dinner - AnnaTheApple

August 1, 2012August 1, 2012

Summer…what summer??

Woohoo we’re mid-week already. Not that I’m living for the weekends or anything…And predictably it is cold and miserable once again. No surprises there then.

First off, here’s my What I Ate Wednesday (thanks again to Jenn for hosting as always!).

Breakfast, I had almond milk porridge but with my added twist of a teaspoon of wheatgrass to turn it a lovely appetising colour of green:

I heard that one of the benefits of wheatgrass was that it helped prevent premature greying of your hair. Now I don’t know how true this benefit is but after my friend (same age as me, 24) told me she’s been finding some grey hairs in her hair I’ve had a mini-panic and been throwing wheatgrass into everything. Silly, I know, but it doesn’t hurt to add it to things (like smoothies and porridge) as you can barely taste anything.

At work I usually eat a tuna salad or I make chilli and take that with me. I won’t post a pic as they’re fairly standard and I’ve posted photos of them before, but I will mention that recently I’ve been adding nutritional yeast as a topping to the chilli and, honestly, it’s divine! I’ve only just come across nutritional yeast so forgive me if I sound like a bit of a newbie when I say, Where have you been all my life?? Yummy.

But anyway, here’s lunch that I had at the weekend:

Chicken, onion, yellow bell peppers, courgette, mushrooms and full-fat Philadelphia Cream Cheese with a some Cajun spices to add a kick with steamed broccoli and soya beans. I love this meal soo much. So easy to throw together and just delicious. Really creamy and very filling.

And because it’s Summer Staples WIAW, [though it doesn’t feel like summer] dinner yesterday evening was a lovely colourful salad – at least something looks summery!

Feta cheese, haricot beans, cucumber, beetroot, tomatoes, lettuce and a drizzle of balsamic dressing. So fresh and yummy. I’m so into my cheese right now. I’m not a big fan of cheddar at all, but feta, goat’s cheese, edam, mozzarella (not melted) and things like that I adore. You can’t really beat a salad with how easy it is to prepare. Snacks have been a lot of honeydew melon…mmm.

Currently courgettes [zucchinis] are in season in the UK and I can’t get enough of them. I have them in my chilli, stir-fries, random ad hoc meals… and I really want to try that delicious Zucchini-ziki Sauce recipe from Jenn. Definitely a winning summer recipe! And beetroot. I really fancy making a beetroot smoothie – any ideas welcome!

Onto the fitness side of things. Not so good. I woke up Monday morning for my run really not feeling like it. When I stepped outside it was like winter. I wanted to put gloves on it was that nippy. Fairly depressing. Then as soon as I started running I knew the run would be bad. You know when you can just tell? I wanted to give up straight away. My only motivation for continuing was that it would be a waste of the effort of getting up early. I was already up, dressed in my gear and outside, I might as well just get on with it, you know? But I started slowly and didn’t pick up my speed until towards the end.

I wish I knew what makes me have a good run. Is it what I ate the night before? The amount of sleep I got? I just don’t know. But I was tired and felt my legs were heavy as I was running and I was in a bad mood.

Well, you can’t win them all can you? You’ve got to have a bad run to appreciate the good runs after all!

Here’s my outfit of the day:

The top is from Oasis, jeans Top Shop and the necklace is from Accessorize. You can’t quite see in the photo but the top is a lovely colour of greeny-blue. And it’s lovely a silky.

Oooh and I attempted yoga for the first time. I was supposed to do it at the weekend, but after getting myself all stressed out I just didn’t feel the urge. So I got up earlier on Tuesday and attempted some of the beginner’s poses I’d found on the Internet: Downward Facing Dog (to begin with I struggled a little bit to understand how I was actually supposed to be positioned), Warrior (love this one), Plank, Fierce pose, Tree pose (another good ‘un), Garland pose (not the most attractive of positions I must admit), and the Boat pose. I hope to get better at doing them, then hold them for longer and then move on to more tricky ones. Baby steps. But not bad for my first crack at it!

Happy WIAW, hope you all had lovely meals

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 23, 2012July 25, 2012

Monday again??

I can’t believe it’s Monday again. Even though I had three days off it seems to have zoomed by. The weather was gorgeous though. Now I know us Britains are going on a bit about the weather (some may say whining…) but seriously, it’s been pretty bad. Yes our summers aren’t amazing, but we usually get some sunshine and warmth. Anyway, rant over. The sun is out…for now.

We had a pretty good weekend. Ben and I drove up to Cardiff to spend the afternoon with our friends. It’s a 2 and a half hour journey so we topped up on some amazing smoothies after breakfast:

Mixed summer berried, cow’s milk and banana on the left for Ben. And another spinach, banana, wheatgrass and almond milk one for me. Nom nom nom.

There’s me, chugging down my green monster as fast as I can. We are always late. It’s always a mad dash around at the last minute (OK taking photos probably didn’t help either…).

We took loads of burgers, sausages and buns. It was perfect weather for a BBQ. However, when I got there my friends looked at my raw food selection quizzically. It wasn’t a BBQ, it was a picnic. I’m not sure how I came round to think we were having a BBQ, especially when it was confirmed several times of it’s picnic status. Hmmm. Well Ben and I bought a little throw-away BBQ and had ourselves a small BBQ while they munched cold selections of finger food (I’m sure they were jealous of our sizzling delights…well I’ll tell myself they were). Note to self: read invitations properly. It was quite funny though…Ben obviously blamed me as well *sighs*.

Regardless of our poor choice of food, it was a great day. Over the weekend I also had a bit of an attack of the Hunger Monster. The Hunger Monster is when you JUST NEED SOMETHING NAUGHTY TO EAT, NOW! We had Ben and Jerry’s ice cream in the freezer. I hate an entire litre of frozen yogurt chocolate brownie. I’m not proud of myself. It wasn’t my finest hour. But it was damn tasty. Ben managed 3/4 of his Oh My Apple Pie. I feel a sense of achievement to have finished a litre. In retrospect I was starting to feel a bit sick towards the end, but I’m no quitter. Stomach of steel.

So this fuelled me nicely for a very warm run on Sunday morning:

I’m really loving running at the moment. I feel myself improving as well which is a great feeling. And I’ve jazzed up my playlist a bit more (which I hadn’t done in ages) and I find this always helps. Ben is coming running with me more which is nice.

Then to finish off the weekend nicely, we had a really tasty meal:

It was a chicken stir-fry with sliced courgette, bell peppers, red onion, cashews and kelp noodles with Chinese Five Spice and soy sauce. Delicious! It took me a while to convince Ben to eat the kelp noodles and also to keep him away from the kitchen while I prepared them as though they looked fine to me, I reckon it might have put Ben off. He’s not big into trying new and ‘strange’ food, especially if it’s healthy food. However, after trying it he proclaimed “Yeah it’s not bad actually”. Success!! Hurrah!

Hope you all had lovely weekends! Was anyone else attacked by the Hunger Monster?

July 19, 2012January 5, 2017

That love-hate thing

Hello! Almost Friday which means my long weekend is almost here, woohoo! I’m in such a good mood. It’s going to be a hectic Friday and weekend but I love being busy and ticking things off my to-do list and, of course, a nice long sleep and the chance for an extended run. During the week I can only really run for about 50 minutes as I need to get ready and drive the million miles to work (OK, it’s not that far, but sometimes it feels like it). And as much as I love running, getting up earlier than 5.30am is just not going to happen. I love sleeping much more.

I don’t really run in the evenings because I find that after finishing work I’m shattered and just want to cook dinner and then flop onto the sofa (in a very attractive and graceful way…*cough*). Then a short-time after that, I go to bed (yep, I’m that cool, people). Plus running for me is one of the best ways to get my energised and ready for the day. I’m in such a better mood after running and have so much energy. Not so good before bedtime!

So I can only run just over 5 miles in a morning in the week. Though saying that, I usually don’t want to do more than that anyway as I don’t have as much energy for it as I do at the weekend. The week runs are always a bit of a slog and generate a lot of self-hatred of “whhhhy am I out here when everyone else in the world is in bed??”. Whereas I see my weekend run as an unconstrained run where I can run as long or as little as I want and that sort of mentality really helps with the run. And getting up at 9am is a bit more of a friendly time!

Wednesday’s run went OK but, like I said, it’s always tough. The first mile is just me thinking of how I could just go home and then the other miles are me continuously pushing myself. I’ve never quit a run but psychologically it’s tough to keep the momentum going. The last mile is always the best and it’s that sense of achievement of finishing is always worth the pain (at least that’s what I’ve brainwashed myself into thinking!).

Do other people have this constant battle and happiness associated with working out? You love doing it but not necessarily while you’re doing it??

On another note, I wanted to share my MAMMONTH meal last night:

That’s chicken with a ‘sprinkle’ on it (a spicey mix of herbs and, er, spice), half an avocado, some cannellini beans stir-fried with some bell pepper and onions and a whole load of veg on the side. In retrospect, it probably was too much. Maybe I didn’t quite need the side of veg. I massively overestimated my hunger levels and stomach capacity. However, I did finish it. I did go to bed massively full and bloated though. It was damn good though.

And here’s what I wore yesterday:

The belt definitely came off post-meal…

Anyone else have the problem when they can’t stop eating something even when they’re full just because it tastes way to go to leave?

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.