Time for (lots of) tea

Hey all

I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend, and avoided the horrible weather. I thought it was meant to be awful today, but we have only had a little rain today.

Anyway, this weekend has been all about tea.

I have been slowly working my way through the mountain of teabags I was sent from teapigs.

Last week I made a latte using a chocolate flake teabag and some vanilla soya milk.

When I got home on Friday I had the chocolate flake tea, just plain with milk. Both versions are very delicious.

The pure lemongrass tea is lovely- so refreshing and delicate.

Of course I have been loving the earl grey tea too (Darjeeling Earl Grey– very refined).

Saturday started with a trip to the allotment, to do a little weeding (there is so much weeding to do all the time!) and plant out some strawberries. I do have pumpkin envy as one plot next to me has at least 3 massive pumpkins growing, whereas only one of my pumpkin plants survived the slugs and is tiny, with only flowers (so no hope for a pumpkin this year). I spent a good hour there, and I picked some raspberries too.

Then after a bit of pottering at home (urgh- housework! Dusting, sweeping and cleaning floors, cleaning bathrooms, sorting out drawers) I headed out on a run. I decided to do 7 miles, and the loop I chose ended up being just under that. It went well, I felt OK, and so my plan for the next few weeks is to do 9 miles, 11 miles, and then I think it is my next half marathon (if I have counted the weeks right).

It was cold! I think I might need to put the vests away soon! I had a yummy peanut 9bar when I got home (the lovely Ffion mentioned that after her review, the lovely people at 9bar were sending out samples)- it was delicious. Plus some of the chocolate soya milk, which turned out to have gone past it’s date about 6 months ago whoops.

I needed warming up, so after my shower I had a mint tea. This was free in the Waitrose magazine, which by the way is free to My Waitrose card holders (have had one of those cards for ages and never sure what the point of it was).

After burning my toast (testing my smoke alarms) for lunch, I went out to the shops for a bit. Right, there was actually a whole stand of Christmas gifts in Debenhams. What is the deal???

I had a chai latte in starbucks (and saw that the pumpkin latte is apparently “coming soon”- wonder if you can have that without syrup?

Next time I think I will sprinkle on some cinnamon too. It was so lovely I sat outside- won’t be able to do that for much longer.

Anyway, I parked in Waitrose so I had to buy something!

There was a £1 off the Twinings tea, so I bought the Earl Grey stuff as although the mint humbug tea was lovely, I have a massive jar of mint tea. Plus baking things- gluten free flour (half price), chocolate drops (on offer), cinnamon sugar (on offer), posh cocoa powder, and rice crispies. I also got some coconut water as the Waitrose magazine had £1 off that too. What can I say, I like the offers!

I had to try the tea, and I love it! It does not quite taste like earl grey, but it did have a hint of an aniseed flavour, and was quite sweetie-like. Good for keeping me going during some work (my brain likes caffeine I think).

Then I got my bake on!

Dark chocolate brownies with raspberries (all from the allotment!) and white chocolate stars (which I added after, because otherwise they melt and turn into a horrible greasy mess). For work 🙂

I was sent another parcel of goodies from American Soda, so I cracked open the pumpkin.

For some pumpkin spice cakes.

Need to learn how to turn the flash off- using a newer camera now

Had one with some tropical rooibos tea (from Sainsbury’s) after dinner (found a mexican casserole in the freezer- win).

Then I chilled out and watched the Great British Bake off, and then a film about some men who decided to run across the Sahara. Amazing.

This morning I went out on a short run (3.6 miles in 34 mins, not bad) before it started to rain. I was expecting it to be awful today, but perhaps we have that saved for tomorrow instead? I have done some more baking and more pottering, and had even more tea whilst watching the Grand Prix.

Tasty breakfast of warmed baked apricots, yoghurt and granola, with a teapigs chai tea.

We are trying to hold out not putting the heating on, but it is getting very chilly now!

What did you get up to this weekend? Has the storm hit yet?

Holiday food post

Hey peeps

Gosh it is getting chilly now- might be time for a hot water bottle soon! Before it gets too cold, I am going to reminisce a little more about my holiday. We had lots of yummy food on holiday, and I took quite a few photos.

This was the best breakfast ever! I think it might be the third time I have posted the photo?? Ha ha. First up, iced chai lattes with soya milk- they blended them up which was sooooo good. (After that we realised it was much cheaper to share a big one!). Plus the yummy acai bowls- whizzd up frozen fruits including acai berries, served with fruit, granola and local honey. From Island Vintage Coffee.

Following a friends’ recommendation we went to

We had a few visits to Yoghurtland– my fave flavour was frozen strawberry lemonade, and a coconut one. Plus pb chips because I was excited to see them (plus some fruit under there for good measure, or to try to cancel out the HFCS).

We bought dinner from a little health supermarket one evening, and as well as dinner we picked up a few goodies- coconut peanut butter, peanut butter filled pretzels, a papaya and a vegan (there was quite a lot of things like that) coconut and banana cookie to share as it was humongous.

Shave ice (I want to call it “shaved ice” but no, it was shave). They basically scrape off ice, then pour syrup all over it. It was nicer than I thought, quite refreshing, but when the ice melted it went very syrupy, and I much preferred ice cream. The place had the biggest queue out of the door, so we knew it must be worth a try, plus they had very cool t-shirts on sale.

In Volcano there was a wonderful vegetarian cafe, and we went there for lunch twice. Once I had a chilli (yum), and another day we sat outside in the garden (with the goat) and had a delicious hummus and veggie sandwich, served with corn and potato soup and a salad.  The iced tea was lovely too- they made it fresh and it had things like hibiscus flowers in it too.

That was the garden although the goat isn’t in the picture, oh well.

Another acai bowl from another coffee shop- I had this and the guy at the next table went to me so loudly “wow you gotta take a photo of that”, so I did! Lovely, but not as good as the top one.

Our place on Maui had a little kitchen, so we took advantage of that with breakfasts at home- bought some puffins (how tasty!) after seeing them on various blogs before, and some lovely creamy almond milk, plus banana and a little bit of Andy’s smoothie.

I don’t think there are any puffins in that bowl! Not sure why it is there. Maybe I had some after. Anyway, that is fresh papaya and watermelon. The papaya was just amazing.

We also bought some banana bread when we drove the road to Hana- the little stand had a big queue, and we had to wait for them to take it out of the oven- don’t mind if I do! We had a few slices for lunch, but it was a small loaf really, so we had slices for breakfast/ snacks some days too. I think the bananas are in the photo so I remember what it is!

On our last night we went back to The Cheesecake factory (the menu is so huge so it had a lot of options for me)- we saved some space for a slice of cheesecake. This was a peanut butter one, of course (and luckily one of their smaller slices- some of the cakes are quite gross really with 5 or 6 layers to them)- we needed a walk after sharing that!

Ah, seems so long ago now! Once you are home and back into a routine it feels a world apart. I have some papayas in the fridge so I must try to remind myself of holiday by having one.

Night 🙂

 

Something from Sarah and looking forward to baking

Hey

I hope everyone is having a lovely day- yet again I am not organised for WIAW, but I have enjoyed seeing what other people have been eating.

A while ago I was sent some lovely little snacks to review for my blog, from Something from Sarah.

Some raw superfood energy balls. These are lovely little balls made with dates, cashews, hemp protein, chia seeds, coconut butter and other lovely ingredients.

The Raw Cacao ones were delicious- they have a short of chewy texture- softer than the CKK’s fudge babies- I think the addition of the coconut butter helps. They are about 10% protein, from the nuts and also from the chia seeds and hemp protein.

The Peruvian Maca ones were lovely too- I liked the slightly unusual flavour- fairly sweet but not too much. Plus the texture was lovely yet again. They recommend one ball per serving, but I had both as the pack was 40g, and I think I had one as a pre run snack, and another as a post run one.

They also make some lovely looking breakfast blends (ground up seeds and nuts to sprinkle on cereal etc) which look tasty, and also very pretty in the little tins. Worth a look anyway.

I went to see my Mum and Dad yesterday, so I am now well stocked with eggs, and I am looking forward to doing some baking this weekend. I saw (on the Pink Whisk blog) that some people are starting to make their Christmas cakes though! I won’t be doing that just yet- I’ll save that for October half term I think.

After work I went out on a short run- I decided to miss the Sweatshop run because it ends up being about 4.5 miles with the run there and back, so I did 3 miles on my own, and my legs felt fine. So I have signed up to do the Brighton Half Marathon next spring 🙂 Fingers crossed I make it this time.

Any races or events coming up? Anyone thinking about Christmas just yet??

Holiday souvenirs

Hey peeps

It is another holiday related post I’m afraid! I think because we visited so many places we ended up bringing back quite a bit, even though we never seemed to buy much in any one place. When I unpacked it all it seemed like a lot!

My favourite things are the pictures we bought:

The left one we bought on the North Shore of Oahu- a local artist created lots of prints in that style, and it took us ages to decide. In the end we chose that one as it is of Diamond Head, at the end of Waikiki beach which we walked up. The right picture is a one off (another local artist from Lahaina in Maui)- they are little squares of lovely textured paper glued on to the backing. I loved the turtles- like the petroglyphs, and I kept seeing pictures like this. I leafed through for ages before I found one with the perfect mix of colours- those blues just remind me of the colour of the sea and skies on Hawaii. We have not put them up yet though.

Of course we had to buy some cups. The left one is from the lovely Island Vintage Coffee shop which did the most amazing acai bowls and iced chai lattes. Then a cool Starbucks cup for cold drinks, a Starbucks mug (this is for Andy as he has massive mugs of tea) and an insulated cup for me to have at work.

I nearly bought one in Canada, but I was glad I didn’t as they had Hawaiian ones 🙂

I also brought back some food.

Dried fruit (papaya, pineapple, mango), cocoa roasted almonds, salted peanut chocolate and various cereal bars. Oh, and coconut M&M’s. They are tasty (but they are artificially flavoured which is a shame, no coconut in them at all). We also bought some dark mini pb cups. 🙂

I also got some tea, of course! Black tea with mango (I had this while we were away and it was yummy, both hot and as iced tea), and some rooibos with coconut and macadamia nut. Plus micro-mitts (basically mini oven gloves for when you have stuff in the microwave- I was so excited to find them!!!) and some little turtle earrings.

I also bought some clothes, but no pics of them. Honestly I didn’t think we had bought that much at all! We also bought mugs, coffee and chocolate covered macadamia nuts for gifts- no wonder we were right on the baggage allowance when we came home!

Do you normally bring home many souvenirs? We buy magnets for each place that we visit (we have a couple of Hawaii ones and I got a funny one from Whistler ), and I often get a few items of clothes when we go to America, or cups (I love cups) but I don’t tend to get all the little “bits” that are typical souvenirs I suppose.

New Jordans cereals

Hey all

Thanks for all the lovely comments on my post- glad you enjoyed reading the recap. My legs are almost recovered- a little stiff today but tomorrow I will have a gentle run and see how I get on.

When I got home from my holiday I was excited to receive a lovely package from Jordans cereals.

Some lovely granola, and some nutty cereal bars. See the massive chunky nut in the picture? Yum!

The luxury absolute nut bar was very tasty indeed- it was packed with nuts (59% of the bar were made up of pecans, almonds and hazelnuts!), but it was also very sweet. It would be a good energy boost before a workout or run.

The super fruity granola was lovely too- nice and crunchy, and I loved the pieces of freeze dried fruit (raspberries and redcurrants)- there were plenty in there it seemed. I had it as a topping for overnight muesli, but Andy had some with milk and he said it stayed crunchy and didn’t go soggy.

We also enjoyed it mixed in to my home-made acai bowl to imitate what I had on holiday- whizzed up frozen banana and cherries with a little cocoa powder, served with fresh fruit (papaya, blueberries and banana), granola and a little agave (should be honey but I think I used agave). Delicious.

The Jordans website has plenty of other breakfast foods including muesli, breakfast bars and breakfast cereals. I like the look of the muesli with redcurrants and raspberries- sounds very summery I think.

What is your favourite way to eat granola/ muesli?