Marvellous moussaka!

I was going to call this dish 'No Lasasgne Lasagna' as I thought I'd been very clever and invented a new dish in my quest for lower-carb healthy and yummy meals...

Alas I discovered that someone... actually quite a few people, make that a whole nation(!)... had beaten me to it and the dish actually already has a name - Moussaka... boo (probably less of a mouthful than mine but perhaps not as clever...? ;-) )

Hmm

Still, having looked at the other recipes out there I've realised that mine is a little different - lamb mince is usually used - but that still doesn't mean I can call this anything else, dammit!

Anyhoo, the recipe below makes 6 servings and comes out at:

Calories: 443
Carbohydrate: 24.8
Protein: 33.1g
Fat:23.9g
Fibre: 6.4g

For the more ravenous amongst you, it could split it into 4 servings, in which case each serving would be:

Calories: 665
Carbohydrate: 37.2g
Protein: 49.7g
Fat: 35.9g
Fibre: 9.6g

But we found that 1/6th was perfectly adequate - depends how hungry you're feeling really!

Ingredients

Okay, so for the filling you're gonna need:
* 500g Lean Steak Beef Mince
* 1 Beef Stock Cube (I use Knorr)
* 1 Tbsp/15ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil (although the 'extra virgin' bit doesn't matter as you lose all the health benefits when you heat it up)
* Spray Olive Oil (small amount)
* 1 Medium Red Onion
* 3 Cloves of garlic (or 3 x Tsps/9g Garlic, Very Lazy, The English Provender Co. - which I use as I *am* that lazy!!)
* 2 large Aubergines
* 2 Lge Cans (800g) chopped Tomatoes
* 100g Tomato Puree
* 1 Yellow Pepper
* 1 Red Pepper
* 2 Courgettes
* 2 Stalks Celery
* 6 Large flat Mushrooms
* 1 Tsp Cayenne Pepper
* 1 Tsp Oregano
* 1 Tsp Basil
* 1 Tsp Thyme
* 1 Tsp Black Pepper


For the Cheese Sauce you'll want:
* 130g Sainsbury's Davidstow Reduced Fat Mature Cheese
(this is the ONLY reduced fat hard cheese I can stand, it's really yummy, you wouldn't realise it wasn't full fat! Use 100g for the sauce and retain 30g to sprinkle on top towards the end)
* 60g Olive Oil Spread
* 60g Plain Flour
* ½ Pint/284ml Semi-Skimmed Milk

Method

Slice the musrooms and aubergines into the largeest slices you can get. Chop up the rest of the veg into pretty chunks and keep separate in bowls like so:



Place the sliced aubergines in an oven dish and spray some olive oil over. Cover with foil and bung in the oven on a low heat to soften - keep them in there until the sauce is ready



Add the chopped onion, galic and olive oil to a pan and cook until browned and softened.



Then add the beef mince with some water, the stock cube and the herbs and spices.

Once the meat has browned sufficiently add the tomato puree and then begin adding the firmer of the vegetables (e.g. celery and peppers), cook for a few mins, then add the courgettes and the tinned tomatoes, all the time stirring continously.

Next add the mushrooms, stir thoroughly and turn down the heat and allow to simmer slowly while you set about making the cheese sauce.

You might find that you've run out of room in the pan you're using... I did, I usually cook with a wok but it wasn't large enough so I transferred the mixture to a bigger pan!



The sauce is very simple to make. First you melt the butter/spread (I used Bertolli spread as we don't tend to keep real butter in the house anymore) in a non-stick saucepan over a low heat. Then you slowly add the milk and flour... bit by bit, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon to prevent lumps.

Only use 80 - 100g of the cheese for the sauce as the rest you'll want to keep back to sprinkle over the top.

Once the sauce is ready turn off the heat, take the aubergines out of the oven and put to one side.

Take a large lasagna dish and spoon a layer of the mixture into it - use approx half the mixture though no more - basically just enough so you can't see any of the base of the dish.



Then take half of your aubergines and form a layer over the mixture - like you'd do with lasagne sheets, though obviously this more like Tetris as there are more pieces of varying shapes!



Now gently drizzle about half of the cheese sauce over this and then spread with the back of a spoon to even out



I used a wide but shallow dish - if you use a deeper narrower dish you can make more layers so you might want to split the sauce say into thirds instead.

Next spoon the remainder of the mixture over the aubergines and cheese sauce and press down with the back of a spoon.

Repeat the above using up the remaining aubergines and spread on the rest of the cheese sauce.

Finish off by sprinkling the cheese you set aside earlier over the top (you might want to add some chopped fresh parsley or basil at this point):



Now bake in the oven bake until gorgeous at 180C/350F/Gas4 for about 30 - 45 minutes:



When ready, leave to cool for about 5 mins or so.

Serve and enjoy! :-)



TJx

Fruit and nut bars - take 2!

I think I might have nailed it!

I decided to slightly rejig my first effort.

Joe was after more fruit and I figured I could do away with the sugar altogether...

There's more rice, honey, quinoa and peanut butter than last time so the Calories are slightly higher... but the fat is lower and they're a lot tastier too! :-)

Here's the nutritional Information Per Bar (1/16th)
Calories: 250
Carbohydrate: 31.3g
Protein: 6.2g
Fat: 11.2g
Fibre: 2.7g

And here's the all-natural ingredients that go into these yummy bars:

* 100g Organic Wholegrain Puffed Rice from Rude Health'
* 100g Quinoa
* 50g Dried chopped Dates
* 200g Pure Clear Acacia Honey
* 50g Whole Almonds
* 50g Whole Hazelnuts
* 25g Sunflower Seeds
* 200g Crunchy Peanut Butter (Waitrose make a lovely basic peanut butter that is very creamy which I'm sure helps!)
* 50g Raisins
* 50g Sultanas
* 50g Dried cranberries
* 45g Dried Strawberries from Urban Fresh Fruit

These dried strawberries are lush, look at them, they don't look like much but they're packed full of flavour which is 100% natural as they've had nothing added to them, no sugar, no sweeteners, nada! :-)



So, as with before:

1) Pre-heat the oven to about 140 degrees Celsius (Gas Mark 1/ 275 Degrees Fahrenheit)

2) Line a baking tin (I think the one I used was 20x30cm) with non-stick greaseproof paper (then no need for extra fat to prevent sticking).

3) Weigh out the puffed wholegrain rice and quinoa into a bowl, chop up your dates into little pieces and add them to the bowl together with the mixed nuts, dried fruit and seeds.




4) Mix the honey and peanut butter into a bowl and stick in the microwave for about a minute (can't remember exact time) until the peanut butter and honey have mixed into one lovely gooey runny mess (if you don't have a microwave you could heat it all in a pan on the stove for a bit until it all runs together).

5) Mix the *whole* lot together in a big bowl, vigorously! Tip the mixture into the lined pan and press down really really firmly with the back of a spoon until it's all evenly distributed and nicely compacted.



6) Bake in the oven for about 30 - 40 minutes keeping an eye to ensure that the edges don't burn

7) Take out the oven and leave in the tin to cool *completely* (this is very important, you need to leave it for as long as possible, you want it to be rock hard before you cut into it!)

8) When complete cooled, lift out onto a large chopping board and cut into rectangles (cut mine into 1/2's then 1/4's then 1/16ths)



9) Serve! Or do what I did and wrap them into individual portions and then hide them round the house so my son has one-a-day to take with him (he'd seriously scoff the lot if I left them out in his sight!!)



10) I also took a few of the bars and cut them further into 25g-30g portions (half the usual) which are only 125 Cals each - very handy tasty nutrition energy snack :-)



The best thing about these bars (other than the taste of course and the money you save from not buying cereal bars!!) is that because you don't use butter, eggs, milk etc they last for ages and you can just keep them in a box in the cupboard (albeit hidden away from the hungry hollow-legged teenager in our case!!)

So there you go, my second effort and I'm very pleased too. I'm thinking next time I'll add less honey but more fruit, perhaps blueberries?

Mmmm love blueberries :-)

I also might experiment with oats for their low-GI, slow-releasing energy properties...

I also want to do a high-protein one just for moi!

The possiblities are endless, cooking is such fun :-)

In any case, I'll keep you posted with how I get on!

Enjoy!

TJx

Fruit and nut bars - take 1!

I really like to think that I do my best to feed my family good healthy real food. Breakfast for my Joe and my son is either muesli or fruit & fibre, and I even bake the bread that goes into their sandwiches for lunch which I always manage to pack loads of salad into, and we all eat the same thing for dinner which is invariably cooked from scratch by either myself or Joe (mostly me though, I *love* cooking, it's really therapeutic).

However, as my meals tend to be small and frequent and I am mother to a teenage son who is growing at a ridiculous rate and have a boyfriend who is training for a particularly arduous mountain-based cycle race in France - we need fuel to keep us going in between these meals!

We don't have crisps, chocolates, sweets, biscuits, cakes etc in the house. I just refuse to buy them and therefore they're not expected to be there so that's cool and not an issue.

However, in addition to the yoghurts and fruit in our fridge I do buy fruit and nut cereal bars. My son's current faves are Kellog's Nutri-Grain Elevenses in Raisin.

"Great" I thought, full of fruit, no chocolate etc etc...

But I recently looked at the ingredients list and this is what I found:

Ingredients

Cereals (36%) (Wheat Flour, Rolled Oats), Invert Sugar Syrup, Raisins (10%), Glucose Syrup, Apple, Sugar, Vegetable Oil, Skimmed Milk Powder, Emulsifiers (E475, E472e, Soy Lecithin), Raising Agent (E500), Flavouring, Modified Starch, Salt, Cinnamon, Molasses, Stabiliser (Guar Gum), Barley Malt Extract, Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid), Niacin, Iron, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin (B2), Thiamin (B1), Folic Acid, Vitamin B12.

Three E Numbers! And does it really need all the rest that's in it? Okay so sugar isn't the *highest* ingredient but it's damn near close in 2nd place! Oh, and look what comes 4th - Glucose Syrup!!

If that wasn't enough, they've thrown in a little bog standard 'Sugar' later on... just for luck I assume, it obviously wasn't sweet enough already ;-)

Oh, and what *exactly* is 'Flavouring'? Which flavouring? Is that not the most ambiguous ingredient going - it could be treacle or turd for all we know!! (I'm assuming it's not the latter else they wouldn't sell many bars but still... case in point!)

Hmm, this ostensibly innocuous healthy bar may not be all that it seems.

Of course, you can get bars that have very few ingredients which are all 'natural', but these tend to be items like flapjacks - (fat)butter, sugar (white), oats, more fat (oil), tonnes more sugar (syrup) etc etc... heh, tasty, but probably not something you want to eat every day!!

So, inspired by my recent foray into the world of wonderful cold-pressed only-natural-ingredients yummy bar goodness courtesy of such companies as Wholebake and Natural Balance Foods, I thought I'd give it a bash at making my own, at least then I know EXACTLY what has gone into them and therefore what I'll be putting into myself and family - sweet!

So I did a load of research of cereal/granola/fruit/nut bars on the internet but couldn't seem to agree on one particular recipe so what I did was took a little bit of everything I found that sounded nice and then guesstimated the amounts and threw it all into the melting pot to see what would happen...

And, without wishing to blow my own trumpet I think I did rather well considering it's the first time I've ever made anything like this ... but then I have two biased fellas living with me, and me - well I'll eat just about anything!

(I'll definitely tweak the recipe next time by quite a bit - i.e. adding more peanut butter, less nuts, more fruit, less honey, more sugar, less heat, more cooking time etc etc... not worked it out yet but I'm pretty happy with my first attempt.)

And here, for your reading pleasure, it is:

First thing first, here's what I elected to put into my Fruit and Nut bars

Ingredients
* 50g Rolled/Quick oats
* 75g Puffed Rice (I used Organic Puffed Wholegrain Rice from a fab organic foods company called Rude Health)
* 50g Quinoa
* 50g Dried chopped Dates
* 50g Dried soft Apricots
* 50g Demerara Sugar
* 150g Clear Honey (acacia is best if you only want a subtle flavour)
* 50g Whole Almonds
* 50g Plain Cashew Nuts
* 50g Whole Hazelnuts
* 50g Walnuts Halves
* 25g Sunflower Seeds
* 25g Pumpkin Seeds
* 150g Crunchy Peanut Butter

Here's the method, it really couldn't be easier!

(apologies for not photographing everything but I was getting carried away by the fact that I hadn't immediately failed on my first attempt!!)

1) Pre-heat the oven to about 140 degrees Celsius (Gas Mark 1/ 275 Degrees Fahrenheit)

2) line a baking tin (I think the one I used was 20x30cm) with non-stick greaseproof paper (then no need for extra fat to prevent sticking).

3) Weigh out the puffed wholegrain rice, quinoa and oats into one bowl, your mixed nuts into another and then chop up your dried fruit into bitesize pieces.



4) Chuck it all in a bowl together with the seeds - ahh isn't that perty :-)



(of course 3 and 4 could be done in one step but that would reduce the pretty pictures)

5) (I don't have pics of this unfortunately) mix the honey, peanut butter and sugar into a bowl and stick in the microwave for about a minute (can't remember exact time) until the peanut butter and honey have mixed into one lovely gooey runny mess (if you don't have a microwave you could heat it all in a pan on the stove for a bit until it all runs together).

6) (the fun part) mix the *whole* lot together in a big bowl, vigorously, and then (before you get tempted to take out a spoon and start eating) tip the mixture into the lined pan and press down really really firmly with the back of a spoon until it's all evenly distributed and nicely compacted.



7) bake in the oven for about 30 mins or until it's gone nicely dark golden on the top (I left mine in a little too long and frazzled the edges!)



8) Take out the oven and leave in the tin to cool *completely* (for as long as possible, you want it to be rock hard before you cut into it - I left ours out in the garden as it's so flippin cold in London at the mo!!)

9) When complete cooled, lift out onto a large chopping board and cut into rectangles (cut mine into 1/2's then 1/4's then 1/16ths)

10) Serve! Or do what I did and wrap them into individual portions and then hide them round the house so my son has one-a-day to take with him (he'd seriously scoff the lot if I left them out in his sight!!)



So there you go!

As I said I'd like to tweak the recipe and I have already bought some blueberries and strawberries for the weekend so get ready for round 2! I'm very pleased with them though, particularly because they didn't fall apart and taste pretty decent!

You can get 16 generous servings out of the recipe and each bar weighs approx 50g - just like shop bought - perfect :-)

And finally, here is the nutritional data per bar:

Calories (kcal) 247.6
Carbohydrate (g) 24.2
Protein (g) 6.5
Fat (g) 14.1
Fibre (g) 2.7
Alcohol (g) 0.0
Fruit & Veg 0.1

If you do end up making these, or something similar, please do drop me a line, and let me know what you thought/how they turned out :-)

Happy baking!

TJx

Yummy fromage frais, fruit and protein smoothie

If like me you buy fruit and then forget about it (bad!!), smoothies are the best way to deal with old(er), less aesthetically pleasing fruit to avoid (guilt-inducing) waste and still ensure you get your vits.

I'm also one of those weirdos who can't eat a banana if it's too yellow... off-green/just-yellow is my preference, any darker and it won't go down... show me a brown sugar spot and I'll gag (yes, I'm odd) - this is also where smoothies come in handy as the sweetness adds to - and gets mixed up in - the flavour and pacifies and placates freaks like me ;-)

Note: frozen berries are a Godsend, although they always seem to be sold in inconvenient HUGE plastic packaging so I tend to transfer them to freezer bags ready for use - they also serve as pretty decent ice-fruit-cubes too :-)

I made this smoothie on the weekend and it was so lush I had to share it with you (through the magic of Microsoft Paint - I'm all high-tech, me ;-) )

Step 1 (click for fullsize pics):



Step 2:



Step 3:




Last but not least, here is the nutritional breakdown per serving, courtesy of WeightlossResources.co.uk


As you can see, there's a nice balance of protein and carbs, plus plenty of fruit which includes soluble and insoluble dietary fibre to help you cleanse and detox your insides without you even trying!

Enjoy!

TJx

P.S. if anyone's interested, my smoothie maker is a Kenwood 'Smoothie 2Go' and it's bloody marvellous as the mixing blade screws into the top of the jug, as do the lids so you can literally drink your protein shake on the go - superb! :-)

Am I the only freak

who puts black pepper on banana?



It's such a great combination, doesn't taste at all as you'd imagine :-)

This is lovely if you've got a bit of a sweet tooth and a craving for healthy carbs:

1 small-medium banana mushed spread thickly over two Kallo organic no-added salt thick wholegrain rice cakes

(the black pepper is optional but if you've not tried it, why not give it a go?! :-) )

Guilt-free snacking at around 150 cals, nice :-)

TJx

A tasty mess :-)

Just thought I'd share my lunch with you - and no, not in a mother/baby bird kinda way ;-)

I've mentioned before that I buy Two Chicks liquid egg whites because they come in a good size carton, seem to be sold more and more locally and, most importantly, come from free range hens (very important to me as I wouldn't buy barn eggs for usual every day use!).

Anyway, despite the cartons being a handy size I still manage to waste a lot of the egg white as I open it and then don't use it within the three days it recommends!

So what I've been doing is spooning out 10 tablespoon portions into mini tubs and then freezing them so they're ready when I need them (only thing is you have to be careful when defrosting not to turn them into scrambled eggs!! ;-) )

So today, while the boys were making cheese on toast I whizzed up some egg white, cheese, a little bit of milk, Tabasco sauce (essential) and black pepper (also essential).

I usually add either Maximuscle Promax Diet or Promax Natural to my egg white pancakes/omelettes but today I forgot to put either in and it was equally lovely!

I think I'll leave the natural protein powder out of my savoury omelettes in future as it does nothing for the flavour and can make them a bit carboardy. Plus I need to keep the Promax Natural back for my lunches as it adds protein and creamyness :-)

Promax Diet is lovely in sweet protein pancakes as it gives them extra flavour and can counteract the sometimes tart quality of all the berries I use. Incidentally I rarely use fresh berries as (thanks to a tip-off from the all-knowing and wise Gym Ninja) frozen berries are much better as you can buy them in bulk from supermarkets, they act like fruity ice cubes and don't go off because they're in the freezer - I think I need a *bigger* freezer!

Arghh, sorry I'm waffling, Joe's sitting angrily strumming his guitar as I need to get on and do some household chores with him (yawn) instead of blogging.

So yeah, here's what I made... it doesn't look pretty as I had the pan on the wrong ring and it was too hot (you reeeeeally need to gently heat omelettes!) and one side cooked too quickly causing a big mess when I tried to flip it.

Bloody tasty though, got thumbs up from both the boys, you'd never have guessed that no egg yolks were harmed in the making of this feature:



Here's the nutritional info:

Calories (kcal) 239.8
Carbohydrate (g) 3.0
Protein (g) 31.0
Fat (g) 11.0
Fibre (g) 2.7

And here's the recipe, courtesy of the fab tools at Weightloss Resources if anyone's interested (any Brits, please note that Sainsbury's reduced fat 'davidstow' cheese is bloody gorgeous and doesn't taste like at all like it's not full fat!)



I think I'll make the same thing tomorrow but add some mushrooms and peppers for good effect, that's if my sweet-tooth doesn't take over ;-)

Hope you all have a great Saturday

TJx

Bad blogger!!

Good morning (though by the time I post this it'll no doubt me the afternoon!)

I'm going to be averaging one post a week at this rate, rubbish!!

In my defence it has been stupid busy at work with lots of deadlines that were meant to have been met last week... but weren't entirely resulting in my getting into work silly early yesterday (okay, so it was only 07:50 but given that my usual start time is 10am that's eye-wateringly early for me!!) and working til nearly 7pm.

I also had rather a busy weekend and wasn't at home much. We've had new sofas delivered - Joe took a pic and sent - lush eh?!



As well as a nice space saving computer desk, a drinks cabinet which is just beautiful and a chinese-style red cupboard/drinks cabinet type thing too. Will have to take pics and post them soon.

We're a bit worried about the cats destroying the sofas as they were quite keen on picking at the fabric ones we had before - have considered de-clawing them... haha kidding, they're outdoors cats, that would be cruel! I guess we're just going to have to yell at them if/when they scratch them or buy them a zillion scratching posts and dotting them around the house to detract their attention.

It's nearly winter though anyway which'll mean that Bella will take up her usual spot on the radiator and hopefully leave our nice leather sofas alone!



... can always hope anyway...

So because of the sofas/cupboards/cabinets our living and dining room are full of boxes and furniture that needs sorting and I think that if I were to abandon the sorting out so I could blog I'd probably get lynched!!

So, onto the last few days of radio silence...

Friday 2nd Oct

At lunch time I did my Lower Body Strength Workout (Free Weights) (see side-bar on right for more info) which was really hard work. Not because my legs were particularly weak, but because my arms are! You see, a couple of weeks ago I did quite a good heavy upper body weights session in my local gym and, afterwards, thought it would be a good idea to hop on the concept 2 rower. I only did 10 minutes but at quite a decent pace, think I covered 2100m in that time.

The thing is that it felt fine, but that was because my muscles were all warmed up. Because of this I didn't recognise the strain I was putting my right shoulder/upper biceps under and the result of this has been pain, dull but stingy pain in my right shoulder :-(

a few years ago, when I first got into triathlon, I launched myself into the swimming side of things without realising that I was hypermobile and ended up straining my rotator cuff muscles on my right side. It's not been the same since, which is why I do a lot of shoulder strength exercises with light weights to try and build up the supporting muscles in the area. I had a cortizone injection a few years back into the top of the biceps where it joins my shoulder joint - which helped for a little while but didn't provide any long-term solution.

What I'm going to do I think it try and split my upper body weight training out over more days and for less time/intensity. I've not been experienced enough to attempt this until now but I think I'm doing rather well now so will do some research, ask a few peeps for advice and give my training routines a bit of a re-jig.

Anyway, so where I was going with all the above is that I've not been able to train my upper half so my grip on the 12.5kg dumbbells was rubbish!!! I nearly dropped one a couple of times and my forearms felt very tight and sore by the end of the session.

Saturday was interesting... it's good/strange/masochistic to feel some pleasure at the knowledge that your hamstrings ache like they've been beaten with a knobbly baseball bat, DOM(S) has always been a friend of mine :-D

Friday night I worked quite late and rushed off just before 8pm to meet up with others for a friend's birthday meal and drinkies.

I managed to resist the (absolutely delicious-looking OMG I have such food envy) battered fish (Pollock) and chips - I did have a sneaky taste of a friend's later as a) she'd finished and b) my own food was rather insubstantial in terms of stomach-lining potential. When I ask for Sausages and Mash I expect a decent amount of both... what I got was this:



which would be more than adequate for a 'normal' dinner and, to be honest, I probably wouldn't even dream of eating that much potato in the evening unless I had a race/ride the next day, but I was OUT, drinking cocktails, then prosecco, then spirits, then cocktails, the champagne...

then more champagne when I managed to haggle the barman in a late night bar we ended up in down from £39 to £30 (he tried to settle at £35 but we did a coin flip and I picked heads - hurrah!). Net result, drunken TJ - look, I can't even keep my eyes open!!

I don't know *why* that extra bottle of champagne seemed like such a good idea at the time - it certainly didn't the next day!

I was certainly a lot more drunk than most people but I think that's more to do with the fact that I don't drink during the week anymore - this is my 'drink of choice' at home (annoyingly my son keeps trying to nab bottles of this... he thinks because it's zero alcohol that means it's okay for him to have all of mine - err no, I don't think so mate!)

I really like the taste though and it's very handy when I come home from a stressy day at work and fancy a beer as this has a fraction of the calories and doesn't make me groggy!

Saturday 3rd Oct

...was spent feeling like shit. I felt utterly destroyed, why do I do it to myself?! I don't seem to have a 'okay-now-stop-you've-had-enough' mechanism, I can just drink and drink - not good!

I felt poisoned, belly all bloated, feeling sick, dizzy and just generally sorry for myself - bit of a waste of space really!

After I pulled myself together with the help of a protein pancake, this one was made up of:



and was definitely worth it - I'm still pleased that despite my horrid-hangover-from-hell I was able to resist the bacon and egg sarnies that have become a staple of my boys' weekend diet... mutter mutter

We went out with some friends on Saturday night, one of whom is just over from Thailand where he's been living for the past 2 years or so, in his own house, which he built himself from mud bricks and is on a plot of land owned by a farmer. He also built an oven to bake bread to sell to local businesses and grows his own vegetables - which form the bulk of his diet. That and a little bit of meat at times and lots sticky rice... the cooking water of which can be turned into wine, how cool is that?

ahh, sounds like such a simple, peaceful existence. Fascinating but terrifying at the same time! I'm not sure if I could survive without all my non-essential gadgets, which is a bit of a sad thought really! But I console myself with the thought that we as humans have 'evolved' so that we don't *have* to - well, not in the developed world anyway. It's probably all a big con and I'd be happier in a cave with an open fire, but then if that were the case then why aren't we all doing that?!

Sunday 4th Oct

I still can't believe how quickly October has crept up on us... not used to not typing '0...' when entering the month, I think that time is speeding up.

We'd stayed at Joe's parent's place (aka my second home) on Saturday night so Sunday, when I finally surfaced (no, I didn't get drunk the night before, I didn't drink anything actually! I was just feeling a bit peaky and like I needed to catch up on sleep) we had a lazy Sunday morning, lounging in Joe's parents' new conservatory (doesn't sound particularly interesting but it's fabulous, really impressive, just a nice space to be in really :-) ) and then a nice pheasant casserole for lunch followed by cheese, yum... managed to not drink still despite the particularly nice looking red that was floating about the dining table!

That evening when we got back to London I took Joe to the gym to give him a run for his money on the free weights (see "My current strength and core training routines" again in the sidebar on the right).

I thought I'd play it safe as haven't done much upper body stuff (as I mentioned earlier) for weeks! I used 8kg dumbbells for my shoulder press, upright rows and concentration curls and I could really feel the difference from not having trained for a while... felt soooo weak! :-(

thankfully I didn't feel sore-in-the-wrong-way (i.e. pain, not muscle ache!) afterwards so am just keeping an eye on how it all feels in the shoulder area.

I finished off my workout with half an hour on the Cardio Wave... love that machine, especially as it has a built in TV so you can laugh at a wildlife expert getting 'shagged by a rare parrot' on Stephen Fry's 'Last Chance To See' program. I was laughing so hard at this part that I nearly fell off the damn machine. As it was late in the evening and the moody staff had switched off the main TVs, nobody had a clue why some girl was hysterically giggling away to herself (when I say 'giggling' it was less girly than that, more like guffawing to be perfectly honest!) and they now think I'm (more) mad (than they thought before)!

Monday 5th Oct

I bet you know someone with this birthday, or the 6th Oct? I know loads, it's a popular time!

I got into work pretty early like I said before and worked for nearly 11 hours before dashing to get my train, cooking a lovely beef and black bean sauce stir-fry (with thick noodles for the boys) and then just generally lounged on the sofa for the rest of the evening... pretty mundane stuff really but sometimes it's good to do bugger all for a change!

So, onto today...

Tuesday 6th Oct

Today I was a little sneaky and had some of my delicious bread for breakfast - look at this though, how could you resist?!!



I received my delivery from Maximuscle today of 2 boxes for Promax Diet bars (their 'Buy two boxes for £35' deal is still going, it works out to less than £1.50 a bar - snap it up while you still can!)

The lovely people at Maximuscle also sent me 2 free pouches of Cyclone, which is great as a) that's what Joe uses and b) it's handy for if we go away for a weekend as will be easier than taking tubs - why don't they do that with Promax Diet eh?! Then lazy people like me can keep them handy and not have to measure out scoops ;-)

I was sooo glad to get some more chocolate and orange Promax Diet bars as had run out of that flavour and only had the plain dark chocolate ones so I had half of one as soon as they arrived for my mid-morning snack. Then for lunch I had a huuuuge Tuna steak, small amount of cous cous, salad, tabasco sauce and balsamic glaze:



that pic doesn't do the tuna steak justice, it was *much* larger, I'd just buried the end under salad!

I'm feeling very nervous about this Friday's photoshoot for the Maximuscle Body of 2009 comp, I'm still to get some sort of matching sporty outfits (all mine are just, well, odds and sods!) but I'm going to prepare by getting a spray tan done later.

I'm probably more nervous about this to be honest! I've used fake tan in the past to disasterous effect - i.e. putting that 'slow developing' stuff on before going on a night out... then dancing and therefore sweating, and coming home with huge orange streaks... NOT a good look!

I asked the lovely lady at Maximuscle who rang me up to let me know I'd made the finalists and also sent me the info if she knew of any good brands (I've only heard of St Tropez but I guess they're a bit 'old hat' now?) and she said she'd used Fake Bake in the past but that the company was under new management and the quality wasn't as high. But she did mention Xen Tan which is an American product but is over here now and used in salons.

I put my postcode in the 'salon locator' doodar thingy and found a place near my work, where I actually get a 10% discount at - superb!

I'm off there later, bit apprehensive, especially thinking back to P!nk's video for her song 'Stupid Girl' where it goes a little wrong and she ends up looking like a Wotsit:



...or... worse still I could look like this!!


I'm sure I won't, doesn't stop me feeling nervy... will report back later!

TJx

Mmmm lush, drooolllll slurp

I was meeting friends last night for a quick drink last night (diet coke mind, I'm giving my liver a bit of a rest and won't be drinking until next week!!) at the Ha Ha bar in Embankment. On the way there I passed a Holland & Barrett so decided to pop in and get another jar of BarleyCup for home. I've got one at work and I love it... it does actually taste like coffee, but less harsh, and it doesn't give you coffee breath - and it doesn't have caffeine as it's made from chicory and barley - really yummy! I also picked up some licorice but unfortunately they didn't have the quinoa bars that they do in the branch in Victoria... they're lush, think Sesame Snacks but with quinoa instead, even more yummy!

By the drinks section they also had the nut butters. I already have almond butter that I bought a few months ago, which is nice, quite strong savoury though, I think I prefer eating actual almonds (which I do, most days!), but I noticed they had some cashew nut butter... I HEART cashew nuts... OMG, they are lovely, I used to visit this shop in Wimbledon Station called 'The Nut Tree' and buy honey-coated cashews and macademias by the bag-full... droollll.... this stuff is nicer than the almond butter, they roast the cashews before grinding them, so tasty!

Anyway, so I bought some cashew nut butter as well as some more rye flour for the bread maker, met up with my girlfriends for some drinks (one of whom still works at House of Fraser, my old employer, fucking awful soul-destroying organisation, going to try and get her a job in my current work place, it will make her life a lot happier I can tell you!!!) and then headed back home.

I didn't get in til quite a bit later than planned so I literally had 30 mins I could spend in the gym before kick-out time

It's always a constant battle between me and the staff when it's like 10/15 minutes to closing time:-

Staff: closing time now
Me: I thought you're open til 10pm
Staff: we are but you have to be out the door by 10pm
Me: how long do you think it'll take me to walk from this machine to the door
Staff: well we give you time to shower first
Me: I live round the corner, I don't use the showers here
Staff: Oh {grudgingly} alright then
Me: {false smiles} thanks very much

I wouldn't mind but I never leave there *after* 10pm and I do literally walk straight out as we do live a couple of minutes walk away... PLUS I'm there quite a lot in the week you'd think they'd recognise me by now!!!

Anyway, I managed to get 30 mins in on the Cardio Wave, love that machine, legs felt suitably numb and floaty-light afterwards and I had a decent sweat built up - not nearly the same as running but I did that the day before and don't want to overdo it...

Anyhoo, as I didn't get back home til after 10 I didn't feel in the slightest bit hungry but decided I needed to munch on something so I made a protein pancake with a scoop of promax diet in banana flavour and topped with half a tub of quark with cashew butter and honey all mixed up together.

I think this might have been the tastiest ever... it was like eating my honey-coated cashews but without the guilt, haha! At nearly 50g of protein and only 300 cals and < 5g fat it was pretty damn perfect for me, I'm so super chuffed.

Here's the recipe, I challenge you to not adore it (unless you have nut allergies and then I withdraw my challenge with abundant apologies...)



Enjoy!

TJx

Mmmmilkshake!

This is very very tasty

FACT

try to remember it's meant to serve two - boyf was very pleased to be able to 'help me out' with drinking it ;-)