Brit Chick Runs

No.

(source)

Not that kind.

THIS kind!

Uh, HOLYYUMMM!!!

Before I relive that joy – by telling y’all what it is (aside from a mousse…obvs), I’ll give you an injury update:

So, 7 weeks ago, I got a crazy case of Angry Legs, which I thought was shin splints. After 5 weeks, I went to the sports physio, and he said it was probably compartment syndrome (although I’m guessing not a terrible case, cos I don’t have swollen legs and it doesn’t hurt to point my toes or anything…I’m not convinced I have it, but whateverz). A week last Sunday, I also injured an area near my ankle, which was probably a simple strain – I walk/ran 6miles that morning, then my mum and I got lost in the forest and walked another 6 :p. Mr FF told me to rest (no walk/running) til the ankle thing was not hurting, and to slather on Nurofen gel, both of which I did.

Today, I went for a run! I did just 1mile – the ankle feels 99% ok (it randomly feels tired for about 2mins in a day, that’s it), and my right leg felt super. My LEFT CALF however still hurt! Wtf? I was confused! Why would one leg heal, and the other not? Very curious, and I’m super glad I’ve got another appointment on Friday with him; hopefully he can sort out my woes…(if only just looking at his pretty face was enough! LOL)

Anyway! Whilst I was running, I was thinking about breakfast – namely the supersuper ripe pear I had. I’ve been dull recently and just had sliced pear every day with breakfast…not today!! I give you:

The World’s Simplest Pear Mousse!

Could. not. be. easier.

- 1 super duper ripe pear (like, seriously ripe)

- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

- 1/8ish cup water

- 3/4 tsp xanthan gum

Cut the pear into chunks (you can leave the core, it’ll get blended in), put into a decent blender. Add everything but the xanthan gum. Blend til liquid (a matter of seconds) THEN add the XG. Blend blend blend! I blended it on a pretty high speed for a minute or two – like, it was blended and looked like liquid, but I kept going and going.

Pour into a dish and either eat straight away, or do as the cool folk (ie me) do, and fridge it for a half hour so it gets some chill factor and sets a bit better.

Um, Give me a D! Give me an E! Give me an L! Give me a….[bored now] DELICIOUS! Sweet, smooth, cold, vanilla-y…everything one’s heart desires I topped mine with some random puffed wheat, just so it looked preddier

The rest of breakfast wwaaasss….yep, you guessed it: chocolate pudding oats.

Made sans-sweetener today, just to see what it was like. Answer = good, I like it. I shall leave the sweetener out now (I add agave/maple to EVERYTHING and it really isn’t doing my teeth any good at all :p).

Lunch today was – another dose of marathon photo!

This photo makes me feel PROUD. I cannot wait to do another marathon!

That was the official finisher’s photo – so after I received me medal (in yesterday’s pic) I then stood in line for 5mins, felt sick, and got that taken It’s my favourite photo

Socca made another lunch appearance today too – this time, flavoured with Vanilla-almond Vega smoothie mix! Free from the Healthy Living Summit swag bag, no less I added in half a serving to 50g gram flour & half a cup water and baked as usual. Resulting innnn….:

That yumness. It was good! Much sweeter than the other soccas I’ve made, and it tasted like marzipan. One approves.

So I got let out of lectures 20mins early today, and whilst I was driving home, something amazing happened:

THE SUN CAME OUT!

I smiiilllleeeddd!!! I have missed the sun, oh-so much! So needless to say, the second I walked through the door, I took off my boots and threw on my trainers and went for a 20minute walk – but not alone. I had company….

The Happy Herbivore cookbook! I’ve been reading Lindsay’s blog for probably at least a year, and pre-ordered her book as soon as it was possible to. After seeing it all about the Twittersphere, it FINALLY arrived! And made for super good reading whilst I walked

When I got back, I’d worked up an appetite, so ate a quick yogurt-cereal mess -

Crazy times. Dinner was tofu, marinated in freshly squeezed OJ, mirin, soy sauce, agave nectar, cinnamon and cumin:

Annnndd that’s all you’re getting for dinner pics, cos whilst I was making everything else, the pics got loaded onto the laptop, so nothing else was taken Bananas were involved though! Yes, they were.

—-

Now, this is a lil random – but I’ve seen on quite a few blogs recently (Gracie’s, Snack Face, Gabriela) pictures of what the said bloggers are fashioning themselves in that day! I always like to see what they’re wearing (I like fashion Hello, Vogue subscription for my birthday two years running…), so I wondered if you guys want to see what I”M wearing [on days I can be assed to dress up :p]!? I was wearing my new cardigan today and felt kinda nice, so I took a photo

[note the long top to cover up my broken flies - NO, I am NOT throwing away my favourite jeans, just cos the zipper broke!!]

[sparkly cream scarf, nabbed for £2 from a charity shop, cardigan pinned together using a safety pin. Classy]

Boy did I feel like the world’s biggest poser! But hey – if you’ve got the cardigan, why not flaunt it right?

See the pretty detail at the back? I LOVE it! Though blimey, I need a haircut…

So there you have it

Do you want to see more fashion photos? Orrrrr…not?

Right – I’m off to bed with Heat magazine see you later my dear funny looking gators

Evening studmuffins!

Have you ever seen a blackbird sneeze? I HAVE! It made my day/walk to the car from the lecture hall. At least, I hope it was sneezing, and not choking….

—

Today was all about chocolate, lots of chocolate. Did you know I’m quite the fan?

Breakfast was, of course, chocolate pudding oats -

Served with a peanut button biscuit, extra soya milk, and a fancy new bowl

Then it was a crazy dash to uni, which included the much-needed-as-per-usual bathroom stop at Waitrose Now technically, I could quite easily hang on til uni (a further 10mins down the road). I could also technically survive off of butternut squash and forgo the kabocha. But if adding an extra 15mins onto my already-long commute time means I get to stock up on my beloveds AND relieve my child size bladder, I’m obvs going to do it Sometimes a bowl of liquidy oats and a small bladder is a blessing disguise.

TMI?

Lunch today was more chocolate! Annnnnddd…more SOCCA!!!

Preddy huh? Twas fiddlesticks to photograph tho – yellow lights + dark food + crap skills = multiple #fail pictures…

Do applaud me on my clever stacking – it took ages!! Maybe there’s some builderskillz lurking in me somewhere.

Um, anyway – chocolate, yes! That was socca – 50g gram flour, 1/4 c. milk, 1/4c. water, salt, cinnamon, and COCOA powder. It was brillo!! It changed the taste somewhat, into something extra super and yummy So yummy in fact, that 2hrs before my lunchbreak, I suddenly realised what was waiting for me and my heart did a little jump in excitement loser much!!??

The other part of lunch (there’s always many multiple parts, but I particularly want to show you this part) was a snack tub of roasted veggies (celeriac, aubergine ‘eggplant’, & parsnip):

My my my, ooz dat!?

That’s meeeee!! I can’t rememz if I ever showed everyone my official marathon photos (?) but that’s one of them -> that pic was taken LITERALLY 2mins after I finished – I’d crossed the line, got my medal and a foil blanket, and had that taken — hence the weary expression! just thought y’all should see Gooood times.

Oohh – other random photos of the day:

A supersoft pear (it quite literally melted in my mouth) which I HAD to show, cos I ate it from my new bowl

Cereal, just cos I like the picture

Annnd – my regular watch went to watch heaven yesterday, so I had to resort to this spare bling version

—

Mk, now onto the point of this post! Gabriela posted this game today, and I thought it looked grooveh, so here goes!

The Alphabet Game:

A. Age: 20 (til May 27th)

B. Bed size: double, though I sleep one side and have a book on the other

C. Chore you hate: Cleaning up cat sick/dog mess. It happens frequently enough to be called a chore. OR emptying the bins. UGH!

D. Dogs: Depends on the dog…I call myself an animal lover, but I think I’m actually a MY animal lover. It has to be suited to me for me to luff it
E. Essential start to your day: Coffee, exercise, blog reading, some form of food.
F. Favorite color: Pink for fun factor, beigey-brown tones to wear.
G. Gold or silver: Either.
H. Height: 5ft9, 175cm. TOOO TAALLLLL.
I. Instruments you play: I used to play cello as a wee nipper.

J. Job title: Student, until June…then, unemployed
K. Kids:I don’t THINk I have any…
L. Live: South East England, in the blob that sticks out, called Suffolk. Land of the farmer.
M. Mom’s name: Felicity, or Fliss, or mama to me.

N. Nicknames: None.
O. Overnight hospital stays: When I was a bubba (like, 2months old) I had to have a nasty operation
P. Pet peeve: Slow walkers. Chronically late people. Bad drivers. Simple grammatical errors. Sentences that begin with “Don’t take this the wrong way, but…” <- those are Gabriela’s answer, but I actually agree with every single one
Q. Quote from a movie: Um heck, I can’t think of any!! Ohoohh – ‘I’ll be back’. LOL.

R. Right or left handed: Right.
S. Siblings: 1 x sister, Hannah.
T. Time you wake up: It used to be 7.30, now it’s 8.30, as I got to bed at 1.30am. Yawwwn.
U. Underwear: Big giant granny pants a la Bridget, obvs….
V. Vegetables you dislike: Sweetcorn, peas, sugarsnap pears, green beans, green or yellow peppers…I’m sure there’s more. And I call myself a food blogger!?
W. What makes you run late: Other people MAKING me late. Freya doesn’t do late!!
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Hmmm…none I don’t think.
Y. Yummy food you make: I bake, anything I bake is yum

Z. Zoo- favorite animal: the cats – lions, tigers, all of them and wolves! I wish I had a pet wolf. Or a shark.

Your turn! Pick a random letter and answer it in the comments!

You know what I’m really quite talented at?

Buying bargains.

Normally, that demonstrates itself as an extreme ability to find the reduced-to-clear blackberries, or get a deal on rotten bananas, or the box that has a dent in it, that kinda thing. However, there’s one area where my expertise doesn’t quite shine…clothes shopping.

A confession: I HATE SALES!! The clothes are everywhere, the sizes are all mixed up, there’s NEVER the size you want, everyone is pushy and rude, and it’s the clothes that no-one liked enough first time round that end up in the sales. Hence. I suck at buying bargains in the sales, simply cos I avoid them like the plague

BUT not today!! I didn’t fancy a lonely day at home, with only textbooks and 007 Wii for company, so I decided to take myself on a mini shopping trip in town, with one condition – no buying full price items. SUCCESS!

Item One:

An adorable oversized mug (perfect for oats!!) -

- reduced in price cos it had no saucer…bah, I don’t need a saucer anywayz!!

Item Two:

A gorgeous African-style bowl, from TK Maxx! I kinda cheated here, cos it was full price – but at £1.99, I can hardly argue

Plus you know, it looked pretty with the kale crisps

Item Three:

A gorgeous River Island cardigan!

I love the detail They didn’t have it in my size (shocking that, an item in the sale not being in my size!? Bah.), but I actually own clothes in sizes 6-16 <- sometimes I like a super tight fit, sometimes I like a loose fit, sometimes clothes that DON”T fit look better! The cardigan fitted into that last category

Oh, and I saved £17 off the real price

Item Four:

So, the lighting in my room is TERRIBLE, cos that is actually a pink-y coloured jumper! And it looks odd – but it’s actually really pretty on plus the material feels SO good!!

AND I got it for £13.60 (sale + student discount), reduced from £45!!!

Item Five:

A Topshop cape!! I’ve wanted a cape for soooo long (ideally, a Batman one, but they had sold out), so I was thrilled to find this Again, it was superduper cheap:

I got it for just 12 squid (sale, student discount, buttons missing) reduced from £45. Bargain much!!??

Finally, Item Six:

Two and Half Men season 1 – I’ve never seen it, but I have heard incredible things about it. Plus, if Mr Sheen is paid 1million dollars per episode..that’s gotta be worth something right!? And for £12 – there’s this dvd/video game exchange store in town, so you can pick up second hand dvds on the cheap. LOVE. IT.

OH! I almost forgot Item Seven, quite possibly the best one….

NINETY NINE PER CENT!!!!! Ohemgee! It’s SO dark, they even included tasting instructions on the wrapper;

Important advice indeed.

So yeah, I was mega excited to try some o’ that Hence for dessert this evening, I had a chocolate tasting plate:

Lindt 70%, Montezuma Extra Dark, Lindt 99%:

Verdict: I LOVE 99%!! It is so terrifically rich and intense (note how small the squares are!) and tastes iiiiincredible. Lindt, if you’re reading - feel free to send me a box of all your bars, contained in a box made of 99% chocolate (cos it’s strong izintit), to the usual address. Plezandthankyuz.

There was one more treat waiting for me this evening:

Yep, my baby Carter cat is all grown up now, and went and caught himself a Hugh Jass RAT!!

Heck knows what happened to the cute little fluffball that I used to know and love…

….he’s all killer now.

Question Time! Are you good at sales shopping, or are you a sales HATER like me?

If you have cats, what’s the worst thing they’ve ever caught? Carter/Kovac have caught: whole nests of baby birds, squirrels, whole families of rabbits (6 x newborn bunnies included), mice, voles, and now rats.

And lastly – do the photos on the blog show up kinda squished on anyone else’s computer? Like they’ve been squeezed in? Or is that just me…?

I bet by now you were thinking this face/butt/boob lift for the blog would never happen right? Well, how wrong you were, cos it has!!

The dot wordpress has been dropped (thank goodness) and I’m now all lovely and self hosted – plus, recipes have been updated, the About page has been updated, and there will soon be QUESTIONS answered in the FAQ page! Expect a post about that soon, so if you have anything you wanna ask, write it down now or forever hold your peace

Sooo anyway, update your google readers, blogrolls, cross out the ‘.wordpress’ on all the Post-Its you have stuck round your house reminding you of my blog, and for my single fan who has www.britchickruns.wordpress.com tattooed on himself? Well…you’re beyond help.

I also have to give a MASSIVE shout out to my beloved Jess, who has helped me SO much with this – I can’t thank her enough! (cue Oscars-speech worthy crying)

—–

Onwards and upwards (and excuse the mega length of this post – it’s been 2days, what’s a blogger to do!?)

Oh gawsdshshdhs! Was it really only Thursday when I last blogged?? Judging by the amount of photos on my camera, you’d think whole lifetimes had passed. Instead, there’s just been many, many bowls of oatmeal:

Ok, two.

Two is enough.

Cinnamon overripe pear though – you can never have enough of them!

Did you know I eat the core and all? The ONLY bit I don’t eat is the stick at the top

—

Ok, now let’s take a journey back in time; you may recall my socca FAIL on…Thursday? Well, I am not one to be beaten by bad food, oh no. I will fight back, fight hard, and fight dirty. In the case of the aforementioned socca, it did NOT get thrown away. Instead, I mixed it with the remains of my curry soya mince….

Served alongside….what else, roasted veggies!!

HA! The socca was TASTY! Take THAT, world!! I think the flavah-flaves infused overnight or something, cos it really was faboosh In fact, I decided to make yet more socca today for lunch This time, I loosely followed Ashley’s socca recipe, although I adjusted the measurements cos there’s only one o’ me. Oh, the life of a singleton ay?

You know what that is? GREASE. Yes, I GREASED my pan today. Non-greased pan = one messed up messy load of mess (shan’t be making that mistake again).

Ummmm…did it work?

I baked that early in the day, and then just let it sit and hang around for a while whilst I did other things (*cough-play007JamesBond on the Wii like a little boy – cough*). Theeen I served it, with a brussels sprouts/shallots/garlic stir fry (using the same spices + tomato puree, thrown in for good measure)

I got a bit carried away taking pictures

It WORKED! It

was

delicious

I really can’t describe the texture – kinda like seitan, but…more dough-y, less chew-y….honestly, I think the best thing would be if you just made the darn stuff. It’s so easy! Chickpea flour is pretty common (it’s called gram flour too) – Waitrose have it, I’m preeetty sure Tesco have it, and loads of independent shops/probzably ethnic stores have it. Make it your Sunday mission! My Sunday mission will be to make more of it, fo sho – I think it’d make a hotdiggity quick nutritious lunch to eat at uni (I normally only have a 10-minute midway lecture break to eat lunch). Sooooortttiiiiddddd.

—

Twas an odd start this morning. I rented a film last night (The Switch – I LOVE Jennifer Aniston, she be my girl crush, but the film…? Hmm…not so much. It was ok, but the ending bugged the hell outta me. Plus I think the lead bloke had an annoying face. Heh.) so I drove into town quickly this mornin’ to return it. When I got up though, the appetite had vamooshed, so I forwent (forgoed?) breakfast (:O that NEVER happens!) and instead treated myself to a lovely cappuccino

By the time I’d got home, I was ready for oats!

*insert picture of oats here*

I also did hay-unloading, which I think made my injured ankle very angry; it felt faaairly OK this morning, but after lugging big old hay bales about, it’s felt much more sore all day It’s been a week since I did it!! Gah. I am SO fed up with being injured, #stoopidcrankybody. I NEED it to be healed by Weds-ish, so I can go for a short run to report back to Mr FF (Mr Fit Physio, in case you forgot) about how my legs are feeling – we have another date (fine, APPOINTMENT) on Friday yee see…

Oh well.

I’m a firm believer that good food can heal.

So I made some more

Roasted celeriac, parsnip and butternut, with a 1/2 serving of peanut flour, mixed with cocoa powder and agave nectar…

…for the dippeh-dippeh, obvs.

5 stars

(FYI – chocolate peanut blob stuff goes REALLY well with curry socca!! – and that’s for realz yo!)

Now, this afternoon, I was craving oats in a jar. Problemo = no empty jars. So, I decided to bake my mum some peanut buttery bars, purely so I’d have an empty jar ready and waiting

Bars:

Jar:

Mission: accomplished.

I didn’t actually have OIAJ this eve tho – I had YIA1/2C for a snack instead!

You didn’t think I’d let my peanut buttery measuring cup used for the PB bars go to waste did you!!??

That’s be yogurt in a 1/2 cup, for you lay folk :p

Noowww – I feel this post is approaching the heck-I-don’t-wanna’read-anymore stage (if it hasn’t already), so I’ll leave you with two other fabulous eats

Item One: A beautiful Green Monster (kale, soya milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, banana)

Item Two: Blackened tofu (marinated in cocoa balsamic, ketchup, mirin, soy sauce)

Highlights of my weekend

Tell me, my lovelies – who do you have a crush on? I have a BIG crush on my physio, but other than him – Channing Tatum, Josh Hartnett (circa Pearl Harbour & Lucky Number Slevin) annnd…..hmm….one more…that’s a toughie. OH! R-Patz!! I am very Team Edward, he has stolen my heart

Oh dear.

My flies on my favourite jeans died! It didn’t stop me wearing them though – I just had to be creative with longer tops

—-

I bet you’re sick of either seeing socca ALL OVER the blog world right now, or seeing crappy titles that incorporate the word ‘socca’ into them..right? Wellll, if that’s the case – what’s one more right?

I’ve seen socca about loads, and kept thinking ‘I’ll do that tomorrow’ – then I realised that ACTUALLY, I had socca a few months back, before it was cool :p Remember my chickpea flour pancakes? Well, that’s just socca izntit! Anyway, so the intense desire to make socca hit again last night, so this morning, I made sure that MAKE SOCCA IS WHAT I DID.

Socca FAIL.

I used 50g/1/2c. chickpea flour mixed with salt, Italian herbs, baking powder:

And 1/2 c. my own blood:*

*that’s actually water and tomato puree, but blood sounds more interesting.

Mix mix mix, bang into the oven at 160 for 45mins. Hmm...I didn’t grease the dish, and I don’t think my socca liked it, not one bit. In fact, when it first came out, I almost threw it away (even though FREYA DOESN”T SHARE FOOD [except replace 'share' with 'waste', and you have a) a crap Friends reference, and b) a joke gone terribly wrong). I was gonna take the socca into uni for lunch, thinking I could slice it like a pizza and I'd look really cool, but after scraping it out of the dish, it looked like this:

Mangled mess, much?

I was miffed at Attempt #1, so I decided to do Attempt #2, except stick to what I knew would work - frying. This time, I did the same weight + liquid ratio, but put in agave, cinnamon and vanilla

Uuumm....success?

They sure didn't look like that last time I made them...but at this point, I was starvinmarvin for breakfast, was running late & needed to leave, and so didn't give a toot anymore. To make it more appealing, I got out my leftover *curry* flavour soya mince, and stuck some inside, rolled and ready:

Taaa DAAA!

I wrapped it up when it was still a little warm, and when I ate it at uni, I was kinda dreading what I'd find...but you know what? It was DELICIOUS! Very moist (sorry, to all you moist-word haters out there) and cakey-pancakey-wrap-y-yummy. I'm really not sure how it worked, or how it tasted nice, but it really truly did and now I badly want to make more socca, wrap some hummus or peanut butter up in it, and eat it like that New uni quick [non-bar] lunch – sorted!

In all that socca-madness though, I barely got time to enjoy my bowl of chocolate pudding oats:

Sick of seeing pictures of that same bowl yet? I hope not, cos I’m not sick of eating it

The cookie on top? Why, it’s a COOKIE BUTTON!

Gifted to me by Jess t’other week! They are SO delicious, and SO addictive – I can tell I’ll be eating them the same way I ate the Snackimals (which are all gone now :’() – every time I walk by them, I eat one. ‘aaah it’s only one, they’ll last for ages….’ or not.

Moving on:

As soon as I got home today, I was on a banana shaped mission! I’ve been saving these babies up for well over a week now -

Don’t we all love banana shots? Can I get a YES WE DO!

- cos my mum had a baking request and I had my eye on a recipe – Angela’s rustic chocolate chip banana oat cake with a peanut butter banana glaze!! Try saying THAT fast three times over with a mouthful of cookie buttons The banarmaramas were so darn ripe they were furry on the inside – I would’ve given my right eye to have frozen them for some Green Monsters :’( I’m so generous to have sacraficed them.

To cut a long baking story short, the cake was made:

The glaze was packed:

And my mum, stepdad, and their friends will be very happy campers tomorrow when they get to eat it

Oh, and World’s Best Smoothie was consumed too, aka….

Banana Peanut Nutmeg Smoothie

1 frozen banana

a few leaves of light green cabbage

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2+ tsp vanilla

1/4-1/2 tsp nutmeg

15g peanut flour

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

1/2 tsp agave/maple/etc

1/2 c. milk of choice

Blend thoroughly and enjoy the thick, nutmeggy goodness

If there was natural light out/I had a lightbox/my kitchen didn’t have such yellow lighting/I could use my camera better, you’d have a far more glorious picture. But as it is, none of that stuff came true, I still suck – for the most part – at phototoggleraffy, so that’s the only photos youz is gonna get! Sorry :p

Question – have you ever made socca?

What was your last kitchen fail?