Rude Health Oaty Thins!

First of all, that is what I am excited about! When I got home from work today I tried a couple of them, and I love them! They are similar to rice cakes, in that they are big and sort of puffy, but without the weird stick-to-your-tongue texture that rice cakes have, plus they feel a bit more substantial.

One with pb&co maple peanut butter (not much of this left now!) and one with coconut butter and meridian raspberry spread, after this combo was recommended. I must say, it was lovely 🙂 I have never eaten coconut butter raw before, only used it in cooking, but it was nice to have that hint of coconut flavour to the snack. I also had my final Teapigs chai tea 🙁 Until my tea cupboard gets a bit emptier (remember my hoarding confessional post?) I cannot order any more.  Although they do sell it on Ocado and I am about to do a shop……..

Anyway, I love those oaty thins and I kind of wish I had bought the multigrain ones too, just to try them. Once these have been eaten that will be my next stop I think.

I have body pump later so I made a pudding to have when I get home;

All my ingredients ready (well nearly, I forgot the xanthan gum). Mash banana, add cocoa powder and pb (Sainsburys pb with chocolate chips, which is nice but not as good as dark chocolate dreams), then pour on coconut milk, sprinkle on xanthan gum and whisk, then add chia seeds.

The bowl gets so messy from all the stirring but I am not putting it in a clean bowl just for the photo I am afraid! This is thickening up in the fridge as I type.

Also I have been reading everyone’s “What I eat Wednesday” posts and feel left out! I keep thinking I should join in, and then the week goes by and before I know it I am reading them all over again, thinking “whoops, I should have done it”. Next week I am off, so I might even get around to doing it (but then after that I will be away for loads of Wednesdays). Anyone else not jumped on that bandwagon yet?

Right, off to body pump and then, hooray, the last day of the summer term 🙂

Vegan Moussaka recipe

Evening all

I had a delicious dinner today so I am going to share the recipe. It was for a moussaka but I am not a fan of creamy sauces, so I subbed in some silken tofu instead. And I left out potatoes because I don’t like them, but for a real one you could add in a layer.

First up, slice and griddle an aubergine.

Then in a pan cook a tin of tomatoes, a tin of drained lentils, a packet of spinach, some tomato puree, garlic paste and basil.

Meanwhile blend some silken tofu with some sundried tomato pesto (but you could use any pesto you like, I like this red one at the moment). This was about 3/4 of a pack of silken tofu, as I had already used the other 1/4 in the brownies.

Then layer up 🙂 I put the aubergine on the bottom, then the tomato sauce and then the tofu sauce on top.

Then bake 200C for 25 mins. Excuse the blurry photos! But it is lovely- the pesto in the tofu is my fave way to liven up tofu sauce now, and this was lovely and thick and creamy and tomatoey. I would have added other veg too, but I didn’t have any. Anyway, this was lovely and I am pleased I have 2 other portions to go in the freezer (since we defrosted it the other week I am having to re-fill it again).

Today I had a run after work- I really was not feeling like it at all as the children at work are getting more and more hyped up, and there are so many end of term jobs to do. Anyway, on my way home I was again bargaining with myself about doing a short gentle run, as I had had a sort of headache all day. But in the end I decided just to try with Audiofuel, and in the end it was fine. Hard work, and it rained at the end (gently, which I appreciated), but my headache was gone and I felt loads better. 🙂

I tried one of those Waitrose grain bars today. It was quite nice- it was quite sweet as it had concentrated apple juice, and dried apricot, and the texture was quite chewy and chunky. It reminded me of a cereal bar I had once, which I got in Sainsbury’s and was aimed at children, but was made of oats, dried fruit and maybe apple juice. They had bright packaging and stuff but I cannot remember the name. Sorry. Anyway, I did not like them as much as regular nak’d bars, but still it was nice and made a change. When I showed them to Andy his words were “I am so glad you bought 3 boxes of cereal bars, because we do not have enough already”. Hmm. In my defence I eat one every day for a snack at work, and often have one as a pre run/ exercise snack too!

Potatoes- yes or no? I only like jacket potatoes really, as boiled, roast and mash are not my cup of tea at all, to be polite! And after about 2 chips I wonder what the fuss was about (and really chips are just a vehicle for vinegar!)

Less rain this time

Hey peeps

So Monday when I left work it was teaming it down with rain again. I had a run planned, but during the drive home I talked myself into staying at home and doing a DVD (shoes in the airing cupboard drying- thanks Jessica for the hairdryer idea), but then as I got closer to home the sun was trying to come out, and the rain eased off, so I decided to just go for it as I knew the fresh air would make me feel better. Although I did decide on a few pieces of white chocolate fudge would give me an energy boost- note to self, fudge is not a good pre run snack unless you want to feel sick for half the run.  Anyway, I did over 4 miles, in 43 mins, so for me (especially recently where I seem to have slower loads) was a good pace. And it did not rain during my whole run so my trainers stayed nice and dry!

Look! These are my garden blueberries!!!! They were delicious 🙂

And I got a new toy!

I was ordering some other things from Lakeland (gifts, not for me) and I saw this strawberry thing, which gets the green spiders out of strawberries! So nifty! Normally I use a knife but then cut off half the strawberry, but this you push in and it grabs the green bits, then you twist it and it pulls them out! Magic! I was trying to take a picture of me using it but it needs 2 hands! And the brownies I made the other day are lovely- had one with cherries and strawberries, and even though it smelled like banana, it did not taste like it. Phew.

Today was not aerobics as I had a work thing, but I did manage in between meetings to pop to Waitrose and get some treats for me.

Actually I do not think quinoa is a treat! But I saw these bars on Lucy’s blog the other day- seedy, nutty and grain bars (they had none of the squashed fruit bars), and they were still on offer so I decided to get them. I also got some Montezuma’s chocolate- have not had this in ages and decided that those 2 flavours (minty and with cocoa nibs) sounded lovely. Then I was most excited to see that Rude Health now do “thins”. I never like rice cakes, but I used to get them as they were lovely spread with toppings. Anyway, they do oaty thins (which I got-made of 50% oats and 50% spelt, 24 cals per thin), multigrain ones with quinoa and brown rice and stuff (which I nearly got, and possibly were gluten free) and rice ones too. I am very excited to try these- I bet they will go super well with peanut butter 🙂

So, fave rice cake/ oat cake topping? I think I will have to go with pb and raspberry jam/spread. Yum.

Baking extravaganza!

Evening all 🙂

Hope you all had a good weekend despite the crazy weather. I ended up stuffing my trainers with brown paper yesterday, as they were so soggy. Today I took the paper out and it was wet through, and so I put my trainers in the airing cupboard. Hopefully they will be dry for a run tomorrow.

This weekend I have mainly been baking.

First I attempted some mint chocolate fudge. I made my usual fudge recipe, and then added some chopped dark chocolate before pouring it into the pan. I then sprinkled it with sugar which I had mashed with a pestle and mortar with some mint essence. The fudge tastes fine, but it was so crumbly so cutting it was not so easy!

Interesting shapes no? Anyway, I hope it will still be happily received.

Then I made some peanut butter cookies from my Peanut Butter & Co cookbook. I was a bit wary of trying this recipe, mainly because the Hummingbird recipe is so good!

These were amazing- so chewy and almost gooey on the inside- stuffed with peanut buttery goodness. These were for Sunday tea so we have none at home now.

Then I made some of those brownies that Katie invented and Rachel also made.

I also had some white chocolate stars from Sainsbury’s so I added these on the top (sadly no edible glitter!). I had a minor problem in that I did not have enough apple sauce, so I used some mashed banana instead- hopefully they do not taste too banana-ey. I am going to freeze this in slices ready for later. 🙂

Then it was the piece du resistance- white chocolate and coconut fudge. I used the normal recipe (from Rachel Allen’s Home cooking) and added some shredded coconut to the middle and to the top.

There it is cooling (all the white chocolate melts from the heat of the fudge and pours out the sides).

And sliced! This batch sliced much easier, and looks so pretty too. These will be in bags soon, for end of term gifts. So not too much to tempt me with at home!

I did have a lovely lunch;

Andy bought some Wensleydale and cranberry cheese to have at our picnic on Friday (and he bought rocket salad too which I was very impressed with as he is normally very fussy with salads and only buys iceberg!)- so I had some on some toast with a red pear. And you can see my lovely teapot so of course I had to have some tea.

OK so time for a quick training recap of this week;

Monday- attempted a mid length run but cut it short due to having to stop and walk- think this was tiredness and dehydration.

Tuesday- Aerobics hooray!

Wednesday- Audiofuel run which is still hard work but in a good way I think! Plus yoga for runners podcast.

Thursday- Body pump hooray! Upped weights only for dumbells in the triceps track, and forgot to take a towel. Whoops.

Friday- Rest day.Picnic concert. Plently of body pump aches!

Saturday- Long and wettest run ever.

Sunday- Rest day- yoga for runners podcast.

So fingers crossed that my trainers are dry by tomorrow.

And it is on to the final week of work before the summer holidays, so I was wondering does anyone have any lovely school memories from the last day/ week of term? We used to get to take in games from home on the last day which always seemed like such fun! I was easily pleased I think!

Before and after

Afternoon peeps, hope you are all having a lovely weekend.

Yesterday after work we went into London for a picnic concert! What a great idea! It was at Kenwood house, which is somewhere in London (we parked at a tube station and then there were free buses to take us to the park), and we sat in the park on a picnic blanket, while an orchestra (I think it was the London philharmonic but am not sure) played music from films- we had Star Wars, The Great Escape, Psycho, Jaws, and loads of others. It was a brilliant way to spend an evening.

Today it was time for a run, and I was a little nervous because of cutting short my Monday run. I did try to take a “before” picture, but this was my most successful attempt. The flash kept going off and I have no idea how to turn it off, and Andy was out running so he could not take it for me.

Anyway it was supposed to show that I was giving my marathon t shirt it’s first outing 🙂 And also my tennis visor as it was gently raining at that point, and that is meant to keep the rain off my glasses.

Well, the run started out just fine. It was raining but my legs were feeling good and I was running consistently, and not feeling too tired or anything like that. I passed the poor regiment fitness people crawling under nets in the muddy grass, and went through Welwyn town centre, and was even contemplating running for longer. Then, 5 miles in the rain changed from gentle/hard rain, to bucketing down. I was drenched in less than a minute- I could feel my socks soaking up water, I could hear my trainers squelching with every step, my t-shirt and capris were heavy and dragging because of the water. To top that off an orange van drove past and caused a tidal wave of muddy disgusting road water to smack into me. I was no longer a happy bunny. I was basically furthest from home there- no chance of a short cut, so I just had to get my head down and try to get home as fast as possible. I did wave thanks to the nice drivers who either let me cross the road when I was waiting (there were so many that just drove on- come on people you are warm and dry in your cars) or who pulled out to avoid splashing me. But there were several more drivers who drenched me. Well, I think I was at saturation point already but you get my point. I mean, just because I am out running in the rain, does not mean I want to get any wetter!

Not sure if you can see how wet I am but I was dripping all over the place (I had to take them off after this and put them in a bag so avoid soaking the carpet etc!)- and my t-shirt was stuck to me with all the water! (Andy took this picture having got home right after I left and missed all the rain basically! If only I could run that far before breakfast). Andy had even put his phone off silent in case I rang him (although I did not take mine with me oops!).

I jumped straight in the shower (very unusual for me as normally I have some drink and food first) and my hair was so wet I could have just put on the shampoo straight away. I was so cold!

Anyway, after that I had another treat from my bloggie swap box;

Another delicious Clif bar (chocolate almond fudge), and some Kara coconut milk and nesquick.

Yum look how dark and chocolatey it is 🙂 Sorry it is a bit blurred!

Right, for the rest of the weekend I have a fudge making extravaganza planned (as gifts for people at work)- I am thinking dark chocolate mint, and some kind of coconut one (would white chocolate go with coconut?). And maybe those tofu brownies that Katie made and Rachel has converted into UK weight measurements. Oh, and hopefully get to see Bridesmaids as this weather is perfect cinema going weather in my opinion!

So, running in the rain- yay or nay? Do you get rain rage?

And exciting weekend plans?