Giving up waiting for the 'right moment'

Do you ever do the thing that I do, whether it's with food or clothes or whatever, that when you have something special you just keep putting off using it because you are waiting for the right moment? Emma got me some wonderful things for foodie penpals last month, but my inner hoarder has been making me wait out for the 'right moment'. Well, today I bit the bullet - I made jam tarts AND I used the portobello mushrooms!

As my cooking so often is these days, these kitchen treats were inspired by other bloggers.


I manned up and made this pastry from the Green Gourmet Giraffe, because I like the idea of binding the dough with yoghurt. I used a flower shaped cutter, blind baked the pastry for 5 minutes at the highest temperature that Johanna suggests, and then spooned in the gorgeous peach jam (and some shop bought raspberry jam too to keep James happy!) and baked again for about 7-8 minutes. I'm not much of a baker - I like doing it but it usually ends up disastrous because I get too experimental! But hopefully I've made Emma proud (who's a wonderful baker - check out her facebook page). And yes, they are delicious, even if I do say so myself.

I have quinoa back in my life again. It is an awesome 'psuedo-grain', technically a seed, that is a complete protein, gluten-free, and so versatile. This blog, Queen of Quinoa, is a great resource with loads of recipes if you're interested. I made a lunch with quinoa, my dried portobellos sauteed in coconut oil and balsamic, some toasted walnuts (toasting transforms the flavour by the way - If you've not tried it, even if you hate raw walnuts, try dry frying them until they start to colour). It was inspired by this dish at Taste Space. I added peas for some colour and well....because I like peas. Expect more quinoa on this blog, and some more from those mushrooms too as I only used a quarter of the pack and I'm sure I'll be buying them myself!

And tonight I went to spinning, and it was one of the toughest spin classes I've ever done. This might have been because I had pump class last night and my legs were quite sore from endless squats. Anyway, if I can barely walk now, who knows what state I'll be in tomorrow?! A rest day might be in order... *sigh*. I do need to keep up my fitness but also take care not to get injured as I have another race on the horizon (Total Warrior). I'll share more on that on here nearer the time :-)

Have a lovely weekend!

Hannah xx