This weekend, for a variety of reasons, I’ve stayed firmly at home. I’ve slept (boy did I need it), caught up on blog duties (again, was sadly very behind!), read and had two days in a row of No Spending Days! This hasn’t happened since well before Christmas and it has renewed my belief about how good they are for the soul and the finances. Tomorrow will be a no spending day as well and perhaps Tuesday – so I’m off to a good start for the week. Since I have a little bit of extra time (ha!) this weekend, I decided I would take picture and keep a food diary of what I ate over a 48 hour period, this will be followed by a recipe tomorrow. So without further adieu here it is!
Saturday
For breakfast I decided to have a blueberry smoothie! I would normally use Total Fage yogurt, but I was given this yogurt by my mum and well there was no point letting it go to waste!
I simply combine yogurt, a few ice cubes, blueberries and 1 tbsp agarve nectar (a healthier alternative to honey) and you get…
I enjoyed this with a lemon & ginger tea, porridge with almond butter and a few strawberries
I am trying very very hard to like porridge…it’s a work in progress ;0)
Lunch
A small salad of snow peas, edamame, rocket, spinach and chili sauce
Dinner
I had kitchen sink soup (recipe to follow tomorrow), potatoes, pickled onions, feta & tomato salad and olives! Just a little of each of the side dishes – which I like as it gives me loads of different flavours and makes me feel fuller! FYI this soup cost about £1.25 to make and has made 6 generous portions!
Sunday
I made whole wheat pancakes, topped with real Canadian maple syrup (only 1 tablespoon), 3 large strawberries, a handful of blueberries and my leftover smoothie!
Lunch
I warmed up a small piece of ciabatta bread with pesto and feta cheese on top. I then sprinkled with 4 cherry tomatoes!
Dinner
I made some whole wheat penne pasta, grilled some onion, zucchini and broccoli and topped the mix with balsamic vinegar and crumpled cheese!
This week I spent £14.49 on groceries!
Tomorrow I’ll share my soup recipe, it is oh so good!
re porridge. I have been eating it with stewed apple and sultanas of late. its rather nice.
am a big fan of smoothies!
Moyra, that’s really funny – the one type I found I did like was a mix with sultanas and apples – haven’t been able to find it in England and my attempts to re-create aren’t working!
smoothies are fab!
It all looks so wonderful! I love when you post pictures of what you eat
Since Mr Chiots and I both work from home and we live about 30 min from anything we often have weeks when we don’t spend money. It helps that we get our milk from a local farm and we grow some of our own food. In the winter we all the canned & preserved items so that keeps the need for grocery store runs down to once every other month (not bad).
This is the time of year when we can really save since we’re eating all the canned items from the pantry. Perhaps I’ll make a smoothie, that requires making my own yoghurt which is easy (you should try).
We are HUGE porridge lovers! We particularly like oat groats (whole oat berries). I generally soak them overnight and then cook unitl well done. We usually top with some cream, cinnamon, chopped crystalized ginger, raisins, ground flax and chopped nuts (occationally a dribble of maple syrup if we’re feeling sweet).
Hi! So glad you’re back
I love porridge myself, but I think it’s an experiment to find out what makes it taste best for you. I like honey in mine, or vanilla rice milk. I’ve tried coconut, dried apples, cinnamon…but I’m content with it to be fairly simple.
Also, instead of agave syrup, which is quite fabulous I agree, try Stevia. It’s a plant based sweetner (10x sweeter than sugar, apparently) and – sorry to say – agave is actually an endangered plant!
The photos served to make me very hungry!! What a great weekend!
I like porridge too, though haven’t had that for a while now. I’ve been having Special K cereal recently……
Gill in Canada
i like the chili sauce on your salad. great idea. what is in porridge? since i’m on opiates and can’t chew, i’ve needed to increase the fiber in my diet. so i’m eating oat bran in the mornings – i mix in honey to sweeten, and a tad brown sugar and cinnamon for taste. it’s quite good…
there’s also an indian dish that i love that is like a savory cream of wheat. i figure i can sub in the oat bran instead. it calls for mustard and cumin seeds, onions, garlic, ginger, chilis, turmeric. it’s cooked in some oil though. i’m going to try it tomorrow.
also, annie – agave isn’t endangered…? at least not in the US and Mexico – i would be very sad without my tequila!
i think some species are, but not the blue (thankfully). i do agree with the stevia!
Oh my goodness, all your meals look simple and lovely and delicious. I just love taking the time to create something healthy and tasty!
You put us to shame.. you should write a frugal eating / healthy eating cookbook. I would be ashamed to post what I have eaten this weekend, although it did involve my home made flapjacks… Just a question though – and a stupid one at that – what did you do with the left over smoothie. I’ve never had success retaining any smoothies, they always taste gross the next day.
Yum, everything looks so delicious!
you know, everything looks really good. I love to look in my fridge and make a delicious plate of different things I find there. It is also so relaxing to just stay home and take stock. I usually try to fit in a couple of nice long walks on weekends like that.
It all looks so scrumptious!
Oh, I SO want to eat at your place…those meals look scrumptious!
Yumm!! How lovely!
I can never seem to get enough calcium in my diet, so breakfasts these days have been old fashioned oatmeal cooked in milk with added whole flax (for extra fibre), some ground flax (for Omega 3/6) and dried cherries (which I dehydrated myself last summer) or raisins. I cook up a big pot of it and dole out individual portions for the fridge for other days (saves having to wash pots every day). With the dried fruit, I find it is sweet enough not to need any added maple syrup or cherry syrup (home made last summer) etc. On non-cook days, I reheat the oatmeal and add some fruit yoghurt… it becomes a bit of a smoother/creamier version of muesli. Quite enjoyable on cold winter days.
While I like smoothies in the summer, I find that I’m hungry again in a couple of hours. I tend not to eat smoothies in the winter… there’s enough cold in my life at the moment!
My favourite tummy warmer at the moment is Curried Chickpea soup (recipe is on my website). It can be made vegetarian, although I’ve been making it using up some of the stock made from the Thanksgiving turkey’s bones.
Everythings looks very yummy. Makes me want to cook (and eat), too! I was surprised though by your choice of fresh summer fruits. At least here (in Sweden) summer fruits are extraordinarily expensive in winter, especially organic ones. But things might be diffrent in Britain.
Just finished eating lunch and this food looks so yummy that I’m ready to eat again!
Everything looks delicious! I can’t believe your moderation though. I tend to overindulge in anything delicious
Oh goodness, that all looks wonderful and is making me even more hungry!
And it looks so light and fresh, like I would need to eat about three servings of each to be full!