Wow the week has gone quickly. I must say this all the time but seriously. This week has been fairly tough. We’re working on the customer site at the moment and this adds an extra 30 mins on to my already one hour commute. And it’s half term at the moment which means traffic is amazing. Next week is just going to be terrible. I’m here for another five weeks!!
Right, moan over. As I said in my last post I had meant to post on Monday but it just didn’t happen. Sleep was chosen instead. Sorry I’m not sorry.
I wanted to do a quick mention of the mammoth task that was cooking my pumpkin. I was devastated when I’d used up my one and only tin of pumpkin puree that I’d got from America on my honeymoon. I almost bought a million a few more tins but decided I should try making my own.
OK I realise pumpkin might be a bit old news now as Halloween is over and October is finished but this was quite an arduous process and I just want to at least document it as, honestly, a fair amount of effort went into it and I’m chuffed at my achievement (yes, achievement). I followed THESE instructions. In the end I got a hefty amount of pumpkin puree, and I saved a quarter for roasting, and got a handful of pumpkin seeds. Fabulous. Stocked up for a few years at least!
So I’ve been using pumpkin everywhere as you can imagine. I wanted to make some relatively healthy pumpkin cookies for Halloween and this recipe was really quite easy.
Pumpkin oatmeal spice cookies (recipe adapted from HERE)
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour (you could use whole wheat here I guess but I only had normal white flour)
3 cups of rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar (I actually subbed this for Stevia and went on taste just to make it a bit healthier)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
– Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
– Combine pumpkin, eggs and vanilla until well combined. In a separate bowl, add flour, oats, sugar/Stevia, baking powder, baking soda and spices. Combine wet and dry ingredients until mixed. The dough is very thick and fairly dry, I added a few splashes of almond milk.
– Drop onto a greased baking sheet. I did 18 fairly chunky cookies, though you could easily make them smaller to make more. Bake for 12-15 minutes until lightly browned.
They were crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle. Lovely! You could probably add chocolate chips or nuts in there as well but I wanted to keep things simple.
I also threw some roasted pumpkin to a feta salad. This was great. I love salads with hot ingredients.
And I added pumpkin puree to porridge:
I’ve got to say, I didn’t notice any difference apart from it being slightly more creamy. I’m a big fan of more stodgy porridge/oatmeal so this didn’t blow me away if I’m honest. But some extra nutrients in the morning is always good I guess!
This weekend we have nothing planned. Hurrah! So I’m hoping to get a long run in tomorrow morning (we’ll see) and the usual chores. We’re loving Grey’s Anatomy (season 6) at the moment so Saturday night will probably be a fair few episodes of that with maybe a cheeky gin & tonic. Bliss.
What are you up to this weekend?
Have you gotten over the pumpkin craze or is still living strong?
Hi guys! Well, I’m back to 100% Anna now. Back into the groove of work. It’s quite nice to have nothing to worry about or stress about. No more mad planning and just free weekends! It’s novel. I can get back on track with things that slid to one side this year. Like sprucing up our little home a bit as since we moved in last November we didn’t majorly deck it out with any sort of decorations. I’d like to buy some pictures and things like that to make things a bit more homey. Oh and Alfie is in a definite need of a haircut! He’s a mess.
So, I thought I’d do a recap of our holiday adventures. We spent six days in Orlando and then four days in Colorado Springs. So, here’s how Orlando went:
The taxi picked us up at 4.45am. We were half asleep as you can imagine. But by the time we got to the airport it was breakfast time (5am was breakfast time my tummy was telling me, but I waited). We treated ourselves to a Jamie Oliver breakfast:
Check that bad boy out. Not my usual porridge – but it’s Jamie’s so what can I say! I don’t eat sausage though (worst food in any form) so Ben gladly traded it for his black pudding. Yum.
Anyway, after a very very long flight we arrived in Orlando. Groggy and tired we basically just went to bed (in our amazing three bedroom villa!) It worked out nicely because we’d gone to bed so early (Orlando time) we woke up the next day at like 5.30am and so got started straight away. To save money and time, we decided to buy a load of food from the supermarket and eat breakfast at home before dashing to a theme park (also I’m a bit sad and get very excited with foreign supermarkets so it was a win-win situation).
Obviously I had porridge. American style! (Actually not that different from UK…) And Ben had a crazy array of cereals each day:
Each day we zoomed off to the parks. We went to Universal Studios and Island of Adventures first.
It was brilliant. It was fairly quiet so we got on rides very quickly. We were like kids running around with big smiles on our faces. Obviously we had to go to Jurassic Park (my all-time favourite movie – despite being terrified of velociraptors for the majority of my childhood).
And Harry Potter world as well…
Where we shared a BUTTERBEER!!! Pretty much heaven in a drink. I dare not to think of how bad it is for you but seriously, I need this in my life on a weekly basis:
Divine.
Do you know what else was amazing? The sheer amount of sweets.
Hello candy-coated apples! Of simply every variety. Cue Ben holding Anna back before she spends all their money on teeth-rotting goodies. The chocolate/marshmallow/caramel/peanut butter coated apples are healthy though, right? There’s fruit in there somewhere…
For lunch we decided that it was just too hot to buy something from a vendor and sit outside eating. We went to a great restaurant (twice) on the City Walk: Emeril’s Restaurant.
[Anticlockwise: Rotisserie chicken and Andouille gumbo, BBQ prawns, Salmon with stewed beans and smashed avocado, & roasted trout with artichokes and rocket]
After two days of Universal, we then went to Disney. In complete juxtaposition to Universal it was so busy! We were surprised as it’s supposed to be the quiet season right? But maybe there is no quiet time for Disney…
We went to Hollywood Studios in the morning and then headed to Magical Kingdom for the afternoon. We got there around lunchtime and it was packed. We decided to try finding a restaurant to eat (=cooler). Epic fail.
Now, withhold your judgement please… Throughout the parks I’d been seeing people eat HUGE turkey legs. Now I’m not a massive meat eater but I had begun craving one of these bad boys to an irrational level. I just had to have one.
I’ll spare you the pictures because, people, it wasn’t pretty (good ol’ husband snapping away while I tried not to look like a savage). Despite lacking a lot of feminine grace while gnawing away on the beast, it tasted AMAZING. Out of idle curiosity I later Googled it. 1,200 CALORIES. I was aghast. Ben laughed. But what can you do? No wonder it tasted so damn good.
Disney wasn’t as good as we thought to be honest. A lot of children. A lot of Disney-obsessed people. We enjoyed it, but it didn’t rock our world like Universal.
The next day was spent in Busch Gardens which was EMPTY. We went on everything and even got on the front of the roller coasters quite a lot. It was good fun. Lots of animals as well!
We grabbed lunch while watching some crazy dancing in one of the indoor canteens. On a similar carnivorous note to before I went for ribs with a side of veggies. Ribs are a bit of my devil food. I LOVE them but I try not to eat them too often as they’re usually always coated in that delicious BBQ sauce which probably has about 5 tbs of sugar in it. But hey, it’s holiday, and they were the speciality. Would be rude not to…
[Apologies if I’m offending any vegetarians/vegans – sometimes I just can’t control the beast within]
We did manage some slightly less rich food by eating in the villa (and saving us some money) and trying out some more local restaurants and enjoying their salads.
[Chicken, avocado, lots of fruit and seeds. Yum!]
And between parks and rollercoasters we enjoyed the pool.
Though it was verrrry chilly. But nice and refreshing after all the humidity and heat.
We spent one day away from the main tourist area and looked around Winter Park which is a very beautiful area with nice eating spots and coffee shops. It was nice to take a moment out!
All in all, Orlando was amazing. We went on every ride we wanted to (some twice) and really had a great time. Having the villa was brilliant as we could just come back and have something simple to eat at home or swim in our private pool! It definitely saved us some money as well.
So, part two will be on our adventures in Colorado. Horse riding, bike riding and lots of mountains!
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.
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.
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!
I haven’t posted in a while as I’ve just been rushed off my feet like crazy!
Anyway, as it’s What I ate Wednesday, I will stop harping on…Check out Jenn’s blog (Peas & Crayons to find out more):
My breakfast from Tuesday (prepare yourselves!) was overnight oats!! I’m so chuffed I finally managed to get on and do it. I feel a little bit more part of the healthy living blogging community. That’s a tick in that box! Did I enjoy it? Well…I did, but I did miss my lovely gooey hot green (wheatgrass) oats…But it was a nice change.
So Monday night I put about 40g of old-fashioned oats, 100g of Alpro soya yogurt, a splash of coconut milk, a tsp chia seeds and a handful of berries into a bowl (not that cool to have a jar yet…not quite that cool yet) and popped it into the fridge:
Then in the morning I grabbed it out of the fridge. It looked a little suspicious to me…
…but I gave it a stir and it was lovely a thick:
It was yummy. A nice change for once in a while I think! I did make things a lot quicker getting ready in the morning though.
My lunch was my standard salad that I take to work. This time I jazzed it up with some Brussels sprouts (which I’m loving right now) and avocado (along with my usual tuna, salad leaves, beets and tomatoes). With this I had two Babel Bells (anyone else get excited about Babel Bells because you get to peel them…? Just me?)
And dinner. Well I got a bit creative and made some hummus! And let me tell you, it rocked my world:
I used a tin of chickpeas, a tablespoon (ish) of tahini paste, lots of garlic, lemon juice and cumin. Then just whizzed it all up. Served over salad and chicken fried in a tagine paste:
It was so good (if I do say so myself). And so filling. A definite winner. I do have lots of snacks through the day but they’re fairly standard and boring (apples – obviously, a banana, and a pack of Snack a Jacks Cheese and Chive flavour – the best flavour in the world, honestly I could eat these all day long).
Maybe over kill on the salads but it is a summer staples theme of WIAW! And they’re so easy to whip up. And I do love my veggies…
Onto fitness. I’m continuing on with my new line of exercise routines. On Monday I ran only two miles (it’s still so hard to not to feel funny about not running for longer, you know? It feels like I’m copping out of exercising). But it was tough! And I was totally out of breath and dying by the end:
Only 17 mins worth of running and I was pooped! I’m keeping up the intervals and it’s tough. it really makes you focus on the run. Then I did 30 minutes of ab work. The first exercise video I found on YouTube almost killed me. So I quickly switched (yes yes I’m a wuss). It still hurt but I was actually able to complete the routine!
I’m so pleased with how things are going. I definitely feel like I’m getting stronger (possibly psychological?) But, regardless of anything else, I am enjoying it! And that, people, is the most important part of exercise I think. If you don’t enjoy it, find something else you do enjoy!
Right, this was a bit of a whirlwind post. I hope to write a longer one delving into my hen party activities… But for now, happy WIAW!!
