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I’m still surviving in the lovely snow we have here in North East England, its so festive and is putting me right in the mood for Christmas!

Thanks for your comments to my Perfect Porridge and Rude Health Giveaway post – take a look if you would like to enter or if you just want to get some amazing ideas for porridge flavours and toppings! I’m going to do my best to try them all out!

Over the last couple of days I’ve had some thrown together but tasty eats. Yesterdays lunch was a salad made up with left over brown rice, carrots, cucumber, red onion and spinach with a big handful of roast spicy chickpeas thrown in plus some spicy peri peri dressing.

I love having roasted chickpeas handy as they are an easy and tasty way to add some protein to a salad without having to open a full tin of beans. I also had a couple of plums and an orange.

I picked up these Ryvita crackers at the supermarket the other day. I was impressed with their simple ingredients list, only wholegrain rye flour, pumpkin seeds, oats and salt. I had a couple of crackers topped with tasty marmite as a snack.

As decided not to try and make the journey from Durham to Newcastle for my yoga class I dusted off my old Yogalates DVD instead. I did the full hour workout and really enjoyed it! I think I’ll be using this DVD and Yoga Download workouts to try and maintain my flexibility until I start my level 2 course in the New Year. Earlier I had also done my usual Thursday morning workout DVD – Davina Top Fit!

For dinner I decided to just have a mug of miso soup with ginger followed by a huge green smoothie. This one contained spring greens, 1/2 frozen banana, frozen strawberries, ice cubes, vanilla rice milk, maca powder, ground flax and nut mix, agave and xanthan and guar gums. I topped it all off with some goji berries, coconut and cacao nibs.

This was lovely and filling, I actually crave green monsters now!

This morning I made a gorgeous breakfast of an apple and peanut butter spelt wrap plus a Vanilla and Chai Coffee.

Over the last week I’ve been experimenting with combining different teas, my favourite this week being green tea with lemon and ginger tea (I just chuck one tea bag of each in the tea pot). Today I decided to brew up some French vanilla coffee in my press then add a chai tea bag and some vanilla rice milk. It tasted so good – do you ever mix up your tea / coffee like that? If not give it ago!

That breakfast kept me full for hours. When I did get round to lunch I had a bowl of Courgette and Watercress soup with two organic pears.

Mid afternoon snack was a Cocoa Delight Nakd Bar. I then hit the gym for an hour workout – HIITs – 15 minutes on the cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by some abs and core work on the stability ball and some upper body free weights.

When I got home my organic veg box delivery had arrived so for dinner I roasted up a sweet potato, beetroots, parsnips and red onion then served on top of some sautéed spring greens and topped with feta, parsley, toasted seeds and a Dijon mustard, balsamic and olive oil dressing inspired by the warm winter salad recipe in Sophie Dahl's Voluptuous Delights Cook Book.

This was amazing – all organic and just so tasty on a cold winter night! I have lots of leftovers to eat over the weekend. I followed this with a big bowl of Double Chocolate Protein Ice Cream – the first bowl I’ve attempted with Sun Warrior (plus ice cubes, rice milk, cocoa powder, guar and xanthan gums). I crumbled a couple of my little chocolate sesame coconut cookies on the top.

This tasted fab, the Sun Warrior has a much richer chocolate flavour than my old whey protein powder – just so decadent tasting!

So I’m quite enjoying the snow at the moment, yesterday I decided to invest in a really good pair of wellington boots as this weather is likely to last, if not return over the next couple of months. I decided to get these cute polka dot ones:

Joules Dutch Blue Printed Wellingtons, £35 Amazon

I also made a bit of an impulsive Christmas gift purchase. I had been trying to decide if I preferred a bread maker or a juicer as a gift from my parents. As neither me or the hubby eat a great deal of bread, and since I’m a totally fruit and veg junky I went and ordered this juicer:

Philips Whole Fruit Juicer, £66 Amazon

It has great reviews and I’m really looking forward to making delicious fresh juices, especially in January when I’m planning a bit of a detox!

In other news, I signed up for the Great North Run 2011! I had the opportunity and thought f*** it! This way I don’t have the pressure of reaching a fundraising target and I also have guaranteed entry each year until 2013. I’m looking forward to it already!

Tomorrow I’m off to do some Christmas Shopping, catching up with friends and family and making lots of soups and stews. I can’t believe it will be December next week! Have you had snow where you are? Do you gravitate towards certain foods / exercise when the weather turns? I just have real cravings for soups and stews and I certainly don’t want to run outdoors, but I love to walk instead!