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.
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!
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!
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.
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!]
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.
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.
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:
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!
Melon for pudding?? What exactly is that? Love the Mafia game. Sounds like a lot of fun!
I love having melon as pudding – I like to eat it with a spoon and then you feel you’ve had to work for it hehe.
Adding goats cheese to cauliflower mash is a genius idea!
It’s so good, the goat’s cheese flavour really comes out.
I am keeping our tree up for as long as possible- seeing as we were away for a week I feel I need to enjoy it now to make up for lost time!
I saw on QI that in some countries zoos ask for the trees for food and things for the animals- such a good idea. Our local council collects them at the park and they use them for mulch/ compost/whatever for the park which I quite like, and we took our little tree there when we had a real one, although this year it was back to the fake one.
Saying that I took down most of the cards today and yesterday as they were annoying me- keep falling down and getting in the way!
That’s a really good idea about the trees. It just seems crazy to throw it on the skip if it’s a real tree!
Yep I’m with you on the cards, so annoying!! 🙂
Your lunch looks gorgeous. As does the chicken in chickpea flour with veggies.
Thanks, they were both so good. And thankfully we have so much turkey left over I can have that meal a few times 🙂
The melon looks so good, I haven’t had any in far too long! Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! I love melon, it’s just such a refreshing fruit!
Ah I know, work sucked this morning! I’ll be taking our tree down on Sunday 🙁 but I guess it has to be done! I need to try the cauli mash with goats cheese, yum!
Hehe yep it’s like Christmas is now a distant memory. But at least we’re closer to summer and longer days!
That stuffing looks sooo good. And nothing beats melon for dessert! Glad you had a great holiday!
Thanks 🙂 I’m totally trying your quiona stuffing soon though, that looked amazing.
Happy new year! Your NYE sounds great, I much prefer that sort of thing to going on a big night out on New Year’s as it’s always mental – and banoffee pie is always a winner!
Glad the running’s better and the commute shorter – and both those chicken dishes look so good 🙂
Yeah I guess it’s a balance with NYEs, you don’t necessarilly always want to stay in but then a huge party isn’t always that fun. I like games nights as it really gets you laughing and it’s a nice way to spend the evening.