A marriage made in heaven!

Hey there!  Has everyone had a good week?  If not, as my friend used to tell me -never fear as the weekend is here!  Cheesy eh?  Moving on swiftly lets have a speedy back-track to yesterday’s eats…

An old friend made a reappearance yesterday…

It’s back people!  Vanilla tofu.  This was of the Banana and Vanilla variety.  I made a slight change to my original recipe by using vanilla rice milk as it means that no sweetener or vanilla extract is required.  Less work which is can only be a good thing.  I topped this dreamy delight with warm fruit compote, mixed seeds and some almond butter. I usually use Clear Spot Organic tofu or Cauldron as I find that these taste the best.

Lunch was straight from the freezer, Jerusalem Artichoke, Parsnip and Celeriac Soup with some oatcakes a plum and an apple.

Later that day I snacked on some Yeo Valley fat free vanilla yoghurt with some lovely fresh strawberries.

I wanted to workout when I got home but “Aunt Flo” as Emma puts it paid me an unexpected visit, leaving me feeling lethargic and in pain…blurrgh!  So I decided to lay off my toning workout.  For a much needed energy boost I decided that a mammoth green smoothie fest was appropriate for dinner.

This green beauty contained spinach, savoy cabbage, an apple, vanilla rice milk, ground flax, coconut water and xanthan gum.  I topped it with granola, mixed seeds, chopped dates.  Chocolate is also needed at times like these, especially some delicious raw chocolate.  I dived into my raw choccie stash and chose Lavish, and orange dark chocolate made by the Raw Chocolate Company.

This really hit the spot and has such a great nutritional profile to boot! It contains only 5 ingredients people.  Yes, crikey I know!  I thought the same when I read the ingredients listings at the back of the pack:  cacaco mass, sweetener:xyitol, cacao butter, real vanilla and natural orange oil.

I have only just realised that I have been spelling cacao as cocoa for all of this time too…silly me!!!This morning I was still fighting the stomach cramps and back ache so I thought it was best to leave off my usual cardio and ab routine.  Instead I enjoyed a rather leisurely oaty breakfast.

This was am-a-zing!  Blueberries, pear, oats, vanilla rice milk topped with smooth peanut butter…WoW!!! I loved how the blueberries pooped and turned the oats purple when warmed through.  The peanut butter went melted and became all gooey…yumfest! Perfect! :)For lunch I made a very quick salad, basically anything that could go into my salad did.  It included watercress, spinach, rocket, artichoke heats, olives, bean sprouts, cabbage, cucumber, carrots, tomatoes and a huge dollop of some Sweet Potato Hummus.

I adore sweet potatoes and I’m in love with hummus so I thought I would marry the two and make one big hummus happy family with a little help from Gena of course.

Ingredients

• 1 small mashed sweet potato
• 400g of chick peas
• 2 tbsp of tahini
• 1 clove of grated garlic
• 3 tbsp of olive oil
• water
• seasonings

I kept mine plain and simple but you could add all sorts of spices like Gena.  I think I will try adding the curry powder and paprika next time.

Basically,  I was just looking for a vehicle to eat this hummus and this salad made a very good vehicle!

I also had some sliced kiwis with the skins left on.  They wasn’t as hairy as I thought they were going to be!

Mid afternoon I snacked on a pink lady apple that had lots of crunch-ability and my first Kashi TLC Cranberry Walnut Bar that I won in Carrie’s giveaway.

This bar was so good.  I wish we could get products like this over here.  I would love to try some peanut flour or coconut butter.  There’s so many lovely products over in the good ol’ US of A.  S’not fair!!! 🙂

After finishing up in the lab I made it to the gym for a light cardio routine.  I managed 20 minutes on the cross trainer, 20 minutes on the treadmill interval training and 10 minutes on the bike, finishing up with some ab work.   For dinner tonight I roasted a quarter of my butternut squash left over from my Butternut Squash and Coconut Curry and made a topping using spelt grains, cannellini beans, mixed veggies in a tomato sauce.

This was such a quick and simple dish.  It was delicious!

I have some butternut squash left over for a smoothie tomorrow and some of the spelt and bean tomato filling for lunch too.  You’ve got to love leftovers…happy days!  For dessert I had two Avocado Cups with sliced apples.

I’m quite busy this weekend, working tomorrow with a visit to the market to stock up on fruit and veg on my break.  Supplies are low my friends and I feel rather lost without a healthy supply of fruit and veg in the house.  Although I do have four mangoes that have yet to ripen.  Do you guys have any ideas to help them hurry along? On Sunday my dad is visiting and we are going laptop shopping for him.  Shopping with my dad is always innn-ter-resting to say the least! I also want to fit in a workout and bake up a red velvet cake- it is St. Vals Day on Monday after all. Oh and preparing for the week ahead.

Do you have any plans for Valentine’s Day? Alfie and I tend not to celebrate it as it is our anniversary the month after, 6 years this year…eeek!

Have a fab weekend lovely people!!! x