AnnaTheApple - The life of a girl who loves apples and running

January 16, 2013January 16, 2013

Foodie block and recovery

Hello lovelies! Isn’t it chilly? The South of England hasn’t been affected too badly with snow but I know a lot of other places have been hit so I hope everyone is safe and not suffering too much with the chaos that usually ensues in Britain when it snows. And all those not in Britain but in other snowy places too! Where I work was dusted just a little bit but nothing major.

Everything just looks so beautiful with a white overlay…

And on a snow-related note, Ben and me have booked our holiday to go skiing in Bulgaria for two weeks time! I’m so excited. I’ve never been skiing before (except at a dry ski slopes) so I’m hoping I will pick it up and enjoy it. We will have lessons as well though. I’m just worried as honestly I am the most clumsy person alive. Knowing my luck I’ll slip up just walking to the hotel and break something!!

But back to business. It’s WIAW. That lovely half-way point in the week where we can nosey around at other blogger’s food. Check out Jenn’s blog for more info!

I’ll show you what I ate on Sunday as this week has been rather boring and repetitive (halloumi salad again, tuna salad at work, chicken…).

So on Sunday morning I got up after a lazy lie-in and decided to finally crack on open the waffle-maker my parents got me for Christmas. I wanted to use up some pumpkin that I still had lurking in the freezer so I flicked through some recipes and then decided on THIS one (which I’ve previously used for pancakes). In retrospect the batter was probably a little too thick for my waffle-maker, but with my lack of waffle-making experience I missed this vital point.

Hmmm, and this was the better one of the two. Doesn’t look like the waffle in the recipe picture does it haha.

Aaaand here’s the second beauty. I have much to learn about waffle making I think…

However, despite it’s rather unkempt appearance, it tasted divine. I dolloped a big spoonful of Alpro soya yogurt on top and had a side portion of PB2.

It definitely filled a hole!

After breakfast there was the funness that is household chores (woohoo for ironing and hoovering…not). Then Ben’s mum popped over for a visit which was lovely. Her birthday is soon and we were discussing birthday ideas which is all very exciting.

Lunch was another portion of butternut squash soup with chickpeas using my frozen coconut milk method.

I am stuffed after this soup. Honestly, stuffed. I probably should make smaller portions…nahhh.

Lately I’ve been in a foodie rut; experiencing a foodie block if you will. I just couldn’t seem to work out just what I fancied eating. I love making new recipes and trying new things but nothing was appealing. Just the same old (dare I say, boring) meals were all that I could think of. Now there’s nothing wrong with cooking the same thing over and over if you really enjoy it. But I like to experiment and find new meals that I love. I also love spending an evening at the weekend cooking listening to my new favourite podcast Marathon Talk now that I’m doing Jantastic (thanks, Maria!). I find cooking very relaxing.

But over the weekend I got myself out of that rut! I made a two-toned cottage pie on Saturday night:

Half normal potato for Ben and half cauliflower mash for me.

Then for dinner on Sunday I tried out THIS recipe. As Ben and me aren’t huge beef eaters I decided to switch it to some turkey breasts instead so basically it’s balsamic turkey and pepper stew.

It was quite rich and very filling. But absolutely delicious! A heart, warming, comforting stew to commiserate the end of the weekend.

If you’re a beef fan I’d totally recommend using beef as I think the flavours would probably work amazingly. But I’m just not a huge fan of the chewy texture. Turkey was a good alternative though.

My half-marathon training is still going well (I’m sorry if I’m becoming a bit of a broke record on this). I’m really enjoying the variety of runs and feel like I’m improving. My last run was Monday and it was a 3 mile speed run (basically I just ran as fast as I could).

I was quite happy with that – especially as that was on a very cold Monday morning. Sniffing all the way, lovely.

I’ll be running at lunch today with two guys I work with so that should be fun. If I’m honest I much prefer just getting up early and getting the run done and then feeling happy for the rest of the day. I’m not a fan of delaying it until later. Plus, the shower at work is fairly rubbish.

But running with people is much better than running alone! So I think we’ll probably do 3 miles? Who knows!

My strength training now comprises of a quick 20 minutes once a week (mainly to maintain my ability of a 3 minute plank – heaven knows how long it took to get to that point!!)…I know I should keep it up but with all the running and Pilates, I honestly cannot be bothered. Oops. Did I say that out loud? After the half I’ll get back into it but it’s not my main priority now.

And that’s all folks! Have a great Wednesday – it’s practically Thursday now surely..?

What do you prefer: running or strength training?

What new recipes have you been enjoying – please share!!

January 13, 2013

Comfort food heaven

Isn’t it lovely that it’s the weekend? First ‘proper’ week done and dusted, Christmas just a blissful memory now. One of my highlights of this week? My dad falling asleep in a meeting at work [I work at the same company as him – though we rarely work together]. And my dad snores so loudly like you wouldn’t believe so it was pretty noticeable. It was quite funny. In his defence, the room was quite warm and the meeting wasn’t exactly what you’d call scintillating. As my dad is part of the top management team he sort of gets away with it, but it didn’t stop people giggling haha (me including).

Speaking of my dad actually, he is trying to get healthy this year. He’s got some weight to lose and is doing something about it! We have a teeny tiny gym at work:

Basically two bikes, one treadmill, one elliptical machine, and one rower. But he went and did 20 minutes on the treadmill at lunch! I was so proud. And he’s being more mindful about what he’s eating. I just hope he keeps it up!

So the weekend started with my new favourite meal on Friday night. I based it on THIS recipe.

Easy Chicken Paprika (serves 1)

1 medium sweet potato (really depends on how hungry you are – I was very hungry)
Chicken breast, cubed
Small onion, diced
Approx. 1 cup vegetable/chicken stock
1 tbs. cream cheese (I used light)
2 tbs. paprika

[I didn’t have any cayenne pepper so I used a few herbs (thyme & rosemary) just to add some depth.]

– Grate the sweet potato (I didn’t bother peeling).

– Sauté the onion in a bit of oil until soft, then add the sweet potato. Let the potato soften for a bit.

– Add the chicken and paprika.

– After about 5 mins, add the stock and turn down the heat a bit.

– When the liquid has been absorbed, add the cream cheese and stir it all up until nice and creamy and hot.

– Add herbs then serve!

It was really filling and deliciously comforting. The original recipe calls for sour cream but I only had Philadelphia cream cheese so I thought it wouldn’t matter too much. It was so good. Definitely a keeper.

Saturday morning I got up, walked Alfie, then went for a 6 mile run.

I’m gradually increasing the length of these longer runs each weekend and it’s going well. I quite enjoy them because the ones in the week are tempos, or intervals, or speed runs. So there’s a lot of focus on actual running while you’re running that’s needed and they’re quite intense and tiring runs. But even though the weekend run is longer, it’s a lot more relaxed. I can let my mind drift and just run. I do look at my Garmin to make sure I’m not slacking of completely though and try and maintain an 8min/mile speed as it’s a comfortable but still hard pace. I’m just scared about getting to the 8 mile plus runs as there the runs I haven’t done much of at all…

Then I showered, ate breakfast (standard oatmeal) and hopped off to Pilates. It’s starting to get tougher now that we know the basics. Lots of repetitions and harder movements that really give a burn to my muscles. And this morning (Sunday) I woke up feeling very sore.

Ben and me then took Alfie for a lovely walk enjoying the fabulous January weather.

Absolutely tipping it down. It was cold, wet and miserable.

But lunch was warming and comforting! Butternut squash soup with chickpeas.

I also added some coconut milk to it to add some pa-zazz. I had cunningly frozen some coconut milk as I didn’t get through the tin last week. I used an ice cube tray which was great as it meant just popping a load of these bad boys out and dropping them into my sizzling soup.

However, just ‘popping’ them out proved to be a bit of an issue as they seriously weren’t happy about coming out. In the end I used a knife to ping each cube out. And there ensued cubes of coconut milk being pinged straight up to the ceiling and flying back down. Hilarious.

Anyway I dropped the cubes into the soup and they melted away. I then blended it all up and put half a can of chickpeas in and heated it through. Perfect!

After lunch we went to town to buy a few bits and bobs and enjoyed a lovely Costa as well. Heaven knows why I chose an iced cappuccino…

And we bumped into my parents and my niece, Ellie, which was lovely. So we joined them for a shoe shopping session for Ellie.

Though to be honest, shoes were the last thing on her mind. Everything else on every single shelf in the universe was where her attention was.

For our last purchase, I realised I needed a potato for dinner so we popped into M&S.

Felt a bit silly just buying a potato but what can you do!

Then Ben and me went home. We were shattered by this point and just wanted to be warm and snug inside. And I wanted to wear my new PJ bottoms!

Oh so comfy and soft!

Then I chilled out on the sofa while Ben played on his XBox and I did some reading.

Bliss.

Then it was dinner! I decided to make cottage pie. A two-toned cottage pie! I vaguely followed THIS recipe (but didn’t use ramekins). I used beef mince (this is a shocker as I rarely ever eat beef – I’m just not a fan, it’s a bit tough and dense for me if that makes sense?). I also didn’t have mushrooms and used regular flour instead of potato starch (I’m not even sure what that is). But basically I followed the recipe.

After browning the mince, onion etc. and getting things lovely and tasty I threw it all into a casserole dish. Now, at this point I veered off the beaten path of the recipe. There’s no way in hell I can get Ben to eat cauliflower mash. I mean seriously he won’t. So I peeled, chopped and boiled the above M&S potato while also making my usual cauliflower mash with a goat’s cheese Babybel mixed in as I’d run out of proper goat’s cheese. Then I mashed both sets of, er, mash and covered one half with potato and one half with cauliflower. Then put it in the oven for about 15mins.

Ben’s half was on the left, mine the right. Looks quite funky.

Then proceeded to eat a MAMMONTH portion. But with cauliflower rather than potato I wasn’t over-stuffed by the end but comfortable full (remember, I’m a greedy girl!).

Then the evening was spent chilling with blog reading and internet surfing while Ben played a crazy game…Geometry Wars? Anyone heard of it? It’s quite stressful to watch. Lots of shapes flying about the place and colours exploding. It’s so fast paced, I found it quite gripping to watch haha.

See, even Alfie was mesmerised by the craziness.

And that was our evening! Oh there might have been some chocolates…obviously

What have you been up to this weekend?

What’s your favourite comfort food?

January 9, 2013

Full steam ahead! WIAW

Hi guys. Thanks for your reassuring comments regarding my latest confessions. I don’t feel so alien and crazy now

This week at work has been a ‘thrown in the at the deep end’ kinda week. We’ve got a new project going on so suddenly there are a hundred pages of documentation to get my head around and understand.

Fun, fun! But I do love my job and the people I work with are great. Working with a bunch of software developers is always quite relaxed and jovial.

Enough shop talk. Today is Wednesday so, as always, it’s WIAW. Thank you, Jenn, as always for hosting! This is yesterday’s eats.

As always, nothing exciting for breakfast, just my usual oats and almond milk cooked in the microwave until a beautifully stodgy consistency.

This filled me up perfectly. Nothing added, just pure oats and milk. I am an oatmeal purist and not ashamed!

Lunch time I took my usual salad to work and copious snacks.

So for actual lunch I had my usual tuna salad with lots of random veg and salad bits (tomatoes, leaves, carrot chunks, peas, beets – just anything really).

Eaten at my desk while reading blogs. I know should go out and have a walk and get some fresh air but I also love this time to enjoy my lunch while reading some good old blogs. I followed that with a Babybel…

…and a big dollop of Soya yogurt over a fruit salad [took this photo in the morning – I use frozen fruit so it’s defrosted by lunch].

I love Soya yogurts, so creamy and vanilla-ry. As you can see, I’m loving my Alpro products at the moment!

Then a bit later I snacked on some carrots that I had peeled and chopped.

A bit of an embarrassing snack considering they crunch so much in the office…oh well!

I had two black coffees, peppermint tea and lots of water with squash in my funky glass during the day.

Then I had an apple and a banana about 4pm when the munchies set in [old picture sorry – it’s embarrassing enough sneakily taking photos of lunch but snacks are quite tricky!].

And then home-time an hour or so later and dinner – my favourite meal of the day as it’s the one meal Ben and I eat together. It’s lovely because he’s usually in before me and has walked Alfie and then while I cook dinner he sits and chats with me about his day and my day and it’s just a nice catch-up time. I made a salad with chicken fried in balsamic vinegar, with mozzarella dusted with basil and had roasted vegetables also in balsamic vinegar (addicted to that stuff).

Delicious and very easy! I’ve basically been eating a lot of these style meals. You know I love my salads and adding balsamic roasted veg just rocks my world.

This was Monday’s dinner: grilled halloumi and salad with roasted veg.

Other than that I’ve been snacking on lots of chocolate…

These are chocolates from Bruges which I’ve kept in the fridge…oh so good!

And I made some banana bread at the weekend.

What’s life without a few treats?

This morning I went on a 5 mile tempo run (as part of my training plan). I find 5 miles (dare I say it?) an easy distance.

It’s not too short, and not too long. I have a great route I always do and the time flies by. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still tough (especially the tempo run) and at times during the run I want to give up and go home (usually within the first 5 minutes), but there’s always those good moments throughout where the ‘power of the run’ feels damn good. Especially afterwards when you’re finished running

And I’d though I’d share with you my post-run picture and then my post-shower ready-for-work picture. As you can see, still dark outside before and after. Oh the joys of winter! And behind is the rowing machine that never gets used… (*whispers* I told you so, Ben!!)

My running is going good – honestly, having such a rigid goal works wonders for motivation. And it’s quite nice to not just run the same all the time in terms of distance and speed. Finger’s crossed it remains as good!

And that’s me! Have a great Wednesday

Are you back fully into the swing of work/education after the break?

What’s your favourite meal of the day and why?

January 7, 2013

Confession time

I have a confession. Actually I have a few confessions. Nothing major. I just feel the need to get it out there into the universe. Then let the universe judge me, or something or other.

I am becoming an old lady (I hasten to add that there is nothing wrong with elderly ladies, I hope to be one someday – just not at 24!) Consistently now I have started to get tired at 8.30pm. And then 9pm I’m in bed. Actually in bed, pyjamas, brushed teeth, ready for sleep in bed. Now I have every intention of having a good read of my book to chill me out. However, I begin reading and 10 minutes later I’m asleep.

And considering I don’t get in from work until 7pm, this is not very good. Ben is no longer surprised. Alfie no longer joins me as he knows lights off is quite soon.

But you know what the worst part is? I love it.

I get a full on 8 hours sleep. *Drops head in shame* I am an embarrassment to all those hip young twenty-year olds out there. Judge away. What can I say? I’m definitely a morning person. I start waking up from 5.30am onwards feeling nice and refreshed ready to hit the ground running (literally).

Next confession. Over Christmas I didn’t really go crazy on eating vast amounts of chocolate or biscuits. I just didn’t fancy it. Now January’s hit and it’s like BOOM I just can’t get enough. And all the chocolate from Bruges I got is just calling to me. And I just can’t get enough of my favourite chocolate (which I put in the fridge for that extra bite).

And I have since discovered the dark chocolate and mint flavour. This isn’t good people. Well, obviously it is!

I’m fine throughout the day, it’s just when I’ve had dinner and I’m chilling on the sofa and I get that feeling. I’m sure you’ve all felt it (if you haven’t, tell me your secret!)…that “I NEED SOMETHING NOW!!” feeling. And it’s never savoury.

So most evenings I’ve been scoffing it and our supplies are dwindling…but I will be buying more. Life isn’t worth living if you deny yourself these pleasures! I just need to work out how to control the beast within.

My last confession is a dull one I’m afraid. I used to eat fish twice a week – proper oily, omega laced fish. Rainbow trout, salmon, mackerel….but now it’s somehow been forgotten. I’ve focused my energy on chicken. I’m not even sure how this even happened! So to remedy this sharply, I had sea bass.

I dusted it with some ready-made seasoning (a fish-specific one) grilled it and had it alongside mashed cauliflower with goat’s cheese (heaven!), roasted root veg and my favourite veg, broad beans. What a meal! The lightness of the fish worked as there was quite a lot on my plate (maybe another confession of mine is that I’m a greedy eater – it’s all about volume with me! Stack is high and I’m good to go).

Whew, I feel better. The confessions were nothing major, I’m sure you’ll agree, but I do feel a bit lighter after holding in all of that

What are your secret confessions?

What do you love having a naughty snack sesh on in an evening?

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?