Apples - AnnaTheApple

December 12, 2012December 12, 2012

What I Ate Yesterday

OK, so we’re pretty much in the second week of December and I am already feeling myself winding down. Probably because I’ve got Thursday to Monday off as holiday…but then I still have to come back to work and continue until Christmas. But the Christmas atmosphere is so infectious. Everyone seems to be winding down. What’s it like where you work? Where I worked previously there was a huge amount of stress and panic to meet year end. It was non-stop. Even emails over Christmas and panicked phone calls. I hated it. I guess it’s just different businesses. Before I worked in supply chain which depends a lot on fulfilment of the last orders and getting the books nice and topped off before the next year.

But I digress…Though I’m winding down at work I’m winding up (does that work?) for Christmas. The plan has evolved from it’s original state. It was just going to be Ben and me with Ben’s mum coming over to spend the day and have lunch. Now Ben’s dad is over too (Ben’s parents are separated). I’m over the moon that we can have Ben’s dad over. I’m just now getting nervous about making lunch. Three people to feed doesn’t sound so bad…now four sounds scary. And Ben’s dad hates salad and vegetables. This changes things. I need to have a think about our Christmas menu…

Now on with the important stuff: WIAW(thank you Jenn).

Here’s what I ate yesterday and some added meals at the end that I enjoyed at the weekend.

Breakfast: are you surprised? I can’t be separated. Pancakes come and go but oats are for life. Fact.

This lasts me until pretty much dead on midday, when it becomes socially acceptable to begin lunch. I’m one of those people who can’t eat before 12, no matter how much I’m gnawing at my own hand. I don’t tend to have a snack between breakfast and lunch. I have a black coffee when I get to work and then maybe a peppermint tea before lunch.

Lunch: Two days in the working week I have home-made chilli that I make on Sunday. It’s nothing terribly exciting. Mixed beans, onion, chopped tomatoes, bell pepper, zucchini and mushrooms.

Sometimes I add some Philadelphia into it to make it creamy but I didn’t both this week as I ran out. Bad times. I had two normal Baby Bells and an apple after this. I like the goat’s cheese Baby Bells usually but again I’d run out. *Sob* Therefore a sub par lunch. But it was filling nonetheless.

Then I tend to have a snack maybe an hour later. This week I had my graze box:

I nibbled consumed all the olives. They were lovely and garlicky. Probably not ideal for work but food over friends, people. Haha I am so totally joking…Sort of. And then a bit later I had a banana and an apple.

This tides me nicely over until dinner. I arrive home at about 6.30-7pm depending on traffic (bare in mind I leave at 5pm!!! I hate my commute!! And breathe…).

Dinner: last night I whipped up a new meal heavily incorporating my favourite ingredient of the month (coconut). Tropical Nutty Baked Chicken; I used THIS recipe from Julie. But I didn’t have any lime so used lemon juice instead. I didn’t marinate for as long as I should have as I was hungry (hungry Anna = whole new personality and no friend to anyone).

I loved this recipe! The flavours were incredible and it was such a simple meal. If I was more organised I could have done a lot of prep beforehand (like pre-marinating the chicken and have it sat in the fridge waiting). I had this with steamed green beans and a lot of cauliflower mashed with mozzarella. Beasty portion.

At the weekend I’ve still been loving my lunch of sweet potato, butternut squash and coconut soup (with chickpeas).

I can’t get enough.

And I tried a new recipe Sunday night. I based it on THIS recipe.

Chicken, Soy Sauce and Plum Bake (serves 2)

2 chicken breasts, seasoned
4 plums, stoned and quartered
Garlic, diced
1 tsp. lazy ginger
2 tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. fresh coriander, chopped

– Preheat oven 180C. Bake chicken in a little oil in a roasting tray for 10 mins.

– Take out tray and add garlic and ginger, then roast for another 10 mins.

– Take out tray again and add plums and soy sauce, roast for a final 10 mins.

– Serve with a sprinkling of coriander.

I served this will beans (again) and cauliflower mozzarella mash with added spinach. Heavenly.

And a quick update with the living room wall (after Ben’s accident with the wall and red wine). Ben spent mot of the weekend painting, bless him.

He first washed the wall (again) and then used two freebie magnolia samples to paint over the wine marks. Alfie was a big help.

Not.

And then painted the wall using a completely different colour for our brand new feature wall! Basically painting over the wall totally with magnolia wasn’t going to work as the red wine was so dark.

And finished! It really warms the room.

I went for a quick run yesterday morning…

In the absolute darkness that is 6am:

Terrible pic sorry, I just wanted to illustrate what my corner of the world looks like at the end of my run. And it was stupidly icy. Scary times.

I did plan to go today at lunch but I’ve been invited to the pub for lunch…ahh damn, what a shame… I’ll just have to run another time instead!

What are you eating today?

Pub or run, is there a contest??

What’s your favourite way to eat coconut?

Also, check out Laura’s blog for her exciting giveaway and her new amazing new website Uniquely Healthy she’s just set up. It looks great and I’m very pleased for her! She’s worked very hard and I wish her all the best.

October 10, 2012October 10, 2012

WIAW Wedding Special

Hello! Well, I definitely feel a bit more human and recovered now. Still tired and not at all happy to be back at work, but such is life! It’s not that bad actually, I love my job. It’s just, seriously, I fee like I need another holiday to recover!

I thought in the spirit of WIAW, I would do a post about my wedding day. (Thank you Jenn for hosting WIAW once again). So let’s get started.

The Wedding Day: I was so worried I wasn’t going to sleep the night before the wedding, but it wasn’t too bad actually. Which was a relief as it was such a long day! Now, I know this sounds mental, but I set my alarm for 6am and went for a run in the morning. My whole family thought I was mad doing it but it was something special to me that I wanted to do. I knew the whole day would be crazy and I wouldn’t get a minute alone (quite rightly) so I thought if I went for a run then I’d get some piece of mind and just some time for me – does that make sense? It was such a good run. I felt so excited the whole time and my tummy was filled with butterflies. I hadn’t set myself any targets or speed to hit, I just told myself I wanted to get to the beach and just enjoy the run. I got to the beach just as the sun began to rise.

It was perfect. I just felt so light and care-free and happy. In the end I ran 5.5miles at a pretty good pace and just felt exhilarated

Then the getting ready process began. After showering, my mum, my sister and Ellie (her daughter) headed to the hairdressers.

We spent a fair amount of time there! My veil was so long I had to put it in a bag to take it back home as it was nestled securely in my hair and couldn’t be removed and we didn’t want it to drag on the floor.

Then we got back and I had breakfast: porridge. Nothing fancy. Nothing different. Just something I love to keep my energy up for a very hectic day.

I had a mini panic at home when I was doing my make-up. I managed to get foundation on my veil! Honestly, only I could do this. Then ensued my mum and sister repeatedly trying to reassure me that they couldn’t see it. I wasn’t convinced. Then I got into my dress. Such a simple sentence. Let me tell you, not an easy thing. What with my make-up on, my veil and my hair it was a nightmare. My sister suggested I step into the dress. Failure. Next attempt was me going up through the dress. Failure. My arm got stuck and I stood there in my heels and underwear half in the dress with one arm in the air with my sister laughing at me. I’m sure it was hilarious to see… Finally we managed to get me into it (with the help of a few other family members to tie and tighten the corset). Whew.

Then we were almost good to go.

The journey to the church was so nerve-wracking. My dad was nervous, I was nervous. But we got there on time and then my legs starting shaking. Actually shaking. Walking down the aisle was surreal. I just wanted to look at everyone and then right at the end looked at Ben and he just had this huge grin. I got to the alter and he could see how nervous I was and grabbed my hand to reassure me. Then my legs stopped shaking.

Then all I remember are lots of photos. Lots of congratulations. Lots of hugging. A lot of love basically. Then we were rushed off to the reception venue.

Then what seemed like two minutes later we had the receiving line where you literally have 30 seconds to speak to everyone individually. Then after everyone had taken their seat we were called into the room as Mr Smith and Mrs Smith-James!

This is the view from the top table of the room.

Then a sneaky one of the two of us in the mirror behind the table. The speeches were brilliant. Hideously embarrassing one from my dad (as expected I suppose) but very heart-felt as well. He even arranged for an apple to be brought out to me as it’s fairly common knowledge of my love for apples…

Ben’s speech was very touching and lovely. I got all tearful! And then the best man…well it was legendary. Absolutely hilarious. He started the speech by telling Ben to put his hand on mine. And then finished by saying “And Ben, that’s the last time you’ll ever have the upper hand now”.

Lunch: it was 5pm by the time lunch (dinner? Wedding breakfast?) was served. I hadn’t even realised how hungry I was at this point! It was crazy.

The starter was melon with a kiwi dressing. This was lovely but complete awoke my hunger.

Dinner was garlic jus chicken with roasted vegetables and roast potatoes. It was yummy and very filling.

Dessert was apple meringue. And it was SO GOOD. I could eat this every day. We chose that dessert because I love apples (obviously) and Ben’s a meringue monster so it seemed fitting.

And obviously there was cake later.

The bottom layer was lemon sponge, the middle was vanilla and the top was fruit. We chose this cake because I am literally the most clumsy person in the world and it just seemed perfect. We kept it a surprise from everyone so it was brilliant to see their faces.

We had way too much cake though (is that an issue…?) so the day after the wedding we sliced and diced the left-overs of the lemon and vanilla layers and put them in the freezer.

Just a little bit left over… We still have the top tier for us to keep as well which will last for years. So pretty much cake all year round, woohoo!

And let’s not forget the sweet buffet! I was paranoid that the venue wouldn’t put everything out right. When we dropped the stuff off to them the day before they just took it and said they didn’t need instructions but I massively panicked that it would look awful. So I sent them an email with a photo of how it should be arranged etc. When we got to the venue on the wedding day my dad hurried over to my and said “Anna, don’t worry. It’s all set up perfectly. They even had your picture printed!” I like to think that was my one and only bridezilla moment…

Sorry for the poor photo! By the end of the night it was pretty much all gone! And everyone said how much they loved it. Oh I was so pleased

And then we partied the night away! We had a band who were excellent and I’d made a playlist for after and it was brilliant. Honestly, I’ve never had so much fun. Everyone I knew and loved was there and it was just perfect. Everyone looked like they were having a great time and we just didn’t want it to end (well my feet did!). Ben and I managed to disappear from it all for a bit just to catch up with each other and catch our breath. I got some random photos of us as well.

There was a buffet later for our evening guests but I was so stuffed from the meal and, er, maybe the 3 bits of cake I’d eaten (and let’s not talk about my visits to the sweet buffet) that I didn’t have any and forgot to take a photo of it!

After dancing late into the evening, we decided to call it a night. A lot of my family were staying in the hotel as well which was nice. So we got to see a lot of people in the morning. Everyone was feeling a bit tender and it was absolutely chucking it down with rain. We were so lucky with our weather!

Anyway, sorry to have rambled. In a nutshell? Best. Day. Ever.

Happy WIAW!

September 19, 2012September 19, 2012

Sweet Sunday and WIAW

So last post I mentioned that I had very busy Saturday with lots of wedding arrangements and having lunch out with my mum and sister. Sunday was equally busy as well. We had our ceremony rehearsal at the church in the morning after the Sunday service, and all the ‘main players’ (ushers, bridesmaids, etc.) met us there and we had a dry run-through.

It was quite surreal and we joked all the way through it. Like my dad and me did a funny walk together up the aisle. People objecting to our marriage. Then when Ben was repeating his vows I kept winking at him or pulling faces so he kept laughing. It was very funny and the vicar joined in as well. It made things a lot less scary!

Then from there we went straight to our reception venue to go through the final details and timings. So I feel a lot more ready now. I know what’s going on and that everything is pretty much sorted.

Then came the fun part of the day; buying our sweets for our candy buffet. We looked in old vintage-style sweet shops but it was all a but too expensive (but I enjoyed looking anyway – anyone else get excited by things like that??)

So then we went to more cheap shops to get better value for our money.

And we bought just a few things…

Hehe. Yum!

And then it was a case of deciding which jars which sweets would go into.

This was fairly difficult as I didn’t want to open any sweets yet so they would keep fresh for as long as possible…so it might need tweaking on Friday when I’m sorting out last minute details.

The doilies are great! I love the vintage look. And the paper plates will be for cupcakes that my friend is baking me for the day.

So it’s going to be a plethora of sweet goodies…I’m so pleased with how it’s turning out! I’m absolutely the least creative person, so this is pretty good for me. I got all the jars from charity shops so the costs have been kept down.

And I’m chuffed with the table favours too. I bought the paper bags from Amazon for like next to nothing and got some ribbon from Hobbycraft. Each table has a sweet name (like Jelly Babies or Liquorice Allsorts) and then each person on that table gets a bag full of that sweet. Top table gets a mixture of everything (win!).

So that was Sunday! Now on to WIAW. Thank you Jenn for hosting as always. Check out her blog to view what other bloggers have been eating (all very interesting!!)

As always, I’ll show you a bit of a mix of meals as Wednesday isn’t usually that exciting in terms of meals…

Breakfast is usually the same every day (apart from random pancake days!):

I mix about 1/2 cup of oats with 1tsp of wheatgrass and a sprinkle of ground flaxseed (a new addition!) and then unsweetened almond milk. Nuke in the microwave for 3.30 mins (stirring half-way) and it’s good to go!

Fills me up really well until lunch time (which is like a good 4.5 hours later!).

Then lunchtime [at work I usually have a tuna salad or homemade veggie chilli that I batch make at the weekends]. But I’ll show you a lunch I had at the weekend which rocked my world. Home-made hummus:

Chickpeas, lots of herbs (mixed and coriander), lots of minced garlic, lemon juice and a big dollop of tahini paste.

Then whizzed up in a food processor.

I had this with salad, chicken and one of my new favourite chutneys (Cheeky Monkey – banana chutney!)

Lovely. Really sweet and flavoursome, which complimented the hummus perfectly!

Dinner (from Friday night) was hands down the best meal of the week! Cauliflower pizza. The base was made with grated cauliflower, one egg and a big blob of goat’s cheese. I baked this for a few minutes, then added a tomato base…

Then I threw on lots of toppings (more goat’s cheese, chicken, mushrooms & courgette) and baked for about 8 mins.

Doesn’t look like pizza, granted (except that it’s round) but it tasted gooood and I was stuffed.

Snacks…well I thought I’d show you my every day dessert after dinner:

Two chopped apples (always chopped, never whole).

With the wedding coming up I’ve not been that adventurous with my cooking (there are quite a lot of repeat offenders) but during my honeymoon I hope to have some very exciting eats!!

Workouts have been fairly standard. I did manage a quick interval run on Sunday (2 miles) despite not thinking I’d get anything in. And then yesterday I ran another 2 miles and did some core workout. I can now hold a plank for 3 mins, woohoo! Abs of steel! *Cough* Well, moderately firm.

And outfit of the day [dress from Warehouse]:

Important meeting in London today, so the smart dress is out in full force!

Happy WIAW all! Happy eating [and viewing]!

July 25, 2012July 25, 2012

WIAW – #3

Beware, I’m about to have a bit of a rant. Apologies in advance.

It’s so lovely and warm. The sun is shining. It’s amazing. Everyone is so much more happy. I get to work. I AM FREEZING. Apparently there is the need to crank up the air con to MAX and turn it into winter into our office. I look longingly out of the window at the beautiful sunshine and gentle warm breeze swaying the trees. And I’m sat with my cardigan on and jeans shivering. Shivering. I walk out of work in the evening (even at 6pm) and the heat hits me. My car is roasting. And yet I’ve spent 95% of the day shivering. Now I know I don’t have a huge amount of insulation going to provide some benefit against this, but that is not the point. It’s finally summer and I’m still cold.

OK, I’m done. Whew. I feel better now.

Sooo, WIAW. It’s that time of the week where I ‘enlighten’ you the fascinating (mildly interesting?) meals that I’ve had today (well, Tuesday). As always, hosted by Jenn from Peas and Crayons.

So for breakfast:

Yep, that is green porridge. I added half a teaspoon of wheatgrass to my oats before cooking them. It didn’t impact the taste at all which was nice. I’m really into my wheatgrass at the moment and want to get it in where I can. I might make a green smoothie sometime this week to take to work and put in the fridge. I’m just concerned that they might think I’m a bit strange with my bright green smoothie…

Does anyone else get worried about what people think of what you eat? I eat quite healthily and get a few comments about my lunch or snacks and it really bothers me. I hate people looking at my food and judging me. I know I shouldn’t care but it makes me nervous eating around other people (except for close family and friends who know me well enough). I hate feeling like I have to justify what I’m eating. There are always the questions about why I eat so healthily and how I don’t need to eat all that salad, I’m skinny enough. I’m not eating it to get skinny I’m eating it to keep healthy and because I enjoy it! I eat rubbish as well but not all the time. I’m very conscious of what I put into my body and I like to feel good about myself.

Anyway, for lunch I had some quorn chilli that I’d made the other night and took some in to work with me [Check me out being a bit more adventurous with meals!]:

This is an appalling photo, sorry. I was trying to take a photo on the sly so my work colleges didn’t think I was crazy. They’re not from the “take a photo of your food” era. This lunch was really yummy. A bit of quorn, a handful of haricot beans, chopped bell pepper, chopped courgette, diced onion, bit of garlic, chilli, mixed herbs and a tin of chopped tomatoes. This made two very yummy portions. Very easy ‘bung it all in a saucepan’ meal.

Dinner was even better:

Goat’s cheese, chicken, chopped pear, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce and pecan nuts with a balsamic dressing. I am loving salads at the moment. And I’m loving goat’s cheese. And surprisingly so is Ben. Another win!

Throughout the day I munched on some apples (obviously), a banana, Snack a Jacks (I am literally addicted to these) and a home-made jelly. No pictures as these are fairly dull. Well, maybe one photo:

Ahh, perfection.

Here’s what I wore (yay summer outfit!):

OOTD (outfit of the day): top is from Forever 21, jeans are soo old (from Topshop) and necklace from Accessorize. Can’t remember about the bracelets – probably Accessorize knowing me.

And for my fitness… I did my usual 5miles in the morning. I’m pleased with how it went. It was a nice cool temperature to run:

Not sure why my Garmin showed a different view today. I only recently jumped on the Garmin band wagon last month so I’m still getting used to it, and to be honest I’m not sure how to navigate through it. I just jab random buttons and hope for the best. I could read the manual. That would be the most sensible approach. But that’s an effort really, isn’t it?

Hope you’re all having a great WIAW. I love noseying (sp?) on people’s meals

July 18, 2012July 24, 2012

Eat outside the box

So we were vaguely tempted with a couple of hours of yesterday. But then it was rudely swiped away and replaced by cold and general cloudiness. *Sighs* well, I’m looking forward to my honeymoon in September…sunny Florida and Colorado. Woohoo!

As it’s Wednesday…

Thanks to Jenn for this – honestly I could spend an entire day looking at what everyone eats. It’s fascinating stuff and also gives me loads of inspiration for recipes (and a big dose of food envy!!) I’m still such a newbie and getting into the swing of things. Anyway here’s my what I ate for Tuesday. As usual for me I had lovely hot plain porridge for breakkie:

As you can see I ran out of almond milk! So, I had to have soya milk today. Not as good but it’ll do *grumble grumble* [love the fact that Tesco is doing an offer on almond milk right now – £1!! What a bargain]. I know it’s boring to have porridge for breakfast all the time but I just love it. I see all these lovely recipes for overnight oats with exciting fruits and nut butters and I think “wow, they look so yummy” but I can’t bear to not have my usual porridge. Sad isn’t it?? Well I’m thinking of maybe taking some overnight oats to work with me and having it for lunch. Is that excessive? Having oats twice in one day…?

For lunch I had my tuna salad which is always so yummy but again I probably need to mix things up a bit. I later had some olives and a banana.

I’m trying to think (or eat) outside the box. I want simple, healthy food, easy to prepare and cheap to buy – not much, eh? I think I’m just a creature of habit and routine and I find myself getting stuck in these ruts. I know it’s not that difficult to create a salad and vary it up, I’m just being lazy. Well, I’m going to try and think of some different ideas so watch this space.

At least dinner was a bit more interesting. We had a piece of chicken with BBQ marinade and some roasted vegetables. To jazz up the veg I was going to crumble some goat’s cheese on it. However, I was devastated to find my goat’s cheese had gone off! I was so looking forward to it and was so disappointed to find it mouldy. So I had to improvise. I grated a Babel Bell over the veg instead. Not as good but what can you do?! And as always, a mountain of veg on the side…I could have a side of veg with anything really. A meal isn’t complete without it.

After dinner I always have two smallish (OK maybe medium-ish) apples. I used to just have one but it was never enough. I literally could eat about six apples a day but I’ve toned it down a bit (fighting off the withdrawal symptoms and shakes). Hence my blog name! I always have at least one apple a day. It’s like a comfort food for me. It’s dependable; you can take it with you wherever you go, it holds up better than a banana in your handbag, and there are so many delicious varieties (though I detest Granny Smiths – too tart for me!) Golden Delicious and Braeburns are my favourite.

Here’s what I wore yesterday:

(Pretty much all from New Look – love that shop).

Well, I hope you all have a lovely day (and those in the UK don’t have too much rain, booo). I hope to get more exciting with my food soon (pst, I’ve bought a blender!!). There might be some hope for me soon in this blogging world, hehe.