Hey peeps,
I hope everyone is doing well. Well this week was back to work after the summer holidays, which means me getting back behind with blog reading again!
I may have mentioned before that my Garmin has been playing up a bit recently- it sometimes takes ages to find a satellite, and sometimes makes up where I am, saying that I either do a mile in a minute or in 20. It also has not always charged up- I am not a fan of the clip anyway (instead of a USB or something to connect to the watch, it is a clip with 4 little metal sticks, that have to line up with 4 metal pads on the watch) – it sometimes takes a lot of tries to do it up properly. So I have started browsing and reading reviews as I really like having it. Any recommendations would be greatly received by me. Yesterday when I got home I found that the battery was flat, which was annoying as after my long run at the weekend I had left it plugged in to the computer for ages to make sure it did charge up. I didn’t mind too much as I wasn’t going for speed- I went around the fields (probably about 5 miles) and just took it easy.
I am off to Sweatshop later – the email warned/ informed us of doing dynamic stretches (ministry of silly walks) first.
Recently we have sometimes been having a very easy dinner of roasted vegetable cous cous, salad and haloumi cheese. It is easy because we buy the cous cous ready made, and so all that needs doing is grilling the cheese.
Saisbury’s recently sent me some of their dried giant cous cous, so I thought it was about time I had a go at making it myself. At the same time Andy’s mum gave us a little vegetarian cookbook, which had a recipe in there (although it was for cous cous with roasted veggies and flagolet beans) so I half-followed it for a speedy dinner.
First up, I chopped and roasted a courgette, pepper and red onion. I added a little olive oil to the dish, as well as basil and oregano, and roasted them for 30 minutes.
The giant cous cous was simple to make- just put in a saucepan (40g per person), top with water, and then bring to the boil and simmer for 8-10 minutes.
While that was cooking, I sliced some haloumi cheese. I put some balsamic vinegar onto the veggies, topped with the cheese, and then baked for another 10 minutes.
Served with a salad, this was really easy (and much cheaper than buying the ready made pots of cous cous).
Are you a fan of cous cous? I prefer the giant one as it was a bit more like the texture of pasta, but it makes a nice change from quinoa.
If you use a GPS watch, which one do you have? What would you recommend?
*Sainsbury’s sent me the cous cous and a voucher for the other ingredients in exchange for a post. All opinions are my own.
I can’t eat couscous as it’s not gluten free but I wish I could, I used to love it! I would replace the couscous with quinoa….I have only tried haloumi once but I really liked it so I must buy it again : )
Yes it would work with quinoa too 🙂
My old Garmin once recorded my run as being in Russia. I’m pretty certain it wasn’t!
I haven’t had cous cous in ages, but I do like it. I’ve always bought the ready made version as well, but, as with most things, it’s cheaper to prepare yourself.
I do love my veggie-heavy meals, so I’m going to try this over the next couple of weeks. 🙂
Ha ha Russia that is impressive!
My Garmin has been playing up too recently, it sometimes skips so we’re suddenly .5 of a mile further on! The only remedies I found so far are deleting every past run off it and leaving it turned off and charging all the time. It has hard time finding satellites otherwise too.
That dinner looks really good, especially the roasted veggie part!
I do download each run when I finish, but I don’t delete them. Maybe I should…..
We have the normal sized couscous and it just requires adding boiled water and letting it absorb for a few minutes. I’m intrigued about ‘giant’ couscous! The recipe sounds lovely. I’d probably grill the halloumi as I wasn’t a fan of it being baked – it has a different texture?
My Garmin is the relatively new 220. I love it. It doesn’t have the annoying bezel that my last 410 had, just regular buttons. And it connects to my phone via Bluetooth so I can download runs to Garmin Connect and Strava straight away. The screen is larger and more clear as well. I did like the 410 though – did the job and I had no issues (apart from the annoying bezel buttons). It charged using a plug and also a USB (the USB detached from the plug to connect to the laptop).
Thanks for that- when I got mine I was looking at the bezel ones and they had such bad reviews I decided to steer clear and aim for buttons.
I just could not be bothered to grill (also, I am never sure which symbol on our oven means grill and which meas top oven…)
Yes please! I am obsessed with halloumi at the moment.
I like it too! 🙂
I’ve had wholemeal giant cous cous before – it was divine.
“Sweatshop ministry of silly walks” … hope someone got a video heeheehee
Oh dear this week he offered it to us, but thankfully someone suggested just going for a run, so we got to skip it! And I bet once the students are back they will video it, as the green bit of land backs right on to student flats!
I’ve got a really old Garmin, and it’s an absolute beast, it actually hurts my wrist on long runs it’s so painful, I tend to use strava on my phone now instead.
I think for normal runs something on my phone would be fine but I like looking at my watch during races and also during certain runs, so I think I would still want something for my wrist.