Zalando winner!

Is it just me, or do you get that ABBA song in your head every time you see the word Zalando. (“There was something in the air tonight, the skies were bright, Zalando….” Just me? OK).

Right, it is time to announce the winner. Of course being the super high tech person that I am, I wrote all the names down on paper (and of course if you entered 2 or 3 times you got more pieces of paper) and put them in a cake tin. What else.

And the winner is Sarah! (In case you can’t read that!). So Sarah please email me and I can sort out Zalando emailing you your voucher.

Also, before Christmas I was sent some veggie sweets to review- look here to see what I thought.

Any songs you get stuck in your head at certain times/ for certain things? For Teapigs I get the silly Moonpig jingle stuck in my head.

Perfect pancakes and not so perfect veggie loaf

I think I have found my favourite pancake recipe!

Enjoyed the other day with a chopped and microwaved apple, and some lovely meridian mincemeat.

It goes like this: 35g wholegrain spelt flour, 50g fruit puree (or apple sauce or pumpkin puree- I like the little pots meant for babies because they are small), 1 tsp baking powder and about 50ml soya milk. Add in cinnamon/ orange essence/ other flavours if you fancy them.

Whisk it all up and cook slowly. Very slowly.

Today (made with pumpkin puree which I think does not work quite as well as the apple sauce) topped with dark chocolate dreams and the most massive pink lady apple (chopped and microwaved and cinnamon-ed).

Yum!

I also attempted to make a nut/veggie loaf over the holidays. It is tasty, but did not turn out quite firm enough. I found this recipe, but then I did not have any eggs, and did not like the sound of the cheese in it (I do not like it when cheese gets overcooked and goes all crispy and this has to bake for a long time), so I did not follow it to the letter. In fact, very loosely! Might be why it didn’t quite work.

Mine had a chopped red onion (instead of shallots) and a chopped carrot cooked in a pan, and some drained cooked lentils (I used dried lentils as they were so much cheaper and don’t need pre-soaking so seemed quite easy) which I cooked in water with a little marmite added.

They went in a bowl with 250g mixed toasted and then chopped nuts, a tin of tomatoes, some herbs and some dried cranberries (got to get something festive in there). I added some flax and chia seeds soaked in water (I thought that might replace the binding of the egg).

It all went into a lined loaf tin and then cooked for about an hour and 15 mins.

It was really tasty, but it did not slice very well. I think if I had cooked it for even longer it would have firmed up more, as the ends were firmed more than the middle. Or maybe use tomato puree instead of the chopped tinned tomatoes next time. But I was hungry! Alongside some hummus, cucumber for dipping and rocket it was delicious and really filling. I sliced (well tried to) up the rest and have put them into the freezer (individually wrapped) to enjoy another time. Or maybe what I would do it bake it on a roasting tin- like a brownie almost- spread it out a bit flat as then it might go more solid and cook more evenly.

Also, I was sent a couple of books to review, so please check out my review page and see what you think of them.

Any recipe successes recently? Or misses? What do you love to have on your pancakes?

WIAW- persimmon vs sharon fruit

Hello. That time of the week already. This week I chose yesterday, mainly because I forgot on the other days to take photos!

Breakfast:

Gingerbread porridge with soya milk and peaches.

Lunch:

Sabre hummus with ryvita chilli crackers, cucumber and peppers to dip.

Plus satsumas (or clementines, never sure the difference or what I end up buying), a persimmon / sharon fruit and some Montezuma’s dark chocolate snowmen. Which are very hard to eat- they are very very solid! I do not think I have had sharon fruit before (although I did have conditioner scented with persimmon so I thought I would like them!), but they were on offer when we did our shopping so I decided to try them. On the pack it said to eat them like an apple, so I sliced it up, but I did not end up eating the skin- it seemed too thick to be edible. The flesh was lovely and sweet though. Have you tried one before? If you do eat them, do you eat the skin?

Afternoon snack:

A soya chai latte made with a starbucks chai teabag (thought I would try it). I also found a little jug which can go in the microwave- easier to heat the milk than in another cup (well, easier to pour).

Dinner:

This is what I made for Christmas lunch (and it made 3 lots so still some in the freezer). I cannot remember exactly, but I think (?) I cooked a red onion and some red and yellow peppers, then added a carton of passata, some herbs and some lentils. I blended a block of silken tofu in the food processor with a few sundried tomatoes, and then mixed this with the tomato/lentil mixture. That got spooned into metal foil trays. Then I microwaved 2 sweet potatoes, scooped out the filling and mashed with a little almond butter, and used it to top them. I froze it once cooled (as it is all cooked) and it just needed to be re-heated. I had it with some rocket and piccalilli (yes that is the horrible yellow blob on my plate!).

Dessert:

Gingerbread tea (I only have 4 teabags left now!) and the last lebkucken.

Thanks to Jenn for organising the link up, and happy 50th!

P.S. You still have time to enter my Zalando voucher giveaway.

Lush convert

Hey all.

I just realised that this is my first post of 2012- Olympic year woohoo!

Hope you all had a good new year’s eve- I was asleep by 11 I think (but don’t worry, even if you are not awake you still end up in the next year)- I read some Runners’ World (which is a bit annoying as I won’t be running anywhere in the near future!) and watched the fireworks the next day. Happy new year anyway!

For Christmas I was given some goodies from Lush. Now normally I never go in their shops because I find the smell so overpowering (if they are in a shopping centre or something you can smell it from shops away!), but the goodies I was given were lovely and actually did not smell too strong. I was also given a voucher so Andy took me to the shops the other day and we ventured inside one.

The shop assistants were fab- I was given some shower jelly stuff (like a tub of jelly) and they showed me what to do with it, and demonstrated some lovely skin conditioner on me (which I was sold on as I get dry skin really easily). I also wanted to look into the solid shampoos as one of my friends always raves about them- lots of pro’s as they are economical (one is the equivalent of 3 bottles of shampoo), last for ages, no preservatives, help the environment by reducing packaging, and would be good to take on holiday. There were lots of options but I chose this one– it smelled amazing plus apparently is good for shine with dark hair (and also good for receding hair but I did tell the guy I was not worried about that!). Anyway, I was looking forward to trying it out.

You wet your hair, rub the bar around your scalp a few times, then lather up. I did wonder whether it would be as easy to get to the underneath of my hair, as it is very thick (I can normally put a little shampoo on my fingertips and get it in that way) but the shampoo lathered up really well. Plus it did smell amazing- the cloves lingered especially.  They said to leave the bar to dry between washes, so I have left the tin open (I bought the tin separately but that can be re-used). I am very impressed though- I will be interested to see how long it actually lasts. A day later my hair still looks clean- sometimes products that “enhance shine” actually make it a little greasy- but this is passing in my book. I then spent ages on their website (hence all the links!) and noticed they do a solid conditioner too. Something I might try in the future.  Anyone else used these types of products at all?

I went to the GP this morning and have been signed off for another 2 weeks. Although I think that is the best for my health (I feel OK, then the paracetamol wears off and I feel really bad- still can’t walk very far or move normally, plus the worry of children bumping into me and things) it might not be the best thing for my sanity! Anyway, after I went to the GP I popped to Waitrose for some salad (feeling very guilty as I feel I should be at home- I have never been signed off before this and am not really sure what is allowed- I know that popping to the shops is not the same as a full day at work but I do feel guilty- even though I need to sit down for about half an hour to recover when I get home!) and found a few bargains.

This cute owl box (which I saw before but was £10- today it was £5 although it contained sweets (which I will take to work as they look like marshmallows) when I was hoping it would contain an owl mug)- I have already used it to put my cake decorating bits in. And some Montezuma’s truffles (peppermint white chocolate, and orange and geranium ones) for £1.25 each! Bargain! So get yourselves down to Waitrose for some post Christmas bargains. The lady in front of me was loading up on the bags of chocolate coins/ santa’s as they were something like 25p!

What do you feel you are “allowed” to do when off work? What do you do to pass the time? Have you ever used solid shampoo’s or other products similar? 

A year of highs and lows

Evening all

Happy New Year first of all.

I am a fairly optimistic person,  but when I saw all the 2011 review posts I did start thinking about how this year has been for me, and the post title reflects how I feel about it.

It started on a bit of a low, because we were meant to go on holiday last Christmas over the school holidays, but because our plane got snowed on (we were actually on the plane, they de-iced it, we even saw the air safety video!) the airport got closed and our flights were cancelled. What with all the snow it was a bit tricky to get up to much, although we did have a lovely weekend over new years in Bath.

But it was building up to something very exciting- our (mine and Andy’s) first marathon! I turned 30 in May and as a way of celebrating (?) we signed up for it. Even though I had already had my birthday by then it was a sort of present to myself!  To help with motivation I signed up to marathon talk’s spring motivation challenges, plus the magic mile challenge later in the year- all brilliant so check them out! The training was really hard (up until then I had run 2 half marathons in the previous year, but my training runs had not gone over 12 miles), but I did enjoy the achievement of it all. I also leant to like ice baths, and had my first sports massages! My birthday weekend was spent in Derbyshire so we could complete a 20 mile organised training run. Anyone who ever worried about being the last person in a race, read my report. It is not that bad!

I did it! I ran 20 miles and got a t-shirt to prove it! 🙂

And we even went on a nice walk the same evening!

One of the “lows” was that this year I kept on being ill- I had a few UTI’s (having never had them before), including one days before the Stockholm marathon.  But despite being on antibiotics I felt OK so went for it. The race was a struggle, but I felt totally elated when I finished.

Totally all about the medals here! Yes, I was slow, but I ran the entire way, and finished under the cut off and nothing can ever take that away from me!

Just about managing to stand up straight after nearly 5 1/2 hours of running!

A high note before that was our trip to Italy- two of our friends got married out there and we were lucky enough to be invited- we spent  lovely few days out there (of course sampling lots of the local gelato!).

We did share it by the way, this was a comedy photo in which Andy wanted to see how much ice cream I could get on the scoop at once! 🙂

So here is a serious photo as we spent a day in Venice after the wedding and even bumped into the bride and groom on their honeymoon- what are the chances??

Another fantastic high was our summer holiday- we managed to re-book most of the things from our cancelled Christmas holiday, and had an awesome time, especially at Discovery Cove (I still need to put some of those pics on here).

Key West at sunset was one of the many highlights. 

Plus a weekend of girly fun in Bristol.

I can’t take credit for this photo- my friend took it but I just love the colours in it.

After the marathon I kept up running, and we booked a few shorter races in the Autumn. My absolute favourite run was the one in Sherwood Forest.

Running the Great South Run was brilliant as I raised so much for charity (thanks to everyone who sponsored me), although it was not the best race experience! On the plus side a post race lunch (enjoyed in the 3 hour car park queue) of a cinnamon roll and soya chai latte was pretty good!

In the background you can see the 4×4 that kept trying to back into our car, and also caused some road rage later on when it pushed in front of some other cars- people get tetchy when they queue that long!

The year was meant to end on a high, as we had booked a holiday (can you tell we love our holidays?) to NYC (I really want to see the big Christmas tree), Philadelphia, Washington, Orlando and the gulf coast, but before that a big old low in the form of me being admitted to hospital came along and scuppered our plans. There is always next year, and it is so much better than I found out I was unwell here and not whilst on holiday! Look on the bright side 🙂

We have been lucky to enjoy a lovely Christmas at home with Andy’s family, and I got to see my parents more as they were away, back for 3 days, then off to New Zealand for a month (although this turned into a saga when my Dad cut his hand and severed a tendon the day they were meant to go- honestly someone does not want my family to get on holiday right now! Luckily he has not done permanent damage and managed to delay their flights by 2 days- he is doing more tennis umpiring out there but only missed a day I think) so as we were here I managed to spend a few more days with them.

I don’t tend to set goals, but initially I had in my mind that in 2012 I wanted to speed up with my running- I wanted to get some half marathon pb’s and have booked the Brighton and Silverstone Half marathons. But at the moment I don’t have my next hospital appointment until the end of January, and the operation will be some time after that, so I highly doubt I will manage either of them. But again, there is always next year!

Of course 2012 brings with it the Olympics! I can still remember when we found out that London got them (and I actually was going “oh my word I will be 31 when they come” )and it seemed years away- we got some tickets in the second chance round so that is very exciting.

So, I am hoping that in 2012 I get my health sorted, get back into running, enjoy the Olympics, and also have an awesome summer holiday to make up for the cancelled Christmas one.

What are you looking forward to next year?

Happy New Year!