Category: General ramblings

Skiing and Strawberries

Hey peeps- how are we all doing?

Just back from a walk to the allotment- the strawberry plants are loaded and I picked a big handful of ripe ones today- they smell wonderful.

On Saturday I mentioned I was off skiing- not on holiday, just a lesson!

When I was younger there was a dry ski slope in Hemel (near where we lived) and so I had lessons, and my family had a few skiing holidays in France. I was always very nervous and I liked to find an easy slope and go up and down it all day, whereas my Dad, sister and brother would go on all the slopes and ski to all different places. Once, they convinced me to come with them, and we skied from France into Italy on nice easy slopes (the ski pass included lots of different places) and then it turned out the only way back was a red run (green= easy, blue= OK, red= hard, black= plummet vertically to your death )- after being stuck on several runs my poor Dad had to walk home with me while we carried our skis! Anyway, the last time I went skiing was a good ten years ago, but last year Andy got some skiing lessons as a birthday present and really enjoyed them. The dry slope has now turned into a Snow Dome, and a Groupon popped up for a double lesson, so we booked it.

I was super nervous before, but I ended up loving it. It was a beginners lesson which turned out to be a bit easy, but I wasn’t sure what I would remember from all those years ago. We got there about half an hour early to give us time to get boots, skis and helmets, and then spent an hour and a half walking up and skiing down. There were only 6 of us in the lesson and the instructor was really good- he kept giving us challenges, so in the end I had to ski down the slope, turning around certain poles while doing “Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”! I was hoping we would get to use the lifts, but not this time. We think we will book one more lesson at a higher level, and then just go for fun.

We ended up being really busy over the weekend but I did manage to spend a bit of time baking. I made Cherry and Marzipan Tray-bake.

I based it on a cherry cake recipe from the Great British Book of Baking, as I could not find a recipe that fitted what I wanted.

I preheated the oven to 170C, and lined my brownie pan with paper.

Then I creamed together 175g pure spread and 170g caster sugar. I added 3 eggs, and a tsp almond extract (I used Dr Oetker). Then I stirred in 200g plain flour, 3 packets of baking powder (I have these little packets which I think are the equivalent of a tbs each), and 50g ground almonds. Finally I chopped up a tub (200g) of glace cherries, and mixed them in.

I poured this mixture into the pan, and then topped it with 50g chopped white marzipan.

I baked it for 35 minutes- it is hard to tell when it is cooked as the marzipan will be liquid at oven temperatures, so will leave residue on the cake tester.

I find they slice much better when they are cold, so I left it on the wire rack for a while.

I had a piece on Saturday afternoon to give me some energy for skiing (as our session wasn’t going to finish until 8pm)- delish! I love the combination of cherries and marzipan. I took most of it to work on Monday and wasn’t sure how it would go down as I know marzipan is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it was all gone by lunchtime!

Once we were home I was quite chilly, so I had a hot chocolate to warm up with too- I love that Montezuma’s stuff.

I had Sunday as a rest day (we went out for breakfast to Bill’s, then watched some of the children from school in a parade in town, then spent the afternoon visiting our parents) so Monday after work I went out on a run. It was much warmer than I had expected. I headed for the fields as I didn’t fancy running near to traffic, and was enjoying listening to podcasts I went a bit further than I had planned- 5 miles in 50 minutes. Tomorrow we are doing the long fields run which was tough last week- not sure I am quite looking forward to it- I’m just hoping it won’t be as humid as it was last week as that is what makes it really tough.

Have you ever been skiing? Or would you be tempted by it? 

Healthy eating on a budget (£5 for 500 calories)

I was asked to join in with a Most Wanted campaign to come up with a recipe that was under 500 calories and under £5 per portion.

With the warmer weather approaching, I felt like a salad would be a good idea, but I wanted to create an evening meal. My favourite meal at the moment is the black bean taco/wrap things– I love the combination of the avocado and  beans. But that was not really a salad, and probably is not under 500 calories- especially with the cheese added in.

So I came up with a slight variation- Black Bean Quinoa salad.

This made 3 servings:

100g (dry weight) quinoa

1 tsp paprika (or chilli flakes if you like it very spicy)

200g cherry tomatoes

1 tin black beans

1 medium sweet potato (120g ish)

1 avocado

Lime juice

First up, preheat the oven, halve the cherry tomatoes and roast them.

Then prepare the quinoa- some dry quinoa needs to be rinsed before cooking so check your pack. Put it in a pan, cover with water, and gently heat until the seeds burst and they go all squiggly (technical term there). Add in a tsp paprika.

While this was cooking I baked the sweet potato in the microwave (just pierce it lots!) but if you are a potato purist you may prefer to cube it and then bake it in the oven.

Drain the beans and stir them into the quinoa to heat them through, then add in the sweet potato and tomatoes.

Add a squirt of lime juice, and then top with sliced avocado.

I now have 2 salads for lunches for the next couple of days too!

This turned out to be filling, but not stodgy- it was perfect after my 5 mile run today, and will be lovely cold once the flavours have had a chance to mingle together a bit more. One serving ended up being 350 calories, 13g protein, 7g fibre and 12g fat (mostly from the avocado I imagine)- I used the recipe section on Weight Loss Resources to calculate.

It also ended up being pretty cheap to make- I was meant to have one serving costing under £5, but the entire recipe came to £4.80 (using Ocado prices).  It would be lovely with a little salsa on the side, or a little fresh guacamole on top. I keep seeing recipes for cashew cream/ cheese (and have bought cashews to make it with)- I imagine that this would taste wonderful with it too, and still fit under the 500 calorie mark 🙂

A note of caution- treat cooked quinoa a little like cooked rice- it is not good to heat and cool it over and over, so once cooled keep it refrigerated and if you re-heat it, only do that once and make sure it is piping hot. 

Do you have a favourite salad or summer meal? Quinoa is one of my favourite summery foods as I find it filling but not really heavy, plus it is so versatile- I had a lovely salad with cranberries and dried coconuts before which I sometimes re-create at lunch times.

How do you manage sticking to a budget with your shopping? On-line shopping has been a revelation for me because I can see the total I have spent, so if it is too much I just go back through and delete items, plus I don’t get tempted by offers as I don’t see them. If I actually go into a shop I will spend loads more as I am easily persuaded to add things to my basket!

I was compensated for the cost of ingredients for this post, but of course all opinions are my own. 

Running in the rain

So the weather this week has been more…. English? On Wednesday it threatened to rain all day- it was so humid and muggy. I headed up to Sweatshop and was so hot and sticky by the time I got there (and it’s about .75 miles away, so not far). I was hoping we would choose a short-ish and shaded route as I didn’t feel like putting in a max effort! Then it turned out that someone had invented a new route, which actually was going on the fields, then across sort of cross country fields to add on another mile. At one point I was running through knee high grass, and couldn’t see the runners ahead of me as there were lots of trees around. By the time I got back to the shop we had run 3.85 (fast) miles, and I still had to run home. Tough!

Thursday at pump we had the new release- I am not a fan so far. Tough on the legs, no music I really knew/ liked, and the abs track is just weird and hurt my neck.

On Friday after work I went on a short (2 mile) run to try to ease the aches in my legs, and was back just before it poured! Later on it brightened up so we headed to the allotment after dinner for some weeding, and I picked my first lot of strawberries!

This morning I went on a run before breakfast- I was going to try to avoid the rain but that just seemed impossible so I put on my tennis visor and went for it. The first mile was gently uphill but right into the wind so my glasses were covered! I was really cold and wished I had worn gloves. But then later on the sun came out and it was suddenly baking. In the end I did 5 miles which I was pleased with- we are going skiing later so need to save some energy! I was going to have pancakes, and had made the batter the night before (spelt + peanut flour, chia seeds, almond extract, baking powder) but decided to bake it instead while I showered. (I had the coconut water when I got home)

I put sliced apricots on the bottom with a little coconut oil to stop it sticking (should have put that on the sides too) and then some blueberries on the top. I also topped it with a little coconut/ chocolate butter.

I had it with a mint black tea, and some strawberries from the allotment which taste amazing. It baked for 30 mins at 160C, but I think I could have left it for a little longer to firm up more. Baked apricots are always a winner in my book anyway.

I don’t mind running in the rain, unless it is torrential as I hate soggy shoes. Plus once I was out running and it rained so hard that the water filled up my eyes (so weird) and I actually couldn’t see. That was not good! And lightning makes me a bit nervous. I think the thought of running in the rain is worse than the actual act- if I am at home and it’s raining I might do some prevaricating to put it off a bit, but if I am out there and it rains I don’t really mind, as I think I will be having a shower when I get home anyway.

Do you mind running in the rain? Are you growing any of your own fruits or veggies this year? Favourite baked fruit?

Super summery breakfast

Hey! My word it is so muggy here today.

A while ago I ordered some acai powder from i-herb (and then later found out Ocado now stock it)- anyway, it came last week so on Sunday I decided to try to recreate our favourite holiday breakfast from last summer.

Into the blender went a big cup of frozen cherries, some frozen raspberries (about half a cup- only had a few left), some soya milk and a mini scoop of acai powder.

I whizzed it up for maybe 30 seconds, and scooped it into bowls.

Then I added blueberries and a sprinkling of muesli.

This was the perfect summery breakfast- as I used frozen fruit it was nice and cooling, and very filling too. It does not look like the one from Vintage Island Coffee but it tasted pretty good.

I save these sorts of breakfasts for the weekend as it is a bit of a faff to clean the blender, plus we have breakfast at different times in the week as I go to work earlier, whereas at the weekend we tend to have them at the same time. Even though it is quick to prepare, all the washing up etc puts me off having it in the week too- I look forward to pancakes or something else at the weekend that is a bit more time consuming.

Do you have special weekend breakfasts? Or breakfasts for different seasons?

Baking with Tea India

Hey peeps,

I hope you are all OK and have been having a good week.

A while ago I was sent some lovely Tea India teas to try – you can see my review here. I loved them, especially the cardamom chai, so I was very excited when they contacted me again to try some different teas.

The masala chai was wonderful- the flavour of the strong spices comes through really well.

Good with breakfast pancakes 🙂

I have also used it in an iced chai latte- brew some lovely chai tea and leave to cool, then add to almond milk and a splash of chai syrup.

The black tea is lovely too- Andy loves strong breakfast tea so this is right up his street. But Tea India also sent me some recipe cards, so I did a spot of baking with the tea too. First up I tried this recipe for a simple tea loaf, which worked wonderfully.

It was delicious- nice and sticky.

I will be making it again for sure, but probably use less sugar as the dried fruit keeps it nice and sweet.

One of the recipe cards sent to me was for Spicy Black Tea Cookies, so I had to give them a go!

Simple ingredients:

125g butter (I used Pure spread)

100g soft brown sugar (I used half Sainsbury’s cinnamon sugar)

2 tea bags, leaves only

70g self raising flour

120g oats

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1 1/2 tsp mixed spice

First up, cream together the butter and sugar. Then add in the tea leaves, oats, flour and spices. Mix until combined. Preheat the oven to 160C.

Shape into a log and refrigerate to firm up, then slice into even sized pieces. The recipe said it would make 12, but mine made 15 I think.

Place on a baking tray and bake for 15-20 minutes. I placed mine spaced well apart but they spread a lot, so I would say use 2 trays and leave them with big gaps between.

Leave to cool on the tray and then enjoy.

I always love it when my baking looks like the photo! Plus they are delicious- proper crunchy biscuits that go really well with a cup of tea. Funny that!

Do you love baking with tea (or coffee? I don’t like coffee cake!)- I love cupcakes flavoured with Earl grey or chai tea.