Medicine Soup and Sunshine

When I got home from work and then my run on friday, I needed some relief from my cold symptoms, and MrPeskyRunner had also been smitten. I brewed up some gingery, chilli, garlicky broth with shredded collards. Spices+green=medicine.

I then had curry socca and a bean burger topped with homemade mango chutney (chopped up mango simmered for ages with curry powder) and cottage cheese for dinner- was pretty hungry by this stage.

I repeated last weekend's banana pancakes, but used oat flour this time rather than wheat flour (2 bananas, 2 eggs, 1 cup of oats, ground, 1/2 cup unsweetened soya milk, 1/2 tsp baking powder, cooked on the skillet with coconut oil and eaten with yogurt). They were tastier but softer and a little trickier to flip.

I have been doing plenty of Bodyrock- the Hot Mess Workout on thursday and again today and the 300 Rep Workout yesterday. I had already run four times this week so did none over the weekend. Tomorrow's supposed to be a break, unless I feel super energetic (probably not).

Today was so nice, I did my bodyrock workout outside, I really was a hot mess at the end with the lovely spring sun beating down on me.

Hope you all had a nice weekend:)

Banana Bread Pancakes

I had two really black bananas that needed used up and pancakes on the brain! Really ripe bananas are so sweet that all blended up I would say you can do with no other added sweetener.

The recipe:

2 very ripe bananas, smooshed with a stick blender

2 eggs

1 cup flour of your choice (not tightly packed)- I used organic self raising

1/4 tsp baking powder, maybe 1/2 tsp if you use flour without raising agent

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup unsweetened soya (or other) milk

Blend it up, either with a stick blender or in the food processor. I think I fused my food processor after making a banana berry smoothie yesterday:( Need to get that fixed.

Spoon the batter onto a hot skillet/frying pan, using the oil of your choice. I used a total of a tablespoon of coconut oil for the batch.

The stats:

This made 6 good sized pancakes- a very generous breakfast for two (comes out at 450 calories before toppings for half the batch) but it would happily stretch to serve 3.

I had mine with a spoonful of set plain yogurt, sugar free raspberry jam and cinnamon.

This would be a far more ideal breakfast after some sweaty cardio but I haven't done any since thursday as this cold is pretty bad. I've just done a few sets of strength training stuff here and there. Still, you've got to treat yourself when you're sick! I would like to make a slightly healthier version next time- use a combo of oat flour and protein powder instead of the self raising flour and eat 1/3 of the recipe (as it would be much more filling with those modifications). They would be nice with brown rice flour, buckwheat, almond, whatever you fancy:)

I have been sneaking chilli in where I can to drive the cold out of me, as well as munching away of protein.

Yesterday's lunch:

Multiseed bagel topped with Quorn slices, pineapple cottage cheese, very hot hot sauce and two carrots chopped up (went to grate them but the food processor isn't working). I had two clementines to start for some vit C :)

On the training front, I had been thinking of topping up my swimming package at the gym so I could use the weight room, but we are probably going to invest in a barbell/dumbell set and a bench to use at home so we can both weight train and not have to stand around waiting for free space. We are both really loving doing as much as we can with what we have at the moment; for me it will be a great way to build strength and muscle to support my running, for MrPeskyRunner, he wants to regain some lost muscle. Although he used to run marathons, running isn't great for him as he just loses mass- he has, like, no body fat. He loves his carbs but he is coming round to the idea of shooting for a higher protein (vegetarian) diet. I will keep you updated with our first steps into weight training!

Pancake (and beer) Tuesday

I swapped out the yogurt berry mess this morning for some oat bran and raspberries topped with unsweetened chocolate.

It was pretty good! I loved the way the oat bran kind of set in the bowl and the chocolate melted.

It got messy...but very yummy.

I did get a bit hungry mid morning so I had my favourite snack at my desk, PB stuffed banana.

So good!

Lunch was a substantial salad- bulgar wheat, salad leaves, green beans, a handful of peanuts and cashews and a hard boiled egg. I chucked a bit of chilli over it.

Later on, I had one of my sweet potato muffins, then an hour or so after that, I hit the pool for an aquajogging session with some speed work. I have really got into aquajogging, it's funny sweating while neck deep in water!

I had had a really horrendous day in work, so I got some beers on my way home from the pool to go with our pancake feast- a Sierra Nevada Extra Pale Ale and a Samuel Smith (organic) Raspberry Fruit Beer each.

Pancake (made with a few handfuls of porridge oats), stuffed with cheese and a slice of Quorn 'ham' and topped with hot sauce.

I had a second one with some apple sweetened raspberry jam and creme fraiche (unpictured).

I hope you're having as yummy a Pancake Tuesday!

Sugar free sweet potato muffins

1 very large or 2 medium sweet potatoes, baked, peeled and pureed

2 eggs

1/3 cup plain yogurt

Blend. Then:

1 cup flour of your choice (wholemeal self raising for me although you could use buckwheat, oat flour, almond meal etc)

1 tsp baking powder if your flour has no raising agents

1 tbsp butter/vegan margarine/coconut oil/sunflower oil

3 tsp mixed spice (I used Steenberg's pumpkin pie spice)

Rub the fat into the flour and spice. Then add in the sweet potato mixture.

1/3 cup dried fruit (I used chopped dried figs)

Mix into the batter, I added a handful of rolled oats at this stage too.

Spoon into a greased muffin tray and bake at 180C for 25 minutes.

Very yucky dark photo of the muffins. I put 6 in a box and froze the other four.

Note the week's supply of bananas (15!) and my drink stash in the background (Calvados and Frangelico, so yummy)

Today's frozen berry/yogurt/muesli mess aka breakfast:

Dinner: wakame brown rice noodles, Quorn pieces, savoy cabbage, creme fraiche, garlic, onion, thyme and smoked paprika

Lunch was Ashley's mayo-less egg salad with mixed leaves and I snacked on bananas, apple and an oat/apricot bar.

Two observations:

I am in a breakfast rut. I'm ditching yogurt and muesli for the next few mornings. Smoothies perhaps? I am soaking oatbran overnight for tomorrow.

I am using Quorn too much, it's so damn easy to prepare as it can go from freezer to pan to table in about 15 minutes- since I started buying it again my boyfriend won't eat lentil/nut burgers and he won't eat fish so I am a bit stuck for dense protein that suits us both. I am avoiding pulses because they definitely trigger my IBS:( I have some tofu in the fridge that I will have to do something interesting with.

Are you making pancakes tomorrow? I will probably make a plain batch so we can customise to our tastes- I am thinking banana and coconut for moi, MrPeskyRunner will definitely be having sugar in some shape or form.

Sugar feast, sugar fast

That's me about to chow down a vegan creme egg. The appeal of the creme egg will be well known to British and Irish readers, but not sure they're easy found in the US. They're a thick shelled Cadbury chocolate egg with a fondant filling (dyed white and yellow like an egg). The fondant is probably dairy free, but the choc isn't of course. And Cadbury chocolate, as any European who even vaguely likes chocolate will tell you, is more milk than chocolate. It's also just sold itself to Kraft. Yuck. Anyway, my boyfriend loves a creme egg, and as a treat for going vegan with me, I sourced some vegan ones. And they were better than the Cadbury ones (duh). Here's the filling:

Probably a bit off putting if you're not an egg fan..but they're soooo good. One is definitely the ceiling, sweet and chocolate together...yum..

As yesterday was pancake tuesday, and we reckoned they were better as dessert than dinner, we ate light- just some red cabbage, black beans and a bit of leftover quinoa

The extra space was filled with these pancakes- I made them with wholewheat flour and oat milk, and made a chocolate ganache. This was liberally spread on the pancakes and topped with Swedish Glace Raspberry Ripple and Chocolate, and black cherries. It was super yummy, but my tummy hurt all evening after. It wasn't anything in the food, I just ate too much. So today I went really light, just a little bit of oatmeal and an apple and a kiwi in the afternoon. I was pretty hungry when I got home, so chowed down some toast with homemade very lemony coriander hummus:)

Anyway, after the sugar indulgences of the last few days, I've decided to cut out sugar for the next two weeks. By no sugar I mean no sugar, syrup, agave nectar, maple syrup etc. Also anything with sugar in it, like jam, cake, biscuits, chocolate etc. Although I won't say no to fruit, some fruit juice sweetened jam, or biscuits sweetened with rice malt, or some amazake. Although I know where to get vegan sugar free chocolate, I'm going to give choco a miss too. All this is by way of a clearing out of my system, to give it a rest from stimulants.

Sweet really is the order of the day, check out my guest post on my friend's blog:

http://writenoiseni.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/guest-blog-from-vegan-dukka-girl/