Brit Chick Runs

In just a matter of hours, I can scream:

Pinch, Punch, First of the Month!

So, sooo rarely do I ever remember to say that on the actual first, so let’s just say I’m excited In fact, I’m excited about December in general!

- Christmas. The little kid in me just LOVES everything to do with Christmas! Presents (receiving AND giving <- more so the latter, as I get older, uglier and wiser :p), time off from uni (it’s still so manic), time spent with my beautiful Chika, and with my beautiful boys:

Sick of cat photos yet!?

- Hannah’s birthday! Yep, my sister is turning 22years old on Dec 16th…sadly, she won’t be home, as she’s still on her gap year. BUT she does arrive home at stupid o’clock on Christmas Eve morning! I’m secretly quite excited about that…though I know it’ll wear off soon enough :p

- cooking! I cannot WAIT to have more time to cook and be creative and generally have more fun with my food I feel like my meals have been somewhat repetitive recently – and very, very babylike*

Yeah, no sooner do I say that Im sick of green monsters, do I start having them again :p

*ie, mush!

i did make an aaaamzaing tomato and lentil soup t’other day though:

  

It’ll be going on the Christmas day lunchtime menu

Other note-worthy eats? Hmm…butter beans cooked with vanilla and soya milk and maple syrup and cinnamon and thyme:

Attractive? No. Delicious? Yes.

Pumpkin cappuccino!!

Coffee, milk, pumpkin,mixed spice – bing bam bang bong!

Carob pancakes

With a peanut butter sauce…holy yum.

Chocolate peanut butter on a wholemeal English muffin:

New Cif bar flavour pre-run the other day:

Hmm…The jury is out – I’m not sure about this flavour. It was OK…but it sure wasn’t brilliant

- Playing in the SNOW!

We’ve had so much of it here!!

It was so heavy today that I didn’t have to make the 1hour drive into uni bliss!

—

Just 3 more weeks or so, then I’ll be off for almost a month…so. excited.

Question: What are you getting excited about? Asides from the obvious (Christmas!) of course

….all you want is a big plate of veggies!

More than once too:

Below would be shredded brussels sprouts stir fried with hoi sin, garlic, soy sauce and roasted parsnip:

Quite possibly one of the best plates ever.

Plates of veggies can be in blended form too – pear, leek, garlic, maple syrup, celeriac, parsnip + mixed spice:

All cooked of course [sometimes these good combos get repeated…three times!)

Sometimes, I get bored of Green Monsters for breakfast (actually, that is happening A LOT – I can’t remember the last time I had one!), so I venture out….

I saw an idea on Gena’s blog, so I ran with it This morning’s mix was simply pumpkin, water, salt, agar powder (yeah, that did NOTHING. Fail.), mixed spice and cinnamon and molasses, heated up on the stove and topped with 1 tsp maple syrup:

Oohh my! Served with a side of puff

Sometimes, it’s good to just honour what your body craves. Even if it is a plate of roast veg at 5pm. And even if it does ruin your appetite for dinner! But it’s all about balance – I know that if my ‘lunch’ ends up being only a small English muffin at 2pm and some veg at 5pm, because that’s all I’ve had time for, that’s ok – cos I can make up for it with different meals later on! A whole cup of oats for dinner, cooked with roasted and mashed squash, for example…or one too many cappuccinos whilst running errands in town

Balance, and listening to what my body really wants, is something I’ve struggled with post-marathon. During marathon training, it was all eat eat eat, to fuel for the marathon. But when I got home afterwards, I felt lost! No more marathon to fuel for…and it’s been..4 or 5 yrs? since I’ve had to eat ‘normally’ (no starving, no gaining, no marathon-eating – just maintaining), and let me tell you – it’s been tough! Am I eating too much? Too little? I’m still running about 20miles a week, and doing workout DVDs, but knowing how much to eat….WHAT a kerfuffle.

My running times have been ACE – my pace is back to about 8.25 min/mile!!!! – which suggests that I’m eating right. BUT I think I’m eating far, far less than I used to! It’s somewhat confusing. Somewhat being an understatement…I feel like I’m running through a wood blind! Plus, I seem to have NO appetite at the moment – I’m so extrrrrremely stressed at uni, and busy, and food feels like an inconvenience atm! I just never, ever want to eat, which makes it 10x harder to listen to my body and eat naturally. Hurrumph.

Do any of you lose your appetite when your stressed? What do you do? Do you think it’s better to just eat when/if you get hungry, or do you think it’s better to make yourself eat at set times/meals? Advice appreciated!

Random other happenings – we totally lost ALL our electricity the other day!! Some cable blew underground, so on pretty much the coldest night this year, I was lying in bed, shivering and cold- I even had to resort to a massive hoodie to keep warm! Drastic measures for someone who normally wakes up too hot The next morning wasn’t fun either – it was still pitch black at 6am, and all I had was my phone light and a candle* to get dressed, do my hair, do my make-up, and get out the door! Gah. Anyway, we now have a generator (a massive ugly thing that sounds like a tractor is sitting in our drive) to give us power til the problem is fixed…..it better not break. There is SNOW on the ground right now!

HOW we lived without electricity is beyond me……

*Don’t leave candles alone – they drip wax EVERYWHERE:

————————-

I’ve been on cat-kick Carter and Kovac looked SO adorable the other day, I couldn’t resist taking a ton more photos!! Enjoy

Old man face!!

Carter?

Or paw?

i swear I should re-name this blog CrazyCatLadyRuns,,,,

..I’ve seriously starting writing about 6 different ‘deep’ posts the past few days, then have changed my mind about posting them!! It’s infuriating :/ So…much…time…wasted….

But do not fear – I will get a post up soon! Maybe tomorrow – I have far less going on on Wednesdays

In the meantime, I leave you with this:

Chika and I in the snow! Ok, so that was last November…BUT, snow is forecast this Saturday! So you never know, maybe there’ll be repeat/updated horsey snow pictures :p

(ps – that red rug? It still exists, but now all the front buckles have been ripped off after Tig got it caught on *something* in the stable. Seriously, you could put a horse in a padded cell and they’d STILL find a way to injure themselves/break something. Hurrumph.)

Seriously. How could you not love these two?

Carter:

I don’t care how many similar photos I put up – you can never have too many cat pictures :p

He’s my little fatty kitten who sleeps on my bed (so close that his whiskers touch my face!), walks across my face if he wants attention when I’m asleep, burrows under my quilt, pounces on my feet, cries at my door if it’s shut, plays with his prey (for ages..and ages…and ages…). He’s always sneezy (thank you, kitten cat flu, for that), he has poor self cleaning skills…

….but I adore him!

Kovac:

I’m sad..I didn’t get many of him! Some older ones..

He’s my supermodel He has the silkiest coat known to Cat World, he’s an incredible hunter (birds, rabbits, voles, SQUIRRELS), he’s gorgeous, he’s precious and delicate, especially since he got hit by a car when we first had him, he likes to ride on people’s shoulders, wrapped round your neck like a scarf, he likes to lick all the gravy off his cat meat but leave the chunks….

…and I adore him just as much

Gah, I’m totally going to have to do a post dedicated to my favourite lady sometime soon too -

- she’s been PERFECT recently!

Talking of perfection – I love food, and ohmydays did I eat some good stuff recently! I know it’s probably boring to just see endless pictures of meals with little content, but..well, whatever :p My meals were good enough to share, so SHARE I WILL!

Chocolate lentil stew thing with grilled aubergine rounds:

I’m suddenly on an aubergine kick – it’s so GOOEY!

Tofu, marinated in soy sauce, maple syrup, smoked garlic, veg stock, mixed spice (I think…), cocoa powder and a few other bits (again, I think – I can hardly remember now):

Looks gross right?

Fried with spelt/wheat:

Oh. My. Days.

This morning, I had THE most delicious pumpkin bowl! I saw the recipe on Gina’s blog, but I had to change it slightly – I didn’t use Vega mix, subbing instead with 1 spoon of pea protein powder, a spoon of cocoa powder, 1 tsp agave and extra cinnamon.

It was still totally delicious!! And filling too

Lunch today – wowzers!

You know what the below photo is?

Why, it’s brussels sprouts. Roasted. Then fried. With soy sauce. And..BANANA!

I originally saw the idea here the other night, and HAD to try it!!! It was so so worth it – amazing tasting! I only used soy sauce with my version, but it was proper incred Sounds weird, but I really do recommend you try it, oh yes

Other than eating weird food combos, what have I done…christmas shopping!! I even bought all my tags today, in prep for wrapping. I’m so excited! My excitement almost went overboard when I got a cappuccino today, and the takeaway cup was in CHRISTMAS colours! Seriously, there was one major happy dance in my head

Anyone else excited about Christmas!!??

Happy Hump Day!

Oof, it’s been a while hasn’t it? I still have a post-marathon post in the works (it’s requiring a lorra thinking…), combined with some…homework…shall we say!? It’ll make sense when the time comes! But in the meantime, I have to do a quick foodie post and tell y’all about the best lunch/dinner (LINNER! Get it? Clever, I know.) I had the other day!

Preceding the yummy linner was a FABULOUS 5mile run – I felt GREAT. Like, the best I’ve felt in sooo long. I was fast! 5miles done and done in 42mins, averaging an 8.33 pace. Boy did it feel good..weirdly, I’d had lectures all morning and had hardly had a chance to eat much – a small bowl of cereal, an apple, and this:

A Pulsin’ energy bomb disc!

I’d been up since 6.30 and didn’t run til 1.45pm..but I just didn’t get hungry! (don’t worry, I made up for it later :p). But anyway – the Pulsin’ disc, I swear it was made of rocket fuel. I’ve never had one before a workout before, but obvs it works As does a pretty empty stomach for a workout. Yet more proof IMHO that my marathon-mistake of eating too much was my downfall….

ANYWAYZ. Before I went for the run, I’d prepped a nice veggie-butterbean stew, so it’d be all ready to eat when I got back:

Parsnip, sprouts, celeriac, cauliflower (honestly: does anyone actually LIKE cauliflower? I ate it cos it needed eating..but it really is the most dull veggie). The base of the stew involved tomatoes, molasses, marmite, tomato puree, vegan worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper, other stuff I can’t remember…

Annoyingly, it was the last thing I wanted when I got back though :/ After some ummm-ing and aahh-ing and kitchen rumaging (is that a word?), I decided on this…

A breakfast cookie, with a maple and vanilla pear sauce!

Cookie:

- 50g oats

- 1 medium ripe mashed banana

- 1/2 tbsp pea protein powder

- 1 spoon of cacao powder (you could use cocoa powder – but cocoa powder is less sweet, so you might want to add in some agave or maple syrup or something to compensate)

- tiny splash of soya milk

Mash mash mash.

I stuck it in the microwave for a minute or two before I topped it with the sauce, to heat through.

Pear and vanilla sauce:

- 1 tiny baby ripe pear, chopped up

- 1/4 cup soya milk (the milk I used – So Good – has quite a sweet, vanilla-ness to it, so if you make this, you might want to alter the amount of sweetness you use, and maybe add a 1/2tsp vanilla essence

- 1 tsp maple syrup

- a few chugs of salt

- cinnamon

I stuck it all in a non-stick pan, and let it simmer (with lots of stirring) over a medium-ish heat for..10mins maybe? Til it thickened anyway Like the above photo!

Theeeeen, it was ready to top off the heated up cookie

Uh, talk about DELICIOUS heaven on a plate! Soooooooooooooo good

Whilst we’re on the subject of delicious food……some other foodie happenings:

Mama Pea peanut butter cookies (except I used sunflower butter):

I got them out too early and when it came to lifting them off the tray, they broke…

…a few more minutes more cook and they were perrrfect

Sprinkled with salt and sugar – MADE the cookie!

I think I’m getting how to bake cookies now

The most yummiest snack ever – oatbran, cooked with a spoon of chocolate Vega smoothie mix, with yogurt stirred in at the end:

Holy yum. I’ve had that twice!

Big old English muffin/tofu burger sandweeches:

Again with the holy yum. That burger was one juicy biatch!

Sharonfruit and cinnamon:

Holy yum x 3.

Pear, chickpea and soy sauce stir fry:

With kale crisps on the side:

And many, many bowls of oatmeal. And cereal:

And brussels sprouts

But enough from me – it’s late and I badly need my bed!!! Hopefully tomorrow I’ll get up my deeper and more meaningful post Stay tuned!

Question: Best thing you’ve eaten in the last week?

Have you ever seen 300 Days of Summer? I’m re-watching it atm…it’s like, my favourite film

(ps – do you follow me on Twitter? BritChickRuns!)