Orange, banana smoothie

Tea time! Well...sort of. I was hungry, so I made a smoothie. I have some clementines, that have been in the bowl for over a week and they're starting to get a bit dry, so I don't want to eat them, but smoothie-ing them is ideal! And check it out, it's a yellow smoothie! All my others have been purple because of the berries.

Ingredients
1 frozen banana
1 clementine (peeled and segmented)
1 apple (skinned, cored and chopped)
Tablespoon of low fat natural yogurt
Approx. 2 tsp of honey (I just give a good squeeze)
Orange juice to consistency

Whiz all the fruit with the yogurt and honey, then add the orange juice (I do it to 500mL) and voila!

Nutritional Info
254 Calories
6.1g fiber
2.7% vitamin A
74.1% vitamin C
2.7% iron

I'll be honest, it pretty much just tastes like banana, but that's okay with me :) It's very yummy either way.

Beef Chili

So instead of having a Sunday lunch, we're having a beef chili with rice. It's super easy, been cooking since last night, and very warming, which is just what we need when we've had so much bloody snow.

Ingredients (for 4 portions)
450g Beef mince (preferably as lean as you can get - ours wasn't lean at all)
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 tin of kidney beans (drained)
1 onion - chopped
200mL beef stock (made from stock cube)
Spices - chilli powder, cumin, salt, pepper and a taco sachet (just as much or as little as you want)

Brown the mince and the onion, then add in the chopped tomatoes and beef stock, let it all simmer away, then add your kidney beans and your spices to taste. Let it simmer for about 10-20 minutes, then pour it all in the slow cooker (or do what we did and portion off two portions into tubs to freeze, so there's just enough in the slow cooker for the two of us).
We left it cooking overnight, and we're going to eat it now with a Uncle Bens 2 minute basmati rice packet between us.

Nutritional Info (per portion)
513 calories
30.1g fat
4.2g fiber
30.6g protein

It was sooooo tasty! Homemade food is always infinitely better than shop bought stuff.
Also, I know it's only been like 3 days since I started this whole 'smoothies for two meals a day' thing, but I do feel so much better. I feel...bright eyed and bushy tailed :D

Banana, Apple, Summer Fruits Smoothie

Good Morning! Time for breakfast :). I tell you, I'm very achy from pilates yesterday xD.

Ingredients
1 frozen banana
1/2 cup of frozen summer fruits
1 apple - peeled, cored and chopped
1/2 cup low fat yogurt
1/3 cup wheat bran
apple juice to make up to 500mL

Nutritional Info
260 calories
14.5g fiber
5.7g protein
37.1% vitamin C
2.2% iron

This is a very tasty smoothie, but I think I put too much wheat bran in cause it's a bit...bitty. Tasty and good for me lol, but a bit bitty. So if you make it, and you want it a bit smoother, don't put so much wheat bran in.

I went shopping yesterday and bought said wheat bran for 78p for 375g - I bought two :D. I also bought some measuring cups so I can give more accurate recipes.

Me and the fiance made chilli last night, it's been stewing in the slow cooker all night and will be all day, so we'll have that for tea. Not sure how low-cal that is, but I don't care, cause it'll be tasty :).

Dinner Time!

Time for some proper food. Home made pasta bake - yay!
I found this recipe on the BBC Goodfood website, and I'm tweaking it a bit, since I don't have all the ingredients.

Ingredients (serves 2)
3 decent handfuls of pasta
1 chopped onion
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
Couple of splashes of Worcestershire sauce (Lee and Perins)
50g grated cheese
Peas and broccoli

Cook the onion in a frying pan, then add the tomatoes, a pinch of sugar and the Lee and Perins.
Meanwhile, boil the broccoli and peas, and the pasta (in separate pans)
Then pop it all in a dish, sprinkle over the cheese, and pop under the grill for about 10 minutes :D
This was sooo tasty. Not too much sauce, but plenty of veg. Total calorie intake of the day (including shape delights yogurt and some special K crisps) 960 calories.

Nutritional Info (per serving)
501 Calories
22g Fat
5g Fiber

Cucumber, Raspberry, Blueberry Smoothie

Lunch time!!

I wanted something that would fill me up, but that would taste a little more like lunch. So I started looking at cucumber smoothies, but didn't find any I liked, so I made my own.

Ingredients
Handful of frozen raspberries and blueberries
About 3 inches of cucumber sliced in half, then half again and chopped.
2 tablespoons ish of fat free yogurt
Enough apple juice to just cover it
Dollop of honey

Blend it all together until there are no/minimal lumps and you get this--->

It's pretty tasty, I'm surprised to be honest. I'm a little skeptical about vegetables in smoothies, drinking vegetables just doesn't appeal to me. But this is really good.

I really like cucumbers and you can definitely taste it in this. There's a sweetness from them, quite unlike the sharpness of the raspberries. The yogurt makes it very creamy, and the apple juice is simply a base for everything else. The little shot of honey makes it just a touch sweeter.

Nutritional Info
98 calories             1.2% Vitamin A
0.3g fat                  8.5% Vitamin C
1.2g dietary fiber    1.2% Calcium
1.1g protein           1.4% Iron

Lunchtime Exercise

Okay, so I finally got out of bed after completing my Community Placement 2 Task 1 write up, and I'm doing some Blogilates.

For those of you who don't know, Blogilates is this amazing site run by the ever brilliant Cassey Ho. I found her videos on youtube like....a year ago, maybe, and she completely changed my life - that's not an exaggeration.
I've had quite a few injuries over the years, I used to horse ride as a child and do judo. I've dislocated my knee, I don't know how many times, and sprained my ankle twice. As such I find it difficult to do high impact exercises - I still can't run on the treadmill after dislocating my knee 3 months ago. Pilates is perfect for me.
It's low impact, but high reward, which is just what I need.
I try to do some at least once a day, and Cassey Ho helps with that. Her videos are between 5-20 minutes in length, so I can mix it up.

This is what I've done today:







I'll admit, I did have to stop in some of them. But I'm done!! I am sooooo tired. My arms and my abs and my legs are killing me. But I feel good!

Time for lunchtime smoothie I think :)

Breakfast Smoothie

Four days ago I bought a blender. Since then I've been having a smoothie a day, but this weekend, I'm kicking it up a notch.
I'm going to have a smoothie for breakfast and lunch, and probably one as a snack before tea, too. I want to kick off my weight loss. I'm not snacking, and all I'm going to drink is smoothies and water.

This morning I made myself a lovely purple smoothie:

 Sorry for the crappy photo, my phone's having issues focusing of late.
Ingredients:
1 banana (slightly past it's prime - makes it easier to blend)
Handful of blueberries (not too many, maybe like 8?)
Dollop of fat free yogurt
1 sachet of Quaker Oats So Simple Raspberry and Pomegranate (or any instant oats you have)
As much skimmed milk as you like for consistency.

Whiz the banana, blueberries, oats and yogurt together, then pour in the milk till it's the consistency you like.

Nutritional Info
302 calories                  1.3% Vit A
2.8g fat                         24.3% Vit C
6.2g fiber                      33.1% Calcium
13.9g protein                1.9% Iron


The other day I also bought myself this pretty nifty bottle. It's got a grate in the top, so I can keep shaking my smoothies and also no big lumps come through. And a screw top, so it's ideal for carry in my car to uni or anything really :).

Not sure what I'll be having for lunch, but I'll be sure to post it.

If you try the smoothie let me know :)