Well happy Friday friends, hope it’s been a good week for you all.  My week has been sprinkled with lots of loveliness throughout, including a lovely Christmas lunch out with the guys from work, Christmas shopping and receiving some lovely cards in the post.  Everything is winding down for Christmas now at work and I cannot wait for the holidays.  I don’t know about you but I’ve been so upbeat lately,  I think I’ve slapped over the head with a dose of festive spirit…hohoho!

I love these Noel tea light holders they’re so pretty next to our poinsettia plant.  They have become a constant feature of our evenings and make the living room even more cosy.

Cottage pie is comfort food at it’s best!  I made this on Sunday and we got 2 dinners out of it.  Unfortunately, my cauliflower was quite small and only yielded a teeny amount of cauliflower mash, so I settled for mashed potato instead.  It’s Alfie’s favourite so I made sure that it lived up to his expectations.  Luckily, it didn’t disappoint and it tasted fantastic.  I had mine served with steamed broccoli and it was stuffed full of veggies too.

Smoothies are back in my life in a big way and this week has been no exception.  I’ve mainly been drinking them on the way to work to save me some time.  They are so portable that it makes life so easy.  Yesterday I made this particular green smoothie with spinach, a banana, peanut butter, vanilla crème protein powder and almond milk to make it creamy.  This really hit the spot, yum!

Eggs have been a big feature this week too:

This omelet tasted amazing and was stuffed with avocado, spring onions and cheese.  I also had some sautéed courgette rounds as well.

Like I said earlier, we went out for our work Christmas lunch on Wednesday.  We had our Christmas party last Friday, but still fancied lunch out too.  The winning vote was for Pizza Express, which I was happy about as it has been a while.  I selected the Pomodoro Pesto Leggera pizza and it was absolutely lovely.   The fact that there was a big hole in the middle did make me feel a little cheated, but it tasted great all the same.  We also had lots of antipasti, aranchini and dough balls to share too.

The other night I did make a lovely soba noodle bowl with some shredded pork, which I cooked in garlic, ginger, chilli, soy sauce and Chinese 5 spice and a selection of vegetables, peanuts and spring onions.  I adore stir fries, especially because they are speedy to make and a fab way to get your veggies in. 

I’m really looking forward to this weekend as I will be writing my Christmas grocery shopping list which will be full of lots of yuminess.  Also, we are going out for a Christmas family meal and visiting family too.  I have so many presents to take back home with me that I’m going to look like Father Christmas.  I think Christmas movies will be involved somehow too.

Have you had your work Christmas meal/party yet? What did you get up to?

What are your plans for the weekend?