Busy bee

Hello! I trust you are all enjoying this beautiful weather (although I feel one day of sunshine cannot quite be a heatwave!).

I have been busy over the weekend in the kitchen (but I have been enjoying the weather- I had a walk yesterday evening and went round for a late breakfast in my parent’s garden this morning), so be prepared for many photos!

First up were some amazing chocolate crispy squares from Oh She Glows (I found them while looking for chia seed recipes!!)- I used Rude Health puffed oats as I had them, and did not have rice crispies. They are amazing. Seriously. The recipe is here.

Then I had this “problem” to deal with:

That is a lot of bananas! I have had some banana “pudding” (mashed up with pb and carob powder) and have some in the fridge. But I still had loads left and I did not want to put them in the freezer. Then I remembered seeing a recipe for banana brownies on Peanutnutterbutter’s blog- recipe here.

I added some peanut butter chips to it as well, as they need using up! This smells so good and will be going into work as everyone will approve of the fat free recipe. 🙂

I also tried one of my new salad dressings last night.

I was going to ask you to guess which one, but you can see it in the pic! Whoops! I had it with some falafel type things (chickpeas in the food processor with tomato puree, garlic, chilli, a little water and some gluten flour- then rolled into balls- it made 12), some red and white quinoa (I have run out of dried stuff and the pouches were on offer), beetroot and lettuce. Really I should have had it in a pasta bowl in layers, as the dressing made the qunioa lovely too. It was really summery, and reminded me of dressings we used to get when we went on holiday to France. Yum. Plus, look how pink it is!

Finally I made some hazelnut praline muffins, from my new Hummingbird book- these are for Sunday tea.

Not sure why they are not cupcakes? But basically it was a normal muffin/ cupcake batter, with some nutella (well, whole earth chocolate hazelnut spread) stirred in, then spoon batter into the cases, add a blob of spread and then more batter, and top with chopped hazelnuts. They smell amazing!

Running related news- (we have the Great South run booked which is a 10 miler in October) and today we signed up for the Silverstone half marathon. I think I need to do those sorts of races as I like going for longer than 6 miles at the weekend- they are a challenge and hopefully I can work on getting my times down a bit. And I got an email from the Olympics saying that so long as they take payment, we will have the tickets we bid for! Phew- the early start was worth it! 🙂

Finally, a random picture from the other day- I whizzed up 80g frozen raspberries and added some alpro chocolate. It does go just like sorbet. Then I had the rest of the alpro dessert underneath. Yummy.

And I will be back later to see who has won the Bloom Tea giveaway! Exciting stuff!

Right, I am off to the garden!

Questions- Any 10 mile/ half marathon distance races you have loved? I have all year so let me know 🙂

And what are you doing to enjoy this weather?

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16 thoughts on “Busy bee”

  1. Wow, so many amazing recipes!!Seems like you had a pretty tasty weekend 🙂
    It is raining where I live, so I enjoy it with books and painting…I am longing to see some sunlights 🙂

  2. Congrats on the olympics tickets! (Well, I hope so anyway 😀 )

    My brain has kinda gone into overdrive looking at all that cooking. I’m living off really boring / easy food at the moment, and seeing all that baking makes me think I should reevaluate my priorities! I’m especially enamoured with the Hummingbird muffins (and no, I have no idea what the difference is either!)

    I got out for an early run this morning before the weather got too hot, and otherwise I’m indoors working. I might make it out for a pint in the early evening sunshine though. We’ll see how things pan out.

  3. All your baking looks amazing! I’ve seen that recipe on Oh She Glows before, must give it a go!

    I’ve been outside in the garden this afternoon while the children napped, enjoying the sunshine & eating lots of frozen grapes! Inside to cool off for a bit now then off to a family BBQ (which I’m looking forward to slightly more now as bumped into Liam’s auntie yesterday & she offered to buy me some veggie burgers. I’m going to take basil tofu instead to have on top of salads, but glad her attitude has improved! 🙂 )

    Enjoy the garden, I’m appreciating the weather so much today as it’s been so miserable lately…just hope it lasts for a while now!

  4. Being that I’m at the other end of the country to you, the races I love are all the ones I’ve entered in the past but particularly the Great North Run for 1/2 distance and the Thirsk 10 miles for that particular distance. Not sure that you’d want to make the trek all the way up North though, although I’d say that the GNR is well worth it.

    I…don’t enjoy this weather! It’s a bit too hot and humid for me, so I can’t imagine what it must be like in the South.

    Love the look of your sorbet: you must have an uber-powerful blender to get rid of all the raspberry pips (that’s what tends to put me off raspberries)

    xxx

    1. All I have is a kenwood mini chopper (£15 from sainsbury’s) but it copes well with small frozen fruit. I tried it with frozen watermelon and that was too much. But if you keep scraping it down and going again it makes it pretty smooth, although I don’t mind the pips.
      Thanks for the race recomendations- we like our little trips around the UK so you never know 🙂

  5. Your blog always makes me drool 😉 Those chocolate crispy squares look scrumptious and the hazelnut praline muffins…well…just the thought of praline makes me want to start baking! Or preferably have someone else bake for me 😉

  6. It looks like you’ve been busy in the kitchen this weekend! The muffins look delicious. I don’t do a lot of baking (read – none), but I always think I should give it a go. I’m scared that I would eat all my efforts!

  7. Everything you’ve made looks amazing! I’d love to live at your house. Glad the brownies turned out well, I need these peanut butter chips in my life asap, where did you get them? Also re the last post, loved all the peanut butter goodies and I am looking forward to see what you make with the chia seeds! I’ve been on the lookout for them for months and months, keep getting close to buying them off amazon and then backing out.
    What olympic tickets have you bid for? The salad dressing looks yummy, I always go to buy one but then none looks appealing. The fact that it’s pink makes me want to buy it!
    Enjoy the rest of your sunny evening 🙂

    1. We bid for one athletics session and one hockey match. The athletics was expensive but I thought it was once in a lifetime really.
      I got the pb chips from americansweets.co.uk (but do not read the ingredients list as it is rather scary!).
      Well thanks for the recipe, they are amazing 🙂

        1. Yeah you have to- they are not good at all! But so long as they are in moderation I think! 🙂

  8. Glad you all liked the pictures! 🙂
    I did eat some other stuff too (eg porridge and a lot of fruit!).
    And a lot of the baking goes into work, or to my family, or to my freezer (so it gets shared out pretty well).

  9. If you keep up with baking and posting pics like that I may have to boycott your blog as I may very well eat it 😉 I’m giving up baking for a while and going to try seriously giving up sugar and wheat, I feel so much better when I do.

    No race recommendations sorry.

  10. Yikes, I’m having an ‘I want a cake’ type afternoon and popped on to distract myself…oops!!!!

    So – race recommendations – I’ve only done local ones of that sort of distance so not sure if they will be of any help but….

    Swanage Half Marathon – Saturday 16th July – so not far away but maybe a good excuse for a weekend at the seaside???

    The Beast – this is 12 or 13 (ish!) miles on Sunday 4th September – a very hilly challenging off road route in Corfe Castle but great views and well worth the effort…no point trying to do it fast so although it’s tough there’s no pressure to perform which makes it great fun.

    Bristol Half Marathon – I haven’t done this one but a lot of my friends have and say that it’s a great atmosphere and pretty flat so good for a pb
    I think that one is september too.

    Rosexx
    (who is now off to eat an apple and try to pretend that it is as yummy as your cupcake/muffin/cookies (it reminded me of your yummy cookies….)

    1. I bet the apple was just as good 🙂
      Thanks for those races- Andy said he was recommended the Bristol Half too, so we might look into that.

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