Hello!
I enjoyed everyones cheese answers yesterday! It seems the vegan cheeses just do not cut it, but also people miss it less than they would have thought. Thinking about it more, I am not a massive cheese lover anyway- I really only like cream cheese, mozzerella, goats cheese, strong cheddar and wenslydale. No blue cheese, or brie, or feta or anything like that. I think I just got into the habit of topping meals with grated cheese, when they did not really need it.
Anyway, I forgot on my post yesterday so say that I was better (as my post was about Tuesday I suppose). But I was. Yesterday I had a run and it was great! I didn’t want to go too far, in the end I did just under 4 miles, but I managed it all with an average pace of 10 min miles, a speed I have not got up to for a while. Plus no walk breaks (well, except for annoying crossing the road ones). I was super pleased as I was starting to get a little worried about the upcoming 10K- I was hoping to beat my previous best time, but now I am hoping to run the whole way! I seem to have gone backwards!
I also got back into baking.
Some pumpkin whoopie pies! I was so excited to make these ๐ Although I did not have any marshmallow fluff to add to the filling, so I made it without and the filling was super runny!
They were a hit with Andy and at work- gently spiced and really tasty. ๐ Ones to make again for sure.
Also it is National Cupcake week this week. I am not sure if it is an excuse for the Food network to show more of Cupcake wars than usual, but I was emailed a few recipes from this cupcake book and asked to try some on my blog. I went for the black forest cupcakes, only half way through I found out I did not have any black cherry jam (I was sure I still had some of the lovely meridian cherry spread) so they turned into chocolate and raspberry cupcakes. Ffion I hope you approve ๐ More for work anyway!
And now I am making some autumnal spiced apple crumble bars, based on this fruit crumble bar recipe from the lovely Katie. Happy days indeed.
And if that is not enough, I have body pump later ๐
Lastly, it is nearly the weekend! We are off to see Steven Merchant on Friday night (I keep forgetting) and then up to Sheffield on Saturday for some Shakespear. How cultured! ๐ I will have to tape the Great North run as I am getting a bit excited about it!
Any exciting weekend plans?

Snacks all packed up;
Nakd bar for morning snack, and Eat Natural mini bar for the staff meeting.
Hummus and roasted pepper sandwich, nectarine and pear. And my big water bottle. ๐
Roasted sweet potato (in the microwave, sorry!) with hummus (I meant to try it with almond butter but turned out I must have finished my jar), and some veggies and basil tofu with tomato and a tsp pesto. I was supposed to have some salad too but it had gone all squishy.
(Mainly an excuse to put on a photo of my teapot as I have not had one on here for ages! And our cute cups- mine is the chicken one)
A row of Mint Rawr chocolate (soooo good- the perfect amount of mint)
Alpro dark chocolate, some of Lizi’s granola and a little white chocolate wonderful (which on reflection was not needed as it was very sweet and a bit too sweet for how I was feeling).
Mint tea always makes it better ๐
This one is nectarine, 25g oats, 100g soya yoghurt and 100ml soya milk and a lot of cinnamon, all left to mingle overnight. Yum.
And the same but with 80g frozen cherries instead of the nectarine, and sprinkled with coconut in the morning.
I had my sweet potato and kidney bean burgers again and they were yummy (with some rocket and some quinoa cooked with tomatoes, beetroot, spinach and courgette).
I opened my Starbucks chai and had a cup. Yum.
I had my hair cut again (and in fact nearly forgot- I noticed it on the calendar when I went to add the shopping delivery time!). I feel I leave the hairdresser with a normal amount of hair!
And I made something fun in the microwave. Guesses? Answer at the end!
I had a rubbish run today. I think I am in fact under the weather. My tum felt a little weird before I left, so I waited around a little longer. My whole run was such hard work, I stopped a few times to re-tie my hair and I really appreciated the walking. I was not that much slower than before- it was a while since I had run that route, but it just felt so bad. And all day I have had a sort of tummy ache, so not sure if I ate something bad yesterday, but I think on reflection I should have not gone out this morning as it made me feel worse.
I am almost out of Rude Health Multigrain thins (but no need to worry- see the good points above!).
Breakfast was delicious – an alpro peach yoghurt (I decided to try these again as the last time I had them was a fair few years ago and I wasn’t keen, this time I love them!), with a pear, nectarine and some rude health muesli. Very summery ๐
Snacks all ready! Cocoa mint nakd bar for morning break, and a clif z bar for before my run. I LOVE these kids clif bars, so chewy and yummy!
Lunch was delish- a salad with chopped apple, beetroot, peppers, spinach and sabra hummus, plus a sandwich thin with hummus and spinach.
And served it with veggie and cannelini bean bake, plus nutritional yeast flakes (still off the cheese). Don’t you just love the platter all over the plate haha!
Plus some cherries for dessert.
Dark chocolate alpro with some plain alpro mixed in (mainly because I wanted to see if I liked the plain stuff- I do), Lizi’s original granola and a spoonful of white chocolate wonderful. The pb granola combo was pretty amaze!