Baking and Lunching!

Baking

Yesterday I whiled away the afternoon doing some baking. I made some yummy muffins and cookies.

Raspberry, Blueberry and Almond Muffins (9 nice sized Muffins).

250g Rice flour

170g Whole Rye flour

225g Frozen blueberries and raspberries

50g Caster Sugar

1 large egg

170g Silken tofu whizzed to make paste plus splash of soya milk to thin to a more yoghurt consistency

Juice of 1 lemon + rind grated

half a cup of Pineapple juice

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda

80g Flaked Almonds

1 teaspoon Vanilla essence

Sift flour, baking powder and bicarb of soda. Add fruit and lemon rind and mix.

Mix tofu (could use yoghurt), sugar, pineapple juice, vanilla and lemon juice in another bowl.

Add wet to dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Beat 1 egg and add to mixture and mix through.

Spoon into muffin trays.

Bake (200degreesC/400degreesF/Gas Mark 6) for 15 mins (Fan oven 15 mins is plenty!)

These are so good and as a bonus really healthy too as loads of fruit + nuts and low fat! I was really pleased how these came out as I had adjusted and combined a few recipes. They are fab for all times of day especially breakfast with a little jam!

Peanut Butter Cookies (25 cookies)

I don't know if theses could be described as low fat or dead healthy, but yummy; yes! The best thing is I made 15 cookies and put the rest of the mix in the freezer so I can easily bake some more (10) at a later date.

130g rice flour

100g rye flour

1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

100g Dairy free margarine

130g Crunchy Peanut butter

170g soft brown sugar

1 teaspoon Madagascan vanilla essence

1 teaspoon water

100g dry roasted Peanuts (I used 50g plain whole Almonds cut into three chunks as I didn't have any peanuts and 50g seemed plenty!)

The marg, PB and sugar were creamed in a bowl and then half the dry ingredients and half the eggs, water and vanilla mixture were added and stirred in to make smooth consistency. The second half of dry and eggs were finally added and re stirred to smooth texture. Finally the nuts and stirred through.

Balls of dough were put into greased baking trays and flattened down with floured fork.

In oven (180degreesC/350degreesF/gas mark 4) for 15 mins. I have a fan oven and they possibly could have been taken out a little earlier, but they seem pretty perfect to me.

Lunching

Had a great lazy lunch with the girls from my NHS classes. We met at 11.30am, had lunch and after gabbing away for quite some time decided it was time for some pudding! We eventually decided we should get on with something a little less indulgent at 2.30pm! We haven't arranged anything for next week as Claire is due on Monday, Fe and I are due on Friday and Lyndsey the following Tuesday. I wonder if we'll go in the correct order or if in 3 weeks time I'll finally be begging to be induced!

Spinning

Mum was shattered this morning so I 'hopped' on the spinning bike and did a great 45 min workout - 21km so equiv of 4 mile run - before meeting the girls for lunch.

Heat + Books

It was so hot today. I made the mistake of shooting up to Crieff to get my glasses fixed while still wearing my jeans - ugggh! As soon as I got home it was summery frock on and relaxing in the garden - well the shade with book number 2. I must say, it is rather nice to be getting a chance to read - completely guilt free!