Ah Monday. So we meet again.
Seems like just a few seconds ago it was Friday and I was leaving work. Ah well. And it seemed to rain from Friday until Saturday night.
This is the dismal view from the window by my desk at work. It looks like February. It felt like February.
Friday night I decided to whip up a different meal from usual. You might have seen that I eat a lot of chicken and not much other meat. I don’t mind pork and I don’t mind beef mince but I can’t stand lamb. Not sure why but there we go. Anyway, I saw a recipe and knew I needed to try it. Main ingredient? Steak.
Basically it’s steak with a honey marinade and goat’s cheese salad. I used THIS recipe but subbed the gorgonzola for goat’s cheese just because I love goat’s cheese. I also left out the walnuts and portabella mushroom as I thought I’d keep it simple.
The marinade was this:
- pinch of sea salt
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- 1 tsp. onion powder
- 2 tbs. honey
- 1 tbs. soy sauce
- good splash of Worcestershire sauce
I used thin steaks (as the recipe says) which I was glad for as I’m not that adventurous to try a big old thick steak. They took next to no time to fry. So a very simple meal all in all. And very tasty. The goat’s cheese and steak went perfectly together.
Then we watched a whole lotta House of Cards (the new series we’ve gotten into as we signed up to Netflix). I love Kevin Spacey, there is something strangely attractive about him and his smooth talking. Am I alone in this?
Saturday morning I managed to dodge the rain and get out for a 9 mile run before it started again with a vengeance about 30 mins after I got back. I knew that the run would be tough because of Thursday’s super charged run. Honestly, even if I wanted to run faster I couldn’t have. My legs were so fatigued.
As soon as I started I knew it was going to be tough, so I kept the pace easy and just enjoyed being outside listening to my podcast. Sometimes it’s good to just let your mind wander and just relax into a nice pace.
And guess what I had for breakfast afterwards? You’ll be forgiven for guessing oatmeal, but I had something different. Yes. I know, shocking.
I was going to have some basic pancakes but realised I didn’t actually have any regular flour. Ages ago I bought some peanut flour but have never used it so I thought I might as well give it a whirl.
Peanut Flour Pancakes (Serves 1)
- 1/4 cup peanut flour
- 1 tbs. oats
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tbs. sugar/alternate preferred sweetener
- 2 egg whites/1 egg
- 1/4 cup almond milk (or regular milk)
- pinch of salt
– Basically, mix all the ingredients together, then heat a tsp. oil in a frying pan and pour in the mixture in batches to make about 4-5 pancakes.
– Then add your favourite topping! I served mine with some mango that needed using up.
A random choice perhaps and not particularly beautiful but it tasted pretty good. To be honest, I couldn’t really taste the peanut flour. It tasted just like normal pancakes, but I guess the mango could have helped disguise any differences hehe.
Hurrah a different breakfast for once! Though I did miss my oatmeal…well, you can’t have everything
After getting ready we then had to take Alfie to the vets for his booster injection.
Bless him, he was all fine in the waiting room sniffing around but as soon as we got into the vet’s room he was not a happy bunny. And he really didn’t want his injection and tried as hard as he could to avoid it But in the end it was fine. Honestly he’s a big girl’s blouse. Also, check out the crazy dog hair products you can buy.
They were £9.99 for a spray to make your dog’s fur smell nice. I don’t even spend £10 on my own shampoo!! I think Alfie would be offended if we suddenly turned him into a pampered pooch. In his mind I’m sure he believes he’s a big scary Rottweiler (incidentally, one of my friends has a 2-1 shampoo and conditioner for her pug…).
Saturday evening we met up with Ben’s mum and went out for dinner at a local pub. Usually this pub is quite nice; we’ve been a fair few times. But it wasn’t amazing. Ben and me shared a mezze board for starters which was tasty but nothing spectacular (and we know our mezze boards!)
The falafels were nice, as was the hummus and obviously the sweet potato was good if not a bit huge for a starter. But three olives? Hmmm. And the square pastry things were tasteless.
The main I was really excited about, but the portion was quite small considering it was one of the more expensive things on the menu and this isn’t a fine dinning restaurant, it’s just a regular pub!
It was turbot steak with mango salsa and more sweet potato. The two bits of sweet potato at the top were actually from Ben as he had them with his meal and didn’t want them. They must have had a stupid amount of sweet potato in the that kitchen!!
It was tasty but just a bit small (I was grateful for Ben’s off casts – though I was feeling a bit sweet potato’ed out by this point). But the company was lovely and we had a good natter
Sunday (today) we enjoyed another roast chicken, this time a bit bigger and I left it to roast without adding anything to it as I wanted some plain meat for other meals in the week.
I love how the house smells when you’re cooking a roast! So warming.
I had a whole lot of chicken with veg and, er, yeah more sweet potato…I obviously wasn’t put off too much last night! Deliciously simple. I could have made gravy to go with it but we just fancied something really fresh and simple. And Ben wanted to drown his with lots of garlic mayo sauce. Lovely.
Speaking of Ben…he was keen for me to mention that he’s still going well with not drinking alcohol (he gave up four weeks ago in effort to get more healthy, run more and be ready for the 10k which is in 4 weeks time). Unfortunately his running has had to stop for a bit as he’s had some knee and back issues but hopefully, after seeing the physio a few times, he’ll be raring to go again. Though he is counting down the days until he can have a glass of wine again haha.
*** I’m still waiting to hear back from SlimKicker regarding the giveaway, I’ll post the winner as soon as I know***
What did you get up to this weekend?
What’s your favourite way to roast a chicken?
Do you have a dog? What’s his feelings on the vets?