Category Archives: Madeleine makes


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Going to the beach

Hi! How are you guys? I just got back from a fun meeting this morning and am now waiting for Jamie to get ready. He’s been sleeping until just before eleven. The poor guy is exhausted after working so much but today he’s off and the sun is shining so we’re thinking of going to the coast. I think we’ll end up going to Irvine. None of us have been there before so we’re looking forward to go and explore.

I can’t wait to being by the sea. One day I’m going to live by the beach. I love breathing the fresh air and feeling sand between my toes (although, it probably won’t be quite warm enough to take our shoes off haha). I’m hoping for a picnic on the beach but we’ll see whether the weather allows it.

This is a photo of the lunch I had yesterday. I wasn’t feeling super hungry but felt like I needed to eat something amongst all the running about. Waitrose has started selling frozen edamame beans to my great delight. I absolutely love edamame beans and they’re a great source of protein. They’re great in any kind Asian dishes really. So yesterday I threw together this super simple meal, not at all very glamorous but it tasted really nice! Basically it’s courgetti, mange touts and edamame beans stir fired in coconut oil with herb salt. I then served it with some leftover sweet potato and hummus (because a a dish is not complete without hummus).

Now it’s time for me to get my stuff together so we can leave! Speak to you later xxx


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Purple sweet potato


So great being back at Fly

How amazing is this colour?!

Happy sunny Monday! It’s still Baltic outside but I guess we can’t have everything 😉 Earlier today I met up with Rachel, Kate and Nicola at Fly Functional Fitness for their lunch time HIIT class. 30 minutes of hard work. Looks alright at first glance, tough once you get working on the different stations.

The amazing Lorna who was coaching the class definitely planned a workout to raise our pulses. We did four rounds of jumping pull ups, rowing, burpees, box jumps and ropes. 45 seconds at each station. By the fourth round I could definitely feel my arms getting tired. I was paired up with Rachel and it was so much fun. I love that lady’s energy!

After the workout I was ready for some lunch! I try to have food prepped as much as I can so when I come home after a workout or from work I don’t have to stand cooking for ages. It’s the worst! So this morning I had roasted PURPLE sweet potato and steamed broccoli. Yes I said purple sweet potato. I’ve been seeing purple sweet potatoes everywhere recently online and when I saw them in Root & Fruits the other day I just had to try it out. I came home super excited with my find, being the sweet potato addict I am. I asked Jamie if it was a bit weird that I was so excited about trying a different kind of sweet potato. He said yes but nothing surprises him anymore haha. In my defence, I just truly appreciate the small things in life sometimes, like a different kind of potato.

It was quite weird eating something so vibrantly purple I’ve got to say. I’m not used to something edible naturally being that colour. It did taste differently from the standard orange and had a slightly different texture. It was super good though and it was fun to mix it up a bit. I had it with some leftover curry, thyme vinegary mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, tomatoes, red pepper, cucumber and hummus. Yum!

This evening I’m doing something super exciting with Jamie and some friends. I’ll tell you more about it tomorrow! I think it’ll be a really good time. Speak soon lovelies xx

 


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Salad mountain

Hello my dears! Hope you’ve had a great start to your Easter Saturday. I was with Faye at the gym this morning. It’s so much fun training with her. We did a warm up WOD and then practiced our push jerks. They are tough! I then managed bang out two new PBs. A 65kg back squat and FINALLY my 90kg deadlift. I was so happy about that, what a great start to the day. Reaching my goal feels amazing. I’ve already set my aim on 100kg. That would be amazing! Only 10kg away now.

The sun is shining outside my window and spring is here. Even though it still feels quite chilly outside. With it getting sunnier and warmer my craving for salads has returned. It’s something with the sun that makes me want the crunchiness of fresh vegetables for lunch. This salad below is what I’ve been making recently. It’s super easy and once you’ve roasted the vegetables and steamed the broccoli you can keep extra in a container for quick lunches during the week.

Roasted vegetables 
I used beetroot, butternut squash and also sweet potato
Cumin
Paprika
Smoked Paprika
Pink Himalayan Salt and Pepper
Avocado oil

Sauteed Mushrooms
Mushrooms
Garlic clove
Thyme
Salt and Pepper
Vinegar (I used raw coconut vinegar but raw apple cider vinegar would work too).

Salad base
Spinach
Kale (chopped with stems removed)
Cucumber
Option to have tomatoes and red peppers in too
1/4 Avocado (hummus is a delicious option too!)
Steamed broccoli
Walnuts

It seems like a lot of components but it’s actually very simple and once you’ve done a big batch of the roasted vegetables and steamed broccoli the rest you can just chop up as you need it. The mushrooms I just make whilst I reheat the veggies in the oven.

So first chop up all the vegetables you wish to roast and sprinkle with the seasoning (I only put salt and pepper on the beetroot). Put it in the oven at about 200 degrees I would think (however my oven is very unreliable so please keep an eye on your veggies so they don’t get burnt before they cooked through). I barely use any oil for my veggies but a little splash of avocado oil. Cook them for about an hour.

In the meantime, prep the mushrooms and broccoli but don’t start cooking these until about ten minutes or so before the roasted vegetables are done. If you don’t have a steamer I have a DIY solution in a previous post (here). When it’s time steam the broccoli. Then sautée the mushrooms. Start of with a bit of avocado oil in the pan. Then add a minced clove of garlic, then the mushrooms once the garlic has been sautéed for a little while. Season with salt, pepper, thyme (I use dried) and a splash of vinegar.

Put the desired amount of spinach and kale as the base for your salad on a plate (I eat the kale raw in this dish but if you aren’t a fan you can just use spinach instead or any other green lettucy thing). Chop up cucumber and if you’re wanting some tomatoes and red peppers. Add this to the plate.

Once everything is done add the amount of roasted vegetables you want onto the plate. Then broccoli, mushrooms and finish off with the avocado and sprinkle walnuts on top. I don’t really use dressing but if you want some dash that on top. I love Herbamare Herb Salt and have since I was little. It lifts any dish to new heights and can be found in health food stores. Jamie has become as obsessed as me since I introduced it to him. I just can’t explain what it does but it saves any dish which is lacking flavour. Try it and you’ll know what I mean. Perhaps not on a sweet dish though, haha.

Hope you enjoy!


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Smoothie


Sorry for the really uninspiring toppings! It was all I had in my cupboard when I took this photo and really wanted to get the recipe up haha. To be honest the smoothie doesn’t need that many toppings since it’s already quite flavoursome, the crunch is just really nice.

Hello lovelies, happy Monday! I wanted to share my latest snack obsession, smoothies. Never thought I would write that because I never really understood the thing with smoothies. Everyone seems to drink them and love them. The main issue I had was I never found them very filling and whenever I had finished one I felt I needed to eat something more in order to feel satisfied.

Recently I’ve struggled finding good snacks that aren’t bread. Even though I ate rye bread (which definitely is not the worst you could eat) I just felt like I ate it far too much. I was getting tired of it and I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore either. You guys know by now that I want my food to be enjoyable, it’s super important. I’ve also gone off chia puddings a bit for now so I was looking into other options. You can now see my massive snack dilemma 😛

With all the training I do I also felt like I needed something more to help my body get stronger at the gym, which led me to investing in protein powder, Neat Nutrition’s vegan vanilla protein powder. I’ve had it before ages ago and liked it. I love their ethos and how they really focus on the quality of their products as well as limiting the ingredients in them to as few as possible. Their vegan protein powder is made from hemp and pea protein. The reason for me not using protein powder before was because I didn’t real feel like I needed it whilst now when I’m eating more plant based food I felt like my body needed a boost to perform better.

This new investment has led me to experimenting a bit with different kinds of smoothies and ingredients. I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like too fruity smoothies, or I just haven’t found one that works for me yet. A favourite so far has been this peanut butter one that I really want to share with you.

Peanut butter vanilla smoothie

1 frozen banana
200 ml unsweetened almond milk (or any other kind of milk you prefer, a couple of brands I like are Rude Health, Provamel and Ecomill)
100 ml of cold water (you can add ice cubes too if you like it to be a bit more frozen)
1 scoop of vegan vanilla protein powder
1 tbsp of peanut butter (make sure it’s good quality without any added palm oil)
Optional: a handful of spinach or kale or both (great way to get your greens in and it doesn’t affect the flavour)

Just throw everything in your blender and blend until smooth.

One realisation I’ve had is eating out of a bowl with some toppings instead of drinking your smoothie helps you feel full. I feel like it helps your body to register it’s getting food not just a liquid. The chewing of the toppings definitely helps too. My toppings are not very inspiring at the moment but I can imagine this tasting great with cacao nibs on top. It’s also great with some cinnamon sprinkled on top.

So if you’re feeling like me, that smoothies aren’t filling you up, try eating them instead plus maybe add some more ingredients in them. It’s made a great difference for me. Eating it with a spoon makes sure you’re not downing it in like four gulps, which I have a tendency to sometimes. Compare that to chewing on food properly you can imagine that the body doesn’t have time to register what it’s being fed.

Now when I’m on the smoothie train I would love to invest in more ingredients for them like maca, cacao powder and green boosting powders. What do you put in your smoothies? I would love to hear about the smoothies you make since I’m a newbie to all of this.

Speak to you soon xx