The life and times of Libby Withnall

Sorry I’ve been such a bad food blogger. Between settling back into routine and being very blah about food at the moment I’m trying to decide whether to keep the food blog going. I know my posts are fairly boring but don’t know if I’ve got the time to make them more interesting. Maybe I should just do more food posts (like a weekly recap) on my main blog. Please let me know what you think.

To try and play catch up I’m just going to share some meals/snacks  from the week.

A red onion and chili roll from Bakers Delight. Not very good for you but VERY yummy .

Pita bread with cheese, mayo, tomato and homegrown sprouts.

My beloved green smoothie.

Hawaiian Stir fry – courtesy of Lisa at Bake Bike Blog. SOOOOOO delicious.

Homemade pizza – this was actually for breakfast

Cheese with plum paste on crackers.

An omelet made by Amy.

A sandwich while on an excursion with Amy.

And some of my Dad’s birthday cake

Not a bad view for a leisurely breakfast on a Sunday morning. We joined my Aunt and other family members (including the bride & groom when they surfaced) for breakfast in the hotels dining room. We were the first to arrive and the last to leave so must have really enjoyed ourselves.

I wasn’t that impressed with my first walk around the buffet. After almost 12 days of buffet breakfasts on the cruise I just wasn’t into it. However the sign by the front entrance had me a little more excited.

Eventually I decided to start with tea (can never go wrong with that) and bircher museli – which I have NEVER had before. I still don’t even know what was in in but I quite enjoyed it and ate about half.

Sometime later I decided on a chef made omelet. Mine had 2 eggs cheese and vegetables and was REALLY lovely.

Towards the end of our two hour breakfast I had another cup of tea and a raspberry muffin. This was sooooo yummy and unfortunately the last one left .

After checking out we headed home, stopping to buy so water as I was in desperate need of something to hydrate me.

We decided to stop for lunch at the Nan Tien Temple for a delicious vegetarian lunch.

Though it was rather cold outside (we were sitting in the shade), lunch did not dissapoint. Amy and I shared a chai tea – but I really didn’t like it much. Kevin’s chai latte was much better .

I chose the veggie chow for my lunch. So yummy. I’ve never had anything here I haven’t loved.

And I also had one of Kevin’s dumplings.

Mid afternoon included more tea and a couple of oatmeal raisen cookies.

After a lazy day dinner was an easy one of cheese on toast. So simple, yet so yummy.

Up and at ‘em today with a red carpet ready workout, followed by a green smoothie. The best way to start the day if you ask me .

Then it was time to pack and get organised for my cousin’s wedding. Amy made us both a sweet bean burrito (mine was wrapped in mountain bread instead of a tortilla) to have in the car, with my morning cup of tea.

We then drove to Manly. It took about 2 hours due to heavy traffic. I had a banana along the way and we arrived in time to join my parents (who had come up yesterday) for lunch. I had vegetarian quiche, salad and half a roll.

We chatted for a bit and then had a cup of tea. I also indugled in an anzac cookie and shortbread.

Then it was time to get ready for the wedding. You can read a full recap here.

There wasn’t much in the way of vegetarian nibblies but I did have one goats cheese tart.

The table was beautifully set.

The meal itself was very uninspired I thought. Being a lacto-ovo vegetarians there are lots of great meal options. Instead I got a salad for entree.

Pasta for the main

and fruit for desert.

It was all rather nice but nothing to rave over. I only ate about half of everything and complimented with a yummy roll.

and Kevin’s ice-cream…

Then there was the wedding cake.

I love the idea of cupcakes and how cakes are personalized these days. Too cute.

What do you think? Here’s the real bride and groom.

The cake was delicous. So fresh and light.

After some dancing I enjoyed a cup of tea and a chocolate.

Got up at 6.30am and took the dogs for a walk. So nice it’s getting warm enough for an early morning walk.

Later after dropping the girls at school I had some cruskits with spreadable cheese and a much longed for cup of tea. Hopefully next week I’ll be back in the swing of things and making proper breakfasts again.

Then it was off to the beauticians for a mani, pedi and eyelash & eyebrow tint. So good to have eyebrows again .

When I got back at 12pm I made a salad with a lentil pattie.

It was rather cold today so my afternoon snack was a warm bowl of veggie soup.

Dinner tonight was a family favourite – sweet bean burritos. I cheated and used an old photo.

Kevin and I ate dinner watching TV, while the girls sat outside on our driveway (in the cold) with the neighbours. Crazy!!!

Definitely had a good nights sleep so felt a lot better this morning. We were running rather behind this morning so I didn’t get my breakfast until after dropping the girls at school. On the menu today – banana on toast and a cup of tea.

I spent the morning getting the house all tidied and organised and in between worked on uploading photos to snapfish. Morning tea was tea and a couple of oatmeal and raisen cookies.

Lunch was a salad featuring egg.

Amy and I had to go into town this afternoon to buy dresses for my cousin’s wedding on Saturday – nothing like leaving it to the last minute. We were successful and stopped by Gloria Jeans on the way home where I got a Iced Chocolate.

When we got home my order from Doorstep Organics had arrived.

This will restock the fridge for sure.

Dinner tonight- pumpkin lasagne (dug out of the freezer) with corn, potato and cauliflower. Hmm.. it all looks very yellow .

Supper was a cup of tea and some ginger cream biscuits from the UK.

Oh dear, I woke up at 2am this morning and wasn’t successful in getting back to sleep. I got up for a while, went back to bed, still couldn’t sleep and eventually gave up at 6.15. So I got dressed and did a red carpet ready workout. Felt good and I was surprised to discover I haven’t lost any upper body strength – not bad with no proper exercise for 6 weeks.

Post workout I had a much longed for green smoothie. Oh, how I have missed them.

Cheers.

I opened the Uniform Shop up at school this morning and while there kept on having to hitch up my jeans. When I got home I decided to try on other jeans (the ones that didn’t fit before my trip) just to see if they were any closer to fitting. And guess what? They fit!!!!! Yay!!!

My mid-morning snack was some cruskits with spreadable cheese and tea.

I spent the morning putting our souveniers away and working on the ironing pile. Then lunch – another yummy salad. This one featured egg and pinenuts. I’m having to use cream dressings as I haven’t made up an hummus yet.

Afternoon snack – a repeat of yesterdays lunch – pita bread with cheese, tomato and spouts. I used to have this for lunch nearly every day when I was at Uni.

Since we didn’t get home from drama until after 6pm I put together an easy dinner of nachos – made with TVP.

I had planned to have a couple of the oatmeal cookies I’d made this afternoon but with my early start to the day I started to fall asleep watching TV at 8pm so headed up to bed. I’m pretty sure I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

Another good nights sleep. Woke just after 7am. Still a bit tired and groggy but almost back to normal.  I couldn’t decide what I wanted for breakfast and in fact, didn’t have it until 9am after I’d driven the girls to school (in my PJs since it started raining at the last minute). In the end I decided on a repeat of yesterdays lunch – pita bread with cheese, tomato and sprouts.

Since I’d had a late breakfast I didn’t both with a morning snack. I unpacked the rest of the suitcases and now just have to sort out my souveniers. Before lunch I took the dogs on a walk. Felt good to be out moving again after two days indoors. We left in sunshine and while out saw a rainbow over the lake. Made it back before the rain came which was good. I then made a much longed for salad for lunch – starring the leftover roast veggies heated up. Yum!

I had to smile when I looked out the loungeroom window as I was eating lunch.

Afternoon snack was a banana while Amy was at singing lessons. I took a photo with my phone but the computer is FULL and won’t let me download any more photos (I’m using my laptop to get ones off my camera)

I was starving when we got home so had a couple of cruskits with spreadable cheese while we waited for Kevin to come from work.

Dinner was an easy one tonight – falafel wraps. Sorry about the photo – I’d already eaten half before I remembered to take a photo .

And tonights treat bought back from the UK. LOVE these – good thing I can’t buy them here

Tomorrow I plan to make some oatmeal cookies and hummus!

HI everyone. Hope you read my travels and saw what yummy foods I was eating on vacation. We tried to have local foods wherever possible and I’m going to do a post soon highlighting my favourites. But in the meantime it’s back to normal eating. While I think I did eat pretty well and chose healthy foods most of the time I have been missing my normal favourites like my salads and, of course, green smoothies.

I woke around 6am after a very goods nights sleep in my own bed. First up was tea and some orange cookies.

This morning I was faced with a pretty empty fridge.

Luckily Kevin had bought some bread (oh, how I missed my Bakers Delight Country Grain) and milk so I was able to have grilled cheese on toast with pineapple (no sliced so had to use crushed!).

I started with the unpacking, chatted with Mum & Dad and had a choc nut bar before heading off to get some groceries. Ah, that looks better.

Back home I got some lazy vegetable soup on the go. Simply open 2 packets of precut veggies, add water and chicken stock.

Boil until cooked. Blend and stir through a small tin of evaporated skim milk. Easy and delicious.

After that I prepared lunch. Pita bread stuffed with mayo, cheese, tomato and sprouts (I missed sprouts!)

A little later this was consumed.

Surprisingly I didn’t think about food again until I got hungry at 4pm. I had some cruskits and spreadable cheese (missed these too) and a bowl of veggie soup.

You’ll notice that over the next few days I’ll be eating all the foods I missed during the last 6 weeks. So it’s not surprising that tonights dinner featured roast vegetables. I cheated and bought a veggie pack (since my organic delivery isn’t until Thurs). So I just cut everything up, except for the pumpkin, and baked with a vegetable snitzel which I shared with Kevin.

It was delicious.

A few hours later I finished the day the same way it started – with tea and some orange biscuits! Much I have loved my holidays it’s nice to have access to my regular food. Oh, and the best news, I actually managed to lose 2-3kg on holidays. I intend to keep it off and work on losing the next 10kg before Christmas!

I woke around 6.30am and thought about doing a workout. I debated with myself and was inspired by Lisa at Bike Bake Blog who not only exercises on cold Winter mornings – but leaves the house to do so. Finally I got into my exercise clothes and did my red carpet ready workout. Since I really didn’t want to do it I just did one of the short SAS-E workouts. Loved it and as always felt great afterwards.

Of course, then it was time for a green smoothie. One day I’ll have to make him one of his own.

Around 8.30am I had some cruskits with spreadable cheese.

I spent the morning in the kitchen – cleaning out the fridge/freezer and pantry and doing fun jobs like window sills and skirting boards. I did have a break around 11am for a babybell cheese and banana.

While I was in the kitchen I made some lemon cookies (as we have loads of lemons on our tree). Amy snapped this photo just after I’d wrapped the dough to place in the fridge.

By the time I finished the kitchen, vaccumed downstairs and help Kevin remodel the chicken yard it was well after 1pm and time for lunch. Amy and Kevin had jaffles but I opted for a salad – using the last of the rice balls. Love these and will need to make a trip to only organic store in Wollongong to restock after our holiday.

I spent the afternoon finally getting our plans typed up into tripit. I drank way too many cups of tea and around 4pm prepared a cheese platter to share with Kevin. I forgot to take a photo but it looked pretty much like the one I had yesterday but with a few other types of cheese. My legs were starting to feel a bit sore so I know I’ll be feeling it in the morning.

Dinner was homemade pizza on pita bread I found when cleaning out the freezer. Kevin didn’t want pizza so he had spaghetti on toast. My pizza had BBQ sauce, corn, tomato, pineapple and cheese.

Tonight we watched Elizabeth – the virgin Queen. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many dead bodies, war and blood as I’ve seen in the last few weeks while we’ve watched all these historical shows and documentaries in preparation for our trip.

Later Kevin announced he felt like some chocolate so Amy divided up the block of Cadbury’s (fair trade) that was in the fridge. Loved how she served it in our little dishes. I definitely do {heart} chocolate.

ANOTHER slow start to the day – I just can’t get my butt moving in the morning these days. Started the day with a cup of tea and one and half oatmeal cookies.

Later breakfast was 4 cruskits with spreadable cheese before heading out the door for a before school meeting with Amy’s teacher. The meeting went well and Amy’s teacher is trying to find ways to challenge her at school and stop her from being bored. After the meeting I listened the kids read in Christy’s class, then went and filled some orders for the uniform shop. Last stop before returning home was returning a book to the library.

I made another cup of tea and grabbed 2 cookies for morning tea. I took this over to Mum’s and Dad’s (next door) to show Dad all the info that had come in about the motorhome we are hiring in the UK.

Todays lunch was a bowl of cheesy potato chowder.

More travel plans this afternoon. I had fun playing with google maps – checking out photos of the places we’ll be staying out. I can’t tell you how excited I got when I saw this… View Larger Map

My afternoon snack with plum spread and camambert on my favourite crackers.

I was a bit munchy this afternoon so also had a small bag of popcorn.

And many cups of tea .

Tonights dinner was supposed to be vegetable korma. But unfortunately I managed to burn it and turned to mush. We tried it…

but it didn’t taste real good so I went back to the kitchen to make dinner no.2. Tofu slabs, basmati rice and sweet potato. Much better.

We ate this while watching Braveheart (as the girls had dinner at Nan’s). Great movie but I bailed again at the end (when he gets tortured) – I only ever watched that part once at the movies (and was VERY close to leaving the theatre). Needless to say I’m not planning to visit any dungeons in the UK!