A Seasonal Celebration

It was another beautiful morning today, beaming sun and clear blue skies.  I don’t know what is going on with the weather at the moment?

This still is England eh? What’s happened to the grey and miserable cloud that we constantly live under?

I know I know!  I will shut up now and appreciate the fact the dark grey gloomy clouds have been banished to a land far far away.  This morning I had a breakfast that  welcomed the Spring into our lives.

This was a major sunshine celebration.  It included 0% Total Greek Yoghurt (I just couldn’t resist it this week!), half a mango, a banana, passion fruit, coconut, omega mixed seeds and some Dorset Cereals simply tasty muesli. 

Lunch today was equally yummy.  I had a huge bag of carrots that needed using up as I received another huge bag of carrots in my organic veg box this week.  So when in doubt make a soup right?

Yesterday I made a huge batch of Carrot and Lentil Soup.

Ingredients

• 6 carrots sliced
• 1 cup of red lentils
• 1 litre of vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp of dried mixed herbs
• seasonings

It’s just the simple  scenario of boiling the carrots and lentils in the vegetable stock until the carrots are tender and the lentils are cooked through.  Stir through the herbs and season to taste.  Then get-a-blitzing!

SIMPLES!

The lentils make this soup so velvety and creamy.  If you find the soup too thick just add more stock.  I enjoyed my soup with an Amisa spelt cracker and a huge bowl of strawberries, blueberries and figs.

Mid-afternoon snackage was a pack of Nakd lemon raisins and a banana.

Dinner tonight was another celebration of the weather and makes up salad number 3 in my Sex Up Your Salad Challenge.

Squash, Beet and Feta with a Sweet Chilli and Herb Dressing

Ingredients

• mixed leaves
• 1/2 cup of pre-roasted butternut squash or pumpkin
• 1/2 cup of diced courgette
• 1/4 cup of finely diced beet root
• feta cheese diced (or leave out to make it vegan)
• 1/2 cup of chick peas drained
• 1 clove of garlic grated
• 2 tbsp of sweet chilli sauce
• 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar (or lemon juice for acidity)
• 2 tbsp of any oil of your choice
• 1 tbsp of chopped coriander
• mixed seeds.

First sauté the pre-roasted butternut squash in a little oil until golden and add the diced beetroot and courgette.  Cook the vegetables until they are tender and add the chick peas and set aside and allow to cool a little. This salad can be served warm or cold, but not piping hot as the mixed leaves will wilt.  Once warm or cool add the veg and chickpeas to the salad leaves and mix.

To make the dressing mix the sweet chilli sauce, oil, coriander, a garlic together.   Drizzle over the dressing and coat the vegetables and leaves.  Sprinkle with some mixed seeds for added crunch and top with the feta cheese.

Afterwards I ate two sliced pink lady apples and half a bar of Conscious goji and coconut raw chocolate from the stash that I have been sent to review.

Some of you may have noticed that I have been doing a little blog maintenance over the weekend.  I’ve added a product review page and a Friday Feature Posts page, which can be found along the top menu and changed my about page. I’ve also added a new Twitter button and an RSS Feed along the right-hand side-more ways for you to keep up to date with the blog.

I’m hoping to make some major changes to the layout of the blog and how the blog looks in the next few weeks once I have figured out a few self-hosting issues, so please bare with me folks!

What has the weather been like where you live? It was such a beautiful and sunny morning here, but then the clouds set in, which was quickly followed by the reappearance of the sun.  I hope this weather holds out for the weekend as I will be hitting the big 25!

Have you tried Conscious raw chocolate before? I’ve tried a few raw chocolate companies now and admittedly I like some brands more than others, but you will read all about that in my product  reviews.  I’m loving raw chocolate at the moment and cannot wait to see how the Conscious brand compares to the others I have tried.

Tagged as: Carrot and Red Lentil Soup, Conscious, raw chocolate, sex up your salads, Squash Beet Feta with a Sweet Chilli and Herb Dressing