Allie in Wonderland

Birthday cake!

2012-02-12T17:13:00.000Z

It was my friend's birthday last month, but she was away, so she arranged a bit of a belated birthday celebration. And I thought she needed a cake, so I made a chocolatey confection topped with Smarties...

I just used my usual sponge recipe (weigh four eggs, then use the same weight of butter, sugar and self-raising flour) and replaced 75g of the flour with cocoa powder. Then I made a chocolatey chocolate ganache - I based it on a recipe I found in the Dairy Book of Home Cookery but essentially made it up because I didn't have enough icing sugar. It ended up being 130g of butter and 90ml of milk, microwaved until the butter melted, and then I added 100g of cocoa powder and about 150g of icing sugar and used my electric beater to beat it all together until it was smooth and lovely. It worked really well - I left it to cool for a bit and it went nice and thick and spreadable. Yum yum!

More snowy photos!

2012-02-11T17:13:00.002Z

We had another dusting of snow yesterday morning - just enough to cover the branches and make everything look like a bit of a winter wonderland! It was very pretty but I do hope things thaw out just a little by tomorrow morning - it's long run time again and I don't want to fall over!

And here's the snow!

2012-02-05T10:01:00.003Z

The running club officially cancelled this morning's outing, which I was pleased about - I think a few hardy souls have gone out for a long run anyway, but I didn't need much of an excuse to stay in the warm! I'm disappointed to be missing a run, but I'd feel a lot worse if I fell over in the snow and broke something, wouldn't I! So today will be all about soup and big mugs of hot Ribena.

Hello winter!

2012-02-04T15:57:00.003Z

On Christmas Day it was 13 degrees and mild...now it's about 2 degrees and very icy! We're expecting snow any minute and it's absolutely freezing.

This morning I put my big snow boots on and walked to my Pilates class - a water main had burst just down the road, and I saw these amazing icicles!

Then I came home, dyed my hair and put on about twenty layers of clothing, before making a batch of Lorraine Pascale's pumpkin and rosemary muffins. I had half a butternut squash in the fridge, and happily it ended up being exactly the right amount for the recipe! They're cooling at the moment, and they look and smell lovely...

I'm meant to be going for a long run tomorrow morning (last Sunday I totally surprised myself by running 14 miles - that's further than I've ever run before!) but I suppose it depends on how much snow we get! I'll be keeping a keen eye on the running club's Facebook page to see whether we're going to brave it or not!

Cocktails at Big Easy

2012-01-21T14:48:00.002Z

On Thursday my boss decided to take us all out for lunch, and, as often happens where I work, 'lunch' meant 'staying out all evening'. We ended up at Big Easy on the King's Road - I'd never been before but I'll definitely be going back again! They have a brilliant happy hour all evening on Mondays and from 4pm until 7.30 Tuesday-Friday, with two cocktails for £7.45, and the cocktails were fab.

We started with frozen strawberry margaritas...

...then tried the Starlett (which involved gin and passion fruit)...

...then the Mint Julep (I'm not usually a bourbon fan but this was gorgeous)...

...then the Rum Runner (white AND dark rum with Galliano, passion fruit and tropical fruit juice)...

...and finally a mango margarita!

Unsurprisingly, I had a rather good night...

It's also a proper American-style steakhouse and crab shack, and the food looked amazing - I think I'll have to go and try their lobster one day!

Let's talk about bras...

2012-01-14T10:00:00.000Z

For one reason or another, bras have featured quite heavily in my life just recently! We had a thorough discussion about bras and bra fitting in the office the other day, and that spurred me into making a trip to Rigby and Peller and buying a couple of new bras that actually fit, rather than the pre-weight-loss, decidedly baggy and old, ones I'd been wearing for shamefully longer than I should have!

First things first - the majority of women out there are wearing the wrong bra size. Women have a tendency to think that they can't possibly be 'that big' in the cups (fuelled, I think, by the stereotype of the 'DD cup' Page Three girl) and that they can't possibly be 'that small' around the back (because we always think we're fatter than we are). Too many women also rely on those old-fashioned calculations that tell you to measure round your back, then measure round your boobs and work out your cup size based on how many inches' difference there is - but I'm afraid that just does not work. For years, I went by what I was told by a bra fitter in a well-known British shop - she said I was a 34B, so a 34B is what I wore. Even though the straps fell down and the cups gaped. Then one day I was at a friend's house and the conversation turned to bras, and she actually laughed at me when I told her what bra size I was wearing. She told me in no uncertain terms that I should get myself to R&P for a fitting - and lo and behold, I instantly went down a back size and up two cup sizes! Plus, I ended up with two lovely bras that felt comfortable and fitted in all the right places.

Since then, I've become something of an evangelist when it comes to the subject of getting properly fitted (as you can probably tell!) Yes, bras from places like Rigby and Peller and Bravissimo are more expensive than high-street bras. But they fit beautifully, and with just a little bit of care and attention they'll last absolutely ages. I'd rather spend £100 on two well-made bras that make me look and feel great than spend £100 on five ill-fitting cheaper bras that dig in and gape and generally annoy the heck out of me. And no, the people who do the fittings don't maul you like Trinny and Susannah! So if you haven't done so already - please, go and get yourself a proper bra!

Tea and pampering...

2012-01-13T16:09:00.002Z

I've had the nicest couple of days! I had two days' holiday from last year to use up, so I sneaked them over into this week and I'm halfway through a fabulous four-day weekend. Yesterday, my mum came up to London (it actually worked really well, as my dad had meetings up this way as well, so they drove here and back together and we all went out for Thai food and lots of wine last night) and we made use of a brilliant LivingSocial voucher we'd snapped up last year. It was for a massage, facial and champagne afternoon tea each at the Hilton Park Lane, and we were seriously impressed. The massage was wonderfully relaxing, the facial - with Dermalogica products - was amazing (we couldn't stop going on about how plumped and soft and brightened our faces looked and felt afterwards) and the tea was utterly delicious.

We started with a peach Bellini each and some beautiful little open sandwiches - I had prawn, smoked salmon, egg and cucumber, and my mum had the same but with a ham one instead of one of the cucumber ones.

Then we had tea - I had jasmine green tea...

...and THEN, the tower of cakes and scones and pastries came out!

There was a plain scone, a raisin scone and two chocolate chip scones, with strawberry compote, cream and chocolate ganache...

...mini cupcakes, which we cut in half and made into hybrid Frankencupcakes (this one is half raspberry and half lemon)

...and an amazing selection of little chocolates and pastries and things (the tray they're sitting on is made of chocolate too!)

We did our very best and ate everything apart from two cupcakes and two chocolate things, but we got to take those home with us in a little box! After all of that we had a lovely walk in Hyde Park, where we saw swans and daisies (in January!)

Then this morning we popped to the shops, where I bought some new bras (I've been wearing the wrong size since losing weight *slapped wrist*) and a couple of jumpers and a gorgeous blazer from Zara, and Mum bought some lovely jumpers too, and then we had lunch and then I saw Mum off to the station and went and had my fringe trimmed! It's been a thoroughly brilliant couple of days - and I've still got the actual weekend to come! Hoorah for days off!

My new toy...

2012-01-11T21:29:00.002Z

Yes, I've finally joined the world of 21st-century running! I'd been thinking about getting a Garmin for ages, but I'd always been put off by the price, and I've never really liked tracking my pace while I'm running. I prefer to do a run, see how I feel, see if I can push myself a bit, and then see how fast I ran when I finish. But seeing as I actually want to attempt to run a sub-2hr half-marathon at some point in the near future, I think it's time to brave it and actually start keeping an eye on how fast I'm running - and on how that compares to how fast I should be running!

So when someone on the running club's Facebook page alerted us all to the fact that Sweatshop currently have the Garmin Forerunner 110 for only £74.99, I decided to go for it. I haven't actually used it yet - it's charging at the moment - but it sounds perfect. It's not stupidly complicated but it'll give me all the information I need and I'll be able to track my progress online. So we'll see how it goes!

Victory from the jaws of defeat...

2012-01-08T20:16:00.000Z

It's been a day of running and cooking, with a bit of football thrown in for good measure! First off, this morning I headed off with the running club for a 10-mile run, and I was feeling quite nervous about it - I hadn't done that sort of distance for a good few weeks and last week's shorter runs weren't really anything to write home about. But I actually managed to smash my PB by over five minutes! I think it was down to the lovely people I was running with - they're so chatty and supportive, and even when I found my rightful place at the back I had someone who runs at my pace with me and we were spurring each other on. Just look at this time!

I was so chuffed! And it's really boosted my confidence as I start my half-marathon training.

Then this afternoon I watched (hiding behind a cushion, given our recent form) the FA Cup clash between United and City - I am, of course, a United fan and the first half couldn't have gone any better, but we can never do anything the easy way and the second half was horribly nail-biting! Thankfully we won 3-2...but having seen off one set of bitter rivals, we've now been drawn against Liverpool in the next round! Give me strength!

After all that excitement, I knew I wanted something nice for supper, but I had no idea what. My mum would no doubt have said 'If you don't know what you want, you can't be hungry' but that wasn't the case at all! I just couldn't work out what I fancied. Then I happened upon an online discussion about takeaways...but I can't afford takeaway from either a financial or a health point of view! So I ended up making my own. After a bit of Googling I found a recipe for naan bread - I'd never made naan myself but a couple of months ago I went round to a friend's house and she made gorgeous naan which she cooked in a frying pan, so I fancied having a go at something like that. It was a really easy recipe - I halved it and made mini naan breads, and they were really lovely and flaky and absolutely delicious. I also made some red lentil dhal (it was never going to photograph well, I'm afraid...) which had cumin, mustard seed and garam masala in it, and a mushroom and chick pea curry with some curry paste, garlic, ginger and tomatoes. It was a feast!

Can't wait to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow!

This week's cooking...

2012-01-07T20:09:00.000Z

As it's a new year, I am of course attempting to get myself into an 'exercise and healthy eating' habit. I've signed up for the Reading half-marathon, which is on April 1st (shock horror - I'm doing an organised race! Hopefully this time I'll finally get over my bizarre tendency to do perfectly well in training before a spectacular crash-and-burn on the day itself...) so I need to start putting in the miles, and although I don't have many Christmas pounds to lose I would like to be a bit healthier after spending the entire festive period eating my bodyweight in cheese and drinking rather a lot of wine. A trip to the pub last night probably wasn't the best start, but never mind! This morning I went to Pilates, and on the way home I bought lots of healthy things.

Some of which I used to make this lovely nut roast:

I do love a nut roast! Bizarrely, though, this was my first attempt at making one - my mum makes an amazing pine nut, pepper and mushroom terrine thing that sort of resembles a nut roast, which I have for Christmas lunch every year instead of turkey, but it's not really a nut roast. This one was the real deal, with walnuts and sunflower seeds as well as carrots, mushrooms, onion and pepper. I didn't have any of the herbs the original recipe called for, so I decided to add some toasted cumin seeds and a bit of ground coriander, and it's absolutely gorgeous. As you can see, I had it with a lovely tomatoey sauce (I just cooked up a little tin of chopped tomatoes with plenty of salt and pepper and a bit of chilli) and some brown rice and a big pile of baby Brussels sprouts. I'm hoping it'll be good running fuel! The loaf makes easily enough for six, so I've popped the rest in the freezer in two-slice portions.

The healthiness doesn't stop there, though - on Thursday night I was stuck for something to make for supper when I stumbled across a recipe from Appetite for Reduction for soft broccoli polenta. I've had a massive bag of polenta in the cupboard for literally years - I bought it to make Jamie Oliver's pizza dough when I lived in the flat before this one - and it's only just gone past its best before date, so I thought it'd be a good idea to use some of it up. This polenta dish was ridiculously quick and easy to make, ridiculously filling and ridiculously low in calories - and of course anything containing broccoli is bound to be right up my street!

I made some garlic mushrooms to go with it and drizzled the whole thing with some balsamic glaze - yum!

Christmas 2011: Done

2012-01-03T21:05:00.000Z

Once again, sorry for disappearing for weeks on end! I did mean to post a few times over the festive break, but as it was I had such a lovely time eating, drinking and being merry that I barely touched a computer! So here's a recap...

Christmas Day started like this:

...and continued in a similar vein all day!

Here I am looking very excited about my presents:

...and here's our lovely tree (Dad had a slight tree-rage incident at the garden centre when he turned his back for five seconds and someone else nicked the tree he and Mum had chosen, but we ended up with a gorgeous tree nonetheless!)

And finally, here's all the food...

It's beginning to look a lot like...

2011-12-18T11:23:00.003Z

...CHRISTMAS! Yay!

Apologies for the complete lack of blogging action recently - I've been ridiculously busy and my internet connection at home has been playing up. Anyway, here I am! Since I last posted, I've done all sorts - I put on a posh dress and went to a ball, I drank far too much at the running club's Christmas party, and I did a bit of celeb-spotting at the work Christmas lunch.

I also managed a PB on my usual Wednesday night 4.4-mile run - look!

I'd promised myself a night off, as it was the day after the aforementioned work do and I was anticipating a monster hangover, but I actually woke up feeling fine and therefore had no excuse for not getting out there for a run. I'd joked with one of the running club chaps that he should coach me to a PB, and he was as good as his word - he paced me round and I knocked a whole minute off my previous best! Just goes to show what I can do when I actually put some effort in...!

I've also been doing some Christmas shopping and baking - this year I made little gift bags for my friends with all sorts of homemade goodies inside, like rhubarb gin, caramel apple jam, and chocolate, cherry and almond cookies. And I also made some gingerbread men for some vegan friends of mine - they were the ones I made a vegan banana and mango loaf for a few months ago, but unfortunately I'd somehow managed to forget that my friend Janet hates bananas, so that didn't go down quite as well as planned! So this time I wanted to make sure I made something extra delicious, and this recipe from The Post Punk Kitchen was fab. I think my mini gingerbread man cutter must have been extra small, because I got hundreds of the little buggers! They looked brilliant all packaged up and ready to go - I just hope they've survived the post!

I've only got two days at work before I head down to the Westcountry for a (well-deserved, I like to think) Christmas break, but I'm sure I'll be taking lots of photos and I'll try to blog about all of our festive adventures as often as I can!

Soft spicy gingerbread cookies...

2011-12-04T17:47:00.001Z

Yes, it's another Sunday afternoon bake! Last week, someone at work mentioned the soft gingerbread biscuits their grandmother used to make, and I thought I'd have a go at making some. The flat now smells extremely festive - I'm resisting putting the Christmas tree up for another few days (I usually put it up a couple of weeks before I go home for the Christmas break) but the whole place smells spicy and sugary and very Christmassy!

I used this recipe from Two Peas And Their Pod and it was great - I did find I had to use more flour to make the dough into something that I could roll into balls (I think chilling the dough first might have helped, too) and I think because of that I should have upped the spices a bit, as the finished cookies are gently warming rather than in-your-face gingery. But they're still delicious, and the coating of white sugar makes them look like they've been dusted with a little touch of frost.

Yum yum! I'll have to see what the verdict at work is tomorrow...!

Winter light...

2011-12-02T21:21:00.001Z

Apologies for the lack of posts lately - this week has been insanely busy! I somehow managed three nights out in a row, each more booze-filled than the last, and tonight is my first night in since Sunday! Today I've been trying my best to be healthy in a vain attempt to make up for the excesses of the last three days - it's been wall-to-wall green tea, water and vegetables!

I also decided to clear the cobwebs with a wander along to Waitrose after work (it's about a mile away) and the light was absolutely beautiful, so I took a couple of photos of the green...

It's actually been quite cold today - November was really unseasonably warm, but finally I've been able to break out the scarves and gloves! I like cold weather - it's December, it's meant to be cold! It doesn't feel festive without chilly weather. I'd like some snow...but maybe not quite as much as we had last year, and not when I'm trying to get home for Christmas...!

Apple and coconut cookies, mushrooms, and That Syed Off Eastenders...

2011-11-24T19:50:00.001Z

We're coming up to late November (only a month until Christmas, people!) and although the weather is still unseasonably warm, I want to cook warming, autumnal things. And I want to get cracking with my Christmas baking - every year, I make some sort of sweet treat for my friends, and of course I have to do a bit of recipe testing first. Of course.

These apple, coconut and cinnamon cookies, while delicious, didn't quite fit the Christmas brief, which is why I'm sharing them with you now.

I made them on Sunday and took them to work - I was a bit worried that my colleagues wouldn't like them because of the texture, which is very soft and moist and quite far away from what you'd traditionally describe as a 'cookie', but they seemed to go down really well. They're too moist for Christmas presents, as the icing melted very quickly into the cookies, and I think they're a little 'healthy' for Christmas presents, but it was a good experiment! They're completely gluten- and dairy-free, which is always good to know.

Then this evening, I tried out another recipe - this time, it wasn't anything to do with Christmas, but it was gorgeous! I made a mushroom and pearl barley stew based on this recipe - I wanted to make it veggie but didn't want it to taste of vegetable stock cubes (I always have that problem...) so once I'd fried the mushrooms with the onion for a bit and they'd started to release their mushroomy juices, I added a good splash of Lea & Perrins and a splash of balsamic vinegar. I also added less water - about three cups - because I wanted it to be even more stew-like than Alisa's version. It was seriously yummy, and ridiculously healthy!

And, just to add a touch of the bizarre, as I was walking through the shopping centre earlier I discovered that Syed Off Eastenders - aka Marc Elliot - was switching on the Christmas lights. So I took a photo.

WIAW: Running

2011-11-23T21:39:00.001Z

I've gone for the Polaroid approach again for this week's What I Ate Wednesday! Well, it's much easier to snap a quick photo of my lunch at work with my phone than it would be to get my camera out - my office is very small and very friendly, but I still think people would think I was barking mad if they saw me taking photos of my food!

Anyway, today started off with some Mornflake instant oats with oatbran, topped with a sprinkle of ~~crack~~ Tesco Finest nut granola.

And lunch was a bowl of New Covent Garden 'Jammin Jamaica' soup, which was lovely and spicy, plus a couple of Krisprolls with a Laughing Cow cheese triangle spread on them.

Plus (unpictured) a small handful of chips - whoops! One of my workmates had fish and chips for lunch and I 'helped' her eat a few chips. I also had a chocolate digestive at about 3.30, but we'll gloss over that as well!

Before my run, I had my usual couple of rice cakes (just plain today) and a nakd bar...

...and then supper (after another 39-minute run - I got a PB last week but I had to stop at some traffic lights today, boo) was a fabulous veggie fry-up with a fried egg, beans, mushrooms and two Linda McCartney Italian sausages. Yum yum - protein-tastic!

As usual, head on over to Peas and Crayons to see what everyone else has been eating!

A week out and about...

2011-11-20T15:33:00.001Z

It's been a busy one!

On Tuesday, I came back from lunch to find two of the girls I work with discussing getting tickets to see Manon at the Royal Opera House that evening. I'd never been to the Royal Opera House, so I ended up deciding to go along with them, and it was a brilliant impromptu night out!

The Royal Opera House is beautiful and even though I'm not a ballet buff by any stretch of the imagination, I really enjoyed the performance.

Then on Friday, my mum made her annual trip to London for Christmas shopping! Yes, I know Christmas is still weeks away, but it was the only weekend we could both do! I'm lucky enough to finish work at 4pm on a Friday, which meant we could hit Westfield nice and early and get plenty of shopping done before finding somewhere to eat. We started off with our traditional trip to the champagne bar, where I had the most amazing cocktail!

It was called a 'Gold Chocolate Cocktail' and, with Frangelico, Creme de Cacao and champers, it was basically a Ferrero Rocher in a glass. Incredible!

I used the trip more as a scouting mission for present ideas than an actual shopping trip, and (true to form) the only things I bought were for myself! I ended up with some socks, some hair grips (I'm growing my hair and my fringe is driving me absolutely mental) and a real bargain of a jacket from H&M. It's this one, but in a lovely camel/tobacco sort of colour, and it was half price - £17.49!

WIAW: Polaroids

2011-11-16T18:36:00.001Z

It's WIAW time again! This week I took photos of Sunday's food, and just for a change I used the funky app on my phone that makes things look like Polaroid pictures.

Breakfast was a weekend treat - Oat So Simple chocolate brownie porridge. Yum yum!

And lunch was a socca (chickpea flour) pancake topped with loads of leftover roasted veg (beetroot, pepper, broccoli, mushrooms, tomatoes and the food blogger's favourite, kabocha squash) and tahini sauce.

I then ate the other half of the tub of leftover veg, because it was so nice!

Then I chopped up loads of leeks, mushrooms and pak choi and had a great big bowl of stir-fried green veg with soy sauce and chilli.

And finally, I finished the day off with a nice big mug of mint tea!

Jenn and Peas and Crayons hosts WIAW - have a look over there to see what everyone else has been eating!

Weekend away 4 of 4!

2011-11-10T13:00:00.000Z

Yep, for my fourth weekend away in a row I headed down to Somerset to spend a long weekend at my parents' new house. It was the first time I'd seen the place - apart from the photos on Rightmove - and I was really excited! And it's absolutely gorgeous. Mum and Dad have only been there just over a week, but already (thanks to all the hard work they and my sister have put in) the house feels incredibly cosy and homely. There are a few cosmetic things to sort out (my bedroom has the most delightful '90s yellow and terracotta colour scheme, with a tasteful zig-zag patterned decorative border and curtains and lampshades to match...) but it's a lovely, lovely house.

The cats came home on Friday too, after a short stay in the cattery, and they made themselves at home fairly quickly (although to start with they did retreat to the cupboard under the stairs!)

(Note the lovely carpet there...)

And we even managed some baking - there are loads of apples still clinging on to the tree, so we made a Suze-friendly apple crumble with a seriously delicious topping. We made it up as we went along, but we basically rubbed some ground almonds into some Pure dairy-free margarine, then added oats, brown sugar and flaked almonds. It all went on top of some chopped and peeled apples, which had a sprinkle of vanilla sugar and some mixed spice. Here it is pre-oven (we ate it too quickly to take a photo of it when it was cooked!)

It was a lovely weekend, and I can't wait to see how the house has changed next time I go back (which won't be until Christmas - I bet it'll come around ridiculously quickly, though!) While I was there, I also painted a new sign for the house, as Mum and Dad have changed its name. I was quite pleased with how it turned out - just look at the lovely little cottagey front door!

WIAW: Catching Up...

2011-11-09T21:49:00.005Z

I haven't taken part in What I Ate Wednesday for weeks - I've just been ridiculously busy, and then last Tuesday, when I had all sorts of good intentions about photographing my evening meal, it ended up looking like this:

Whoops.

But today I remembered to take pictures of everything, hoorah! I started off with a new breakfast experiment - Mornflake 'Oats 2 Go' with added oatbran. The boxes of oat sachets were on special offer in the Co-Op near work so I bought some, and they're really nice! Plus the box is really cheery on a dull winter morning.

Then I returned to an old lunch favourite - baked potato with cottage cheese. Excuse the rubbish photo - the lighting in the kitchen at work leaves a lot to be desired! I'd originally planned to have a baked sweet potato, but Waitrose didn't have any (!) so I had to have an ordinary one. It's hiding somewhere, under a pile of broccoli (which I added to bump up the veg quota in the absence of the sweet potato) and some onion and chive cottage cheese.

Once I got home it was time for a pre-run snack - usually I don't put my rice cakes and cereal bar on a pretty plate, but I thought I would seeing as I was going to be taking a photo of it!

Had a decent run - I managed 39:38, which is just under 9-minute miles! I've been stuck on 40 minutes for ages, so it was nice to get a 39. And then, finally, supper! Just look at the amount of effort I put into styling my plate. Oh, wait...I just ate it out of the bowl it came in...

I had planned to have egg and beans on toast, but then I felt like I really ought to go all-out on the veg, so I went to M&S and got one of their new Thai noodle soup bowl things, which you just add water to and microwave. As you can see, I clearly have some kind of broccoli problem, because I couldn't resist adding some of that and some Brussels sprouts just to make absolutely sure I got my five-a-day!

Head on over to Peas and Crayons to see what the other WIAW-ers have been eating!

A Welsh wedding...

2011-11-01T16:05:00.003Z

My third weekend away out of four, and this time it was off on an epic road trip to north Wales for my friends' wedding. We woke up on Saturday morning to this glorious sunrise...

...but unfortunately it really was a case of 'red sky in the morning, shepherds' warning' as the weather soon turned rather nasty. It didn't dampen anyone's spirits, though, and we set off for the beautiful 12th-century church, which is famous for its rood screen - complete with skeleton!

The groom arrived in style, in the Caterham car he built himself - and there was much hilarity as he and the best man attempted to get themselves out of the car in their smart morning suits!

The reception was held at a beautiful country house hotel on Anglesey, and the whole day was absolutely lovely despite the best efforts of the Welsh weather. The happy couple are off to live in Vietnam in a few weeks' time, and they had a very fitting (and absolutely delicious) suitcase cake!

The following morning, my friend Dave and I felt very smug as we dragged ourselves out for a four-mile run in the gorgeous countryside - it was a bit hilly (well, we were on the edge of Snowdonia!) but we managed it somehow! I'm annoyed that I didn't think to bring my Ealing Eagles running vest - I could've snapped an 'Eagles on Tour' photo! We then set off to explore a bit of Snowdonia before heading home - we wanted to go up the mountain on the train, but because of bad weather it wasn't running to the top and we were going to have to wait ages, so we just had a walk around Llanberis and saw the lovely castle.

Mum's Famous Dumplings...

2011-10-28T10:25:00.002+01:00

There's an internet forum that I frequent, and a while ago, maybe a couple of years back, someone asked for a dumpling recipe. Being a helpful sort, I replied with my mum's recipe, which makes the most gorgeously light and fluffy dumplings with no suet. The original recipe is hand-written inside the cover of Mum's well-worn copy of the Dairy Book of Home Cookery (from the 1970s) and it's also now hand-written inside the cover of my copy (I've got the 'New Edition for the '90s'!). And it became something of an internet sensation - even now, every time someone mentions making a stew, someone else will inevitably pop up saying 'Make sure you use Allie's mum's dumpling recipe!'

So I thought it was about time these famous dumplings made an appearance on the blog...

My mum's dumplings

1 cup plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
2tbsp vegetable oil

Sift dry ingredients into a bowl.
Mix oil and milk in a separate bowl (or Mum always uses a Pyrex jug).
Stir the wet and dry ingredients together until just mixed.
Place dessertspoonfuls into your bubbling stew, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

All packed and ready to go...

2011-10-27T14:45:00.000+01:00

My parents are moving house this weekend, after 17 years in the current family home. I've already made my last visit to the old house, as I'll be away when the big move actually happens, but my sister's there helping with the packing and the final bits and pieces.

And she sent me this brilliant photo!

Poppy has clearly been listening to my dad (who keeps joking about not telling the cats where the new house is - he loves them really, honest) and has decided to take matters into her own paws!

A Belfast hen do...

2011-10-26T16:17:00.002+01:00

My friend Ali is getting married on Saturday, and last weekend we all went off to Belfast for her hen do. I'd never been to Northern Ireland before (it was quite strange getting off a plane and just waltzing out of the airport without showing my passport to anyone!) and I had a great time, despite the fact that it absolutely tipped it down for most of Sunday!

We had a few drinks...

...saw a few sights...

...had a Sunday morning Ulster Fry (without meat in my case, but with lovely potato bread and soda farls!)

...and went to the oldest pub in Belfast for a hot whiskey!

30: Take Three!

2011-10-19T21:03:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I (finally) turned 30! Hoorah!

Unfortunately I had to go to work, but luckily my family brightened things up by sending a HUGE cake, decorated in my favourite colours with loads of glitter, to the office.

It's gorgeous and there's already less than half left!

Then in the evening, I went to a fab bar, Graphic, for lots of cocktails with my friends. I was very impressed with the turnout, given the fact that it was a Tuesday, and I had a brilliant time.

I drank cocktails out of paint tins...

...and I got more lovely presents and cards!

I had a wonderful birthday, and I even managed to avoid a hangover this morning! Gin is good for you!

30: Take Two

2011-10-17T17:26:00.001+01:00

I do like to stretch my birthday out for as long as possible! The big day isn't actually until tomorrow, but on Friday night I headed down to the Westcountry for a couple of days of pre-birthday pampering with my parents. And I had the best time!

On Saturday Mum and I went to Exeter for a bit of shopping, and we went to Herbie's for lunch. It's apparently a famous veggie restaurant, but I'd only just heard about it - can't believe we've been going to Exeter for years and years and we've only just found it!

We thought we'd go for 'something small', so we chose tortilla wraps - I went for one stuffed with marinated tofu and vegetable satay. The portions were HUGE, though, and the wraps came with a gorgeous raw root vegetable slaw, a green salad and a potato salad with spring onions and cashew nuts. It was fab!

Somehow we still managed to find room for a three-course meal at our favourite pub in the evening - Mum and I shared a bottle of Prosecco (Dad was on the Merlot) and I had smoked salmon with dill sauce, then gurnard fillets with lemon mash, prawn sauce and runner beans, and then the most beautiful apple tart with a cheeky glass of Calvados.

And then on Sunday, we went down to Lyme for a sunny seaside walk and another gorgeous lunch!

Just look at my seafood platter! It had a massive prawn, a pot of smoked mackerel paté, some crab meat, a little portion of potted shrimp, a herring, marinated anchovies, a huge portion of smoked salmon and a salad with red pepper, prawns and mussels (the mussels were the only bit I didn't eat!) as well as bread, coleslaw and green salad! And I had a massive scoop of ice-cream afterwards!

Then when we got home, we Skyped my sister in Finland and I did some early present opening! I got some seriously amazing things, including...

...this fantastic hardback book with (often totally hilarious) family photos from the last 30 years in it...(and the eagle-eyed among you might also spot that Monsoon jumper I've been coveting!)

This A-MA-ZING Le Creuset teal shallow casserole/frying pan (I am completely in love!)

And, just when I thought I'd done incredibly well with my presents, this utterly incredible ring...

Isn't it beautiful? It's my birthstone, opal, with tiny little diamonds in the little leaves on either side, and it's from the 1930s. Unfortunately I can't wear it yet because it needs to be resized, but I love it!

And I haven't even actually turned 30 yet! Tomorrow I'm off out for lots of gin and lots of cocktails!

Chilli roasted veg with tofu, pearl barley and tahini

2011-10-13T20:30:00.001+01:00

I was completely rubbish with What I Ate Wednesday this week - I've been here, there and everywhere, and doing lots of running (and therefore eating lots of boringly quick post-run meals like egg and beans on toast) and I just didn't manage to get myself organised.

But you can have a recipe for What I Ate This Evening instead! It's not even really a recipe, more a load of things thrown together, but it was gorgeous. I came up with it on Saturday evening and it was so nice I made it again for tonight's supper!

Chilli roasted veg with tofu, pearl barley and tahini
Serves one fairly greedy person

Olive oil/olive oil spray/cooking spray
As much chilli as you like (I used a couple of blobs of that lazy chilli that comes in a tube)
150g butternut squash, peeled and chopped into chunks
1 orange pepper, deseeded and chopped into chunks
100g tofu (my favourite is Dragonfly smoked tofu) chopped into chunks
50g pearl barley
100g broccoli, cut into florets (I actually used half a pack of tenderstem and I could have done with more broccoli!)
Handful of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
Tahini sauce (I found some lovely tahini sauce in Waitrose, in a squeezy bottle!)

1. Preheat the oven to about 200C. Put your prepared butternut squash and broccoli into two separate plastic containers, with a little splash of water in each, and microwave until just tender (about three minutes for the squash and a minute and a half for the broccoli).
2. Put your olive oil/cooking spray, chilli and a bit of salt and pepper into a roasting tray, add the pepper, butternut squash and tofu, and stir or toss everything around so it's evenly coated with chilli.
3. Roast until the tofu is starting to brown and the pepper is softening, about half an hour.
4. Meanwhile, cook the pearl barley - it doesn't matter if it's ready before the veg, it'll sit quite happily in the pan with a lid on.
5. Remove the roasted veg from the oven, add the broccoli and tomatoes, and return to the oven for another 15 minutes, until everything's nicely browned and the tomatoes are bubbling.
6. Mix the veg into the pearl barley, pile onto a plate or into a bowl, and top with a nice drizzle of tahini sauce.

Eat! It's filling, hearty, autumnal, warming and absolutely delicious. Not to mention ridiculously easy.

Fruit sponge...

2011-10-05T13:49:00.002+01:00

My mum's just emailed me the fruit sponge recipe I mentioned in my last post - so here it is in all its glory! It's really easy and absolutely delicious. As it's microwaved, and therefore only has a short cooking time, I wouldn't recommend using raw fruit like apples or pears - on Sunday we cooked some apples down into a compote and used that, or if you wanted the recipe to be seriously easy you could just use a tinned fruit pie filling or something! Fresh raspberries might work, but I've never tried it!

Fruit Sponge

1 1/4 cups plain flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup butter or margarine

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

Fruit compote or pie filling of your choice

1. Place flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, butter, egg, milk and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Beat for 3 minutes on lowest speed, scraping the bowl to make sure everything is incorporated.

2. Place fruit in a microwave-safe serving dish and carefully spread the sponge mixture over the fruit.

3. Microwave for 9-12 minutes. When the cake is done, a toothpick will come out clean.

4. You can then either invert the cake onto a warm plate, for an upside-down pudding effect, or just spoon it into bowls. Serve warm with cream, ice-cream or custard.

WIAW - or rather, WIA-Sunday-and-Tuesday!

2011-10-05T09:51:00.000+01:00

I really need to get better at this WIAW lark! This week I thought I'd ring the changes and give you a Sunday's worth of food - a particularly interesting Sunday, too, as I was down at my parents' house. However, having lovingly taken a photo of my Sunday morning breakfast...

...which was my usual porridge and grated apple with a cheeky drizzle of maple syrup, I then completely forgot to take photos of my lunch. If you're interested, it was a tuna sandwich! I then also completely forgot to take a photo of dinner, which was a lovely prawn stir-fry with loads of veg and rice. I did remember about pudding, though!

As I've mentioned, there's a bit of a glut of apples at home, and Mum and I decided to revive a favourite recipe from my childhood - fruit sponge. Amazingly it's made in the microwave, and it's lovely and light and fluffy. We made an apple compote, piled it into a Pyrex dish, spread the sponge topping over the fruit and microwaved it for about 12 minutes. And of course we had it with good old Bird's custard! I've asked my mum for the recipe, so I'll post that when I get it.

And then we move on to Tuesday! Breakfast was the same as Sunday but with no maple syrup, so you don't need a photo of that. For lunch, I went out with a colleague to a fantastic veggie restaurant just round the corner from the office.

They do an all-you-can-eat lunchtime buffet for £7.50 - that was my first plate, plus my carrot, apple and ginger juice, but I ended up having two helpings! There are all sorts of gorgeous things to choose from - here I think I've got some bean and avocado salad, raw broccoli salad with mushrooms and onion, stir-fried veg, a stuffed tomato and some of their incredible vegan carrot quiche thing.

After all of that, I wasn't particularly hungry in the evening, but I had a yummy bowl of stir-fried cabbage, courgette and mushrooms with a few prawns. I never used to eat prawns but I love them now!

From summer to autumn...

2011-10-04T21:29:00.002+01:00

Having been down to visit my parents for the weekend, I came home with a very heavy bag of apples from their trees! My mum and dad currently have apples coming out of their ears - even the horse is getting slightly sick of them and they've resorted to heaping them up in a cardboard box outside the house with a big 'FREE APPLES' sign - so I gladly took a few off their hands.

And what am I doing with said apples? Well, some lovely small ones, gorgeously sweet and juicy, are making a fab addition to my morning porridge. And there are a couple of eating apples and a couple of pears in the fruit bowl for future snacking. But I also brought a load of cooking apples back with me, and I knew exactly what they were destined for. Yep, another batch of caramel apple jam - just like last year! There's a direct link to the recipe here - although, as before, I didn't use any pectin. I just boiled the jam for a good 20 minutes and (fingers crossed) it looks like it's going to set perfectly.

My apples made six jars - three smaller ones and three ordinary-sized ones. They keep making alarming popping noises as the lids seal themselves! Can't wait to try this year's batch - last year's was seriously addictive! If you've got a surplus of apples, give it a go - it's so easy and unbelievably delicious.

Indian summer...

2011-10-03T21:16:00.000+01:00

The weather has been incredible just recently. A proper Indian summer, with temperatures getting up to nearly 30 degrees. Boiling at any time of year in the UK, let alone the last week of September!

Just look at this...

I went down to Somerset for the second weekend in a row, to help my parents clear out the attic in preparation for their imminent house move. And there were idyllic rural views all around!

As well as some glorious summery flowers...

...and we managed to rescue Big Ted, a childhood favourite, from the attic! A thorough hoover, a squirt of Febreze and an afternoon relaxing in the garden, and he was good as new!

Unfortunately I think things are going to get decidedly cold and rainy over the next few days, but it really was lovely to have one last warm and sunny week to ease us into autumn a little more gently!

WIAW: Running on Full

2011-09-28T21:40:00.001+01:00

It's Wednesday again already! How on earth did that happen? And Wednesday means it's time for this...

Yep, it's WIAW! Today began as days usually begin at the moment. Look at the lovely leaf on my 'heritage' apple!

Said apple ended up on top of my morning porridge - my usual mix of oats and wheatbran and date and coconut porridge, although I'm slightly bored now and am quite looking forward to finishing the tub! I think when it's done I'll just get some plain oats and wheatbran and then add different things to it.

Then lunch was an M&S Super Wholefoods salad with blueberries and mango (and quinoa, pearl barley, cranberries, raisins, pumpkin seeds and various other things) - and of course, being broccoli-obsessed as I am, I bought one of the handy little mini bags of broccoli that M&S do and microwaved that to add into my salad. Yum yum!

Then I came home and had another bowl of porridge and my usual pre-run rye toast with peanut butter. I didn't bother taking pictures of those! I wouldn't usually have the porridge as well, but I'd planned to run 10 miles so thought I should have something extra. In the end I didn't run 10 miles - there was only a small group doing that route and they were all going to be way faster than me, and I didn't know the route so I'd either have got lost or slowed them all down, and as they're training for things I didn't think that would be fair! So I ran the middle distance, 4.4 miles, and made sure I kept up a decent 9:30-mile pace.

When I got back, I had the chocolate hemp shake I'd made before my run - I didn't really need it but it was sitting in the fridge so I thought I might as well have it! I tried the strawberry hemp powder on Monday night and it was actually much nicer than the chocolate, which surprised me!

And then I had a proper dinner - I always need something quick and easy after running club, as I don't usually get home until 8:45pm, and tonight I decided to use up the bag of spinach and ricotta tortellini that kept falling out of the freezer at me every time I opened the door. I just fried up some mushrooms and added garlic, herbs and a mini tub of extra-light Philadelphia, and mixed it all in with the pasta. It was lovely - I haven't had pasta for ages!

30: Take One

2011-09-26T18:38:00.001+01:00

As I mentioned, on Saturday we had a party at my parents' house. It was a celebration of many things - my sister's boyfriend's 30th birthday, which was last month, my 30th birthday, which is in three weeks' time, and it was also a last hoorah for the old family home, as my parents are moving at the end of October.

We had a LOT of food (are you surprised?) and a LOT of wine! Highlights food-wise included this lentil and artichoke salad, which I based on this recipe from Newlywed, Newly Veg:

...smoked mackerel paté, which we made Suze-friendly by whizzing up the smoked mackerel fillets, lemon juice and black pepper with Oatly oat cream instead of the usual creme fraiche or yogurt (this went in minutes - people were all over it!)

...and a vast amount of bitesize chocolate brownies (gluten- and dairy-free, not that anyone noticed!) using my favourite brownie recipe.

There were also freshly-picked apples from my parents' orchard! Plus a whole barbecue with burgers, sausages, piri-piri prawns and veggie kebabs.

Then there was a LOT of karaoke (my dad has the most amazing karaoke machine, and we had 100 60s songs and 100 90s songs to choose from!) and on Sunday a few of us went on a trip to Lyme Regis for some restorative sea air (and the most enormous ice cream cones!)

It really was the perfect send-off for the house, and the perfect way to kick off my 30th birthday celebrations - this is the first of three birthday events that I have planned!

Autumn fashion items...

2011-09-26T15:29:00.001+01:00

Despite the weather forecast saying we'll have temperatures of 27C by the end of the week, I'm coming over all autumnal. I bought these Zara knee-high boots on holiday, and a very similar jacket from H&M, and I can't wait for it to be cold enough for me to wear the boots! I also really want that cable-knit Monsoon jumper...

I'll be back later with a post all about my fantastic early birthday party - Saturday night was brilliant!

What I Ate Wednesday (WIAW)

2011-09-21T21:56:00.001+01:00

I've been meaning to join in with this fantastic weekly blog event for ages, and now here I am! What I Ate Wednesday is the brainchild of Jennifer at Peas and Crayons, and the idea is simple - you just post on a Wednesday telling everyone what you've eaten. It doesn't have to be Wednesday's food - plenty of people pick a different day and just post about it on the Wednesday.

Unfortunately I totally forgot to take photos of my breakfast and lunch, but here goes...

Breakfast was my usual porridge mix - I have a big tub with a mixture of oats and wheatbran and Waitrose date and coconut porridge, and I take a portion of that with me to work every day. Then I just mix it with water, microwave it for about two minutes, and add a splash of milk. While British strawberries are still in the shops I've been having plenty of those chopped up on top of my porridge, but I might move on to apples soon!

Then lunch was a bowl of New Covent Garden Indian Summer soup, which was delicious. I'd never tried it before, but it was coconutty and fragrant and mildly spiced and very filling thanks to all the lentils! I also had a bag of Kallo sea salt and balsamic vinegar mini rice cakes, and a 'heritage' British apple (I bought a big bag of them from the Co-Op supermarket near work) which tasted just like the ones from my mum and dad's trees.

And then I came home and started taking photos of my food! Wednesday nights are running club nights, so when I got home I had a slice of rye toast with a little bit of Whole Earth organic smooth peanut butter...

...and a spoonful of bee pollen. I found this jar in the supermarket in Portugal for about 4 Euros, which was a total bargain! It's meant to be ridiculously good for you, and I think it's yummy, so I'm giving it a go!

And then I went running and had a great time! It's too dark to run through the parks these days, so there are now three options for the club's evening runs - a 3.4-mile, a 4.6-mile and a 5.6-mile. I did the 5.6-mile route and LOVED it - it was the first run in weeks that I'd genuinely enjoyed. My shoes felt great, my hip didn't hurt, it was a nice cool evening, the route was good fun, I ran it in 53:16 which is perfectly respectable...I feel like I've rediscovered my running mojo!

When I got home I had this dubious-looking treat waiting for me!

It's a protein shake made with Good Hemp chocolate Gym Shake powder. Nic over at The Fit Writer (who, by the way, just bagged herself second place in the BNBF British bodybuilding finals - only her third competition ever!) kindly sent me a shaker bottle and a few hemp protein powder samples, and I had a go for the first time tonight. It's an interesting taste (I couldn't think what it reminded me of until it dawned on me that it tasted like the smell of horse feed!) but one I think I could get used to, and its nutritional profile is fantastic. I can almost feel it repairing my muscles!

And then supper was leftover curry with cauliflower, chickpeas, tomatoes, spinach and peppers, topped with a poached egg. The egg was slightly overdone, but I have a thing about runny whites and would rather overdo it than end up with horrible undercooked egg!

A definite running theme...

2011-09-20T19:08:00.000+01:00

On Sunday, when thousands were taking part in the Great North Run, I popped down to Chiswick for a little run of my own - a 10k fun run which was part of Yellow Umbrella Day. I'd never actually done an organised 10k before, and it was great fun. As it was a fun run, the route was apparently 'just over' 10k, and there were a few points where we had to climb great big flights of steps to get on and off bridges and whatnot - I'm using those as excuses for the fact that I didn't quite manage to hit my target of running it in under an hour! Instead I managed 1:00.24 - gutted!

There were plenty of people from my running club there, which was great to see - here we all are before the start!

After the race, there was a company offering free five-minute sports massages to the runners, so I had one - blimey did it HURT, but it was brilliant! I wish I could afford to have regular massages - although they did give me a voucher for a one-hour massage for £30, which I think I'll definitely use at some point.

Then last night I went over to the City for a talk by Micah True, otherwise known as Caballo Blanco. I read Born to Run by Christopher McDougall a while ago and found it really interesting - the book is all about ultra-long-distance running, but it focuses particularly on the Tarahumara tribe and their incredible talent for running, and on the year a group of American runners joined the Tarahumara for an ultramarathon through the Copper Canyon - a race that had been started several years previously by the mysterious Caballo Blanco. It was a fascinating talk, all about how Micah got into long-distance running, how he met the Tarahumara and how he wanted to reconnect them with their running heritage. He's a very humble and self-effacing character, and it was great to hear more from his side - about the way his annual race helps the Tarahumara (he provides corn and money as prizes, with everyone who completes the race receiving 500lbs of corn) and about the challenges they face from the encroaching modern world. If you're into running and you have the chance to go and hear him speak, I'd recommend it!

It's getting a bit autumnal!

2011-09-17T14:13:00.000+01:00

I love conkers. They're so pretty - all shiny and richly coloured, like polished mahogany. We used to collect loads of them when I was little (and there was a memorable incident where my mum decided to throw a large stick up into the branches of a horse chestnut tree to shake down a few conkers, and ended up clonking herself on the head instead...) and games of conkers in the school playground were fierce!

This time last week I was enjoying lunch in the Monchique mountains, and now I'm back in England and autumn is definitely creeping in! I don't mind, though - autumn means soup and boots and scarves and, most importantly, my birthday!

Holiday lowdown...

2011-09-11T19:54:00.000+01:00

So, I'm home after two gorgeous weeks in Portugal! I have a feeling tomorrow morning will come as a bit of a shock, given the fact that my daily routine has consisted of getting up at about 9am, having a leisurely breakfast outside in the sunshine, reading, shopping and lazing around.

I have quite a tan (unheard of for me!) and I even managed to get into swimming - only rubbish breaststroke, mind you, but I did at least half an hour's swimming a day, if not more! Unfortunately the sheer amount of food and wine I consumed outweighed the swimming (I honestly feel like I've put on about three stone!) but it was seriously lovely food and wine, and eating and drinking a vast amount is what being on holiday is all about, right?

And here are some of my favourite photos. I spent most of my time here...

...but we did occasionally venture out for the odd coastal walk in the evening...

...and to the old Moorish capital of the Algarve, Silves.

I also indulged in some traditional pasteis de nata...

...and there's always plenty of wildlife in our house!

Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt: August 2011

2011-08-31T18:58:00.002+01:00

It's the last day of August, and time to show you all the photos I've collected as part of Kirst's Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt!

Inspiration...

The other day, I was trudging home on a soggy and wet evening, cursing the fact that I hadn't worn more waterproof shoes. Then I turned the corner, looked up and saw the most incredible rainbow, and I didn't mind that it was raining! It sounds cheesy but I really do think nature can be the most inspiring thing.

Something I made...

Not being a particularly crafty type, my 'something I made' just had to be food-related. And I chose the gorgeous raspberry cake my friend Kim and I made a few weeks ago!

Birds...

It had to be the peacock, didn't it!

Supplies...

Again, my 'supplies' are foody ones! And these went to make up one of the best barbecues I've ever been involved with - we had piri-piri prawns, grilled mushrooms, steaks (for the meat-eaters) and corn on the cob. Yum yum!

Holiday...

A really easy category for me, this one, seeing as I'm currently posting from Portugal! I'm having a lovely time, the weather's been beautiful (sunny but not too hot, which is just perfect for a delicate English Rose type like me...) and I've been eating and drinking and lazing about. Perfect!

Head on over to Kirst's blog, The Leopard Anchor, to find out what the other CPSH participants have come up with!

Leaving on a jet plane...

2011-08-26T18:48:00.006+01:00

I'm off on holiday, leaving this sort of thing...

...far behind me! My toes have a fresh coat of Shellac...

...and the Massive Suitcase is packed and ready to go!

See you in a couple of weeks!

The joys of country living...

2011-08-23T19:38:00.004+01:00

I was at my parents' house over the weekend, and on Friday night I went to bed really looking forward to my Saturday lie-in. No running, no Pilates, nothing to do except sleep in and then maybe have a nice long bath. Bliss.

Or it would have been, except that at 7am I was rudely awoken by a strange HONK noise outside. HONK! HONK! *silence* HONK!! It sounded like a severely wounded duck. A few minutes later, I heard my parents get up, and I then heard gales of laughter and a cry of 'Allie! Have you got your camera??'

This was outside...

A peacock! Who knew peacocks honked? There then followed half an hour of chasing the peacock around the garden...

...before we eventually gave up and decided to let the stupid thing find its own way out of the garden. It flew off eventually!

After the riots...

2011-08-16T20:26:00.001+01:00

...some slightly more uplifting images from my local area!

Oxford and another towpath BBQ...

2011-08-15T20:07:00.000+01:00

I went to Oxford for the weekend with a couple of friends, and had a lovely time! We did some sightseeing...

...and we drank some celebratory Prosecco by the Thames.

Then when I got back to London, I headed straight off to my friend's boat for more cuddles with this chap...

...and another fantastic barbecue! It was beyond posh - we're getting far too good! I brought marinated prawns, healthy coleslaw, sweet potato and white bean dip, and lentil and artichoke salad.

Not the sort of thing I enjoy posting about...

2011-08-09T19:27:00.002+01:00

...but I had to share a few photos of the disturbances in my neck of the woods last night. There have been riots across London, with looting and criminal damage and all sorts going on. It's frankly disgusting - from what I can tell it's mindless violence and thuggery, occasionally hung on some flimsy 'We're showing the rich we own this town/we want our taxes back/stupid government' bollocks.

Thankfully my bit of London wasn't as badly affected as other areas have been, but it wasn't a pretty sight this morning.

The good news is that Londoners are pulling together (we're very good at doing that) and by this morning, teams of 'Riot Wombles' were gathering to help with the clean-up operation. I'm not a very political person, and I don't feel I know enough about all the various issues to really comment on what's happened, but like everyone I'm shocked and saddened and disappointed and angry at what's been done to my beautiful city.

Nutty nut butter...

2011-08-08T18:21:00.003+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across a bit of a revolutionary blog post at Vegan Epicurean. It mentioned homemade reduced fat nut butter - 'you what??' I thought! I love nut butter - and nuts are really good for you - but nut butters can be quite oily and VERY calorific.

So when I was tempted by a jar of cashew butter in Holland & Barrett on my way home from work, I thought I'd give it a go.

You take an ordinary jar of nut butter...

...and you pour off all the oil that's collected on the top. There was at least a couple of tablespoons of oil on the top of my jar!

Then you scoop the nut butter into a bowl, and whip it up using a hand beater (or you can put it in a food processor), adding water a little at a time until it goes all fluffy and creamy.

Like this!

The added bonus is that the whipped butter is much more voluminous, so you get more of it (you'll probably need a bigger jar!)

It tastes fab - really nutty and creamy without being at all greasy. And it spreads really, really well. It's still not exactly low-fat, but I certainly feel a lot better about it than I do about stirring a load of oil into my nut butter every time I want to eat some.

Weekend baking!

2011-08-07T12:06:00.003+01:00

My friend Kim came to stay for the weekend, and yesterday we went to my friend Leonie's boat for a towpath barbecue. I was instructed to bring something for pudding - and I don't need any excuse to get baking! So Kim and I raided my recipe files and settled on my favourite fudgy cocoa brownie recipe, and a raspberry bakewell cake that I'd been meaning to try for ages.

The brownie batter looked amazing...

...and then we took our cakes along to the canal on a surprisingly sunny evening!

We also met this little tiger...

...and the raspberry bakewell cake turned out amazingly well!

As did the brownies!

We had LOADS of food - including strawberries wrapped up in foil with chunks of dark chocolate (and a sneaky chocolate brownie) and baked in the embers of the barbecue. Absolutely gorgeous - what a fantastic idea!

Tofu and veg...

2011-08-04T20:18:00.003+01:00

We haven't had a good old 'photo of my dinner' post for ages, have we! I was telling my mum and dad about tonight's food - whenever I phone home, they always ask what I'm having to eat. We like food in my family! And the combination of tofu and veg is one of my favourites. I just made a big pot of veggie stew-type thing, with onion, mushrooms, red pepper, broccoli, chick peas and a tin of tomatoes, with a little bit of curry paste to give it a bit of interest. When it had all cooked down, I fried some tofu in the tiniest little spray of oil from my spray bottle, and I made a little minty yogurty raita thing with Total 0% yogurt and mint from my windowbox. Unbelievably healthy, protein-packed and extremely yummy!

Kirst's Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt...

2011-08-01T09:42:00.002+01:00

My friend Kirst has a fabulous blog, The Leopard Anchor, and she's set up a monthly photo scavenger hunt which I've decided to join! I feel like I need a bit more photography inspiration. There are two regular monthly categories - 'Inspiration' and 'Something I Made', and then three categories that will change every month. This month we've got 'Birds', 'Supplies' and 'Holiday/Vacation' - as I'm off to Portugal at the end of the month that one shouldn't be too much of a problem!

Head on over to Kirst's blog if you fancy joining in - I'll be posting August's photos before I go away!

Katie's Oatmeal Trick...

2011-07-31T18:19:00.005+01:00

...aka The Great Oat Explosion 2011.

I love reading Chocolate-Covered Katie's blog - she has so many amazing healthy eating ideas that don't skimp on the indulgence factor (or the chocolate!) and when I saw her Voluminous Oatmeal Trick, I had to try it. I love my Overnight Oats and they do fill me up, but the thought of making a huge portion of soft, pillowy, puddingy oats out of exactly the same ingredients sounded too good to be true!

So I followed the instructions (using 30g of oats and wheatbran, 10g of Waitrose date and coconut porridge, 100ml of Kara coconut milk and 300ml of water) and put the oats into the microwave for four and a half minutes. Then I left them in the microwave for a further five minutes, and excitedly opened the door...only to be greeted by the most unholy mess you can possibly imagine! Yep, I should have kept an eye on it! Oh well, the microwave needed a clean anyway!

So for take two, I watched the microwave like a hawk...

...and cooked it for 3:20, until it looked like most of the water had been absorbed. Here's the resulting still-slightly-watery oaty mess (safely contained in its Pyrex jug this time).

It's gone into the fridge and I'll see what it's like in the morning!

A lovely week off...

2011-07-27T18:11:00.002+01:00

I know I haven't posted for ages - that's because I had a week off! I went down to Somerset to stay with my parents, and did all sorts of things.

I went to a wet and windy Lyme Regis with my mum...

...where we walked a bit of the coastal path that involved lots of climbing up really steep staircases cut into the cliffs! We weren't quite expecting that!

I also went on a much sunnier walk and took some summery photos...

...and Mum and I made pickled gherkins using little tiny cucumbers/gherkin things from my parents' neighbour's garden!

Vegan Mango and Banana Bread...

2011-07-18T14:34:00.005+01:00

I'm going to see a couple of good friends tomorrow, and as they've just moved into a new house and I haven't seen them for ages, I thought I'd make something yummy to take along with me. And when I saw this vegan mango and banana bread recipe on Joy the Baker's amazing blog, I decided it looked perfect!

And just look at how it turned out - hard to believe there's no eggs or butter involved!

Can't wait to try a piece...but I'll have to wait until tomorrow!

The XT Memorial Mile...

2011-07-17T14:22:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, my friend Nic (channel swimmer, copywriter, journalist and now champion bodybuilder!) had a black and white canine training partner called XT. Sadly, a couple of years ago XT passed away suddenly, and every year since then Nic has run a mile in his memory (and in memory of the other dogs we've loved and lost). She posted on her blog asking others to join in - running, walking, swimming, cycling or otherwise ambling a mile at some point over the weekend.

And my mum and I joined in - we're doing a Race for Life on Saturday 23rd so I dragged Mum out for a bit of a training session! We did three miles and I'm dedicating the first one to XT, Basil, Ruddles and everyone else who's lost a dearly loved pet recently. I ran my Memorial Mile in 10:50, which is ridiculously slow compared to my usual 9-minute mile pace, but understandable when you consider the fact that the entire mile involved running up an absolutely enormous and very steep hill! I did then do another two 9-minute miles afterwards!

You can read about everyone else's XT Memorial Miles on Nic's blog.

Gorgeous orchid!

2011-07-12T18:39:00.002+01:00

I bought an orchid half price in M&S last year, and it duly flowered and the flowers all fell off, as they do. I didn't hold out much hope of being able to keep it alive and make it flower again, but (following my mum's expert advice) I cut the stalk off once the flowers had all died, and I've been sitting it in a tub of water once a week and spraying it with amazing Orchid Myst spray. Back in October, a tiny little flower stalk sprouted, and it's been growing steadily ever since.

And look what happened today!

Isn't it beautiful? I'm so pleased! And look at all the other buds!

Luggage bargains...

2011-07-11T18:06:00.002+01:00

If you're lucky enough to be jetting off on holiday in the next few months, I thoroughly recommend checking out the Debenhams sale for all your holiday bargains!

I needed a large holdall for a week's break - I had weekend bags and suitcases, but nothing in between. And I found this - a bargain with nearly £60 off - and then happened upon this, which had an even more impressive saving!

That's £235 worth of luggage for £70.50 - not bad, eh? I could have gone for the medium-sized suitcase, but the large was only £3 more and I thought 'Well, my current suitcase is massive, so it can't be that big...'

Er...yes. That's my old and battered suitcase on the left. So I certainly won't have any trouble packing for my holiday this year! The only slight issue is that my new suitcase won't fit under my bed, which is where my suitcases live...so I'm not exactly sure where I'm going to put the damn thing!

My name is Allie...

2011-07-07T18:26:00.002+01:00

...and I have a problem with shoes.

This is my shoes-and-coats wardrobe:

Whenever I have to look for a new flat to rent (which I hope with all my being I won't have to do again anytime soon) one of my top priorities is to make sure it has enough storage for shoes. My previous flat had a cupboard in the hall that was just perfect, and my current flat has three brilliant built-in wardrobes.

I was beginning to despair at the state of my shoe cupboard, so I've just had a bit of a tidy and a sort-out. With the exception of a couple of wet weather staples, I've put all my wintry shoes in the boxes at the top of the wardrobe, and I've moved my sandals and more summery shoes to the more accessible boxes at the bottom of the wardrobe. I've also thrown away a few pairs that were on their last legs...and there still isn't room for everything!

Shamefully I also rediscovered a few pairs that I'd completely forgotten about - and that made me realise that I must stop buying new shoes (honestly, I have shoes in every possible colour and shoes suitable for every possible occasion - I do NOT need any more!) and wear the ones I have instead. Because despite having an entire wardrobe of shoes, I find myself sticking to the same few pairs. At the moment I switch between my tan flat brogues, my leopard-print flats, my tan strappy sandals and a couple of other pairs. Boring!

So I'm starting with these:

I bought them in New Look at least two years ago, and I can only remember wearing them once since then. I'm wearing them around the house this evening to see if I can work out what the problem was (did they hurt my feet? Give me blisters? Keep falling off?) and if I can't work it out, then I'll have to wear them more often, because they're really nice! They've got a little wedge heel and they look fab with skinny jeans.

Banana bread...

2011-07-06T17:52:00.003+01:00

I had some bananas that were going a bit manky, so the only sensible thing to do was to make a loaf of banana bread. I brought it to work this morning, and by 4pm this much remained...!

I think you could call that a success. OK, I had three (small!) pieces myself, but still!

I can't remember where I got the original recipe from - it was one I'd scribbled down in my recipe notebook - but at any rate I ended up changing it (because I didn't have enough butter, and I wanted to use wholemeal flour) so I sort of made up my own recipe! And (if I do say so myself) I think it was one of the best banana breads I've ever made.

Banana bread

100g wholemeal plain flour
125g self-raising flour
About half a teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
3 ripe bananas
75g caster sugar
2 eggs
35ml sunflower oil

1. Preheat the oven to 160C, and grease a non-stick loaf tin.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the two flours with the baking powder and mixed spice.
3. In another large bowl, mash the bananas, beat in the eggs, and stir in the sugar and oil.
4. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined (don't overmix it) and pour into the loaf tin.
5. Bake for around an hour, until risen and golden and a skewer comes out clean.

An amazing weekend...

2011-07-04T20:51:00.002+01:00

I haven't blogged for ages! Sorry about that! I've been busy - I joined my local running club and went for my first run with them on Wednesday last week, and then on Thursday the Finnish contingent (my sister and her chap) arrived for a long weekend. And what a fantastic weekend it was!

We had copious amounts of Pimms and lovely supper with friends on a sunny South Bank...

...we drank gorgeously light rosé and messed around in pub beer gardens...

...and the whole shebang was topped off perfectly by Jarvis Cocker and co, as we spent yesterday afternoon and evening bopping away in Hyde Park. The Wireless festival was on, and after a(nother) trip to the pub for lunch, we arrived in time to see The Horrors, The Hives, TV on the Radio, Grace Jones (who was on stage when she should have been, which was amazing enough, and who sported an incredible array of outfits and hula-hooped her way through 'Slave to the Rhythm') and of course Pulp! I hadn't seen Pulp since my teenage Britpop heyday in 1996, but they were incredible.

Peaches...

2011-06-25T17:10:00.003+01:00

I've never really been a fan of stone fruit - I think it's the combination of the tough skin and the squishy fruit underneath. It's why I also don't like raw tomatoes. And the taste of peaches and nectarines and plums always underwhelms me, too - I'm expecting gorgeous, sweet, juicy fruit and half the time it's just dry and tasteless. But I'd heard that doughnut peaches (or Saturn peaches) were particularly sweet and delicious, so when I saw punnets of them on one of the fruit and veg stalls near work, I decided to give them a go.

And I'm happy to report that they are indeed lovely! They taste just like a peach should taste, and they're juicy and sweet. I have a feeling a doughnut peach Bellini would be incredible!

Lazy Giraffe Jewellery...

2011-06-24T11:16:00.004+01:00

I have a bit of a thing about pretty jewellery, and Lazy Giraffe Jewellery is one of my favourite places to browse when I want to find new things to lust over! It's run by the lovely Deepa, who really does make the most beautiful things. I'd been sighing over her Petite Rose Ring for months - I've got quite small hands, so I like very delicate rings, and it's just perfect. So imagine my surprise when a very lovely friend (who is obviously very good at picking up on hints...!) bought it for me!

Doesn't it look lovely? And the best news is that Lazy Giraffe has free shipping this weekend!

And yes, I am wearing it on my ring finger. I often wear rings on the third fingers of my right and left hands, just because I like to. I once caused a Facebook furore when I modelled a fingerless glove someone had knitted - I happened to be wearing a not-very-interesting plain ring from Accessorize on my left ring finger, and people went mental assuming I'd secretly got myself engaged! For a start, if I did get engaged I'd tell my friends in person rather than letting them find out via Facebook, and more to the point, if I did get engaged I'd want a significantly more sparkly ring than the one I wore for that photo!

Overnight Oats...

2011-06-21T21:21:00.002+01:00

In the winter, porridge is my breakfast of choice. It's healthy, it's cheap, you can have all sorts of things with it, and it's the only thing that actually keeps me feeling full for a good few hours. Much better than supposedly 'healthy' cereals - I'm always starving half an hour after eating those!

But when the weather warms up, I don't want porridge. And I still want something healthy and interesting. So imagine how pleased I was when I discovered Overnight Oats! I'm way behind on the trend - it swept the food blogging world MONTHS ago - but it's great.

The above photo was a mix of ordinary porridge oats, chopped mixed nuts and dates, with skimmed milk, but my usual weekday ONO is made with three heaped tablespoons of oats and wheatbran, a tablespoon of millet flakes, a tablespoon of flaked almonds, and Kara coconut milk, with a splash of water if necessary. You just mix it all up and stick it in the fridge overnight, and in the morning it's creamy and soft and lovely. For a while I added grated apple and cinnamon, but at the moment I'm on a dates-and-mixed-spice kick. And my special pre-run weekend bowl has chopped banana and a sneaky half-teaspoon of cocoa powder! You can really add anything you want - a blob of cherry jam is gorgeous for a Bakewell-inspired affair, or the other week I turned some slightly manky apples into apple compote and that was amazing on top of my ONO. It's my new favourite breakfast!

Post-run feast...

2011-06-14T21:19:00.003+01:00

I haven't posted much about running lately, and that's because it's been a bit rubbish lately! After our amazing half-marathon triumph, we've done a couple of 9.5-milers, but our times have been really quite embarrassingly disappointing. I think it's a combination of the weather being warm(ish) and the fact that I've been a little wrung-out and exhausted just recently.

But this evening we ran 7.5 miles (for the first time in ages) and despite it being a really warm and sunny evening (and you all know how much I hate running in anything approaching warm weather...) we managed 1:08, which is perfectly respectable. So I'm feeling a little bit better about the whole running thing. And after this evening's run, I made a fantastic (and enormous) salad with mixed leaves, some 'Sweetfire' marinated beetroot (39p in the reduced section in Tesco, what a bargain!) roasted broccoli, sweet potato and a yummy fried egg. Perfect!

Sauce on the South Bank...

2011-06-13T21:12:00.000+01:00

I went to the Tracey Emin exhibition at the Hayward Gallery (I love having friends who manage to get free tickets for these things!) and really liked it - I'd never seen any of Emin's work in 'real life' before but there were some really fascinating, powerful and intriguing things. I particularly liked her neon signs - they're fabulous.

There's also a collection of beach huts on the South Bank at the moment. I took a photo of this one because I liked the stripes...

...and here's what's inside!

Gardens and Royals...

2011-06-11T18:49:00.003+01:00

This weekend is London's Open Garden Squares weekend, where private and public gardens and garden squares are open for people to look around. You can see some amazing things!

It also happens to be the Queen's Official Birthday today, so Trooping the Colour was going on at Horseguards Parade this morning. We were lucky enough to arrive at Buckingham Palace just in time for the Red Arrows' fly-past - and I managed to snap a few Royal pics!

Then we went on a bit of a wander around Knightsbridge, Sloane Square and South Kensington, starting off at Rococo Chocolates...

...and taking in a couple of gardens in Cadogan Square and Cadogan Place, Lexham Gardens...

...and the garden at the K+K Hotel in Earl's Court.

(I couldn't resist picking up a few gorgeously packaged mini chocolate bars from Rococo!)

Soda bread with a difference...

2011-06-10T20:50:00.003+01:00

Yep, it's another 'see a recipe, make it as soon as possible' one! My sister's coming to stay again in a few weeks' time, so when I spotted a recipe for gluten-free soda bread on one of my favourite blogs, Apple and Spice, I knew I had to give it a trial run. The photos looked incredible!

I decided to halve the quantities and make a little test loaf - and I didn't have a small enough tin, so I just plopped the dough onto a baking tray. Very rustic! I also couldn't find teff flour, so I just used buckwheat flour, brown rice flour and chickpea flour (again!). My halved quantities ended up being 75g of buckwheat, 75g of brown rice, and 50g of chickpea flour. I also used Kara coconut milk, because that's the only milk I have these days, so it's dairy-free as well! My loaf didn't rise as much as the one on Apple and Spice, and the texture seems to be a bit more dense, but it's really nice. Often, gluten-free breads can end up being chalky, with a funny aftertaste, but this one isn't like that at all. It has the faintest hint of the gluten-free about it, thanks to the slightly beany taste of the buckwheat and chickpea flours, but it's seriously yummy nonetheless.

It went perfectly with a (steaming) bowl of spicy tomatoey chickpea and vegetable stew!

I have a feeling this bread tastes best just after it's made (I had a little taster straight from the oven with butter and it was gorgeous) but I've got half of my little loaf left and tomorrow I'm going to see how it toasts so I can have it with scrambled eggs as a post-run treat.

Shellac

2011-06-08T21:34:00.003+01:00

On Monday night, I went over to my friend Lan's house for a fabulously girly evening of healthy nibbles and toenail painting. Lan had told me about this incredible stuff called Shellac, which is a special nail varnish that won't chip. It's guaranteed to last two weeks on fingernails, but on toenails it can last much longer than that. It sounded perfect - I hate my toenails and always feel ridiculously self-conscious about wearing sandals. Usually I just slap on a few layers of badly-applied nail varnish and avoid showing my toes unless it's absolutely necessary, so the idea of a nail varnish that would a) last a decent amount of time and b) possibly make my feet look halfway normal was very appealing!

The lovely Rowena spent three hours painting our nails, and this is what we ended up with!

I love it! I went for hot pink, and it's really summery and incredibly shiny. And that's how it's going to stay for the next however many weeks! My feet look normal in sandals!

And there was an added bonus, too - going to see Lan means going to see Mabel, dog extraordinaire!

More weekend cooking!

2011-06-05T19:50:00.006+01:00

And another recipe involving chickpea flour! I'd been meaning to make these baked sweet potato falafel for ages, but hadn't got round to it. They're from the Leon cookbook - I really like Leon, especially their sweet potato falafel wraps! Making yesterday's socca reminded me that I wanted to try them, so today I got the chickpea flour out again and made a batch. You can find the recipe here, on the amazing 101 Cookbooks blog.

As you can see, my food photography isn't quite as good!

I halved the recipe and got a baker's dozen - 13 two-bite-sized falafel! I also made a lovely batch of coleslaw (it's impossible to make a small amount of coleslaw - I used a quarter of a smallish white cabbage, a really small red onion and one carrot, and I've got enough to last a week!) and the whole thing was truly delicious. Very like the actual Leon ones, even though I used fresh mint (which I have in my windowbox) instead of fresh coriander (which I didn't have).

Socca!

2011-06-04T19:39:00.003+01:00

Nope, I'm not talking about the American word for football - socca is a type of pancake from the South of France, made from chickpea flour. Chickpea flour is also known as gram flour, and if you fancy getting some, you can find great big bags in Asian supermarkets or in the world foods aisle of most supermarkets, or Tesco actually sell smaller bags in their wholefoods section. I first read about socca on Keeping Healthy Getting Stylish and was intrigued, so I bought some flour and gave it a go. You can use socca for all sorts of things - so far I've made thinnish ones and used them as wraps, filled with salady bits, and then tonight I made this amazing socca 'pizza'!

For this one I used 50g of chickpea flour and enough water to make it the consistency of double cream. The chickpea flour has quite a distinctive beany sort of taste, which I like, but it's even better if you add herbs and/or spices to the batter. As I was making a pizza-type affair, I went with a sprinkle of oregano, but I've used garam masala before too and that was delicious. I made quite a thick pancake, flipping it once, and then I piled on tomato sauce (just made from a little tin of chopped tomatoes and some onion) and topped it with roasted courgette, red pepper, broccoli, artichoke hearts and a little bit of mozzarella, and popped it under the grill until the edges of the socca were slightly toasty and the cheese was melted and bubbling.

It was absolutely gorgeous and really filling, and of course it was packed full of protein and veg and approximately ten million times healthier than real pizza! It's gluten-free, too, in case that's important to you!

Bits and pieces...

2011-06-02T20:03:00.002+01:00

Just a couple of miscellaneous things from the last few days! Firstly the most amazing cup of apple, cinnamon and honey tea from my local organic café. I was expecting an ordinary fruit teabag affair, but no - it was fresh (i.e. made that very minute in a juicer) apple juice heated up with a stick of cinnamon and a dollop of honey. Absolutely divine!

And then something I spotted that restored my faith in humanity - I like to think this bag still has its original contents and is just waiting for its owner to come and claim it...

13.1 miles...

2011-05-28T12:24:00.002+01:00

The last time I ran 13.1 miles, it was in March last year at the Bath Half Marathon. My time then was 2:35, which I was really disappointed about because I'd trained for a sub-2:30 time and was really hoping to get one. Since then, as you know, we've been seriously focusing on our running, and this week Pete and I decided to go for it and run our own half marathon. And here's our time:

2:08.16! I actually can't believe it! I'd hoped for sub-2:15, and as I was feeling really good for most of the run (apart from the hilly bits!) I was quietly confident that we'd do it, but I never expected 2:08! I am beyond chuffed. It's actually quite strange trying to get my head around it - running a half used to be A Big Deal. They were things to be trained for and worried about; things that would probably require a day off work in order to recover. But now I find myself in a situation where I can just go out on a Saturday morning and run 13.1 miles! I almost feel like we must have 'cheated' in some way - but I mapped the route meticulously on Map My Run, and it was definitely 13.15 miles, and we were held up for a full two minutes trying to cross a big main road!

A little bit wet...

2011-05-27T10:08:00.003+01:00

It's been ages since we've had proper rain here in London. We've had a few drizzly showers, but it's mostly been dry...until yesterday!

I was on my way to meet a couple of friends - when I left work, it was raining, but not too heavily. Two minutes later, the rain had turned torrential, so I took shelter at a bus stop. Thirty seconds after that, there was thunder, lightning, torrential rain and hail. My shoes filled up with hailstones!

And to top it all off, when the hail and rain had subsided a bit and I decided to make a break for it and leg it to the Tube station, a taxi went past and splashed most of the biggest puddle you've ever seen all over me. My feet still hadn't dried out by the time I got home at 11.30pm! Yuck!

Loafing about with lentils...

2011-05-23T20:54:00.003+01:00

A while back, a friend sent me a package of vegetarian cookbooks, which had been hanging around on my desk at work ever since. Then this morning the office computers went down and we all had to log off for three hours, so I ended up looking through a couple of them to pass the time. And I spotted a yummy-sounding recipe for lentil paté - it was in a book called Cookshelf: Vegetarian, which seems to be out of print, but you can probably still get it on Amazon. There are some really good ideas in it!

I didn't hold out much hope when I put it into the oven - I'd followed the recipe to the letter, and it does say to 'drain any excess water' once the lentils are cooked, but there was a LOT of excess water. I'd probably use half the liquid in the recipe! Even when I'd drained the lentils, the finished mixture looked seriously runny. But it baked up beautifully, and it tasted amazing! I had it with some salad and roasted asparagus, and it made a gorgeously light and healthy supper.

Lentil paté

1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp garam masala
1/2 tsp ground coriander
850ml veg stock (I'd cut this down to around 500ml and see how it goes!)
175g red lentils
1 egg
2 tbsp milk (I used Kara coconut milk, thus rendering the recipe gluten- and dairy-free)
2 tbsp mango chutney (I used Blue Dragon sweet chilli sauce, which was fab)
2 tbsp chopped parsley (I didn't have any so I left this out)

1. Fry the onion and garlic in a little oil until softened. Add the garam masala and coriander and fry for another minute.

2. Stir in the lentils and stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 minutes or until the lentils are cooked and softened. Drain off any excess moisture.

3. Blend the lentils in a food processor with the egg, milk, mango chutney and parsley (I didn't bother, I just stirred it all together in the pan as the lentils were nice and mushy!)

4. Grease and line a 1lb loaf tin, spoon the mixture into the tin, and bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 40-45 minutes, until firm to the touch.

5. Allow to cool in the tin for 20 minutes, then transfer to the fridge to cool thoroughly (or eat it warm, as I did!)

Miserly meltdown...

2011-05-22T16:51:00.010+01:00

Er...yes. I'm actually more than a little bit embarrassed about posting this! Miserly May was meant to carry on until next Wednesday, but it was pay day on Friday, I had some time to kill in the afternoon, and I had a voucher for 25% off at Dorothy Perkins (it's probably a bit late to head to the shops now, but it's still valid online until the end of today) and, well, it all went a bit wrong. Dorothy Perkins isn't somewhere I'd usually think to shop at, but they've got some absolutely gorgeous dresses at the moment. And you know I'm a sucker for a dress! So I ended up with this:

...and this:

And then I happened to go to Zara, and they had these gorgeous little stripy jumpers in a whole range of colours:

So I bought one in orange, and one in black. I love stripes, they're absolutely perfect for the slightly chilly spring days we've been having, and I can see myself wearing them to death...but OH MY GOODNESS, the SPENDING! I will be living on beans from here on in.

Morris dancing along the canal...

2011-05-21T17:19:00.000+01:00

As you may know, I have a friend who lives on a narrowboat. She's currently moored up in Rickmansworth, and she invited us up to visit and to see the Rickmansworth Waterways Trust festival that was on this weekend. We had a beautifully sunny day for it, and after a spectacular burger at The Feathers (I had the homemade falafel burger with guacamole and Cheddar, which I'd thoroughly earned after another 11-mile run!) we headed up to the canal. There was Morris dancing, a narrowboat tug-of-war, and lots of food stalls and bands and all sorts of other things. It was great fun!

And then in the evening I went to my friend's birthday drinks do, and snapped a (slightly blurry) Tube mouse on the way home!

It's Friday, I'm in London...

2011-05-20T17:12:00.000+01:00

Living and working in west London, it isn't all that often that I actually go to other parts of town. But I headed to London Bridge to meet some friends for dinner, and on the way I snapped a few interesting sights! The weather really has been glorious just lately.

Miserly May: Week Four

2011-05-18T13:43:00.004+01:00

Hmm. Not such a great week this week. I had a bit of a slip and bought some shoes! However, they were shoes I'd wanted for ages, and they suddenly appeared in the sale, so they were 'only' £12.49. And I can think of a million things they'd go with. I haven't actually got them yet, because I ordered them online and they're being delivered sometime next week, so I could yet decide that I don't like them and send them back!

Apart from that, it's been a good week - I haven't bought anything else apart from food! Mind you, I've been eating far too much of that, so I'm on a 'get back to a sensible diet and stop these silly bad habits' kick as well as a no-spending one!

Solo running take two...

2011-05-17T20:08:00.002+01:00

My running buddy Pete couldn't make our regular Tuesday night running appointment today, so I decided to get out there on my own. I expect you're all getting bored with the endless photos of my watch, so here are my feet instead:

And here's my time - 1:07.27, which is very respectable! I took a photo of my watch just to prove I'd done it, although I'm sure Pete will still accuse me of pressing the 'start' button on my watch and sitting on the sofa for an hour and seven minutes!

The hardest thing really is getting myself out of the house in the first place. Once I'm running, I'm absolutely fine, but getting out there is really tough without someone else there to motivate me. I'm also constantly worried about my pace, but judging by my two solo efforts so far, I don't really need to be!

I blame Hugh...

2011-05-15T20:54:00.005+01:00

I've mentioned before that I sometimes see recipes and just have to make them at the earliest opportunity. Well, this evening I took that need for instant food gratification to a whole new level.

I was watching River Cottage Every Day, with good old Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and he made lemon curd muffins. I'd been wondering how I could use my lemon curd, so as to prevent me from sitting and eating it all by myself with a spoon, and all of a sudden there was a perfect lemon curd recipe on my TV! So I jumped up, switched on the oven, and (thanks to the wonders of modern technology) rewound the programme so that I could scribble the recipe down. Under an hour later, I've got lemon curd muffins cooling in the kitchen.

And here's the recipe - I decided to tweak it by using a little wholemeal flour along with the plain, and I had half a bag of dried blueberries in the cupboard so I chucked them in as well. I also don't usually have milk in the house, so my liquid was made up of 120ml of Kara coconut milk and a dollop of fat-free Greek yogurt. So these muffins are actually quite good for you!

Lemon curd and blueberry muffins (with a lot of help from Hugh F-W)

makes 10-12

75g butter
225g plain flour (or 175g plain and 50g wholemeal)
100g caster sugar
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
about 50g dried blueberries
2 eggs
125ml milk
lemon curd

Melt the butter.

Whisk the flour in a large bowl, add the salt and baking powder and whisk to combine.

In a separate jug, whisk together the milk, eggs and melted butter.

Mix the wet ingredients into the dry, working quickly and stopping when they are just combined.

Place a spoonful of batter into each muffin case and top with half a teaspoon of lemon curd. Then add another spoonful of batter to cover the lemon curd.

Bake at 180C for around 20-25 minutes, until the muffins are risen and golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

N-n-n-nineteen!

2011-05-14T14:45:00.004+01:00

Absolutely nothing to do with the rest of this blog post, but my beloved Manchester United have just won a record 19th League title (overtaking the 18 titles our bitter rivals Liverpool have won) so I'm rather happy!

Anyway, this morning started out like this:

That isn't a pathetically slow ordinary run - it's an 11-mile run! Slightly slower than I'd hoped (in my mind I wanted to aim for 1:45) but still a decent time seeing as it's over a year since we last ran that distance. At that point, 1:48 wouldn't have been disastrous for a 9.5-mile run, so you can see how far we've come since then!

Then this afternoon has been...well...eggy. Two fried eggs for lunch (with beans and wholemeal toast) and then another seven eggs for baking! First up was a Victoria sponge, which I've filled with that homemade lemon curd from last night and some lovely English strawberries.

And then some flourless chocolate brownies!

These are amazingly fudgy, rich and truffle-like. I can't remember where the recipe for these came from (it's one I've had for years) but it goes like this:

Flourless chocolate brownies

300g plain chocolate
150g unsalted butter, diced
50g cocoa powder, sifted
4 large eggs
200g caster sugar
100g chopped walnuts, pecans or hazelnuts (optional)
Icing sugar for dusting

Break up the chocolate and place in a heatproof bowl. Add the butter. Set the bowl over a pan of steaming, not boiling, water and melt gently, stirring frequently. Remove the bowl from the heat, stir in the cocoa powder, and set aside.

Place the eggs in a mixing bowl and beat well. Add the sugar and whisk thoroughly until pale in colour, very light and frothy and doubled in volume.

Using a large metal spoon, carefully fold in the chocolate followed by the nuts (if using).

Transfer the mixture to a greased and lined brownie tin (20.5 x 25.5cm) and spread evenly. Bake at 180C (350F) for 25-30 minutes, until the top of the brownie is just firm to the touch but the centre is still slightly soft.

Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes before carefully transferring to a cooling rack. Dust with icing sugar when cool and cut into 12 pieces.

Lemon curd...

2011-05-13T19:07:00.002+01:00

I'd never thought of making lemon curd before - I think I always had a sneaking suspicion it'd be one of those difficult things that involved sugar thermometers and lots of boiling. But it turns out it's really really easy! Of course, I turned to Delia, and this recipe was fab - I halved the quantities and it made just enough to fill my jam jar with enough left over to top a cheeky slice of toast!

I have plans for this lemon curd, which will be revealed tomorrow...

Sufjan Stevens...

2011-05-12T18:38:00.003+01:00

I went to see the amazing Sufjan Stevens at the Royal Festival Hall and had the most fantastically fun time!

On the way there I took a few sunny photos of London looking gorgeous:

And then there were wings, and fluorescent outfits...

...and balloons!

To be honest I hadn't really heard a lot of his music before last night, but it really was a brilliant gig. This review sums it up better than I ever could!

Miserly May: Week Three

2011-05-11T10:43:00.004+01:00

Another excellent week! I haven't bought any clothes, shoes or accessories at all. In fact, my only non-food-and-drink purchase has been my new kitchen scales.

I do think I've spent a bit too much on food lately, though - I found myself slipping back into a few of my old bad eating habits (not helped by the two long weekends!) so in order to remedy that I've been going to the supermarket and loading up on fruit and veg and healthy things. Which is a good thing, of course, but I've been tempted by too many interesting (and expensive) things - like Conscious chocolate - rather than sticking to the healthy basics. So this week I will try to focus on spending less on groceries and lunches.

Bringing my cookery into the digital age...

2011-05-09T19:34:00.003+01:00

I've had this set of kitchen scales for a good few years now - I bought them from Morrisons and they cost a whole five pounds. And they were OK, but only OK - it was always really difficult to get them to actually read zero before you started, and they weren't at all accurate. The imperial bit just had pounds with four little markings between each number, and every time I used them I'd have to think 'Er...how many ounces in a pound again? 16? So each one of these markings is 4oz...?' which was a bit of a pain in the bum.

Over Easter, I used my mum's shiny digital scales and couldn't believe how quick and easy they were to use - and so today I decided to treat myself to a set. They were only £14.99 from Argos, but they're brilliant!

I love the fact that you can weigh things straight into the bowl you're going to use to mix them, and the fact that it measures liquids as well as dry ingredients, and the fact that you can weigh one ingredient, set it back to zero, and weigh the next ingredient in the same bowl. Less washing up! And they're much easier to store away than my old ones. I think they'll make my life so much easier - I weigh things like pasta and rice for everyday meals, which I know makes me sound like some kind of obsessive weirdo, but portion control is something I really struggle with and if I'm not careful I find that I end up with massive portions, which of course I then eat! And it's going to be much easier to just whip these scales out than it ever was faffing about with the old ones.

Independent woman!

2011-05-08T11:17:00.003+01:00

This morning, I went for a run all by myself. My running mate, Pete, was away for the weekend, so I decided to give it a go. He's moving in a few weeks' time anyway, so I've got to get used to running solo! I was quite irrationally terrified by the idea of going out on my own, which was ridiculous because obviously I knew I could do it, but I was scared that I wouldn't pace myself properly, or I'd get bored, or I wouldn't have the mental toughness to get through 9.5 miles without wimping out and going home.

But I didn't just finish the run - I ended up with a new PB! Hoorah! I'm especially impressed because the weather was really warm (when the sun came out, it was boiling, and when the clouds came over it was horribly muggy and humid and sweaty) and my hayfever was awful - I could hear my lungs rasping every time I breathed in! So I'm feeling quite smug now, really!

Beany bake!

2011-05-07T20:19:00.004+01:00

I spotted this recipe for a white bean and leek bake on Laura's blog, Keeping Healthy Getting Stylish, and I just had to try it! Most bake-type affairs involve rather a lot of cheese sauce, and while I am a huge fan of cheese in all forms, I do try not to eat too much of it! So the idea of a sauce made from cannellini beans sounded really interesting.

I didn't have any nutritional yeast (in fact, I've never tried it) so I added a little bit of Marigold bouillon powder, and I added some rosemary to the whizzed-up beany sauce as well. And I turned it into a pasta bake with some wholewheat penne (because I'm going for a run tomorrow morning and fancied some more carbs) and chucked in some broccoli that was languishing in the fridge. Oh, and I didn't have rye bread, so I crumbled up some Ryvita for the topping. It was lovely and crunchy!

Following Laura's lead, I had some gorgeous English asparagus with it (you've got to love asparagus season!) and it was totally delicious. And unbelivably filling, thanks to those protein-packed beans! I actually don't think I needed to put the pasta in - I'm stuffed! It really is a great recipe - it's vegan, it can easily be made gluten-free just by using GF bread for the topping, and there's barely any fat whatsoever (I just used a couple of sprays of sunflower oil from my spray bottle to fry the leeks).

Definitely a winner! Let's hope it fuels a good run tomorrow!

Big Ben...

2011-05-06T20:15:00.000+01:00

I made a little trip to Westminster - and having battled through the crowds, in the spirit of 'If you can't beat them, join them', I decided to be a tourist and snap a quick photo of Big Ben (yes, I know it's the bell that's called Big Ben and not the tower!)

Doctor Who?

2011-05-05T20:05:00.000+01:00

Not quite! This is an actual Metropolian Police 'watch box', which lives right outside Earl's Court Tube station. Bizarrely, I'd actually walked past it a couple of times without actually clocking what it was, but then my friend Pete pointed it out and we had a proper look at it! Apparently it was installed in 1996 and was meant to be part of a new high-tech fleet of CCTV stations, but for some reason or another the idea didn't really work and so now it just sits there waiting for the Doctor.

Miserly May: Week Two

2011-05-04T13:53:00.003+01:00

Or Week One proper, really, seeing as a) I spent money on clothes last week and b) it is actually now May.

This week has been very good indeed. Not only did I not spend money on clothes, shoes or accessories, but I returned the stripy dress I bought last week, so money went into my account! I did spend a bit more on food than I usually would, thanks to the Royal Wedding picnic, and I had my hair cut, but having my hair cut every eight weeks is an absolute necessity or I end up looking like Paul McCartney circa 1964.

So overall, not a bad week at all! Let's hope I can continue to resist temptation!

Afternoon tea...

2011-05-02T15:21:00.003+01:00

What could be nicer on a Bank Holiday Monday afternoon than a mug of hot chocolate (I don't like tea - I know, take my British passport away right now!) and a couple of pieces of crumbly homemade shortbread?

Eton mess...

2011-05-01T20:39:00.003+01:00

I had some strawberries left over from our Royal Wedding picnic, and as well as just eating them as they are (yum) I decided to turn them into a delicious pudding.

I also got a bit bored and decided to do some baking - I'd been having a flick through my copy of Delia's Vegetarian Collection (I love Delia) and spied a recipe for Scottish shortbread. I had all the ingredients except semolina, but I decided to replace the semolina with fine cornmeal, and it worked perfectly.

Believe it or not, my Eton mess was completely fat free - I just crumbled a pre-made meringue nest into a bowl, added some sliced strawberries, and stirred in a dollop of fat-free Greek yogurt. Yum! Obviously the addition of the gorgeously crumbly shortbread made it slightly less virtuous, but you've got to have a treat on a Bank Holiday weekend, haven't you!

William, Kate and Hyde Park...

2011-04-29T17:23:00.003+01:00

This morning I got up at 6.30am to put the finishing touches to our Royal Wedding picnic (I made cakes with jam in the middle, and Eton Mess) and headed off bright and early to Hyde Park to join in with the huge Royal Wedding party. We arrived just before 9 and the park wasn't too busy, so we managed to grab a really good spot with an excellent view of the big screens.

We also found someone selling official programmes, so we could join in singing Jerusalem!

And then we did lots of flag-waving...

...saw the amazing fly-past...

...and ate rather a lot!

I'm actually a bit sunburnt - there was a point where we thought we could feel a few raindrops in the air, but it didn't rain! The Hyde Park party was brilliantly organised, with food and drink, entertainment, live music and fantastic big screens so everyone got a brilliant view. And of course the dress was beautiful! I particularly liked William and Kate driving themselves off to Clarence House in Prince Charles's Aston. Perfect!

Easter on film...

2011-04-28T12:12:00.003+01:00

I've just had my 35mm photos from the Easter weekend developed - the number of duff ones per film seems to be gradually reducing, which can only be a step in the right direction! Here are a few of my favourites...I think they really capture the glorious sunshine we had!

Miserly May: Week One

2011-04-27T15:13:00.003+01:00

I suppose I should get this out of the way at the beginning - week one of my Miserly May effort has not gone well!

My frugal plans were scuppered by a trip to Bristol with some friends, which was great fun, but sadly the shops were very tempting! I held out for a couple of hours, insisting that I was just going to window-shop and help the others find the things they were looking for, but then I spotted a fab grey jumper with black birds on it in Primark, which was 'only' £14, and I couldn't resist. I know with Primark that if you see something good, you have to grab it! I also bought their bold stripy midi dress, but I'm going to return it because it's too big. Which is a shame, because I haven't seen it anywhere in the next size down!

I also spotted these amazing pink wedge sandals in New Look - I never, ever wear heels, and certainly not ones as tall as those, but my friends persuaded me that they were suitably fabulous and that they'd be really comfy and easy to walk in thanks to the wedge. I nearly bought them in Bristol but resisted, and felt very smug until I went to Taunton with my mum on Monday - as soon as I pointed them out to her, she said I had to buy them! Now I just need to get up the courage to actually wear them, although I can already think of lots of things they'd go with. Skinny jeans, cropped trousers, cute summer dresses...if the weather holds out!

So not a fantastic update, really - it's turned into more of a 'my recent purchases' post than a Miserly May post! However, this week I am determined not to buy anything else. And technically it isn't May yet - I could always just write off this week and carry on for an extra week to make up for it. Tune in next week to see whether I keep to my resolution!

A sunny Easter weekend...

2011-04-26T10:34:00.004+01:00

I spent a glorious Easter weekend staying with my parents in Somerset. We made lots of cake - a Victoria sponge that was light as a feather thanks to the magic of the Kenwood Chef, and one of our absolute favourites, a honey cake, which we gave an Easter feel to with some Mini Eggs and fluffy chicks!

And the lilac tree was in full bloom, smelling gorgeous...

...and here's a photo of Molly, just because she decided to pose!

Miserly May...

2011-04-20T10:35:00.003+01:00

I did so well during Frugal February - but then unfortunately the weather became all lovely and warm and sunny, and I went on a bit of a spring dress-buying spree and undid all my good work!

So I'm imposing another month of frugality (is that even a word?) which I am going to call Miserly May. It's pay day tomorrow (thank heavens) and from now until May's pay day I will not be buying any clothes, shoes, or accessories. And I'll be trying to keep a close eye on my general spending, too. Which means more weekly menu planning and less 'Oh, I'll just chuck a couple of bottles of that nice wine into my basket'.

I'm already being tempted, though - especially by this gorgeous fruity dress! Perfect for the gorgeous weather we've got in London at the moment (we're forecast 26 degrees for today and tomorrow!)

Keeping it in the family - Simply Portugal Soaps

2011-04-19T12:06:00.004+01:00

Anyone mind if I give a bit of free advertising to my mum's lovely soap website? No? Brilliant.

Simply Portugal Soaps is a joint venture between my mum and her friend and soap-maker extraordinaire, Shelley. Shelley lives high up in the mountains in the north of Portugal, and she makes beautiful soaps using lovely natural ingredients. In fact, the olive oil she uses comes from her own olive trees, and the goat's milk comes from her neighbour's goats just across the valley. Mum and I went to visit when we were in Portugal last year and it really is idyllic!

And the soaps really are lovely, too - I'm not just saying that! They come in a whole range of delicious scents, and they're gorgeously moisturising. Shelley has even come up with a camomile and calendula soap, which is especially soothing and great for sensitive skin. I helped my mum out at a craft fair recently and couldn't stop sniffing them all!

You can order online (they're £3.85 per 110g block) and do check out the Facebook page too. Mum is even branching out into doing wedding favours - smaller blocks of soaps in beautiful little gift bags - which I think is a great idea!

London Marathon 2011

2011-04-18T18:45:00.004+01:00

It was a fantastic day for all of us London Marathon spectators yesterday - slightly too hot and sunny for running, if you ask me, but luckily I wasn't actually running the thing.

Instead, I made (and ate) vast amounts of pancakes...

...took some arty photos...

...cheered on the runners (I was particularly chuffed to get a thumbs-up from Mike Bushell of BBC Breakfast fame!)

...and ate cake. This is Sponge Cake Take Two, made with self-raising flour. The cinnamon loaf was fab, but the cake balls were undoubtedly the star of the show and they disappeared in record time!

And then we saw the most amazing moon over Greenwich on the way home!

Baking trials and tribulations...

2011-04-16T15:57:00.002+01:00

I'm going to my friends' house to cheer on the London Marathon runners tomorrow (they live right next to the marathon route) and I thought I'd make a couple of cakes to take along. Namely a Victoria sponge (I just use my mum's recipe - you weigh the eggs and then use an equal amount of butter, sugar and flour. My eggs weighed 200g so that's what I used) and a cinnamon swirl cake.

The cinnamon swirl cake came together with no trouble at all - the batter looked so pretty before it went into the oven, and just as pretty when it came out! It's got a fantastic crunchy sugary topping and I can't wait to cut into it.

But then I got the sponge cakes out of the oven...and they were as flat as a pancake. Obviously, the (unlabelled) tub of flour in the cupboard, which I could have sworn was self-raising, wasn't. I looked at the poor sad cakes and knew that my options were to a) throw them away, b) eat them all by myself or c) try to salvage something out of them. 'Cake balls', I thought. And then when I'd stopped swearing, I had a quick Google for a recipe. The cake pop phenomenon that swept the internet a while back shows no sign of going away, and happily I discovered that I could turn my cake disaster into something ridiculously yummy with the addition of just a couple of ingredients. Namely a tub of ready-made frosting and some chocolate. Obviously I had to make cake balls, because I didn't have any sticks to turn them into cake pops, but I think they look pretty good!

And then I also did this:

Tweet tweet!

2011-04-15T11:24:00.004+01:00

I'm not a member of the Twitterati myself, but that doesn't stop me loving these gorgeous bird pendants from Silver by Mail!

I've bought several things from Silver by Mail in the past and they've always been lovely - and I think they've really outdone themselves with these little enamelled birds. My favourite is the green and pink one, but they come in all sorts of colours and designs. They're quirky and a bit different, and I think they're really springlike! And at £33 each, I don't think they'll break the bank. You could even buy one for someone (or for yourself) as an alternative to all that Easter chocolate!

New florals...

2011-04-14T14:44:00.003+01:00

New florals... by alliec featuring a nude dress

Another Thursday outfit post! I bought this fab floral dress from Topshop last week (honestly, the 'But I need more clothes! My old ones are too big!' excuse really is wearing thin now...) and I'm wearing it today with my long navy cardie and a leather belt from UniQlo over the top of it all.

Beetroot and barley...

2011-04-13T20:33:00.004+01:00

Yes, it's another recipe from Domestic Sluttery! And another one that went straight to the top of my 'must try' list, instead of languishing in my recipe file for ages.

It's ridiculously easy to make - I didn't have dried mushrooms, so I just used a handful of fresh ones, and I had a leek that needed using, so I used that instead of onion. And I used the vacuum-packed cooked beetroot that you can get in the supermarket - the stuff without vinegar.

I just fried the leek and mushrooms together until the mushrooms had released their juice and everything had started to go slightly brown, and then followed the recipe from there on. I baked mine for an hour, because I didn't put mozzarella on the top - instead, I topped mine with a generous blob of Total 0% yogurt and a sprinkle of chopped dill. And it's seriously lovely - the beetroot is gorgeously earthy, the balsamic adds a bit of a tang, and the barley is lovely and chewy. I can see myself making a big dish of the stuff if I ever have a group of beetroot lovers round for supper!