coconut - AnnaTheApple

May 15, 2013

Prematurely dressing for spring

Hello! Thank you for your kind comments about Sunday’s 10k race. I tell you what, Ben and I are experiencing some serious race fever now. We are raring to go with our 5k Parkrun this Saturday (potentially doing another 10k on the Sunday that we can sign up for on the day – but we’re going to see how we’re feeling). And we’ve got the following dates for our diaries:

10 mile New Forest Run – Sunday 14th July
5 mile National Lottery Run – Sunday 21st July
10 mile Great South Run – Sunday 27th October
Gosport half marathon – Sunday 17th November

Whew! And I am SO excited. I am hugely excited that Ben is back into running and keen to do these races as well. It was so lovely chatting to him about Sunday’s race afterwards and comparing notes.

Though I have a slight confession…I am a terrible wife. The National Lottery Run is running around the Olympic stadium and ends on the track inside (very cool in my opinion). So it’s quite an experience and had limited entry numbers and only a small window of opportunity to grab tickets. As soon as I found out about it I knew I wanted to do it. I checked with Ben and he was keen too. Brilliant. Unfortunately in my haste to grab tickets I only bought one ticket. It was such a lengthy process to buy one that I just forgot to do the whole thing again to get another ticket.

And I didn’t realise until the next day. When all the tickets were gone.

Ben is obviously miles better in the marriage department and being a better person than me as he has said that I can do the run and he will merely spectate. I do love him. But obviously feel a) extremely bad and b) extremely stupid.

Anyway, on to the food side of things. It’s What I Ate Wednesday (thanks Jenn).

This is from yesterday (Tuesday):

Breakfast has been the same old same. After the quinoa breakfast fail the other day I quickly went back to what I knew.

Whew, all better. Oatmeal and almond milk in my lovely new bowl from Waitrose. The bowl is tiny so the porridge really piles up in it and also takes ages to eat because it’s like an oatie inferno in the middle (the correct technical phrase I assure you).

Lunch has been my monster tuna salads, popcorn and (frozen) fruit salad with Greek yogurt.

The house smells deliciously of popcorn in the mornings now I’ve been whipping up batches to take to work with me. I love munching on popcorn at work but I tend to forget I’m in public and when I’m reading something I have been known to miss my mouth or drop copious of crumbs on myself. Not attractive or elegant. And apparently sitting next to me while I have lunch is like being at the movies.

Dinner has been more salads recently and we’ve been getting into the spring vibe (ha – though the weather invariably hasn’t).

We’ve been into our steaks with salad and goat’s cheese recently. This is steak marinated with lime, cumin and garlic. Then fried in olive oil with sliced onion, and thrown on top of lots of salad with a good amount of goat’s cheese. Really simple and fresh meal.

Last night’s dinner was a bit of a wing-it meal. I had failed on the meal planning side of things. But I knew I had some frozen coconut milk in the freezer and tinned pumpkin. So I went with an aromatic coconut chicken curry (with pumpkin).

Coconut chicken curry (serves 2)

1 tbs. oil
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp. curry powder
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp. chilli powder
Clove of garlic
1/2 inch grated ginger
2 chicken breasts, cubed
Small onion, diced
Half a zuhcchini, diced
3 mushrooms, diced
Half a can of pumpkin puree
Half a can of coconut milk (I used light)

– Heat the oil in the pan, then fry the spices to release their aroma. Add in the onion and cook for about 5 mins until golden, then add the ginger and garlic.

– Add the zucchini and mushrooms and fry until soft.

– Add the chicken and coat with all the lovely spices. Then add the pumpkin puree and cook for about 2mins.

– Add the coconut milk and heat through

I sprinkled dried coriander over the top and served.

So what’s with this weather, people of Britain? Seriously depressing. Yesterday I optimistically wore this outfit to work:

Sneaky photo bomber in the back

This is a new dress from Dorothy Perkins, with an old necklace my mum gave me, shoes from Tesco (small heeled wedges) and belt and cardigan from New Look.

However, it started raining pretty much as soon as I got to work and throughout the day. So when I got back home to walk Alfie in the evening this is what I wore:

This is post walk. I was freezing and soaked. So then this is what I wore for the rest of the evening:

Can’t beat pyjamas and a nice loungy jumper. Cozy and warm.

But seriously, what happened to our blue skies??

And lastly before I leave it there…this is the latest chocolate that I have been LOVING.

Lindt, you will obviously always be in my heart as good quality chocolate that I always go back to…But I can’t indulge in a little chocolate affair with these crazy concoctions.

Errr, a piece of heaven anyone??

Have a great Wednesday!

What’s your preference: good quality chocolate, or crazy but extremely sweet chocolate?

Have you brought out the summer wear prematurely like I have?

Are you enjoying summery salads or warming suppers?

February 20, 2013

Fruit coconut curry – WIAW

Hello! And to all my fellow Brits, I hope you’re experiencing the lovely sunshine like we are here in the South. Though it’s still fairly crisp and chilly, it’s just lovely to have those rays! However, does anyone else experience static hair in the cold? I’m a girl with quite a bit of hair and seriously, it’s not cool. All I have to do is touch it and it goes crazy. Any advice is much appreciated!

Speaking of hair, I finally got my hair cut over the weekend. After 5 months!! Here’s my before photo:

And my after photo:

Yep a huge amount of difference. Not. Hence why I don’t go for ages…[Also, can I just say that I am rubbish at taking photos of my self in the mirror. Seriously, there is an art to this and I have not mastered it. I feel like a right idiot smiling at myself…]

So it’s WIAW once again, how the time is flying!

Check out Jenn’s blog for more information and food envy.

Let’s get going. These are my eats from Sunday.

Breakfast: Since getting back from skiing, I have been having my good old fashioned oatmeal every single morning. Ahh bliss. No scary looking Bulgarian meats for me!

I’ve been browsing online and found some great looking savoury oat dinners as well that I really want to try. Ones that really appealed to me:

Gluten-Free Savoury Porridge with Bacon, Cheddar, Fresh Tomatoes, and Chives

Curry Oatmeal

Savoury Spinach Oats

I’d never thought of savoury oatmeal! Amazing. Watch this space…

Lunch: Lunch on Saturday was a random concoction. I was going to have an egg scramble with tuna (a very standard meal for me) but I couldn’t be bothered to open a tin of tuna (yep, I was that lazy). So I added a heaped tablespoon of Philadelphia cream cheese to my three eggs instead. And I also added chopped onion, mushrooms, tomatoes and zucchini.

With a small serving of broad beans The added cream cheese made the eggs so creamy. Really enjoyed this. Afterwards I had half a small melon (no photo sorry).

Throughout the day I enjoyed black coffee and my current favourite herbal tea:

For dinner I wanted to make curry but I couldn’t make my mind up what kind. I had coconut milk that I wanted to use but I also had some dried apricots I wanted to add…so I just kind of threw it all together.

I vaguely based it on THIS recipe.

Fruity Coconut Curry (serves 2)

1 tbs oil
1 garlic clove, diced
1/2 inch fresh ginger, diced
1 white onion, diced
1 small carrot, cut into small chunks
3-4 small mushrooms, sliced
Quarter of a zucchini, sliced
2 chicken breasts, cut into small chunks
1/4 can of coconut milk (light or normal)
Generous tbs. yogurt
150ml hot chicken stock
1 tbs. tomato ketchup
1 tbs. curry powder
1 tsp. garam masala
1 tsp. chilli powder
Sprinkling of dried/fresh coriander

– Fry oil for one minute, then fry onions until golden, add garlic and ginger, fry for another minute or so.

– Add vegetables and chicken and cook until chicken is almost cooked.

– Then add coconut, ketchup, yogurt and the spices.

– Once all is cooked and hot, add coriander and then serve.

Really easy, really yummy. I didn’t have any mango chutney so I substituted with tomato ketchup as I wanted the sweetness and the tomato flavour as I also didn’t have any tomato puree. I added the yogurt to add a bit more creaminess.

We’ve also been enjoying balsamic chicken, tomato and mozzarella salads:

Yum! We ran out of basil which was hugely disappointing as you can’t beat basil with tomato and mozzarella. This was with salad and roasted vegetables.

And Monday night, while Ben was eating leftovers from the party on Saturday (sausage rolls, garlic bread, cocktail sausages and tomato mozzarella bites…*sighs*) I decided to try a recipe I’d seen on Chelsea’s blog that I knew Ben would never want.

Sweet potato cooked in the oven, then mixing the innards with a tablespoon of cream cheese, and mushrooms and haricot beans that I’d fried together in a bit of oil and herbs.

I slightly varied Chelsea’s recipe to fit with what I had available and this honestly rocked my evening. Really enjoyed this and will definitely be having it again!

Snacks: I have been a snacking monster this past few days. My hunger has been through the roof. I’m not sure why – maybe as I’m running more miles? Not sure! Anyway I’m still loving Lindt chocolate:

Kept in the fridge…so good. Such a satisfying noise of biting into it! We went a bit overboard on stocking up…

Seriously, people, you have got to be prepared for shortages or national crises. Chocolate is a necessity. Fact.

Fitness: So far this week is going well in terms of running. I ran a 7 mile tempo run on Monday, a 4 mile interval run on Tuesday and today’s a rest day. I’ve got a 12 mile long run planned for this weekend which I’m strangely looking forward to. I’ve gone from the girl who was really worried and nervous about long runs to the girl who really enjoys them! I guess because I just run and there’s no pressure on speed or time. And the feeling afterwards is just amazing. Like you’ve conquered the world!

Also, on a random note…my mother-in-law has kindly said to Ben and me that she will buy us a camera as our wedding present but we haven’t a clue which one to go for or anything – hence why we still don’t have the camera yet we got married last year! Any tips? We don’t really know the price range we’re looking for so I guess something that’s not really cheap, but fairly decent (but not HUGELY expensive!)

I’d love to take better photos of my meals (as one of my friends kindly directed me to an article online about how to take good food photos – haha lovely hint ). And it would be nice for when we go on holiday not to just depend on the IPhone.

Hope you have a good Wednesday

Do you have days when your just strangely really hungry?

How often do you go to the hairdressers? Am I an embarrassment to the female race??

Favourite chocolate? Cadburys? Nestle? Milka? Lindt? Hersheys?

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.

November 21, 2012November 21, 2012

Christmas, coconut flour and Ben & Jerry’s

Hi guys, errrrm how is it 21st November? I’ve been married now almost two months. That is mind-blowing!

I’ve really being feeling Christmassy. I love Christmas – it’s my favourite time of year. I love how everyone has that Christmas feeling; that expectation and excitement. I love the music and the decorations. And, obviously, I love the food.

What I hate about Christmas is this sudden fear of the dreaded holiday weight-gain. All these articles start appearing about “How to avoid the Christmas bulge” and “What foods to avoid at a Christmas buffet” etc. It sort of takes the fun out of it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to throw myself into a giant-sized box of Celebration chocolates with abandon. But I’m not going to sit here and deny myself the treats that I so look forward to. Mince pies? Yes please. A slice of stollen? Ohhh yes. I just wish the media could tone things down a bit and stop making people feel so damn guilty about eating the food of the season. Come on people, let’s relax a little shall we?

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m working at the customer site at the moment. It’s quite a good team we have; there’s only seven of us and it’s nice and relaxed. The work is tough as the system that’s being developed is fairly complicated but we’ve got a good atmosphere. However. Outside our little bubble the normal business-as-usual life of the customer is working around us. And I don’t think they like us. They practically growl at us when we laugh. Raise their eyebrows when we have moderately loud conversations. And the worst part? They have the radio on. And it’s the same station. All. Day. Long. If I hear Skyfall ONE MORE TIME I might cry. Whew, sorry about that. Got that outta my system.

Right, so it’s What I Ate Wednesday – though this is Sunday’s eats. Let’s get started, shall we? Thanks to Jenn as usual!

Breakfast: I’ve been experimenting with breakfast. OK, still my usual porridge/oatmeal. But I’ve jazzed it up with my new favourite ingredient: coconut flour.

OK, it doesn’t look any different. But let me assure you, this has a heaped tbsp. of coconut flour added to it. It adds a lovely subtle coconut taste and makes it very thick and stodgy. Perfect porridge consistency in my books. And it’s added a lovely smooth texture to it now. So with this at 7am I’m good to go until midday (with coffee as well, obviously).

Lunch: during the week I either have a mixed bean chilli or a salad, but at the weekend I can be a bit more exciting. Usually in the form of something eggy. As enticing as that sounds…

I whipped up three eggs, some chopped cherry tomatoes, chopped onions and half a cup of pumpkin puree. The pumpkin was a great add. Really thickened it up. And made the eggs a lovely, er, colour

And I’m obsessed with Brussels’s sprouts at the moment. Might need to tone that down before I overdo it before Christmas – and what’s Christmas without sprouts??

Dinner: I decided to try a Thai-style coconut curry. Unfortunately I didn’t have any coconut milk but I thought with my new favourite ingredient I could attempt it anyway. I didn’t really follow any recipe. I just threw things together.

Coconut Chicken Curry (serves 2)

Blob of coconut oil

Clove garlic, diced

Inch of fresh garlic, grated

2 chicken breasts, diced

2-3 mushrooms

1 cup of frozen mixed veg

1 white onion, diced

1 cup Greek yogurt

2 tbsp. coconut flour

1 tbsp. unsweetened shredded coconut

1 tsp. chilli powder

1.5 tsp. dried coriander

– Heat a pan with the oil, then add the onion and fry until the onion is golden. Add the mushrooms and fry for 1 minute before adding the garlic.

– Add chicken and brown.

– Add the yogurt and mixed veg. Cook for 3-4 mins.

– Add the coconut, herbs and spices.

– Once the chicken is cooked and the sauce has thickened up serve.

It was really tasty. The coconut flour helps to thicken it up and the yogurt makes it very creamy. Perfect. You can add other spices to make it more interesting if you fancy – I was just using what I had to hand.

Snacks: yeah…I might have had some Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Brownie Frozen Yogurt. My favourite flavour and it was brilliant to have alongside watching Erin Brockovich. Anyone else love Julia Roberts? Brilliant film!

Fitness: I ran on Monday and though it went really well in terms of speed it really didn’t agree with me.

I finished the run feeling like I was going to be sick. It really wasn’t fun. I wasn’t sick, thankfully. I think it was a mix of pushing myself a bit too hard and I’m thinking the ice cream the night before didn’t help things.

I plan on running this lunch time with Mr Ego so we’ll see how that goes. He’s toned down a bit now which is nice. We motivate each other but I’m still finding the runs a bit too easy as his pace is slower. But you know, I’m not too bothered as it’s just good to get out. I like to have the company and it’s so refreshing to get out of the office. Though we tend to chat about work while we run which isn’t so good!

Important question: too soon?

Oh, also – check out Ffion’s blog (Chocolate and Respberries) for a great Christmas-themed giveaway! Delicious Hotel Chocolat Advent Calendar 🙂 Hotel Chocolat do amazing chocolates…toss up between them and Lindt for my favourite.

What songs are really getting on your nerves?

Are you feeling Christmassy yet?

November 14, 2012

Caprese Chicken – WIAW

Hi guys, hope you’re week is going well. It’s official. It’s cold. The heating has been put on at home. It had to be done. We held out as long as we could.

Aren’t the weeks are flying by?! I have less than four weeks left working on the customer site so can then go back to a more reasonable commute. It’s not too bad as I drive in with my dad (yes I work with him, yes he sometimes drives me mad) and we listen to podcasts (love the movie review ones). Any recommendations for podcasts are welcome I want to find a good health and fitness one but haven’t found anything I like yet.

So it’s WIAW as per usual. Thank you Jenn – check out her blog to catch all the other blogs involved and of course her own blog which always has some great recipes on.

This is what I ate Sunday.

Breakfast: I didn’t have pancakes (*sob*)…as I couldn’t be bothered and fancied porridge – but slightly different (I stress the word slightly here as I struggle with change…baby steps!) I had my usual oats cooked with almond milk but I added a heaped tbsp. of unsweetened coconut.

It adds a lovely coconut taste to it. I sprinkled some more coconut on it after it was done. It was a great change (OK fair enough, not massive but, like I said, small steps).

Yum. I’m really not keen on sweet porridge (sacre bleu I know) so it’s hard to find ways to jazz up porridge in a savoury-ish way, if that makes sense.

We didn’t do much on Sunday to be honest. Just the usual cleaning of the bathrooms, ironing and hoovering. We watched some Grey’s Anatomy as well. If you’ve never seen it then I can’t stress enough how much I love this programme. We watched the last two episodes of Season 6 and it was AMAZING. Literally Ben and I just sat there gripped. Even Alfie was gripped. OK that’s a lie, Alfie was asleep. But I’m sure he would have been gripped if he’s been paying attention.

Lunch: a fairly standard meal. A three egg omelette with half a tin of tuna and some fried veggies, with Brussels Sprouts of course.

One of my favourite easy meals. Not as good as Saturday’s omelette obviously, but I can’t eat that all the time…somehow I don’t think it’s that good for me!

Dinner: I was at a bit of a loose end for exciting recipes this week but I decided to try making my own Caprese chicken. It’s a very simple meal but I’ve written the recipe below anyway.

Caprese Chicken (serves 2)

1 tbsp. oil

2 chicken breast fillets

4 large tomatoes, sliced

1 large ball of mozzarella, sliced

Bunch of fresh basil leaves

Lemon juice

Season the chicken and then heat the oil in a frying pan and add the chicken. After golden on both sides and cooked through, put on a plate. Then just pile the tomato slices, mozzarella and basil leaves on top. Season and squeeze the lemon over.

It’s a very easy recipe (as you can see) but it was delicious. I loved the simple and fresh flavours.

Alongside this I made my cauliflower mash potato with some cheese thrown in and had some roasted root vegetables. I really enjoyed this.

Snack: obviously my usual ~~million~~ apples, a banana and some Snack a Jacks. And I’ve been enjoying some Greek yogurt for a change.

Total Greek Yogurt is my favourite brand for Greek yogurt. I love this side pot of honey! Scrummy.

I also dabbled in a bit of baking on Sunday. I decided to try THIS recipe. Don’t get me wrong, I love big fat unhealthy cookies, but I saw this healthified recipe, had the ingredients to hand and thought might as well give it a try.

I just decided to make four larger cookies, rather than 16 tiny bites. They’re quite crumbly and fall apart fairly easily, but they’re not bad! Ben enjoyed them – and that, people, is the deciding vote.

Fitness: just my usual really. I ran Tuesday morning as I was meant to run Monday at work but it was tipping it down. I avoid washing my hair at work as it takes forever to a) wash b) comb, and c) dry. I tend to just tidy it up a bit and carry on. However, rain is a game changer. Rain = Anna looks like a drowned witch at work. So I thought it best to avoid, for everyone’s benefit really. I did enjoy the morning run though.

And managed a good time so I was chuffed. Usually it’s easier to get a good time during the day rather than the morning so I was pleased. I just need to get myself back into longer distances soon…my half-marathon training will start late December and I just know it’s going to be a shock to the system.

My strength training is still going well. I feel that it’s getting easier so it should be soon time to change things up again…The worst routine is the lower body workout though. I hate lunges. I like strength training because it really does shape my body nicely, whereas running has never really done that to a great extent. But it’s deadly dull, isn’t it? At least with running you can look around or zone out. Using weights is just so damn repetitive and boring. Just my personal observation!

I also can’t wait for the Pilates class to begin – two weeks time!

And here’s what I’m wearing today:

I really like this top, I got it in American Eagle when I was in America. I LOVE that shop. I bought a ridiculous amount of clothes from there. And blazer is from New Look, and jeans from Top Shop.

Not much else to report really. I’m feeling a bit boring lately, sorry!

How’s Wednesday treating you?

Oatmeal/porridge – does it always have to be sweet for you?