What I Ate New Years Day

Happy New Year everyone! Wow it sucks to be back at work. The alarm went off at 6am this morning, which definitely makes a change from my usual 8ish wake ups this past holiday. There’s something so indulgently lovely about opening your eyes naturally and deciding whether to roll back asleep or gently get up. The alarm screaming at me to wake up, however, was not.

Despite this, I am glad to be back into normal routine. There’s only so much lounging around the house that I can really do. I do get a bit of cabin fever. And I am back at the usual office so this means my commute is under an hour – possibly even 35mins! Not like the hour and a half (sometimes two hours) that it was when I was working on the customer site before Christmas. It’s heavenly.

Anyway, it’s WIAW – first for 2013! Check out Jenn’s blog for more details. Let’s get started.

 

This is what I ate yesterday, New Year’s Day, with a recap of my New Year’s Eve.

Ben and I went to our friend’s house for dinner and a games night on New Year’s Eve. It was so much fun. It was two married couples and another guy and us.

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They made chilli con carne for dinner with a roasted potato and salad, which was divine (I believe they used a Jamie Oliver recipe, so perfect in my eyes!) And pudding….well pudding was a mini Eton mess with fruit on top, a lemon cheesecake and bannoffee pie. I might have had all three (half a bannoffee pie serving I hasten to add!) Well, when you’re offered… Unfortunately I didn’t take any photos as it seemed a bit rude. But I can assure you it was yummy. And I was stuffed. There might also have been a couple of cheeky G&Ts and some bucks fizz.

Then we played a quiz game which was brilliant and then Mafia. Do you know Mafia? I didn’t before playing. Two people in the group are named mafia (they find this out by what card they pick from a bunch) and thennon-Mafia people are blindfolded and then the Mafia ‘murder’ one person. Then the group has to work out who the Mafia are, and it continues in that vein…it sounds very complicated but it was actually very simple. And we had been drinking!

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Then we celebrated midnight with champagne, watched some fireworks and Ben and me then had to make our journey home. We decided not to get a taxi as it would be ludicrously expensive so we walked home. All 45 minutes of it…but this was great as it sobered us up nicely. And people are so friendly saying Happy New Years even at 1.30am!

As we woke up quite late the next morning (*cough* 10.30am), I decided to skip breakfast and put our lunch in the oven ready for lunchtime…turkey again!

New Years Day

Oh it was so good. Turkey with onion and cranberry stuffing, roasted parsnips and carrots, broccoli and cauliflower and a dollop of cranberry sauce. Heaven. And by 1.30pm I was definitely ready for it!

Then I had some melon for pudding.

Melon

Ben and I then slobbed out on the sofa watching Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets (slowly working our way through them all again) and then I watched several Nigella cooking programmes. I adore that woman. She is just mesmerising. She can make boiling an egg interesting.

Then dinner seemed to swing by in no time (after a fair number of cups of tea). I decided to go for a lighter meal after the monster feast at lunch. So I made my new favourite meal – chicken soup! OK sorry I know this might be boring. [And apologies for the re-used photo!]

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It was nice and warming. Then I had my obligatory two apples afterwards for pudding and then a bit later a packet of Snack a Jacks and a hot chocolate. Simple, but it hit the spot!

Also, I must mention this meal that I had the other day which was amazing.

Goats cheese cauliflower

Chicken rolled in chickpea flour and herbs and spices (paprika, onion powder, cumin, basil, & thyme) then fried, roasted butternut squash, steamed broccoli and then the pièce de résistance…cauliflower mashed with goat’s cheese. Ah let me tell you, this was fabulous! I normally have cauliflower mash with mozzarella but the goat’s cheese was just 100 times better.

And, thankfully, my running is getting back to normal! Hurrah! I’ve been having some issues with running since being ill in that it’s felt so hard. Like harder than normal. I couldn’t sprint or do any tempo runs. It was all about just making it to the end alive. But this morning I went for a 3 mile run and I added in some tempo bits and raced along happily! It felt like a normal run. I’m so pleased! Especially since I’m now on week two of my 12 week training for the half marathon in March. Whew.

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Not my fastest 3 miles, but definitely back into a good feeling when running! I missed it so much (yes, yes I know I sound like a loony but it really makes you grateful to be healthy when you’ve been ill for a period of time).

Oh and on a side note. Seeing this as I walked into work this morning was fairly devastating:

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A Christmas tree in a skip!! How soul destroying. Our decorations are still up and won’t be brought down until Saturday…I just find it so sad that it’s all over!

What’s the best thing you’ve eaten today?

When do you take your decorations down?

Have a great Wednesday!

WIAW #5

Wow I can’t believe this is my fifth What I Ate Wednesday. My blog is only in its infancy and I’m still learning and working on it to make it better, but I’m proud of what I’ve done so far. It’s got a long way to go I know but I’m happy. It’s just so great to have somewhere to put the random stuff in my head! It’s very cathartic.

I love being involved in WIAW as well because you definitely feel a sense of community and it’s great to see what other blogs are out there. So thank you Jenn (over at Peas and Crayons)! I’m still grasping desperately to summer with my summery salads and fresh flavours. Just want to hold out a little bit longer!!

 

On that note of summery yumminess, I had some fun over the weekend making these really tasty pancakes. I just kept reading about pancakes everywhere and thought as a Sunday treat I’d whip up a batch of them:

26.08 Pancakes

I used this recipe but missed out the cinnamon (not a big fan) and then drizzled PB2 mixed with water as a sauce and served with blackberries. I managed to get three quite chunky pancakes out of this mixture. Honestly, they were to die for!

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Really spongy and filling. Basically I wanted a really filling pancake that didn’t contain protein powder as I don’t have protein powder!

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Lunch time I tried my hand at making falafels. I had them in salad with some chicken fried with tagine paste. They didn’t turn out amazingly I must admit. They were a bit crumbly.

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However, they tasted GREAT. I’m all about chickpeas at the moment. So yummy. Really went well with the tagine spices as well.

Dinner from Monday night was AMAZING.

G cheese veg and chicken

I coated a chicken breast in chickpea flour with paprika and cumin and then fried it in a little oil. Alongside this I made roasted veggies with a sliced peach and crumbled goat’s cheese. Holy yum! (Yay my first holy yum! Sorry, novice moment…). This was epic. Just everything about it. I’m really enjoying peaches at the moment as well. They’re so great in smoothies, salads, grilled, baked…just as a snack. A bit more messy than apples but very juicy and yummy.

Snack-wise I’ve been enjoying beasty portions of honeydew melon:

Melon

And as a bank holiday treat on Monday night, I was very naughty….

Ice cream

I ate A LOT of this. It was so good. And not that bad really…erm…well, it’s not Ben and Jerry’s! I love this product and all it stands for. Fairly natural (gluten free, soya free, dairy free) and her story behind it it’s really sweet (no pun intended…sorry that was lame). Well, I enjoyed my scoffing session and life’s all about a balance! Can’t be good all the time Smile

So all in all a very pleasing WIAW if I do say so myself.

Here’s what I’m wearing today:

Outfit 29.08

The top’s from Oasis, jeans are from Top Shop, the gladiator sandals are from Aldo and the necklace is from Forever 21 (I think!).

In terms of fitness, as I mentioned last post, I’m enjoying my change in running. I’m not running more than 3 miles and always following it with a strength training routine. Whether that be an arm workout, a leg workout, abs or full body. I feel really invigorated with mixing it up like this. Definitely keeps me interested! I also don’t dread working out like I used to. Waking up and thinking “I’m running 2 miles or 3 miles” is a lot easier to digest than “I’m running 5 miles”, you know? I just need to think about nutrition a bit more – I’m trying to get my head around whether I should be ramping up my protein intake and when I should be eating carbs…it’s too complicated!!

Hope you all have a great WIAW! I look forward to sneaking a look through my lunch break/random times during work (shhh!)