WIAW–Crazy for Kale

Happy Wednesday everyone, hope your week is going very well!

I’ve decided to show you my eats from last Friday as I remembered to take pics of almost everything, plus my eats fitted in nicely with this months WIAW theme of greens! I started the day with a mug of warm water and the juice from half a lemon plus an orange as a pre gym snack:

I headed to the gym and did a 5 minute warm up on the cross trainer followed by a Base phase workout from Female Body Breakthrough and 20 minutes of HIIT on the step machine and bike. I came home and got ready for work then made some breakfast. I’d been feeling a bit tired the last few days and wanted to make sure I was eating plenty of iron so I made an ‘iron bomb’ smoothie:

This contained kale, 2 nectarines, a scoop of vanilla sun warrior, 1 tbsp of black strap molasses (for added iron), maca powder, ground flax, water and ice then topped with a chopped dried fig (for more iron), hemp seeds and goji berries (goji berries are high in vitamin C which supports iron absorption). I had that bowl plus another half a bowl full! I also made a cup of Bi Luo Chun green tea, kindly sent to me from my sponsors Teavivre:

This has a lovely deep almost smokey taste and its the most beautiful loose leaf tea that looks almost like moss! I know that tea and coffee can hinder the absorption of iron but I’m never sure if that’s the same with green tea – will have to check that one out!

We had decided to set a day aside at work to have a good spring clean of the office which meant that we could all come in our scruffs. I wore my boyfriend jeans and fave Converse!

For lunch I had a big salad of romaine, green pepper, red cabbage and carrot topped with some of my leftover Magic Mix crumbled on top:

I got 6 meals out of that recipe and it kept very well in the fridge all week! Mid afternoon I stopped for a snack of roast salted soya nuts and a pink lady apple:

Once the office was all organised and the bags of rubbish and recycling sorted out I headed into town to stock up on fruit and veggies for the weekend. I went to my favourite green grocers, they have a brilliant selection of fruit and vegetables for excellent prices:

I actually didn’t get those blueberries in the end but got a box of strawberries for 99p instead! Here’s my haul:

All of this for £12! It included:

• bananas
• 6 pink lady apples
• 4 coxes apples
• a huge piece of fresh ginger root
• bunch of beetroot
• cauliflower
• box of strawberries
• broccoli
• celery
• cucumber
• a head of kale
• spring greens
• romaine
• large bunch of parsley
• big savoy cabbage

Of course my haul included a lot of greens! I decided to make use of the kale in my dinner, I ate it raw and just massaged it with a dressing made from sweet white miso and hemp oil. To go with it I roasted some butternut squash, cooked some millet and rescued some chickpeas from the freezer mixed them all together and added some dried cranberries and parsley to the mix:

It tasted wonderful! For dessert I had two sliced persimmon, a chopped apple and half a bar of conscious orange raw chocolate:

I also snacked on several un pictured apples while watching New Girl and reading my book!

I ended up eating kale twice that day which is fine by me as I love it so much! As someone that eats a mostly vegan diet I like to have at least one serving of leafy greens a day to ensure I’m getting plenty of calcium and iron. My favourite way to eat my greens are:

• Green smoothies of course!
• Steamed and sprinkled with soy sauce
• Juiced up with lemon and ginger
• Raw with some kind of nut or seed based dressing like tahini
• Stir fried – my current favourite being stir fried and then simmered in full fat coconut milk with ginger and spices

As someone who needs a lot of volume in what they eat to feel satisfied, greens are perfect for adding to meals for additional fibre and satiety for not too many calories. I just can’t get enough of my greens!

What’s your favourite green veggie?