Hi everyone, happy Friday! Hope your all ready to enjoy the weekend. Loved reading your comments to my Green Smoothie post, if anyone would like to join in with the 7 days, 7 smoothies challenge please feel free!

I’ve had a great couple of days off which have been spent doing my favourite pass times: shopping, cooking, eating, reading and exercising!

I started Thursday morning with a home workout. I decided that I wanted to get my workout completed early and as my gym doesn’t open until 9am on a Thursday I checked out my DVD collection and went with Davina Fit: Top Fit and MTV Yoga which gave me a total 1hr 15 min workout. I was starving after this but luckily I had prepared breakfast in advance:

My Vanilla Chia Wheat Germ Breakfast Pudding with two chopped white nectarines, yum!

I spent the morning getting all the grocery shopping done which included a trip to the farm shop, green grocer, Tesco and Sainbury’s – yep, there’s some stuff that Tesco do cheaper than sainsbos and some stuff I just prefer from sainsbos so I did both!

Lunch was some raw wraps made with spring green leaves, sunflower seed butter, carrot, pink lady apple and basil. I also had 4 clearspring sesame tamari rice cakes on the side:

I love these wraps they are amazingly tasty and filling!

Mid afternoon I fancied a big green juice so I juiced up 1 pear, 3 romaine leaves, celery, cucumber, broccoli, spinach and lemon, it was delicious!

Dinner was an awesome Buddha bowl. I combined roast kabocha squash, edamame, quinoa and chopped parsley with a lemon juice, braggs seasoning and cool oil dressing and served it up on top of some steamed broccoli and purple sprouting broccoli with shoyu. I also added some viva pure spicy pumpkin seeds:

This was so so good, I adore kabocha, nothing else comes close to the sweetness and texture of it, delicious!

Dessert was two raw vegan brownie bites topped with coconut flour ‘icing’:

Delish! I also had two unpictured fiji apples.

This morning I was up and off to the gym. I did 1 hour of intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, bike and rowing machine. Oh, and that’s 1 hour total, not one hour on each! I think the way I write that can be misleading sometimes, I do 15 minutes on each machine for a total 1 hour workout. I finished off with my abs and core exercises.

Breakfast was the first green smoothie of my Green Smoothie Challenge:

Apple Pie Green Smoothie (makes one large serving):

• 5 large kale stems (with thick stems removed) – or greens of choice
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 pink lady apple, chopped
• 2 ice cubes
• 1 scoop of vanilla protein powder (I used sun warrior)
• 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp of ground ginger
• 1/2 cup of rice milk
• 1 tsp of maca (optional)
• 1 tsp of spirulina (optional)
• 1 tsp of ground flax (optional)
• water to desired thickness
• 1/2 – 1 tsp of xanthan gum (optional but adds thickness)

Topping

• 1 tbsp of almond butter
• 1 tbsp of granola (I used viva pure raw apple granola)
• cinnamon

Add ingredients to blender in order listed above, blend. Top with the almond butter and granola and a dusting of cinnamon, devour!

This really did taste like apple pie, so lush! I loved the drippy almond butter on top.

James had the day off too so we headed to Newcastle – I got the most gorgeous ultra skinny jeans and coat from H&M, pics to come over the weekend! I also got stocked up on my favourite yogi teas and soya beans from the health food shop. We were going to have lunch in town but ran out of parking time so when I got home I threw together a tasty salad containing lots of mixed green leaves (spinach, romaine, lambs lettuce and parsley) carrot, red pepper, cucumber, sugar snaps, spring onion and spicy roasted chickpeas and a peanut lime dressing (1 tbsp of peanut flour, lime juice, water and shoyu):

I also had an orange. Later in the afternoon I had another green juice. Dinner was leftovers of last nights Buddha bowl with spring greens instead of broccoli.

Last week I said that I had came up with a recipe using the leftover pulp from making my sesame milk – and here it is!

Raw Chocolate Sesame Tart (makes 4)

• 1 cup of leftover sesame pulp (from making milk)
• 2 tbsp of raw cacao powder
• 1 tbsp of agave syrup
• 1 tbsp of coconut oil, melted

Combine all ingredients and divide mixture between 4 tart cases with removal bottoms. Store in the freezer until needed then remove from tart case 10 minutes before eating, enjoy!

I served mine with some fresh strawberries and figs, it tasted fab!

I really enjoyed my big grocery shop. I was due one as the last time I really properly stocked my cupboards was October. I like to do a huge shop to stock up then I just work my way through everything. As well as the store cupboard type stuff I also got a fantastic haul of fresh produce from the farm shop and green grocers:

 

Yep, this filled my kitchen!

I’m looking forward to some delicious meals using this stuff for the coming week. I was also pretty good and stuck to my list apart from buying two new items:

Hemp milk:

Carob flakes:

Both spotted on Jessica’s blog. I had a taste of the carob flakes and oh my word they are so good! Have you tried hemp milk or carob flakes before? What did you think?

Do you do a monster grocery shop every so often or do you just get things in each week? I love having fully stocked cupboards then just picking up a few fresh items when needed.

Any exciting plans for the weekend? I’m out for one of my best friends birthday’s on Saturday night along with the usual family visits and my long run. I’m not looking forward to the clocks going forward, it always messes with by bio clock!

Hope you have all had a great week and enjoy your weekend!

Hello everyone, hope you have all enjoyed your weekends! On Friday evening I decided to treat myself to a lovely candle lit bath followed by chilling out and painting my nails. I felt so much better!

Saturday morning I was up early and ready to shop:

OOTD: sunglasses: Dorothy Perkins, leather jacket: Topshop, floral top: Warehouse, jeans: Topshop, bag: H&M, shoes: Dorothy Perkins. I still feel like I’ve been scalped after my hair cut, hopefully it will grow back quick!

In Newcastle I headed straight to Start Fitness to get some new running shoes. I got these Asics Gel Nimbus:

These cost a bomb but were the most comfortable with my orthotics inserted as these have plenty of cushioning but have neutral support so are perfect for my inserts. I have to say the staff were excellent and the customer service was very good. I’m going to start wearing them in over the next week.

Luckily to balance out those expensive trainers I also managed to pick up a few bargains, but I’ll post those pics tomorrow or this post will never end!

Eats have been wonderful: Saturday’s breakfast was raspberry, coconut vanilla hot cereal in a jar!

This was 1/4 cup of Bob Red Mills 10 Grain Hot Cereal cooked with 1 cup of water, frozen raspberries, 1 tbsp of coconut flour and 1 tsp of vanilla extract. I poured this into a near empty peanut butter jar and topped with coconut shreds. Delish! The nut butter jar was only little so I filled it twice ;-)

After my run today I made a big Apple Pie Green Smoothie for breakfast:

Lunches have been big salads and fruit bowls with my first try of Cauldron Marinated Tofu:

I really liked this tofu, not as good as my favourite Taifun brand but still pretty tasty!

For dinner on Saturday evening I decided that I fancied a curry. I had a few veggies from my organic veg box delivery to use up, including tomatoes which I only like cooked, so I decided to roast them all up!

Roasted Vegetable Curry (serves 3 – 4, vegan)

• 1 medium aubergine
• 1 medium head of cauliflower
• 6 tomatoes, quartered
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 inch piece of ginger, minced
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped (I used 1 tsp of lazy chilli)
• 1 tsp of garam masala
• 1 tsp of ground coriander
• 1/2 tsp of ground cumin
• 1 tin of chickpeas, drained
• 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 small tin (160mls) of reduced fat coconut milk

Pre heat the oven to 220C. Chop the aubergine into chunks and break up the cauliflower into bite size pieces. Transfer to a roasting tin and toss in some oil (I used coconut oil). In a separate roasting dish add the tomatoes. Put both roasting dishes in the oven and cook until the aubergine has softened and browned and the cauliflower has gone crispy. The tomatoes should be well softened. In a large pan or wok heat some oil on a medium heat and stir fry the onions, garlic, ginger and chilli until softened. Add the spices and continue to fry (taking care not to burn) until they become fragrant. Add the roasted tomatoes, aubergine and cauliflower, followed by the chickpeas, tinned tomatoes and coconut milk. Simmer for 10 minutes and serve:

This turned out beautifully. Roasting the veggies brings out all their flavour, particularly for the cauliflower and tomatoes. Such a tasty and healthy dish! I served mine with some rice and steamed kale with shoyu.

Tonight I wanted to use up more of the fresh veggies from the organic veg box so I made a stir fry with edamame, purple sprouting broccoli, asparagus, carrot, mushrooms and pak choy (3 heads for 50p at the market – bargain!) with more rice, shoyu and ginger:

I am so loving the asparagus and purple sprouting broccoli at the moment, just delicious!

Dessert has included one of my raw sesame chocolate tarts with raw chocolate sauce (agave, water and raw cacao) plus fresh strawberries:

Oh my god this was just so so good, the perfect raw dessert, nom! I also tried some dairy free white chocolate from Plamil:

This was ok considering its dairy free but really no comparison to proper white choc. I actually preferred the green tea diary free chocolate I had a couple of weeks ago in terms of creaminess.

Today I did my usual weekend run and it was very unexpectedly awesome! I had been planning on going out and doing an easy paced 6-7 miles as my leg has been a bit achy this week. For some reason I was just on fire! I blasted my fastest pace times and when I glanced down at my Garmin at the 10K mark I noticed I was 30 seconds faster than the last time I did a 10k run (today I did it in 54 min 50 sec), and that time I had been really trying! I ended up doing 7.3 miles in 1hr04 with an average pace of 8.47! The fact that I didn’t feel like I was running flat out and that the run didn’t feel like a struggle the whole time is just amazing. Perhaps thinking about all the people running the London Marathon had an affect on me!

What was the last unexpected awesomeness you had in your life?

Hi everyone, have you had a good weekend? Mine has been very relaxed, we’ve barely left the house and have enjoyed pottering around at home which has been lovely.

On Friday night I had a total snack attack, I made some lovely snacks including millet puffs with peanut flour and melted Lindt Sea Salt chocolate, melted cherry almond dark chocolate with a spoonful of almond butter stirred in and bowls of Peanut Butter Puffins. I’m not feeling guilty for it or anything, but I did go to bed with a major food baby and ended up wide awake at 4am feeling like I’d been out partying with Keith Richards. It seems that my body now reacts to overeating sugar and chocolate by making me feel hung over! I know its down to the chocolate and sugar as I’ve had the same reaction in the past couple of months when eating the same way. I didn’t eat anything for ages on Saturday morning as I felt sick, and when I did all I fancied was a green juice:

All organic – cucumber, celery, broccoli, rainbow chard and lemon, I love my weekend green juices! After a while my appetite came back and I really fancied a fruity, nutty smoothie:

Frozen banana, blueberries, apples, raw almond butter, pumpkin seeds, msm, maca powder and water topped with more apples and blueberries, pumpkin seeds, raw almond butter sauce and some bee pollen. The bee pollen is really growing on me, I wasn’t sure at first but I really love its mild chewy sweetness.

We went grocery shopping on Saturday morning and I fell foul of the 3 for 2 offer on organic veg at Tesco so I ended up buying a lot of leafy greens. To use them up I’ve been eating yummy salads and green smoothies:

Lovely salad with red lettuce, romaine, home grown alfalfa sprouts, carrot, cucumber, pepper, beet, olives, crumbled RAW cracker and a dressing made with hemp oil, balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar and dijon mustard, yum!

Apple pie green smoothie with spinach, frozen banana, apples, vanilla sun warrior, spirulina, maca, msm, cinnamon, ginger, mixed spice, vanilla stevia, water, ice, xanthan and guar gums topped with treacle granola. This was utterly delicious, so autumnal!

Carob Cherry Green smoothie containing romaine, spinach, frozen cherries, carob powder, stevia, water, ice, xanthan and guar gums and topped with a few spare cherries and some buckwheaties. The carob made a nice change to the usual cacao

For dinner tonight I had half a baked sweet potato with almond butter, sautéed rainbow chard with chickpeas, raisins and shoyu and some roast broccoli and runner beans:

This was a plate of heaven! Why have I only just had sweet potato and almond butter now? So good! I’ve also been eating lots of fruit:

I loved this antioxidant filled plate of blackberries, black grapes and a tiny discovery apple.

I’ve also spent some time this weekend making up a big pan of Leek, Greens and White Bean Soup, some of my home made version of of sweet and salty popcorn bagged up for snacks, and my first attempt at fermenting veggies – Kimberly Snyder’s Probiotic and Enzyme salad, basically home made sauerkraut!

I’ve decided that after Friday evening I’m going to take a little break from chocolate and anything else too high in sugar that sets me off such as dried fruit and PB&Co nut butters, cereals etc. I just feel completely sugared out and I don’t think that’s doing me any favours with the snacking! I’m definitely feeling a bit out of balance at the moment, I’m swinging from craving chocolate and nut butters and then feeling stuffed, to probably not eating enough! I think at the end of September when I have some time off I’m going to treat myself to a mini ‘detox’ (I hate that word, but what I really mean is a couple of days of eating really well) to try and feel a bit more balanced. Of course, some of this ‘out of balance’ feeling may come down to stress being caused by this…

Running Injury update

I’m going to ramble on a bit here, so please skip this if you like! This morning I managed 4.3 miles in 39 minutes on the treadmill. By the time I had finished I was in a lot of pain, I managed a further 30 minutes on the bike but my knee was screaming at me when I tried to go on the cross trainer and step machine. I knew it was going to happen eventually and today I completely broke down and had a good cry. After two weeks my injury is getting worse not better, and with only two weeks to go until the Great North Run, I have to start admitting to myself that I may not be able to do it. I hate that. I am not a quitter and to have to drop out of the race makes me feel like I’m letting everyone down. The worry I have is that if I try and do it I may not be able to finish it, and for me, that would be worse than not doing it at all. I would also be gutted if I didn’t complete it in a better time than last year. I talked things over with James and I’m not going to run at all for the rest of the week and then I’m going to try a run next weekend and make a final decision then. I have my sports massage on Wednesday and I’m trying to stay as positive as possible, I know a week without running could make a big difference and if worst comes to worst there will be other races and I can try again next year.

Have you ever had to drop out of a race due to injury? What do you do to regain balance when you feel out of wack?

Hope you’ve all had a brilliant weekend, and because I hate ending things on a negative note I’m going to leave you with a few things that make me smile:

Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups:

Bright red lipstick:

Source

Sunrises:Source

Have a great week people!

Last week I shared with you my love of green smoothies and my 7 days 7 smoothies challenge. See that post for more info on how to construct a fab green smoothie and the reasons why I love them so!

Each day last week I ate a delicious smoothie containing a large amount of green veggies along with different combos of fruit and other add ins and toppings. I enjoyed them so much I ended up continuing the challenge for an extra day!

I thought it would be good to round up all of the tasty green smoothie recipes I created for the challenge:

Apple Pie Green Smoothie

Tropical Green Smoothie

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Green Smoothie

Chocolate Cherry Beet Green Smoothie

Carrot Cake Green Smoothie

Nutty Berry Green Smoothie

Raspberry Carob Green Smoothie

‘Bounty’ (chocolate coconut) Green Smoothie

I thoroughly enjoyed making and eating all of these! Big thanks to Jessica and Jemma who have been following the challenge along with me – and any of you guys that have been doing it on the quiet. Check out their blogs for some more fab variations including Jemma’s Strawberries and Cream and Jess’s Terry’s Chocolate Orange!

Interestingly I noticed that my energy levels have been very good this week despite having a bit of a stressful time at work. I’ve also found that it has been easier to focus at work. I do feel that my increased intake of raw food, green veggies, protein and ‘super’ foods via these green smoothies has contributed to this, of course it could just be psychosomatic! I particularly think that adding maca powder to my smoothies has been useful due to its support of the adrenals (linked to supporting stress).

Have I convinced any green smoothie virgins to give them a try? If your already a green smoothie lover what’s your favourite combo? Which of the green smoothies above look the best to you? I loved them all but if I had to choose I’d go for the Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup!

Hope your having a great weekend!