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?
Parcel one was my bloggie food swap, from Britt at 
Parcel two was from the lovely Lucy at 
Yum. Mighty Maple pb in a pitta. It was sooooooo good. It tasted like maple syrup (no Sh** Sherlock), and went all melty in the warm pitta. Yum. 🙂 Any bets on how long I can make it last??
Home for some refreshing coconut water- this stuff has pomegranate and acai (some kind of berry) in it. I thought it would be quite tart, as pomegranate juice normally is, but it was lovely, so refreshing. 🙂 They are 500ml bottles so I have half for another day, although I think I could have drank it all!
Frozen raspberries (80g) whizzed up with a pot of chocolate alpro. Yummylicious. Seriously if you have not tried this, the do. Frozen raspberries on their own once whizzed up go like sorbet, but the chocolate and raspberry combo is amazing. But any thing would do – I have done it with yoghurt and stuff too.
Banana mashed with cocoa and tsp peanut butter, topped with a pear (great post body pump snackage).
Porridge with blueberries- I love how purple it goes 🙂
Blueberry porridge in pb jar. It was really pretty-purple and peanut stripes, but it did not come out.
Some lovely 
And some lovely coconut water! It is supposed to be hot this weekend so I shall need it 🙂
After work I had a cereal bar for some energy;
This gave me quite a sugar boost I think! Some nice seeds in there, and dried cranberries, but also the yoghurt coating, although it went quite well with this bar, whereas on some I find the yoghurt coating a bit too sweet. Maybe the seeds and other things kept the actual bar less sweet.
Yes the biggest one was about the size of the pot. They tasted quite nice, but still, there must have only been about 9 in the box- as it was a 400g box that is nearly 50g per strawberry- craziness. Good for Wimbledon watching anyway.
Porridge with fresh raspberries cooked in (from Andy’s parents’ garden). Soooooooo good.
A pitta with sunflower seed butter, some roasted peppers and almond and sesame tofu ( I tried that this week but I prefer the basil stuff) and a pear. All in the cute lunch boxes! Love paperchase!
Yup, not one, but two boxes of mixed cocoa ones (cocoa delight, cocoa mint and cocoa orange). Excuse the messy hair- I had just got out of bed! And excuse the rubbish photo- holding 2 boxes and trying to take my own picture is not an easy task! I do eat them most days (one for my mid morning snack at work) so I will get through the boxes quickly.