AnnaTheApple - AnnaTheApple

April 29, 2013

Day Trip to London

Happy Monday everyone! I had a great weekend, though it flew by far too fast as always.

Saturday morning I got up stupidly early and did my usual long run. I didn’t even mind getting up early, it was such a crisp clear morning and I felt energised.

Then after getting ready and quickly eating some oatmeal, Ben dropped me off at the station and I headed off to London to see my lovely friends from university to celebrate one of their birthdays.

I was worried the weather would be rubbish but thankfully the rain stayed away and, though it was chilly, the sun was out and it was a clear day. I enjoyed the journey by just chilling out and reading my Kindle.

We were all meeting in Camden. London and I tend to struggle at times as I am so bad with navigating my way around and catching the tube. Luckily it was just one journey on the Northern Line from Waterloo. Whew.

Then I met up with the girlies in Nero coffee shop where we caught up. And then one of my friends announced she’s engaged!! This is so exciting, I’m so pleased for her

Then after fuelling ourselves with caffeine we headed off into the crazy world of Camden.

I’ve only been to Camden once before so I was somewhat prepared. The shops are just full of crazy outfits and gothic paraphernalia… Really unique stuff. And there are lots of, erm, interesting looking individuals. One guy was walking around topless with just a kilt on.

We walked around Camden Lock Market, which was full of really strange and wonderful market stalls. Including a little café which sold liquid nitrogen ice cream!

We didn’t try any as it was quite expensive, but I was fully impressed!

And then went into the Stables Market. The Stables Market apparently used to be an old stables and it really felt that way.

Again there were loads of little individual market stall-type shops selling everything you could imagine. Antique trinkets, vintage suitcase, old comics, crazy hand-made outfits.

And I managed to haggle two dresses! I had taken £30 out of the cash machine before getting the train so buying lunch would be easy. But walking through the market I found a dress shop which was just full of pretty dresses all £20. I couldn’t decide between two dresses so I asked the man if he accepted card and he didn’t and I said “well I only have £30” and he let me have them! He tried to get me to pay £35 by I literally only have £30. I felt like I got a good bargain.

OK they do look slightly similar but I couldn’t choose between them. Perfect for summer or with a cardigan and woolly tights or leggings for winter!

Then we started getting hungry so headed to a quaint little Italian restaurant aptly called Little Italy. We could see the chef making the pizzas and doing the crazy throwing-them-around thing which I desperately tried to get a photo of.

Sort of worked…

I ordered a roasted vegetable and goat’s cheese pizza with added chicken.

This was sublime. Absolutely delicious. The base was very thin and the toppings generous which is the perfect ratio I think! I hate overly doughy thick pizzas. Very authentic. They were all Italian in the restaurant as well which added to the experience.

Unfortunately though my friend Charlotte (who reads the blog, Hi Charlotte!) ordered a veggie version of a sausage calzone but it came choker full of sausage, but they were very apologetic and changed it straight away.

After finishing the entire pizza I was stuffed. And we all needed a good walk. So we headed to a park (Highgate Park) close to where the birthday girl lives for a nice bit of walking.

Check out how beautiful that park is! And the view of London in the background is fantastic.

So lovely, I couldn’t believe we were still in London.

The houses round there were HUGE.

They must cost an absolute fortune. Most of them weren’t broken into flats…

And then it was eventually time for home.

I could just see the Shard in the distance as I was sat on the train going home

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing my friends; it’s always so great to see them and catch up. It only seems like yesterday we all graduated from Cardiff University but it was like four years ago now! I wish I could see them more but we all live in different places in the UK now. But we try to see each other every few months.

Sunday I just chilled and did some boring housework, including cleaning the dreaded oven. But a great weekend regardless!

What did you get up to this weekend?

Do you have friends who live far away? I have friends from before and after uni who live nearby and friends from uni who live a fair distance away.

What’s your favourite place in London? I don’t think I really know! I like the tourist bits and the shops hehe.

April 26, 2013

Organic food musings

Hello lovely people. This week has been so much better to last week thankfully. I don’t feel as though I’m clawing myself to the weekend.

Last night (Thursday) I was able to go to running club as I could finish work at a reasonable time. I was umm-ing and arr-ing all day long about whether I did actually want to go. This is the problem I find with not running in the morning. I’m one of those people that when my alarm goes off I’m bang awake. So if I’ve planned to run and set my alarm stupidly early I pretty much need to go otherwise I’m up stupidly early for work. However, if I’m going to run in the evening I’ve got the entire day to compile a list of reasons why not to go.

But the sun was shining and, like I said, I could leave on time. I had no excuse. And I am so glad I went. I really wasn’t up for a 7.30min/mile hill run like the immensely tough run from the other week so I was really chuffed that the faster guys were planning on running 8mins/mile semi-road semi-trail run.

It was one of those runs where you could relax into it, power it at times, but otherwise just find a good rhythm and enjoy it (hence the crazy variation of pace!). The weather was beautiful, not too hot but still light and clear. I didn’t feel pushed to my limits, but just comfortable. A perfect run.

Again the only problem I had was I was buzzing all evening when I got home and when I went to bed I just couldn’t sleep until like 11pm. People, this is crazy for me.

On to an interesting subject that really got me thinking and sort of worried me a little bit. Madison did a great post about organic food and the “dirty dozen”.

The Dirty Dozen are the 12 foods that are really top of the list for the most pesticide-affected foods. Now usually I don’t really care about this sort of thing. I optimistically live in a wonderful world where things like pesticide can’t bother me.

However, for whatever reason it really struck a cord with me. I eat at least three apples a day. Just your bog-standard non-organic apples.

I hadn’t really thought about it before. But suddenly it seemed a bit concerning. Apples are apparently one of the worst!!

I did a bit more research into it myself to find out specifically about the UK. Here’s an interesting website which basically outlines the benefits of eating organically.

Essentially here are the main benefits in very general terms:

Better animal welfare standards
There are some foods which contain more vitamins and minerals (though there is some debate about this)
Reduction in pesticides used
Reduction in additives used
No antibiotics used in animal rearing
No hydrogenated fats
No GM ingredients
Support for the land and wildlife in terms of sustainability

It does worry me about the pesticides building up in my body. I’m not going to lie, I don’t know a huge amount of what this might do to you. But I am usually so careful about what I eat in terms of not wanting tons of sugar or salt and avoiding overly processed stuff (I don’t completely avoid it as where’s the fun in that??) that it seems I’ve become a bit blasé about other issues, such as chemicals sprayed on food or fed to animals.

But, as you’re probably aware, organic food tends to be more expensive unfortunately. Mainly because it’s not so quick to get out there in the shops with long shelf-life’s etc. than non-organic food is and there’s a whole load of regulations involved obviously.

We can’t afford the luxury of buying all organic so I’ve decided to pick a few things and try to stick to organic as much as possible. So apples obviously.

And also things like strawberries and other berries. Maybe I’ll try getting lettuce as well as I do eat a lot of salad…

Basically lots thoughts regarding this have been running through my head lately! Food for thought, you might say

Do you buy organic? Why?

What particular things do you think are important in selecting the food you buy? For me it is general nutrition (sugar and salt levels) and quality of ingredients. But also price does play a part and if it’s from Britain or from miles away. I do worry about how far food has travelled.

On a lighter note, what have you got planned for this weekend?

April 24, 2013April 24, 2013

Small meals and big meals

Hello sunshine! Ahh I think we finally are experiencing spring. We’ve had several consecutive sunny days, hurrah.

Sunshine just makes everything better. Waking up in the morning, driving home from work (wearing sunglasses!!)…

(This was before I started driving! Don’t use your phone while driving!)

Taking Alfie for a walk…

…and even being at work and looking out of the window.

Even my parent’s constant Facebook updates on their holiday in Barbados is bearable. (Seriously though, how many “just sitting in the hot sunshine drinking cocktails” can I take before I crack?)

It’s Wednesday, meaning What I ate Wednesday. Pop over to Jenn’s blog to check out what’s happening.

So this week has been a lot easier than last week as I’m time-managing a bit better. This tends to mean:

Getting up a bit earlier,
Running in the morning rather than the evening,
Preparing meals in advance.

Life is much less stressful when you’re prepared for anything!

In the morning I go into what my dear husband calls Efficient Anna Mode. I am on a mission. I get up, walk Alf, go running if it’s not a rest day and shower. Then have a moment of slowness where I gaze uninspiringly at my wardrobe to decide what to wear…

Finally get dressed…

Then speed around tidying, which is an essential morning activity which literally is me doing stupid stuff like sweeping, putting last night’s washing up away…just odds and ends really, and then make breakfast.

But I tend to do all this in like a little bubble of non-communication and rushing around in a controlled, efficient manner (in my eyes)…in Ben’s eyes I am a moody wife who refuses to swap pleasantries.

Lunch hasn’t really changed this week, just my usual beast of a salad (as someone at work called it…cue cringe moment).

I’ve been seeing some great salads about the blogging world with nuts, cheese, avocado, sundried tomatoes. So I really need to start mixing things up (<—hello broken record??)

For my lunch I always like a big salad (lots of variety, yum) but I also like bits of the side, like my Babybels:

Or what I had yesterday, popcorn from my Graze box…

And my (frozen) fruit salad with lots of Greek yogurt.

If I just have a sandwich or a more ‘proper’ meal, I feel a bit cheated. I guess it’s because I’m a grazer and I like to stretch my meal out for a nice lengthy period of time and have individual bits and pieces to munch my way through. Also because I make my lunch to take to work I am somewhat limited by what I can bring.

And I like to have my snacks throughout the day as well. Whether that’s carrots…

Or nuts…

Or nibbles from my Graze box…

I guess what is clear in the way I eat is that I like to eat little and often throughout the day. My lunch may not seem huge in it’s pieces but in it’s entirety I am definitely satisfied. And then a few hours later I’m eating again! It’s just how I roll. I’m not one of those people who can eat lunch and then eat nothing until dinner.

Dinner however is a whole different ball game. I like a BIG meal. I know they say you’re supposed to eat your smallest meal of the day in the evening but that’s not my style. It’s not like I’m eating supersized burgers and fries every night, obviously, but I do like BIG healthy meals. Here are some of my favourite meals:

Cottage Pie with Cauliflower Mash

Chicken Caprese with Cauliflower mash and Roasted Veg

Paprika Sweet Potato Chicken

Last night was fajitas:

This was delicious. I used the Discovery Fajitas spice mix and sauce and it was perfect. I don’t usually buy jars of sauces but this one I love. The main ingredient isn’t sugar, which is what I try to be careful about. OK, that’s a little bit of a lie, when it comes to certain sauces I’m careful. BBQ sauce is a different story. I’m pretty sure the one I have has the second ingredient being sugar…but I like it that way

And the snacking doesn’t stop during the day. After dinner I always need that post-dinner pre-bedtime snack. Usually a packet of Snack a Jacks and a hot chocolate. Heaven.

OK, maybe some chocolate too

I usually have one or two of these mini-chocs in the evening. As good as they are, they’re not as good as Lindt I must say…

So I’m a grazer through the day, a big meal eater at night, and a snacker in the evening. I’m good with that!

Have a great week

How would you describe your eating patterns? Big meals? Mini meals? Lots of snacks?

What’s your favourite evening snack? Healthy or naughty!

How do you time-manage?

April 21, 2013

10 o’clock brownies

Hi guys, hope you all had a great weekend. I completely de-stressed myself after my busy week. And the sun came out which was just perfect.

Friday night I had planned to leave work at a reasonable time to get home and have a nice long evening with my two favourite Bens. My husband and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream Obviously though this meant leaving work an hour and a half after intended. *sighs* But the consolation of it being Friday was good enough to not dampen my mood.

We had steak again for dinner which was perfection.

With loads of salad and goat’s cheese. Oh this was heaven. Sticky, sweet goodness.

Then we had Ben and Jerry’s (Vermonster for Ben & chocolate brownie fro-yo for me) while we watched Savages.

It was really good. I was so surprised. There were a couple of scenes I had to run out of the room for (read: torture & nasty deaths) but otherwise really good. Salma Hayek was brilliant in it, though Blake Lively was pretty much Serena from Gossip Girl.

Saturday morning I went for my usual long run.

I took it nice and easy and just enjoyed it. The weather was great so I could wear my capris rather than my long leggings. It felt so refreshing to be out in the sun first thing. I really do love my long weekend run. Yeah OK sometimes it’s tough, but I just slow down a bit and take it easy. It’s not always about speed. This is a run where I try not to care what pace I do, I just love the distance.

The rest of Saturday was the usual chore-doing business and not one but two lovely walks with Alfie and Ben in the beautiful sunshine. We walked Alfie just before lunch and then in the afternoon I was just itching to get outside again and somehow managed to persuade Ben to join me again. Whenever it gets sunny I have this immense need to get out of the house and into the sun. I’m worried it won’t last! Get it while it’s ~~hot~~ shining!

And I got my hair cut.

I wanted quite a bit taken off as it’s just got so long. It’s such a hassle to wash, comb, blow-dry and straighten in the morning. Seriously, I feel my life ebbing away with the amount of time I spend on it.

So I said to the lady to take about three inches off and make it a bit more interesting with some layers. Then as she just began blow-drying it the power went! I had to go home with wet hair, which was a bit of a bummer as I love going to the hairdressers as it’s nice someone else having to deal with my hair rather than just me! Ah well. I did get a discount.

Saturday evening we got dressed up to go out for dinner. OK my hair doesn’t look much different to before I know.

But to me it’s a HUGE change. So much lighter in weight and shorter. I also wore my favourite but most painful pumps. I love them, but they hurt so much But I thought I wouldn’t be doing much walking anyway so it didn’t matter.

We drove to the village where I used to live with my parents, about 20 minutes away, to a beautiful little pub on the seafront.

The pub is just there on the left, but look at that sunshine!!

We had a mezze board to start. I know, I’m so predictable. I just love mezze boards.

I also love my husband. He traded me the falafels for the pitta bread. A definite win in my eyes. And he doesn’t like olives.

For main I was torn beautiful butternut squash with feta cheese or BBQ chicken.

So I went with the BBQ chicken. Seriously I can’t get enough BBQ at the moment. And it came with huge chunky potato wedges. They were so crispy and dunking them in ketchup was just heaven.

We were then going to meet friends for a drink at the same pub but we finished earlier than we expected so we went for a walk along the seafront.

It was a little nippy, but so clear.

Beautiful! Though I massively regretted wearing those damn painful shoes.

Unfortunately, because this is the area I grew up in and went to school, I bumped into a bunch of boys who back in the day were the ‘popular’ guys. I politely said hello, as you do, and they said hello and then a couple of them burst out laughing in my face. Seriously I felt like I was 15 again. My group of friends and I were the ‘boffs’ and weren’t cool back in school. We did our homework and got good grades. We weren’t bullied or anything like that, but we weren’t part of the cool gang. It just felt terrible to feel that small at 24.

Anyway, when I met up with my friends we all laughed about it and thought what idiots they are. We are all quite happy in our careers, with partners or husbands, having moved out and making our way in life. They haven’t. They’re still living the dream that ended quite a few years ago.

It felt great to catch up my friends and a few of us ordered pudding at 10pm. Brownie with honeycomb hash ice cream (no photo I’m afraid, some things don’t last long enough for that sort of thing!).

Friends and brownie. Life’s medicine.

Now it’s Sunday. We had a lazy morning watching the London marathon – so inspiring! The 30 seconds of silence for Boston was really lovely. And wow seriously, those elite athletes were SUPER FAST. And I chuckled to see this picture on Twitter:

Love it!

So now I’m still enjoying a relaxing day of blissful sunshine, chicken with BBQ sauce, and cuddles with this guy:

No matter how many times he’ll spread his kibble over the newly washed kitchen floor, malt all over the just hoovered sofas, drip his wet beard all over the floor after drinking water, bark at every person who walks past our house, I will still love him. Just

What have you been up to this weekend?

Did you watch the London marathon?

Do you ever have moments where you’re brought right back to how it was in school?

April 19, 2013April 19, 2013

Embarrassing Bananas

**SlimKicker have finally got back to me on who won the giveaway. They chose:

So Angela, please email me and we can arrange your winnings! 🙂 **

I’m not going to lie. This week has been tough. I feel like I’ve been chasing my tail and never quite catching it. Don’t get me wrong, I love being busy and I love having goals to hit and chunky bits of work to get my teeth into but I feel like everything has slipped.

Yesterday (Thursday) was a really tough day in terms of work. I felt frazzled by the end. And the annoying thing was that I really wanted to get to running club in the evening but because work went on longing than I thought it would it meant I had to miss it as I just couldn’t have made it there on time.

I know that this is completely ridiculous but it really stressed me out. I had my whole evening planned, I had geared myself up all day to go and then suddenly the realisation hit when I was supposed to be leaving by 5pm I was still sat there at 6pm that it wasn’t going to happen. I am a rigid person, I know that. I’m not that flexible in that when I have something planned it’s a big deal for me to just miss it. Don’t get me wrong, in this circumstance I know that work was far more important and I don’t regret staying. But it really got to me. I felt stressed inside all the way home. It wasn’t just the disappointment of not going to running club or missing a run, it was just the whole messing up of my plan. I really need to work on this. This can’t be healthy. In the past I have found myself getting really annoyed or upset when my routine is shifted. Even if it’s outside my control. Please tell me someone else gets this way too?

Anyway it’s Friday!

Because I missed my run last night, I ran this morning. Unfortunately this meant getting up at 5.50am so I wouldn’t be late for work. But when my alarm went off I actually wasn’t that tired and felt raring to go.

It was a nice clear morning so it was good to be outside. But I would have preferred to have run last night with the guys from the club!

Food-wise, like I said, this week things have slipped. I had planned a few meals but with time just running out it just wasn’t going to happen. However, I’m pleased to say that didn’t mean turning to microwave meals. Not that there’s anything wrong with eating them once in a while don’t get me wrong. But I’m not a big fan and I never think the portions are that big! And any vegetables are just horribly soggy and pathetic.

So a couple of evenings this week we’ve had ‘wing-it’ meals. For example, the other night we had chicken with a salsa and cream cheese sauce. Such a simple meal!

Chicken with Salsa & Cream Cheese Sauce (Serves 2)

2 chicken breasts, diced
1 white onion, diced
half a zucchini, small chunks
3-4 mushrooms, sliced
Half jar of salsa (I used just a supermarket chunky mild version)
Large tbs. cream cheese
Spices (I used paprika, garlic powder, salt & pepper)

Literally took next to no time. The most onerous thing was chopping the veg! Very tasty. We had this twice. The second time we had it I threw in some torn mozzarella as well and it became even more cheesy and rich. Really tasty, this is definitely one for our rotation!

On a food related note… Ages ago I bought a banana holder so I could carry my banana around in my handbag with ease. I have such a hate for bruising my bananas and getting all battered. I have been known in the past to carry a banana in my handbag covered in a thick clean sock to protect it. I did this once when I was going on holiday with some friends and when I went through security the security guys searched my bag and found my sock covered banana. Literally the most embarrassing experience of my life. That obviously all my friends saw. I’ll never forget the security guard’s bewildered face. Anyway, so along came the banana holder…

A large yellow, er, strangely shaped object I think you’ll agree… This lives in my desk drawer at work because, well, I just don’t use it. I tend to buy my bananas at work to avoid the transportation issue from home. One of my colleagues saw this object in my drawer and there commenced a lot of awkward explaining that this was purely a BANANA HOLDER and nothing else.

*Sighs* Seriously, bananas, you have caused my life no end of embarrassment.

And because I haven’t shared my outfits with you in a while (not that they’ve been that interesting I must admit)…here’s my outfit du jour!

Cardigan and leggings from New Look, shirt-dress from Dorothy Perkins

No thick woollen jumper, no huge scarf curled around my neck a million times – a more spring-like ensemble finally! I can’t wait to finally stop wearing cardigans and allow my arms to see the sun. Yes, Britain, I said SUN. Make it happen.

Fingers crossed the weather is spring-like where you are! Have a great weekend people!

Do you get stressed when your routine is messed up? How do you cope?

Bananas: are fanatical about bruising them like me? Or are you not too bothered?

Any embarrassing fruit-related stories? No judgement here