Monthly Archives: November 2011

by | November 30, 2011

WIAW… and I made the Christmas Cake!

Happy Wednesday everyone!  I hope it’s been a great one for you!

Lil’ L had a bonus day off school today as the teacher’s were striking.  We spent the day in Bath with my  mum, doing a little shopping in between the coffee drinking and delicious lunch at the Thai Basil restaurant :)

As I knew I was going to be tied up for the past couple of days, I recorded my eats from Monday for Jenn’s WIAW party.  Here goes…

Breakfast
Hot water & lemon; Nettle tea
Inspired by the Christmas Cake, which I ACTUALLY got round to making today :)   I decided to make a festive-tasting porridge.  Into the mix went Flahavan’s jumbo rolled oats, Alpro soya milk, 1 tsp mixed spice, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, mixed dried fruit, a couple of chopped glace cherries, handful of almond slices, 1tb ground flaxseed, and a sprinkling of goji berries and drizzle of agave syrup on top.  Oh and I also added a teaspoon of raw cocoa powder for even more yumminess.

Talking of cocoa, I’ve just come across Jessica Fenton’s Raw Chocolate Recipe Book (here’s the US Version).  It looks truly scrumptious!  Does anyone fancy fresh cherry and chocolate truffles?  Or how about a Raw Chocochino?  This beautiful hard cover book will definitely be on my Christmas List for Santa ;)

Lunch
For lunch, I had the last piece of the roasted veg pastry bake that we had for dinner on Sunday.  I cheated and used ready-made puff pastry for this meal. On top, I spread some sun-dried tomato pesto, and a sprinkling of roasted veggies (red and yellow peppers, red onion, mushrooms), chopped cashews and almonds, black olives and sun-dried tomato pieces.  On Sunday, we had the pastry with a serving of crispy kale, but for lunch it was sufficient on its time.

 

Snacks & Drinks
Dried figs (loving these at the moment!)
Plenty of water
1 black coffee

Dinner
I had to make a super-quick dinner tonight before Lil’ L went to Cubs, so I chose to make spaghetti bolognaise.  I haven’t made this in ages!  I used Morrison’s own brand soya mince (which they assure me is GM-free).  I rarely use soya mince, but the Morrisons brand is my favourite (great texture IMO).  To the soya mince, I added a jar of organic tomato and basil pasta sauce, some finely chopped courgette, grated carrot, chopped mushrooms & fresh basil.  Once the bolognaise had cooled down slightly, I mixed in 4tsp of Good Hemp Light oil (for an omega-3 boost).  The bolognaise was served on a bed of organic wholewheat spaghetti, with a sprinkling of nutritional yeast flakes on top (with added B12).

I’d forgotten just how nice this dish is!  So quick and simple to make, and super tasty!

For dessert, we had some yoghurt, mixed with apple puree, goji berries and chopped nuts.

Well I finally got round to making the Christmas Cake today!  I used my Mum’s classic recipe (I’ll post it tomorrow) and whilst it gently baked away in the oven for four and a half hours, the most gorgeous fruity smells kept wafting up to my office! 

The cake doesn’t look very spectacular at the moment, but it will do when Lil’ L and I get our hands on it on Christmas Eve morning!  We’re planning to do a snowy scene this year, with lots of marzipan, desiccated coconut, and a reindeer & sleigh centrepiece :)

Until then, M has carefully wrapped it up in greaseproof paper for me (he gets all the wrapping and tin lining jobs as I’m rubbish at them!).  

So that’s another Christmas job done!  I’m hosting Christmas for the first time in years, and I’m really looking forward to trying out lots of delicious vegan festive dishes.  I went for a 40 min run the other day, and when I got back home I realised that I’d worked out all the dishes that I’m going to make for Christmas dinner and tea.  I should definitely go out for runs more often ;)  

Over the next couple of weeks, I’m going to test out a few recipes, so I’ll keep you posted on how I get on.  The Vegetarian and Vegan charity Viva! have produced a mini guide to a veggie Christmas, which has lots of great recipes in it.  You can view it online or buy it for £1 from their online shop.  It’s definitely worth a look at.

Are you baking a traditional fruit and nut Christmas cake this year, or are you going for something a little less traditional? 
Are you hosting Christmas?  If so, it would be great to swap ideas over the next couple of weeks. 

Happy WIAW everybody! xx

 

14 Comments

Filed under Baking & Desserts, Breakfast & Elevenses, Dinners

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | November 28, 2011

Weekend Photo Journal – Christmas has arrived in Bath!

We had another amazing fun-packed weekend!  Here are the highlights:

On Friday evening, we went to Devizes in Wiltshire to watch the Festival of Light parade.  There was such a great turnout!  And so much effort had been put into making the lanterns.  Check out the life size horse, with moving head and legs!

 

  

When the parade had finished, we went to an Indian restaurant with friends for a superb feast.  We ordered so many dishes that the waiter had to check that we seriously wanted that amount of food.  Yep, we did… and I’m proud to say that not a scrap was left :)   All of the food was scrumptious, especially the dhal, bindi bhajee, mushroom bhajee, pakora, onion bhajee, byriani…  As you can tell, I LOVE Indian food!

Saturday, we had to pop to Trowbridge to the opticians.  To make it more fun, we stopped for lunch at a little Italian cafe. I had the rosemary focaccia with roasted veg.  It was okay … but no way near as nice as my home made version ;)   We also spotted reindeer in the town centre.  I’m not sure what they were doing there, but they didn’t look too impressed.  They were way smaller than I imagined reindeers would be! 

On Sunday, Lil’ L and I needed to pop to the library and, as it was such a beautiful day, we decided to cycle in along the canal towpath.

I love the beautiful red berries that we see this time of year.

It took us less than 15 minutes to cycle into the city centre.  We locked up our bikes at Laura Place, at the end of Great Pulteney Street.  This is one of my favourite streets in Bath.  I just love the architecture! 

 

After the library, we popped along to the Bath Christmas Market, which is now in full swing.  Bath Abbey makes such a beautiful backdrop for the market.

 

 

I even spotted some Buddhas at the market!  They appear everywhere! ;)

Check out that beautiful blue sky. It’s incredible to see such a sky this time of year!

I love these old-fashioned carousels.  It was spinning round surprisingly fast… so fast in fact that Lil’ L didn’t fancy a go!

Kuyichi is one of my all-time favourite clothing brands and recently I saw a gorgeous long-sleeved Kuyichi top in an online store.  Unfortunately, it was way out of my price range.  So, you can imagine my delight when I passed the Ethical People store in Bath and spotted the same top on sale!  I tried it on and, yep, it fitted perfectly. Happy days :)

The Ethical People store is only going to be in Bath until the end of December, so I must check it out again and see if I can grab some more bargains!

After the hustle and bustle of the city centre, it was lovely to return to the canal for our ride home.  I’ll never get tired of the views from this canal!

Rather than finish our journey on the main road, we decided to walk our bikes along the river path and nip through the ‘orchard’.  We stopped a couple of times to take in the beautiful views.  We especially loved watching the reflection of the trees in the water.  It was incredibly peaceful down by the river.

 

 

I had all good intentions of baking the Christmas Cake this weekend (yep, I know I’m already a week late but that’s no surprise ;) ).  I even soaked the dried fruit in the brandy overnight…

and M carefully double lined the tin in baking paper on Saturday night.  However, on Sunday I was having way too much fun cycling, wandering around Bath, drinking coffee with a friend and looking at her beautiful photos of Delhi, followed by a delicious meal at The George with M and Lil’ L that erm.. I sort of forgot about the cake!  No big deal, I’ll do it tomorrow (the famous last words ;) )

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend!  What was the highlight for you?

8 Comments

Filed under Biking, General wittering

Tagged as , ,

by | November 24, 2011

Budget Busting Meals – Roasted Vegetable Ciabatta

Here’s today’s budget busting lunch:

Preheat the oven to 200C / 400F

Take one seeded ciabatta (£1 for a pack of 4 in Tesco)

Mix a little olive oil with 1 clove of crushed garlic.  Cut the ciabatta in half and brush with the oil.

Finely chop a mix of veggies (I use red pepper, yellow pepper, red onion, courgette (zucchini), mushrooms).  Tip the vegetables into a roasting pan.  Add a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds and a drizzle of olive oil.  Mix to coat the veggies in the oil.

Aren't they beautiful?

After the veggies have been in the oven for 5 minutes, add the ciabatta (cut side up).  Cook on for a further 5 minutes then remove from the oven and assemble.

Voila!  A super quick, cheap, delicious lunch :)  

This ciabatta could easily be elevated to ‘dinner’ status by adding a little pesto, and a nice salad side dish or bowl of crispy kale :)

For more budget busting meals, check out my Recipe section.  All the dinners are super cheap to make, costing pence rather than pounds per portion (even using organic ingredients!)

My favourite budget-busting meal has got to be dhal and chapatis.  It’s so cheap to make and so tasty!  It’s one of the family’s all-time favourite meals.  What’s your favourite budget busting meal? 

10 Comments

Filed under Being Frugal, Dinners

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | November 23, 2011

WIAW – Carrot & Coriander Soup and Creamy Avocado Pasta!

Hello lovely readers!  I hope you’ve had a great day so far :)

It’s Wednesday again, so time for me to join Jenn and all the other lovely foodies over at Jenn’s place and share today’s eats. 

Here’s what I ate today…

Breakfast
Hot water and lemon
Nettle tea
Bowl of Dorset Cereals organic muesli (on special offer at Tesco at the moment), with goji berries and ground linseed sprinkled on top, and a splash of Alpro fortified soya milk.  I love the colours in this muesli!

Lunch
Bowl of carrot & coriander soup.  I can’t get enough of this soup at the moment. It’s really delicious and so simple to make.  I’ve finally got round to writing down the recipe.

I had the soup without rolls today as it's filling enough on its own as a lunch-time meal for me.

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp ground coriander
500g / 18oz carrots, chopped
2 medium potatoes, chopped
1 litre /35oz vegetable stock
handful coriander, chopped
handful each of lightly toasted pine nuts and pumpkin seeds

Method:

  1. Heat the oil in a saucepan and sauté the onion for 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and coriander, and cook for a further 2 minutes.
  2. Add the carrots, potatoes, stock and coriander to the pan. Bring to the boil, then gently simmer for 20 minutes or so, until the vegetables are tender.
  3. Allow the soup to cool for a few minutes, then blend using a stick or jug blender.
  4. Gently heat through before serving in warm bowls, with a sprinkling of lightly toasted pine nuts and pumpkin seeds and coriander garnish.

Tonight, I’ll post the recipe in the Recipe section of my blog so it’s easier to print out.

Afternoon snacks
1 sugar free jam tart
cup of black coffee
2 marmite rice cakes (I’ve just discovered these. Lil’ L loves them! I’m quite amazed that he does because they’ve got a pretty strong taste. I guess he’s a Marmite lover! )

Dinner
Whilst on holiday in France this summer, I was trying to find a way of getting Lil’ L to eat avocados.  He told me that he didn’t like the taste or texture, so it was going to be a bit of a challenge.  After a couple of failed attempts, I finally hit success.  I blended the avocado to make it smooth and creamy, then mixed in pesto to disguise the taste.  Voila!  Creamy avocado pesto pasta! 

Lil’ L polished off a whole bowl, then grinned and told me it was a ‘winner’.  You should have seen the look on his face when I told him what was in his pasta.  I wish I’d had the camera!  No matter though, as this dish  won him over and he’s now decided that avocados aren’t such a bad thing. 

This dinner is super quick to make.  While the pasta is cooking, scoop out 2 avocados and blend to a creamy smooth texture using a hand blender.  Mix in 2 tbsp basil pesto.  When the pasta’s cooked, drain and return to the pan.  Mix in the creamy avocado pesto sauce, along with some chopped roasted pepper pieces, sun-dried tomato pieces, black olives and toasted pine nuts.  In less than 15 minutes, you’ve got a super tasty, nutritious meal!  That’s my kind of cooking ;)

Dessert
I’m still making my way through the ton of apples that we collected this year from our tree.  Yesterday I made another 2 oaty almond apple puddings (my nutrition and flavour boosted version of the classic Eve’s Pudding).  Tonight, we had the pudding with a side helping of natural soya yoghurt.  Totally delish!  I’ll post the recipe later tonight.

 

Wow I ate a ton of food today!  It was all good stuff though ;)

I can’t wait to check out what y’all eating and get some inspiration for next week’s eats. 


What was your favourite eat of the day?

 

15 Comments

Filed under Baking & Desserts, Breakfast & Elevenses, Dinners

Tagged as , , , , , ,

by | November 21, 2011

Weekend Photo Journal

Hi everyone! I hope you had a great weekend!

I’ve noticed that my blog posts have got a bit wordy lately and so, to save my lovely readers from blog fatigue, I’m going to keep this one short and sweet :)  

Here’s some of my favourite moments of the weekend, captured on camera:

Crunching through the leaves in this beautiful Autumnal wood

 

Ducklings in November! This crazy weather has turned everything topsy turvey!

 

I love the smell of wood smoke that wafts out of the canal boats this time of year :)

 

Lil' L wanted the world to be orange today. Isn't it great being 8?

 

Even though it's November and I don't really want to see Christmas paraphernalia yet, this shop front was so beautiful that I had to stop and admire it. I think the shop's called 'Cole'. It's in the new shopping mall in Bath called 'Little Southgate'.

 

I popped into Next to buy Lil' L some school trousers... they didn't have any in stock, but they did have this cute black and white top in my size ;)

  Last week, Lil’ L discovered the video function on his new camera.  At the weekend, he worked out how to prop up the camera so he can video himself.  It’s kept him amused for hours!  You’ve got to check out his martial art sound effects! 

 

 

NAKED Chocolate Giveaway Result

Before I sign off, I just want to announce the winner of the NAKED Chocolate giveaway, who was randomly selected using Random.org. 

The winner is  …. Laura!  

Congratulations Laura!  I’ll be in touch to get your postal address.

Look out for next month’s fantastic giveaway.  I’ll post details on FB and Twitter in the first week of December.

Have a great week everyone! 

 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

13 Comments

Filed under General wittering

Tagged as