It was such a great day yesterday not just because of the pancakes, but I also got to go to an opening evening at a bridal shop close to my house and look at some pretty dresses.  There is so many to choose from, but I know what style that I like, but have yet to come across “the one.”

This months WIAW theme ROCKS!

For this week’s WIAW I want to go back to Monday again.  I always seem to have more time to spend on making up meals on Monday for some reason. Now this Monday I ate a lot of my favourite foods and at every meal they were made in my favourite ways to eat them.  So I thought it would be a good post for WIAW…

Breakfast.

On this particular morning I fancied a bowl of Kashi Go Lean cereal. I’m really loving my cereal at the moment.

My favourite way to eat my cereal is with lots of fruit, almond milk and nut butter.   On this particular occasion the chosen fruit were pears and a banana with dried mixed berries and nut butter of choice was almond butter of course!

Snackage.

I had made some roasted chickpeas very early on that morning and just couldn’t stop eating them.

I roasted them in some strawberry balsamic vinegar, rock salt and mixed herbs  I love it when the shells on the chickpeas go crunchy, but are still soft in the centre.  Roasting chickpeas is fast becoming my favourite way to eat them except in hummus form that is…Sabra hummus anyone?

Lunch.

Also on Monday morning (a seemingly productive morning!) I also made some soup for lunches for work this week. 

Butternut Squash Thai Coconut Soup to be exact- recipe to come! This tasted incredible!  Definitely one of the best soups that I have made since I started blogging so I cannot wait to share the recipe.

My favourite way to eat soup is straight up, no frills, just plain and simple.  I like to taste all of the ingredients in my soup and hate it when soups become too fancy and all of the flavours just become one.  The simpler the better!

Snackage.

How do I like to eat my apples?  Pink Lady’s always.  Lots of nut butter for dipping. This time I made a peanut flour sauce and mixed in some cinnamon…a-ma-zing!

Dinner.

Veggie Heaven- in keeping with this months WIAW them obviously!

Since I had a load of veggies in my fridge that I needed to use up I decided to make them the main feature for my dinner.  My favourite way to eat my veggies is stir fried.

A simple, quick and easy meal in minutes.  I cooked kale, Chinese leaf, carrots, red pepper and mushrooms to a sauce made from char sui sauce, soy sauce, black rice vinegar and ginger.  The addition of marinated tofu soaked in soy sauce and sesame oil made this extra special and I added cashews for added crunch and protein.  Definitely one of my favourite types of meals which I go back to time and time again.

Dessert.

My favourite kind of chocolate is the kind that comes with love and kisses.

Well there are a lot of favourites in this post.  Another favourite way of eating chocolate is with a huge mug of tea.  So don’t forget to enter my fab Pukka Herb tea giveaway for your chance to win a selection of their winter teas.

What is your favourite way to eat any of the above, cereal, vegetables, chocolate, chickpeas, apples and soup?

What is the best thing that you have eaten today?

Happy WIAW my friends!

Obviously it had to be pancakes considering it’s Pancake Day!  I made my Chocolate Spelt Pancakes, but this time I used the new chocolate flavoured Kara coconut milk in place of soya milk and also used soya flour instead as I was out of spelt.

They were simply gorgeous!  I topped them with almond butter, chocolate hazelnut sauce using Justin’s nut butter and added mixed frozen fruit and a chopped banana.

 I wish it was Pancake Day everyday!

Of course the perfect acompliment to pancakes is tea!  I made a huge mug of Pukka Herbs  Revitalise tea, which I have practically living off recently after receiving a lovely selection of winter teas from Pukka Herbs to try.

I received boxes of Revitalise, Liquorice and Cinnamon and Three Ginger.  I have really enjoyed all of the flavours that I have been sent.  The ginger flavoured teas have been great for sniffly noses and a cold.  The Revitalise tea a much needed afternoon pick me up or a good way to give yourself an energy boost in the morning.  There is a tea for every mood and anytime of day in the Pukka Herb tea range.

I’m a big fan of herbal teas and Pukka Herbs is one of the brands that I tend to buy.  Their blend of herbs and flavour combinations are second to none.  The herbs used in their teas are all organically grown and are fair traded.  Their collection of  teas spans a vast range of different flavours so there is something for all.

Another great thing is that they are readily available and can be sourced in major supermarkets and health food stores, priced at approximately £2.25 for 20 teabags.

Luckily as on of my blog sponsors for January the lovely people over at Pukka Herbs have given me 4 sets of teas to giveaway, which includes boxes of Revitalise, Liquorice and Cinnamon and Three Ginger teas.

To win the opportunity to taste these tasty teas then please…

• leave a comment on this post stating what is your favourite flavour of tea
• follow and tweet about this giveaway ensuring that @celery_cupcakes is in the tweet!
• like Celery and Cupcakes on Facebook
• link back to this giveaway in a blog post

Each action counts as one entry so please make sure that you remember to leave a separate comment for each giveaway entry.  This is because I only count the number of comments made on the giveaway as an equivalent to the number of entries- I would hate to miss any!

The giveaway is open to everyone and ends on Monday 27th February 12 pm GMT with the winner to be announced the following day.

Alas, by 9 am this morning I had already been to the gym and got my car washed…it’s all sparkly and squeaky clean again.

I’ve made the best soup EVER for lunch…recipe to come soon on the blog!

Chickpeas were also roasted and snacked on continuously throughout the day…

Strawberry balsamic vinegar with sea salt roasted chickpeas..nom!

Oh, and I even booked a church for our wedding.  Although the frustrating thing is that even though it is only 2 streets away we reside outside the Parish.  No problem really I guess, but I just found that it just made things more complicated than it really needed to be.  If they could only make the boundaries of the Parish expand just to two streets more.

And of course I have just sent everyone emails detailing them about their swap partners for the Foodie Blog Swap!  I’m so sorry for those who didn’t get an email.  It was simply because there wasn’t enough US bloggers to go round.  All of us food jealous people in the UK obviously want to try your yummy American food.

So, if any of you lovely American folk would like to do two swaps or would like to pass on your details I can hook you up with a UK blogger, but obviously this would be outside of the Foodie Blog Swap!

So I guess it was quite a productive Monday after all, despite the minimal thesis work.  We all have our slow days.  I’ve already planned my work for tomorrow and will be back on it for sure! 

Have fun swapping everyone!

Woah! This week has just flown by as has the weekend.  I hope you have all had fun!  It has been an uber productive week for me with another thesis chapter finished, pending corrections, and a busy week at work.

I was really happy to be given this Sunday off from work.  As such I decided to make sure that I used it wisely and had a lovely lie in, well until 8.30 am any way, which makes for a lie in for me and went out for a slow run, which I really enjoyed.

It felt like such a treat to actually spend some time making and eating my breakfast leisurely for a change rather than rushing and hardly getting to taste it properly.  For this morning’s leisurely purposes I made some toasted rye bread topped with trader Joe’s almond butter, a chopped banana and apple, dried mango and mixed berries and coconut.

Fruit on toast is so much better than beans on toast! 

In the afternoon we met up with my mum and headed to another wedding fayre that was held at a wedding venue that we have adored for so long.  For me it seemed like a genius idea to hold the wedding fayre at the wedding venue rather than at an arena etc. as it killed two birds with one stone- you got to see what the venue looked like all dressed up for a wedding and was given a bundles of inspiration for your own big day.

There were also lots of cake samples and nibbles for us to try, which went down well with my impending hubby!

The afternoon just flew by and now I feel like I have so much wedding inspiration that I could burst.  I have developed this fear of “what if we get it wrong?” hence why it has taken us so long to book a venue.  We keep mulling over the pros and cons of everything we have seen so far and keep going round in circles, so much so it is giving me a headache.  But I am happy to say that we have finally settled on the very beautiful venue that

we were surrounded by today for an early winter wedding.

I’m so freakin’ excited and relieved!

Since the wedding fayre finished at 6pm Alfie decided to treat us to dinner there so we could gauge the quality of the food-not that we needn’t have worried though!

Apologies for the picture quality- it seems candle light and my camera phone do not make a happy couple!

Everything was just gorgeous, which made us more at peace with the decision we have made for our wedding venue

My other favourite eats over the past few days have included:

Hummus love! Garlic and herb Sabra hummus with mixed chopped vegetables and wholegrain rice cakes.

Another smoothie on the go- spinach, a banana, almond butter, almond milk, water, almond extract and choc-a-lot protein powder

Banana bread Larabar…no explanation required!

Fruity breakfast- strawberries, a chopped banana and pear with almond milk and Sunbutter. I love almond milk and just adore eating fruit this way.

A very pink smoothie! It contained frozen mixed berries, a banana, acai berry juice, strawberry hemp protein powder and almond extract. This ended being a smoothie to go on the drive to work. It’s so basic without really any super foods but I’m really enjoying my smoothies this way right now and the fact that they take a lot less time to make too.

A hummus topped extravaganza: kale dressed in lemon juice, tomatoes, cucumber, avocado, feta cheese, hummus and onion chutney…a-maz-ing! I’m all loved up with kale at the moment, I had forgotten how good it was.

A speedy dinner- Linda McCartney vegetarian sausages, brown rice with roasted leeks, red peppers and kale in my Basic Tomato sauce.

Not only has this been a week of good eats, but also a week of awesome workouts…

Monday: 30 minutes of speed intervals on the treadmill, bike and cross trainer, strength workout 1 and 5 minute cool down on the bike

Tuesday: 15 minutes of intervals on the bike and cross trainer, 1 hour of Body Pump with increased weights

Wednesday: 5K treadmill run of intervals. 15 minutes spinning session on bike, 200 ab crunches (8 varieties of 25 reps)

Thursday: REST

Friday: 10 minute warm up on the bike, strength workout 2, 5 minute cool down on the step machine

Weekend: Yoga for Runners, core yoga, hip opening yoga and hatha yoga podcasts

I’ve really been enjoying the variety that my works are giving me at the moment.  Increasing my weights in my body pump class and increasing some of the reps where I have felt ready with my strength workouts has also helped with giving me a more challenging routine and has helped mix things up a lot too.

So all in all it has been a pretty awesome week and long may it continue! I’m hoping that this up and coming week is just as productive. I have just booked some time off work for my birthday in a few weeks time so I’m going to have fun planning for that.  I’ve also got to find a church this week and a bridal shop near my house are having some special evening doo on Tuesday that I am looking forward to as well.

I hope you all have a fabulous week!

What have you been up to this weekend?
How do like to unwind after a very busy week?

I received both the Spelt Berry Puffs and the Miller’s Muesli and have really been enjoying road testing them these past few weeks.

Spelt is a fabulous nutritious grain with a nut-like flavour. Many of the benefits of spelt is that it offers a broader spectrum of nutrients and goodness than wheat, which belongs to the same family of grains as spelt.  It provides and excellent source of zinc and fibre and protein, containing 8 different amino acids.  Spelt is highly soluble, which means the nutrients are rapidly absorbed by the body with little impact on the digestive system.  Like wheat it is a versatile product and can be turned into bread, cereal and pasta without in most cases producing any allergies.

Sharpham Park is set in Glastonbury Somerset and is dedicated in producing organic British grown spelt using their own mills.  Sustainability is at the heart of Sharpham Park’s producers as well as the quality of their products and what goes in to make them.  They were certified British organic 5 by the Soil Association in relation to their passion for detail where the manufacturing of their produce is concerned.

I’m a big cereal fan and have really enjoyed eating bowls full of these cereals with fresh fruit, rice milk and nut butters for a delicious breakfast.  One morning I think I mixed both of the cereals together in one bowl…the best of both worlds.

Sharpham Park make a wide range of spelt based cereal which is all organic.  Not only do they make spelt cereal but there is also a variety of artisan pastas, biscuits and cereal bars, spelt flour and lots more.  They have a lovely looking shop at Kilver Court, which looks like somewhere I would love to visit and buy lots of tasty organic food stuffs.

You can pick up Sharnham Park’s products in many different health food shops and farm shops across the UK,  Of course their whole range of spelt products can be found on their online shop for you all to enjoy.

The cost of the cereal, depending on what you are interested in buying ranges from £2.75 (porridge) to £6.95 (Luxury Granola), which I would happily pay for a tasty box of organic cereal as a treat.  Although the granola is a little bit pricey for me, but I’m sure it is amazing all the same.

Have you tried Sharpham Park products before? What did you think?

Are you a fan of spelt generally?

Oh and please don’t forget to sign up to the Foodie Blog Swap!  Thank you to everyone that has signed up so far, but we need more lovely people from the US to join in!!!

I love me some veggies!

For this weeks WIAW I’m going to rewind to Monday cos’ it was simply snack-tastic.  Recently I’ve been having days where I just want to snack all of the time especially during the day and if I’ve had a large breakfast- it just seems to make my eating patterns go a little bit askew. 

Before I started on my snacking frenzy I headed to the gym for 30 minutes of speed intervals on the treadmill, cross trainer and the bike followed by strength routine 1 and a 5 minute cool down on the bike.  I was such a great work out and I definitely got my sweat on!

Once home I made myself a huge bowl of Dorset’s Cereal High Fibre Flakes which I couldn’t resist after seeing that they were on offer on last weeks grocery shop.  I added a chopped pear and a chopped banana and rice milk, which made  for a very amazing breakfast.  I am a huge fan of cereal especially for a quick and easy breakfast and this didn’t disappoint.

Mid morning I snacked on some dried mixed berries and cherries.  These baby’s are seriously addictive and I am proud to say that I am totally addicted…love them!

After breakfast and copious amounts of dried berries I wasn’t really feeling lunch but felt like I should eat something.  Instead I ate what I had planned for my afternoon snack: half a chopped red pepper, carrots, two Clear Spring crackers with hummus and cream cheese.

And then since lunch was snacky mid afternoon meant that another snack was required in the form of a berry smoothie made using rice milk, mixed frozen berries and half a banana topped with dark chocolate covered pomegranate seeds and chocolate covered sunflower seeds…so good!

So good in fact that I went back for some more of the seeds!

For dinner I made baked tilapia fish with brown rice and a delicious salsa made from half an avocado, tomatoes, yellow peppers and cucumber mixed with my Basic Tomato Sauce which I warmed through in the microwave.  This was a really lovely and light dinner which is what I felt like I needed and it was a great mix of flavours with the nutty brown rice, fresh tomato salsa and the smoky tasting fish…yum!

For dessert I the other half of the banana from my smoothie with grapes and a chopped pear with half a pot of Alpro soya chocolate pudding and so Kashi Go Lean. 

This was the perfect end to a snack filed day.  I have snack days very rarely, but sometimes if I eat a large breakfast or even lunch it can sometimes throw my other meals that I had planned out of the window as I’m not longer have that much of an appetite left and revert to snacking instead.  I never really feel guilty about the amount of food or what I eat because I truly believe in listening to what your body wants, as long as it’s not mindless eating for the sake of it of course.  If my body wants to snack then it shall snack on beautiful and delicious food.

And it was a delicious day of food indeed!

Do you have snacky days often?  Do you snack intuitively or just because you feel like eating something?

Oh and please don’t forget to sign up to the Foodie Blog Swap!  Thank you to everyone that has signed up so far, but I want morrrrrrrrrrrre!

Many of you living out of the US and UK have shown interest in the swap and I had considered it, but  I thought that it would become much too complicated, especially with postage time etc.  I hope you will accept my huge apologies and can understand my reasoning.  However, I am keeping the swap open to non-bloggers and readers providing that they are able to take a photograph of their swap and send it to me via email for my round up post once all of the swaps have been carried out.

After the success and super organisation of Laura’s Secret Santa I thought it would be a great idea to also get you to register your interest by filling out a form.

[contact-form]

Like last time…

• I think a maximum budget of £10/$16 excluding postage is plenty.  I’m very conscious of keeping costs low so please be aware of shipping costs when you are choosing items for your swap.

• Once you find out who your blog partner is be sure to look at their blog to get some ideas on what food stuffs to put in your swap and also look to the dietry requirements, likes and dislikes that I will email to you.

• When you receive your swap post it on your blog and send me the link for the round up post at the end. For non-bloggers please send me your photo by email at celeryandcupcakes@gmail.com

• All swaps must be sent by Monday 5th March.

As I need equal numbers of UK and US bloggers to participate so I can match you all up for your swaps, submissions will work on a first come first serve basis.  If initially I end up with more US bloggers than UK bloggers or visa versa I will have to cut off the last few submissions to make up the even numbers.  Sorry again to sound harsh, but I don’t want to be scrambling around looking for bloggers to match up to other bloggers like last year.  So please fill out the resigstration form to express your interest as soon as possible.

One of the swaps last year went horribly wrong with one of the bloggers not holding up their end of the bargain.   So please only express your interest if you are totally committed to the swap.  I do have a small amount of goodies put aside if anything does go wrong, but I am putting my trust in you and hoping that none of the swaps will have to come to that.   Although I will try and resolve any issues that may occur the best I can.

I will keep the form active until Sunday 19th February so please get your submission forms in by then. 

Thank you for taking part!

I also want to say a huge thank you to Sarah over at Welsh Girl Eats for her fab guest post. If you haven’t seen it yet then please check it out!  There are some great tips for eating healthy when you are busy bee, which is something that I can relate to right now.

This week I decided to just do a 5 day work out week.  My Body Pump class was fully booked on both occasions this week so no awesome weight lifting class for me this week.  I did manage to still get in some great strength workouts though with a modified version of some of the NROLW strength routines.

Monday: 30 minute of speed intervals on the treadmill, bike and step machine, strength workout 1 and 5 minute cool down on the step machine.

Tuesday: 30 minute hill climb on the cross trainer and a 10 minute session of high intensity intervals on the bike followed by 200 ab crunches (8 different exercises of 25 reps each)

Wednesday: 15 minute warm up on the bike, strength workout 2 and 5 minute cool down on the adaptive motion trainer

Thursday: 5K of speed intervals on the treadmill, 10 minutes of intervals on the step machine followed by 200 ab crunches (8 different exercises of 25 reps each)

Friday: Yoga for runner’s and core yoga podcasts from Yogadownload.com

Weekend: Rest

I’ve also been eating some pretty tasty eats this week too. My favourite eats of the week include:

1. Toasted wholemeal sourdough bread topped with raspberry jam and Justin’s dark choc and hazelnut butter

2. Fresh grapes cherries and a chopped banana in rice milk.  Loving my cherries to snack on through the day right now!

3. Kamut pasta spirals with my Basic Tomato Sauce, mushrooms and spinach…yum!

4.  Lemon sponge cake with honeycomb hot chocolate at the Christian Union’s acoustic night.  Such a great atmosphere, great music and great cake!

5.  Green smoothie snack of spinach, apple, ginger and cucumber.

6. Sharpham Park Organic Spelt Millers Muesli mixed with Sharpham Park Organic Spelt Berry Puffs with a chopped banana, rice milk and white chocolate wonderful…delish!

7.  Baked salmon on top of Clearspring soba noodles with stir fried mange tout, baby corn, mushrooms and red peppers in a sauce made using soy sauce, rice vinegar and ginger.

8.  A salad made using kale massaged with avocado and lemon juice with tomatoes, barrel aged feta cheese, peppers, cucumber and the addition of hummus.

9.  Snack plate of a chopped pink lady apple, a pear, Justin’s nut chocolate and hazel nut butter and St. Dalfour black cherry jam for dipping along with some dried berries and cajun spiced beans.

It has been such a great week of eats that I cannot wait to see what next week brings! Is it strange that I get so excited about food? I don’t care cos’ I love to eat and really enjoying fresh, wholesome and nutrition food right now with the odd treat thrown in.  I have a post coming up soon about my current eating habits and current thoughts on my diet so watch this space.

Whilst doing the grocery shop on Friday night after work I picked up some new goodies to try out that caught my eye as I was bull-dozing my way through the aisles with my shopping trolley…

I’ve been snacking on these dried berries and cherries and cajun style beans at work all weekend. I’m totally addicted to them already.  The beans come in other flavours too which I a definitely going to buy on my next grocery shop…love them!

I saw some of you tweeting about the new Alpro Almond milk last week so I knew that I had to hunt it down.  Also, standing right on the shelf next to it was the brand new Kara Coconut chocolate and calcium milk.  I just to had to have that too!  I cannot wait to try these and see how they compare to the original versions of milk from the same brand. 

I get so excited about new foods to try.  I’m current browsing those iHerb aisles again and eyeing up some raw crackers and kelp noodles at the moment.  I’m just one click away fromm foodie heaven!

Have you found any delicious new foods to try recently?

When you do find new foods to try do you have to buy it there and then or can it wait till next time?  I’m absolutely hopeless with this one!

What are your tips for maintaining a healthy lifestyle when life becomes crazy?

It’s Wednesday…it’s time to partttttty!

This week’s WIAW is all about the veggie love.  Now I love me some veggies in every which way, whether they are baked, roasted, stir fried or just steamed. Since I’ve been a busy little bee this week I thought I would show you how I pack my veggies and take them on the go with me like I did yesterday.

But before all sharing all of my foodie delights of yesterday I had an awesome workout session in the gym which involved a 30 minute hill climb on the cross trainer and a 10 minute session of high intensity intervals on the bike followed by 200 ab crunches (8 different exercises of 25 reps each).  I felt great afterwards.  I now love incorporating cardio and some strength work in one session.  Cutting down my cardio time to include strength as well is definitely something that I am looking to do in the very near future.

After getting ready at home it was time to hit the road.  To save time I decided to take my breakfast to the library with me…

I made a lovely green smoothie which included spinach, 2 plums, an apple, water, rice milk, vanilla stevia, maca powder, chia seeds and lucuma powder…so good!  Some Kashi Go Lean Crisp also made the perfect acompliment to the smoothie.  This kept me full for hours!

Lunch was another packed affair in the form of a salad.  It contained mixed salad leaves that had been massaged with lemon juice, half an avocado, tomatoes, carrots, red pepper and some Raw Health crackers.  I also ate an unpictured pink lady apple, persimmon and plum…it was one of those snack happy kind of days!

In the afternoon my poor stomach was growling so I made it happy with some delicious banana soya milk and a chocolate chip cookie Lara bar…delicious!  I’m still not sure which Lara bar flavour I love the most-perhaps all of them?

Once I got home after a day of thesis writing I was exhausted.  Luckily I had been sure to leave some leftovers from Monday nights dinner, where would I be without leftovers?

This was the best meal ever!!!  I had dug out some tempeh from the freezer (I had forgotten that it was in there) and marinated it in some sesame oil, soy sauce and ume plum vinegar and baked it in the oven.  Also, I made some sweet potato chips dusted with black pepper and roasted some brussel sprouts in some coconut oil and maple syrup.  To make the sauce I whipped up some peanut flour, sweet chilli sauce, water, salt and pepper and warmed it in the microwave so it goes all creamy and thick..love it!

I haven’t had much experience with tempeh before, but now I’m in love with it.  It’s definitely going to be featuring on my shopping list in the future as it makes a great alternative to tofu.

And then there was dessert…

A chocolate chia seed pudding made with chia seeds, vegan choco-a-lot protein shake, water and honey with a warmed chopped banana and topped with more Kashi Go Lean.  The perfect end to a great day of eats.

Just a quick mention about the Foodie Blog Swap.  I know a lot of you enjoyed it last year and I was thinking of running it again. For those of you who are not in the know it involves the exchange of foodie gifts between a UK blogger and an American blogger. It worked really well last year and I just wanted to gauge how many of you would be interested in doing it again.  Please let me know!

It what forms do you have your veggies on the go? 

What is your favourite meal to pack to take to work with you?

What is your favourite way to cook your veggies-stir fry, steam or roasted?