Baking - AnnaTheApple

February 24, 2014

15 miles, chicken and chocolate

Morning you fabulous people. Does anyone else feel like there needs to be a day in between Saturday and Sunday? A day to catch up on all the things you think you’re going to get done over the weekend but actually don’t. How many times has clean the kitchen floor been on my to-do list??

The weekend started off nicely, with a cheeky little trip to Nando’s on Friday night with my parents and Ben for a whole lotta chicken.

So many choices of sauces! I went for mango and lime

I went for half a chicken, corn on the cob and side salad. How very Paleo of me (is that Paleo? Potentially…) 😉 I also got to eat Ben’s leftover chicken as well. Yum.

Saturday morning we were up and at ‘em to help set-up Parkrun at Netley Abbey.

It was the cricket pitch course again (five laps…snore). But I was determined to beat my time from last weekend (22:30). The weather was better and the course a bit drier.

It was quite nippy so I made sure I warmed up a lot – lots of walking lunges, high knees and strides. Then go go go!

There’s me in the pink top and shorts. I felt really strong and just kept pushing. My pace dropped as I went along but I managed to maintain a speedier pace than last week.

In the end I got a time of 21:27 and was first female 🙂 Almost a minute off last week and I beat the lady that beat me last week, which was quite nice. And my lovely pregnant friend who is still running despite being fairly pregnant wasn’t far behind – I mean seriously, how inspiring is that?? I hope that’s me one day!

I foolishly did not prepare well for the next day’s long run. I ate a really big dinner and a lot of fudge the night before and felt very bloated and not too well when I went to bed. How stupid can I be?

Ben and me were planning to join up with our running club’s long run on the Sunday and for various different reasons, we managed to get there too late (by 5 minutes). This was really annoying as I was looking forward to running my long run with company and hadn’t brought my headphones or anything. Ben and me decided to part ways and just run on. I was aiming for 8.30-9min/mile pace and Ben wanted to do 9.30min/mile so we couldn’t really run together.

Anyway I headed off with the vague and optimistic hope that I could catch them knowing that a part of the group would be running Ben’s pace. This kept me entertained for about 8 miles thinking “Keep going, they’re just around this corner”. Happily I had no idea I got their route wrong and was going a completely different way…

I’d say it sort of went OK. I had some serious stomach cramps and moments when I thought I’d have to dive into a bush which wasn’t great. I had also brought only a tiny water bottle which disappeared by mile 10. And my legs felt very heavy and tired from the day before. The last two miles were spent mentally pushing myself and fantasying about a cold glass of water.

Basically I’d say 60% of the reason why the run wasn’t brilliant was because of the day before (hard Parkrun and bad preparation), 20% was my IT band feeling tired and niggling my knee (not major though) and 20% was mental. Not running with any music, podcast or conversation really put the focus on running and the miles counting down. It was nice to have that quiet time and focus but I’m not used to it for such a long run.

When I got home I had a glass of water within seconds. Best drink in the entire world. Then I stretched like a madwoman, had a huge bowl of porridge and then screamed the house down by having an ice bath.

I have to wear socks as my feet get so so cold. It took ages for them to warm up afterwards! Ben had to hug them for about five minutes. That’s love.

Then the rest of the day I somehow managed to get the ironing done, walk Alfie, prepare my lunches for the next few days and make Mars Bar crispie cakes for work! I then promptly collapsed onto the sofa and did nothing. Heaven.

I made the cakes for work to sell in order to raise some money for the charity (Make a Wish) I’m running for on Sunday’s Reading half marathon.

I went for the simplest baking I could. But still, what an arm work out! Stirring up melted chocolate with rice crispies is no small feat.

I made sure to save Ben one though when I cut them up this morning to take to work 😉

So a productive, tiring but brilliant weekend.

Now to relax a bit at work 😉 At least physically!!

What is the easiest thing you bake? I find everything hard to bake 😉

How do you recover after a long run/hard workout? All the foods!!

What’s your sauce of choice: hot, spicy, mild, sweet…? Sweet and spicy is one of my favourite.

**If you did want to sponsor me and my little team for the Reading Half you can find out fundraising page HERE. No donation is too small.**

October 11, 2013October 11, 2013

Time For Marathon Training

How quickly a holiday fades from your memory and real life takes over…I am fully back into the swing of life. And jeeze how cold does it suddenly feel UK people? My tan is being replaced by goose bumps.

I’m going to save my second part of my Mexico recap till next week if you don’t mind (check out my recap HERE and the amazing food I enjoyed HERE). I thought instead I’d catch you up with what I’ve been up to post-holiday.

So it is approximately 11 weeks until Marathon Time. I am doing the Portsmouth Coastal marathon on December 22nd. I am getting my head and training into gear. I’ll share my plan with you guys once I’ve perfected it. I’m basing it on several different plans and moulding into what I think will work well for me.

It’s all trial and error really as I’m a marathon newbie. But I know what works well with half marathon training and hey they’re similar right? Can’t be that much different, right…? Ha. No seriously, I know myself and when I like to run, the types of runs that work well and also what races I have planned. I don’t like to rigidly stick to a generic plan. It would never work for me. I’m also fully preparing myself to change it as I go. Flexibility is key here I think!

I’ll go into more detail later, but it’s going to be a pretty standard plan!

In a nutshell: running 4-5 times a week, the long runs going no higher than 20 miles, I’ll be balancing things with spinning and will also always stretch and foam roll after running.

Last weekend I went to my first Parkrun (weekly local 5k timed run) since getting back. Wowza it was tough. Having done no speed work over my holiday I found it quite tough. I decided to run the 4 miles there at a casual pace (7.45mins/mile) as a warm-up. I know from experience that my body needs to have that warm-up before attempting any serious speed work or racing. Then when I get there I do a lot of dynamic stretches (see THIS video for some of the stuff I try to incorporate – not all of it as otherwise I look like a berk at home I do a lot of these though).

The Parkrun itself went well. I told myself just to go with however I felt when I started running. It was quite reassuring to look at my watch and see my pace considering the whole time in Mexico was like running through treacle. Mentally I needed that reassurance that I hadn’t fully lost it.

Though I will say that we were on the flat course (there’s a choice of two courses – one with a hill you do three times and then this one). So I know after a few more weeks back into normal running I could be faster on this course as this was only a few seconds from my PB from the hilly course. Well, fingers crossed anyway!

On a non-running related note, Saturday afternoon we watched Wreck-It Ralf. Watch immediately, it is hilarious.

As Ben is a keen gamer and I used to be, this really went down well with us. But I’d say it could appeal to the masses easily.

Sunday I decided to get stuck in and do my furthest mileage yet: 14 miles. I stuck a podcast in my ears and just went out at a nice and easy pace. I tried to make sure I stuck to around 8.30mins/mile as this is roughly where my longer runs should be sitting.

It was tough but not overly tough. In my head I said if at 11-12miles if I wasn’t feeling it or felt too tired I’d cut it short. But at 12 miles I was feeling very good and decided to go for it. Luckily I have a route where you can tag on extra miles or cut things short.

The rest of the day involves not much else! HOLD THE BOAT. I forgot to tell you. I am OBSESSED with the Great British Bake Off. For those who don’t live in Britain or, like me a few weeks ago, lived blissfully unaware of this TV programme, let me explain.

It’s a competition where 13 (very talented) contestants have a to bake an array of different cakes and show different baking skills (seriously tricky baking skills – when I say tricky I mean not tricky for me which is generally weighing ingredients out and mixing them). I’m not even doing it justice. It’s just so good. And also just emphasises how truly appalling my baking is!

Though I did attempt some baking the other day to take into work. Double chocolate chip and oat and raisins (I didn’t make a note of the recipes, I think I just googled them! Nothing hugely crazy or spectacular about them).

But they came out OK and that is a thumbs up in my eyes. And they were gone by the end of the day. Happy days.

This weekend I’m randomly running a half marathon. Ben and me signed up last minute as it’s a league race with our club and we thought “what the hell”. Though I will not be racing it, I will use it as a long run.

And I have some very exciting running-related news that I’ll share with you soon! I literally am so excited. It’s sad how excited I am but it’s true.

Have a great weekend everyone!

What are your plans this weekend?

The Great British Bake Off – do you watch it? What other food-related programmes do you indulge in? The Food Network is like my mecca.

Have you run a marathon? Do you have any wise tips and tricks to share?

What good films have you seen lately?

August 5, 2013

Baking Fail and Weekly Workouts

Happy Monday. Here we are again at the start of the week. And two weeks until my half marathon crazy trail run. Mmm, I’m a little bit nervous!

So this weekend has been very low-key. Don’t you just love those kind of weekends? Ben and I had Parkrun in the morning on Saturday. I beat my last time by 15 seconds which I was over the moon about.

Then we had my parents over in a tag-team style affair on: my dad came over to watch football with Ben (joy of joys) and then my mum popped over later for coffee. Conveniently for Ben and my dad, they had ~~on purpose~~ accidentally got the time wrong and ‘unfortunately’ had to play an hour or so of Fifa on the Xbox before kick-off. *sighs*

While they did that I got on with a very important task: cake baking. I rarely bake because I’m really not that good at it. I really wish I was…but I’m just not great at following recipes. I don’t read them properly or just don’t follow them as well as I should. That’s fine for cooking…but baking, not so much.

I chose a Victoria sponge, because that’s my favourite and I know my mum likes it too (perfect for afternoon coffee).

*sighs*

I honestly followed the recipe exactly. But to no avail. It all went fine until I had to get the damn things out of their baking trays (I had greased them well I thought)…then the jam didn’t seem to like the cake. Oh it just didn’t work out well.

I bet you’re thinking: wait, that doesn’t look so bad. Right? Well, we all have bad angles in photos (I know I do!) so let’s see this baby’s bad side.

As much as I’d love to say that big gaping crack was due to me throwing my face in head first for a good old bite. But, alas, no. That’s just what it looks like naturally. And my lovely father called it the “earthcake” (as in earthquake but a cake).

But clearly the most important part about a cake is not it’s appearance, it’s the taste. And it tasted gooooooooooood. And I have you know, both parents, my mother-in-law and Ben all enjoyed it. So that’s that.

After having a good old natter with my mum, I spent the afternoon just chilling reading my Empire (movie review) magazine. I read an interview with Richard Curtis (legend in my eyes – Notting Hill, Love Actually, Bridget Jones and of course Four Weddings and a Funeral) and I read a bit to Ben as something made me laugh. And Ben goes “I’ve never seen Four Weddings and a Funeral”.

…

“What?” How am I married to this man?? How did I not know this? Seriously??

Four Weddings and a Funeral is like the quintessential British comedy. It is one of my favourite films of all time. How has he not seen it? Well this needed to be rectified immediately. Needless to say we had our Sunday afternoon planned.

Sunday morning I ran my 12 mile long run. Compared to last weekend’s long-run (which I thoroughly enjoyed as was just one of those great runs)…this run sucked. I started running and I just knew it wasn’t going to be good. Maybe I pushed myself too hard at Parkrun, maybe I didn’t eat properly the night before (cake before bed is never a great recipe for a good run I’ve found) or maybe it’s just one of those things. It really felt hard the entire time. Last weekend’s run was 8.11mins/mile average for 13 miles but this weekend it was 8.32mins/mile. Well, you win some you lose some.

After the run I had breakfast, then my mother-in-law came over to catch up with coffee (and cake), and then I went to body pump which was OK. I’m sorry, I can’t get excited about weights. It’s a purely supplementary exercise for me in order to stay injury-free and get stronger to support better running. The rest of the day was watching back-to-back Friends episodes (we have the entire box set – amazing) and then Four Weddings and a Funeral in the evening. Perfect.

And to recap this week’s workouts:

Monday: Spin

Tuesday: Hill session with running club (7 miles total)

Wednesday: Off

Thursday: Lonely 8 mile run on my own as I got home too late for running club

Friday: Spin

Saturday: Parkrun (3 miles)

Sunday: 12 miles and body pump

Total miles: 30

Quite happy with the week. With the half marathon coming up my mileage is higher than normal but I’m loving it so that’s fine. Spin is still tough but I find after running it really shakes out my legs.

Because I’m running quite a lot and spinning now as well I’m very careful to make sure I’m eating more to help sustain me through the week. I’ve been adding chia seeds to my oatmeal, having nice large dinners, lots of snacks at work (such as pistachios and dried fruit) and, er, yeah lots of cake. But I’ll show more of that on Wednesday

How was your weekend?

When you increase your workouts, how do you fuel to make sure you’re not going to flake away?

What have been your baking fails? Please tell me I’m not alone in my lack of domestic goddess-ability.

March 29, 2013

My running week and a baking success

Hi guys! Hope you’re enjoying the long weekend (if you’re lucky enough to not have to work/study). And would you believe the sun is out? OK it’s still very cold but there is actual sunshine and sunlight coming through the window as I type. Hurrah!

Well this week has flown by (I guess it would do being only four days). But I felt like I’ve done a fair bit. I have finally joined a running club. I found a very local one to me that meet on Tuesday nights. Originally I was sceptical of running clubs because I never run in the evenings. It just isn’t my thing. I like to get up and get it done first thing.

However, the appeal with running with other people was quite tempting. So I joined and went on Tuesday night. It was weird getting back from work and putting my running gear on and going running. I wasn’t used to not having dinner straight away.

The running club meets just over a mile from where I live so I ran there. There were so many people! About 20-30 I think. But I felt like such an outsider as everyone knew each other. We started warming up outside in the car park and it felt a little like a PE/gym lesson with a teacher. This went on for about 10 mins and I was thinking “let’s just run already!” All the faffing around was a bit annoying. Anyway we finally started and we did intervals. Basically the main guy stood a distance away from us and we had to sprint towards him as fast as we could and then jog slowly back. Then he would move further away. It was INTENSE. Hello competitive Anna. It was nice to have that motivation to run fast as I’m sure when I do intervals on my own I don’t push myself that hard! Though there were four guys who were just astounding in their speed. Crazy fast. Then after warming down it was over and I ran home. The next morning my thighs were so painful.

I’m still not wholly convinced as it basically took my entire evening from me and I do prefer running in the morning but it was nice mixing things up and the intervals obviously pushed me hard. Well, I’ll see how it goes I guess.

I made things a bit easier by making dinner in the morning so Ben could still have dinner when he got in and I could just grab something quick when I got back from the club. I made the chicken and apricot lentil thing again which was so good after the running.

Running, in general, this week has been back to normal after recovering from the half marathon this week.

Monday – 5 miles, average pace 7.42min/mile.

Tuesday – running club

Wednesday – I ran with the guys at work during my lunch break and I felt shattered. My legs ached and I was tired. We ran 3 miles, average pace 7.42min/mile.

Thursday – I wasn’t sure about running but Ben persuaded me (yes you read that correctly). The preference of getting the run done Thursday and fully enjoying my lie-in Friday made sense. Also meant I would be rested before my long run Saturday.

Friday – rest

Saturday – 10 mile long run planned.

Sunday – rest

And I’ve been loving my new trainers.

Mizuno Wave Alchemy 12

Because I have over-pronation when I run (my feet roll inwards) I needed trainers with a lot of support to help prevent this from happening as otherwise it ripples up my legs and makes my knee painful because I’m not running properly (my physio tells me!) So with insoles as well I’m sorted. Apart from a MOTHER of a blister when I wore them for the first time on a run, they’ve been brilliant. I’ve had no issues with my knee or my Achilles’ – TOUCH WOOD!!

I meant to post this earlier in the week but never got round to it but I went on a baking frenzy last weekend to bring cakes into work and for Ben’s work for people who sponsored my half marathon. I thought I’d pick a two very simple cupcake recipes to make it easier, but honestly I was baking for HOURS. I did like 6 batches of cupcakes!

And that wasn’t even all of them!

I made a standard chocolate cupcake but with a chunk of dark chocolate in the middle that I poked in just before baking, and I made a vanilla cupcake with vanilla icing and either the sugar balls or sweets stuck on the top.

I am a self-confessed bad baker (see exhibit A) so I am so pleased these actually turned out really well! The only disaster I had was when I was whizzing up the icing sugar and butter to make the frosting with a hand blender the icing went up in a huge puff of icing smoke literally coating everything, including my hair, in a film of sweet dusting. Alfie loved it.

So today is all about chilling and getting the chores done. We’ve got just two episodes left of Game of Thrones, a custom-made pizza from Sainsbury’s (no cheese, extra veg, chicken & BBQ sauce – YES) and maybe some sneaky chocolate…well, it is Easter

Have a great Easter everyone!

What have you got planned for this weekend?

What kind of trainers do you prefer?

Are you/have you been part of a running club?

February 25, 2013March 10, 2016

Lessons Learnt and the World’s Best Brownie

Can you believe it’s Monday again? The weekend felt like it zoomed by. How depressing! I feel shattered! The weekend was brilliant though.

On Saturday morning I got up early and ran my 12 mile long run. For the first 6-7miles it was brilliant. It felt easy, I was running a fast pace; I was really chuffed. Then I started to feel quite tired around mile 7. So I thought I’d have a sweet to pick my energy up. Last time I had a mini Tootsie Roll but found this really annoying to eat because it was so chewy. I chose a boiled sweet I got from Bulgaria in our epic pick ‘n’ mix swag instead so I could just suck it as I ran. However, it wasn’t a boiled sweet at all but another chewy sweet. I find chewing really hard when I run because I ordinarily breathe through my mouth when I run so when I have to chew I find myself gasping and not taking in enough air.

By the time I had finished the damn sweet I then had a stitch (this is about mile 8 now) and it was a killer. I knew at this point I had stupidly started too quickly – of course it felt easy and amazing at the start: I had only just started!! I didn’t think that maintaining that speed for another 10 miles would feel so hard. I know, I am incredibly dim.

Mile 9 was the hardest. The stitch was so painful I had to stop. I stopped my Garmin and took in huge lungfuls of air for 30 seconds just to get rid of the bloody stitch. Then I got back to it and everything was fine again. But it did really worry me.

My time was great but if I’m honest I feel really stupid and sheepish about it. I was too fast. I shouldn’t have run like I did. Maybe for the actual half-marathon it wouldn’t have been so bad, but not while I’m training. Really, really stupid. Risking all kinds of injuries…stupid, stupid.

So I’ve learnt my lesson. No matter how good the run feels at the beginning, always start slower. Your legs will thank you at mile 8 or 9 or whatever mileage your aiming for.

Anyway, so after running I quickly got myself together, had breakfast, and got on the road to Bristol. It wasn’t a bad drive and I listened to a Marathon Talk podcast which reinforced how stupid I had been earlier.

It was so lovely seeing my university friends again. And I got to meet Kate’s (the girl who lives in Bristol and who we were staying with) little pug, Doug.

Awww, look at his little face. He is adorable. Completely different persoanlity to Alfie, but adorable none-the-less.

After catching up for a bit we headed out to grab some lunch and do some shopping in Cabot Circus, which is a huge shopping centre in Bristol. So good. Designed in a way to get you lost though so you spend more time and money there!

We had to wait 20 minutes before we got a seat in Giraffe (love this restaurant) as it was so busy. So by the time we were sat down ready to order it was like 2.30pm and I was quite extremely hungry by this point! I ordered a feta super salad…

There was avocado and bulgar wheat and borlotti beans in there as well. The menu said broccoli as well but as you can, there wasn’t any. As my friend also ordered this and was broccoli-less too I complained and the waiter brought us out a plate of broccoli. I think he thought we were a bit strange, but seriously I want what I ordered!

On the side I also had sweet potato fries (because I was so hungry!)

Can I just say, hands down, they were the best sweet potato fries I’ve ever had.

After lunch we did a bit of shopping and I bought some jeans and…three scarves!! I just couldn’t stop. Here’s one of them that I’m wearing today.

I love this! It’s got skull and crossbones on it. So different from my usual scarves.

After shopping we dropped into Tesco to buy something for dinner and then headed back. We chatted some more and relaxed. Then it was dinner time. I had bought a beetroot and horseradish soup (sounds weird but really, really good) and had that with a bit of bread and then my apples for dessert (well, what else?). My friends know me so well they know about my apple obsession. In fact, Kate had even bought a load of apples purely to feed my addiction! Bless her. She also bought porridge oats for me as well for the morning

Really yummy. Going to see if I can find a recipe for this soup.

Now, every time my friends and me meet up and stay over someone’s house we always have a tradition. We make the world’s best brownie. Technically, it’s probably not a brownie. Not the way we eat it! I can’t disclose exact the recipe (because it changes every time & I’d have to kill you ) but it vaguely goes like this:

World’s Best Brownie (serves 4-5 greedy girls) – edited for an evolved better version

90g flour
50g caster sugar
2 eggs
2x 400g tin of prunes in own juice (with stones)
300-400g milk chocolate (ideally Cadbury’s – more chocolate is never a bad thing)
Bar of Mint Aero/bag of Mint Aero balls
Optional piggy extras: digestive biscuits or 120g Milky Bar

– We mix the flour and sugar together.

– Break up all the milk chocolate and then melt it over a pan of simmering water. We like to reserve half the Mint Aero bar to add in just before it goes in the oven as finding semi-melted mint bits is incredible.

– De-pit the prunes and get rid of the juice (or reserve for another recipe?). Then cook in a small pan until all broken up and squidgy. Allow to cool.

– Then add melted chocolate and beaten eggs to the prunes and blend together. Blend really well because seriously, a big blob of prune in a brownie rocks no one’s world. We always use a hand blender.

– Then fold in the flour and sugar and stir in the added extras.

– Bake for an undefined period of time. This is where it gets interesting. For how we eat it, I’d say 15mins. For normal people, I’d say 20-25mins (but this misses the point as you will see).

Important points: We don’t bake it for long enough to cook the entire thing ‘properly’. We make sure it’s cooked 3/4s of the way so that underneath the crust it’s seriously gooey.

We also don’t cut it. We literally put it in the middle of the table and each have teaspoons. We wait, oh, all of 5 mins and then dig in. Then proceeds the expressions of pain and gasping of “this is stupidly hot!!”

Yes, this is sheer gluttony. Yes, we do feel very sick afterwards. Yes, it pretty much is the best thing to do EVER.

The Mint Aero is a delightful addition to the brownie. Big blobs of melted mint chocolate are scattered throughout and it’s like a treasure hunt. It’s closer to pudding then a brownie as you can see, but it is bliss whatever it technically should be called. And between 5 of us, we finished the lot. Though, as usual, we all felt quite sick afterwards. But a contented sick feeling.

This brownie, and it’s long-standing tradition, came about because when we were at university we all lived together (this is years ago now) and would often make cookies. We got bored of cookies and wanted something different. Something a bit healthier so we didn’t feel so bad scoffing it. Also, a measly cookie never satisfies the need for something really naughty.

So we Googled a recipe and I think it was THIS one we found. We wanted a recipe that didn’t have butter (as God forbid we included something as fattening as butter! Don’t worry about the sugar and chocolate haha). However, this recipe obviously does have butter and I think we just didn’t read it properly.

Since then we’ve always made this brownie, but it’s been tweaked and adapted and extras have been added through the years to increase it’s amazingness. Obviously, it is not a healthy brownie anymore (or was ever?) but the prunes instead of butter allow us to live in our dream-world that it’s better than a normal brownie haha. Also, the texture is SO good. We do this about twice/three times a year.

Anyway! We then chatted and went to bed at like midnight – seriously past my bedtime! Haha. The next day we had breakfast and then took Doug for a lovely walk around a beautiful park.

VERY cold though.

And then I drove home! My lovely husband had done all the chores, bless him, so I just got back and could have lunch and chill. Perfect weekend!

What did you guys get up to?

Do you do any crazy/weird traditions with your friends when you see them?

Have you ever learnt from a fitness mistake?