My new toy...

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...

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...

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

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...

...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...

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...

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...!