Brit Chick Runs

I have a very strong and sneaky suspicion that I have used that title before – but hey, times are tough, the world is heating up and the ice caps are melting; we need to recycle!

Before I launch off into one, I just have to show you:

My baby!

*her donkey face – she’s got it down to a T*

I wish I could say the excitement and joy (& mud) plastered across her furry face was 100% for me, but alas, twas not. I was actually holding half a rotten pear Though recently, she has been acting EXTRA pleased to see me. I think it’s her way of saying, ‘mummaF: I am bored of holidays, PLEASE work me and make me go in an outline and do my fancy-dressage-horse-trot – anything is better than a life of stable&field!’. You know like how when you’re young and free, at the start of the summer holidays you love it and love lying in and doing nowt – but by the end, you secretly want to go back to school cos you’re bored? It’s just like that!

Anyway, enough Chika talk.

I shall instead bore you with running tales!

I had 4 miles on the cards today, and even though I woke up to spitting rain and wind, I still jumped out of bed, excited to hit the roads. I have such enthusiasm for it at the moment! Though I do finish every run a bit sad, cos it means the next one is really far away…le sigh. Anyway – I didn’t aim for speed or anything on this run, I just did what my legs felt like doing:

8.58, 8.59, 8.36, 8.18

I’m definitely seeing an improvement, which is fab! This time last year, I’d moan that was a slow run – but at the END of last year, 9 min/mile pace was FAST, so I’m thrilled with these times!

When I got in, I did some Jillian Level 2, to work on strength for a bit. You know what? Since I’ve done less running and more Jillian, my ABS are returning! I used to work really hard on them and was a die-hard ‘x situps a day’ girl, til I started running more <- then I just got ab-lazy :p but I’ve made it my mission to get ab-fit again, and the results are FINALLY starting to show. Phew. (By the by: I’m not trying to show off, I’m just pleased – I haven’t been able to run for 3months, abs were all I had!!)

Then I had a shower – aside from the fact it’s just polite to shower after a workout, the wet weather had meant many a lorry driving past screwed over my legs:

Gah!

—

Now now now – breakfast. WELL. It was a 2 parter, with one of the parts being very odd, but very scrummy!

Part One (but munched 2nd) was overnight oats:

• 1/2 c. oats
• 1/2 c. soya milk
• 1/2 c. water (I made these about midnight, when I was extremely tired – it was only the next morning I realised that I should have added YOGURT, and then they wouldn’t have been so watery..that’ll teach me)
• 1/2 tbsp chia seeds
• cinnamon, salt, vanilla ( I think – I can’t remember now)
• a peeled and finely sliced overripe pear

Before I ate it, I added a blob of White Chocolate Dreams PB&Co PB (& some cereal):

I see bloggers do that all the time – PB on the end of a spoon on oats – but I don’t get why…obvs my oats were cold, so nothing melted :/ I actually just ate it like that, straight offa da spoon. No idea why y’all needed to know that, but…whatever.

The other bit of breakfast was weirdly awesome!

Parsnip and Banana Scramble

(or something)

- 1/2 a Hugh Jass parsnip, grated

- 1/2 a frozen banana

- 1/2 – 1 tsp maple sizzup

- a few splashes of water

Add everything together in a non-stick saucepan, and cook away over a medium heat til the water goes and it’s all mushy and cooked (I sure do know how to write elegant instructions don’t I?)

Yes, it LOOKS gross….

…but it was really yummy! Though I did need a foon (fork + spoon) to eat it…The leftover liquid went into the overnight oats

Oookay..blah blah, the morning happened – I walked in the forest with revision notes, and possibly got a little upset cos the wind was blowing my papers about, and I didn’t understand the lecture anyway – in fact, I may or may not have cursed loudly, JUST as a jogger went past me. Oops…BUT I did make progress with the studying, and the walk DID make me feel better; win!

More important than studying though, was lunch. Oh lunch. Lunch lunch lunch. It. Was. Good.

Eh?

Aaaah! PANCAKES!

The white set: grated parsnip (yes, more parsnip – I told you I had a lot) with spelt flour, baking powder and gram flour (+ spices), & soya milk.

The purple set: beets, pureed with carob powder, agave nectar, cinnamon, salt and mixed herbs, with gram flour and spelt flour, & soya milk.

Served with roast parsnip (!), mashed roast coquina squash, and roast aubergine:

These didn’t need a sauce at all – SO moist!

OOOOHHH so delicious!! Maybe if I make the same tomorrow, I’ll do a Proper Recipe – you know, with real instructions and all

I was a snacky moo in the afternoon – think yogurt, cereal, Green Monster – and then had a lubbly dinner. Which of course, I didn’t photoggle cos the light was crap – bring on the summer!!

In fact, the summer is going to bring soo much good stuff!

1) no exams and uni (possibly the greatest thing EVER)

2) warmth and sun and LIGHT!

3) pony play time!!!

4) meeting some bloggers and blog readers! Clear your diaries now folks…

5) MARATHON TRAINING! I am SO excited about that – I actually have 3 goal times in mind already; one is the non-negotiable you-WILL-make-this-time goal, one is a yah-work-a-bit-harder-and-you-can-do-it goal, and one is the ultimate-pull-all-the-stops-out goal. I’m not going to give actual times (on the blog), but I am going to work my butt off to make them I’ve done the first marathon – the one where you feel lost and confused and have no idea whether you’ll finish it alive, dead, or somewhere in between, and now it’s time for the real deal! At least, that’s how I see it. Either way – I can’t wait!

What are you most looking forward to this summer?

PS: Caitlin tweeted this the other day, and it totally made me LOL: lookey here

Did you get a chance to read my guest post over at Choosing Raw yet? If you didn’t I suggest you do! And check out the comments too – lots of interesting opinions. For those of you that have read it, thank you all so much for your support – it means a lot

Hola chikas!

How’s it going? It’s only been 2days but it feels like I haven’t blogged in a lifetime (or two, if you’re a butterfly and only live for 24hours). I wish I had something incredible and wondrous to report, but alas – I do not. I did find out today howevz, that I graduate on July 4th!* As Adam so wisely pointed out on Twitter, July 4th is the US Independence Day, is it not!? My immediate thought was ‘…it’d be like July 4th, with no apple pie’. Anyone know what I’m banging on about? Answers on a postcard to the usual address!   

*[Of course, there's that pesky problem of passing the EXAMS first - let's ignore that for the time being]

Anyway, back to the present day. Or, yesterday in fact, seeing as I’ve been an absentee…

Now, *thinks hard* – what happened on Tuesday?

Oh! I had an awesome run! I had 4.5miles planned, and decided to do a tempo-type run.

8.55, 8.33, 8.10, 8.30, last 1/2 at 8.43 – felt good!

I’m not even sure if that speed counts as a tempo run – heck, I’m not 100% sure what a tempo run even means – but I think it was one…right?

—–

After my run, I made the most fantabulusso pancakes in a loooong time – carrot of course!

- 30g gram flour [chickpea flour]

- 20g millet flakes

- 1 tsp baking powder

- ginger and cinnamon, to taste

- salt, to taste

- 1 tsp maca powder (I actually add that to all my bake/blend recipes – I just forget to say)

- a large grated carrot

- 1/2 c. soya milk

Unbelievably incredible y’all! In case you’re wondering why my maple cream splodge is so small, this is why:

Grandpa’s Stuff maple cream is only available in Vermont, USA I believe – hence, the likelihood of my getting my dirty grubby horse-grease covered mitts on anymore is slim to none. SO, I gotta make it last!

After breakfast, I took pity on the dawg and took her into the forest for a 1hour20minute walk (about 4miles) – 1hr20 cos that’s how long it took me to read through/study/attempt to learn 2 lectures of material. Oh this revision malarky is tiring. I did however manage to a) get a dodgy 3/4 length trousers tan line though, and b) work up a lunch appetite!

I was somewhat peckish when I got home, and threw something quick in Vincent to get the lunch-ball rolling – this:

Turned into this:

Ugh – what an ugly almond.

It was only ok – the melon I got was waaaaay overripe and didn’t taste that good. That’ll teach me to buy fruit that’s been sitting out in the sun from a village store…humbug.

Whilst I munched (slurped?) that, the rest of the meal was defrosting/baking:

Fresh from the freezer, just how I like ‘em. Not a bad ingredients list for something so processed either:

They tasted AWSOME on a seedy English muffin, with roast veggies:

I LOVE the colour in these pics!

Good times.

Ok, now I’m gonna fast forward to today, cos if I ramble too long, you’ll forget what the title of this post was (The Pancake Strikes Back, FYI) and end up feeling confused. Or maybe that’s what I’ll do…we’ll see.

Right – so the last few days (weeks?) I’ve been on one heck of a merry pancake kick, and it’s gone so well! Every day I’ve had only-mildly-ugly yet delicious cakes from the pan – but I knew this trend wouldn’t last.

See? Isn’t that the most sorry excuse for a pancake you’ve ever seen!? In the mix:

• 30g soya flour (I got given it free from the friendly lady in my local health food store, cos the sell-by date had gone. Better to use it than see it get thrown IMHO!)
• 20g chestnut flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp maca powder
• salt and cinnamon to taste
• 1/2 c. milk
• a lot of grated coquina squash

I blame the squash for this #fail. If coquina is roasted, it gets very very liquidy and mushy, and I think it just released aaaaall its’ juices into my pancakes, THUS they did not stick together or flip very well. [However, if I'd cooked them longer and had more patience, this mighta just worked - darn me!] But you know what? What they lacked in looks was 100% made up for in taste!

Banana so ripe it was almost furry – aka, my idea sort of banana!

The muesli above is this:

I’ve been hoarding it since summer last year, and FINALLY got round to opening it! It’s not bad..but it’s not love either.

ANYWAY.

Super delicious and filling breakfast to boot! Which actually turned out to be a negative…

Last night, I COULD NOT SLEEP. I was thinking about my guest post going up, as well as about exams and the like – so come 1am, I was downstairs with a case of the munchies (I had a few crackers I found, some nuts etc), which totally wacked out my hunger cues today! Breakfast was more like brunch, and lunch? Heck, I wasn’t hungry at 3.30! But I felt I should eat something, so I did:

Garlic-korma-curry cabbage with spring onions and HP sauce as you do.

Roasted cinnamon coated pear, coquina squash and parsnip. Side note: I have a parsnip problem!

I bulk bought reduced-to-clear parsnips today – forgetting that I did that at the weekend too, and now have a serious influx of parsnips! Parsnip oatmeal may or may not be on the cards tomorrow…:p

Cereal + yogurt + soya milk = the rest of my late lunch. It was a strange day :/

Lots more time was spent revising and mucking out the stinky ponies in the rain (where did spring go?), hot drinks were drunk, dinner was eaten and many a peanut-butter-finger double-dip happened (does that even make sense!?). The day ended as it does every day:

With chocolate! Green & Black’s orangey-spicy one, Lindt 90% & the Lordy Lord Montezuma’s with cacao nibs <- best EVER!

Now it’s time for me to love y’all and leave y’all. Fareyeewell!

Question: Do you have any weird food combinations you like?

Go HERE!

At least, at 9pm USA EST time, go there. (UK folk – that’d be 2am to us, so maybe head on over on Wednesday!)

Cryptic, much?

Let me explain – I’ve been a reader of Gena’s amazing blog Choosing Raw for a long time now. She’s a very passionate and committed vegan and semi-raw foodie, and writes so extremely well about everything from animal rights and eating disorders, to creating fantastic raw and non-raw recipes – and all whilst studying in med school!

I met her at the Healthy Living Summit last year, and even though I only briefly managed to say hello, she was such a sweetheart! SO I was totally honoured when she asked me to write the first guest post for a new series she’s doing. Said post goes up tonight, so go check it out!

I, meanwhile, am going to go and relaaaax – today has been SO packed with studying, my brain feels totally fried. I just need to lie in bed with Paula Radcliffe (‘s book :p) and my magazine and chill for a little while. I’ll be back as usual tomorrow!

Have you found any new blogs recently? I’m always on the lookout!

PS: Tomorrow, I will bring you this:

Oh-so amazingly good

Hola chikas! How’s March 28th treating you?

I just could not get my butt in gear this morning – last week when I was reading the US blogs, and how they suffered with the time change, I thought – ‘oh you weaklings! It’s only an hour!’ But now…now I know how they felt. This girl right here is TIRED, with a capital-everything.

To wake up, I ate a huge giant apple, wheatgerm and a nibble of cookie, and then set out to tackle some Jillian. If I lived near her, we’d be BEST friends, I just know it!

(source)

She’s horsey too, see!? That makes me so happy, to know I have a potential super-cook friend out there. I think I need to get out more…

Breakfast was the definition of awesomeness – pancakes studmuffins, pancakes! I really, really wanted to make the same as yesterday, except in a more appropriate shape ie, circles, not splashes of mess. One thinks one succeeded:

Perfect circles! Packed with millet flakes, gram flour and grated carrot. Joy to the world!

And now, as per usual when I have a meal I love, I’m going to show you about 50 pointless photos of the same thing, just cos I can:

Soya yogurt and maple cream

Roasted mixed seeds, almonds and cashews

Overripe banana – my favourite bit!

Frozen cranberries, the last of *sob*

The rest of the morning was taken up with the following:

- studying

- a trip to the store to buy my newspaper

- um….that’s it.

Seriously. There’s just 4 months or so til the first of my final exams, and there is A LOT to learn. I have a year’s worth of material from 6 modules (10 x 2hr lectures in each one), which equates to a heck of a lot of notes. Plus, I have to do extra reading and learning to do so that I can throw in a few gems that were not taught, for extra brownie points I also have my dissertation to finish, and a coursework essay to finish. [side note: what kind of cruel lecturer sets coursework to be due in just 2weeks before exam starts?? I mean, really?? Have a heart!]

Phew!

The postman did life my spirits today though – a while back, Emily blogged about a book she bought called One Line A Day. Basically, it’s like a 5-year diary, where you just write, well, one line a day! All the entries for saay, March 28th, are on one page, so in 5yrs time, you could look back and see what you’d been doing exactly a year ago, 2years ago, 3years ago etc. See -

Cool huh? I thought it looked super, and when I saw how cheap it was on Amazon, I ordered a copy Filling it in made me wonder what I was up to this time last year – so due to the joys of having had a blog for over a year, I just took a brief trip down memory lane!

March 28th, 2010

Pre-vegan, I was having a cheese feast apparently And getting lots of animal pictures in!

No mention of studying in that post though – maybe I was a slacker last year!!??

Anyways – let me show you something yumful and delicious. Many of you probably think I’m a bit of a doof for getting so excited about this one meal, but I’m a lonely little student who is locked away in the kitchen with her notes most of the day – it’s the little things that make me excited now!! Let me give you a clue as to what said meal is:

Yeah you know what’s coming.

BUT before I had..that..I had other stuff too – roast korma curry parsnips, with HP dipping sauce and a baby orange:

(not at the same time, just on the same plate. I may like odd flavours sometimes, but I’m not willing to have orange, curry, parsnip and brown sauce in the same mouthful. Though typing it out, it doesn’t sound as bad….)

There was also a pear, blended with carob powder, xanthan gum and strawburrehs:

THEN came the real excitement! 1/2 c. oats, cooked with roast butternut squash, soya milk, carob powder + salt:

Definitely one of the best OIAJ yet! Maybe it was the crunchy PB at the bottom? Who knows….I obvs like it though:

(Jess – that picture was for you!) If only my jar cleaning skills were as good as my house cleaning skills. Le sigh.

Snackage, dinner and chocolate rounded the day off nicely:

Other random events today?

- I burst into tears watching a YouTube video (or three) of Paula Radcliffe! Seeing her win the London marathon in 2003, seeing her pull out of the Olympic marathon in 2004, and seeing her win the cross country world championships in 2001, after trying for almost a decade. That lady is awesome! I don’t know what’s happened to her now though – I think she had a bunch of sprogs and hasn’t run much since, although I could be wrong. But either way, she is my new running inspo!

- I got extremely overexcited about the Dublin marathon – like, majorly so. I cannot WAIT to get stuck into training! I’m gonna go at it with a whole new approach and mindset this time, and I just want to get going NOW!

Question: Who are your idols, sporting or otherwise? I love Paula Radcliffe and Pippa Funnell, for their determination, passion and talent, and a whole bunch of bloggers whom I’m too shy to name – but who have affected me and helped me in ways I couldn’t have imagined!

Does anyone know how Amazon can make all their prices so low? I’m baffled!

You guys are rock stars! Thank you for all the lovely comments on my last post about the Dublin marathon – they made my day! I was so excited and revved up last night from them all, that I printed off the plan I’m going to use and was picturing all my future runs…nerd much? I did have something extra to fuel all the excitement though – On Saturday, I ran as many miles as there are dwarves (dwarfs? Which one? My Mac says either are right):

(source)

SEVEN!

Yip, seven glorious, PAIN FREE miles:

9.02, 9.02, 8.49, 8.47, 9.14, 8.51, 8.29 = 1hr1minute ish

My longest since January, and actually one of my best runs EVER! When I ran all the way to the top of one of The Hills (there are 3 hills in my running neck of the woods), the same one that used to defeat me last year, I may or may not have stopped and had a solo dance party I was THAT pleased. I also wanted to burst into tears, cos it felt so incredibly good to be back out doing what I love.

Bring forth this marathon!

[side note: I also wanted to desperately madly go and track down my beautiful physio and give him once heck of a big hug to say 'THANKYOUILOVEYOU' - but I resisted the urge. Go me, yes?]

—–

Mkk now I hope this isn’t too dull, but I megawatt tired and badly need to go to bed (anyone else friggin’ annoyed at the clock change? Hooray for extra light in the evening, but oh my DAYS was it hard to wake up this morning!). Sooo let me show you some weekend foodie highlights

Millet flakes! :O I found these for – literally – £1 the other day and was so excited. I decided to make overnight ‘oats’, except in the morning, they resembled this:

Uh…no. Onto the hob they went. (FYI – those dark bits are cinnamon, not…like, tadpoles or something :/)

Such a cool texture! Topped wiiiith:

Extra soya milk:

Banana:

Peanut flour blob, almonds, cereal, Grape Nuts:

It’s official – millet flakes and I are best buds. They have an awesome taste – ever so slightly bitter – and a texture that’s a cross between oatbran and polenta grits. Grainy but smooth, and really really REALLY quite delicious. They made an appearance more than once this weekend, fo’ sho.

Straight up and dirty, just the way I like it!

I also tackled my final recipe for Recipe Challenge Week:

Curried cabbage and peas, minus the peas cos I hate them The recipe was good – except I used waaay too much water by accident, so overcooked the cabbage somewhat :/

Goshdarn steam, getting in the way…

Despite my faux pas, the dish still tasted gorjuz – even more so with the addition of….wait for it….yep, roasted parsnip and kabocha

A pear and milky cereal were also consumed:

I’m annoyed about that pear photo – it blurred! Boohiss :/ I was actually playing around with my camera quite a bit this weekend – looking at the white balance etc. I worked out how to change it – for realz! – but then hit a problem:

I normally shoot on a setting made for photogging flowers or something, so colours get enhanced and it’s good for close ups. HOWEVER, you can’t alter the white balance on that setting. On the settings (like, manual, custom etc) where you CAN alter the white balance, I can’t get close ups without the camera losing focus and generally getting in a huff. Any tips? It seems I have 2 choices: my usual automatic setting = sharper photos and close ups, but more yellow in poor light, OR altering white balance myself = less yellow, but no close ups.

What to do!? [it would help if I knew where the user manual was, but whatever...]

—

Onwards and upwards anyways!

As it was the weekend, I had to fit in my Weekend Breakfast – pancakes!

In the mix:

30g gram flour, 20g millet flakes

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup soya milk

cinnamon and ginger

1 grated carrot

[below: that's a white balance-altered photo]

Uh…well, when I saw the above mess, I really didn’t have high hopes for these babies. So whilst they were cooking, I set to work on a new-to-me topping:

1tsp chia seeds

3/4 tsp-ish cacao (or carob?I can never remember which!) powder

splash of milk

1tsp ish peanut flour

-> all mixed up and allowed to rest on its’ laurels for 10mins.

Breakfast:

Four x sweet and fluffy pancakes!

[white balance NOT altered, below]

Topped with:

Banana, chocolate-chia sauce, almonds, cashews, soya yogurt, cereal, frozen cranberries (saved from Christmas, no less)

OOH!! The sauce was awesome! But the best bit was without doubt, the banana. Why? Cos the skin was brown I had a bad-banana experience the other day when they weren’t overripe enough, so today was just perfect. Siiiigh. I cleaned my plate and was a happy content woman. Til I had to commence study again, or course….

You know what fuels study? Dirty water:

Doesn’t that look yummy and full of nutrition? Well it should, cos it’s the water I boiled my broccoli in! Can you believe the amount of colour (ie nutrients and all the goodness) that gets lost when you boil veggies? It’s why I so rarely do boil them, and when I do, I drink the water. It actually tastes pretty ok!! Anyway, why am I banging on about broccoli?

Cos broccoli covered in korma curry powder and HP brown sauce is AWESOME, that’s why! Though in all honesty, nothing beats peanut butter coated roast parsnip chunks:

Oh boy. Died and went to food-heaven right there. As I did with….

….a lettuce peanut green monster. YUMmy.

Other notable events – Hannah got trampled on all over by Tig this morning – she was skipping out his stable and he majorly trod on her <- not so good when she was competing today! That’s where a hefty dose of the old [legal] drugs came in handy, so she could keep the swelling down and actually get her boots on :/ It paid off though – Tig did his 2nd best ever dressage test and flew clear around the cross country course, so it was all good in the end!

Chika had a horrible day though – she’s a tad fed up of losing her boyfriend so often. I’m just not a good enough replacement – maybe I’m not stinky enough, maybe I don’t weight 800kg…who knows what it is, but it’s something she hasn’t found in me :p

OH! And big news: my jeans have gone in to get the zipper fixed! YEEESS!! In about a week, I will have TWO pairs of functioning jeans! That fact alone is almost worthy of breaking open a bottle of champers and getting merry. I won’t though – this girl has work to do.

On that note…goodnight!

Question: What shall my next challenge be?

Help me with my camera issue! Please and thank you