Naughty but nice - AnnaTheApple

December 14, 2015

Working on my winter insulation layer ;-)

I am so chuffed. My flat is coming along so nicely!

My little home is very small, but it’s perfect for me. I thought that going from a house to a flat (apartment) would be really hard but actually it’s great. My previous house was a two bedroom end terrace so it was quite small anyway but just for me I didn’t need all that space. My new place is only one bedroom but it has enough space for all my things and storage room (which was always the worry for me if I went for somewhere smaller). I could have gone for a two bedroom but for my budget it probably wouldn’t have been in as good an area or would have been too far from my usual commute.

Anyway I had Friday off and got some bits and pieces sorted like getting my Internet hooked up and the delivery of my table and chairs. FINALLY I can eat at the table again after so long perching on my bean bag or my bed.

Friday evening was my friend’s Christmas party. It was planned for the week after but after a change of venue it was moved forward a week. Annoyingly this was the same evening as my running club’s awards evening and Christmas party 🙁But I had good fun with my friends anyway at a new Chinese restaurant. I’m not a huge Chinese fan but the food was good.

There was a sharing platter to start, this had chicken skewers, spring rolls, dumplings and salted squid. Normally sharing food gives me anxieties 😉 but there was an equal number of different items per person so this was fine. It’s when it’s like a free-for-all that I get worried. Fear of missing out on food!

Good friends

For main I had chicken teriyaki and rice, which was tasty but quite sweet. I was glad I didn’t have the duck as I tried some of my friend’s and it was ridiculously sweet. I like sweet stuff but this was a bit too much (for savoury anyway…). For pudding there was another sharing platter of brownies, doughnuts and ice cream things.

Tom, you’re famous! 😉

The next morning my alarm went off at 7am and for the first time in a long while I considered snoozing it. I rarely ever snooze alarms as once they go off I’m awake and that’s it. But I wanted to snuggle back down and sleep. I checked the weather and it didn’t look too bad at 11-12 degrees (centigrade). When I got to parkrun though it was tipping it down and I was glad for my wellies.I was happy to take the rain over gale force winds though! A few people were feeling rather delicate due to the awards the night before. Luckily I hadn’t been drinking at my do, but I was still tired.

My friend Chris tried to persuade me to run with him, but he was aiming for 22 minutes and I’m no where near that yet! I did give it my best though and was happy with 23:14!

It’s annoying because I can’t remember what my best time for this course is (as on the parkrun results it just says Netley Abbey – and there are like four different courses we can do through the year) so I’m not sure how well I can realistically aim to do as the weeks continue. The six hills really do drain you dry whereas the normal course only has three smaller hills.

Anyway, it was fairly muddy but thankfully the rain had stopped when we were running. The temperature wasn’t too cold either (thanks, global warming!).

The rest of the day was deja vu to last weekend where I went to IKEA again with my parents and then spent the rest of the afternoon constructing bits and pieces. I’m DONE with IKEA now. No more!! I have pretty much everything I need now (apart from my new bed being delivered this week).

I was really chuffed to find a sofa I liked and when I ordered it they told me it could be delivered later that day. Unfortunately I failed to realise it would be delivered in four pieces. When the delivery men turned up I asked them if they were going to construct it and they almost laughed in my face. Of course not. It’s IKEA after all. Anyway, it’s all sorted thanks to my dad and me who are now like IKEA pros.

Sunday I had a lovely 6.5 mile run which went far better than last weekend’s. It still felt hard but I didn’t feel like walking so there’s an improvement (though it wasn’t as windy). My endurance is s.l.o.w.l.y improving.

I’m starting to think I should be adding in some speed work but I think I’ll leave it with a tough parkrun each week for now. When I move to four runs a week then one of those might be a fartlek or intervals…*shudders*.

Sunday lunch was amazing. Literally amazing. I’ve found my new favourite restaurant. Coast To Coast in Whiteley. Dear God it was good. The menu was insane. I was torn between four different choices (burger with pulled pork, calzone, ribs or chicken wings). In the end I went for wings but instantly got food envy when I saw a woman get a HUGE rack of ribs.

My dad and me shared the BBQ platter to start (ribs, wings, chicken tenders with blue cheese, battered prawns and chorizo). It was so good. I traded him some prawns for chicken and chorizo for ribs so I think we were both satisfied 😉

My Kentucky wings and sweet potato fries for my main were awesome. I’ve never actually had wings as a main before and it rocked my world. It had some great dips as well – one of them was like a blue cheese thing which I could have swum in if I’m honest.

I’d already seen the pudding menu and had earmarked the mint chocolate chip Oreo sundae but I was stuffed. It wasn’t even a “oooh I could make room” kind of stuffed, it was a meat sweat kind of stuffed. Just too much protein. I needed a nap 😉

Pretty damn awesome. Needless to say dinner wasn’t necessary!

How was your weekend?

Do you snooze your alarm or get up straight away?

What’s your favourite dip?

December 7, 2015

I’ve moved house!

What a weekend. I’m shattered. It’s been a blur! I’ve finally moved in to my new little home. Moved in but not entirely sorted. Oh the boxes and the disorganised chaos…

So Thursday I had the day off of work and really started packing in earnest. I’d done a lot of packing and sorting beforehand but now it was literally ensuring everything was packed. I won’t lie, I hugely underestimated this process. I don’t have a huge amount of stuff as it’s just me (and Alfie) and I wasn’t taking any real furniture with me, but that still leaves a lot of stuff that I’d left because I was still using. This included clothes, toiletries, shoes, handbags, kitchen stuff, food… and then cleaning the bathrooms, dusting, hoovering and cleaning cupboards.

Where’s Alfie?

I felt very overwhelmed and under a lot of pressure to get it done as the next day I had to be out of the house by 12. I rung my mum (who’s currently off of work for 8 weeks after having a back operation) and had a mini-meltdown. She felt guilty for not being able to help – which was ridiculous as she’s in a lot of discomfort at the moment and can’t drive or really do much and that’s hardly her fault so the last thing I wanted was for her to feel bad. But I just need to vent and stress before getting back to it.

I caved in the end and text my friend, Louise, asking her if she could spare some time the next day to help me. She’d offered her services a few weeks ago and I’d told her I’d be fine. Just a few boxes, easy peasy. Ha! How I’d completely underestimated things! Lou was awesome and said she could come in the morning and help. What a legend! She’s also far more practical and sensible in these sorts of areas. I’m from a different, less organised school of thought…

Friday morning I had to pick up a van at 8.30am and then get back home to start moving stuff out of the house. The hardest thing was the mattress, which Lou and I struggled to get into the van. And then found it took up a huge amount of space in the van. At this point the estate agent’s from where I was buying from had rung and said I could not pick up the keys for the flat. I thought it’d be a good idea to go to the estate agent’s in the van, pick up the keys and then take the mattress to the flat and sort that first.

Good plan in theory… we arrived at the estate agents around 11. I ran in and said I was there to pick up the keys only to have the woman stare at me like I was crazy. She said that that was a printing shop and that the estate agents had moved. So I had to ring them and find out where the hell they were: central Southampton (about 20 mins away)!! I would have had a mental breakdown had Louise not calmed me down. In the end we decided to pack as much as we could in the van (playing Tetris with the mattress and boxes and then I would carry on packing and Lou would go and pick the keys up for me.

We finished packing at 12.15. What an absolute grind!
I got to the flat and met Lou there with the keys and we unloaded a few things before she had to go. It was around 1pm and I needed to get the van back by 4.30pm (so leave at 4pm). My dad was supposed to be coming to help but he was stuck in a meeting at work. I tried to get on and get stuff unpacked but it was taking forever getting items out of the van and then up the two flights of stairs. It was slow and hard progress. I decided to call in another friend to see if he could spare even just 20 minutes.

I was so grateful when he, Mike, said he could spare an hour! When he got there we got a great system of him unloaded the van and putting stuff in the stairwell and me going up and down the stairs putting the stuff in the flat. It was like intervals, I swear to god. I was sweating, my heart was racing… it was exhausting! And not to mention the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything other than breakfast and two apples.

In under an hour though we got everything into the flat and the van was empty. Mike had to dash off to pick his daughter up but I was so grateful for his hard work and effort. I couldn’t have done it without him (or Louise!).

My dad arrived at 3pm and his task was to help me move an old sofa that had been left in the flat to the van so we could take it to the tip. I wasn’t going to kick up a fuss about it as I had a van and we could get rid of it quickly (I would have been in my rights to have done so though).

After dropping that off at the tip, I got a phonecall from my estate agents for the property I was selling saying that the buyer wasn’t happy I’d left the garden table and chairs. I had mistakenly thought I was leaving them (I had agreed to leave a lot of other furniture). So we then had to take the van and take that furniture to the tip.

This was all very rushed as it was just after 4pm and I needed to get the van back. We arrived at the tip literally at one minute past 4 to find they were closed. WHAT. So we had to swing by my parent’s house to drop the furniture off there as there was nowhere else for it to go and I needed to get the van back ASAP.

My parent’s gardener was there at the time and offered to take it off our hands as she quite fancied the furniture. What a happy ending!! And I got the van back in time. *HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF*

By the time I stopped it was dinner time and I was now out of adrenaline and STARVING. Luckily I’d had the forethought to have made a Hello Fresh meal up in the week that I just had to microwave.

I ate it on a (Hello Fresh) box, surveying the madness.

I’ll leave it there as this ramble has gone on a fair bit. So I can fully confirm that moving house is bloody stressful. But if you’re looking for a good way to start intermittent fasting, house moving really helps 😉 Though not when you then have a massive slice of white chocolate blondie from your freezer stash at the end…

Incidentally this is one of the cakes I got from Wales all those weeks ago. It was AMAZING. And all the better with my cake fork.

Have you ever moved house?

How do you cope under pressure?

Are you an organised or disorganised person?

November 23, 2015November 23, 2015

Grumpy running, good snacking and a leg workout

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!! It is cold! Sorry to state the bleeding obvious but it really is. OK we don’t have snow and I know we’re far better off than you warriors up North or in countries with lots of snow, so apologies for my pathetic moaning.

Saturday morning I optimistically put on my shorts for parkrun but after taking Alfie for a quick walk I realised this would not be a wise move. It was so much colder than it had been in the week – and very windy.

I had intended to wear all three of my new running tops and take one off on each lap (as I mentioned, jokingly, in a previous post – then people actually wanted me to do it) but it was too cold for short sleeves! Before realising how cold it was I did put them on with the intention of wearing them…Top layer was to be the Bournemouth finisher’s t-shirt, then the Marathon Talk t-shirt, then finally the parkrun 50 t-shirt.It was going to be so good… Then I stepped outside with Alfie and thought “yeah this isn’t going to happen”. There was no way I’d want to strip off any layers when I was running!! Instead I put on some leggings and a long-sleeved top.

I got to parkrun to meet the other set-up crew guys and we were all pretty miserable and cold. It was windy and wet as well as stupidly cold. As the minutes ticked closer to the start I started to feel more and more apprehensive and, well, moody about the whole thing. I was so close to just going home. My muscles all felt really cold, creaky and just niggly. I was worried about my knee and worried about needing to stop.

I did a quick warm-up with some of the guys and I just felt myself sinking further and further into a bad mood and was certain I couldn’t run the whole parkrun.

At the start my friend Mark realised I wasn’t in the best of moods and, bless him, he tried to pull me out of it by running with me and chatting. At first I just wanted to stop and give up – I gave him fairly blunt responses to his questions and conversation attempts. I was so cold and I couldn’t warm up. I couldn’t seem to run any faster either, and I was nervous to push it anyway because of my knee, which was feeling uncomfortable.

Mark realised how cold I was and gave me his jacket mid-run which was nice of him and did help. Possibly because I wasn’t running very fast (for me) and how cold the wind was I just didn’t get warm until the 3rd mile. By then I had started to come out from my dark place and actually be a nice human being to Mark. He was very patient with me and I wouldn’t have blamed him to have left me!

In the end I ran 27:18, my slowest parkrun in a long while and possibly one of the worst in terms of enjoyment. We were also on the winter course which is worse anyway in terms of hills (and wind). I was so glad when it was over. My knee didn’t hurt but it was uncomfortable, but given the conditions I’ll take it!

I was in such a better mood afterwards as you can imagine. I was warmer, relaxed and just glad to have got it done. And there was cake made by my lovely friend, Sheryl, who was celebrating her 150th parkrun!!

Mar bar crispies and Malteaser bites

I was in my happy place once again 🙂 The hot drink in the cafe afterwards was much needed as well!

Later on my friend, Tom, was celebrating his 30th birthday with a Mexican and Cowboy themed party. His wife, my close friend Louise, had made some really tasty cupcakes and an immense Cactus cake. There was a spread of nachos and dips and a chilli slow cooking as well.There were churro cupcakes (with cinnamon sugar and a doughnut texture) and piñata cupcakes that had Smarties in the middle!! I can attest that both cupcakes were very tasty 😉

I also brought round some popcorn I’d found in Budgens.For 99p and buy one get one free I call that a definite bargain! Marshmallow popcorn?? Yes please! To be fair though, it actually just tasted like sweet popcorn with a slight marshmallow hint.1 I think I was expecting chunks of marshmallow stuck to pieces of popcorn (what an idea, eh??) and the salted popcorn was basically sweet and salty. But tasty nonetheless!

I didn’t do a very good job at the fancy dress by just having a checked shirt so Louise did my hair in plaits for me and lent me her hat 😉I couldn’t stay for the evening sadly as my parents had invited me over for a meal with some friends, which also meant I didn’t see the main cake being cut 🙁 Lou, the lovely friend she is, said I could pop over the next day to pick some up. Always need friends like that in your life!After seeing Lou and Tom on Sunday morning, I headed to the gym for my leg workout. I don’t know if you guys care to see what I did but here it is anyway…

Squat: (warmup sets first): 4x 65kg, 6x 62.5kg, 8x 62.5kg x3, 10x 60kg x2, 8 x60kg
Box squat: 12x 60kg, 12x 65kg, 12x 70kg, 10x 75kg x2
Deadlift (warmup sets first): 6x 65kg x2, 8x 62.5kg x2, 10x 60kg, 10x 55kg x2
Hack squat: 12x 47.6kg, 12x 57.6kg x4
Sumo squat: 20x 10kg, 20x 20kg x4

Followed by some glute kickbacks/sidekicks on the cable machine and ab work. It’s a lot quieter on Sundays than Saturdays so it was nice not to feel crowded. The hack squat was a new machine to me, which focuses primarily on the quads. I prefer the leg press machine but it wasn’t working annoyingly. The hack squat machine was quite painful on my shoulders and left marks, despite there being cushions on it. It wasn’t a fun experience!

Anyway the rest of the day was same-old same-old: Alfie walks, housework and watching a new-to-me TV series, True Detective. The first episode was soooo s.l.o.w. I’m hoping it’ll pick up. My physio leant me the box-set so I need to get through it fairly quickly (I feel bad hanging on to borrowed things for too long).

What’s your favourite popcorn flavour?

What machines do you like to use at the gym?

What’s the coolest shaped cake you’ve seen (in real life, not on the Internet!)?

November 18, 2015

Rants and Raves #24

Hello Wednesday! And time for some of my ranting and raving…

Rave: I finally got Alfie into his long awaited Halloween costume. I had to cut the sides to make it a bit more roomy for him but it fits quite nicely.

Alfie’s personality is that he’s kind of a push over. He doesn’t do much growling or get ‘angry’, rather he’ll just stand there and look daggers at you. That’s what happens when I bath him or try and put silly bright orange t-shirts on him. He’s also a huge wuss. When it comes to cats, he’ll be ready to chase them if they run but if they stand there and just look at him he doesn’t know what to do so cowers away. My little hero…

I did take the t-shirt off after getting a photo of him though (which took so frigging long as he just wanted to race about the place).

In other Alfie news… when I have to pop to our local shop quickly I’ll tend to walk there and take Alfie with me and tie him outside. He tries to keep me in view in the entire time and has such a look of despair on his face it’s quite unbearable.

It’s almost like he’s saying “Are you coming back…?”. Bless him.

Rant: Sometimes I wonder how I can ever get through a day on my own. I believe I’m an intelligent person (I went to university and got a first class honours degree from the very respectable Cardiff university in Psychology for what that’s worth!) but common sense? Severely lacking.

The Iceland passport debacle for example. Who puts their passport in the washing machine??

Anyway, so I was working from home last week and, as I mentioned in a previous post, I have no furniture so need to use the kitchen counter for my laptop. When I decided to break for lunch I just pushed the laptop to one side and went on my merry way frying up some bits and pieces on the hob.

Instead of the yummy smells of food cooking there was a horrible acrid smell. Thankfully I quickly realised that my iPhone cable was directly in the flame of the hob and whipped it away while turning it off at the plug. Jesus.

Luckily it didn’t cause any crazy electrical fire… but it didn’t work afterwards (yes I did try it, see above about common sense).

Rave: Getting a lovely new lot of coconut oil.

I use coconut oil for all my frying and roasting purposes. The only annoyance is having to melt the coconut oil before I can coat vegetables/potatoes in it. But it’s a small price to pay for this delicious and nutritious source of fat.

Though I have to say, nothing quite beats onion slowly and gently fried in a load of butter. Literally heaven.

Don’t fear butter! Yes it’s high in calories and fat but when had in moderation it can easily fit in a healthy diet. A tasty healthy diet at that. And when I say ‘diet’ I really mean lifestyle, not the ugly connotations so prevalent in women’s magazines.

Rant: I currently have three running tops that I desperately want to wear but haven’t been able to… yet. One of those is my parkrun 50 top.

It’s so soft and lovely and fits perfectly. But I received it after I got injured so haven’t been able to properly wear it yet.

The same goes for the Marathon Talk t-shirt I ordered.

In ‘classic black’ of course 😉 and I received a free Marathon Talk buff as there was a delay. Again, it fits lovely! Made by Xempo.

And, obviously, my Bournemouth marathon finisher’s t-shirt has been left unworn in my running drawer as well. Now I feel like this week is the week that I can get back to running (PLEASE!). I thought I’d wear all three t-shirts to parkrun and on each lap whip one off to get the maximum effect 😉

Rant: When I was at the gym on the busy Saturday I was just minding my own business doing my squats and there were two men near to me using a bench to do dumbbell presses, taking turns while the other rested. When one of them finished his reps he just threw down his dumbbells (very heavy dumbbells, over 20kg/44lbs each!). They bounced away from him towards me – like literally almost hitting my legs.

I understand people want to do a tough workout and want to be near failure on reps but throwing dumbbells down in exhaustion is dangerous in a busy gym! What an idiot. I glared at him after he did it multiple times but I was too intimidated to say anything. I really should have though. To me that shows a lack of control rather than good weight lifting.

Rave: This is a rave for me and a rant for my bank account. I mentioned in my last R&R post (oooh it has an acronym!) that I’ve been buying lots of gymwear… well here are a few more of my items.

The ridiculous bright yellow shorts are from Nike Pro (from Zalando – in fact, I bought those and a pair of bright pink ones too for £25 in total which I thought was a steal as Nike is always such good quality). Top left is another muscle tee from Forever 21. These are perfect for weight lifting in the gym but not for cardio or running because they’re not technical material. But I love the freedom of muscle tees as the sides gape. The funky leggings are from Boohoo and, again, they’re not technical material but they’re perfect for upper body days. And they were so cheap. I bought a few items from Boohoo as they had a good deal on shipping for next day delivery – £1.99!

MASSIVE RAVE (or potentially MASSIVE RANT): So tonight is the night. I’m going to test out running (3 miles, nothing crazy). I haven’t done a single run since Bournemouth. My leg feels absolutely fine walking and taking stairs so I’m really hopeful. Obviously if anything does hurt I’ll stop but I’m really really praying it’ll be fine. I’m seeing my physio tomorrow so I figured this was the ideal time to test it out. Originally I was going to use parkrun as my tester but realistically I need to run on my own without any external factors… just the road and me. I don’t want to be tempted to push through anything or be embarrassed if I have to stop. Plus my dad and me are driving in together so if the run fails I can emotionally collapse onto him on the way home (what fun for him). FINGERS CROSSED!!!!!

Do you have a lot of common sense?

What kind of oils and fats do you use? I’ve heard gee is supposed to be really good but I’ve never tried it in my own cooking… I keep seeing it in Tesco and I’m very tempted.

Have other gym goers annoyed you recently?

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015

Rants and Raves #23

Hello! It’s the middle of the week, hurrah! I’m working from home tomorrow so it kind of feels like Friday, but only in that I get a bit of a lie-in tomorrow rather than 5am for the gym. Woop! I’m seeing my Physio again tomorrow so I hope to have another post about my injury (oh the long-standing saga that it is, I’m sorry) another day. But for now, I’m ranting but mostly raving.

Rave: Workout clothes. I can’t stop buying them. It’s becoming an issue. To be fair though, other than food, I really don’t spend my money on much else. Forever21 is my go-to place for good quality and inexpensive gym clothes. Though I do like treating myself to Fabletics some months.

I bought the below ‘muscle tee’ from Forever21 which fits amazingly. It’s perfect for my strength workouts as my arms are nice and free and the side slits help keep me cool. It says ‘No Days Off’. Not true, but still cool.

I bought another muscle tee, a crop-top, a crop-top sports bra and two pairs of Nike Pro shorts (not from Forever21 but Zalando). ENOUGH NOW, ANNA.

Rant: Planning my weekends is so tricky at the moment. I still haven’t moved. My solicitors said it could be this week but then who knows. It depends on some enquiries… This is annoying as I’m meant to be seeing my uni friends in Cardiff this Saturday but now I don’t know if I can or not. In fact, we’ve had to rearrange the whole thing because I was going to give one of my friends a lift back and can’t guarantee it anymore. *Sighs*

I’m also just living out of boxes and reluctant to buy any sort of extra condiments or bulk purchases (which I like to do to with items I use regularly to save a bit of money).

I’m not using my downstairs toilet anymore because it’s a great place to put boxes (especially food items and crockery) so Alfie can’t get to them. As you can see, my Hello Fresh boxes are very handy!

And I have nowhere to work when I work from home as I sold pretty much all my furniture (I live life on a bean bag with a £5 Ikea side table). I’ve had to use my kitchen to work in. For my standing desk obsession it works quite nicely.

Rave: Speaking of Hello Fresh (yes, I know, I’m obsessed)… I finally received the hallowed Recipe Journal. My parents, who also still get Hello Fresh, have two! I introduced them to it first! Anyway, I have one now and it’s already almost full up.

It makes me really proud how may recipes I’ve done (I’ve had 23 boxes – each box contains three recipes). I love it! I eat so many different foods each week and it makes life so much easier cooking a meal and then having another portion of it for the next night.

A few weeks ago I had a lovely warming Mexican broth…

With a good dollop of soured cream. Yum.

If you fancy £25 off your first box I have a referral code ZVUM4A (which would also give me £12 off my next box). I’m not affiliated with Hello Fresh, I just love them.

Rave: I’ve recently bought some BCAA formula, AminoX, to help with me at the gym. It isn’t a stimulant but rather it’s designed to support my strength workouts and recovery. It contains essential amino acids, L-Alanine, Taurine and L-Citrulline.

You just mix one scoop with water and give it a mix. Don’t do what I do and shake it in a bottle vigorously as when you then go to open the lid, it explodes like a foamy volcano. Gentle stirring is required! I got the green apple flavour and it’s really yummy, though luminous green. I can’t say I feel a huge difference but I am lifting heavier weights than ever before – though considering how often I go to the gym and focus on this, that’s not surprising really.

Rant: Alfie’s Halloween costume came last week. Obviously too late for Halloween…and actually too small. For a fiver though I’m not upset.

I’m wondering if I can cut the sides a bit and see if he could fit. He may never forgive me though.

Rave: This ice cream.

It’s called Oppo and has the fabulous tagline of “Eat like a whale, look like a mermaid”. I got the salted caramel flavour. The ingredients are far better looking than Ben and Jerry’s and so are the nutritional stats for 100ml:

Energy (Kcal): 77.3
Fat: 3.8g (saturates: 2.8g)
Carbohydrate: 7.6g (sugars: 6.7g)
Protein: 3.2g
Sodium: 0.1

I’m a volume person when it comes to eating (more food = better) and will happily admit I ate the entire tub in one sitting, which was around 400 calories in total. That’s comparable to a slice of cake. Though cake always wins in my eyes, this was such a nice treat for a Friday night.

Rave: I saw this picture on Jamie Oliver’s Instagram…him with Orlando Bloom.

Be still my beating heart. I have such a crush on Jamie Oliver it’s ridiculous. I just think he’s so lovely. And I used to be obsessed with Orlando Bloom during his LOTR days. It’s like a dream come true to have them side by side in a photo… *sighs*.

Who’s your celebrity crush? Who did you fancy when you were younger?

What’s your favourite ice cream and ice cream flavour?

Do you cook from scratch every evening?