Dinner - AnnaTheApple

August 8, 2012August 8, 2012

WIAW #3

How depressing that the nights are now drawing in and summer seems to be ending (had it ever begun?) I’ll miss walking Alfie early in the morning when it’s still light, and then I’ll miss running in the morning light. I’m definitely not looking forward to running along in darkness hoping to either a) not run into carefully concealed street paraphernalia, b) run through cold, muddy puddles that I hadn’t spotted, and c) step on slugs – possibly the most disgusting running-related incident. Or a snail…that horrible crunch. *shudders*

But summer is surely not over yet. I’ve had strong words with it over a certain specific date in September where I need a reasonably warm temperate and sunny blue skies (though not too sunny)…specific requirements for good wedding weather! We’re still in negotiations…

So, on the theme of summer: WIAW! Thank you, Jenn

Now prepare yourselves for something a bit crazy (or at least mildly different):

Yes, that is a plate of banana pancakes that I made on Saturday morning. Not my usual green porridge! I made them using Katie’s recipe. They look a little bit well-done…but they tasted great! A dollop of yogurt and they were good to go. Trying to keep it varied. Baby steps…

So, lunch time over the weekend Ben and I had another salad (we’re going crazy for them at the moment; so easy to prepare and so many possible varieties):

We had chicken fried with garlic over a bed of salad (cucumber, bell pepper, tomatoes, beetroot, & leaves) with a massive dollop of roasted red pepper hummus. So simple but very nice. And! on the side (as I had soo many courgettes to use up) I whipped up a tzaziki side dip, but using Jenn’s amazing recipe.

Fantastically refreshing. Ben didn’t even realise it was using his least favourite vegetable rather than cucumber (which he has a better relationship with). So a nice summery salad to fit in with the Summer Staples style!

And dinner last night:

This was chicken curry. I followed this recipe from BBC Good Food website.

I subbed actual peanut butter with PB2. It wasn’t as creamy as I thought it was going to be, which was a bit disappointing and it didn’t taste overly nutty. So maybe next time I’ll use ‘proper’ peanut butter and that might make a difference. It was tasty though. On the side I made some kale chips and had some steamed veggies. I loved the kale chips. I think it was purely for the satisfying crunch you got when eating them. But Ben didn’t like them at all (no surprises) but a win-win situation for me. Mountains of kale chips! Apparently it sounded like I was burrowing around in a pile of leaves when I was eating. Well, no one said being healthy was a quiet occupation!

Snack-wise I’m loving my green smoothies (I mix it up a bit and have some kale instead of spinach and Alpro hazelnut milk instead of almond – a review of Alpro products to come very soon!) and I’m loving this dark chocolate:

74% dark chocolate with cocoa nibs in it. It’s soo rich and the small nibs in it are add a lovely texture. I’ve got into the habit of having a square in the evening to savour after dinner. It just hits the spot, you know? When you fancy that something sweet but don’t want to push the boat out too much.

In terms of fitness, the week didn’t start off well. I ran on Tuesday and it was tough. My legs felt heavy, I felt tired…it just wasn’t amazing. I got through it but honestly the fun factor wasn’t there (OK I use the word ‘fun’ loosely here).

But hey ho, such is life! I haven’t been sleeping amazingly recently. Lots on my mind with the wedding and up-and-coming hen do. I always have problems sleeping when I’ve got too much to think about. This is usually when my friend G&T comes and gives me a hand (to qualify that sentence, as it does sound like I’m slightly alcoholic, I don’t drink every night!! And only a small measure when I do hehe).

On an Olympics side-note, I’m so proud of Britain! We’re doing spectacularly. I can’t believe we’re third! I’ve been watching as much as I can. I’ve found myself screaming at the T.V (scaring Alfie in the process). And the 100m men finals…wow they were stupidly quick, weren’t they? And they all had a certain swagger. Well, I guess you would if you could run that fast!

And Ben has even been influenced by the Olympics…to the extent that we have bought a rowing machine! He is now rowing in the evening. Crazy. I really miss rowing as I used to do it in the gym quite a lot but now I just run so this should be good for me vary things up a bit. However, we don’t really have the space in our tiny little house for a rowing machine!! Ben didn’t quite think about this when he ordered it *sighs* oh well. Our lovely little spare room has been taken over. But with healthy intentions.

Happy WIAW! And happy eating!

August 1, 2012August 1, 2012

Summer…what summer??

Woohoo we’re mid-week already. Not that I’m living for the weekends or anything…And predictably it is cold and miserable once again. No surprises there then.

First off, here’s my What I Ate Wednesday (thanks again to Jenn for hosting as always!).

Breakfast, I had almond milk porridge but with my added twist of a teaspoon of wheatgrass to turn it a lovely appetising colour of green:

I heard that one of the benefits of wheatgrass was that it helped prevent premature greying of your hair. Now I don’t know how true this benefit is but after my friend (same age as me, 24) told me she’s been finding some grey hairs in her hair I’ve had a mini-panic and been throwing wheatgrass into everything. Silly, I know, but it doesn’t hurt to add it to things (like smoothies and porridge) as you can barely taste anything.

At work I usually eat a tuna salad or I make chilli and take that with me. I won’t post a pic as they’re fairly standard and I’ve posted photos of them before, but I will mention that recently I’ve been adding nutritional yeast as a topping to the chilli and, honestly, it’s divine! I’ve only just come across nutritional yeast so forgive me if I sound like a bit of a newbie when I say, Where have you been all my life?? Yummy.

But anyway, here’s lunch that I had at the weekend:

Chicken, onion, yellow bell peppers, courgette, mushrooms and full-fat Philadelphia Cream Cheese with a some Cajun spices to add a kick with steamed broccoli and soya beans. I love this meal soo much. So easy to throw together and just delicious. Really creamy and very filling.

And because it’s Summer Staples WIAW, [though it doesn’t feel like summer] dinner yesterday evening was a lovely colourful salad – at least something looks summery!

Feta cheese, haricot beans, cucumber, beetroot, tomatoes, lettuce and a drizzle of balsamic dressing. So fresh and yummy. I’m so into my cheese right now. I’m not a big fan of cheddar at all, but feta, goat’s cheese, edam, mozzarella (not melted) and things like that I adore. You can’t really beat a salad with how easy it is to prepare. Snacks have been a lot of honeydew melon…mmm.

Currently courgettes [zucchinis] are in season in the UK and I can’t get enough of them. I have them in my chilli, stir-fries, random ad hoc meals… and I really want to try that delicious Zucchini-ziki Sauce recipe from Jenn. Definitely a winning summer recipe! And beetroot. I really fancy making a beetroot smoothie – any ideas welcome!

Onto the fitness side of things. Not so good. I woke up Monday morning for my run really not feeling like it. When I stepped outside it was like winter. I wanted to put gloves on it was that nippy. Fairly depressing. Then as soon as I started running I knew the run would be bad. You know when you can just tell? I wanted to give up straight away. My only motivation for continuing was that it would be a waste of the effort of getting up early. I was already up, dressed in my gear and outside, I might as well just get on with it, you know? But I started slowly and didn’t pick up my speed until towards the end.

I wish I knew what makes me have a good run. Is it what I ate the night before? The amount of sleep I got? I just don’t know. But I was tired and felt my legs were heavy as I was running and I was in a bad mood.

Well, you can’t win them all can you? You’ve got to have a bad run to appreciate the good runs after all!

Here’s my outfit of the day:

The top is from Oasis, jeans Top Shop and the necklace is from Accessorize. You can’t quite see in the photo but the top is a lovely colour of greeny-blue. And it’s lovely a silky.

Oooh and I attempted yoga for the first time. I was supposed to do it at the weekend, but after getting myself all stressed out I just didn’t feel the urge. So I got up earlier on Tuesday and attempted some of the beginner’s poses I’d found on the Internet: Downward Facing Dog (to begin with I struggled a little bit to understand how I was actually supposed to be positioned), Warrior (love this one), Plank, Fierce pose, Tree pose (another good ‘un), Garland pose (not the most attractive of positions I must admit), and the Boat pose. I hope to get better at doing them, then hold them for longer and then move on to more tricky ones. Baby steps. But not bad for my first crack at it!

Happy WIAW, hope you all had lovely meals

July 28, 2012

Proud To Be British

Woohoo it’s the weekend! Off to a good start: Friday night TV was great (crazy party animal that I am). Ben and me watched the Olympics opening ceremony. Now, originally I wasn’t fussed about the Olympics. It’s been soo over-hyped and you can’t go a day without hearing something about it. However, I thought we best watch the opening ceremony because, well, let’s face it. The Olympics only happen every four years and it’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever see Britain hosting the games again.

So we watched it. Well, not all of it – it went on until midnight! And I have to admit, it was pretty good. Off the wall, yes. But quite a show. Best part? Mr Bean playing the keyboard sketch. That was hilarious. I loved that the Queen got on board with some funniness as well. Danny Boyle did good and made me proud to be British

Source: arthouse.com via Anna on Pinterest

Alfie also enjoyed it too, though he did fall asleep after about ten minutes:

Dinner was very late on Friday night as I attempted a cauliflower pizza. Not a pizza covered in cauliflower as my dad thought, but a cauliflower based pizza – i.e. the base is made out of grated cauliflower. I mentioned to Ben that that’s what we were having for tea and he looked at me as if I’d told him we were eating Alfie. He was horrified. But I managed to persuade him by assuring him there would also be mozzarella in the base and it would be very cheesy. He looked slightly less scared. I’m really trying to get Ben to eat more healthily and lose a little bit of weight before the wedding. He’s not fat by any means. But, and he would agree, he has a little excess he’d like to get rid of. So hence the cauliflower pizza.

Has anyone grated an entire head of cauliflower? It takes flipping ages! I vaguely this recipe tweaking some of the quantities and toppings.

Anyway, so two bowls of cauliflower later and some grated mozzarella and we’re almost good to go.

Mix together with egg and herbs.

Then I separated it into cake tins as that seemed like the perfect utensil. Then cooked in the oven for 15 minutes. Then add some amazing toppings and put back in for about 5 mins until everything is lovely and cooked. Nom nom nom.

Mine’s on the left. I had beetroot, red bell pepper and diced quorn chunks and some grated Babel Bell cheese. Ben had the same but without beetroot and a lot more cheese.

These were amazing. OK they didn’t really taste like pizza (or look like pizza really). But they tasted like something else just as tasty. And they were so filling. But a lot of effort! I think we’ll be having these occasionally as they took so damn long. And Ben’s opinion? He really enjoyed them. He said they wouldn’t replace pizza (what can) but he’d have it again. That, my friends, is a top 8/10 on the Benjamin Scale.

I did my weights in the morning. I’m really struggling with finding new moves to do. I like to mix it up every week to work different muscles but I’m finding it hard to find stuff. I only have dumbbells so my equipment is fairly limited. Here’s what I did:

5 sets of 12 lunges on each leg with 5kg

3 sets of 12 bent over rows

3 sets if 12 lateral raises with 2.5kg per arm

3 sets of 12 sit-ups with 2.5kg weight

3 sets of 12 triceps presses

3 sets of 10 press-ups

1min45sec plank

60 sit-ups

I think I just need to hunt through the Internet to find some inspiration. I never really know what to do with my legs other than lunges and squats.

Anywho, hope you’re all having a lovely weekend. I’m off to choose my bouquet for my wedding. Oh and as a side note, I’m glad to inform you that I managed to drink my smoothie at work yesterday without any spillage issues. Happy days.