Not including today, there are only two Wednesdays left before Christmas. TWO. Very exciting! Starting to feel extremely Christmassy. You just can’t avoid it really at this point. It’s on the radio, the TV… Sparkling and colourful trees are popping up left right and centre around us – everyone’s uploading their tree to Facebook to proudly show off their work of art. And yes, I am guilty of doing the same. #noshame
So it’s WIAW again. This is when I get to show you guys the exciting food I’ve been eating. Thanks to Jenn for hosting. And it’s a Christmas themed WIAW!
This weekend I enjoyed some great eats, though not necessarily very Christmassy… Saturday morning I had my favourite oats and coconut flour mix:
I’m still loving this breakfast. My coconut flour is slowly running out which is quite upsetting considering how expensive it is and I can only get it online.
After this I dashed off to Pilates. I feel like I’ve got the hang of Pilates now. The breathing and neutral spine malarkey was a bit tough to get right to begin with but I feel much more confident with it now. I’m glad for all the strength training I’ve done because it means I can do a lot of the exercises quite easily in terms of execution. Its a nice small class as well with about six of us in total so it has a nice community feel to it. I’ll definitely be continuing with this class!
After Pilates I then had to race back home, shower and get dressed to then zoom off to my parent’s house with Ben. In the car I had a black coffee as I needed caffeine having not had any in the morning.
I love this coffee carrier! I might have stole in from my mum when I was round their house Thursday without her realising… Hey, it was dusty in their cupboard so I figured it wasn’t used that much…
My mum, sister and me then went to Chichester to enjoy a spot of lunch and shopping while my dad, Ben, and my brother-in-law had an XBox afternoon. A win-win situation for everyone I think you’ll agree.
We went to our favourite restaurant, Trents.
[Me, my sister and my mum]
We went there the last time we went to Chichester – before I got married!!
For starter I had a bit of a piggy portion of hummus dips and olives…
It was meant to be a sharing platter but no one would share it with me and it was the same price as a normal starter so I went for it anyway… It was beetroot hummus, watercress pesto and olives (I ate it all but all of the bread as it was quite a lot!)
For main I went for smoked salmon and king prawn Caesar salad with anchovies and an egg:
I decided to have the dressing on the side as I hate it when the salad is drenched. I’m not a massive dressing fan but this was actually really tasty. It was hands down the best salad I’ve had in ages (and considering I eat a lot of salads, that’s saying something!) I’m desperate to recreate this. The salmon was perfect. Ahh I want this again!
After lunch we quickly headed off to shop as it was already 3pm by this point.
Chichester is so beautiful with lots of high-street and independent shops. I love it. It was really Christmassy as well.
I did really well with my Christmas shopping. I got everything on my list. And I bought a different outfit for our work’s Christmas do…I had bought a lovely outfit from John Lewis but had a change of heart. It’s a jumpsuit but I got cold feet as I’m scared I can’t pull it off. So I got a beautiful dress from Monsoon for the same price. Fabulous!
I also saw lots of beautiful things that I wanted…and have explicitly told hinted to Ben of what I might like for Christmas.
I am loving the scarves that are around at the moment. So fingers crossed!
We had a lovely time mooching around and shopped until the shops closed.
Then we had to dash off to meet with our wedding photographer to finally see the professional photos. More on that another time 
After getting back quite late I whipped up a lovely filling and warm soup.
Sweet potato and butternut squash coconut chickpea soup (whew what a name) – large dinner portion for one (or two smaller portions)
- 1 tbs. oil/coconut oil
- Small onion, diced
- Very small sweet potato, peeled and chopped
- Cup of butternut squash, peeled and chopped
- 1/2 cup hot vegetable stock
- Little less than 1/2 cup coconut milk
- 1/3 cup of chickpeas
- Garlic clove, diced
- 1/2 tsp. cumin
- 1/2 tsp. paprika
- Pepper
– Heat the oil in the pan, then fry the onion until soft (5mins), then add the squash and sweet potato and cook until soft (8-10mins). Add the spices, garlic and pepper (no salt due to the stock) and fry for another minute.
– Add the stock and coconut milk and allow to bubble for a few mins. Then turn off heat and cool to blend with a hand-blender/food processor until smooth.
– Add chickpeas and simmer for 5-10mins.
(You could make larger portions to save for another meal but I was limited by the volume of ingredients I had).
I guess you can make it as thick or thin as you like but adjusting the amount of stock you use, but I loved it being thick. And I like soup with bits in as it’s a bit more exciting. Yes, I said exciting.
Then Sunday we got our Christmas decorations up. We don’t have a huge amount of decorations as of yet as we’ve only been living together for just over a year but we’re slowly building it up.
Quite pleased with how it looks! Nothing massively fancy, but enough
So that was the weekend! Busy busy but got lots ticked off my to-do list so I feel quite happy and content. Though I still have the Christmas cake to bake…next weekend!
And lastly, Monday’s run. I brought my stuff in to work but by 11am I had pretty much decided to not run as I honestly could not be bothered. But then the running group said they were going and I got roped in. This is another good reason why I love running in a group. You instantly feel motivated when others are going running. And it was a great run! So I’m so pleased I went.
I ran with the 6 min/mile guy again and honestly it was like having a personal trainer. He motivated me to run faster and do some intervals, and then some extra loops to meet up with the slower paced guys.
I really felt it on Tuesday morning though!!
And it looks like I’ll be in Reading until Christmas now which I have mixed feelings about (i.e. the commute sucks – one morning it took 2 hours and half) but it means I get to carry on running with these guys so there’s a silver lining!
Have a great Wednesday!
Are you feeling Christmassy? Are your decorations up?
What’s your favourite soup?
That soup sounds incredible! Need to try adding coconut flour to my oats; think I said the same thing last week!
Yeah it’s definitely worth a try. I love the texture of my porridge so much more now.
This post is just amazing! Love the picture of you, your sister & your mom out at lunch. You three are just beautiful <3
Thanks, Jessie! You’re very sweet 🙂
That polka dot mug is too cute! And I love your striped scarf, is that an infinity scarf? That is on my Christmas wish list this year 🙂
Jealous of that soup. I need to make some kind of soup before this year’s over!
We have some decorations up, but not a lot. My parents are waiting until next weekend to set up the tree when I’m home. Yay!
I’m not sure what an infinity scarf is but I’m guessing it’s what we call a snood? A scarf with no end? If so, yes it is! I love making soups, perfect lunchtime meals for when it’s chilly.
That soup sounds lovely, and those dips look amazing.
I have not put up the tree yet- we are going away so I have to persuade Andy that we still need to decorate.
The dips were very quickly hoovered up hehe. I need to make some more hummus I think! Yes get your tree up! 🙂 Then it’s really Christmas.
Love the decorations!!! They are perfect 🙂 It also looks like you had a lot of fun with your family! Sounds like the perfect weekend.
Yeah I really enjoyed it, and it got a lot off my to-do list at the same time which was brilliant. Now I don’t feel as stressed about Christmas now, whew.
Yay for the wedding photos. I’m picking up the proof for ours this weekend, so exciting!
So exciting! When we sat and looked at them all it was like reliving the day again, it was so lovely.
Yum! Your coconut flour breakfast sounds incredible. I think I need to start investing in some good flours- I just bought chickpea flour and loved it, and it’s such a great wheat alternative:)
I love chickpea flour! Can make soccas out of them and they’re so versatile.
That looks so Christmassy! Good for you having that hummus platter, yum! Love the sound of that soup too 🙂
Hummus is always a winning sarter for me! 🙂
I’ve ordered a platter for myself before too, I figured it is the same price, but it was a lot of food! I love platters though, get to try a bit of everything!
Oh yeah I love the variety! Much more exciitng than just one small starter hehe 😉