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Hi Everyone, hope your Mondays have been good! Mine hasn’t been too bad but it was so difficult to get up for work this morning! Even though I didn’t really sleep in much over my hols 6am felt way too early. I had a nice near empty jar of smooth peanut butter so breakie was Oats in a Jar. I filled it with porridge made with Scottish oats, chia seeds, a mashed banana and water. I topped it off with a few cacao nibs.



So amazing and so filling! I left my morning snack of fromage frais with blueberries and honey till later as I wasn’t hungry and that never happens!



Lunch was a bowl of Pea, Broccoli and Mint Soup.



Followed by a couple of peaches.



I also had an un-pictured little clemintine left from a work buffet. Before I left work to head to the gym I snacked on a small apple and a Raspberry We Are Bear Fruit YoYo.



The raspberry is probably my favourite flavour YoYo so far, these taste far too much like sweets to be healthy!

I had a tough gym workout. I warmed up for 5 minutes on the recumbent bike and then did a total of 60 minutes of high intensity intervals on the cross trainer, step machine and bike. I also did 3 sets of abs exercises including 3 x 40 second planks that were so hard my arms were shaking!

For dinner I made a really amazing salad inspired by the Marks and Spencer Whole Food Salad Shaker I’d ate last week (readers in the UK might have seen it on the new M&S advert):

Laura’s Whole Food Salad (makes two servings)

• Approximately half a cup of cooked quinoa (I cook mine in veg stock)
• Approximately half a cup of cooked brown rice
• A selection of roasted veggies – I used a small head of broccoli, 1 yellow pepper, half a courgette, a small carrot and a red onion
• 2 cups of spinach
• 2 tablespoons of sunflower and pumpkin seeds

For the lemon, garlic, tahini dressing:

• 1 tablespoon of garlic infused olive oil (or olive oil and a minced clove of garlic)
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1 heaped teaspoon of tahini

Mix the quinoa, brown rice, roasted veggies and seeds together and divide into two portions. Make up the dressing my adding the dressing ingredients to an empty screw top jar and shake together. Pour out equal amounts of dressing for each portion and mix with the quinoa, rice and veggies. Serve this mix on top of a bed of spinach and top with a few more seeds. Enjoy!



This tasted so good and is so good for you! I love this mix of healthy grains, veggies, seeds and healthy fats from the dressing, perfect. I added a handful of chopped sugar snap peas to the salad as I have some in the fridge plus a few slices of cucumber. I made my salad up yesterday and kept it in the fridge so I ate mine cold but I think this would taste good warm too.

For desert I made myself a creamy protein shake with a scoop of cookies and cream spiru-tein, soy milk and a couple of ice cubes. I also had an apple.



Ok now I’m officially stuffed!

Today I came across another great post on (never home)maker about living a budget friendly life. Lots of good budgeting tips for my Big Budget Challenge! I think that even though my spending during my holiday was ‘allowed’ as part of the challenge I need to step things up a bit, luckily I have loads of ideas, especially around making things for the flat which should be fun to do as well!

Well I’m still sitting here thinking about how good that salad tasted! Have you ever been inspired by something you’ve eaten at a restaurant or from a supermarket and tried to make your own version? What was it, and was it as nice as the original? I often try and recreate things I’ve had before but with my own spin on it!