Info all Articles

Happy Friday everyone, I am so glad the weekend is finally here! I have a few nice recipes for you today too!

I’ll rewind to Thursday morning. I did my yoga and core workout – 5 minutes of cardio (jumping jacks / bum kicks etc), 20 minute Yoga for Runners Download and my core exercises including v ups, side planks etc. It was a great little workout! Breakfast was a new tasty concoction:

Vanilla Chia Wheat Germ Breakfast Pudding (makes 1 serving)

• 2 tablespoons of chia seeds
• 2 tablespoons of wheat germ
• 4 tablespoons of oats or quinoa flakes (I used the quinoa flakes)
• 1 scoop of vanilla flavour protein powder (I used my Sun Warrior)
• 1/2 cup of non diary milk (I used hazelnut and almond rice milk)
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
• About 1/2 cup of water

Combine the chia seeds, wheat germ, oats or quinoa flakes and protein powder in a small bowl. Add the milk and cinnamon and mix together. Then add the water. The pudding will thicken up so it should appear quite watery at this stage. Leave in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight if possible. Serve cold straight from the fridge, heat in the microwave for a minute, or like me, leave to come up to room temperature:

I served mine with 3 plums and some flaked almonds. This pudding is full of healthy fats and protein and tastes delicious. As the chia seeds absorb the liquid the pudding thickens up and has great volume. This kept me full for over 5 hours!

Lunch was some Lentil and Root Veg Stew from my frozen stash with microwave steamed cabbage and clemintines and grapes on the side:

Mid afternoon I snacked on some cucumber, red pepper and a RAW Italian cracker:

This could have done with some hummus! It was another late one so I snacked on a couple of apples before my meeting. By the time I got home I was starving but didn’t want anything too heavy. I decided to make something I haven’t had in ages:

Carrot Cake Cracker Topper (makes about a 1 cup)

• 2 medium carrots, grated
• 1 tbsp of almond butter (or nut butter of choice)
• 1/2 tbsp of sunflower seeds
• 1/2 tbsp of raisins
• Cinnamon to taste

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and use to top crackers, as a filling in a wholemeal wrap (or even nori rolls), or use to eat as is for a snack! I used mine to top 3 pumpkin seed Ryvitas (great ingredients list of just wholegrain rye flour, oats, pumpkin seeds and salt so fine for my kick start plan) and also added a couple of chopped organic braeburn apples:

This left my tummy very happy and wasn’t too much for me so late at night!

This morning I had a huge bowl of muesli: half mighty muesli and half Dorset cereal high fibre muesli with two chopped pears and hazelnut and almond rice milk:

Lunch was a massive salad containing spinach, lettuce, orange pepper, red onion, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts and roasted soya nuts for protein. I made up a quick dressing with some Cool oil, balsamic vinegar and a little Dijon mustard:

For such a simple salad it was actually really tasty and so filling! I also had three plums and some grapes.

Mid afternoon I snacked on a nakd bar and an apple:

I’m trying to use up these nakd bars as they are out of date! They still taste perfectly fine though :-)

I hit the gym for my strength and HIIT workout. I did exactly the same workout as last week. I decided to keep my reps the same and continue with leaving my cardio until after the strength routine as I felt much better when I did it that way last time.

I headed home to make a tasty dinner:

Simple Lentil Dahl (serves 2)

• 1 tbsp Coconut oil (or oil of choice)
• 2 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 inch piece of ginger, grated
• 1 tsp garam masala
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp ground coriander
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup of red lentils
• 1 1/2 cups of veg stock
• 6 cherry toms, quartered
• handful of spinach

In a large pan heat the coconut oil on a medium heat. Add the garlic, onion and ginger and fry until the onion has softened a little. Add the spices and fry until they become fragrant taking care that they don’t start to burn. Add the carrot and tomatoes followed by the red lentils and vegetable stock. Simmer until all the stock has been absorbed, the lentils are tender and it has reached a thick soup like consistency. Add in the spinach and stir into the Dahl until wilted down. Serve with rice or naan bread:

 

I’ve been wanting to try and make some kind of lentil curry dish / dahl for ages as I love lentils and knew it would be something I would like. I pretty much based this on my Lentil and Spinach Soup recipe but added spices and reduced the liquid. I served this with some steamed swiss chard, brown and wild rice and a few mixed seeds, it tasted utterly delicious and was incredibly straight forward and simple to make – my kind of cooking!

Dessert was some Double Chocolate Protein ‘Ice Cream’ (scoop of chocolate sun warrior, 8 ice cubes, oat milk, 2 tablespoons of raw cacao powder, matcha green tea powder, mesquite, maca, xanthan and guar gums) topped with some Raw Chocolate Company chocolate covered mulberries and a little bit of granola.

The mulberries were lovely, sweet and crunchy but the chocolate gives them a lovely bitter deep flavour. They were very moreish, I could have eaten the whole pack!

This weekend I am planning some serious chill time. I really need a chill day to completely relax. I purchased a couple of new cookery cooks from Amazon:

I have the first Leon Cookbook which I really like so I’m hoping that Leon Naturally Fast Food will be just as good. I’m also very excited to have a good read of Supernatural Cooking as I already love Heidi’s blog 101 Cookbooks.

I also have these books from my local library:

I think I mentioned I was getting interested in raw foods and the lovely Becky recommended that I take a look at the Sally Bee book.

This weekend I’m going to try and do a bit of a deeper detox by mainly eating vegetables, fruits and nuts. I’m planning on having lots of smoothies, fresh juices and raw salads combined with early nights and sitting on my arse reading cookery books – I think its going to do me the world of good!

I love looking through cookery books for inspiration but I’ve been finding that recently I very rarely stick to a recipe 100%. I tend to change things up a bit, adding, taking away or swapping ingredients. Do you experiment with recipes in cookbooks or do you always stick to the recipe exactly?

What’s your favourite way to relax? Although I’m saying I’ll be sitting on my butt most of the weekend I will get to the gym for a workout as I find exercise – especially just steady state cardio, relaxing in an odd kind of way!

This is also your last chance to enter my GIVEAWAY if you haven’t already – it closes at 12am GMT and I’ll announce the winner tomorrow.

Hope you all have an awesome weekend!