Just call me Gok Wan!

Hey folks!  I hope you have all been enjoying the weekend and all of the beautiful sunshine that we have been having in the UK, maybe summer is here at last?

Thank you for all of your wonderful comments on my last post– I will get round to replying to them all soon, promise! You guys are so supportive and amazing and I adore you all!  Becoming more relaxed with my eating and exercise is something that has progressed over the last 6 months, but I just wanted to put my thoughts on this all in one post.  Like some of you said the current revolution in the blogging community seems to be slowing things down and generally being more kinder to ourselves and I think it is great that I’m not alone in this endeavor.

I really enjoyed my workouts this week, they went a little bit like this:

Monday: Yoga Class

Tuesday: a variation of strength workout A and 20 minutes of HIITS on the bike and cross trainer

Wednesday: REST

Thursday: Body Balance

Friday: 30 minutes of gentle cardio on the treadmill, cross trainer and step machine followed by 3 x 12 reps of chest press ups, lunges, squats, tricep dips and the plank.

Saturday: REST

Sunday: 3 mile run and yoga stretches

This week I decided to just do whatever I felt like where my workouts were concerned and found it so much fun.  This morning I was supposed to go to the gym, but it was so beautiful outside I just couldn’t waste the sunshine so I went on a short 3 mile run.  I had a great playlist on my iPhone which made the run really enjoyable.

On Saturday I had a bit of a girly shopping day in Birmingham with my mum with a mission of finding her Mother of the Bride outfit.  I made the most of the sun with my outfit and decided to put on my favourite maxi dress and gladiator sandals.

OOTD: stripy maxi dress: Bank, grey basic t-shirt: H&M, gladiator sandals: Office, necklace: French Connection, orange cuff: Forever 21, bracelet: Topshop.

I just loved the navy stripes and the orange accessories together!

After trying on about a zillion dresses, jackets and fascinator combos my mum finally settled on a dress that she felt comfortable in.  We grabbed a whole heap of dresses of different shapes, colours and cuts and the one that my mum picked really compliments her figure and complexion.  She looks fabulous in it and after starting out not feeling confident she would find anything she would find anything, she really happy with the dress I helped her find.  Well, what can I say, just call me of Gok Wan!

I also picked up some treats for myself and something for Alfie too:

Basic vest tops (£2.50 each!), skinny jeans (£8.75),  moccasins, scarf, pink jewelled bow necklace, selection of earrings, scarf: Forever 21, body cream from Jo Malone, Chanel lipstick, Tom Ford perfume for men.

Forever 21 is one of my favourite shops and it is always good for a bargain.  Obviously the more expensive items are for my wedding day.  Alfie and I really love our fragrances and wanted something different for our wedding day.  So, I went to Jo Malone and already have bought the perfume but wanted a body cream to wear underneath it to make the perfume smell even more unique.  Alfie fell in love with a pure perfume Tom Ford fragrance and it smells extremely spicy and sexy!

This weekend food has been particularly fantastic!

A wholemeal bagel stuffed with plain hummus, Tesco’s vegan cheese and cucumber!  One of the best bagel combos ever!

All of this sun has made my strawberries change colour so quickly.  I pick some one day and there are more red ones the next day- I can’t keep up!  They have been the focus of many meals:

Stove cooked oats using almond milk, water, Tesco’s soya yoghurt, nectarines, raspberries, blackberries and my strawberries.

Strawberries, blackberries, soya yoghurt, dark chocolate dreams and salted pretzels.

Fresh pineapple, strawberries, blackberries, soya yoghurt and a Cherry and Oat Breakfast Muffin.

I’ve also been loving my green smoothies with a passion:

Kale, a banana, vanilla stevia, ice and almond milk!

My favourite meal to whip up right now are Buddha bowls, I just cannot seem to get enough of them.  They are so tasty and so quick to make, what’s not to love?

Steamed broccoli and edamame beans with left over Curried Quinoa with Cashews and Sultanas with some plantain.

Steamed broccoli and kale, black eyed beans, baked sweet potato, yum!

Steamed broccoli and baked sweet potatoes seem to be an obsession of mine right now, I love them!  Sweet potatoes are great loaded with nut butters, with this in mind I made a mouthwatering evening snack on Friday night.

A baked sweet potato stuffed with peanut butter and raw chocolate covered raisins, oh yes! 

I really have had a fantastic weekend of shopping, eats and spending time with Alfie- it was so nice to treat him to that perfume.  Today I went out for my run, did the food shop, enjoyed the sunshine in my garden, reading my book and making the most of my Goodnessdirect delivery that arrived on Friday:

I made these oh so amazing Raw Chocolate and Salted Caramel Hearts earlier today and of course I had to test on for quality purposes.  No words can describe how good these babes are!

Such a fab weekend!  I hope you enjoy the rest of yours!

Have you ever had to play stylist Gok Wan style to anybody?  I found it quite fun once we had found the right dress.

What have you been up to this weekend?

The week that was…all about the future!

This week really has been another great one for me. I seem to be saying that a lot lately, but everything seems to be going in the right direction. I’m just loving life right now!

I went on a mini shopping spree on Sunday and stocked up on some basics like vest tops, tights and leggings, which I desperately needed. I always seem to forget my basic items when I go clothes shopping and seem to just focus on the fashion side of things.

I am crazy over this new vest top. It’s in a racer back style and has lovely braided detailing around the neckline and the straps on the back. It was a steal from H&M for £5!!!!

The sun decided to make an appearance and the temperatures were up again this week. I had given up on summer. Although it hasn’t been blazing hot as there has been lots of cloud around too, it has been nice to see the sun again though.

Working from home in the beginning of the week meant that I got to sit outside and work in the sun for a few hours before the clouds started to drift in overhead.

Food loving from this week include my bakes from the weekend:

Cherry Bakewell Oat Slices 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie Cake, which I forgot to mention, is also vegan. I know a few of you have requested the recipe, but I will be posting the recipe very soon so watch this space.

Also…

Oats made on the hob! It’s such a treat I the week to have oats cooked on the hob as they do take longer than microwaved oats.

This was made form oats, water, almond milk, cherries, banana, vanilla stevia and salted pretzels, yum!

I have been loving Calprese style salads recently…

The basics of a Calprese salad consist of buffalo mozzarella, basil and tomatoes.  I made my own variation this week which also included little gem lettuce, chickpeas and red pesto.  So tasty!!!

Remember my cinnamon and vanilla socca fail at the weekend? Well the other night I had a socca success using the same recipe.

I made a mini cinnamon and vanilla socca loaded with dark chocolate dreams and fresh strawberries for dessert, yum!

Bargain fruit from the green grocers- cherries are still 39p per 100g and I picked some beautiful South African blushing pears as well as apricots, blueberries, strawberries, pink lady apples, a melon, cherries and bananas. 

I love a good bargain especially where fruit and veggies are involved!

Our wedding invitation samples also arrived from a lovely letter press company. We love letter press invitations as they really fit the vintage look that we are going after for our big day, but they can be expensive. Whilst searching on the web I came across Strawberry Sorbet and thought their prices were pretty reasonable. I requested some samples in 3 of the designs I like. Alfie is going to cast his thoughts tomorrow. I hope he likes them as we need to get our invites sorted soon as we never sent out Save the Dates.

Also I posted another vlog about my skincare routine and that much closer to finishing my thesis.   It has been great thinking about my future plans this week, it has me so excited!

Do you prefer microwaved oats or oats cooked on the hob?

Are you like me where buying wardrobe basics are concerned?

What are you up to this weekend?

Sunday Catch Up: my favourite things

I have had the most amazing weekend!  Seriously it has been full of my favourite things and people.

The theme of such a good weekend went a stray bit style on Friday night though.  We headed to Oxford to look at some houses and my beloved car broke down!  Luckily we broke down just off the High Street rather than the motor way so it meant that we could head to the near by pub for dinner whilst we waited for the RAC man to solve the problem.

We had intended to go out to dinner any way for date night but under different circumstances obviously so I made a bit of an effort before we left for Oxford:

OOTD: dress; Forever 21, skinny jeans; Primark, black wedges; Primark, necklace; Swaroski, pearl studded earrings, Forever 21.

Whilst at the pub I had a lovely meal of sea bass fillets with crushed potatoes, roasted asparagus and tomatoes in a tomato and white wine sauce.  It was really tasty and made up for our plans going so wrong.

The RAC man was brilliant and we were back on the road within an 1 hour and a half.

On Saturday morning I made a delicious pear and almond green smoothie using a pear, spinach, a banana, almond extract, ice, water and coconut milk.  I topped it with some of the mixture from my Mango and Coconut Frozen Yoghurt that I had prepared that morning, pretzels and some dried cherries.

I headed over to my old stomping ground of Leicester to meet my bestie for lunch and a little spot of shopping. 

OOTD: jumper dress; Topshop, skinny jeans; H&M, red flats; Mimco, jewelry same as above.

We had a great time looking around the shops and having brain waves about my hen do over lunch.  I even got the chance to try on my wedding dress again to help me decide what I kind of veil I would like.

For lunch we headed to the Slug and Lettuce where I had the falalfel burger with fries…yum!

We also had some mocktails:

Passion St Clement, delish!

I also decided to treat myself to a few things…

Vintage tea light holder, chopsticks, decorative hanging heart, mug all from Set, hair products and a gorgeous stripy maxi dress which I just love.

When I got home Alfie’s brother and his girlfriend were visiting so we spent some time catching up which was great.

For dinner I made one of my all time favourites, a rather abstract looking socca pizza with a herbed crust topped with roasted veggies, grated cheese, passata sauce and basil.  Loved this!

Dessert was also pretty fantastic with fresh cherries, blueberries and strawberries topped with my homemade Mango and Coconut Frozen Yoghurt which tasted incredible.  I made it by simply blitzing up coconut milk (full fat), with fresh mango and Greek yoghurt and left it in the freezer to solidify.

The perfect end to a fantastic day!

Today I have spent all day car shopping which has tired me out.  I saw a cute little car that I loved and going to mull it over for a while.  For car shopping fuel I made a yummy breakfast of fresh strawberries, nectarines, cherries and blueberries topped with Total Greek Yoghurt and raspberry and pomegranate split pot. 

Now I’m going to spend the rest of the evening chilling out with a movie.  Who knew that car shopping could be so exhausting!?

I really have had a great weekend and it has been full of my favourite things all that was missing was some baking.

What  are your favourite things to do at the weekend? What did you get up to this weekend?

I *HEART* April

Well, considering that this is probably the wettest April that I can remember it hasn’t been a bad month.  I love doing these recap posts of  the months as they go by as even though the month may not have been particularly exciting it is nice too look back and to see that there was some highlights after all.

April for me has mainly been all about work…

I was so happy when I hit the send button to an email to my supervisor with the final chapter of my thesis attached.  I still have a lot of editing to do but it is great to know that a huge feat has been accomplished and the end is somewhat near.

It hasn’t all been about my thesis though as I have also been working on revamping my blog with a new layout and a header.

I also wrote a guest post over at amadoloves.co.uk about How to Keep Healthy for the Big Day with the underlying message that your husband to be loves the girl that he met however many years ago and will still love you forever more more regardless of your size.  I hope that came across well in the post. 

Please drop me an email if you have any questions on anything outlined in that post or otherwise.

This month has been a huge focus on spending time with my loved ones with an incredible Easter lunch with my family and Alfie’s and also the naming ceremony of my baby nephew.

I finally finished designing our invitation suite so now it just needs printing off and the finishing touches can be made.

I even managed to treat myself with a trip to the hair dressers and a mini shopping spree as a reward of finishing the first draft of my thesis too.

And I have been a little baking mad this month too!

This month in particular I have made a vast improvement with my eating and my view on eating larger quantities. This was definitely evident this weekend where lots of chocolate and carbs and high calorific foods were consumed and it definitely wasn’t a phase of over eating for the sake of it, my body just wanted to eat those kinds of food.  Usually this would have freaked me out but I have come to realise that being more chilled out about my eating.  Being an advocate of balance and eat what you want but in moderation I think  a little bit of what you fancy does you no harm at all.

This month I would like to:

• sort out my poor neglected front garden

• continue to save and budget

• enjoy running outside and increase my mileage

• finalise the wedding cake design and source props and craft items for some of the DIY items for the wedding

• sign up to a 10K race- I figured that I have way too much on right now to train for a half marathon

• meet with my supervisor to discuss the revisions for the first draft of my thesis

• sort out the recipe page on the blog

• sort out my make up bag and make up ideas for the wedding

I am no expert on beauty and have no real idea of how to apply make up, but I do love playing with cosmetics.  I’m more of a slap it on and see what happens kind of girl but I really want to make more of an effort in this area.  More so now as I am considering doing my own make up for my wedding…eek!

New make up brushes and make up are definitely on the cards for me this month and may be more work on  my wardrobe too since I have gotten rid of so many clothes. 

Make up and fashion, sounds like May is going to be a great month already!

How was April for you?

Are you a make up expert or a novice like me?

Shopping, hair and a curry

Happy Friday folks!  Not long now till the weekend, which I am very glad for after a busy and very productive week.

Normally when I have a day off from work I spend my days studying and writing, but after this weeks major break through of finishing my first draft of my thesis I thought I would treat myself a little, especially since I am working this weekend  too.  Instead I went for a pampering session at the hairdresser’s where I was really looking forward to the head massage when they wash your hair- love that part!  

Afterwards I headed for a spot of retail therapy where I bagged these lovelies from H&M:

I am loving the pretty floral prints around at the moment and the simple and flowing lines.   I also have a current obsession with bright coloured skinny jeans at the moment, but thought I would ease myself in by buying a neutral pair that will go with everything first.  Recently I have been thinking about whether what I am looking to buy will actually go with other things in my wardrobe before purchasing to get more use out of them. 

It was so great to actually spend sometime on myself for a change and spending some of my hard earned cash on myself instead of utility bills and savings.  I think some “Me” time every now and then can do the world of good.

Now, completely switching topics a lot of you have been asking for the recipe for the Coconut and Lime Curry that I posted in my Sunday Catch Up post at the weekend.  I actually stumbled upon this recipe when I was searching for fish recipes the other week and really liked, which I then adapted and made it vegetarian.

So here it goes…

Ingredients (serves 4, vegetarian)

• 1 chopped onion

• and inch of fresh ginger grated

• 1 clove of grated garlic

• 1 chopped red and yellow pepper

• 1/2 a head of a medium sized broccoli

• 1/2 cup of chestnut mushrooms

• handfuls of spinach

• 1 tbsp. of madras curry powder

• 1 tsp. of turmeric

• 1/2 tsp. of cumin

• 1 tsp. of ground coriander

• 1/2 tsp. of dried chilli flakes (optional)

• 2 tbsps. of soy sauce

• the juice of 2 limes

• a can of full  fat coconut milk

• Seasonings

Fry the onions in a little oil until softened.  Add the garlic and the ginger and cook for a few minutes being sure not to burn the garlic.  Pour in all of the spices and cook out all of the spices-keep stirring so they do not catch and burn.

Next added the aubergine and cook until tender. At this point you may find that things may start to stick to the pan so add a little water if needed. When the aubergine starts to soften add the rest of the vegetables until tender.

Lastly pour in the can of coconut milk, soy sauce,  and lime juice and allow the curry to simmer for at least 15 minutes so it reduces slightly and becomes thicker and creamy.  Season to taste.

Enjoy!

This was super delicious served with soba noodles.  It would also serve as a great curry for meat, fish and tofu too.  It was was a throw everything in the pan kind of dish, my favourite cooking style.  There was also plenty for left overs too!

How do you treat yourself when you have a much needed “me” day?

What are you up to this weekend?