Grazing

Have you heard of a company called Graze?

After acknowledging the fact that I'm a grazer as well as a comfort eater I decided to try it out.

My first graze box included: 

• dried fruit (blueberry infused cranberries, pineapple, cherry infused sultanas and green raisins)
• oriental cracker mix with peanut crackers
• green olives with basil and garlic
• sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds with chilli

I loved the olives and the seed mix, but I wasn't to fussed about the dried fruit. I've never really been a fan of dried fruit, much prefer fresh fruit. The cracker mix was different and I would eat it again. The company send you four items in every box you order, my first and fifth boxes are free. Each box costs £3.89, which includes delivery, which could get expensive depending on how many boxes you order a week. 

Try it out. There are plenty of offers out there to get your free box to try. let me know what you like best................

I'm sure if you were organised you could easily put together some delicious snack foods of around 100 calories yourself. Watch this space for my suggestions.

Feeling good

After my success last week I knew this next week was going to be more difficult. I awoke to a sunny morning and I had a sudden urge to get outside. So I put on my running clothes, downloaded an app to my phone and chose the appropriate workout. I chose interval training as it was my first time out in almost two years. My shoulder injury had prevented me doing a lot of things but with all the physiotherapy and acupuncture I had received after the operation I didn't want to undo all the hard work I had put in. Time to use my head and be sensible. The interval training consisted of warm up stretches, a 3 minute warm up walk, followed by 5 lots of 2 minute jogging, 2 minute walking and finishing with a 3 minute warm down walk and warm down stretches. I managed to cover 2 miles which I figured wasn't that bad for my first attempt, considering my injury and not running for two years. I was rather pleased with myself!

After my run a made myself a smoothie with strawberries, banana, soy yoghurt and a little water to help blend.

It went down a treat! 

It was such a lovely day I decided that I needed to stay outside and as my garden needed some attention this was a perfect solution.

My herb garden needed weeding badly, my mange tout needed pulling up and I needed to harvest more courgettes, runner beans and lettuce.

Its truly amazing how quick time passes when you're working in the garden, before I knew it lunch time had crept up on me, and I was ravenous!



I wonder how many calories are burnt up gardening?

Here are a few garden shots:

It's Friday

Thank goodness it's Friday! I used to say thank crunchie its Friday, but yet no more...............

Well I got on the scales this morning and I couldn't believe my eyes! All I've done this week is cut out crisps, chocolate and wine, I'm ashamed to admit that no exercise took place, I never did walk home like I said I would but it doesn't matter the results are good.

I've lost 2.7 kg that's 6 pounds, I was ecstatic! I weighed myself 4 times to make sure.

It's always easier to continue when you have good results, I'd also managed to stay vegan all week so things were looking up. To celebrate I made pizza and I used a vegan cheese called cheezly and it wasn't too bad, the cheese didn't melt like mozzarella but it did melt and the pizza was surprisingly tasty.

As I treat I also made garlic bread by mixing together vitalite, crushed garlic, garlic puree, vegan garlic mayonnaise and parsley together and spreading on vegan bread of your choice.
I didn't work out the calories of this banquet, I was celebrating or is that undoing all the good work I have done!

Next week is going to be more difficult!

Garden pasta

Today was still fairly warm and sunny, perhaps we're having an Indian summer afterall? I hope so, I do feel slightly cheated with the weather we've been experiencing. 

I still had some fresh sweetcorn to eat up and my courgette plants have produced yet more courgettes so the only thing I could cook up quick was a pasta dish. I had plenty of basil in the garden too so garden pasta was born!

All I did for this quick dish was fry up some onion until transparent, then add diced courgette, the sweetcorn kernels and sliced mushrooms and stir fry for a couple of minutes. Then add in chopped tomatoes either from a tin or fresh* with a little sugar, salt, balsamic vinegar and paprika and simmer until the fresh tomatoes are soft and mushy or the tinned tomatoes have reduced a little. In the meantime boil up some pasta of your choice, drain and add to the tomato sauce with torn basil leaves. Serve at once. 

*If using fresh tomatoes its best to peel them first.

Summer Salad

Today I wanted to use the fresh sweetcorn that my friend had given me. I don't think you can beat home grown sweetcorn it just tastes so awesome!

It has been unusually warm and sunny today so in keeping with the weather I made myself a summer chopped salad.

Guilt free Thai red vegetable curry

After my little success yesterday, I was confident I could keep denying the trolley lady and I'm pleased to report that I did just that again today.

So to reward myself I decided to make a tasty but guilt free tea. Over the weekend a friend and I had swapped some produce we had grown. My friend has an allotment that keeps her very busy and I just have two raised beds in my garden that hubby built me a few years ago. I was overridden with courgettes and runner beans and my friend with French beans and sweetcorn. 

I decided to keep the fresh sweetcorn for another day and raided my fridge to see what was lurking in the crisper boxes. The treasure I found was perfect for making Thai red vegetable curry with wholegrain rice. Yummy!

As it was a work day I needed something quick and easy and thankfully in my store cupboard was a jar of red curry paste, which made things very easy and very quick. To keep the calories down I replaced some of the coconut milk with soy milk and you didn't notice the difference.

It tasted so good and there was enough left over for two lunch size portions for work!

All I did was fry an onion, the butternut squash, cauliflower and green beans in a little oil (I used an olive oil spray). 

Next add the curry paste and stir to combine

Then add the coconut milk (I used light) and soy milk, stir well and leave to simmer until all vegetables are cooked.

Serve with wholegrain rice.


You can use as much or as little of the curry paste as you want, but I like mine with a bit of a bite.

Delicious!