Happy Wednesday, hope your week is going fabulously! Ready for another veg packed WIAW? These are my eats and happenings from Monday, enjoy!

I’m kind of playing about with my workout schedule at the moment while I’m exploring the yoga class options in my area so instead of going to the gym first thing like I usually do I just got up and did a quick yoga podcast to start the week off right. I did a 20 minute detox challenge flow from Yoga Download which was a great way to start the day. After the usual warm water and lemon I made a very tasty breakfast:

I had some plain tofu cream leftover from making the Spicy Sweet Potato and Almond Butter Gratin (so glad you guys are loving that recipe!) so mixed it with a touch of stevia then combined with a small chopped apple, frozen blueberries, uncooked oats and topped with some bee pollen and pumpkin seeds. It tasted amazing, I am crazy about the multiple uses of silken tofu right now! I also enjoyed an amaretto coffee with kara coconut milk:

Mid morning at work I snacked on some sugar snap peas, sliced red peppers and raw maca dip:

I also had a mug of miso:

I used to drink miso all the time but had fallen out of the habit. On Monday I just fancied something savoury and that did the trick. For lunch I had leftover quinoa with chickpeas, cranberries and parsley on top of a big bowl of mixed salad greens and home sprouted alfalfa:

Mid afternoon I snacked on a couple of pink lady apples:

I can’t get enough of these at the moment!

I had been planning to try to get into the gym Monday night Body Pump class as I had decided to try a new yoga class which is held on a Tuesday evening when I would have went to my usual Body Pump class. Unfortunately the Monday night class had been fully booked and I was on the reserve list but instead of showing up and not getting a place I decided to go with the flow and head home for a DVD workout mash up!

I did 30 Day Shred Level 1, Davina Fit Top fit (minus the warm up and cool down) and half an hour of core conditioning Yogalates:

I’m very glad I have such a varied DVD collection, this was really good fun for a change!

For dinner I just kept it simple with some leftover lentil soup, organic blue corn chips and some steamed broccoli with soy sauce and nutritional yeast:

A bit later in the evening I decided to treat myself for dessert and raided the freezer for a slice of my raw salted caramel pecan cake:

I keep forgetting how truly delicious this is. It tastes so buttery it is amazing!

Before bed I had a mug of spicy liquorice and cinnamon tea:

As usual, throughout the day I drank several cups of green tea, green tea with chai and rooibos.

So most of my eats on Monday were made up of leftovers from the weekend re worked. I used to spend a lot of time making up single serving meals (as James usually eats differently to me) but now I make things with multiple portions and reuse the leftovers in different ways. I find that a grain and protein type meal like the quinoa and chickpeas can be made lunch friendly by throwing on top of salad greens. The leftover tofu cream was easily combined with the oats and fruit just like you would do yoghurt, but could have just as easily been mixed with nutritional yeast, garlic and lemon juice and used as a sauce for veggies. The soup was made into a more substantial meal by adding the blue corn chips and the big bowl of broccoli – I need my green veggies!

What’s your favourite way to re work leftovers?

Don’t forget to enter my lovely House Plant GIVEAWAY if you haven’t checked it out already!

Well I just have to say a big thank you for all the kind comments on my Vlog! I’m very happy that you enjoyed it (and my Geordie accent!) It seems that I could have an alternative career being a narrator or a voice over! I’ll definitely be posting more in the future, what can I say I like to ramble on ;-) You can also follow my channel on You Tube. Now on to the eats!

These are my eats and random things from yesterday. As soon as I woke up I was off to the kitchen for my hot water and lemon juice which I drank in the bathroom while putting my make up on:

For breakfast I had myself a little treat. I’d noticed that I still had a couple of slices of my raw caramel pecan cake in the freezer and thought it would be great for breakfast! I had a slice with a smoothie made with frozen cherries, hemp milk, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, water, ice, vanilla stevia and a pinch of sea salt:

It was divine! I also had coffee, obviously…

I was pretty excited when I saw that we were going to get some sun so I thought I’d get out a pair of sandals, for the first time this year I think!

OOTD: blazer: H&M, stripy top: Zara, jewelled headband (worn as necklace): River Island, black ankle length pants: Zara, jewelled cuff: Miss Selfridge, gladiator style sandals: Primark

Mid morning at work I snacked on some home made hummus with carrots to keep me going:

Lunch was a really good salad with romaine, spinach, cucumber, red onion, carrot, black beans, pumpkin seeds and an orange basil dressing:

The dressing was delicious! I’d made it at the weekend by combining fresh orange juice, basil leaves, apple cider vinegar, garlic and hemp oil. I wished I could have gone and ate my lunch outside, it was gorgeous!

Mid afternoon I had a crunchy fresh jazz apple and one of my raw cherry almond protein brownies:

Then it was off to the gym for Body Pump! I got there a bit early so did 20 minutes cardio on the machines before the class. It was a hot and sweaty one for sure!

Dinner was a baked sweet potato stuffed with sunflower seed butter, steamed broccoli with soy sauce and some cold marinated and baked tofu:

This is my favourite meal at the moment! Sweet potato with any type of nut butter is always good, I can’t get enough broccoli, and the firm and cold tofu (which I’d marinated in soy sauce, garlic and ginger powder then baked at the weekend) is just perfect.

For dessert I made a smoothie with a scoop of spiru-tein s’mores flavour, mixed frozen berries, water, ice, stevia and a pinch of xanthan gum to thicken, topped with freeze dried berries and pineapple pieces:

I’ve been craving smoothies like crazy so far this week! Instead of my usual hot tea I decided to make an iced tea:

This was just a bag of sleepy time tea left a while with some cold water and ice plus some agave for added sweetness, it was very refreshing.

So another pretty standard day from me! I’m happy with the balance I’m achieving at the moment, especially between cooked and raw foods. That breakfast will be repeated as will my dinner, I love it when meals satisfy you like that! I generally love variety in my diet, but occasionally I just love something so much I repeat it over and over! Do you have a favourite meal at the moment?

P.S Last chance to enter my GIVEAWAY to win a copy of Superfoods for Women Only – Check it out!

Now that I am properly on holiday for Christmas I thought I’d indulge in making a couple of special festive recipes. These are both incredible – seriously I don’t often say that, but both of these are super easy to make, taste fantastic and take minutes to put together, plus they are very healthy – my kind of food! You could serve these dishes to friends and family and I’m sure they would think you’d been slaving away for hours!

Christmas Couscous (vegan, serves two, inspired by recipe from Nigella Christmas)

• 1/2 cup of green or brown lentils (or a tin)
• 1/2 cup of wholegrain couscous
• 1/2 cup of hot vegetable stock (I used hot water and vegan vegetable bouillon)
• 2 tbsp of dried cranberries
• 2 tbsp of shelled pistachio nuts
• 1/4 cup of fresh parsley finely chopped
• 1 carrot, grated
• Juice from 1 satsuma, clemintine or half an orange
• 1 tbsp of olive oil

Spices, Use your kitchen intuition and own personal tastes here. I used about 1/4 tsp of each:

• Ginger
• Cinnamon
• Cumin
• Coriander

Begin by cooking the lentils if not using tinned in water until tender, drain and put to one side. In a bowl, mix together the dry couscous, cranberries and spices. Pour over the hot vegetable stock and cover the bowl with cling film or a lid. While the couscous is absorbing the stock, grate the carrot, juice the citrus fruit and chop the parsley. After 5 minutes all the stock should have been absorbed into the couscous. Fluff the couscous with a fork and mix in the carrot, parsley, juice and pistachios. Serve with a nice green salad:

I served mine with some raw cavolo nero kale massaged with lemon juice. You could really play about with this recipe adding whatever spices, dried fruit and nuts that take your fancy. If you had some pomegranate seeds they would be amazing too. If your wanting to be posh, spoon the couscous into a small bowl, press down and turn out onto the plate in a dome shape for prettier presentation :-)

Raw Salted Caramel Pecan Cake (serves at least 6, vegan, raw)

  This is the absolute bomb!!!

For the base:

• 1 cup of pitted dates – I use fresh Iranian dates from the green grocers, medjool dates would also be great
• 1/2 cup of pecan nuts
• 1/2 cup of almonds

For the caramel:

• 2 tbsp of coconut oil
• 2 tbsp of raw cashew butter (or any nut butter would do, even roasted nut butters but then that wouldn’t be completely raw, but would still taste great so who cares?)
• 2 tbsp of lucuma powder – I think maca powder or mesquite powder would also work – Holland and Barrat stock maca powder now (if you have none of these powders and fancy a chocolate twist use cocoa powder instead, it will be amazing too!)
• 2 tbsp of agave syrup
• About 1/2 tsp of sea salt

For the topping:

• 1/4 cup of pecan nuts, chopped
• sprinkle of sea salt

To make the crust blitz the almonds and pecans in a food processor until they are finely chopped. Add the dates and process again until the mixture begins to form a sticky ball. Remove from the food processor and press the mixture down into a cake tin lined with cling film. Transfer to the freezer to chill and firm up.

To make the caramel melt the coconut oil gently over some warm water and combine with the nut butter, lumuca powder or other powder, agave and sea salt until smooth. Get the cake tin out of the freezer and spread the caramel on top in an even layer.

Sprinkle the chopped pecans and sea salt on top, pressing into the caramel layer. Transfer back into the freezer to chill and harden. Can be stored the the fridge for a week or kept in the freezer for a few months:

I got 6 generous slices out of this but its pretty rich and could probably serve 8 people easily if accompanied by some banana soft serve! This tastes sweet and unbelievably buttery, just heaven!

This may just be one of the best things I’ve ever made! Yes, this will probably be quite high in calories, but unlike a frozen cheesecake or tart in a box, for a similar amount of calories this cake is refined sugar free, made from whole raw ingredients, is full of healthy fats, enzymes and antioxidants and still tastes incredible! I’d much rather get more nutritional bang for my calorie buck!

I’ve sliced this up and wrapped each slice in foil to store in the freezer. If we have any unexpected guests over Christmas I can just whip these out, give them 5 minutes to soften and serve them up. You could make this cake weeks in advance of an event if you needed to, ultimate convenience food!

I’m going to be doing more cooking and baking tomorrow including a vegan main dish for Christmas lunch, Leek and Roasties Soup, cranberry sauce and an experimental vegan caramel and chocolate tart / pie type thing!

Have you made anything particularly festive yet? Are there any dishes you cook for Christmas every year?

Happy Friday everyone! I’m still feeling a bit out of sync due to the extended weekend. My routine has been all over the place but as they say ‘a change is as good as a rest’ and the shake up has made me feel quite refreshed!

My usual workout routine has been quite different this week:

• Saturday – 8.5 mile run 
• Sunday – REST
• Monday – Back garden workout
• Tuesday – Back garden workout
• Wednesday – PM Hot Yoga class 
• Thursday – AM 4 mile run, PM yoga class
• Friday – this workout:

I just made that workout up this morning, it was the perfect level for me, I felt like I worked hard but could probably have increased my weights so I didn’t feel too burned out. Now that I’m finished Female Body Breakthrough and I’m trying to get better prepared for the Great North Run in September, I’m going to just wing it as far as my non running workouts are concerned. Hot yoga was fantastic yet again, I can’t wait to go back!

After the bank holiday festivities I’ve continued to eat pretty ‘clean’ and have been giving the processed sugar and caffeine (apart from green tea) a miss. At the weekend I bought a huge box of organic apricots for £1.50 so I’ve been using them in everything including my salads:

Romaine, cucumber, carrot, chickpeas, olives, fresh apricots

Romaine, cucumber, carrot, red onion, quinoa, olives, fresh apricots

I’ve also been snacking on them:

fresh apricots and dried figs

I really love apricots but they are usually too expensive to buy fresh, these were great for a treat and added a lovely sweetness to the salads.

I’ve still been on a huge smoothie kick:

Spinach, frozen peaches, strawberry hemp protein powder, ground flax, maca, ice, water topped with pumpkin seeds and goji berries

Frozen cherries, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, water, ice and sea salt with a slice of my raw caramel pecan cake and a caffeine free almond amaretto teeccino for breakfast

Mixed frozen berries, ice, water and chocolate sun warrior protein powder topped with raw cacao nibs

Kale, frozen banana, chocolate hemp powder, maca, ground flax, ice, water topped with hemp seeds and raisins

I’ve also had a couple of delicious but pretty easy to make dinners. Pre hot yoga I just wanted something fairly light but filling:

Socca with fresh basil in the batter spread with almond butter and stuffed with half a large avocado sprinkled with sea salt and bee pollen, eaten with a big pile of un pictured sauerkraut on the side

Budhha bowl with quinoa, edamame beans, broccoli and kale drizzled with tahini miso sauce

That random socca combo was amazing!

Despite feeling not completely with it this week I managed to put together a couple of nice outfits:

I got my maxi skirt out again (denim jacket: New Look, jewelled headband worn as necklace: River Island, grey basic tee: New Look, pink belt: taken off a Warehouse dress, black maxi skirt: Primark, trainers: Converse) I also decided to do a bit of liberating my wardrobe and wear a dress that I’ve had unworn in for far too long. I layered it up to make it a bit more weather and work appropriate (yellow cardigan: H&M, blue polka dot dress: Warehouse, basic grey tee: New Look, black tights M&S, brown brogues: Topshop)

On the Love List this week…

source

This week I took a big step towards making my little business ideas a reality. On Wednesday I took some time out while I was at work to distribute my market research questionnaires. I have one for my community healthy eating workshops which I’ve sent to my local contacts through work and I have another which is to investigate my ideas around providing health coaching. I didn’t originally think about sharing this on a wider basis or through the blog but then I thought well why not? I would really love people’s honest views. If you can spare a couple of minutes to take a look, I’d be forever grateful! Here it is :-) Also…

Buying a kabocha squash the size of my head! // this post from Gena at Choosing Raw about turning 30 // Look Book Cook Book – fashion and vegan, gluten free, soy free recipes? Hell yes! // making ice pops // 3 day week!

I also wanted to just quickly talk about the sponsored posts I’ve been doing. I know there has been a lot recently, I have to admit I’ve been on a huge learning curve with these and I’m not entirely happy with how I’ve managed it all. Big thanks to everyone that has supported me and commented on those posts as well as sharing valuable constructive feedback. I do hope that you can bear with me on this, normal service is being resumed!

In case you missed it – My Jubilee Party pics!

Do you have a regular routine? How do you feel when your routine is changed? Do you find it refreshing or difficult to deal with?

Hope you all have a great weekend ahead, enjoy the rest of your Friday!