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Yay for Friday! So glad that the weekend is here :-) Hope you’ve all had a good one.

I’m going to apologise in advance at the number of pics of smoothies in this post, with the hot weather we’ve been experiencing alongside my general green smoothie craving I’ve had one everyday this week!

Spinach, 2 celery stalks, 1 large raw beet, 1 frozen banana, 1 cup of home made almond milk, hemp protein powder, maca, barley grass, purple corn powder, msm crystals, stevia, ice, xanthan and guar gums plus sunflower lecithin for added thickness and creaminess topped with fresh strawberries, pistachios and coconut:

This was absolutely gorgeous, raw beet adds so much sweetness along with that gorgeous berry colour. Yum!

Little gem lettuce, celery, persimmon, frozen peaches, home made almond milk, mesquite, spirulina, msm crystals, ground flax, hemp protein powder, stevia sweetener, xanthan and guar gums for thickness and topped with some strawberry and coconut rawnola and mixed seeds:

The ‘rawnola’ was actually made from some failed cookies! I had been trying to make some raw cookies in the dehydrator with leftover almond pulp from making milk (plus agave, coconut, dried and fresh strawberries), they didn’t quite turn out right so I just crumbled them and dehydrated a bit longer to create a granola type mix that will be perfect for topping smoothies and yoghurt bowls. Even James has been eating this on his porridge! Speaking of James and coconut:

39p what a bargain! James adores fresh coconut so we cracked open this baby, I drank the delicious milk and had a few pieces of flesh while he enjoyed the rest, so so tasty!

Another green smoothie! Kale, celery, frozen banana, pink lady apple, vanilla sun warrior protein powder, cinnamon, maca, spirulina, msm, almond milk, ice, xanthan and guar gums for thickness topped with almond butter sauce, raw buckwheaties and gojis:

The buckwheaties were another raw kitchen experiment. I just soaked some buckwheat over night, drained and rinsed and dehydrated for a few hours. These are wonderfully crispy and crunchy, I’m looking forward to eating them like a cereal!

I also made up this lovely simple smoothie one very hot evening:

Watermelon slushie (just frozen watermelon blended with a drop of stevia and water) topped with a sliced persimmon and goji berries, simple and perfect :-)

Cooling and fresh meals probably best sum up my eats these past few days. When I picked up a cauliflower on the cheap at the green grocers I decided to make a cauliflower ‘rice’ salad!

Raw Cauliflower ‘Rice’ Salad (makes 2 large servings, vegan)

• 1 head of cauliflower
• 1 red pepper
• 1/2 cucumber
• 1 red onion
• 1 small bunch of parsley
• 3 tbsp of raisins
• 4 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
• 2 tbsp of hemp oil (or oil of choice)

Break the cauliflower into florets and add to a food processor, processing until the mix resembles rice. Finely chop the onion, cucumber, pepper, cucumber and parsley and mix into the cauliflower rice adding the raisins, vinegar and oil and mixing well. Serve!

I enjoyed mine on top of a mixed leaf herby salad. This is so so good! The sweetness of the raisins and fresh herby taste really are key in making this extra delicious. Such a perfect summer lunch! Obviously if you wanted to make this more substantial you could make it with actual rice either in place of or in addition to the cauliflower, but I really enjoyed how light and zingy it is with just the cauliflower.

In addition to the other dehydrator experiments I also had a go at making some juice pulp crackers! They turned out perfectly:

I enjoyed them with some raw carrot and ginger dip and lots of veggies. To make these I just combined 1 cup of green juice pulp with 1/3 cup of ground flax, garlic powder, onion powder, Italian seasoning and a dash of water then spread out on a lined dehydrator sheet, scored into crackers and dehydrated for 5 hours, flipped, and dehydrated for a further 4 hours. The carrot dip was absolutely divine! The recipe does need a little tweaking before I share it though but I will be making it again for sure!

Dinners have included a twist on my Fresh Asian Salad:

Basically the salad recipe but with added soba noodles, leftover courgette noodles and smoked sesame tofu instead of the edamame, plus a sprinkle of gomasio. This rocked my socks off, the dressing is just so full of flavour! Another ideal warm weather meal.

Tonight I really fancied a big plate of comfort food, enter my quinoa risotto:

I added peas, courgette and sugar snap peas to this recipe along with a side of lightly steamed broccoli. Hit. the. spot :-)

Ok, so I’m about to have a little pity party so please bear with me…

I had a bit of a crappy run this week. On Wednesday morning I did my usual hilly 7 mile route. I actually felt really great and felt like I was going reasonably fast. When I checked my time at the 5 mile mark I realised that I was actually quite slow, slower in fact than the last time I ran that route when I had been feeling really rubbish. I did the 7 miles in 1hr 04 with an average pace of 9.10, the last time was 9.07 and the time before that 9.05. It really knocked my confidence, not so much being slower, but the fact that I had thought I was putting in a really good run!

Insert OOTD from this weeks liberating my wardrobe challenge! Silver hoop earrings: Accessorize, blush blazer: Next, striped top: Zara, harem pants: New Look, gold sandals: Next

It really got me down for some reason and really knocked my confidence. I don’t usually keep an eye on my pace when I run as I like to focus on just enjoying it, but after weeks of progressing so well I don’t want to start going backwards. I know it could have been due to tiredness from the weekend, and perhaps I wasn’t as well fuelled from the day before as I should have been. Anyway, I have long training run scheduled for tomorrow and by god I am determined to make it a good one!

In addition to that workouts have been the usual stuff, yoga podcast, cardio based gym session with abs and core and my amended NRoL workout this morning, all of which were way better than that run!

I’m so looking forward to this weekend, I need some serious relaxation and catching up! I’m hoping to get that long run done first thing then I can get on with the rest of the weekend, seeing friends and family and getting caught up with stuff around the house. Have you any exciting plans for the weekend?

I’d also like to say a quick hello to my first ever blogger sponsor the lovely Cat from Knitting, Running, Eating! Please head on over to her fab blog and check it out! If your interested in promoting your blog with me just drop me an email: laura@keepinghealthygettingstylish.com

How do you deal with a crappy workout? I guess I’m just more determined to make my next run a good one!

Hope you have an awesome weekend!