Hi everyone, hope your having a wonderful Sunday. I’ve had the best weekend!

I enjoyed this lovely soya latte with raspberry syrup at one of my favourite cafes Intermezzo in Newcastle

I started the weekend with a quick run, as usual I just went out and ran with no idea of distance or pace, I think I probably did about 3.5 miles. When I came home I made a smoothie:

This contained spinach, cantaloupe melon, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, maca, ground flax, water and ice then topped with some Kashi crunch. I hadn’t been planning on starting my green smoothie challenge until today but I couldn’t help myself!

Then I got ready for my day out!

OOTD: floral jacket: Warehouse, striped dress: Tu @ Sainsbury’s, belt: Dorothy Perkins, black quilted bag: Topshop, tights: M&S, ankle boots: New Look

I was also excited to show everyone my finished tattoo!

I’m so happy with it, I know tattoo’s aren’t for everyone but I love them and this one means a lot to me. I’ll explain the meaning behind it soon! I think its pretty tasteful and delicate and I love the colours.

Once we got to town we went to Olive and Bean for a bit of brunch:

I had granary toast with peanut butter and jam and a large soy latte and James had the continental platter. You can’t beat good old peanut butter on toast sometimes!

After that we had a look round the shops and went to see The Hunger Games at the Tyneside Cinema. I think I’ve posted a pic of their screen before but I just love its old fashioned style so much:

I really enjoyed the movie and thought they did a pretty good adaptation of the book. I also indulged in a little budget friendly shopping, I got a neutral coloured blazer and a bright pink sleeveless top from H&M and a fab pair of boot cut jeans from a charity shop for £4! After that James got the train home and I went to my parents. Its my wonderful friend Kate’s 30th Birthday today so me and my other best friend decided to surprise her. I fancied a drink so thought I would stay at my parents which is closer. My friend Claire bought Kate this epic cake:

Oh and yes, I did enjoy one of those cupcakes and a large slice of the cake (of course it wasn’t vegan but I’m enjoying my more flexible approach to that right now) plus a few glasses of Cava, Southern Comfort and lots and lots of crisps and chocolate. We had a great time! I’ve been friends with those two for over 17 years and they are the best friends ever, we had such a laugh just chatting and catching up. This morning I paid for both the alcohol and the sugar with a nasty hangover, but nothing a green smoothie can’t fix!

That was a very cleansing green smoothie with spinach, chinese pear, celery, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, ginger, maca, ground flax, water and ice. Along with a pot of kuricha green tea it sorted me out a treat!

It was lovely that both my friends commented on how much better they thought I looked with a bit more weight on and they were happier that I seemed to be more relaxed about eating ‘unhealthy’ foods and enjoying myself :-) At the end of the day I have to keep reminding myself that I eat healthily 90% of the time and a few drinks and sugary foods enjoyed with my friends is one of life's pleasures!

Today I’ve just been enjoying chilling out. I made myself a lovely big salad for lunch with romaine, cucumber, red pepper, sprouts, basil tofu, olives and home of my green goddess dressing:

I just love that tofu!

So I have started my green smoothie challenge – one green smoothie a day for at least 7 days. As I was saying on Friday I just feel the need for them at the moment and after recent indulgences I think my body will appreciate it. Like I said if you’d like to join in the challenge let me know and I can link back to your posts. Here’s some green smoothie recipes for you and my ultimate green smoothie recipe. I’m also feeling very attracted to salads and simple Buddha bowls right now while at the same time really wanting to do some baking! I think I’ll be enjoying the baking next weekend :-)

Have you had a good weekend so far? Do you have a favourite cinema or cafe? What kind of foods are you attracted to at the moment?

Hi everyone, hope your having a great weekend! I’ve had a pretty good weekend so far, starting on Friday evening with this delicious meal:

I made a Lentil and Sweet Potato Thai Red Curry, it was super easy to make and tasted so good! I just fried some curry paste with extra fresh minced ginger then added a little tomato passata followed by 1/4 cup of red lentils and some hot water. I simmer that until the lentils were tender then added a cubed baked sweet potato. I served it with some steamed kale, it was spot on!

While chilling out watching TV I enjoyed my fave snack again, pretzels with strawberries and some peanut dip made with peanut flour:

Love this combo, I have a ‘thing’ for pretzels right now!

On Saturday we decided to have a pay day treat of breakfast in town so I though I’d make a bit of an effort for a change:

OOTD: jersey scarf: Topshop, heart necklace: Topshop, striped tee: Topshop, pink satchel: H&M, pink belt: taken off a dress from Warehouse, floral skirt: Dorothy Perkins, black tights: M&S, zip ankle boots: New Look

Breakfast was our usual order from Olive and Bean:

I had granary toast with peanut butter, a 3 berry smoothie and a soya latte and James had the continental platter. Both fab as always! That tasty breakfast set me up for a morning of shopping! I went to Waitrose, the health food shop and the speciality food shop for this lot:

I also got some tempeh but that went straight in the freezer! Very chuffed to have some red kabocha and a huge bag of Popchips too! I also paid a visit to Lush for shower gel and toner water:

I treated myself to a couple of new things for my wardrobe too:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 skinny belts from Primark for only £2! I also got a plain black maxi skirt from Primark as well. Then from H&M I bought this stripy t-shirt dress and a purple long sleeved top for yoga. I did get some denim shorts but when I got home and tried them on they were more like hot pants (!) so I’ll be returning those.

After town I was going to see my friends so I thought I’d pick up something for lunch:

A hummus salad wrap from Pret and some blueberries and satsumas from the market. I had sworn that the wrap had vegan on the label for it at the fridge but it turned out it had a yoghurt dressing. Vegan fail :-( I think I was just so weighed down with bags and in a hurry I didn’t look properly. I’m not strictly vegan so I’m not that upset by it, just miffed at my mistake. It did taste good though ;-) I shared my giant satsumas with my friends kids, juice went every where :-)

I had a great afternoon with my friends then made my way home. I made myself a fantastic green juice with cucumber, celery and fresh mint:

Great mix of flavours in this! For dinner I really craved a big veggie packed salad so I raided the fridge and filled a bowl with romaine, cucumber, red pepper, and red onion then topped it with some baked tofu which I’d marinated in soy sauce, ground ginger and garlic granules then some red pepper hummus watered down a bit and some olives:

This met my craving perfectly! A bit later I was in snack mode so a had a few bowls of millet puffs mixed with coconut sauce (coconut flour mixed with water) and strawberries:

Eaten in bed watching TV, yum!

Its been lovely to have been paid and be able to treat myself to a couple of goodies. Restocking my kitchen cupboard has been fun too, more on that later in the week!

Have you treated yourself to anything recently?

What a brilliant weekend it has been! In fact I thought the best way to share it would be via a bit of a photo dump!

• Breakfast of strawberries, peaches, home made cashew sunflower butter and spinach vanilla smoothie and Indian Chai tea on the side
• OOTD: floral printed silk dress: French Connection, pink belt: taken from a Warehouse dress, pink diamante bracelet: Accessorize
• Blue Skies over Newcastle :-)
• Super food Salad @ Chalk and Paper
• Berry smoothie and soy latte with almond syrup @ Intermezzo
• Tyneside Cinema to see the wonderful The Dark Knight Rises (OMG I am now even more in love with Joseph Gordon Levitt!)
• Groceries from town: local free range brown and white eggs, giant box of dates, local honeycomb, macadamia nuts, apricots, blueberries, organic coffee (from Grainger Market, Mmm Newcastle and Olive and Bean)
• Coffee blended with raw cacao butter – holy crap this was awesome! More to come on this for sure!
• Figs, blueberries, Greek yoghurt, honeycomb = yum
• Tempeh salad with olives and balsamic dressing
• Getting ready for Kettlebells and still rocking the converse! We did a new routine which was fun!

How’s your weekend going so far? Have you seen The Dark Knight Rises?

Hello everyone, hope your enjoying a lovely relaxing Sunday! This morning I was at the gym for a 5 mile treadmill run and my Kettlebell class and now I’m planning on chilling out for the rest of the day, bliss.

On Friday night I had a big bowl of courgette noodles covered with some of my basil, hemp and pine nut pesto:

This was fantastic, home made pesto is the best! I also made a giant bowl of salty chocolately popcorn to eat while I finished the last Hunger Games book:

I just popped this dry in a pan and mixed with stevia powder, braggs and cocoa powder. I also added some raisins, so good!

Yesterday morning we headed into town, OOTD:

 Navy coat: New Look, faux fur scarf: New Look, sequinned jewelled jumper: Urban Outfitters, white vest: H&M, denim shorts: Dorothy Perkins, black tights: M&S, black boots: New Look 

I had woke up not feeling hungry at all (that popcorn was accompanied by a lot of raw choc covered raisins!) so I waited until we got to town to have breakfast:

3 berry smoothie with jasmine green tea from Olive and Bean

While we were in Olive and Bean I couldn’t resist their wall of tea!

Its amazing! I decided to treat myself to some Mint Chocolate Rooibos loose leaf tea, Licorice and Cinnamon tea and a new tea infuser:

While in town I returned one of the dresses I bought in the sale from Urban Outfitters. It was a bit of a snug fit and since I won’t be loosing weight anytime soon I decided to take it back. They didn’t have any more of them in stock so I swapped it for these lovelies:

 

Cropped striped jumper £10 and emerald green midi skirt £20 both in the sale. I love the green skirt especially, it has a lovely vintage feel. I also got a couple of plain vest tops from H&M and stocked up on some almond sesame tofu and frozen tempeh from the health food shop.

When we got home I made a lovely big salad:

This was black kale, carrot, yellow pepper, cucumber and olives. I topped it with a load of different things – gomasio, sea salt, sea veggie sprinkle and some cheesy spicy cashew and red pepper sauce which was leftover from being used as a coating for making these amazing raw kale chips:

These are so good! Very glad that I ordered that extra kale :-)

Other tasty things from the weekend include this yummy chocolate green juice shake:

I wanted my usual green juice but fancied something a bit more substantial so I blended my cucumber, celery and kale stem juice with a scoop of chocolate hemp protein powder, some spinach that needed using up, maca powder, midori greens, matcha green tea, ground flax and ice. It was delicious!

I made myself a big bowl of my raw ‘December’ Salad…

…followed by my fave evening snack of frozen cherries with peanut flour sauce and cacao nibs:

I can’t get enough of cacao nibs at the moment, I’ve been snacking on little bowls of them mixed with raisins or goji berries.

How has your weekend been? Have you tried any fancy teas recently?

Oh, and before I forget I’ve done a little rearranging of my recipe page so hopefully it should be a bit easier to look through – check it out! You also only have a few more hours to enter my blog birthday GIVEAWAY!

Hello everyone! Hope you are having a brilliant weekend, mine has been pretty damn good so far :-) After 5 days off the coffee I made up for it yesterday:

Americano from Intermezzo and a Soy Vanilla Latte from Starbucks

I don’t see my love of coffee as a bad thing or think that I’m addicted, I just know I feel better when I go a bit easier on it from time to time! Those two where enjoyed in Newcastle, James and I had the morning together looking around the shops and went out for lunch:

• OOTD: wrap around scarf: Dorothy Perkins, silk floral shift dress: French Connection, Army Jacket c/o Next, tan leather cross body bag: Mango, ‘Coffee is good for your brain’ Illustrated Tote bag: Memo Illustrations, black tights: M&S, cream flats: Next
• Apple, ginger and mint juice and Falafel with hummus and toasted pitta bread from Scrumpy Willow and the Signing Kettle

It was quite chilly first thing and I needed that scarf! It got really warm in the afternoon though and was a perfect day for meeting some bloggers! Maria and Sarah are doing the Great North Run today and we arranged to meet up for cuppa. I took them to Olive and Bean – I had to show them the wall of tea :-)

It was great meeting them both! I had met Sarah last year but had never met Maria after what must be over 2 years of reading her blog! They are both as lovely in person as they are online :-) I can’t wait to see how they got on with the race.

Speaking of which, some of you may remember that I was training for the GNR before I decided to quit running. I did feel a pang of sadness that I wouldn’t be running while I was talking to Sarah and Maria about it, but I know that giving up running for the moment was the best decision for me and still is so no regrets! I have to remember I did pretty well when I ran it last year and the year before that!

While I was in town I passed the market and bought more fruit and veg. Is it just me or does there seem to be an abundance of cheap and plentiful fruit right now? There was berries, peaches, plums, figs, melons, pears etc all very cheap. As I have no will power I’ve been buying probably a bit too much of them, however I have no problem eating huge plates full as I have had for breakfast these last two days:

Strawberries, blackberries, raspberries and blueberries with almond butter and a green smoothie on the side plus an Earl Grey and Green tea blend

Figs, plums and nectarines with local honeycomb and tahini (I also went back for more tahini!)

I’ve still got a full fruit bowl and fridge to work my way through! I have also ate the occasional vegetable in the form of steamed broccoli with roast butternut squash, beetroot and red onion with tricolour quinoa, organic feta and parsley:

That tricolour quinoa is so much tastier than the plain kind, it has a more nutty flavour so I will certainly be getting that from now on. I’ve ate that meal twice for dinner as its so satisfying.

Last but not least I finished off my jar of Justin’s Chocolate Hazelnut Butter:

There was a few tablespoons left and I couldn’t help myself eat those up with a spoon, Saturday night treat indeed :-)

How has your weekend been? Anyone else a crazy fruit lady like me? Good luck to all Great North Run Runners!