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Hello there, hope you are all having a great week! I’ve been feeling a little flunky today, the last couple of days have been very quiet and filled with just the same old stuff, I have to say the weekend can’t come fast enough for me at the moment!

On Monday I really enjoyed a tasty breakfast of fresh strawberries, Dorset Cereals High Fibre Muesli and home made almond milk:

Big bowls of muesli make me very happy, especially with home made almond milk … as do smoothies, however for a change this one was not green!

Strawberry and Rhubarb Smoothie (serves 1)

• 1 heaping cup of frozen strawberries
• 1 serving of Rhubarb and Orange Compote
• 1 cup of milk (I used home made almond milk)
• 1 tsp of mesquite (optional but adds sweetness)
• 1 tsp of ground flax (optional but I added for healthy fats)
• 1/2 tsp of xanthan gum (optional but adds thickness)

Blend all ingredients and enjoy! If you have a sweet tooth you would probably want to add some agave to this too.

I had my smoothie in a bowl (of course) with a little granola, accompanied by a slice of toasted quinoa and amaranth bread with cashew butter:

Just wonderful!

In an attempt to free up some space in my packed freezer lunches have been Courgette and Watercress and Pea, Broccoli and Pesto Soups accompanied by fruit. I’m glad I have used the soup up as I’m hoping we are now firmly into salad weather, then again both these soups are quite spring like!

Today’s snack was really good:

Two Clearspring Black Sesame and Tamari Rice Cakes with tahini and sugar snap peas. Seriously these rice cakes taste amazing!

Dinner has been a bit of a mish mash of a meal. A couple of weekends ago I received some tomatoes in my organic veg box. I’m not a fan of fresh tomatoes so inspired by my roast tomato and red pepper soup recipe I made a tasty sauce:

Roasted Tomato and Red Pepper Sauce (makes 4 servings)

• 6 large tomatoes, chopped into quarters
• 1 very large, or 2 medium red peppers, deseeded and roughly chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, with the skin removed but left whole
• 2 large white onions, roughly chopped
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

Pre heat the oven to 200c. Add all ingredients to a large roasting tray and toss in the olive oil and salt. Roast for 30 – 40 minutes until the veggies have softened and gone all syrupy. Transfer to a bowl and blend with a hand blender until smooth (you could also use a regular blender, but be careful if hot). Use as a sauce for pasta, veggies etc. This also freezes very well.

I added some lentils to the sauce and served it with some spelt tagliatelle spiralised courgette, yellow pepper, green olives, fresh basil and nutritional yeast plus a side of steamed greens:

This was blooming well lush! So full of flavour and massively filling :-)

Yesterday’s dessert was some 80% Intense Conscious raw chocolate with strawberries:

This chocolate had a much harder crunchier texture than the other Conscious varieties I have tried which have a more truffle like consistency. I still loved it and its fantastic deep bitter chocolate taste. Tonight I’ve had a Peppermint Stick Luna Bar and a tasty pink lady apple, me needs the 9g of protein in the Luna Bar to help recover from Body Pump!

Speaking of which, my workouts have been the usual: 30 minutes of intervals on cardio machines, 30 minute spin class and abs and core yesterday, and Yoga for Runners this morning with Body Pump tonight. Body pump was awesome as usual!

Yesterday I received these tasty samples to try:

Thai Taste Thai Red Curry Kit, Thai Taste Yellow Sweet Chilli Dipping sauce with ginger and Pomegranate and Elderflower Sparkling Presse limited edition Breakthrough Breast Cancer Charity Bottle. I’m looking forward to making a tasty Thai Red Tofu Curry with this kit and saving the bottle of presse for Easter Sunday lunch. I adore Thai Curries, and I especially love the Thai Taste brand as the curry pastes are suitable for veggies as well as the company supporting a community project in Thailand. I love their Thai Green Curry paste and still have some stashed in the freezer!

I have a bit of a strange work day tomorrow so instead of my usual gym based treadmill run / cardio intervals first thing I’m going to try doing a very early morning outdoor run before work and then going to the gym to finish up with the cardio and abs and core stuff after work. I’m not sure how I’ll fair working out hard twice in one day (I know I sometimes do yoga and then a workout later but I don’t think of that in the same way with it not being so intense) but I didn’t want to run after work as I never seem to enjoy it very much that late in the day. I did read in Ultra Fit magazine that this method of splitting your workout up and working out at two different times in the same day can be a good way to improve fitness and burn more calories in a short period of time because you are raising your heart rate and metabolism twice instead of just once in a day, although its not a technique I’d make regular use of, it could be useful to break through a fitness plateaux.

Do you ever workout twice in one day or split up your workouts like this?