On Monday I remembered to take photos this week. I did not get up to much – I had to go to the shops in the morning to pick up a few bits, and I painted my nails in the afternoon. Busy times!
Breakfast:
Mint tea, porridge with peaches, dried strawberries and a little honey peanut butter. Today I had this again and this time I put the pb in the bottom of the bowl- I saw it somewhere (sorry can’t remember which fab blog)- I always worried about the pb burning in the microwave, but it was fine and a lovely surprise at the bottom of the bowl!
Snack (post shopping- I needed an energy boost asap):
Yummy hazelnut carob stick.
Lunch:
Toasted sourdough ( that I made on Friday- it worked really well) with pb and apple and mango jam, apple and a persimmon.
Afternoon nibble:
I made some cocoa mint bites- with soaked almonds, dates, cocoa and mint extract all whizzed up. I had painted my nails by this point but it did not really come out in the photo. Ah well.
Dinner:
Lentil chilli from the freezer, with added spinach, alongside some roasted broccoli and toasted pine nuts. Here is my vegetable intake for the day anyway- in the chilli there is red onion, red pepper, courgette, carrot, celery, sweet potato, tinned tomatoes and lentils, (7 types of veg, or 8 because I am sure pulses count) then I added in spinach and served with broccoli. Obviously (as one serving = 80g) I did not eat 10 servings of veg, but I think it is good to have smaller amounts of more variety- packing those vitamins in.
Dessert:
Some Montezuma’s mint chocolate. A delicious end to the day.
At the shops I was excited to see…
Alpro hazelnut milk! I have enjoyed their almond milk, but not seen this version before. It was only £1 so I thought I would give it a go, although I have not opened it yet. And chocolate pretzels! I love pretzel flipz but you never get them over here any more- I am hoping these are just as good although again I have not tried them yet. Any other chocolate pretzel fans? I don’t like salted chocolate (bought some Lindt stuff a while back without realising- it was almond (and then with tiny writing “a sprinkle of salt” which I didn’t see until I had tried some and thought “urgh”) but I love the salty prezel with chocolate combo. Weird.
Thanks Jenn for organising this and getting everyone to love their veggies. How are you loving your veggies right now? Do you paint your nails? (I hardly ever get around to it).
In the end I went for peppermint tea, and some carrot cake which was made on the premises that morning- delish. But the choice of teas meant it was hard to choose. It was all loose-leaf tea, and when it had brewed in the jug for a bit, you slotted the jug on top of the cup, and it filtered down into the cup. Very clever. They also did gluten free cakes, and sold their tea, so I bought a pack of the peppermint as it was the nicest peppermint tea I have ever had. It was such a nice place too- upstairs it was filled with comfy chairs, sofas etc, and had all the papers out to read, so we spent a while relaxing there.
Lots of tea (loose leaf chai and chocolate chai, plus apple and ginger), almond milk (as it was on offer), pesto (as it is so hard to find even vegetarian pesto usually so I went crazy and got the vegan version), peanut butter truffles, dark chocolate with marzipan and cherries, and some of their pudding bars. I also bought some Carley’s Sunflower seed butter but it didn’t make the photo for some reason.
I found a good place to watch (leaning on the fence) and did see Andy go past, but I was not quick enough with the camera- I think he is totally hidden by high-viz guy!
The runners took about 15 mins to go past- there was an awful lot of them. They kept announcing that late starters would not be allowed, but there were still a lot of stragglers.
I had a little wander by the beach- it all looked very pretty. That is the pier in the distance.
The wheel was going around very fast!
(That is my Kindle with it’s new Paperchase cover- it does fit in my bag if I pack it all carefully because my new purse (well, new from Christmas) is also quite big).
They are the front cover recipe, and this time look more like it (last time I used white chocolate to top them). Some went in this tub, some went in bags for various friends. Some went in the fridge for me too 🙂 It is super easy- you need a pan (I use a brownie pan which I think is 15 x 20cm) lined with baking paper.
I also made some more sourdough- I added the last of my Munchy Seeds to it- I am hoping that it still turns out well. I oiled the pan this time so fingers crossed! 🙂
The almond milk is lovely in tea. I think I had a walk then (I did at some point) and needed warming up.
Plus apple, persimmon and pb (I only dip the apple in it though).
Sweet potato with hummus (I was in a hummus mood that day obviously), with salad and cucumber.
Yes! I even got some veggies in my dessert- I love carrot cake!
I had some friends over and one of them gets migraines from chocolate. I mentioned carob to her, and she had never heard of it, so I took it upon myself to make her some carob chip cookies (half also with dried cherries- the bag is separating them!)- she loved them! 🙂 I used the 
Peanut butter and some beyond dark chocolate drops (found these again in Sainsbury’s- hooray). (We did also have pittas, veggie crudités, grapes and strawberries- we are not all bad!).
Tofu/ pesto quinoa and broccoli. It needs perfecting, but basically I cooked some quinoa (30g dry), whizzed up some silken tofu (about a third of the pack) with a few tsp meridian pesto, then mixed in the quinoa. I put some broccoli in a baking dish and topped it with the tofu/pesto/quinoa mix, and baked for 20 mins. Then I topped it with pine nuts. It was tasty, but I think it needed some more pesto in there.
I mixed up peanut flour with cinnamon and almond milk, and had it with apple and wholemeal pitta to dip. Very tasty indeed.