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I’ve had such a wonderful weekend, its been one of those when I haven’t had anything major planned but everything has just ended up being great :-) I caught up with my Mam and Dad as they have been on holiday for two weeks, spent some time with my wonderful two best friends including playing Zumba on the Wii (so much fun!), had a great relaxed run in perfect autumn weather (10k in 54.05), lots of pottering in the kitchen and dyed my hair red! I’m going to wait till next week for the big reveal but I love the change!

OOTD (before colouring hair!):

Scarf: Dorothy Perkins, leather hooded jacket: Topshop, tan woven belt: taken off a Miss Selfridge dress, floral tea dress: Florence and Fred at Tesco, tan bag: Mango, Gold bangle: Dorothy Perkins, cocktail ring: Topshop, skinny jeans: Old Navy, tan leather brogues: Topshop

Yesterday morning I popped into Durham to go to my favourite green grocers. They have the best range of produce I’ve came across locally, and each week they have a ‘password’ on their website that gives you 10% off! I got this huge haul for just £10:

3 pomegranates, 6 plums, 1 melon, 2 purple carrots, 2 russet apples, 2 large heads of romaine, 2 cucumbers, 2 packs of celery, 4 massive bunches of spinach, 2 avocados. I use the cucumber, celery and some of the spinach for my green juices (and then my raw juice pulp crackers). Such beautiful produce! I also scored a bag of red lettuce from my best friends garden.

I’ve been putting this stuff to good use in some of the tastiest eats I’ve had in ages! First up I made this fab breakfast, Carrot, Coconut and Raisin Porridge:

This was so good! It contained 1/4 cup oatmeal, 1/4 cup of scottish oats and 2 1/2 cups of water cooked on the stove top with 1 tbsp of coconut flour, 2 large grated carrots, 2 tbsp of raisins, cinnamon, ground ginger and vanilla stevia mixed in then topped with more raisins, coconut butter, desiccated coconut and more cinnamon. I enjoyed with a cup of Cinnamon and Hazelnut Coffee, perfect autumn breakie!

Post run this morning I made the most delicious green smoothie:

This contained spinach, fresh mango, vanilla sun warrior, maca, berries powder, barley grass powder, msm crystals, stevia, water, ice, xanthan and guar gums then topped with leftover mango, pistachios, goji’s and coconut. This was so creamy and sweet!

I’ve had some gorgeous salads too:

Romaine, carrot, purple carrot, green pepper, cucumber, braggs, hemp oil, hemp seeds, raw sun dried tomato crackers, cheesy pumpkin seeds and nutritional yeast.

On Friday picked up an aubergine from Lidl for 67p so decided to try making my own version of Ani Phyo’s raw eggplant ‘bacon’. I thinly sliced the aubergine using my mandolin, salted it for 10 minutes then squeezed to remove the excess liquid. I then added some braggs, olive oil and nutritional yeast and dehydrated the slices for 5 hours till crispy (you could also bake this in the oven too). I used the ‘bacon’ in a salad:

This was just utterly wonderful! The salad included red lettuce from my friends garden, cucumber, red pepper, purple carrot, lots of dreamy creamy avocado dressing without the herbs and with nutritional yeast instead, topped with the ‘bacon’. I can’t wait to make a big raw sandwich with the ‘bacon’ too!

I’ve been enjoying some serious snackage these last few days as well, here’s some of my favourites:

Home made raw salted cashew and almond butter stuffed dates

Honey crunch apple (£1.50 for 5 huge apples from Lidl, these give pink ladies a run for their money!) and Ghirardelli 100% cacao dark chocolate

Rice cakes with crunchy peanut butter, New Zealand honey and bee pollen

I have been sent this honey to review, this is where the ‘mostly’ in mostly vegan comes in, I do still enjoy honey and this combo was delicious!

I’ve also enjoyed finishing off my bag of miniature dark chocolate Reece’s Peanut Butter cups, lots of frozen grapes and this huge bowl of popcorn with peanut flour and a chopped russet apple on the side:

I’ve continued my ongoing squash obsession – I think the squash I’ve been getting from the green grocers (I bought this one last week) is a buttercup. It really is gorgeous, I roasted it up with coconut oil and made a Buddha bowl with quinoa, edamame, parsley and steamed greens with shoyu:

Then I used the rest of the squash tonight in a parsley filled socca wrap with tahini miso dressing and roasted broccoli and cauliflower on the side:

Squash is so amazing in a socca, especially with the tahini miso sauce!

I’ve also made some raw macadamia butter and I have some cheesy herb raw juice pulp crackers and flatbread in the dehydrator right now! I love productive weekends, especially in the kitchen! I’ve been really enjoying making the most of the seasonal cheap produce available and trying to save some money by making my own stuff. Big Budget Challenge post will be coming soon!

I’m also very happy this Sunday evening knowing that I have no work to go to tomorrow, bliss!

How has your weekend been? I know this question is usually reserved for What I Ate Wednesday’s but since I’ve eaten some well tasty stuff this weekend – what’s the tastiest thing you’ve eaten recently?

Don’t forget to enter my international giveaway for the vegan cookbook Blissful Bites – check it out!

Firstly I’d just like to say a big thank you for all the comments on my last post. Thank you to those of you that shared your own stories of weight gain, weight loss and weight maintenance. As Phil commented, this journey doesn’t have an end date. I know that my understanding of what is healthy for me is going to change and evolve over time, and that’s a journey I’m looking forward to enjoying!

For WIAW this week I’m sharing my eats from yesterday. I got a bit snap happy with my camera phone so these are my eats interspersed with some of the random goings on in my life, enjoy!

I kicked off my day with a short run. After getting up and drinking my hot lemon water I did a short and relaxed run that must have been about 3 miles. I snapped this lovely pic of the sunshine from my front door:

I then did the Yoga for Runners podcast and got myself showered and dressed before making breakfast. I always start with taking my supplements:

If I don’t take them straight away I usually forget! Then there was coffee, a smoothie and peanut butter on toast:

I treated myself to that peanut butter last week, it is the best and most drippy peanut butter in the world in my opinion! The toast was made with a delicious slice of the Burgen Sunflower and Chia bread I’ve been sent to experiment with:

The smoothie contained ice, frozen blueberries, half a frozen banana, Alpro hazelnut milk, a scoop of vanilla sun warrior and ground flax. It was fabulous!

Coffee was a must, this was vanilla coffee with stevia and hazelnut milk :-)

Every day I put on some of my vanilla oil from Kiehls. I love it more than perfume as it has a much more natural scent. Outfit wise, I decided to go a bit casual for work as I had no meetings:

OOTD: basic grey tee: New Look, yellow cardigan: H&M, necklace: Topshop, black ankle skimming straight leg trousers: Zara, socks: Accessorize, trainers: Converse, yellow coat: New Look, scarf: Dorothy Perkins

Mid morning I started to feel a bit hungry so had a big braeburn apple and one of my wonderful raw cherry almond protein brownies:

Those brownies really are so good! Lunch was a massive salad made with romaine, spinach, carrot, cucumber, red pepper, olives and some marigold braised tofu:

I’d bought the tin of braised tofu ages ago on the recommendation of a work colleague. It had a very odd texture, it tasted ok but I don’t think I’d buy it again! After lunch I tried some of this caramel redbush tea my colleague had brought in:

She used to live in Germany and had found this brand of tea over there. It was nice and reminded me of vanilla rooibos tea.

Later on in the afternoon I had another snack, rice cakes topped with tahini and molasses spread plus three fresh figs:

I’d seen the fresh figs in Asda for a reasonable price and couldn’t resist them!

After work it was off to deliver healthy eating workshop no 2! This week I decided to have a go making some cookies with them. I also brought ingredients to make individual microwave chocolate chip muffins:

I used a recipe based on CCK’s Mini Love bites for the cookies and her single lady cupcakes for the muffins. I slimmed down the ingredients leaving out the salt and vanilla extract and allowed the young people to choose their own add ins including chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, dried mixed berries and chopped nuts. I also cut the whole wheat flour in the cupcakes recipe with a little white flour to make them slightly lighter. Both recipes worked extremely well and the young people loved them! I was working with a lot more kids last night than the week before but things were great. I printed out copies of the recipes for them to take home. Of course I snacked on a couple of cookies, some of one of the muffins and a couple of pieces of pineapple and melon at the end of the session, yum!

I was knackered by the time I got home and just wanted something simple and comforting, enter porridge! I had a spare carrot in the fridge so decided to make my carrot, raisin and coconut porridge:

I topped it with two tbsp of coconut butter for some melty heavenly goodness. Then I made a cuppa while I cleaned up:

I’d just received this tea from iHerb and oh my god its lush! Its very spicy with almost a chai taste to it, perfect evening tea. I picked James up from his late shift and was very happy to just fall straight into bed:

I pretty much passed out ;-)

I’m pretty happy with that day of eats. I feel like I ate well although I would have liked more veggies but at least I got another carrot in via my bowl of porridge ;-)

Taking more snap shots throughout the day made me realise how many little routines I have like taking my supplements first, always putting on my vanilla oil, having a cup of herbal tea in the evening and doing the dishes before bed etc. What little routines to you have?