try and get an appointment. It’s SO horrible not being able to run. This morning, I set out on a 3mile power walk, but ended up doing a 50minute 4mile walk-run, running til it started to hurt, then walking. I know, I know – not ideal. But oh my GOSH I miss it. When I was running pain-free, it was so effortless and blissful and I felt amazing….I feel like Ben Affleck in Pearl Harbour, when he has crappy eyesight and he says ‘don’t take my wings from me!’ (re his plane). I feel JUST like that; after all, my life is very comparable to a Hollywood world war 2 blockbuster film about blokes 🙂

Question: What’s your favourite Disney film? And don’t say you don’t have one – EVERYONE has at least one Disney film they like!

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Not like the others

Hello chaps.

I’ve written the next bit in italics cos it’s all horseh-horseh related, so I figure if you do care, read ORRN! If you don’t – skip the italics 🙂

So lol HA! I flew my kite today. That would be true if my kite had 4 legs, a lorra fluff and called itself Chika….she’s hardly been ridden the past month or so, due to the generous offerings received from the snow gods, so she was feeling…’somewhat frisky’ – to put it mildly! She was still super obedient to my voice, and she spent the first 15mins on the lunge being an annnnngel. Then, the inevitable happened, and she saw a distant lion. Her tail went up, her neck thickened up like a tbsp of flour to water (eh? what? Isn’t that the most awful simile ever?) and she started doing that snort-thing horses do when they see something spooky/scary. You know the one!? It didn’t help that it was extremely foggy and chilly, and she just wanted an excuse :p

So anyway, when she’s in that mood, when I say canter, she goes ‘yes mother’ – and leaps, bucks and kicks into and during canter! I actually had to drop my whip, use both hands and put my full body weight into leaning on the lunge rein so she wouldn’t completely take off :p Hilarious! I was just thankful I was in gloves….though it was nice; she released her inner-warmblood which I just KNOW is dying to get out; knees up round her chest, elevation like she was on pogo sticks…so good to see. After 10mins of that, I let her off the lunge and just did join up/gallop round the school for a bit. it was fun 😀

——-

Not like the others, I say!? Yez, it’s true. Jenny, of Peanut Butter and Jenny fame, did a post on not being like all the other ‘big’ bloggers (or small bloggers, or healthy living bloggers in general) a while back. It made me thiiiink (never a good thing), and I came up with a few of my own…

1) I have a schmanzy camera like the proper bloggers do. The difference is? I ain’t a clue how to use it right :p (actually one of my New Year’s resolutions IS to learn how to use it to my advantage!). In fact, my ‘arty’ pics are often pretty crap:

Take One:

Take Two:

Take Three:

Take Four:

See? They also regularly come out dark, for no reason:

I’m guessing that’s maybe an …. ISO (?) ….. issue. See, I really am quite dim.

The other fancy-camera biggie – I don’t drag it evvvvverywhere I go – partly I can nay be bother (it’s awkward!) but mainly cos it’s so darn precious! I don’t want to break it – something I am hiiiighly likely to do.

2) I like canned pumpkin – but real pumpkin? I can take it or leave it:

Unfortunately (for that pumpkin), it got left.

3) I love to bake – but I’m no good at baking pretty things! Take my cookies today – they’re not uniform in size, they’re pretty ugly; and even my attempt at Angela-style photography didn’t reaaaaaally work….

The above was to prove my amazing stacking skills, in case they all fell over (they did) before I took them into the big wide world of outside for the Real Photoshoot!

The relegated cookies – deemed too poor to be stacked in the tower:

At least the baking part looked delicious 😀 (that’s date syrup used instead of maple syrup)

With added figs and carob chips instead of apricots 🙂

Chia egg!

In action….

(by the way – the cookies were deLICIOUS! I had one with lunch – very much smile-worthy)

4) However much I’d like to, I never have and never will present my food nicely. Or in small portions. Some bloggers do both, and I read their posts and think ‘oh yes, tomorrow I’ll eat a tiny portion of xyz and make it look preddy’ – then tomorrow comes, and I never do:

Above, was eaten with milky banana steel cut oats, below: *Da BOMB*

Bah, what can I say – I like volume! 😀 Especially when it involves seedy toast, and lots of mushy veggies 😀

Pear on toast? Why not.

5) I love oatmeal, and I now love cereal and [soya] milk. But the thing that makes me different from the blog world? i really can leave the toppings :O. Yep, I kinda LIKE my oats without all the fuss and stuff on top! In fact, I find they get in the way – my brain gets overloaded with all the flavour combinations – which one will be the best, which little bit shall I save til last… – and I find that if I add peanut butter, it inevitably melts into the oats and I end up losing the strong PB flavour kick. It’s sad and woeful! And in regards to cereal? it’s either banana, or no banana:

Don’t even try and be fancy and add pineapple or grapes or – worst of the worst – APPLE to my cereal. It will. not. happen. I will. not. like it.

6) I don’t do yoga.

Well, that’s a lie – I DO do yoga, but my yoga ability is limited to the realms of two MTV power/Ashtanga yoga DVDs, that i have done thousands of times, mastered, but have not looked at in about 6months 😛 Really I feel there’s a closet yogini in me trying to get out – but until I live within screaming distance of a yoga studio, she’s gonna have to keep schtum!

7) I don’t have a husband. Hurrumph.

8) i have a horse instead :p (and two boys named Carter and Kovac!)

9) I’m British. Take THAT, American bloggers!!

10) I have a tendency to start posts off strong and whilst the evening is young, do something else, then come back to them late at night when I’m super tired, want to watch The American Office, read my textbook (Ok, My Sister’s Keeper – I’m bored with the textbook now) and just hit publish. Which is why my reasons stop at 10! I wrote number 9 hours ago – but this last one is all my fuzzled out brain can handle.

ALAS.

Question: How are you different from everyone else?

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The day after the day before

Hello lovelies! Did you all have a fabby Christmas/regular old Satdee? Ours was pretty quiet here (we weren’t even going to do one, til Chrsitmas Eve, when my mum and I finally felt well enough) – we normally have my mum’s parents and my aunt over, but since my mum and i have been suffering from some weird flu-like thing, we decided inviting over two frail 88year olds – whilst we’re sniffing, snorting and coughing everywhere! – was probably not wise. Sooo it was just my mum, stepdad, sister and I. Ah – Hannah!

Hannah came back Christmas Eve, after spending the last 3months in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Uganda and a gazillion other places 😛 First thing she did when she got back? Drove into town to do some last minute shopping 😛 each to their own!

Anyway – Christmas day!

I got up about 7.45 after a pretty crap night of sleep, and took myself for a 7 mile run. Weirdly (despite being flat out and unable to move on Thursday) I now feel fine in my body; I just have the world’s worst cough/throat thing, and as I type I can’t quite breathe through my nose…lovely right? But the run was blissful – quiet, cold, slow, peaceful. My legs felt so strong and fresh, and I wished I could have gone further.

Breakfast was a quick pear/banana EGM without the green, then my mum and i took the dawg for a walk. Theeeeen it was PRESENT TIME! No pictures sadly – so instead you can have a pic of some amazebugs Vega-chocolate-protein-powder-infused-pancakes, with a carob-cherry sauce I had the other day:

Drooling yet?

As well as some sick-person oatmeal I made for my mamma, the day before I caught whatever she had:

I was a good doctor 😀 It’s just a shame that the next day, we were both laid up on the sofa, drugged up with paracetamol, moaning about our aching limbs and pounding heads 😦 Taking hay and water out to the horse – in the sleet – was NOT fun that day.

ANYWAY! Where was I?

I got lots of lovely things from my very generous family 🙂 The best bit was seeing Hannah open up twice the amount of stuff as everyone else; her birthday was Dec 16th, so she got all her b’day presents too 🙂 Twas fun!

Lunch was a quick spur of the moment carrot and potato soup:

It was really, really good! My mum added some peanut butter to it, which gave an ace flavour 🙂 I only had a ladleful though; breakfast for me (as I’d been running) was later than everyone else’s, so I wasn’t hungry. I did have some cereal and yogurt later though (x2! Plus raw Brussels sprouts and random nuts…).

The afternoon was spent prep-prep-prepping! My mum and I act as The Women of the House at Christmas, whilst Hannah and my stepdad are The Men of the House, who metaphorically retire to the dining room to smoke cigars and drink whiskey. Or eat mince pies and read books and play with new toys :p

Anyway – I took charge of Brussels sprouts & carrots (which were boiled), parsnips (roasted in stock, wholegrain mustard, fruit sweetener, thyme) and a modified dish from Veganomicon – butternut squash, roasted with pear, walnuts, maple syrup, mirin and raisins. My mum did the guinea fowl (freshly shot about 3 days ago :s…), roast potatoes and sauce. The spread:

Twas delish! I oblebloosly didn’t have the guinea fowl; instead I made myself sooooome:

Holiday Tofu!

• 1 serving tofu
• juice of a clementine/small orange
• approx. a tbsp/to taste apple balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp sweetener (maple syrup/agave etc etc)
• a couple of tbsps fresh cranberries
• cinnamon, to taste (i like a lot)
• salt, to taste

I started by microwaving the cranberries til they burst and turned mushy (2-3minutes, on about 600). Theeeen I combined everything up, mushed the cranberries a little into the mix, scored the tofu, and marinated it overnight.

A few hours before dinner, I fried it over a low heat (it took about 25mins+ to get where I wanted it).

Pink tofu? At this stage, i KNEW i’d love it :p

Then I set it in a dish, poured the leftover marinade liquid into the pan, and cooked it over a medium heat til it was reduced to a syrupy consistency. Theeeeeeen I poured it over the tofu, heated it up in the microwave just before serving, and voila!

Christmas-y tofu 😀

Before I had that though, we had a small started of fruit (dragonfruit, clementine, kiwi, pomegranate seeds – leftover from LAST Christmas! – dried figs, and frozen grapes, added after the picture):

Then it was time to begin….

Why do they all look so unimpressed by me!!? Pity smiles I tell you, PITY SMILES!

Best parsnips EVER. Fact. Soft and gooey and sweet and full of flavour 🙂

My plate:

You bet I went back from a boatload more parsnips :p and I may have finished off my mum’s sprouts and parsnips too :p Bless her, she still has a tiny weeny appetite thanks to The Illness!

No-one felt like christmas pudding for dessert, so we left it at that (bar a few squares of Lindt for yours truly!!) 🙂 The perfect amount of food in the end! I think the cats appreciated the leftover bird bones though 😛 Animals need a special dinner too!

I’ve now got the rest of the week to look forward to now – which is going to involve some major uni work, Fo Sho’. No slackin’ my end!

Did you all have a simply fahbulous Dec 25th? What did you have for dinner?

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Talk of the Town

Hello hello hello!

Is it possible to overdose on oatmeal? Cos I think i have:

You wouldn’t believe how long I’d been waiting to use that jar!! It was quite possibly, the best meal ever. And enjoyed whilst watching X Factor (Saturday night, breakfast for dinner = perfection).

The very next night, I had oats again – 1/2 c. oats, salt, cinnamon, 1/4c. peanut flour (16g protein, wam bam!), 1 banana. BLISS! In fact, it was so good, I had the exact same mix on Monday night too:

Yez, that’s a Starbucks coffee holder.

My aunt asked my mum to let out her dogs whilst she was away on a business trip, but my poor old mama didn’t get back from work til 7. 1/2hr drive to my aunts + dog walk + 1/2hr drive back meant it’d be a very late dins…so I packed it up 😀 genius right!?

Funnily enough, my mum got home early, and I actually didn’t break into my oats til we got home..so bowl it was:

Something wasn’t right. It wasn’t til the last mouthful when I realised what was wrong – NO PEANUT BUTTER! Oats without nut butter is a sin, A SIN!! Needless to say, I sorted it out pronto 🙂

Much better. [Note: I may have had oatmeal the next night too :p]

What else has happened….oooh! After a week of snow and absolutely ZERO running, by Saturday it had thawed enough for me to venture out – 7 blissful miles later, I was cold and had wet feet, but was very happy 🙂 On Sunday, I did NINE miles! My longest run since the marathon a month ago, and let me tell you – it felt GREAT. I wanted to go further, but I ran out of fuel. Originally I hadn’t thought I’d go that far, so all I had before I left was an apple. Needless to say, by the end of 9miles, I was flagging somewhat, which was a shame 😦 I can’t wait to get my mileage up again though – all this talk of marathon training and recaps floating about the blog world is inspiring me 😛

Talking of…er…talking….anyone noticed the pumpkin trend seems to be on its’ way out? Boooo to that! Especially since I ate the most yummiest pumpkin dish EVEr t’other night!

I used Mama Pea’s pumpkin tofu curry as a base, but made a few alterations and totally altered the technique…and now it’s been about 5 days since I had it and I can’t for the life of me remember what I did different!! D’oh. Anywhoooo, look:

Tofu:

Millet + durum wheat pumpkin curry mix:

Added together:

= pure yum!

I was very proud of my inspired-and-altered creation. I just wish I could remember what I’d done!!?? Meh.

Just randomly – tofu and pear goes well together 🙂

You heard it here first!

You also got reminded of peanut butter and nooch covered parsnip fries here first:

Oh yeaaaah. Best thing ever! Served alongside a roasted veggie sandwich, and toast+yogurt:

I’ve been maaajjorly craving dry, burnt toast recently. Weird right? Does anyone else like dry toast, or am I alone!!??

—

Other talks of the town recently (besides oatmeal and pumpkin :p) have been SNOW! England came to a standstill last week with all the crazy ice and minus-temperatures. – so much so, my exam got cancelled! It’s now rescheduled for tomorrow 😦 But anyway – [post] snow pics!

So creepy and foggy…this was about 3pm!

Bored yet? I don’t care, there’s more :p

herro Chika!!

Spot the dog!

The end 🙂 Of the photos and of the post – I have a heck of a lot of work to get through 😦

Buuuut I do have a topic I really really want to blog about in my next post! It’s quite..important? to me – a big thing! But until then, I’ll leave you with some proof of my sheer stupidity – About a 1/2hr ago, I smashed an ENTIRE jar of runny honey, all over the floor. I then proceeded to slam my knife down on the counter, which bounced and smashed the sugar jar too. Wahey.

Have you ever done anything like that?

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Desert Island Questions And TWO recipes!

YO!

My New York based tall blonde American friend Gabriela tagged me in that quiz that’s been going round – so here goes!

1. What is your biggest fear? (It can be silly or real) Dying alone, fire, drowning, my horse/mum/sister getting hurt or injured, spiders, the end of my garden when it’s dark.

2. If you were onstage at a karaoke bar, what would you sing and why? Oh heck…probably that song that Bridget Jones sings [really badly] in the film, so I could re-live the moment :p

3. Do you write in print or cursive? In all honesty, I don’t know what that means :p is it like, do I write in capitals!? If that’s the question, then no.

4. Have you ever been fired from a job? Nope 🙂

5. If you could go to the Olympics for any sport, which would you choose? Dressage, or gymnastics, cos it would AWESOME to be that bendy!

6. How many cell phones have you owned? Hmm…my first one, a tiny Nokia, a pink flip phone, another phone, my current phone. You count.

7. What’s your sign (wink wink)? Gemini 🙂 And if you’re Chinese, I’m also a dragon! Or a horse…I can’t remember which….

I now tag the first seven commenters to answer the same questions 🙂

————

Bah, I have TWO recipes today! TWO! TWO!

But I’ll get to them later.

Firstly, I want to make y’all go to this link, cos it’s funny 🙂 and it reminded me of a) being boyfriend-less (running is better than a bf – read the link and the world’ll make sense :)) and then it made me remember b) why I should be GLAD I am lonely and single – I can cook whatever I like, I can turn the light on in my room when i get up early, as opposed to worrying I’ll wake up Mr Boyfriend with the light, I can choose to travel round the world [if the desire strikes…], I can see chick flicks in the cinema without moaning, I can use my passenger seat in my car to seat my bag (aka junk and rubbish) instead of a lump of human. And above all – I can have a Huskey dog named Princess PuffleBomp*, and no-one will complain 🙂

*it goes well with my alter ego, don’t you think? ‘Princes Freya the Third, PhD’ <- as I’m known by Amazon :D)

How about you? Are you a single lady, or did someone put a ring on it?

Moving on – Recipe time!

Chocolate lentil and chickpea stew:

Chocolatey, nutritious, and ever-so comforting 🙂 (makes one serving, although the more veg you add, the bigger the meal…)

– 100g cooked chickpeas (I got mine from a can)

– 25g uncooked red lentils

– approx. 1tbsp cocoa powder

– 1/3 ish of a stock cube

– 1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

– approx. 1tbsp tomato puree

– 1 tsp maple syrup (or agave, or whatever)

– 1-2tsps dried thyme or mixed herbs (I can’t actually remember what I used…!!)

– 1-2 tsps molasses (optional)

– veg! As much or as little as you want. I used a mix of butternut squash, carrot, parsnip, leek and broccoli, all cut into small-ish, even sized chunks.

Also, do note that I don’t measure spice/flavouring ingredients, I just wing it, so measurement are approximate 🙂

1) Chop all the veggies:

Ugly parsnip optional:

And gather stuff together:

2) Throw everything into a saucepan:

3) Put it on a medium-high heat (I used the ‘less hot’ of the 2 Aga hot plates), mix it all around and cook it for a few mins, stirring lots and lots so it doesn’t catch.

When it’s all fragrant (it should be fragrant – alternatively, just give it a few mins then move on :p), add in enough water to aaaaalmost cover, but not quite:

4) Put a lid on it (maybe leave a little crack open for steam escape purposes), have it on a medium ish heat (you want it simmering) and let it do its’ thaaaang for about 40mins, or until the lentils are cooked and the veg is very soft, almost mushy! Keep stirring it during that time every now and then, so everything gets cooked evenly, and if it runs out of water, add more. After all, a little too much water is better, because you can always put it onto a high heat and steam the water away.

5) Serve!

Yes, it is an ugly dish, and probably not something you’d want to cook for a crowd to impress them with your incredible culinary skills – purely cos they’ll think you just sicked up on a plate and called it dinner. BUT, it IS delicious! So much so, I made it the next day too 🙂

I used aubergine and brussels sprouts instead of leek and carrot and broccoli, which was fine – but I did forget the garlic, and it wasn’t quite as nice without it. Remember those cloves, folks!

Recipe Two time 🙂

Spicy Pumpkin, Red Lentil and Chickpea Smush:

Is it a soup? Is it mush? I’m not sure. It’s yum though! I wanted something lentil-y for lunch, and I also had *40g* of chickpeas from my can left over (from yesterday), so I made this 🙂

– 50g red lentils

– 40g cooked chickpeas (ie the rest of the can, if you made the previous recipe twice :p)

– 1/3 ish crumbled stock cube

– a large 1/2 tsp mild curry powder

– 1/2tsp – 1 tsp cinnamon

– 1/2 tsp ish garam masala

– 1 garlic clove, minced or finely chopped

– 100g canned pumpkin (English people – go to WAITROSE for your pumpkin!)

– approx. 1 tsp molasses

1) gather:

2) Fry the chickpeas and garlic in spray oil/oil for a few mins on a medium heat:

3) Then add the lentils and spices, and fry til fragrant. Then, add in the stock cube, dissolved in hot water. I don’t know how much water you add, but it needs to be enough for the lentils to cook in. They should cook for about 20-25mins or so, and the mix will look something like this:

4) Get yo’ pumpkin and molasses:

And stir them in:

Heat it up again, and serve it in a big old mug, a la me 🙂

I actually can’t believe how delicious that was!! Spicy, comforting, full of flavour – absolutely perfect for the minus–degree day! I was a sad, sad woman when I finished it 😦

———

I’ve been on a cooking kick actually 🙂 Tonight I made a majorly modified version of Mama Pea’s pumpkin tofu curry, which I’ll show y’all next time 🙂 I’ve also been making a ton of frothy cappuccinos, using good ol’ Vincent the Vita Mix! With this fabby coffee:

Er, yum.

They are incred 😀 who needs Starbucks right?

I also made THE most delicious pancakes the other night! i mean, really:

Heaven!

And to go with lunch today, I had soya yogurt with mushy pear (a baby ripe pear, cooked with vanilla essence, maple syrup and water, til it went soft and caramel like):

As well as ketchup roasted veg:

BUT the biggest event the past few days has been the SNOW! And lots of it!!

Ok, so fair play – if you live in the Arctic, or Canada, this is nothing. But to England it’s a Big Deal 😛 Heck, Chika’s whiskers were frozen the other morning!!

Hannah – no more complaining! That’s TIG rolling in the snow!

Snow pony!

Snow mummy!

Snow land 🙂

Below – standing – full weight – ON the water bucket, showing how thick the ice was!

Horse people – have you ever tried that trick of putting a ball or something floaty in water, to stop it freezing? Does it work?

Deep!

And to round off this epically long post – here are the usual cat pics 🙂 Until next time!

Bless 🙂

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Sometimes…

….all you want is a big plate of veggies!

More than once too:

Below would be shredded brussels sprouts stir fried with hoi sin, garlic, soy sauce and roasted parsnip:

Quite possibly one of the best plates ever.

Plates of veggies can be in blended form too – pear, leek, garlic, maple syrup, celeriac, parsnip + mixed spice:

All cooked of course 🙂 [sometimes these good combos get repeated…three times!)

Sometimes, I get bored of Green Monsters for breakfast (actually, that is happening A LOT – I can’t remember the last time I had one!), so I venture out….

I saw an idea on Gena’s blog, so I ran with it 🙂 This morning’s mix was simply pumpkin, water, salt, agar powder (yeah, that did NOTHING. Fail.), mixed spice and cinnamon and molasses, heated up on the stove and topped with 1 tsp maple syrup:

Oohh my! Served with a side of puff 🙂

Sometimes, it’s good to just honour what your body craves. Even if it is a plate of roast veg at 5pm. And even if it does ruin your appetite for dinner! But it’s all about balance – I know that if my ‘lunch’ ends up being only a small English muffin at 2pm and some veg at 5pm, because that’s all I’ve had time for, that’s ok – cos I can make up for it with different meals later on! A whole cup of oats for dinner, cooked with roasted and mashed squash, for example…or one too many cappuccinos whilst running errands in town 😛

Balance, and listening to what my body really wants, is something I’ve struggled with post-marathon. During marathon training, it was all eat eat eat, to fuel for the marathon. But when I got home afterwards, I felt lost! No more marathon to fuel for…and it’s been..4 or 5 yrs? since I’ve had to eat ‘normally’ (no starving, no gaining, no marathon-eating – just maintaining), and let me tell you – it’s been tough! Am I eating too much? Too little? I’m still running about 20miles a week, and doing workout DVDs, but knowing how much to eat….WHAT a kerfuffle.

My running times have been ACE – my pace is back to about 8.25 min/mile!!!! – which suggests that I’m eating right. BUT I think I’m eating far, far less than I used to! It’s somewhat confusing. Somewhat being an understatement…I feel like I’m running through a wood blind! Plus, I seem to have NO appetite at the moment – I’m so extrrrrremely stressed at uni, and busy, and food feels like an inconvenience atm! I just never, ever want to eat, which makes it 10x harder to listen to my body and eat naturally. Hurrumph.

Do any of you lose your appetite when your stressed? What do you do? Do you think it’s better to just eat when/if you get hungry, or do you think it’s better to make yourself eat at set times/meals? Advice appreciated!

Random other happenings – we totally lost ALL our electricity the other day!! Some cable blew underground, so on pretty much the coldest night this year, I was lying in bed, shivering and cold- I even had to resort to a massive hoodie to keep warm! Drastic measures for someone who normally wakes up too hot 😛 The next morning wasn’t fun either – it was still pitch black at 6am, and all I had was my phone light and a candle* to get dressed, do my hair, do my make-up, and get out the door! Gah. Anyway, we now have a generator (a massive ugly thing that sounds like a tractor is sitting in our drive) to give us power til the problem is fixed…..it better not break. There is SNOW on the ground right now!

HOW we lived without electricity is beyond me……

*Don’t leave candles alone – they drip wax EVERYWHERE:

————————-

I’ve been on cat-kick 🙂 Carter and Kovac looked SO adorable the other day, I couldn’t resist taking a ton more photos!! Enjoy 🙂

Old man face!!

Carter?

Or paw?

i swear I should re-name this blog CrazyCatLadyRuns,,,,

🙂

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A Linner Worth Blogging About

Happy Hump Day!

Oof, it’s been a while hasn’t it? I still have a post-marathon post in the works (it’s requiring a lorra thinking…), combined with some…homework…shall we say!? It’ll make sense when the time comes! But in the meantime, I have to do a quick foodie post and tell y’all about the best lunch/dinner (LINNER! Get it? Clever, I know.) I had the other day!

Preceding the yummy linner was a FABULOUS 5mile run – I felt GREAT. Like, the best I’ve felt in sooo long. I was fast! 5miles done and done in 42mins, averaging an 8.33 pace. Boy did it feel good..weirdly, I’d had lectures all morning and had hardly had a chance to eat much – a small bowl of cereal, an apple, and this:

A Pulsin’ energy bomb disc!

I’d been up since 6.30 and didn’t run til 1.45pm..but I just didn’t get hungry! (don’t worry, I made up for it later :p). But anyway – the Pulsin’ disc, I swear it was made of rocket fuel. I’ve never had one before a workout before, but obvs it works 😀 As does a pretty empty stomach for a workout. Yet more proof IMHO that my marathon-mistake of eating too much was my downfall….

ANYWAYZ. Before I went for the run, I’d prepped a nice veggie-butterbean stew, so it’d be all ready to eat when I got back:

Parsnip, sprouts, celeriac, cauliflower (honestly: does anyone actually LIKE cauliflower? I ate it cos it needed eating..but it really is the most dull veggie). The base of the stew involved tomatoes, molasses, marmite, tomato puree, vegan worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, other stuff I can’t remember…

Annoyingly, it was the last thing I wanted when I got back though After some ummm-ing and aahh-ing and kitchen rumaging (is that a word?), I decided on this…

A breakfast cookie, with a maple and vanilla pear sauce!

Cookie:

– 50g oats

– 1 medium ripe mashed banana

– 1/2 tbsp pea protein powder

– 1 spoon of cacao powder (you could use cocoa powder – but cocoa powder is less sweet, so you might want to add in some agave or maple syrup or something to compensate)

– tiny splash of soya milk

Mash mash mash.

I stuck it in the microwave for a minute or two before I topped it with the sauce, to heat through.

Pear and vanilla sauce:

– 1 tiny baby ripe pear, chopped up

– 1/4 cup soya milk (the milk I used – So Good – has quite a sweet, vanilla-ness to it, so if you make this, you might want to alter the amount of sweetness you use, and maybe add a 1/2tsp vanilla essence

– 1 tsp maple syrup

– a few chugs of salt

– cinnamon

I stuck it all in a non-stick pan, and let it simmer (with lots of stirring) over a medium-ish heat for..10mins maybe? Til it thickened anyway 🙂 Like the above photo!

Theeeeen, it was ready to top off the heated up cookie 🙂

Uh, talk about DELICIOUS heaven on a plate! Soooooooooooooo good 😀

Whilst we’re on the subject of delicious food……some other foodie happenings:

Mama Pea peanut butter cookies (except I used sunflower butter):

I got them out too early and when it came to lifting them off the tray, they broke…

…a few more minutes more cook and they were perrrfect 🙂

Sprinkled with salt and sugar – MADE the cookie!

I think I’m getting how to bake cookies now 😀

The most yummiest snack ever – oatbran, cooked with a spoon of chocolate Vega smoothie mix, with yogurt stirred in at the end:

Holy yum. I’ve had that twice!

Big old English muffin/tofu burger sandweeches:

Again with the holy yum. That burger was one juicy biatch!

Sharonfruit and cinnamon:

Holy yum x 3.

Pear, chickpea and soy sauce stir fry:

With kale crisps on the side:

And many, many bowls of oatmeal. And cereal:

And brussels sprouts 😛

But enough from me – it’s late and I badly need my bed!!! Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get up my deeper and more meaningful post 😛 Stay tuned!

Question: Best thing you’ve eaten in the last week?

Have you ever seen 300 Days of Summer? I’m re-watching it atm…it’s like, my favourite film 🙂

(ps – do you follow me on Twitter? BritChickRuns!)

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