Things lately

I thought I’d do a post on some ‘stuff’ I’ve been enjoying lately, like books, films and, most importantly, food! (Psst! It’s my birthday today too!)

Books

Unbroken – Laura Hillenbrand

Unsurprisingly I like reading books about running. I also like reading books that later become films. I can’t remember how I came across this book but I found out it was going to be made into a film directed by Angelina Jolie and the premise sounded incredible (and had a runner in it).

Unbroken book

It’s a non-fiction account of the Olympic track runner, Louis Zamperini, who was taken prisoner by the Japanese during World War II. “Epic” doesn’t do his story justice. The journey of his life is gripping, harrowing and inspiring. I absolutely cannot wait for the film now (apparently to be released towards the end of the year). The book was hard to read at points considering what he went through as a prisoner of war but it is a fascinating read that I definitely recommend.

The Sports Gene: Talent, Practice and the Truth About Success – David Epstein

In a nutshell, this book explores the arguments surrounding whether it’s nature or nurture as to why some people become successful athletes.

Sports gene book I love books like this, based on research and published papers. However it can get a little heavy going when it goes into details about DNA and particular genes. I also found it a bit meandering in it’s arguments and sometimes a little tedious as it is so heavily research-based. But there were many interesting findings and anecdotes about athletes and ‘gifted’ people which were fascinating.

Films

Food Inc.

A relatively old film (2008) but still very relevant. Food Inc. is a documentary looking at the American food industry. It covers farming, processed food, animal welfare, environmental issues…sounds heavy-going but it was actually quite a good watch in terms of entertainment (not sure if it’s ‘PC’ to call a documentary high-lightening some hard-hitting issues entertaining but hey).Food_inc

Scary doesn’t quite cover many of the issues raised. Firstly, the condition in which animals are reared is horrific. Lack of space, sunlight, hygienic conditions and respect were clear. And also how Big Business is hand in hand the government and how much control they have over the market as a whole.

I live in the UK but a lot of the points raised are very relevant to us in Britain as well. It’s easy to assume we’re “better” but I’m pretty sure we’re ticking a lot of the same boxes.

Maybe clichéd to say this, but this really hit home to me. It’s really changed my opinion on the meat I buy. I do try and get free-range where I can but cost tends to be my biggest factor. Personally I don’t think this is right. If we can’t afford as much meat as we’ve been having then maybe that’s not such a bad thing to reduce down a bit…

Food

I haven’t posted anything about food (other than cakes and meals out) in a while. Mainly because my meals have been quite boring and uninspiring. But I thought I’d show a few choice meals I’ve been enjoying lately. Funnily enough some of my running club friends have been uploaded pictures of their meals on Facebook which is always interesting! I love seeing what people eat.

Gammon and Eggs

Gammon and eggs Quite a standard easy meal. Grilled gammon, two fried eggs, couscous and veg. Sometimes I have couscous or sometimes I go without depending on how hungry I am.

Sausages and Sweet Potato Fries

Sausages and sweet potato Free-range chipotle sausages, oven roasted sweet potato fries and a kale, carrot, onion and courgette mix with onion gravy. Another easy meal and very satisfying. I’d like to say I made the gravy myself but I got an ‘add water’ variety.

Creamy Pumpkin Chicken

Creamy pumpkin chicken Right, before you judge this on it’s appearance, it is DELICIOUS. Basically lots of vegetables (courgettes, onion, kale, mushrooms) sautéed with chicken breast chunks. Then half a tin of pumpkin puree and a big dollop of cream cheese – it gives it an incredibly thick and creamy sauce. Honestly, it rocks my world. My original recipe can be found HERE.

Duck Egg Scramble Salad

I bought some duck eggs the other day from a local farm and wasn’t sure what to do with them.

Duck eggsThe yolks were huge! 

So I just scrambled them with some random veggies and then had that in a salad.

Duck egg scramble salad It was a fairly monster salad and I was stuffed afterwards. These eggs are quite big so probably didn’t need three…FYI they didn’t taste that different to normal eggs.

Feta Chicken

Feta chickenThis is an absolute weekly staple meal in our house. I have shared the recipe before HERE, but now make it in the slow cooker now. Basically you add chicken and the tomato sauce to the slow cooker and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Then you crumble feta over the top and let it melt for about 5-10 minutes. Then serve!

I have nothing special planned for today as I’m working. I’m writing this on Wednesday so I actually have no idea what my birthday will bring. Fingers crossed for lots of cake. Because what’s a birthday without cake?! Not a proper birthday that’s what.

What have you been reading or watching lately?

Do you like documentary films? I’m not a fan but we got Netflix and Food Inc. seemed interesting.

What meals are staple meals in your house?

Everything but the kitchen sink

How s-l-o-w-l-y things seem to drag when you’re soon to be going on holiday. Every day seems to crawl by…I know I shouldn’t complain though. I’m very grateful to soon be on a beach in Mexico applying another layer of suntan lotion…

It couldn’t have come at a better time as well. I feel a bit frazzled. And I know Ben is as well with all his travelling and hard working he’s been doing lately. So bring on the cocktails!

But first I have the small tiny little Bristol half marathon to get through first…I’m strangely looking forward to it. It should be great to do such a big race in terms of numbers of people. Cheddar Gorge half was under 200, whereas this one is around 20,000! Even Reading was only around 15,000 I think. So a lot of people!

What’s crazy as well is that when we get back from our holiday the ‘big’ training begins. Marathon Training. Those words just look scary to me. Marathon? Whoa. It’ll be less than two and a half moths until the big date when we get back from Mexico. I already have two races planned to help the training along:

End of October: Great South Run (10 mile road race – very popular, should be brilliant)

Mid-November: A nice and local half marathon (Gosport Half)

December 22nd: Marathon

Annoyingly enough our work Christmas party is the night before. My work always do a really good Christmas do. Last year’s was in Bruges for the weekend. This year it’s at a beautiful stately home in Winchester. Unfortunately Ben and me will opt out as it just wouldn’t be a good idea. Not with a 9.30am start the next day. I’m not too sad… *sobs*

Anyway, like I said I’m feeling a bit frazzled with work. Definitely in need of a holiday. I’ve been using my workouts as a bit of a escape. Seriously, I can’t think of anything important during those tough spin classes. My mind is purely “this hurts” or “I’m tired” or “when’s it over”. And running is like a cool breeze flowing through my mind. It just wipes all that stress away. For the half marathon I plan on just putting on some music and enjoying the scenery. I do enough introspection and worrying in my daily life to allow myself to get bogged down by unnecessary thoughts for 13.1 miles.

I haven’t really posted much about food lately. Mainly because it’s all been a bit samey and not interesting at all.

However, as it’s Wednesday (WIAW: go check out Jenn’s blog!) I did stumble across a quick meal that I just can’t get enough of at the moment. It was after I’d gotten in from spin and my body was like FEED ME. We had a lot of vegetables in the fridge that needed to be used and I just thought “what the hell”. So it was pretty much a meal with everything but the kitchen sink.

Kitchen sink meal

This delightful mess is a three egg scramble with lots of stir fry veg, mushrooms, sun dried tomato and diced trout. With a side salad of course – because you can never have too much veg, am I right? Winking smile

What made this was the trout and the sundried tomatoes. The tomatoes were in oil so this helped increase the flavour as well. I loved this. And good healthy omega oil from the fish as well!

Another meal that I’ve been enjoying is gammon steak.

Gammon

I grilled the steak and had this with cauliflower mash with goat’s cheese mixed in (heaven) and broad beans…and maybe a sneaky bit of beetroot (it needed eating). Oh how I miss eating gammon! I’m on such a meat kick at the moment.

And at work it seems everyone can’t stop bringing in cakes. Not that I’m complaining!

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Hello oat and raisin cookie. How I love thee.

Sadly our cake stash in our freezer is quickly going down. This is not good. My mum came over the other day for a catch-up…and we had the last slices of Victoria sponge. I almost cried. Winking smile Well, that just means getting/baking more I guess!

As my last point, I’ve just started reading Gone Girl after it seemed the blogging world exploding with how amazing it is a while ago (I’m so behind the trend). I couldn’t wait to get stuck in. I’m 17% through (God bless the Kindle) and I’m not massively keen. DON’T HURT ME. It’s just that it reads a bit like a comedy romcom style book but so clearly is not. I don’t know how to take it if I’m honest. It just seems a bit odd. I shall persevere though.

Have a great week guys!

When’s and where is your next holiday?

What’s your latest favourite meal?

Do you use exercise to switch off or switch on? Sometimes a long run is quite cathartic to think about different things, but usually I just like to stop thinking and shut off from the world for a bit.

What are you reading at the moment ? Have you read Gone Girl? Thoughts?


Let’s Get Random

Hello, lovely people! It has been stormy and rainy here in Southern England. I couldn’t help but take this photo while lying in bed the other night.

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I do love a good storm!

Anyway, it’s Wednesday. Last week I missed out on all the fun, but today I’m back in the game for What I Ate Wednesday and show you some of my latest dinners.

Thanks, Jenn!

Now I’m going to throw out something a bit crazy here. The following eats will win no awards. The will not appear in any great book of recipes. They don’t look pretty. They are simply random, working-week dinners that were thrown together in the midst of hunger.

People, let’s get real here: I am not a fancy blogger. Don’t get me wrong, I admire greatly all those beautiful blogs with beautiful photos and the effort and time that’s been spent on them. I truly admire that.

But this week, I’m bucking the trend. Throwing in the towel. So please, be kind in your judgements…these are just some random meals from a busy working week.

Mystery Fish Meal

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I wish I could take credit for this taste sensation, but I have to thank good old Sainsbury’s supermarket. We’ve been ordering our food online recently because life has been hectic at work and the weekends and it’s just easier. Anyway, I ordered fish (just plain old river cobbler) and they gave me this instead. It’s still river cobbler but it’s got some crazy delicious bread-crumb coating. I don’t even want to think of what’s involved to make it taste so good. It can’t be good Winking smile

Anyway, I had this with broad beans and roasted butternut squash. Heavenly simple.

Random Beef and Egg Meal

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I think I saw a recipe months ago that was something similar to the above and then I randomly decided to give it a go. However, I’ve later found it actually involved sweet potato and not mince at all (sweet potato hash maybe?). HOWEVER this was exceptionally tasty for all it’s randomness. For kicks here’s the recipe (it may not be the prettiest meal in the world, or the best titled but it tasted goood!).

Random Beef and Egg Meal (serves 2)

  • White onion, diced 
  • Clove of garlic, diced
  • 400g minced/ground lean beef
  • Grated zucchini
  • 2 medium grated mushrooms
  • 1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
  • Crumbled beef stock cube
  • 1 tbsp. tomato puree
  • Mixed herbs (oregano, rosemary, basil)
  • 2 eggs

– Pre-heat oven to 190C. Fry onion and garlic for 5 minutes, add beef, zucchini and mushrooms (the grated mushrooms was an idea I got from the lovely Jessie – GENIUS. Ben didn’t even realise and he hates mushrooms. Haha those vitamins snuck right in and he didn’t notice). Fry until beef has browned.

– Add Worcestershire sauce, stock cube, tomato puree and herbs.

– Transfer to an over-proof dish (e..g casserole dish) and then make two small holes at either end and crack an egg in each.

– Put in oven for around 15 minutes (until the eggs have cooked).

Egg and Beef Mess

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I had some mince left over, I had a lot of eggs, and I had some veg. I threw it all together. New favourite scrambled egg meal right there. And seriously filling. Three eggs, 100g minced/ground beef, veg. You know it makes sense.

Chicken and Cream Cheese

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This meal is such a staple meal for me. Chicken is one of my favourite meats and I adore cream cheese. Basically there’s a lot of veg (this time onion, zucchini and mushrooms), chicken and cream cheese with a tablespoon of tomato puree and lots of spices. Easy and quick thrown together in a pan and cooked through.

You could argue that the majority of my meals are never that ‘pretty’ or creative. You’d have a good point Winking smile But as you can see, this week was even more so. I love cooking, don’t get me wrong. I love opening the fridge and cupboards and wondering what to make for dinner. But it’s not always going to be a culinary break-through. Sometimes it’s just a boring, run-of-the-mill meal. Three eggs and some tuna…some chicken with sweet potato…turkey sausages…

Cooking

I do tend to put a lot of (highly unnecessary) pressure on myself to create elaborate, ground-breaking meals and post them on my blog in beautifully edited photos with a well-written recipe below. But sometimes, I’m just tired. Sometimes I honestly can’t be bothered. That’s not to say I don’t care. I just don’t always have the time.

So please forgive me this week, I will endeavour to do better Open-mouthed smile

What’s your random, easy meal this week?

Do you cook every single day? Unless we go out or order in, I will always cook a meal – the degree of cooking involved varies though (see above Winking smile).

As a blogger, do you feel pressurised to upload great recipes and meals all the time?

What I Ate at the Weekend

Hi lovely people! Thanks for your nice comments regarding my last post. I really do worry too much about the most stupid things, don’t I? In the great scheme of things, it just doesn’t matter!

And it’s WIAW already. Unbelievable. Check out Jenn’s blog Peas and Crayons to get involved or just for a nosey about.

 

Here’s some bits and pieces of what I ate over the weekend.

Breakfast (*sighs* fat lot of good that did me on Saturday…) was my standard oatmeal and almond milk:

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I had this both Saturday morning and Sunday.

Saturday and Sunday lunch were exactly the same as for some reason we had an overload of eggs in the house. I personally blame the husband for he did the food shop…

Saturday, I made kind of a frittata/omelette.

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I used tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, onions and three eggs and then big blobs of cream cheese. With this I had Brussels, a bit of lettuce and beets.

On Sunday Ben and me had to rush back after our 10k race and eat lunch super fast to go out and meet our friends. So this happened:

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Not nearly as pretty. It sort of failed – flopped if you will. But the taste was absolutely fine. That’s all that matters…right??

We had a great afternoon then hanging out with my friends at a local country park where there was a farm you could look around.

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We had a lovely time waking round looking at all the animals. And we saw a sheep being sheered as well. The sheep was seriously not happy. To be fair, nor would I be. It’s not that warm at the moment…And it looked naked afterwards!

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And we saw some ducklings and chicks. One of them we named the Smurf Chick because it was blue!! Apparently its dye marking had run a bit. Awww.

We even got to try milking a cow! The farmer said we could try our hands at milking Buttercup the cow, who I must say was very accommodating. Then they got the machine and showed us how they machine milk a cow.Cow

Buttercup can produce 40 pints a day. Jeeze. The farm can’t sell the milk as it hasn’t been pasteurised (so it’s raw milk) and you need a special licence. The staff there can drink it and use it themselves but they can’t let anyone else try it or have any. The farm try and use as much as they can with making cheese, cream and lots of puddings during their lunch and dinner breaks and also feeding other animals but unfortunately a lot has to be wasted. Such a shame.

Dinner on Saturday night was two tortilla pizzas:

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Times by two

Lots of veggies, chicken and BBQ sauce and a bit of goat’s cheese. Perfect. I’m all about the toppings for pizza. We were going to buy some make-your-pizzas from Sainsbury’s (as is our post-race standard dinner) but we were so busy we never got to the shop so we had to make do with a proper DIY version. Still good in my book!

Dinner on Sunday was a meal out with the friends after the farm visit. We went to our local Harvester. Though the Harvester chain isn’t going to win any awards any time soon for inventive cooking or fine dining, it was pretty good for an inexpensive relaxed meal.

Harvester

And an all you can eat salad bar?? Amazing. And when I ordered a Diet Coke the barmaid then pointed to the refill machine and I, embarrassingly, got overly excited by this prospect – free refills?? It’s been a while…I was significantly caffeined up that evening Smile

As soon as I saw BBQ ribs on the menu I was set.

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And alongside this there was a corn on the cob. Yum!! We had such a laugh with our friends it was a great end to the weekend.

Ben and I were shattered when we got home. Such a busy weekend of running, fun times and good food. Just the way I like it!

For me weekends are all about enjoying good food. I quite like going out for dinner or lunch one day (though we don’t always manage it). I also like to spend the time on a Saturday night making a good recipe that I wouldn’t get the chance to make during the busy week because it takes a bit longer. Weekends are also about enjoying some less healthy snacks, like slices of cake, a good pudding or ice cream. Don’t get me wrong, these things can appear during the week but it’s not always possible and it’s nice to really appreciate it when watching a good film or spending some fun times with your friends.

Do you eat differently at the weekend?

Raw milk: would you ever try it? I was disappointed we didn’t get to try it but understood the reasoning behind. From what the man said to us, it sounded like it was quite heavy and creamy.

What’s your favourite meal? I think BBQ ribs are definitely one of my favourites.

What’s your favourite way to eat eggs? I do like fried eggs but as a meal I like omelettes or scrambled egg with loads of added extras. I’m all about variety!

What I ate Sunday

How quickly is this week going? It helps having had Monday off I know…

The sun has still been shining which is crazy. In fact, I’m not sure I should even type it as I don’t want to jinx it. Let’s prepare for rain. Or snow. Who knows! Funny side story, my parents just got back from Barbados all brown and tanned (there’s no bitterness in my voice, is there…?) and then my mum sits in the garden for an afternoon in Britain and gets absolutely fried because she didn’t put suntan lotion on. Oh the irony.

I thought this week I’d do What I ate Wednesday Sunday as it was pretty darn tasty, if I do say so myself.

 

Thanks to Jenn as always for hosting this party. Let’s get started then!

Breakfast was something a little bit crazy for me. I tried quinoa oatmeal.

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I’m not going to lie, this will never replace normal oatmeal. It was alright but nothing amazing. Quite a nutty taste. OK I probably could have put something more than just almond milk in it but I’m used to just plain oats so I was all at odds with what to do. I’m not good with change, people.

Lunch however was a show-stopper. I was inspired by Sara’s recipe HERE which I just had to make at the nearest opportunity as it sounded so good.

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Mine doesn’t look nearly as good but it tasted AMAING. Ben looked aghast at what I was making (“goat’s cheese….and strawberries…in an omelette???”)

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I made the strawberry sauce as per Sara’s instructions, using a little bit of Stevia and organic strawberries, microwaving them up to get them all jammy and amazing.

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Absolutely heavenly.

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This has been happening a lot around these parts as well. Thrown in the microwave in a hardy container, then sprayed with Fry Light and coated with salt. Cannot. Get. Enough.

Dinner was two tortilla pizzas. Yes two, I am a pig. No judgement please.

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Can I just say that when lunch requires two dinner place mats you know it’s going to be good.

I used wholemeal tortillas, covered them with a home-made tomato sauce using half a tin of chopped tomatoes and a load of Italian herbs. I then covered it with a whole load of veggies (onion, zucchini, mushrooms), chopped chicken and blobs of cream cheese. And BBQ sauce. Just because Winking smile Then oven-cooked them for like 12mins.

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So good.

An honourable mention also needs to go to Monday night’s dinner. Strawberries, quinoa with a tablespoon of honey mixed in, and feta on salad.

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Salty, sweet…deeelicious.

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And Ben even enjoyed this. In fact, if I remember correctly he said “can we have this again?” Jackpot!

And my outfit featuring two items from my shopping adventure:IMG_4280

Apologies for the concentrated look on my face…there’s no non-awkward way to take a selfie

Top from Warehouse (new!), jeans from Top Shop, wedges from Dorothy Perkins (new!). Absolute school girl error though in wearing my new shoes to work and then walking to the shops at lunch in them. Stupid. Now I have two big old blisters.

What’s the best thing you ate today? I think mine was popcorn as part of my lunch at work…see, I’m addicted.

What’s your favourite pizza (or tortilla pizza) topping? Mine is BBQ chicken with loads of veg.

Does your partner eat the same food as you? My hubby will normally eat what I eat but if it sounds ‘too healthy’ he will opt out and have something more “manly’”, like cheesy pasta. He avoids sweet potato like the plague, it’s heart-breaking.