Recipe - AnnaTheApple

January 4, 2013

The kind of weeks I like

Hi guys. Now if you’re back at work, commiserations. It’s no fun. Especially after all that lovely time off (and commiserations if you’re time off was limited). However this week has gone by very quickly. Well, there’s only three days of work so I guess it would do. And the commute has been a dream and not many people are back at my work so it’s nice and quiet. So it almost feels like I’m still on holiday. Almost.

However, I am feeling upbeat and ready to kick start this year with gusto. Never used that word before, thought I’d throw it in there. Maybe I won’t use it again…

So let’s get into the good stuff. Though this week I haven’t been crazily adventurous with food (due to excessive and wondrous amounts of left-over turkey – I’m afraid I’ve been eating the same turkey meal for three days.

I should have tried my hand at some inspiring turkey recipes but I just love that turkey meal so damn much. Blogging fail? Maybe. Happiness factor? Hell yes).

However, before I become that little bit more predictable (hello oatmeal every single day), I did try a new recipe at least once! Ages ago I spied THIS recipe from the lovely Chelsea and kept meaning to make it. So I gave it a bash the other night:

Breaded mozzarella sticks. Honestly it was so simple. I used some cheese strings cut in half, rolled them in wholemeal flour, then dunked in egg, and then a breadcrumb mixture (I just whizzed up a slice of wholemeal bread and added some tasty herbs and spices), then fried them. Done! We had that over salad and pomegranate seeds (and maybe a sneaky bit more of freshly torn mozzarella).

Yum! It tasted naughty but actually wasn’t that bad considering cheese strings are quite low calorie and I used less than two slices of bread for all of it. And Ben loved it!

So a while ago I mentioned I’d signed up to the Reading Half Marathon. It’s in March and currently less than 11 weeks away. I really want to give my all to this so I searched online for a training plan and I’m currently in week 2. I thought I’d give THIS training plan a go.

I’m vaguely working to the length of times I should be running as I prefer to think of miles rather than time. So today I was meant to run for 40 minutes, so I ran a 4.5 mile route.

Almost 40 minutes. And I think that’s how I’ll play it as for some reason I hate to make myself run for a certain time. I prefer to have a set of miles I have to do and then try and run that as fast as I can.

Also, instead of the 30 minute ‘easy’ run, I’m going to use that as another short, sharp interval run to really help improve my speed – between 2-3miles.

It does sound like I’m veering off the plan but I have to make it accessible for me and, if I’m honest, I can’t be bothered to trawl through a load of training plans. I just need something to vaguely plan to. It’s mainly the long runs that I’m really going to stick to as I think they’re the most important.

I love that the plan is pushing me and now instead of “oh I can’t be bothered” I think “I really should go for that run”. And there’s a level of competition that is keeping me going. A group of guys from my work are also doing it and you know I just have to kick their butts.

And it works quite nicely as I’ve joined Maria with her Jantastic running team to see if we can stick to our goals of how often we run a week. I said I’d run three times but with this plan I’m aiming for four.

To complement the running, one day a week I’ll do a short (no more than 20mins) strength training routine (things like planks, press-ups, squats) and a Pilates session.

I feel really chuffed with this plan and I really hope I stick to it and improve my running to do well for my first ever half marathon!

Have you ever run a half marathon? Any tips?

How do you prepare for a race?

December 23, 2012

Chicken Soup and Christmas

Hi all, thought I’d do a very quick post before taking a break for Christmas.

I’m feeling miles better than I did but still not a hundred per cent which is still driving me crazy. But I’m able to get on and do stuff so it’s fine. This weekend has been all about cleaning and getting things ready.

Ben’s dad will be down tomorrow to stay until Boxing Day, which will be lovely. The three of us will go over to my parent’s house for tomorrow evening to celebrate Christmas eve. And then Ben’s mum will be over on Christmas day to spend the day with us. My parents and granddad will pop over on Christmas morning briefly I think as they’re then off to have a Christmas meal out.

I really want to run on Christmas morning but I’m still not certain if I’ll be able to yet. I think I’ll be fine I just don’t want to push myself too soon after getting better, you know? But I really really want to go out for a lovely early Christmas morning run and just enjoy that time. Otherwise it will be a walk with Alfie instead!

Then Boxing Day everyone is over ours (including my sister, brother-in-law and niece) for a buffet that I’m rustling up. All this cooking is feeling a bit daunting at the moment as I’m still not 100% but I’m hoping it will run smoothly. I love cooking so it should be fine.

And that’s us! I don’t have much else to add. Unfortunately I’ve not been doing any Christmas baking (apart from marzipanning the Christmas cake) though I have been eating some really yummy home-made chicken soup in the spirit of getting healthy.

Really simple. Just chicken or vegetable broth with garlic and ginger, and a small chopped onion, carrot, diced chicken breast and some peas. Then simmer for like 15 mins and add some pepper and coriander. I’ve been living on this stuff!

So have a great Christmas everyone! Enjoy the food, the time with your family and friends and relax!

xx Merry Christmas! xx

December 9, 2012December 9, 2012

Christmas cake (finally!), new trainers and Total Greek Yogurt review

Howdy all! Hope you’ve been having a nice weekend. On a random side-note, I have literally just painted my nails and am typing like a right idiot trying not to smudge them. I hate painting my nails as they never last that long with me as I always chip them. And the waiting around while they dry drives me mad. I’m not a person who can sit still and do nothing…so here I am typing like an idiot.

This weekend has been jam-packed and I feel shattered! But I only have a three day week next week (can I get a woohoo!) as I’m off from Thursday. It’s our work Christmas do Friday and Saturday and we’re off to Bruges! And partners are allowed to come as well! So excited. But from what I’ve heard about the Christmas parties (as I wasn’t here last year), they are quite wild. So watch this space…

Today I finally made the Christmas cake. Yes, yes most people have made theirs by now…but this weekend was the only time we could really do it. It’s quite a lengthy process. We used Ben’s mum very old (from 1949!) cook book for the recipe.

It’s become a lovely tradition to make this cake. Before we had moved out, we watched Ben’s mum make it and then one year we helped her make it. And last year we made it on our own for the first time. And everyone will be able to enjoy it at Christmas. Basically we’re carrying on the tradition!

So this morning I got cracking. For once nothing went wrong (though saying that, it is currently still in the oven so…touch wood).

[Check me out being all Christmassy with PicMonkey]

Christmas Cake

350g (3/4lb.) butter
350g (3/4lb.) brown sugar
6 eggs
500g (1lb.) flour
500g (1lb.) sultanas
500g (1lb.) currants
100g (1/4lb.) raisins
150g (6 oz.) candied peel
50g (2 oz.) cherries, chopped
100g (1/4lb.) chopped almonds
1/2 tsp. mixed spice
2 tbs. dark treacle
1 small glass of brandy

– Preheat oven to 140C.

– Using a very large bowl, beat sugar and butter together until well combined.

– Beat in eggs one at a time until combined.

– Stir in the sifted flour, fruit, almonds, spice treacle and brandy. Mix well.

– Transfer to a tin well lined with baking paper. Bake for 6 hours and 20 mins.

Mixing all the ingredients together is like an arm workout. Seriously it’s so thick by the end. And our bowl was almost too small to contain it all!

The cake is still in the oven and the smell is deeeelicious. But when it comes out we’ll need to cut the top bit off it as this will be very crispy and might even be burnt. Then we’ll get a lovely square cake which we’ll let cool and then wrap up for at least a week until we then marzipan and ice it.

As there’s always too much mixture for the tin, we tend to do a mini loaf. Though this year I wanted to make something a bit different…

Mini Christmas cakes! Christmas cake muffins if you like. They themselves took an hour to cook! That’s how beasty and dense the cake batter is.

And this weekend I also went for a solo off-road run in my brand, new, amazing off-road trainers. I can’t stress just how much I adore these shoes.

Check out those amazing treads!! Technically they’re a Christmas present from my sister…but I was allowed them early. So I ran a nice and easy (read: I didn’t go fast) 6 mile this morning to test them out.

And my trainers rocked.

[Before and after]

Not looking quite as shiny as before now but who really buys trainers to keep clean??

And a while ago now I was sent some Greek yogurts to try out: Total Greek Yogurt split pots (honey, blueberry, strawberry, and raspberry with pomegranate).

I’m not a massive fan of snacking on Greek yogurt, or yogurt in general I must say. I prefer to add them into things to thicken up sauces etc. I’m not too keen on the taste of Greek yogurt on it’s own. That being said…the idea of adding something sweet and fruity to the yogurt appealed to me.

The yogurt was very thick and creamy and adding in the fruit/honey compote made them much more exciting I found. The sugar content is quite high for each yogurt (around 11g per 100g and they’re 170g pots) but they were very tasty. And very filling (8g protein)!

A lovely afternoon treat I’d say

Right I’m off to make dinner – baked chicken with plums! Nom nom nom.

What have you been up to this weekend?

Are you making/have you made a Christmas cake this year?

Do you like to run on roads or off-roads?

December 5, 2012

Getting organised and Christmassy – WIAW

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?

November 25, 2012

Starbucks, banana bread and a very muddy run

Hurrah for the weekend! What’s everyone up to?

Work has been crazy lately. Looks like I’ll be in Reading for longer than expected. This is a bit of a pain as the commute is so long. But I’m loving what I’m doing so I can’t complain too much. I just get sick of the same roads and the same traffic. Anyone have a helicopter I can borrow for a few months…? No? Damn.

Friday was a pretty good day. My dad and me work together so we’re sharing the commute to Reading (take that as a plus and a minus ) and I persuaded him to stop at Starbucks just before we got to the office. He treated me to a hazelnut syrup Americano and a HUGE mince pie. First one of the season, wheeee!

It brought some light amusement of watching my dad drip coffee all over himself as I drove the last mile and a half back to work. This was just ten minutes after him telling me he had put his newly washed beige chinos to look smart…whoops

The mince pie was deeeelicious. I was chuffed for this as my Graze box didn’t arrive (*sobs*) and I needed something to fuel my run at lunchtime.

Speaking of my run, though in my last post I mentioned I was a bit dubious about it as it’s always weird running with people you don’t really know – and work with. Anyway, it was great! There were five of us in total and they took me on a great 4.5 mile route around some lakes and fields. We got covered in mud and at times it was more splashing than running but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

There was a range of running ability and this was great. One guy was super speedy – we’re talking 6 minutes a mile at his best! I started off fairly easy going running with the woman I knew and then I ventured out to run with a guy who ran at my usual pace (not the 6min a mile guy!!). This really pushed me to keep up. With the rough terrine and the speed of the run, I was pooped by the end!It’s funny because after showering and basically inhaling my lunch afterwards, I went to stand up and my calves were aching already! I’m guessing this was the crazy terrine as I’m used to plain old roads. Anyone else find this?

Saturday morning I had my Pilates class.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It’s not a class to get sweaty and out of breath in but you definitely feel it in your muscle the next day. The class was quite small with a total of six of us. But it was a lovely friendly atmosphere and instructor is so attentive and ‘hands-on’. That sounds weird, but it really helps if she sort of guides your leg or foot or whatever to the right position as it can be quite complicated.

The rest of the day was filled with chores and looking after an unwell Ben. He does not have a simple cold, oh no. Nor is it flu. How foolish to think it would be something quite so simple. He has…Man Flu. Full on, at death’s door, incapacitated, can’t do anything Man Flu… He is currently a pathetic human being. We’re talking blankets, Lemsips, and constant sofa attachment. I am trying to be the caring and loving wife but it’s tricky as I’m not naturally sympathetic and, ladies, we all know about this Man Flu business. It’s a cold. Joking aside though, I am looking after him and he does have a waiver for all chores. Fun for me.

I did a bout of baking as well. Apparently one of Ben’s work friends finds the idea of banana bread crazy and Ben has enlisted me to change his mind. I mean, who doesn’t like banana bread??

It got rid of some dying bananas as well and it was fairly easy to whip up.

Banana bread (based on THIS recipe)

75g (1/3 cup) butter, softened
2 eggs
4 ripe bananas, mashed

110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar
125g (1 heaped cup) plain flour
100g (1 level cup) wholemeal flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. mixed spice

– Preheat oven to 180C.

– Combine butter, sugar, eggs and mashed bananas.

– Sift flours, baking powder and spices together. Then fold into the banana bread and stir until combined.

– Bake in a loaf tin for 50 mins (until a tooth pick comes out clean).

My little loaf tin struggled to contain all the loaf so I had to make mini banana loaf muffins as well. What a shame

Then we headed to Ben’s mum for dinner. We brought along Alfie as well (which is always a bit worrying as Alfie is Alfie and Ben’s mum’s house is pristine).

Apart from an accident on the carpet he was good as gold (this was mainly our fault anyway as we hadn’t let him outside before going out as it was raining so much so we weren’t angry at him).

How could I be mad at that furry face? And Alfie too

The meal was so good. We had honey smoked mackerel to start (apologies, no photo I was too busy gobbling it up). And then we had roast chicken for main with a whole host of veggies and stuffing:

Definitely a winner! Made up for enviously ~~drooling~~ seeing all those delicious Thanksgiving meals on many blogs this week.

And then fruit salad for pudding. Again no photo, but imagine a HUGE bowl of pineapple, melons, grapes, blueberries and strawberries. I love having meals at Ben’s mum’s house as she and I have similar tastes (big fruit & veggie fans). It was a lovely and relaxed evening.

So now it’s Sunday and I’m just watching the world go by while looking after the poorly husband. Well, as much as I can do while he plays on the XBox…

Hope you’re having a lovely weekend and for my fellow Britains, I hope the rain stops soon!!