Getting back into the swing of things

Happy 2015!!

I had the most amazing Christmas break this year. I was lucky enough to have two Christmases – a Danish one with my parents and sister on the 24th and an English one on 25th December with Welly and his family. It was awesome, everything from the food to the wine to the company was excellent – big smiles all around.

But all good things must come to an end right?! It’s probably for the best or I would be obese in no time.

This week I’ve been ready to get back into the swing of things. We met our diy deadlines which means I have more energy and my evenings back.

I’ve really been loving being able to cook nice homemade dinners but I’ve also taken the opportunity to prep my lunches for the following day. My main tips are:
– choose your meals for the week – breakfast, lunch and dinner
– order them online for delivery
– love preparing and eating each one

Its been an incredibly busy week and I’ve had more red flags in my inbox and more lunches at my desk than I care to remember so having my meals prepped was an absolute lifesaver. These are ‘some I prepared earlier’:

Homemade pea soup (onion, stock cube and frozen peas) with marinated turkey breast (dried coriander and cumin)

Homemade quinoa with mint and coriander accompanied with a green bean, broccoli, beetroot and lime salad. For protein it was leftover roast chicken:

Homemade Mexican burgers (turkey mince, jalapeños and spices) with a red onion and tomato dressing accompanied by a lentil, green beans, beetroot, feta and fresh herb salad:

How do you prepare for the week?

DIY can actually be quite relaxing…

DIY is often said to be the make or break of a relationship and I’m definitely not about to say that my experience has been blissful and romantic – it has not…

Now that’s out of the way I want to make my point. DIY can be quite relaxing when you’re waiting for the next step – such as varnishing your newly sanded wooden floor – after and before the sanding:

Welly did an amazing job with the floor and my job on my day off this week was to varnish it, sand it and varnish it again. Now this might seem like quite a lot of work and it is BUT there is quite a lot of waiting around in between to allow the varnish to dry and the dust to settle.

So what did I do to entertain myself in between?
– Absolutely nothing 🙂 well I watched lots of cooking programmes, drank lots of tea and got even more excited about Christmas

I’m pretty happy with the final result and can’t wait to crack on with the next room. The countdown for Christmas is on!

Healthy living – it’s all in the preparation

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll know I love a good food post and lately I’ve had lots of comments and questions about how I have the energy to make breakfast that delicious. And I must say it’s all in the preparation!

I, like everyone else, have a time demanding job and actually having time to put good things in your body can be difficult – if you don’t plan a little bit ahead that is. If you’ve read my blog post on making the most of your mornings you know that I love setting myself up for the day with exercise and a good hearty breakfast. It’s not a diet, it’s my lifestyle and one that I simply have come to love. I wanted to share a few tips on what I do to make it quite easy:

– Do a bit of meal prep. I boil my eggs a few days in advance for example which means all I have to do is peel them and pair them with what I love such as avocados, nuts, fruit, meat, fish etc – this was awesome:

– buy what is on offer at your local shop that week to make sure you have a varied diet. Doing a weekly shop gives you an idea of food for the week and makes breakfast, lunch and dinner easy to manage. We had some awesome cooked mackerel from ocado this week:

– use leftovers from your store cupboard or from last night’s dinner to make an awesome lunch. I love some good liquid proof tupperware to take to work:

– get ready the night before. I love my juicer and get my veg and machine set up ready to go just before I’m off to bed. All I have to do is press play and we’re good to go:
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A good and healthy meal makes me smile and with just a few minutes prep each day it really is easy to achieve!

What are your tips on preparation?

Everyone needs a holiday – appreciation

It’s often said that taking time off from work, especially when you work in an always-busy environment, can leave you feeling full of guilt. To my own dissatisfaction I must admit that I’m one of those people.

I admit that I get a kick out of being busy, I love always being on the go, making sure I do my exercise/fitness and fill my days with things that make me feel like I make the most of them.

However, after reflecting on a year that’s been far from what I anticipated I decided this holiday was going to be different – I wanted to fill my days with relaxation, laughs, sunshine and let my always-busy mind get used to the slow(er) pace.

So what did I do? Well if you’re like me or if you just enjoy the ‘good life’ I’d urge you to try the following:

– Surround yourself with people who don’t take themselves too seriously, they’ll make you laugh till your tummy hurts (trust me, I couldn’t flex my muscles the next day). I mean this is basically the theme-tune to the holiday: baby monkey riding on a pig

– Read the books you want to read! It’s easy to convince yourself that you don’t have time to read during the week but on holiday you have no excuse – I would highly recommend Return to Mandalay or if you want a good laugh go for The stars’ tennis balls

– Use local ingredients and cook your heart out! We made full use of the BBQ and marinated meats from the local butchers whilst chopping meters of delicious fresh veg:

– Taste the local wine! It appeared that Italy is a bit empty in August and as we stayed in a remote village we had to go on the search for wine as the ‘usual place’ was closed for the month. However after trying to ask for help in our best Italian we came away with 12 litres of wine, which we fully enjoyed:

– Enjoy your time in the sunshine (use sun lotion – I’m all about SPF 50). Enjoy every second of it and whilst you’re at it appreciate life, your health, your friends and yourself:

What is the one thing that makes a holiday for you?

Eating right – getting inspiration

If you follow this blog you know that eating natural comes naturally to me and I do enjoy a good cooking session!

I love everything from quinoa to a perfect salmon and enjoy indulging in delicious, healthy and nourishing meals. However, sometimes finding inspiration to try new flavour combinations can be hard – especially when you’re in a busy job with long hours to match.

I for one refuse to let this be an excuse and make sure I have time to do what Benefits me and my body. Try some of these easy tips and I promise you’ll be inspired to cook something different tomorrow:
– Stock up on different cookbooks with food from different cultures. I own everything from Gwyneth Paltrow’s It’s all good and Nigellisima to Jamie’s 15 minute meals and red velvet chocolate heartache – all do incredible tasty recipes, which will keep your digestive system guessing:

– Find the right blogs for you! I would highly recommend Smitten kitchen, Deliciously Ella or the Natural Kitchen. There’s so many out there so next time try something else than BBC Food
– Use Pinterest. I’m a big fan of the app and many think it’s just for furniture ideas but it in fact has a wealth of other content including healthy recipes to die for. I particularly love this pinHow to make the perfect kale salad which I’ve pinned to my own Food Board – yum
– Ask your family. Both my parents have always been passionate about cooking and our kitchen was always multicultural and never boring! My dad makes incredible potato salad with meatballs whilst my mum does a mean meatloaf. One of my most precious items is a cookbook with all my childhood recipes my mum made my twinnie and I for our 19th birthday before we moved away from home and over to London – now that’s proper heartwarming nostalgic food

Do you have any tips for how to find inspiration?