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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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 🙂

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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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The Month Of Hannah’s Birthday

In just a matter of hours, I can scream:

Pinch, Punch, First of the Month!

So, sooo rarely do I ever remember to say that on the actual first, so let’s just say I’m excited 🙂 In fact, I’m excited about December in general!

– Christmas. The little kid in me just LOVES everything to do with Christmas! Presents (receiving AND giving <- more so the latter, as I get older, uglier and wiser :p), time off from uni (it’s still so manic), time spent with my beautiful Chika, and with my beautiful boys:

Sick of cat photos yet!?

– Hannah’s birthday! Yep, my sister is turning 22years old on Dec 16th…sadly, she won’t be home, as she’s still on her gap year. BUT she does arrive home at stupid o’clock on Christmas Eve morning! I’m secretly quite excited about that…though I know it’ll wear off soon enough :p

– cooking! I cannot WAIT to have more time to cook and be creative and generally have more fun with my food 🙂 I feel like my meals have been somewhat repetitive recently – and very, very babylike*

Yeah, no sooner do I say that Im sick of green monsters, do I start having them again :p

*ie, mush!

i did make an aaaamzaing tomato and lentil soup t’other day though:

  

It’ll be going on the Christmas day lunchtime menu 😀

Other note-worthy eats? Hmm…butter beans cooked with vanilla and soya milk and maple syrup and cinnamon and thyme:

Attractive? No. Delicious? Yes.

Pumpkin cappuccino!!

Coffee, milk, pumpkin,mixed spice – bing bam bang bong!

Carob pancakes 😀

With a peanut butter sauce…holy yum.

Chocolate peanut butter on a wholemeal English muffin:

New Cif bar flavour pre-run the other day:

Hmm…The jury is out – I’m not sure about this flavour. It was OK…but it sure wasn’t brilliant 😦

– Playing in the SNOW!

We’ve had so much of it here!!

It was so heavy today that I didn’t have to make the 1hour drive into uni 😀 bliss!

—

Just 3 more weeks or so, then I’ll be off for almost a month…so. excited.

Question: What are you getting excited about? Asides from the obvious (Christmas!) of course 😛

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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:

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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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It’s all in a sandwich

Happy Friday lovelies!

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ll know this already –

I don’t like sandwiches.

Seriously, how often do you see a sandwich or a wrap appear on here? Hardly ever, that’s how oft! I find bread very blaaah. My mum and sister go wacky over fresh crusty bread (as do a number of bloggers), but I’ve just never got it… In the past 6 or 7 months, there’s been 2 sandwiches I’ve liked. One was a tempeh, banana and peanut butter sandwich, and one was a roasted veggie sandwich. But, my dears, the other day, I had the sandwich DREAMS are made of!

It involved hummus and canned pumpkin….

….spread thickly on seedy wholemeal toast (fyi, random side note: Jesus Walks by the one and only Kanye just came on the radio..PARTY IN MY HEAD! Ever since I saw Jarhead, I have LOVED that song! Bliss.):

Then piled with roasted mushy aubergine:

I then stuck it in the keep-warm oven for 10mins or so, so it went REALLY crispy and hot through.

Oooooooooooooh my days.

Never have I had such a gooey, delicious sandwich! Seriously!! I mean, it must’ve been good – I’ve just dedicated a post to it!! It was even good enough to repeat the next day too, with the addition of some roasted mashed kabocha:

GOO!!!

Happy days 🙂

All my other eats kinda paled in comparison to be honest 😦 But some highlights, food wise? Reduced-to-clear blackberries:

Reduced-to-clear sharonfruit (permissons or something, to all you crazy Americans):

I worked out if you go into a supermarket [Waitrose] the minute it opens [cos your bladder is about to burst], you can pick up a ton of bargains 😛 (ohemgee, fyi, the same radio station is now playing a song by Notorious B.I.G and co, which I love! You know, the one that was released a few years back – Nasty Girl -, despite the B.I.G bloke being dead for years…beyond the grave singing. Quite a talent!)

I had the best tempeh the other night too – after reading a post by my fellow horsey blogger about steaming tempeh, I decided to go for it. I steamed my T for 10mins, then marinaded it in a white wine vinegar/smoked garlic/soy sauce/maple syrup/something else which I forget mix, I fried it and the result was the most succulent lump of soy I’ve ever had!

The photo does it NO justice.

Today’s breakfast was somewhat random – an out-of-date Mojo bar.

As you do. I was in a rush!!

But lunch…oh did lunch make up for my breakfast! I made parsnip, maple and apple ‘soup’!!

A tiny weeny apple cooked with a chunk of leek, mixed spice and EVOO spray:

When mushy, I added in 1 tsp maple syrup and a load of parsnip chunks, with weak stock for boiling:

It simmered away for however long it simmered away for, til the parsnips were all soft. While it was cookin’ up a storm, I made a tiny roasted salad – kale, kabocha, broccoli:

Hurrah!

By the time I’d eaten that, I’d also blended the soup and was ready to eat it, with a blob of soya yogurt:

See, I very loosely use the term ‘soup’. I don’t like watery soup (blates), but add more water in to get the consistency you like 🙂

oooyyyy vveeeyyy! It was soososososos DELICIOUS!!! Party in the tummy, I tell ya.

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In other news:

Obama came back (whenever I say that, I want to start rapping ‘Baby got back’. Mah! It takes some real self-control to defeat the urge!). She’s a weird one. She disappears for a month, then appears – looking fat and shiny – and hangs about for a week. Then she goes, and the cycle repeats. Honestly, if she was in the army, she’d get shot for deserting. Maybe I should dig out my gun, no?

In more, other, news:

I had a lovely jubbly 5mile run this week 🙂 my first one since…my 7miler the other week!? The weather has been AWFUL all week; gales, rain, wind (a lady died!), so I’ve been sticking to indoor workouts. It felt GREAT to be out!

In more, more, other, news:

I think I have a post coming up soon about Life Post-Marathon. Eating, exercising, that kinda thing. It’s been interesting!

By the by – you probably don’t watch X Factor, nor care about it. But that does little to put me off. Check out my favourite X Factor performances 🙂

My fave boy, Matt, who I want to win:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-5M93tovEs

My other fave boy, Aiden (he’s 18!! yet I find him incredibly attractive….:p):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwfNexdaIdU

Mary Tesco:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr4Zfhox3t0

Matt’s audition – don’t you LOVE him!!??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSph1cRiG4M

Uh..I’ll leave it at that. Believe me, I could go on and on and on……

Oh no! One more song I’ve been loving:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkcrNAQbU2Q

Loooooooveeee it.

Question: Any Brits out there watching X Factor? Who do you love/hate? For me – LOVE Matt, Aiden and Rebecca! HATE Cher, Katie and Wagner 🙂

(PS – I don’t seem to be updating my recipe page atm..BUT when I make something I feel is recipe-worthy, I tend to tag it under ‘Recipe’. So if you have too much free time, feel like trawling through back posts, and want to cook something you probably won’t like all that much, you know where to go! :p)

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The Fear Factor

Ok. So I consider myself to be quite tough, in that I’m not scared of much – snakes; love them. Sharks; want to swim with them. But there are some things which I just can’t stomach….

Yes, spiders! Ohmygosh, I have a strong fear of them! Soo..you can imagine my horror after what happened this arvo…..

It was mucking out time with the horses, so I went upstairs, changed into my horsey-jumper-and-trousers combo, and went into the kitchen to grab a drink. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted it – a HUGE big brown spider, sitting on my shoulder!!! It was MASSIVE! And heck knows how it got there!!?? And to top it off, the bugger wouldn’t get off, despite my screams (yes, real screams!), jigging about the kitchen and cries of ‘GETOFFGETOFFGETOFF!!!!!’. In the end, I had to grab the nearest weapon in proximity to me (a knife) and flick it off. When it landed, I trapped it under a glass so my mum could dispose of it humanely.

It was a horrible, scarring experience.

I cried (real tears :p) and was shaking for a good 10minutes afterwards….but the worst part of the whole sordid tale? When I came back in, the spider was GONE from under the glass…….

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Luckily, spiders didn’t fill my morning with terror, just the afternoon! Which meant I was up bright and early (well, 7.50am) for an 8mile run. I ate a serving (45g) of Grape Nuts, with 2 rice cakes and 2 tsps wheat germ, before heading out to tackle the run.

9.02

9,02

8.52

8,54

8.52

8.56 (I ate 2 dates after this mile)

8.45

9.03

= 1hr11

It was an OK run – ie no leg pain 😀 – but for some reason, I just wasn’t feeling it 😦 My nose was running like mad (though I see that as a good thing – I picture my nose to be made of a village of 17th century farmers, who were waving pitch forks and crying ‘EXEUNT!’ and ‘be gone with yee!’ at the virus germs- hence the nose running :p)… but after my 16miler last weekend, I feel like I’ve lost my mojo slightly. Thankfully, this week is a taper week, so I only have 12 to run on Sunday, which is surely a good thing 😀

Breakfast was gonna be oatmeal, but then I heard the Call of the Wild (an Epic Green Monster)! However, I was out of spinach and green leafy things, so I replaced them with a small pear. All the usual mix, thrown into Vincent, resulted in this:

A big bowl o’ heaven!

I made a grave, grave mistake though…I ate it really late! I didn’t actually finish it til gone 11 :S So it was more of a brunch…

Morning/early afternoon – I jumped Chika in the field! I haven’t jumped her in about 6months, and I haven’t been in the field for years – literally! In fact, the last two times I went in there, I fell off….yeah. Anyway – she was super! Perfect strides, keen but controlled, bouncy and happy…I was thrilled 😀

Lunch was somewhat late – I prepped it early so I could have it when I got hungry, but the hunger never came. When 3pm rolled round, I just ate anyway.

I made a kind of blended potage of apple, crazy squash, left over carrot, cinnamon, mixed spice, date syrup & maple syrup, water, salt and pepper:

(random – guess what topics I’m interested in at the moment!? :p)

Ha! Anyway, I digress.

I served it with a load of cereal:

However, it didn’t look…right. So I added in a side of these:

But I still wasn’t happy 😦 So I added in a fig and red kidney beans:

Still not what I wanted….so I replaced the quinoa snack with roasted spicy chickpeas:

Much better! I was happy 😀 The potage thing was annoying though; it was tasty, but something was missing…I’m not sure what, but it wasn’t quite THERE. Hmmmmmm……

Dessert was a square of 85% Lindt <- I think I’m actually addicted :p

The rest of the afternoon was spent eating my own weight in wild blackberries. Seriously, if fast food or sweets tasted half as good as blackberries, I would be 10x larger than I am!!

Dinner last night was deeeeelicious – I cooked up a lentil/buckwheat mix (is buckwheat the new durum wheat?), with added tomato puree, vegan Worcestshire sauce, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper, and molasses. I stirred in cooked roasted parsnip and carrot, and served it with roasted squash, and tempeh topped with hummus:

My camera kept making the pics orange, so I did them black and white 🙂

Freakin delightful meal.

I felt like a little dessert later on, so I had some yogurt and 2 squares of Lindt – one was 85%, one 90%:

I was going to do a taste test, to see which I preferred…but I forgot which was which :p alas! It was still yum though 😀

Anyways – I need to go and be productive and cook dinner and talk to my mum and other fabby things 😀 You all have a lovely Thursday evening – tis an order!

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What do you have a phobia of, or are scared of? (wow, that’s a poorly put together sentence :s sheesh)

Does anyone have any questions they want answered on veganism? I had a reader request to write a part of a post on a few points, so I just wondered if any of you had any more questions 🙂 Feel free to Formspring (Ask Me Anything page) me, leave a comment or email 🙂

(Ps – no Carter last night, again! Poor baby was accidently shut in the living room overnight :p he just can’t win!)

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