Hello everyone, hope your enjoying your weekend! I don’t know where last weeks sunshine has gone, its been a bit bleak and grey these last two days. Anyway, I have had plenty of lovely things to keep me cheerful, this mornings pancakes being number one:

Vegan chocolate protein pancakes with strawberries, cashew butter and maple syrup. Absolutely delicious!

Number two would be this bowl of oats with pears topped with Justin’s chocolate hazelnut butter and buckwheaties for crunch:

That finished off my jar of crack for now, must reorder some from iHerb!

I’ve also enjoyed this gorgeous Butternut Cherry Bomb smoothie inspired by Laura from Sprint 2 the Table:

This was spinach, roast butternut, frozen cherries, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, cinnamon, ground flax, maca, water and ice topped with lemon salted roast almonds, dried cherries and raw granola. It was fantastic and the toppings really worked well together too, I’ll be having the almonds and dried cherries together again soon!

Last night I had a craving for some British style comfort food so I made my version of a ‘Sunday Dinner’ with stuffed seitan roll, cauliflower mash, roast broccoli and gravy:

It hit the spot! For dessert I had a big bowl of frozen blueberries, a chopped pear, peanut sauce made from peanut flour and maple syrup plus cacao nibs:

I also ended up devouring a couple of bowls of millet puffs and chopped apple with extra maple peanut sauce too because it was so good as well as a couple of these home made raw chocolates:

I’d bought some cacao butter ages ago and finally got round to making my own raw chocolate! I used this recipe but halved it and added some lucuma powder, chopped pecans and sea salt. This made 6 little chocolates that taste absolutely heavenly!

For lunch today I’ve just had this gorgeous Warm Butternut, Lentil and Fig Salad:

I left off the pine nuts and added some simple tahini miso dressing instead. So so good, perfect salad for this time of year!

Something lovely happened at the gym this morning. I’d just done my gym workout (30 minute treadmill run, 15 minutes cross trainer) and was waiting for my kettlebell class to start when I bumped into a friend that I hadn’t spoken to in a while. She commented on how good I was looking since I’d gained some weight and that she was actually worried about me when I’d been thinner. It meant so much to me to hear her say that. I am trying to deal with this weight gain thing and its not easy but every time some one says something like that it makes me feel a million times better. At the moment I’m just trying to relax into things to see where my weight naturally stabilises eating and exercising as I am now although I am expecting that I’ll continue to gain for a while. I’ve started to think that experiencing both ends of the spectrum – being overweight and then underweight (for my own body) are just things that I’ve had to go through in order for me to grow as a person and hopefully help others in my future :-) 

I also went to the tattooist yesterday and managed to get booked in for a 2 hour session on Wednesday if I can get the time off work! So incredibly excited, as well as being a little nervous of the pain but I know it will be worth it. Looking forward to sharing the tattoo with you once it’s done!

What lovely things have you enjoyed this weekend?

…is how I’m feeling today. There’s just something about a new baby in my life that fills me with happiness! Here he is:

I know all new borns look the same but baby Daniel is gorgeous!

This morning I hit the gym for a great workout. I fueled up with a small snack before I left:

An orange and a tasty bear blueberry fruit yoyo. I must have been feeling good this morning as I decided to stay on the treadmill past my planned 30 minute run. I ended up running 6.8 miles in 1 hour – the longest I’ve ran for well over a month. I felt great! I did a mixture of long and short speed intervals. I then did 30 minutes of steady state cardio on the cross trainer and step machine.

This morning I made home made almond milk for the first time! I followed Jo’s directions which can be found here.

I soaked a cup of almonds in 4 cups of bottled water in the fridge for 24 hours. I then added the soaked almonds and the soaking water to my blender and blended for a few minutes:

I then poured this mixture through some cheese cloth laid in a strainer. This gave me about 4 cups of gorgeous creamy unsweetened almond milk at a fraction of the cost I’d pay in the shops! You could add sweetness to this by adding agave syrup or a couple of dates at the blending stage.

I had some with my breakfast in a recipe inspired by this blue green latte. I made a fresh juice using 2 kiwi, a pear, cucumber and a couple of cabbage leaves then added a cup of almond milk plus some matcha green tea powder (from Teapigs) and some spirulina powder. I used my milk whisk to combine everything:

I also had a bowl of berry porridge made with 1/2 cup of power porridge, 1/2 cup of oat milk, 1/2 cup of water, a little oat bran, some frozen mixed berries and sweet freedom natural sweetener. I topped it with a few mixed seeds. My ‘green latte’ tasted fab!

After making the almond milk I decided that I didn’t want the leftover almond pulp to go to waste so I decided to make some healthy cookies! I used this recipe using the almond pulp, a mashed banana, cacao powder, agave and a few dried cherries then cooked in the oven on the lowest heat for two hours (as the original recipe requires them to be dehydrated). I turned up the heat for the last 30 minutes just to finish them off.

I had two of these for my afternoon snack while I was out visiting the baby and at my best friends little girls 3rd birthday party (yes I’ve had a day filled with young children running around!). These taste ace, you would not think they were so healthy! I also ate two unpictured apples.

When I got home I had the leftover serving of my Warm Butternut, Lentil and Fig salad but instead of adding the figs and pine nuts I used cranberries and walnuts.

Yum! Dessert was a delicious smoothie:

Cherry Blossom Smoothie (in a bowl!)

• 1 sweet apple (I used a jazz apple), cored and chopped
• 1 cup of frozen cherries
• I small punnet of fresh blackberries (frozen would also work well)
• 1 cup of almond milk

Blend all ingredients and serve!

I added a little xanthan gum for extra thickness and topped with a couple of flaked almonds. This tasted divine!

Have any of you ever tried making your own nut milk? I was surprised at how easy it was. If you haven’t made it before would you be tempted to try?

I am now the proud Auntie of baby Daniel William who was born this evening weighing 7lb 15 ounces. I’m so chuffed, I can’t wait to see him tomorrow!

My word it feels like I haven’t stopped today! I was up nice and early this morning to get a big grocery shop in. When I got back from shopping I made a lovely breakfast – a huge bowl of blackberries and a chopped apple with muesli, hazelnut and almond rice milk and some passion fruit.

 

I also made myself a pot of detox tea. A great start to the day! I received the call to let me know that my Sister had gone into labour so I thought I’d whip up a quick batch of basic ‘baby boy’ cupcakes ready to give her as a gift once the baby had arrived. These are just a very basic recipe from the cookbook I got at Christmas but fingers crossed they taste good. None for me as these aren’t vegan and are full of sugar, I was proud I managed to resist cleaning the bowl out like I usually do!

A little while ago I saw a recipe on Choosing Raw and knew that I wanted to try it out. I have been loving this blog recently for interesting recipes. For lunch I made some Cashew Ginger Nori Wraps:

I followed the recipe for the cashew pate exactly but just used one cup of cashews. I used ribbons of carrot and cucumber for the filling. The cashew pate is pretty high in calories and fat (good fats though!) but I only used about a third of the mixture for this wrap, and the nori and veggies are very low in calories themselves. I thought they were delicious and the cashew pate is so tasty! I served mine with the leftover carrot and cucumber made into a salad with some pomegranate seeds, toasted sesame oil, soy sauce and ginger. Yum!

During the afternoon I cooked up some millet for my grain of the week, roasted lots of veggies, left some almonds soaking ready to make almond milk and made a huge pot of my Leek and Greens Soup. There was a little left after I’d portioned this up ready for the freezer so I had a small bowl.

A little later after cleaning the flat I made an orange, cucumber, apple and mint juice inspired by a recipe in the Innocent Smoothie recipe book.

This was fabulous and so refreshing!

Dinner was an awesome salad:

Warm Butternut, Lentil, and Fig Salad (makes 2 servings)

• I medium butternut squash, peeled, chopped and roasted
• 1 tin of green lentils, drained and rinsed
• 2 dried figs, finely chopped
• 1 bag of salad leaves (I used rocket and mixed leaves)
• 2 tablespoons of pine nuts, toasted in a pan

Dressing:

• 2 tablespoons of oil of choice (I used my Cool oil)
• 1 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• chopped basil or parsley

Combine the roast squash and lentils in a bowl. In a separate bowl or jar combine the ingredients for the dressing. Put some of the salad leaves on to a plate or bowl and top with the butternut and lentils then add the dressing and the toasted pine nuts. Enjoy!

This was lush! I thought I would miss having a bit of goats cheese or feta in there but I really didn’t. Delish!

Dessert was two chocolate avocado cups from the freezer with a sliced pear, cinnamon and agave syrup drizzle:

So yummy! I adore these chocolate cups – a great healthy chocolate hit.

Thanks for all your comments regarding sports bras yesterday! Shock Absorber definitely seemed to be most peoples favourite sports bra brand. If anyone is interested Dorothy Perkins are offering £5 off the Shock Absorber range they stock (I hadn’t realised that they stock them!) follow this link for more details.

I really enjoyed making my ‘sushi’ today. Have you ever tried making your own sushi or have you used nori before? I’m going to try using nori for wraps more often instead of bread or my usual egg white wraps. I think it would taste good with hummus and veggies!

I really can’t wait to see my new Nephew tomorrow! Hope your all having a great weekend :-)