curried quinoa with cashews and sultanas. cherry and coconut tofu pudding

Hello lovelies! I hope you have all been enjoying your weekends. I’ve been working this weekend, so have really been enjoying just having just chilled out evenings, mainly watching movies. I’m taking tomorrow off though with Alfie to do some more wedding planning…eeek! So exciting! 😀

So who has been enjoying the lovely sunshine that we have been having in the UK? OK, I know the temperatures are hardly tropical but I didn’t enjoy that freezing cold spell at all and the weather has been lovely in my neck of the woods this week. I think Spring may be just around the corner thank goodness.

This weeks workouts have been 50% in the gym and 50% home workouts which has been another great way to mix things up. It’s great to know that I can still get in a great workout at home when I am pushed for time or cannot make it to the gym. On Thursday I was supposed to go to my scheduled Body Pump class, but the weather was just too gorgeous to miss so I decided to go on the run I had planned for Friday instead. I’m so glad that I changed my mind as it felt like a late summer’s evening, perfect running conditions. It was beautiful outside and I cannot wait to get back outside running again when the weather warms up properly.

So my workout schedule this week looked a little bit like this…

Monday: 30 minutes of speed intervals on the treadmill, bike and cross trainer, strength workout 1 and 5 minute cool down on the bike

Tuesday: 10 minutes of high cadence intervals on the cross trainer, strength workout 2, 20 minutes of intervals on the bike and step machine

Wednesday: Yoga pod casts from Yogadownload.com including Hatha yoga, yoga for runners and moon salutation

Thursday: 5K run outdoors plus 200 ab crunches (8 different varieties of 25 reps each)

Friday: short circuits of 8 different varieties of 25 reps each, 50 chest presses, lunges, squats

Sunday: Levels 1-3 of 30 Day Shred

This has also been a great week of some amazing eats too:

From left to right:

Berry breakfast smoothie which included frozen mixed berries, a banana, cucumber, water, mesquite meal, strawberry hemp protein powder topped with
sunflower seeds and desiccated coconut.
A huge bowl of mixed fruit including a chopped banana, pear, blueberries and strawberries with rice milk, maple syrup and almond butter…delish!
Chocolate Spelt Pancakes on Pancake Day with frozen berries, chopped banana, chocolate hazelnut sauce and creamy almond butter- the best pancakes *EVER!*
Baked tofu in soya sauce and sesame oil with baked swede chips with paprika and steamed kale with ketchup.
High Protein Three Bean Chilli with steamed green and leftover baked swede chips with paprika.
Chopped apple and pear in almond milk topped with desiccated coconut and sultanas.

At the beginning of the week I made up a huge batch of quinoa for lunches in the week. I made a version of some Curried Quinoa using a recipe that I saw on Gena and Nada’s blogs which I adapted and used what I had in my cupboards at home:

Curried Quinoa with Cashews and Sultanas

Ingredients (vegetarian, makes 1 generous batch)

3 cups of quinoa
1/3 cup of cashew nuts
1/2 cup of sultanas
2 tbsps of chopped fresh coriander or dried herbs
3 tsps of hot or mild madras curry powder
1/2 tsp of turmeric
1/2 tsp of dried cumin
juice of half a lemon
vegetable stock
salt and pepper

Cook the quinoa in a saucepan in enough vegetable stock to cover and bring to the boil and cook through. Once cooked drain off the quinoa and place in a bowl. Add the spices and stir thoroughly until all of the grains of quinoa become a golden yellow colour. Next add the cashews and sultanas, lemon juice and coriander and stir through. Season to taste.

This tasted so fresh and fabulous and was definitely what I had been craving since the sun has been making an appearance these past couple of days. Funny how your eating habits can change with the weather. I have been eating my curried quinoa with mixed salad leaves, grated carrots, boiled eggs, red peppers, cucumber, tomatoes and garlic and herb Sabra hummus…yummy!

Recently my favourite desserts have been mainly based on a mixture of fruit with rice milk or with a soya pudding. On Thursday night I fancied a chocolate hit so added morello cherries and a chocolate soya pudding and added some coconut milk that I had leftover in the fridge from making my Butternut Squash and Thai Coconut Soup. It had firmed right up as I have previously noticed after leaving coconut milk in the fridge and Laura has pointed out too, but it still remains creamy. Oh my! This was good! It reminded me of a bounty bar…yum!

I will definitely be making this again for a simple and quick dessert!

I’ve also been enjoying lots of dried fruit and nuts too as afternoon snacks. Since I’ve been working I have been relying too heavily on bars for snacks at work and wanted to mix things up. My current favourite is a mix of dried mango, dried mixed cherries and salted almonds.

Talking of healthy snacks, I’ve been trying to hunt down a packet of the Garbanzo beans that I have been spotting on numerous blogs lately. After a few weeks of hunting I finally found all 3 flavours in Holland and Barratt. I resisted and only bought 2 of the flavours!

…Geez! Another way to feed my chick pea addiction!

In fact I’m really impressed with how good ol’ H&B are currently expanding their range of products as I also picked up some of the Diva popcorn that I bought on my last trip to Whole Foods. They seem to be stocking a lot more specialist items that you perhaps would usually only find in independent health food shops.

Ooooh! Also earlier this week I was welcomed home by my neighbour with a huge box of fruit- 50 pieces in fact from the lovely people over at Fruitdrop one of my blog sponsors this month who run a fruit delivery service to offices. It is safe to say that I won’t be buying any fruit for a little while…well a week at least.

I hope the sunny spring weather is here to stay for the rest of the week. I just love it! It makes getting out of bed in the morning so much more easier that’s for sure.

Now I’m going to end this post with some more food porn…