Hi everyone, hope you’ve been having a great weekend!

I was up at the crack of dawn on Saturday to get my weekend run out of the way. I decided to go for a slightly shorter distance than I’ve ran the last couple of weeks as I needed to be home, washed and dressed to meet up with my Mam. I thought it would be good to run 10k and see what kind of pace I could manage. I did it in 55 minutes! I was over the moon, for the first time ever my average pace was below 9 min miles – I got it down to 8.54 (last week was 9.25!) I was extremely happy with that :-)

The rest of the weekend has been quite relaxed which is just what I’ve needed. I’ve enjoyed two delicious green smoothies for breakfast each day as part of my 7 days 7 smoothies challenge:

Tropical Green Smoothie (makes one large serving):

• 3 cups of spinach
• 1 frozen banana
• 1 cup of frozen mango
• 2 tbsp of vanilla hemp protein powder
• 1 tbsp of mesquite (optional)
• 1 tbsp of desiccated coconut
• 1 tsp of maca (optional)
• 1 tsp of spirulina (optional)
• 1/2 cup of rice milk – coconut milk or coconut water would be better!
• water – to desired thickness
• 1/2 tsp of xanthan and guar gum (optional, adds thickness)

Toppings:

• Coconut flour sauce (made with 1 heaped tsp of coconut flour and water)
• Hemp seeds
• Goji berries

This was yummy!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Green Smoothie (makes one very large serving):

• 3 – 4 cups of kale, romaine and lambs lettuce (I just used what greens needed using up)
• 1 frozen banana
• 2 nectarines
• 2 ice cubes
• 1 scoop of chocolate protein powder (I used sun warrior) 
• 2 tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter
• 1 tbsp of cocoa powder or raw cacao powder
• 1 tsp maca (optional)
• 1 tsp of ground flax (optional)
• water – to desired thickness
• 1 tsp xanthan and guar gum (optional but adds thickness)

Toppings:

• Peanut flour sauce
• Chocolate peanut flour sauce (PB2+cacao powder + agave+water)
• Cacao nibs
• grape nuts cereal

This was seriously one delicious smoothie! As usual I ended up with a bowl and a half worth – so filling, tasty and nutritious! I find that nectarines / peaches give green smoothies a nice neutral tasting sweetness and bulk that won’t over powder the other ingredients.

I’ve also been drinking fresh green juices each afternoon for the last four days, my favourite green juice combo is pear, celery, cucumber, spinach / romaine, broccoli and lemon / ginger. It tastes delicious!

Other foodie highlights this weekend include this eggless veggie omelette:

I made up some standard socca batter and added two tablespoons of nutritional yeast and a pinch of salt. I then fried some red onion until it caramelised, yellow pepper and courgette and poured the cheesy socca batter on top of the veggies and fried up as usual. I served it up with a side salad and more nutritional yeast on top. This worked really well! I used to eat vegetable and cheese omelettes all the time before I decided to eat mostly vegan, I can see me making these regularly! 

Dinner both evenings has been a lovely combo of stir fried asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli and spring onion with millet and adzuki beans served with some of my squash dip and steamed greens / kale with shoyu:

This tasted really good, the squash dip on the side just made it all the yummier! I’ve really been enjoying making up one big dish with planned leftovers for the next day, its been saving me so much time in the kitchen!

Last night I satisfied my sweet tooth with strawberries, figs and Lindt 85% dark chocolate:

Loved the extra dark chocolate, I still want to try the 99% version!

I’ve also been buying a couple of spring wardrobe updates. On Friday I spotted this lovely  blush coloured simple coat and ultra skinny jeans in H&M:

I adore the jeans – they have a zip fastening up the back, they aren’t stretchy like jeggings but they fit like a glove. The coat is perfect for this time of year: warm but in a nice pale spring like colour. I’ve also been checking out eBay in search of second hand bargains. As I’m trying to save cash and wanting to try and be more environmentally friendly I thought I’d see what I could pick up second hand. I got this great floral print skirt for just £3.50 including postage:

I had seen a floral print skirt in New Look for £22 but I like this even better! It will look great paired with a simple t-shirt. Do you buy clothes from eBay? Its been a bit hit and miss for me in the past but I think I’ve developed a better skill for noticing items that will work for me.

I’m glad I’ve been able to have a relaxed weekend as I have a crazy busy week at work ahead including two late night meetings. I think I’ll be making up lots of ‘planned leftovers’ type meals to see me through – along with my green smoothies to keep my energy levels up of course! I’ll be sneaking in workouts when I can manage them too.

I’m also waiting to see how I react to the clocks going forward – I was really enjoying waking up to daylight but I guess I’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for the sun to rise at 6am again! At least we get nice bright evenings instead :-) Does the clocks going forward affect you?

Hi everyone, hope we are all happy and well! I’m in a super happy mood this evening, I’ve enjoyed a great weekend!

Yesterday James surprised me by buying a bunch of flowers for no reason other than ‘just because’. I thought that was so lovely, who says romance is dead eh! As we planned a trip to Newcastle yesterday we decided to get up nice and early and treat ourselves to breakfast! OOTD:

Gold swallow earrings: Accessorize, Leather hooded jacket: Topshop, Butterfly Printed Blouse: Zara, skinny jeans: Old Navy, Bird ring: Primark, orange bag: Dorothy Perkins, grey flats: Dorothy Perkins

We went to one of my favourite deli’s in town, Olive and Bean:

James went for the Continental Breakfast including a baguette, cheese, ham, jams, croissant, fruit bowl and an Americano. I had a lovely strawberry, raspberry and blueberry smoothie with 2 slices of granary toast, smooth peanut butter and a vanilla soy latte. Such a lovely breakfast!

I ended up spending a fortune on stuff in town. I’m totally failing on my challenge to save money on grocery shopping :-( At least I did get some great stuff that will last me for a while, plus some of it was on a buy one get one half price deal!

I got all of this flavoured tofu to try and I was especially chuffed to see that the health food shop was stocking frozen tempeh! I’m really looking forward to experimenting with this.

I took advantage of the discount deal at Holland and Barrat and stocked up on cacao nibs, maca and a new item to try; barley grass powder.

I also got lots of my favourite teas, 2 pots of redwoods soy free, dairy free ‘yoghurt’ pots, shelled hemp seeds, olives from the deli, braggs, pistachios and alfalfa sprouts. I also picked up a pack of ‘keep fresh’ bags from Lakeland. I’m hoping that these things will actually work and help to keep my veggies fresher for longer! I’m going to try them out this week and will report back.

When we got back from town and seeing family, I put some of the olives and hemp seeds to good use in an amazing salad:

This contained a mix of romaine, summer and red lettuce, cucumber, red pepper, red onion, alfalfa sprouts, black and green garlic marinated olives, raw sunflower seed crackers, shelled hemp seeds and a delicious dressing made from Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar and hemp oil.

As I had quite a haul of broad beans in my organic veg box I’d had a quick search of recipes in my Evernote account and came across a tasty Italian Broad Bean dish from Leon: Naturally Fast Food (I take a photo of the recipe from the cook book and upload it to my Evernote account which recognises the words from the image so when I do a search for an ingredient it pops up! total genius). The recipe in the book was more of a side, but using that as a starting point, and taking inspiration from my Italian leek and bean stew, I created this dish, kind of a stew, kind of a risotto:

Italian vegetable and barley stewsotto (makes 2-3 servings, vegan)

• 1 cup of shelled broad beans
• 1/2 cup of pearl barley (dry weight)
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 courgette, diced
• 6 asparagus stems, chopped
• 1/2 large jar of tomato passata plus 12 cherry tomatoes, quartered (or 1 tin of chopped tomatoes)
• 1/2 – 1 cup of hot water
• 1 teaspoon of Italian seasoning
• 1/2 cup of chopped olives (a mix of green and black is prettiest)
• Fresh basil to serve

Begin by shelling the broad beans and putting to one side. Cook the barley in hot water until tender but still with some bite (about 30 minutes). In a large pan sauté the garlic and onion on a medium low heat in a little oil until softened. Add asparagus, courgette and cherry tomatoes (if using) and continue to cook for a further 5 minutes. Add the cooked and drained barley, broad beans, passata / tinned tomatoes and Italian seasoning. Allow to simmer for 15 minutes, adding hot water as needed to stop it from drying out. Add the olives and then serve with fresh basil to garnish:

I served this with some sautéed chard. This was really, really good! All the ingredients and flavours melded together so well. If you didn’t have broad beans you could easily use cannellini instead, like wise with the veggies, chopped peppers, mushrooms etc could be used instead of the courgette and asparagus. I had more this evening and it tasted just as wonderful!

This morning I was out for my long run. I did 13.1 miles in 1.58, average pace 9.00! This was an awesome run, I felt fast and strong throughout and put in a speedy couple of final miles (8.33 and 8.17 for the last two full miles). I also improved on my time from my last half by almost 30 seconds :-)

To celebrate I made a big smoothie of course!

This can only be described as epic:  Peanut Butter cup green smoothie based on my old recipe but with some extras: spinach, frozen banana, frozen peaches, 1 cup hemp milk, 1 scoop peanut butter swirl spiru-tein protein powder, 1 scoop of chocolate amazing grass powder, maca, ice, water, xanthan and guar gums. Then for toppings I made some nut butter sauce (1 tbsp of nut butter mixed with warm water) with PB&Co Dark Chocolate Dreams, smooth peanut butter plus 2 chopped miniature dark chocolate Reece’s peanut butter cups and a couple of crumbled PB puffins:

Heaven in a bowl, and I’m not ashamed to say I made lots of ‘mmm’ noises while eating this! I wanted to make sure I ate plenty of calories back after that run, as well as getting in some protein and antioxidants for recovery. This smoothie was perfection!

Other lovely sweet things this weekend have included hot chopped apple in a almond butter jar topped with coconut flour sauce:

I love these for using up the smaller near empty nut butter jars! Tonight I was going to have some more chocolate but after the chocolate in the smoothie this morning I was craving something different. I decided to listen to my body and instead I made a super food packed berry smoothie containing frozen mixed berries, vanilla hemp protein powder, barley grass powder, maca, mesquite, mixed seeds, cacao nibs, water and ice. I had it from a bowl topped with more mixed seeds, cacao nibs and coconut:

This was the first time I’ve added cacao nibs into the smoothie itself rather than just as a topping, it was lovely and crunchy with a slight nuttiness from the seeds, yum!

Hope you’ve all had a great weekend and have a good week ahead! I’ve enjoyed the warmer weather we’ve had today, lets hope this is the arrival of summer!

Have you ever tried tempeh? Any recommendations for tempeh recipes for me to try?

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you’ve all had a great weekend enjoying this beautiful weather. I’ve certainly got my quota of vitamin D over the past two days!

Yesterday we had a walk into town, we are so lucky to live somewhere so beautiful:

River Wear, Durham City

I wore my charity shop bargain top for a summery look:

OOTD: sunglasses: Dorothy Perkins, necklace: French Connection, purple top: charity shop, cocktail ring: Topshop, bag: Dune, wooden chunky bangles: Oasis, skinny jeans: Topshop

We stopped to enjoy a cuppa in town. I had a lovely loose leaf green tea:

Such a great day!

I have also had some crazy tasty eats this weekend. Breakfast on Saturday was a socca wrap with mixed seeds filled with crunchy peanut butter and a chopped pink lady apple plus a big pot of earl gray tea:

When we got back from town I made a really amazing salad for lunch. It included lots of leafy greens – cos lettuce, little gem, spinach, watercress and red chard then sugar snap peas and griddled asparagus with some dressing made from my divine squash dip (watered down) then topped with a snack pack of Clearspring pumpkin seeds, soya nuts, dried cranberries and dried apple:

It was just the most delicious salad, I enjoyed every single forkful! I really liked the snack pack – it made a great salad topping with 8.5g of protein.

For dinner I made a fantastic dish of red rice with coconut and ginger braised greens and kale (just kale, greens and fresh minced ginger cooked in coconut oil then some reduced fat coconut milk and shoyu poured on top and simmered for 5 minutes) roast kabocha squash and fried tofu marinated in soy sauce and mirin:

Soo good! Dessert was a wonderful strawberry and mango pudding (fresh fruit blended with ice, agave, xanthan and guar gums):

This morning I was up for my usual long run. I had only been planning on doing about 8.5 miles but I ended up doing 10 miles in 1hr 32 minutes! It was a good run, when I compare my pace to the last time I ran 10 miles a month ago my average pace has gone from 9.42 to 9.13! I can’t believe I have improved so much in such a short period of time.

When I got home I knew that chocolate had to feature in my breakfast with it being Easter Sunday so I went for my favourite chocolate peanut butter cup green smoothie:

Amazing!

We then headed to my parents for Easter lunch. It was fantastic, we played with my nephews and had an Easter egg hunt! We also enjoyed lots of sunshine in their garden:

  OOTD: colourful beaded necklaces: Oasis / thrifted, pink loose top: Warehouse, white vest: H&M, grey cropped utility harem pants: New Look (new purchase!) grey peep toe ankle boots: Oasis

I had lots of salad and veggies with 3 different flavoured hummus:

The hummus was roasted veggie, lemon and coriander and roasted red pepper, yum! I also enjoyed a few glasses of the Pomegranate and Elderflower Presse I was sent for review:

This was so light and refreshing! I also had lots of fruit plus one of my Sinless Brownies that I had baked yesterday:

I reworked the recipe for the brownies to make them vegan and extra chocolaty by subbing out the egg whites for Ener-G egg replacer (for two eggs, you could also use flax eggs) plus one 100g pot of apple sauce. I also added 2 tablespoons of vegan dark chocolate chips then baked at 170c for about 30 minutes. I can honestly say that these brownies are the absolute bomb! They have the best fudgy texture – which has improved by making them vegan! Just awesome :-)

I didn’t get any Easter eggs this year as I already have a huge chocolate stash so I’m getting a little bit of spending money for NYC instead :-) I am now slightly regretting not asking for a dark chocolate Lindt bunny though!

Have you been given any Easter eggs this year? How have you celebrated Easter? I really enjoyed watching my two year old nephew hunt for his eggs!