First off I hope everyone had a good Easter! Ours wasn’t very eventful, we didn’t really do anything special for it… Joe had a long weekend though so we spent Saturday & Sunday just lazing about the house and going for our usual walk, except that the weather was a bit better this weekend and the sun was actually shining! We did our walks through two different parks (one on Saturday and one on Sunday) and I loved it! The parks here are beautiful and I felt like staying there the whole day! Seriously considering buying a picnic blanket and walking over there with my book and spending a day there reading… only if it weren’t still so cold!

On Monday I had this brilliant idea for us to go on a day trip to the Cotswolds. For those of you who don’t know the Cotswolds are… actually I’ll just let good old Wikipedia to explain it to you 😉

Anyway so I convinced Joe to go to part of the Cotswolds region and for us to do a walk over there. Little did I know what I was getting us in to! So we arrived at our starting point, in a village called Broadway and the walk would take us to Broadway Tower which is the second highest point of the Cotswolds. 

When we got there we noticed that a lot of people were wearing gumboots or rain boots and there I was with my brand new barefoot shoes! Joe was the smart one and had bought a spare pair of shoes with him, which I told him off for since he forgot to tell me to bring a spare pair as well… which I REALLY ended up needing!

So we realised that people were wearing gumboots because the walk was muddy and I mean EXTREMELY MUDDY! We had to walk through and up these steep fields that were covered in mud AND halfway up the top there was snow and ice so you can imagine how slippery it was! Our shoes were covered in mud and I was ready to give up plenty of times but pushed through!

We were just about to reach the tower when we had to go up a flight of muddy/icy stairs and I though oh gee this is great! And Joe kept saying be careful, watch your step etc, which I was trying my best to do until we got up the top of the stairs and before I knew it I was lying face flat in the mud! Hahahah I have no idea how that happened! So after that I was covered in mud and we still had to walk all the way back to our car! Luckily I was wearing some leggings under my walking pants for the trip back home! I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I suggested we do this walk but it was pretty fun and I have to laugh about my fall! Oh dear!

After that walk I was soooo sore! I really need to work on my incline walks because my legs were KILLING ME! I thought they would just give up on me on the walk but I kept pushing through. Once we got home I jumped right in the shower and we have these amazing shower heads in our apartment that you can change the setting on, so there’s a normal setting, soft and then massage. So I had the massage setting on and it felt so good! But I couldn’t move for the rest of the night and skipped my walk with Joe the next day, even though we had gone for a short walk down to the shops earlier in the day, I just couldn’t bring myself to do our regular walk! I’m glad I didn’t because I feel much better for taking that bit of rest yesterday!

Apart from our crazy walking adventures, this Easter weekend saw me falling MAJORLY off the wagon with my eating! Mainly in the sweets area, which now I REALLY know I need to get a handle on! I blame it on going grocery shopping when I was hungry… BIG MISTAKE! I ended up buying some of these bars called Nakd bars much like Larabars so they don’t have any nasty ingredients but still they are like eating Paleo treats! I quickly got addicted to the chocolate orange flavour and usually I HATE chocolate and orange but these bars were SO GOOD! Which didn’t help my situation AT ALL! So after eating those I went on a bit of a downward spiral… BUT today is a new day and I’m determined to kick this sweet craving! Also I’ve decided to add a bit of fruit in since I realised I can’t do without zero fruit, so I’ll be having a little bit of fruit here and there but mainly sticking to the veggies. As for nuts I’m still also trying to stay away from those as much as possible!

So on my Facebook Page I mentioned that I would be putting up a new recipe today with Spring Cabbage in it, I’ve never cooked with Spring Cabbage before but last week it came in our delivery box and so I HAD to use it! That’s one thing I love about getting the box, I’m forced to try out veggies I would probably pass by if I shopped for my own produce. Anyway so I was all ready to share that recipe with you until I realised just before writing this post that I have NO idea where I put the recipe! I had it written down on some scrap paper and it looks like it was thrown out 😐 I can remember bits and pieces of what I did but I’m drawing a mind blank right now with some of the recipe!

Since I can’t share that particular recipe with you now I’ll leave you with this recipe for butternut squash fries or chips as us Aussies call them! These fries kind of just happened, I wasn’t even intending to make them but they were delicious!

Spiced Butternut Squash Fries

Ingredients:

• 1 medium butternut squash.
• 1-2 tsp ground cinnamon.
• 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg.
• Pinch of ground cloves.
• Pinch of ground ginger.
• Pinch of sea salt.
• 1 Tbsp coconut oil (melted).
• Drizzle of hazelnut oil.

Method:

Preheat oven to 220C/425F and line a baking tray with some parchment/baking paper.

To cut the butternut squash, take a slice off the bottom so it stands flat on your cutting board, then take a slice off the top. Lay the squash on its side then cut it in half in the middle so you now have two pieces, the top and the bottom (with the seeds).

Cut each of these pieces in half length ways so now you have 4 pieces and scoop out the seeds from the bottom part of the squash.

Using a vegetable peeler, peel the skin off the butternut squash pieces and then cut each piece into fry like pieces.

Place the chips/fries into a mixing bowl and add in your seasonings. Use your hands to massage the seasoning mix all over the butternut squash pieces.

Place onto your lined baking tray and pour over the melted coconut oil.

Bake for 20 minutes then remove from the oven, flip the chips/fries over and bake for another 20 minutes.

Enjoy them warm with a drizzle of hazelnut oil on top. 🙂