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Last week I was in the mood for baking and I really fancied making a bread of some kind, and as I’m on my Big Budget Challenge I needed to use just cheap ingredients I had on hand. After a quick look through my cupboards I found this:

A bottle of fruity cider left over from Christmas. I instantly thought of this recipe and decided to try it out with my own twist of course!

Fruity Cider Bread (vegan, makes one small loaf, adapted from What Kate is Cooking Pear Cider Bread)

• 2 1/2 cups of spelt flour
• 1/2 cup of oats
• 3 tsp of baking powder
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 500ml bottle of fruit cider

Pre heat the oven to 190c. In a large bowl combine the flour, oats, baking powder and cinnamon.

Slowly pour in the cider, mixing until you get a soft dough. You won’t need the whole bottle so I suggest you do this with what’s left:

Yum! Transfer the dough into a greased and lined loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes to an hour.

You may need to cover the top of the loaf with foil after 30 minutes to prevent over browning. It’s done when an inserted knife comes out clean.

Enjoy with vegan butter, nut butter or jam.

This makes a dense, hearty and filling loaf with a slight sweetness and fruity flavour. If you’d like your bread sweeter then you could add some sugar, agave or other sweetener in with the cider. This recipe would also make a great base for adding additional flavours and textures such as fresh or dried fruit or even nuts and seeds.

I have frozen several slices and plan on enjoying this for breakfasts and tasty snacks!

Are you a fan of cider? I love the fruity and pear ciders you can now get, I’d also love to try this recipe with a bottle of my favourite Strawberry Beer!

Hi guys, hope your having a great Wednesday! Wednesday seems to mean only one thing in the healthy living blog world…

These are my eats and workouts from yesterday…

I started my day with some yoga courtesy of Yoga Download – I did the 20 minute challenge detox flow – it was a great way to wake up! Breakfast was truly divine! I spread two thick slices of my cider bread with tahini and topped them with chopped fresh figs and a drizzle of honey. I also had a big mug of cinnamon and hazelnut coffee with soy milk and stevia:

Yep, I’m still obsessed with figs and tahini, its not very often I get into a food groove when I eat the same things over and over (apart from green smoothies and salads!), as usually I like variety, so I’m enjoying it while it lasts! Adding the honey took it to a whole new level of deliciousness too.

Mid morning I snacked on a chopped pink lady and a chopped fun size apple with some home made raw sun dried tomato crackers, some raw ginger, carrot and sunflower dip / spread and a mug of miso soup:

I knocked the dip up at the weekend – its just 1/2 cup of soaked sunflower seeds, 2 carrots, 1 date, coconut aminos, minced ginger and water blended up in the food processor, it tastes delicious.

Lunch was a perfectly ripe pear and a big salad containing raw black kale massaged with lemon juice and hemp oil, mixed salad leaves, carrot, beetroot, alfalfa sprouts, chickpeas and olives with some braggs:

Before I left work for the gym I enjoyed a couple of handfuls of sultanas from my (now almost empty) snack drawer:

I must re stock it soon!

At the gym I did 20 minutes of intervals – 10 minutes on the step machine and 10 minutes on the bike followed by my Body Pump Class. The class was really full and I kept worrying I was going to wack someone with my bar!

For dinner I enjoyed leftovers from what I’d made on Monday evening, a veganised and amended version of my Warm Brussel Sprout, Pearl Barley and Pumpkin Salad with Feta and Cranberries:

I just shredded the brussels by hand and added a small chopped leek that needed using up, stir frying them with garlic and coconut oil and adding some maple syrup to caramelize, then I added some roast pumpkin, cooked pearl barley, dried cranberries, toasted pecans and some tofu feta cheese I made using this recipe at the weekend. I added more maple syrup and a splash of shoyu. So so good – I love how festive it looks too! This would also be amazing with squash in place of the pumpkin, yum!

For a little dessert I had my usual post body pump bowl of protein ice cream – spiru-tein peanut butter swirl with water, ice, stevia and gums topped with some peanut flour sauce, freeze dried berries and a few cacao nibs:

Perfect sweet treat to end the day!

I tend to like a lot of variety in my eats but I definitely seem to be enjoying a bit of a love affair with brussel sprouts, maple syrup, squash, pumpkin and the figs and tahini combo, I just can’t get enough of them all right now! I know I also eat a lot of green smoothies and salads but because changing up the ingredients and toppings makes them so different, I never seem to tire of them!

What’s your current food obsession? Do you enjoy the same foods over and over or do you like variety?

Hi everyone, happy Friday! Hope you’ve had a good week, I don’t know about you guys but I am ready for the weekend!

This week I have done all my workouts according to my plan but was working late on Tuesday so I swapped out my evening Body Pump class for the 30 Day Shred, levels 2&3 back to back followed by Davina Fit Yoga Stretch section before work. For yesterday’s anything goes workout I decided to hit the gym with missing it on Tuesday. I blogged my workout over on my Tumblr page, check it out it was fun! My strength training workouts have been awesome too, this week I increased my sets from 2 to 3 and next week I’m going to increase my reps from 10 to 12 :-)

I’ve had some very tasty eats this week too, so I apologise for all these pics but I just had to share!

Beautiful breakfasts:

 Raw chocolate courgette pudding (courgette, banana, chocolate sun warrior protein powder, pumpkin seed milk blended and mixed with 2 tbsp of chia seeds then topped with some Living Intentions raw cacao granola)

  Porridge made with half Scottish oats and half oat bran mixed with 1/4 cup of peanut flour, defrosted frozen berries and topped with a spoonful of peanut butter with flax

  Two slices of fruity cider bread, one with Clearspring Cherry spread and one with almond butter plus chopped banana

 Current fave green smoothie combo: kale, 2 pears, chocolate hemp protein powder, mesquite, barley grass, ice, water, gums and topped with my raw pear and ginger granola and some hazelnut butter

Lovely lunches:

Black bean veggie chilli with spinach and cold roast squash, yum! 

Courgette noodles and alfalfa sprouts with spicy peanut sauce (1/4 cup peanut flour, lime juice, ginger, chilli, shoyu) and roast squash (inspired by Gena’s spiralised zucchini with butternut squash and garlic sauce)

Super snacks:

Sunshine muffin with redwoods diary free plain yoghurt and a chopped pink lady apple

  Raw juice pulp crackers topped with garden pate and alfalfa sprouts, chopped carrots and apple

  This was so good – 100% cacao dark chocolate and un-sulphured dried apricots with blob of tahini – amazing tasting combo, plus its packed with calcium! 

Sliced apples with a dipping sauce made from home made raw macadamia butter, lucuma and water

Delicious dinners:

Slightly broken up Socca with parsley served quesadilla style with onion, roast squash and mashed white beans with roast brussels and swede chips on the side. Loving swede chips right now!

Vegan sausages with swede chips, roast brussels, roast beetroot and steamed cabbage with shoyu

This week has been a bit of a challenging one so I thought it would be nice to end this post with some Friday Faves to put a smile on my face!

Kale

As well as getting lots in my veg box, I went to my green grocers and since they had some in I decided to get all of this! The dehydrator is on making kale chips as I speak. I just love getting the proper big stems of kale, so much better than the machine chopped bags you get at the super market.

This hauntingly beautiful song and vintage inspired video

Having a Starbucks in Durham

Chai Soy Latte with cinnamon – prefer their usual big chunky mugs though!

I’ve been working from home today so had the flexibility to pop into town for an hour. James said he would treat me to a Starbucks as he knows I’m trying to be good for the Big Budget Challenge. It was lovely to have a little coffee date, and it reminded me that no matter how skint you are, its important to make time to do something together. We’ve decided that we are going to keep a little cash aside to be able to do things like this, or hire out movies for a ‘date night’ at home a couple of times a month.

Feeling balanced

I really feel like I’m finding my ‘sweet spot’ with regards to balancing my eats and exercise. I love that I’m eating quite mindfully at the moment and honouring my hunger and cravings without it getting out of control. I’m also really happy that I’m achieving a nice balance of my favourite raw foods alongside cooked foods, which I think all the pics above demonstrate.

What are your Friday Faves? Have you got a busy weekend planned? Hope whatever you are up to you enjoy yourself!