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After my recipe dreaming yesterday I thought I'd try something a little different for breakfast, so I made some overnight oats! After posting last night I had tucked into a couple of plums whilst watching Sophie Dahl and Heston Blumental's (the edible house was amazing!) cooking shows and they were so nice and perfectly ripe that I knew I fancied them for breakfast too.

Overnight Oats with Pecan Plum Crunch Topping

Regular oats and Jumbo oats
Tablespoon of chia seeds
Water to cover the oats and chia seeds
A dash of hazelnut and almond rice milk

Mix together in a bowl and cover, then leave in fridge overnight.


In the morning add the topping:

2 tablespoons of grape nuts
2 chopped plums
6 Pecans crumbled
Drizzle of maple syrup


This was lovely! The oats and chia seeds absorb the water and rice milk and go all creamy. It saved me a bit of cooking time this morning too.

Mid morning I had a chopped apple sprinkled with cinnamon and maca powder and 2 babybel lights.


The maca powder and cinnamon with the apple was amazing! I'll be eating my apples like this all the time now!

Lunch was more lovely quinoa salad followed by a pear.


After my last meeting and before heading to the gym I had an apple pie nakd bar.


First time I've had this flavour before and its definitely my favorite flavour of the nakd bars, I love the cinnamon spice taste with the apple, delicious.

I hit the gym and did my usual hour of cardio intervals still maintaining my increased resistance and speed from this months training plan plus my abs exercises including the plank which although I can't time myself in the gym, I'm sure I'm able to maintain for longer now.

Dinner was a turkey steak covered in hot chilli powder and stir fried in strips served with mixed salad leaves, carrot, cucumber and spring onion with some light mayo on the side.


For something I'd pretty much thrown together this was really good, the chilli powder coating made the turkey extra yummy. Desert was more protein goo, chocolate mint flavour tonight!


Drinks - water, green tea, decaf tea

Well I'm not going to hang around tonight, I have to do dishes and tidy up the kitchen sort out my dinner for tomorrow and perhaps tackle a pile of ironing :-( I'm also a bit worried as tomorrow my cars going in for its MOT and service, I'm praying it doesn't result in a giant bill as I'm sure there's going to be a few things wrong with it! Keep your fingers crossed for me! Hope your week is going well, 3 down 2 to go! x

Last night I surprised myself by having enough foresight to pop some overnight chia seed oats into the fridge for this mornings breakfast. I mixed 1/2 cup of Rude Health Fruity Date porridge mix with 1 1/2 cups of water, 1 tbsp of chia seeds and 1 tbsp of coconut flour. This morning I mixed in some beautiful ripe mango and topped with coconut shreds:

I love overnight oats and chia seed puddings when the weather is warm!

After some pottering around the house I headed to the gym for a workout. I did 1 hour of intervals on the cross trainer, step machine, bike and rowing machine (15 min on each) followed by some abs and core exercises.

For lunch I made an Asian / Chinese inspired salad with chinese leaf, little gem, carrot, sugar snaps, red pepper, spring onions, edamame and a large serving of my kabocha squash dip. I then drizzled some ginger and yellow chilli sauce on top:

This was one of my biggest salads ever and I couldn’t finish it all! A bit later I had some blackberries and apples and a tasty green juice made with cucumber, broccoli, spinach, celery and lemon:

I still drink fresh green juices at the weekend when I have time to clean the juicer – I can’t imagine not having them on a regular basis now!

I went with another Chinese inspired meal for dinner, a peanut tofu stir fry:

This included more chinese leaf, spring greens, asparagus, purple sprouting broccoli, mushrooms, spring onion and courgette noodles topped with tofu marinated in soy sauce and mirin and fried plus a lovely spicy peanut lime sauce (2 tbsp of peanut flour with lime juice, water, chilli and soy sauce)

I stuck with the Asian theme for dessert too:

Green tea chocolate, delish!

I’ve had a really lazy day today. Apart from my gym workout I’ve just pottered around the flat, watched movies with James and made a few things in the kitchen including some of my favourite Seitan Sausage:

This time I added some dried thyme and sage to the mix. Its such an easy recipe and can be so easily customised with different flavourings. It also freezes very well too.

I’ve really enjoyed my Asian inspired eats today! Chinese, Thai, Japanese and Indian food are my favourites and I also have a big soft spot for Italian food, in fact there’s not a lot of international cuisine I don’t enjoy! What’s your favourite international cuisine?

All in all its been a lovely relaxed bank holiday Monday, and with a three day week ahead followed by being on holiday from work for almost two weeks I’m buzzing! Hope you have enjoyed your Monday!

Hello everyone, hope you’ve all had a great weekend! Last night was my best friend Claire’s 30th Birthday Party. She decided to go with an 80’s theme so we had lots of 80’s music and 80’s food like vol-u-vents, cheese and pineapple on sticks and lots of sweeties:

The buffet was fabulous! My other best friend Kate and I bought her this amazing birthday cake:

It was wonderful – all decorated in an 80’s theme! I’m sure your all dying to know what I went as ;-) may I introduce Laura the Punk:

Pulling my punk attitude face! My costume was mostly home made. I bought the plain t-shirt for £2.50 and painted the union jack and ‘destroy’ logo myself, as well as ripping all the seams up and ripping some holes in it. I got the tartan skirt from a charity shop for £2.99 and just cut it short. I ripped up and old pair of tights and wore them with my big boots. I got the wig and the spiked collar from a fancy dress shop. These two pics were my inspiration:

 

 

Vivienne Westwood and Siouxsie Sue

James went as an 80’s rocker (I enjoyed putting some ‘guy’ liner on him!) and my Mam and Dad looked fantastic as the Blues Brothers:

Here’s me, Claire and Kate striking a pose:

We’ve been friends since school, I love these two so much they are like family :-) I enjoyed a couple of glasses of red wine and lots of picked onions, salted nuts, veggie sticks and sweeties. I woke up feeling a bit worse for wear this morning – even just two small glasses of red don’t sit with me well these days - but if you can’t indulge at your best friends party when can you?!

We stayed at my Mam and Dad’s last night so I prepared some overnight oats ready for breakfast:

1/2 cup of oats, 1 tbsp of chia seeds, raisins, cinnamon and stevia with a chopped apple. I love how the raisins get so plump and juicy. We’ve spent most of today lying around on the sofa and all I could face for lunch was a smoothie so I blended up some beet greens, frozen blueberries, chocolate hemp protein powder, water, ice and gums then topped with cashew butter and muesli:

This totally hit the spot! I had a fridge full of veggies from my organic veg box so for an early dinner tonight I had a bit of a random mix of roast kabocha, parsnip and red pepper mixed with some lentils, parsley and topped with some green goddess dressing. I served it up with some broccoli and leek stir fried in ginger, chilli and tamari:

Yum, so random but good.

I was very glad that I got my weekend run in yesterday morning as there’s no way I would have been able to manage one today! I did another random route that included a few hills – 7 miles in 1.01 average pace 8.51, this time I managed to remember my mittens so my hands were toasty warm :-)

So a brilliant weekend has been had! How was your weekend? Next week is my ‘set back’ week in my training plan and I’m planning on doing a bit of healthy feasting again to give my body a break from caffeine and sugar and to really give it some TLC with lots of simple foods. 

I enjoyed the party so much and it started to make me think of what I would like to do for my 30th Birthday celebrations next year. If you were having a party what theme would you chose? As my birthday is in August I’d love to have an English Summer Garden Party with Pimms, vegan cupcakes and lots of candles and fairy lights!

I’ve also spent today sending out all the emails for UK Bloggers Secret Santa, so excited! Hope you all have a great week!