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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Clubbin it

Yawwwww, you guys are the bestest!! Thank you all SO much for every single comment left on my last post. Seriously! I’m sorry I haven’t been able to reply to them all, but I did (and always do) read every single one. It was really interesting to read everyones’ opinions on the matter, and it has helped me make a decision – I’ll post about it another day though, cos I want to show y’all some tasty food eats from the past few days 😀

I really love just posting pictures of my food – it is SO useful to look back on when I’m having inner turmoil and confusion over what to eat for dinner or lunch or breakfast :p There’s still a definite theme going on though….

– oats [in a jar x 2, + multiple times randomly for dinner. I don’t do oats for breakfast anymore, it’s ALL about the dinner]:

– Oats (Irish steel cut, cooked with salt and Nooch) with pumpkin chickpeas, and roast puff parsnips:

Snow! Snow! Snow! In the background! Crikey, it was like, -a billion degrees today. SO COLD.

Served with a side of soy sauce stir fried cabbage and brussels, sprinkled with Nooch:

Bro, yo, it was sik.

– Green Monsters that are super duper thick:

With or without the green 🙂

That grape-one one was made with cereal, soya milk, banana, pumpkin, (ohemgee my favourite J.Lo/ LL Cool J song just came on the radio!! Ha), cinnamon, vanilla and it was freakin GROOVY.

I’ve also been making lots of roast veggies, OBVS:

The day I do a food post without roasted veg featuring is the day that Brad and Jen get back together/Arnold circa 1990 comes and marries me.

Check out this Brussels sprout:

That’s a whole one! How adorable!! I just couldn’t resist taking a picture, which I now realise probs make me a liiiiittle bit of a loser…but oh well.

The other day though, wowzer, I did this really cool mix – roast aubergine (roasted til it turns to that gross mushy goo), scraped out of the skin [note: I did still eat the skin; I LOVE roast aubergine skin!!]

Then mashed with maple syrup, cinnamon and PUMPKIN, then spread on a toasted English muffin:

Ohhhhh yeah. That’s where it’s at my lovestuds!!

Talking of amazingly delicious foods – try coating roast veg in a mix of sweetener (honey, agave, maple, whatever you like), with dried thyme, a tsp+ of wholegrain mustard, and a tiny tiny tiny bit of stock, like so:

Then bake it all in the oven – I normally do 10mins in the super hot bit of the aga, then another 10 in the slightly-less-hot bit of the aga (I realise that is SUPER unhelpful). It gives the veg a lovely puffy sweet inside, with a slightly crispy inside, epsec parsnips. Best thing ever!

In other tasty news – I broke out the soya mince t’other lunchtime. I know it’s pretty naughty stuff, but once in a blue moon, I like it 🙂 To jazz it up, I fried a mini onion with a tomato and balsamic and dried thyme, with a splash of stock, then mixed it all with the soya mince. Served on a slice of toast (which went mushy, and I loooooved the mushy toast the moast <-see what I did? A typo that I decided to keep 😛)

It was rather yummy, and verrrry comforting for a hungry cold ladyface 🙂

More tasty news – I mastered the art of a delicious pumpkin cappuccino:

1/2 cup soya milk, 1/2 c. hot water, 1 tsp coffee, a tiny tiny tiny BABY size pinch of sugar, a shake of cinnamon, approx. 2tbsp pumpkin, blend blend blend.

Thick, creamy and deeeeeelicious!

OH! More news – I joined a running club!! I went to my first run Tuesday last, and although it took them HALF AN HOUR to get started (I got v cold, it was pitch black and 7pm) it was good 🙂 No-one my age…I ran with a middle aged woman (x3) and a retired GP – but still fun! When I got home, I made the tastiest chickpea red lentil pumpkin curry:

So warming after such a cold evening 🙂 (YES Matt (above) won X Factor!!!! I voted abooout 13 times. It makes up for the fact that Rhydian didn’t win, nor Olly, in previous years)

But here’s the biggest news – ever since I saw my step brother eat a bowl of milk, with floaty bits of cereal, when I was about 8years old, I have hated cereal and milk. The idea, the look, the smell, the texture: it made me gag. A few months ago though, after realising that I LIKED soy milk as is, I tried a splash of it on my cereal. It was ok….since That Day, I have repeated the process. Today, I went one step further – I had a proper bowl of cereal, with a sliced banana, cinnamon, and a full up 1/2 cup soya milk!!!

Oh. My. Days. It was actually tasty! I LIKED the taste. The cereal went soggy, and I LIKED it. It was AMAZING. A momentous day, a day I will think back on with fond memories. And you know what? This happened:

And it was the BEST BIT! I’m a changed woman! What’s become of me!!??

Tell me – do you like soggy cereal? (I do) Mushy food? (I do)

Are you a member of any clubs?

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Totally random – but my mum went to her work Christmas do today – look how lovely she looked!!

Isn’t she beautiful!? I hope I look that good when I turn 26 🙂

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Milestones + Pink Meals + New Methods

I’ve reached over 100,000 page views since I started my blog!! HOORAY! Granted, it’s taken my since January to get there, but who cares!? Plus, 91,000+ of those 101,000 have been as Brit Chick Runs, the name I changed to in March (before, I was Food, Fitness and Freya). One small step for Blog Kind, one big step for Brit Chick Runs….

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I officially had the BEST dinner last night! Remember the mystery meal I’d been prepping? Well, this is what I made:

Butterbean and beet burgers!! The beet was only there to give some colour really, cos I wanted something pink :p

I started by mashing a 1/2can (125g ish) butter beans with some rosemary and garlic seasoning (I added in lots):

Then I mashed in about a 1/4c. grated beetroot:

And mixed it together somethin’ silly:

A scant tbsp of vital wheat gluten and 1/2 a flax egg were added (1/2 tbsp of flaxseed allowed to sit for a while with 1.5tbsp water):

Mash mash mash, add a bit more smoked garlic:

Then leave to chill 🙂

When it came to cooking, I fried them in a pan – technically I could have done it for a lot longer to get a crispier edge, but I was not feeling patient :p

Alongside, I had the BEST durum wheat/lentil mix! 20g durum wheat cooked with 30g lentils, with 1/3 veggie stock cube, water, smoked garlic, thyme and wholegrain mustard (and a few random edamame beans):

  For my veg, I AGA(!)-roasted beets, kabocha and parsnip, with garlic, rosemary and agave. All together –

A freaking fabulous and colourful delicious (and very, very large…) meal!!!

Weirdly, it was the burger I was most looking forward too – yet it was the durum wheat/lentil thing which was the tastiest! Definitely something I want to do again 😀

WIN!

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I had a 7mile run on the cards today..it felt like such a long way this morning! I decided to stoke up on the carbs before I left, eating 4 little rice cakes, some Bear granola nibbles, and my usual 2tsp wheatgerm:

The rice cakes and the granola came in at about 42g carb, which I felt was pretty impressive 😀

Whilst I was eating, I was catching up on blogs – a post on Tina’s caught my eye, which mentioned the walk-run method of running; I pricked my ears right up! See, back in the day (aka when I was still a loony :p), I used to see walking as forbidden territory. If I walked, I felt like a failure. Now however, I allow myself the odd little 30second walk if I need it during a run. I find it helps me mentally and physically. I’ve thought about the walk-run method before, but I always thought it would mean my pace would be really slow and it wouldn’t really work..but after glancing over these three articles:

Jeff Galloway

Runner’s World

Active

….I decided to test it out on my 7miler!

You know what? It was brilliant! After reading the articles, I decided to do 5mins running, with 1minute walking. I think my splits speak for themselves:

1 – 8.41

2 – 8.49

3 – 8.35

4 – 8.20

5 – 8.22

6 – 8.31

7 – 9.08 (I think I ran out of fuel at this point. Note to self: Any more than 7miles, and I need more food! I’m learning so much….)

I didn’t lose pace at all! In fact, I was faster than I normally am!!

In the 5mins-running-bits, my pace was about 7.40 or so, and it was easy and fine, cos all I could think was ‘ah it’s only for 5mins’. I loved it!

I was quite dubious at first about the whole walk/run thing…after all, I read blogs like Meghann’s, and she’s a distance demon – she goes so far so easily it seems! And I’ve never read that she walks..but then I thought, so what? That’s Meghann! If that works for her, brill. But maybe this method is for me? I’m going to do the walk/run thing on my Sunday 15miler and see what happens 😀

For breakfast, I had a lovely Epic Green Monster, with a few strawberries thrown in for good measure 😀

Yes, I just wanted a chance to show off my half marathon medal 😛

Filling and fabulous!

However, my eating schedule is so out at the moment..I get up at 7.30am, but I don’t seem to get round to eating breakfast til about 10.15 or so (even later today!) due to my morning snack/digestion, running, cooling off, and lack of appetite post-exercise. It’s very frustrating! Cos then I end up having a late lunch, I’m not then hungry for a snack, I have later dinners…it’s very weird :s

When I did get round to lunch (at about 2.50pm!), it was delicious!!

I had three parts – a chunk of this sprouted bread:

A roast veggie mix of bbq-salted summer squash, kabocha, gran-grown cherry tomatoes, parsnip and broccoli:

 

And the rest of those sprouty bean things from yesterday, roasted with bbq-salted kale (so much iron today!! Phew):

It was all really, really yummy! Well, 90% of it was. The bread took some getting used to – at first, it tasted kind of alcoholic (!?), then like something else, then really delicious, and then like something else again. It was quite the taste journey!! I’m still undecided as to how much I like it….I think next time I eat it, I’ll love it 😀

Other activities – walking the dawg, riding (Chika was very good today, though somewhat spooky again! She blates has the wind up her knickers), sorting out clothes and baking my mamma Tina’s oatmeal raisin bars (except I added up pumpkin seeds, dried figs and apricots :D):

Sehr gut! I also made myself some energy bars for running:

Dates, oats, carrot, maple syrup, salt, mixed spice.

Fab nutrition stats (minus the carrot and salt)!

About 180cals, with 40g of carb!! YAAAY!!!

And now, as usual, I’m going to go and find something to prep for dinner. Alas!! It’s a tough life at the moment :p though I feel entitled to relax, after my hell-like spring/early summer of crazy revision….plus, I worked out that on Wednesdays, when I start uni again, I’m gonna have to be up at 5am to fit in my marathon-plan run before lectures!! Meep!!! (Ok, if you’re Jess or Kath, that might not be a big deal…but I go to bed at 12am, so it IS a big deal to me!! :p)

NOT looking forward to that….my mum is going to lend me a head torch for the run 😛

Question – do you use a walk/run method of running, or know anyone that does? What are your thoughts about it?

What time do you get up in the mornings? What’s your daily routine like?

PS – I’m going to a wedding tomorrow! Which will be interesting, considering the vegan catering is going to be very, very difficult…I’m stashing my handbag with Clif bars 😛

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