Info all Articles

After some lovely Sunday morning pottering I went to the shops for a few bits to set me up for my day of cooking. I then came home and did 30 mins of Tae Bo and my strength routine as detailed in my April training plan. I managed to hold my plank for a full minute (I hope your reading Laura!) I was pouring of sweat afterwards, but felt great!

For lunch I made 2 scrambled eggs on toasted mulitgrain rye bread. It was the first time I'd had rye bread, it was only a slim slice but it was very filling!


I also made myself a smoothie which was inspired by a recipe in the Innocent recipe book and a recipe from Pimp my Protein Shake.

Jasmine Vanilla Blackberry Melon Protein Smoothie

1 cup of chilled jasmine green tea
1 small punnet of blackberries
1 scoop of vanilla whey
A few pieces of melon
2 ice cubes

Blend all ingredients together and drink! This tasted lovely, although if I was making this again I would try and just use jasmine tea and not jasmine green tea as it had a slightly bitter after taste.

After lunch I started on my cooking. I made a quinoa salad for lunches next week and a roast vegetable bake for dinners. I also made up some chia seed pudding for desert tonight.

Quinoa Salad

1 cup of Quinoa
2 cups of hot veg stock
1 red pepper
half a red onion
6 spring onions
half a cucumber
1 grated carrot

Tablespoon of Olive oil
juice of 1 lemon

Cook the quinoa in the hot veg stock until all the stock is absorbed (about 15 mins on a medium heat). Chop all of the veg into small pieces. Allow the quinoa to cool a litte then mix together with the veggies. Mix together the oil and lemon juice and dress the salad. Serve with additional salad leaves if desired.


I'm not eating this until lunch tomorrow but I had a quick taste. I've never tried quinoa before and this was really good. The veggie stock had flavoured the quinoa really well. Can't wait to have a big lunchbox full tomorrow!

Roast Vegetable Mozzerella Bake

2 small aubergines
1 courgette
1 red onion
1 red pepper
10 cherry tomatoes

For the sauce
1 carton of passata (seived tomatoes)
1 white onion
2 gloves of garlic
A good glug of balsamic vingar

1 ball of mozzerella cheese
Olive oil
Nutritional yeast (optional)

Chop the aubergine into half inch thick slices and spread out on a baking sheet, sprinkle over some salt and leave for 20 mins. Chop the courgette, red onion, pepper and add along with the cherry tomatoes to a roasting tin and spray with oil. Brush the aubergine with olive oil and bake all the veggies for 20 mins or until golden and slightly charred at about 200. To make the tomato sauce chopped the onions and mince the garlic and sweat in some olive oil over a medium heat until transparent. Add the passata and simmer for 5 mins then add the balsamic. When the veggies are done layer up all the ingredients in a baking dish -

Veggies first...
then tomato sauce...
then mozzerella and nutritional yeast

Repeat for again, finishing with mozzerella on the top. Bake at 200 for 20 mins or so until bubbling.


I can't wait to have this for my dinner tomorrow with a big salad. This makes two very large portions (well it is mainly just veggies!) or three medium portions. I've boxed these up to keep for during the week as I have other stuff that needs eating up tonight.

Later in the afternoon I did 30 mins of Geri's Yoga DVD (she wasn't as annoying as I thought she would be)and then had a mid afternoon snack of cottage cheese, pineapple nakd raisins and a chopped apple. The pineapple raisins were amazing! They tasted just like pineapple cubes (those boiled sweets).

Dinner was baked salmon with lemon (just salmon fillets with a couple of slices of lemon wrapped in foil and baked in the oven) served with half a sweet potato, green beans, brocolli and cauliflower.


Desert was some of my experimental chia seed pudding!

Vanilla Chia Seed Pudding

2 tablespoons of chia seeds
Vanilla rice milk (enough to cover the seeds plus a bit extra)
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of agave syrup

Mix all ingredients in a bowl and leave in the fridge for at least three hours so that the chia seeds form a gel like substance.