Hi everyone! How did your weekends go? Apart from work on Saturday mine was pretty much plain sailing. I spent all of Sunday just chilling out, relaxing and baking of course! More on that later, but first I just want to catch up on my weekend yummy eat fest!
Saturday started with my al over body toning workout with some extra ab work. I’m now up to 50 seconds on my plank. I will be soon up to my 60 second target- it’s slow progress but I’m getting there. Although I think to up my game as this workout is becoming a little bit too easy and it’s just not challenging me enough. Time for a change me thinks. For breakfast I made one of my favourite bowls of oats, Apple Strudel Oats. Millet seeds also made a feature here to make the mixture a little lighter.
Lunch was a half a pot of Glorious Skinny Soup in the Goan Spiced Tomato and Lentil flavour with an Amisa Spelt and Muesli cracker. I love Glorious Soups for a fast and quick lunch when I am pushed for time, but I wasn’t a fan of this particular one. For me it lacked a lot of flavour and seemed a little bit on the creamy side, despite the fact it has no cream in it. Slightly disappointed with this flavour!
Mid afternoon I had a lovely snack of fresh cherries, kiwi slices and two RAW Health Zingy Lemon and Ginger Rolls. These rolls have a fabulous ingredients list, six ingredients infact! Golden flax seeds, agave nectar, sunflower seeds, dates, ground ginger, lemon zest-that is all!
I got home quite late, way to late for a proper meal. The boyfriend was also out, so I curled up on the sofa and watched P.S. I Love You with a huge jar of scruminess…
Smoothie in a Jar!!! I’ve never had an OIAJ, and I had this empty peanut butter jar calling my name. A girlie night in deserves something special. I mixed a banana, hazelnut and almond rice milk, cocoa powder and xanthan gum and topped it with mixed seeds, yoghurt coated raisins and raw chocolate covered mulberries. YUM! I loved this and the raisins and mulberries sunk to the bottom, so it was always a little surprise as to what you were going to get next. SIAJ done! OIAJ next!
Sunday morning started bright and early as I headed to the gym. I chomped on a new bar sent from the USA, made form chia seeds. This was really nice and full of goodness.
At the gym I did a 50 minute interval workout consisting of 20 minutes on the step machine, 15 minutes on the bike and 15 minutes on the cross trainer. When I got home I made a refreshing green smoothie.
I mixed spinach, rice milk, coconut water, xanthan gum, ground flax and a banana. I topped it with pistachio nuts, dates and seeds. After this I was so eager to get o get my Baby Cakes bake on.
I’m loving this book! It’s full of so many fab recipes. I decided to make the Ginger Bread…
…and the Chocolate Chip Cookies.
I’m really happy with the way they turned out. I was a little dubious at first due to the lack of butter and sugar. They are both sweetened with agave nectar and coconut oil is used as an alternative to butter. How wrong was I? The Ginger Bread is lovely and moist and I added a sneaky bit of peanut butter to the cookies to make them extra yummy!
I ate a few of the cookies and lots and lots of cookie dough for lunch :).
For dinner I made up some delicious Lemon Herby Bean and Millet Burgers served with mixed leaves and sweet potato chips.
Ingredients
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1 cup of black eyed beans
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1 cup of pinto beans
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1 cup of butter beans
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1/2 cup of millet seeds
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1 clove of crushed garlic
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1 tsp of cumin
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1 tsp of dried chilli flakes
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the zest of one lemon
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juice of half a lemon
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1 tbsp of coriander
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1 tbsp of chives
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seasoning to taste
This was a simple case of blitzing everything up in a food processor-my kind of cooking! Shape the mixture into burger shapes and cook in a pan with a little canola oil until golden brown on each side.
These went great with my Creamy Avocado Dressing. I’m really into “making my own” at the moment, whether it is hummus, salad dressings and now burgers. There are so many different variations of these burgers that you could try. I cannot wait to experiment more with different flavourings and spice combinations.
Do you like to “make your own”? What is the best thing that you have made at home recently rather than buying it from the supermarket?
P.S. There is still time to enter my fab giveaway. It ends tomorrow so don’t miss out!!!
I like to make my own different flavoured couscous, as opposed to buying the store sachets where you just add hot water. It’s so versatile, I especially love putting dried apricots and raisins in there with some curry powder and some various veggies. Yum!
Your SIAJ looks so delicious, I can’t wait to finish some nut butters so I can try OIAJ and SIAJ!!
I do love cous cous, you can put any flavours you want in it because it is so versatile. That’s the great thing about grains I guess 😛
I usually make my own stuff, but to save money more than anything else! 😛 And your SIAJ looks DELISH!! I must try that! 😀
The SIAJ was delicious! I’m still a OIAJ virgin though…I need to sort that!
wow! you ate such good things!! those zinger rolls are kind of funky aren’t they? but AMAZING ingredients i agree!! LOVE these burgers!
The burgers were yummy. I couldn’t believe the ingredients list on those rolls…am-az-ing!
Wow, how green is your green smoothie! 😀
Those burgers look amazing as well. I’m always quite lazy about making stuff that has lots of herbs and spices in, as it’s a faff, but those sound like they might be worth it
Ha I’ve just looked back at my green smoothie. You’re right it is shockingly green. 😀
I make pretty much everything at home now, especially since I realised how delicious home made hummus is, and how easy it is to make! Home made salad dressings and sauces are a million times nicer than what you get in the shops too! So I was wondering about the baby cakes book – do you need to have lots of different ingredients and flours? Obviously coconut oil and agave nectar is ok put I wasn’t sure how unusual they got, even for me! I read somewhere that was the case and it kind of put me off getting it – what’s your recomendation?
Hey Laura. All the ingredients in the baby cakes book have been adapted to alternative ingredients that you can buy readily in the UK. All of the suggested flours are from the Dove’s brand. Their Gram flour pops up a lot and of course their gluten free plain white flour and spelt flour too. I will have a closer look tonight and see if I can spot anything too unusual for you! But over so far so good. I’m loving it at the minute, but this is my first vegan cook book, so I don’t really have anything to compare it against.
I love making my own meals/snacks etc from scratch at home, I just wish I had more time to do it all. Homemade burgers are my absolute favourite (bean, lentil, veggie… NOM!) I love having them with avocado slices, salad and sweet potato fries – it feels like SUCH an indulgent meal but is so healthy and full of good stuff 😀
I love making my own food too. I get a sense of accomplishment out of it when Ive finished. Homemade burgers are a new thing for me, but I will definitely be making some more.
oh my gosh that gingerbread looks GREAT! as does that chia bar – where’d you pick it up? i usually make my own stuff as well – most recently i’m on a raw protein chocolate kick which is SO yummy – better (and healthier) than most commercial chocolates!
The chia bar was yummy. A lovely reader in America sent it over with a load of Lara Bars too. All delicious!
I need to get that cookbook, those look so yummy!
Everything in the cook book looks delicious. I can’t wait to work my way through it.
I’ve just started making my own stuff more and it’s so satisfying.
I love gingerbread and your’s looks delicious!
The gingerbread is lovely and so moist and flavourful, definitely a winner!