How to make peanut butter fudge

Plus some other recipes too.

Yes! I am very excited because I made some pb fudge. I was searching the internet, but all the pb fudge recipes either used icing sugar, or were no-cook versions which never seem as good to me. So in the end I decided to half freestyle it- based on the Rachel Allen fudge recipe that always works so well, I changed it up a bit.

Before you begin I always think preparation is the key. So have ready a pan lined with baking paper (I use a brownie pan, and I do not use any extra greasing or anything), have your whisk ready, have a saucer with water if you are not using a sugar thermometer, and also chop your chocolate if using. Then you can get on with making some delicious fudge.

So, first in a pan gently heat 100g butter (this is the only recipe I actually use butter, normally I use pure spread but I am never sure about using it when you need the chemical reactions), 450g brown sugar and a tin of light condensed milk.

Let it bubble away (stir regularly) until it gets to the soft ball stage. I use a sugar thermometer, which has it marked on there, but you can do the test yourself.

Then turn off the heat and whisk away. (Taking this photo was very hard!)

When it thickens and you can see the trails left by the whisk, add a tsp vanilla extract and 2 tablespoons of smooth peanut butter.

Whisk a little more,

See how thick it is now? That is the look you want, where you can see the trails left by the whisk.

Pour half into the pan (optional, if you want chocolate in it) then sprinkle with chopped chocolate.

Then pour the rest over the top (the chocolate will start to melt very quickly, but that is good!).

It will look very messy! So flatten it down. I love this part- basically bash it really hard until it goes smooth!

Then leave for a while to cool. I generally put it in the fridge for a bit, but then take it out before slicing, otherwise it will be very hard to cut.

I cannot slice evenly ever!

Final step- try not to eat it all at once!

OK, onto other recipes. I was very taken by the look of chocolate-covered Katie’s berry crumble bars, and better still, she had asked for someone to try out the recipe with coconut oil. I was only too happy to oblige. I had some strawberries that needed eating, so I went for strawberry coconut crumble bars. I followed her recipe (look here) only I used coconut oil (melted in the microwave first), and arrowroot instead of cornflour. Plus I heated up the strawberries in a pan first to thicken them up, as per the instructions on the arrowroot box.

Then I layered it up in a dish (I used coconut oil to grease the pan too).

Then after it was baked:

I have to say that it smells amazing, and I was worried about getting them out of the dish, but they came out perfectly!

Wow, look at that crumble bar. Seriously, it is amazing! I had one after my dinner and it was amazing. Katie- the coconut oil works perfectly in the crumble mix too! 🙂

After seeing on Lucy’s blog some lovely looking sweet potato burgers, I decided to give them a go. Well, a variation. The original recipe is on choosing raw, but I did not have edamame beans, or any quinoa flakes, or onions, so mine are a bit different.

So anyway, my recipe is here:

1 large sweet potato, cooked (in the microwave) and peeled.

1 drained tin of kidney beans

15g quinoa flour (makes them gluten free! How exciting!)

Tbs ground flax

Juice of one lime

Chilli powder (1 tsp)

Ground ginger (1tsp)

Put it all in a food processor (or you could mash by hand). Add water if needed. Squash it into 4 patties.

Bake in the oven for about 30 mins, turning over half way.

Enjoy 🙂

I enjoyed 2 with some rocket salad and a corn on the cob, so summery. And bonus, I have 2 more in the freezer for another day.

Gosh that is enough for today I think!

So, foodie questions: Fave fudge flavour (for some inspiration), Fave bean burger recipe, and which fruits do you love most in a crumble?

WIAW newbie!

Hello all! This is my first ever WIAW 🙂

(And due to holidays etc will not be another one for a few weeks oops!).

After reading the rules I realised that I could choose any day, but just have it ready to post on Wednesday. So I chose Tuesday, and was diligently snapping away at home!

Breakfast– Chopped jazz apple, 50g Rude Health Early Bird Crispy Muesli, Milk.

Snack– Some dried mango (that Forest Feast stuff is lovely) and then a smoothie/ fake ice cream bowl- one small frozen banana whizzed with Kara coconut milk and cocoa powder.

Plus some end-of-term chocolates (pre-digging energy).

Then I headed to the allotment and ended up doing 3 hours of digging! I forgot to wear my watch- no wonder I was hungry when I got home! I was annoyed actually as I forgot to take the camera today, and as I took a proper fork (and not just the hand trowel from Monday) I actually dug up a load of massive plants. Ah well, maybe next time I will take a pic.

Lunch– some of the quinoa salad I made yesterday, with some wheatgrass powder stirred in (after the spirulina mistake I was nervous to open this, but I think it smelled a bit like tea) and topped with Righteous raspberry basil dressing. Yum.

Plus a pear and a rude health oaty thin covered with Sainsbury’s choc chip pb. I was very hungry after all that digging I can tell you!  A bulldozer might have been an easier option!

Afternoon snack– some Cosy Earl Grey tea, and a Waitrose nut bar (to give me me energy for aerobics).

Dinner– pasta with pesto, roasted courgette and pepper, and then I sprinkled it with some cheese.

Dessert; A chai bite, grapes and cherries. I am loving cherries so much at the moment!

Plus some mint tea, which I did not photograph.

Gosh, taking photos of all of that makes me think that was a lot of food! At least I got in a lot of fruits and veggies haha! Maybe not very much protein for today though- it was a carb-tastic day but then 3 hours of digging plus aerobics means you need carbs I think!

OK, well that was my first WIAW. I think the best thing for me was that breakfast, as it is such a summery combination. Best thing you ate today?

Seven Links

Afternoon all

So every now and then in blogworld it seems that little quizzes and things get sent around. Yesterday Sarah tagged me to choose 7 links to previous posts of mine, so here goes.

First up, THE RULES
Blogger is nominated to take part
Blogger publishes his/her 7 links on his/her blog – 1 link for each category.
Blogger nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part.
These bloggers publish their 7 links and nominate another 5 more bloggers
And so it goes on!

Now, on to my posts.

Most Beautiful Post;

Dreaming of holidays.

I love holidays so much, and just looking at photos with blue skies or blue water lifts my mood. Andy always takes fab pictures anyway, so this is kind of cheating as they are his photos, but they were our holidays! (I took the “beautiful” to be literal, as opposed to something about self worth, that kind of beautiful).

Most Popular Post;

My marathon recap post. This showed a massive spike in views- I love seeing how other people get on with their races too.

Most Controversial Post:

It is a toss up between my post about managing weight, or how to run faster (which I posted really recently). Sorry, can’t choose which one! I don’t tend to post controversial things really, maybe I should start?

Most Helpful post:

I like this one– it shows you how to make easy peasy cinnamon raisin bread.

Surprise Success;

My post about me being a hoarder seemed to prompt a lot of discussion!

Not enough attention;

I did a post in the winter about staying safe when running in the winter evenings. Back then I had less readers, so I suppose that is why. So I am putting it out there again.

Most Proud:

I am most proud of my marathon- that was my biggest achievement to date, and something that even last year I never thought would be possible. So my little note to say I had done it, before I wrote and posted the big recap! 🙂

That was fun having a little look back over my blog posts, although my memory is terrible so most of these are very recent posts!

Right, now I need to nominate 5 bloggers, which is always the hard part. Especially as I bet a lot of you have been nominated already. Also, if you do want to do it, then comment on this one and consider yourself tagged 🙂

So, I nominate

Rose @ The Rose Runner

Jessica @ Almost Over Now

Eleanor @ Eating Like a Horse

Lauren @ Powered by Peanut Butter

Rachel @ Rachel’s Delicious Journey

But seriously, if you want to do this then go ahead! I found it fun to look through my old posts 🙂

Gardening= workout

Hey

So this morning I got on with one of my fave holiday activities- a run in the morning.

During term time I generally go out after work- I can run about 3 miles before breakfast, but then with the shower and stuff after it means getting up very early- I would rather take my time after work and run a little further. Anyway, I have been getting the feeling lately that I have really slowed down- perhaps it is the warmer weather and also that I have been tired from work. Anyway, today I decided I was going to push myself and see what I was capable of. It was a hard run, but I kept an eye on my Nike+ and generally my pace was between 9.40ish and 10.15 per mile- good for me. At one point it said 17 and then 24, so I think it lost the signal for a bit. Anyway, in the end I did 5.8 miles in 59 mins, which is much closer to my recent 10K time. I was feeling like I was back to the speed when I first started running (10K in 70 mins) but with this, baring in mind I had to cross roads and things, it was closer to my pb of 61.30.

I had a delicious smoothie in a bowl to cool down when I got back

A frozen banana, raspberries, cocoa powder and Kara coconut milk.

Sprinkled with coconut as I love that at the moment.

I made a lovely lunch- cooked some quinoa with a tin of tomatoes, spinach and some pesto, and added it to roasted peppers, courgette, beetroot and cherry tomatoes. I made a big batch so I can have it for other days too. Topped with food doctor roasted bean mix.

After that I headed up to our allotment for some weeding action. It was more overgrown than I remembered!

There is bind-weed everywhere!!

At one point I got very freaked out as I went to chop the bottom of a massive thistle, and nearly squashed a frog- gross! Luckily it hopped out of the way, but I may or may not have screamed, then shouted “sh*t” (this is very rare for me to swear) and then panicked about people seeing me! Anyway, I weeded for over 2 hours. I must have moved 7 or 8 big piles of weeds to the enormous compost heap. Mistake number 1 by me was to only take a small trowel and hand fork- next time I will bring the proper tools!

Please tell me you can see a difference!

We have to leave the potato plants as apparently the lady might come and dig them up!

We do have some raspberry canes, and a blackcurrant bush which I hope will get left for us- I gave those a massive weed too.

Once home (this was a good two and a half hours later) I was starving so decided to replenish my blood sugar with a lovely Eat Natural bar. Mm. I then went to Habitat in the hope of getting some bargains, but alas, too late (despite the signs still being up) they have closed! Ah well.

Instead I got some more dried mango, and made some chocolate covered mango, being inspired by Nicky.

Some with coconut, to add to the tropical theme! I love Divine dark chocolate mango, but had never thought of making it myself until I saw it on her blog– genius 🙂

I was still hungry, so then I had some more Rude Health Oaty things, with pb, raspberry spread, and some Earl Grey tea. That gardening has made me shattered! What a good workout!

I am off to zonk out now! My question- what activity do you find subs as a workout?

Let’s “chai” these cupcakes

Hello all!

So yesterday I decided to make some chai tea cupcakes. I was inspired by Lucy doing some chai baking, and ever since I made the Earl Grey cupcakes from my new Hummingbird book I was keen to adapt the recipe with chai teabags instead.

So that is what I did.

I only made 6 this time, as I know there will only be 6 of us at Sunday tea, and I had more success with the icing as I made it in my food processor.

Can you see where I poured in the teabag-infused milk??

Anyway, I had loads of icing left, as per usual, so I again took inspiration from Lucy and made a variation of her chai bites. I used 75g brazils, 75g dates, 30g coconut, a splash of date syrup, some vanilla, cinnamon and cardamom. This was blitzed up in the food processor, and then baked for 8 mins in a small tray.

Then I covered them in the icing, and had 2 for dessert last night- delish. The only thing was that the icing was butter icing (well, pure spread) but I find that too rich. I was planning on making it with cream cheese, but I could not find it in the fridge. Anyway, I think this would be amazing topped with some kind of chocolate/ coconut butter or peanut butter topping (like the one on the chewy rice squares). Love the idea thanks Lucy! 🙂

I managed to resist ordering more teapigs chai, but I did stock up on muesli as it was 3 for 2.

I love the crispy muesli, and decided to try another one- I like raisins but this one sounded nice too!

So that was breakfast this morning:

I love this, so summery! A chopped apple, muesli and milk. After that, exciting news people!!!!!!

We walked up to our allotment today! Yes, that is right! After being on the waiting list for 3 years, we have been offered a plot! It is perfect, about a 5 min walk from home, and the plot (apparently a “small” one) is the size of our current garden! It even has raspberry canes and potatoes growing in it! I am so excited! I was supposed to be meeting up with a friend tomorrow, but she cancelled as she is ill, so guess what- I will be doing some weeding! I am very excited about this as you can tell! So, gardeners- anything I can plant now? Apparently spinach? Although I think we may leave anything until we get back from our holiday so we can actually water it all.

Onto the review:

Monday- a run which I nearly talked myself out of!

Tuesday- nothing- was at work so knew I would miss aerobics.

Wednesday- audiofuel run- again nearly talked myself out of it but felt much better when I got home.

Thursday- good old body pump

Friday- rest day

Saturday- 10 mile run, little walk in the evening

Sunday- Yoga before breakfast, walk up to the allotments 🙂

I kind of eased off a bit this week, as work was busy again, plus I was getting tired. Next week should be better because I am off  and so will have more time, plus I can go out in the mornings which I much prefer. Yay!

Right, off for Sunday tea in a bit- I am looking forward to a cupcake 🙂

Hope you are all having a lovely weekend too.

EDIT- Hey- the cupcakes were lovely! And I have updated my Running Calendar pace, in case anyone is interested! I put in links to my race reports, and also the races I have planned. So check it out here if you fancy having a look.