Wednesday 2 January 2013

First Post Hello and Tonight's Dinner!

A picture of my baked bean teatowel, in place of an awkward hello. It's my first post, and I'm not great with knowing where to begin! Still, it's a pretty cool teatowel, no?

So, I've created this blog in order to document what I've been eating, my endeavours with new recipes (I'm pretty much a complete novice/cookophobe in this area) and fitness pursuits. I've been reading several blogs for a while now, and I wanted to jump on the wagon and possibly talk to some other lovely people with the same interests as me.

A little background...

I've had various struggles with my weight over the years. I've been underweight and too-heavy-for-me. I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that being at a healthy weight is ok...and to 'reclaim' the word healthy (in my mind) as cheesy as that sounds. In the past, to me, healthy always meant fat. Now I'm starting to see it as a positive thing (duh!) and to embrace it. I am going to have milk with my porridge and a splash of honey instead of 100cal porridge with water! I am going to eat nut butters and healthy fats! (I'm not usually one for liberally scattering exclamations marks around, but they were needed). I want to be liberated from the low calorie mindset and move towards health and hopefully happiness.

In all honesty, I have yet to think about how this relates to my weight...I still don't feel too comfortable in my skin, but I'll work on that. Hopefully, exercise will continue to help me with this. I bought a treadmill and have been running (thought I'd use it more than the gym, as the closest gym is a train ride away) as well as a few fitness dvds. Once the weather is a bit better, I'll start to run outside, but I need to find a good route. I'm terrible with directions, so I'm scared that I'll get lost. Pathetic, I know.

Anyway, I guess my aim for this year is to become 'healthier'; to cook good, nutritious food, to exercise, to LIVE and to document it all on here.

Now for tonight's dinner:


 Ingredients alongside my handwritten recipe (old school) inspired by @keepinghealthygettingstylish.com


Moroccan Butternut and Chickpea Stew
*1 butternut squash, chopped into chunks and roasted
*1 chopped pepper
* 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cumin
* 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
*1 tin of chopped tomatoes with chopped garlic
*1 tin of chickpeas
*4 chopped apricots

Heat the oil, then add the spices followed by all of the other ingredients. Easy! My type of recipe. It reminded me of a chunky Moroccan soup that we sometimes buy from Sainsbos or Waitrose. It was a hit with the bf anyway.

Our chopping board...I like cute kitchen items!


I also added chicken to the dish. If I were to make it again, I would serve it with greens of some sort. 

 And finally, a few photos of me lovingly interacting with a banana smoothie. I don't know about you, but when I read other people's posts, I enjoy seeing a pic or two of them to sort of get more of an idea of what they are like. It makes it feel more personal. Or maybe I am just nosy. 

I'm off to have some mulled wine, trying to get rid of the last before it feels too wrong to indulge in a Christmassy drink.

4 comments:

  1. Hey there, I'm here. :D
    I love your new blog. Totally. (Maybe because I got similar issues and I also work on that.)
    Well, you can be sure that I'm going to read all of your upcoming posts and that I'll find out how to follow you here (where's this button, please!?) :D

    Love, Sara.

    http://saritschka.blogspot.com

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  2. Hello lovely :)
    So happy to see that you're still reading. Of course I'll be keeping up with you too. I've just changed the layout of the blog so that you can see the google friend follower at left hand side of the page :D

    Xx

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  3. Looking forward to reading more, thanks for popping by x

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  4. That recipe sounds proper delish, it's not on my ever-expanding list of Things I Need To Try Out. Capital letters definitely needed.

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