Hi Everyone! I've got loads of yummy recipes in todays post but first things first, breakie! I made a 'bit of everything in the cupboard' muesli. It contained jumbo oats, brown rice puffs, quinoa flakes, grape nuts, ground flax, flaked almonds, desicated coconut, mixed nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and some green grapes with skimmed milk. It was very filling and tasted great, I think it was the coconut that really made it.

After some lovely Sunday morning pottering I went to the shops for a few bits to set me up for my day of cooking. I then came home and did 30 mins of Tae Bo and my strength routine as detailed in my April training plan. I managed to hold my plank for a full minute (I hope your reading Laura!) I was pouring of sweat afterwards, but felt great!

For lunch I made 2 scrambled eggs on toasted mulitgrain rye bread. It was the first time I'd had rye bread, it was only a slim slice but it was very filling!

I also made myself a smoothie which was inspired by a recipe in the Innocent recipe book and a recipe from Pimp my Protein Shake.

Jasmine Vanilla Blackberry Melon Protein Smoothie

1 cup of chilled jasmine green tea
1 small punnet of blackberries
1 scoop of vanilla whey
A few pieces of melon
2 ice cubes

Blend all ingredients together and drink! This tasted lovely, although if I was making this again I would try and just use jasmine tea and not jasmine green tea as it had a slightly bitter after taste.

After lunch I started on my cooking. I made a quinoa salad for lunches next week and a roast vegetable bake for dinners. I also made up some chia seed pudding for desert tonight.

Quinoa Salad

1 cup of Quinoa
2 cups of hot veg stock
1 red pepper
half a red onion
6 spring onions
half a cucumber
1 grated carrot

Tablespoon of Olive oil
juice of 1 lemon

Cook the quinoa in the hot veg stock until all the stock is absorbed (about 15 mins on a medium heat). Chop all of the veg into small pieces. Allow the quinoa to cool a litte then mix together with the veggies. Mix together the oil and lemon juice and dress the salad. Serve with additional salad leaves if desired.

I'm not eating this until lunch tomorrow but I had a quick taste. I've never tried quinoa before and this was really good. The veggie stock had flavoured the quinoa really well. Can't wait to have a big lunchbox full tomorrow!

Roast Vegetable Mozzerella Bake

2 small aubergines
1 courgette
1 red onion
1 red pepper
10 cherry tomatoes

For the sauce
1 carton of passata (seived tomatoes)
1 white onion
2 gloves of garlic
A good glug of balsamic vingar

1 ball of mozzerella cheese
Olive oil
Nutritional yeast (optional)

Chop the aubergine into half inch thick slices and spread out on a baking sheet, sprinkle over some salt and leave for 20 mins. Chop the courgette, red onion, pepper and add along with the cherry tomatoes to a roasting tin and spray with oil. Brush the aubergine with olive oil and bake all the veggies for 20 mins or until golden and slightly charred at about 200. To make the tomato sauce chopped the onions and mince the garlic and sweat in some olive oil over a medium heat until transparent. Add the passata and simmer for 5 mins then add the balsamic. When the veggies are done layer up all the ingredients in a baking dish -

Veggies first...

then tomato sauce...

then mozzerella and nutritional yeast

Repeat for again, finishing with mozzerella on the top. Bake at 200 for 20 mins or so until bubbling.

I can't wait to have this for my dinner tomorrow with a big salad. This makes two very large portions (well it is mainly just veggies!) or three medium portions. I've boxed these up to keep for during the week as I have other stuff that needs eating up tonight.

Later in the afternoon I did 30 mins of Geri's Yoga DVD (she wasn't as annoying as I thought she would be)and then had a mid afternoon snack of cottage cheese, pineapple nakd raisins and a chopped apple. The pineapple raisins were amazing! They tasted just like pineapple cubes (those boiled sweets).

Dinner was baked salmon with lemon (just salmon fillets with a couple of slices of lemon wrapped in foil and baked in the oven) served with half a sweet potato, green beans, brocolli and cauliflower.

Desert was some of my experimental chia seed pudding!

Vanilla Chia Seed Pudding

2 tablespoons of chia seeds
Vanilla rice milk (enough to cover the seeds plus a bit extra)
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of agave syrup

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and leave in the fridge for at least three hours so that the chia seeds form a gel like substance.

This was suprisingly tasty and filling.

I've been doing a bit of a think about my training for the Great North Run. I think I'm going to stick with my training plan for this month, but next month swap out a gym session for an additional run. I'm going to continue increasing my distance each week on my weekend run and working on my speed during intervals at the gym. The new run session will be a mix of the two, a longer distance but incorporating some speed work. Do I almost sound like I know what I'm doing there? Ha Ha, I'm really going to have to look at some back issues of magazines, books and get tips from bloggers on this running lark!

Well I've had a lovely day, I find pottering about in the kitchen with tunes on while I cook is very relaxing. Do you find cooking relaxing or stressful? I used to just bake occassionally but now I love to cook and experiment with healthy dishes.

Hope you have all had a great weekend and have a good week ahead! x

I'm really loving the light mornings at the moment, they do a very good job of waking me up at 5am! I don't mind it really, I love that time in bed when you can just lie there with your thoughts before you have to get up. When I did eventually drag myself out of bed it was to do my Davina Top Fit DVD to blast my upper body. For breakfast I tried out a new smoothie idea:

Green Tea and Mixed Berries Smoothie (in a bowl if you want)

1 cup of cooled green tea (I used Tea Pigs Mao Feng)
About 1 1/2 cups of Frozen mixed berries (use more for a thicker, bowl worthy smoothie)
3 tablespoons of oats
Scoop of vanilla whey (optional)
Tablespoon of ground flax
Splash of milk (I used kara coconut milk)

Blend all ingredients and serve. If serving in a bowl top with grape nuts, chopped nuts or muesli.

This was very thick indeed, like eating fruity ice cream for breakfast!

Lunch was a total salad beast - quinoa, feta cheese, cucumber, carrot, red pepper, spring onion, courgette and chopped mint served on a bed of spinach and mixed salad leaves and topped with a squeeze of lemon juice.

I followed that with some strawberries and a juicy sweet nectarine.

Mid afternoon I had some more spicy lentil dip with sugar snap peas and cucumber for dipping.

As I had a late meeting I snacked on an apple to hold me over.

Dinner was an old frozen stash of home made chilli with some spinach and mixed salad leaves.

Desert was a bowl of low fat fromage frais with agave and flaked almonds, simple but lovely!

Today I finally got round to sorting out my Twitter account! If your on Twitter please come and follow me I'm @keepingslimblog.

I've also been doing a little bit of research for some Big Budget Challenge saving ideas. I really fancy making some things for around the flat. I came across these hand made canvases from mybirdy.

These are made using Cath Kidson paper, I love the vintage style. I think I could make something similar for my living room or kitchen. I also love this vintage style word art from William Dohman.

I'm thinking I could paint a canvas up with a quote in that style of lettering and get some printed paper in the design too. So much inspiration, I've just been full of ideas! What has inspired you today?