Summer in the little city

Saturday I laughed and groaned throught the 8am class and don't my calves know it! I've taken to doing my vegetable shopping at the market with my nanna trolley - sooo much easier. Saturday's foraging resulted in some pork, walnut & prune terrine from the Wursthaus (not as special as the duck terrine from last week but still very nice), some turkey waldorf salad and some green bean salad both from the Wursthaus and a few slices of saucission sec, again from the Wursthaus. I served it with the last of that Old Telegraph Rd washed rind cheese from last week, a loaf of the fig & walnut sourdough from the wonderful/evil Daci & Daci (I'm so conflicted), some tomatoes and some gerkhins. Yum! And here's a picture!

Saturday night we had porterhouse, chilli corn, bbqed mushrooms and silverbeet in a tomato sauce. Yum! It was fine until I noticed the next day that corn is on the NO list. Whoops.

The only thing I have to say about Sunday is that it was Sunday, it was a BBQ, I had a beer. But it was in honour of a friend's birthday and he happens to be a sports reporter so  that makes it practically exercise. We took a sumac coated lamb backstrap (I got a 500g one so there was enough for us and to pass around too). But I didn't have the second beer and I resisted the potato salad - I made do with watching my husband eat some.

Comparing notes

I've just looked back through my earlier posts. On this day I talked about how sore I was between classes. Well, I have to admit that the inbetween days are no longer marked with screaimng abs, tortured calves or spasming glutes. I'm not sure if it's from doing so many classes that my body doesn't get the space to complain or if my body has decided that there's no use whinging because I'm going to do it anyway. At any rate each class is now a distinct pain event rather than building and layering on the torment of the class before. I think that's probably a good thing. :D

Progress Report

Dear Reader, I'm feeling like I've dropped the ball a bit. Whilst my committment to classes has been excellent (I'm managing to attend 5 classes a week) my adherence to the PLAN has been poor this week. I ate cake on Monday (but it was to help interpret legislation so it was absolutely necessary and you saw the picture, I simply had to eat it). To be fair I did manage to resist potato salad at my mother's house (anyone who knows my mother knows that that is a Herculean task in itself). My boss forced a piece of chocolate cake on me on Wednesday (I was on the phone and was eating it before I realised what happened). Yesterday having baked for a family get-together, I ate 3 cheese scones (from Stephanie Alexander's basic recipe with some finely chopped spring onions, tasty cheddar and some shave parmesan on top) but resisted the raspberry & white chocolate muffins (also from Stephanie with finely chopped Whittaker's white chocolate and a double handful of frozen raspberries added)... And BREATHE!

On the plus side I have been drinking magical green goo and we haven't eaten take out since this thing started.

Dinner last night was Roast Chicken with baked carrots, sweet potato, zucchini and steamed green beans. I spatchcocked the chicken and slashed its thighs so that it would cook faster/more evenly and just popped it on a rack over the sweet potato and the carrots. Carrots on the outside, surrounding the sweet potato as the carrots need a little more cooking. Chicken was rubbed with olive oil, then lemon juice and sprinkled with s&p. I cooked the zucchini on the rack after the chicken was removed to rest. Lunch today is a leftover vegetable salad with pumpkin seeds and a dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, a clove of roast garlic from last night's dinner and 2 tsp of dijon, s&p, topped with sliced chicken breast (also left over from dinner).

Hope you all had a wonderful Australia Day - my friend Emma had her first Fusion class and NOW she understands what everyone else has been going on about. Thankyou Deborah for introducing me (and my new to Fusion friend) to the painful delights of the "drunken sailor" and the "sumo". Oh my! The glute stretch after was possibly worse than actually doing the exercises. Apologies to anyone else in that class - the groaning, gasping, sobbing and hysterical laughing was me. Sorry.

Ciao for now.

Editing notes

Please note that I edited the cevapcici recipe. I had forgotten about the chilli. You can't forget the chilli. It's not negotiable. Unless you wanted to add more than one; you can if you like.

The evils of cake

My boss made me eat cake. I managed to refuse him this morning but this afternoon I was on the phone, I was not paying attention, he waved the cake under my nose and before I knew what happened I was eating it. It is now sitting in my stomach, heavy like Judas cake. At least I denied some potatoes last week. To make up for the cake lapse I have signed up for the Tuesday Sparrow's Fart class.

Lunching like my life depended on it

Yesterday I had some mummy buddies over for a spot of lunch. I can officially confirm that Max loves hommus. I served a Nicholls Roast Chicken from Augusta Rd Foodstore, a baby cos, lebanese cucumber, kumato, feta, avocado salad, a rocket & parmesan salad, a selection of cheese, some hommus, stuffed peppadews, pickled octopus (which Max also likes but it's a bit chewy so he usually gives it back after a while), gherkins, some dolmades (Max declined), one of the girls brought some little lentil cakes (which went very well with the hommus - I'll get the recipe and post it) and another brought along bread (which I didn't touch!) and some ham to round out the meal. The girls were all terribly impressed with my new found dedication to exercise and healthy eating, my shrinking butt and the last of that terrible, wicked cheesecake from the other day.

For dinner I had some mince in the fridge to use so decided to make something approximating the cevapcici my uncle's father used to make  when I was a child (or it might have been my uncle's step-mother, I'm a little hazy on the details of who exactly made the cevapcici. I was, I confess, more interested in eating them).

My take on cevapcici (see here for a more traditional recipe)

Ingredients
500g pork & veal mince (Woolies has this)
1/2 finely diced red onion
3 cloves of garlic, grated (bless the microplane)
1 birdseye chilli, seeds removed, finely sliced
s&p

Method
Heat oven to 220C. Mix ingredients together well with hands. It's important to give it a really good go, I think it has something to do wtih the proteins otherwise you end up with crumbly blah cevaps/meatballs/siu mai/whatever it is you're making. Roll into little sausage shapes - I make mine the length of the width of my palm - they end up looking quite hideous, but carry on. Place on an oven tray lined with baking paper. I brushed mine with a little olive oil but considering the fat that poured out of the little suckers I might forego the oil next time. If you're using beef mince or lamb mince I'd definitely use some oil though. Crank the oven up to 250, bake until browned about 20 mins or so, check to make sure they're cooked all the way through. I think mine were a little over done so I recommend being vigilant and playing it by ear. YOU KNOW YOUR OVEN BETTER THAN I DO! Serve with salad. I had salad left over from lunch so there was no more work to be done.

Ciao for now!

101 Reasons to love the barre - 1

I discovered another reason to love the barre. On Saturday night I was out at MONA FOMA seeing the inestimable PJ Harvey. I was, unfortunately, stuck behind a ridiculously tall man.  (What person that tall stands that close to the front, I ask you?) But because of all the high heels and kitten heels workouts I've been doing it was really a breeze to spend most of the gig standing on Posh Spice height imaginary heels. Hurrah for Barrecode!

Saving all my car-arbs for youuuuu!

Coconut & lime cheesecake w candied coconut, brown sugar pineapple and pineapple & lime syrup! The recipe's in this month's Gourmet Traveller. I only had a very little slice (oh... you can see the picture... well it was a very little slice compared to the one I cut my boss) and I'm sending the rest to my husband - he works in the Lands Building if you want want to mug him - so that I'm not tempted to crack it open for afternoon tea as well.

Blessed is the rest day!

Dinner last night was barbequed lobster (caught by my lovely husband), we sliced them in half lengthways, removed the yucky bits, smeared on some garlic butter and cooked them on the flat grill on the bbq, cut side down, then shell side to cook the rest of the way through. Served with a beetroot, beetroot leaves, grapefruit and feta salad and a mixed salad of lettuce, carrot, cucumber, fresh herbs from the garden and red onion. YUM!

Yesterday's carryover omelette was 3 cheese (tasty, a little lump of that washed rind from Saturday's ploughman's lunch, and a little shaving of parmesan), bacon (free range from Scottsdale Pork) and a couple of big handfuls of baby spinach.  Thankyou Miss C for this idea of cook enough eggs for two meals, it's saving me so much time!

As well as making that offensive (and delicious) cheesecake yesterday I made sweet potato, (heavy on the) baby spinach, feta and pine nut salad. And some hummus for the week - following the taste.com recipe recommended by the good and great PLAN (see here). Obviously I had to add half again to the ingredients as chickpeas commonly come in 400g cans not 600g cans  - I don't know where that writer is getting her chickpeas from but it's not Woolies. I went with slightly more garlic than recommended as 3 cloves plus half again is 4 1/2 and I figured I might as well use 5, but I use quite strong organic purple garlic so that might have been overkill. I'll hold off till afternoon tea to try any so I don't accidentally fumigate my fellow barre-babes at lunch. (It's my first class with Collette; I don't want her to think of me as Garlic Woman.).

Ciao for now!

So far so good

Dear Reader,

So far so good. I think I'm about 17 days in and I've done about 12 classes in that time! I'm feeling great, heaps of energy, my clothes are already loosening and my flexibility has increased noticeably. I'm enjoying the challenge of eating to a regime and despite buying more vegetables than an average family of ten, because I'm eating out for lunch less I think I'm still ahead!

Ciao for now!

Foraging...

A sort of ploughman's lunch.

Clockwise from the top left: Pear Chutney from Daci & Daci, fresh pears, gherkins, fig & walnut bread from Daci & Daci, roast vegetable salad from Wursthaus sexed up with some baby spinach leaves and toasted pinenuts, King Island Dairy - Surprise Bay cheddar, Old Telegraph Road washed rind cheese, duck & pistachio terrine from the Wursthaus.

Mmm... Chinese food

Thankyou Bonita for the lovely neck stretch at the end of Wednesday's lunchtime class - I feel as right as rain now!
For dinner on Wednesday night I was inspired by the suggestion of beef and blackbean to spruce up a regular dish of my own and make it more PLAN-friendly.

Blackbean Chicken Combination
approx 500g free range chicken thighs
bok choy (left over from the blue eye and green nam jim the other night)
bean sprouts (ditto)
green beans (left over from Sunday night)
asparagus (left over from the soft boiled eggs and asparagus)
spring onions
grated (unpeeled) carrot
red capsicum
rice bran oil (rice bran oil has a very high smoke point and no flavour)
light soy (I don't know how much... not more than a Tbs? A sploosh?)
dark soy (only a tsp of this as it is quite high in sugar)
2 heaped tsp of chilli bean sauce
sesame oil (a few drops, 1/2 tsp max)
japanese rice wine vinegar
chinese rice wine (a sploosh in the sauce and a double sploosh to deglaze)
grated ginger
sliced ginger
grated garlic clove
heaped tsp of cornflour (cornflour maintains its characteristics at a higher heat than plain flour)

Method
I roughly chopped the bok choy, halved the asparagus, just tipped the green beans cut the capsicum into long, thin lengthwise strips
Slice the chicken thighs and throw in the sauces, wine, vinegar, grated ginger and garlic, mix and set aside
You want the wok HOT then add the oil.
I first fry the sliced ginger to flavour the oil.
Then add in order, letting the wok heat back up in between vegetables - asparagus, green beans, grated carrot (if carrot is sliced, it goes in first), capsicum, bok choy. Remeber to vigorously swoosh it about with your wok chun (aka wok shovel or Neil Perry uses a ladle; I'm not convinced by the ladle)
Add a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar if you want, 1/2 c. of water, slam on the lid, shake a bit, leave to steam for a minute or two. (The salt and the sugar help keep the vegetables brightly coloured and shiny. Remember stir-fried vegetables should still have CRUNCH!)
Stir through your beansprouts then empty the whole lot onto your plate and return wok to heat.
Get it HOT!
Throw in the chicken. Put the cornflour in the dirty chicken bowl, add about 1/2 of COLD water, stir to dissolve the cornflour. Return the mind and hands to the chicken. Just push it around until you can't see anymore pinkbits. Add the cornflour water. Allow the sauce to thicken, toss the vegetables back in, mix chicken into veg then return to plate.
I like to deglaze (it also helps clean the pan) with some additional rice wine, pour that over the dish. (I served it with rice for the husband). Ta da!
And here's a picture!

hot lemon tip

Dear Reader, if like me you are doing the 60 Day Challenge you are currently consuming a job lot of lemons. I've noticed that Coles and Woolies only seem to have American lemons at the moment. Salamanca Fruit Market, on the other hand, has Australian lemons. No need to sour your morning drink with the guilt of excess food miles! It would be even better if those bloody lemon trees at my house started putting out. The Eureka in the backyard is getting there and the Myer in the front yard is still too new and Peter Cundall, the patron saint of productive gardens, says that you shouldn't let them produce for 2 - 3 years. And there is no way I am arguing with Peter Cundall.

Ciao for now.

Thunder! Lightning!

I was thankful that I missed out on a spot in yesterday's lunchtime class, Miss C said that there were 17 (!!!) people in the class and it would have been somewhere near the hottest part of the day. Sweaty! I imagine the after work class was quite pleasant by comparison. There was rain and the odd cooling breeze sneaking through the door. Lovely!

As I wasn't pulsing, beating and squeezing at lunchtime and I'd cancelled my lunch date due to the heat I thought I would investigate Wursthaus for PLAN-appropriate comestibles. I think the small salad - I had half italian bean and half beetroot & red cabbage - would get the dynamic tick of approval. The zucchini slice was delicious but I guarantee you it had way to much flour in it. Next time I might grab a smoked chicken drumstick or two instead of the slice of forbidden delights.

Dinner was Al's favourite so far I think. We had the sumac spiced lamb with tomato salad (as recommended by the PLAN. There were no radishes at Salamanca Fruit Market. As per Miss C's suggestion I added chickpeas but went for a couple of handfuls of baby spinach instead of green beans, I also added some fried haloumi because I love it. I used lamb backstrap and brushed the sumac coated lamb lightly with olive oil before cooking them on the grill for about 3 minutes per side and left to rest whilst I cooked the haloumi. I've never used sumac before (I got mine from the Wursthaus although I assume it's readily available). We'll definitely be doing this one again. Loved it.

And here's a picture of this morning's omelette of (leftover) steamed asparagus, torn baby spinach leaves, feta and (leftover because I shaved too much off the block yesterday) parmesan.

Nam nam jin

First Pilates session of the year. Oh my lord have I gotten bendy! 12 days into the 60 Day Challenge and I am definitely getting results in my flexibility. Hurrah!

Tonight for dinner I cooked blue eye with green nam jin. I added some ginger to the nam jin because I can't help myself and some carrots to the bok choy and beansprouts. Blue eye is $3 cheaper per kg at the Fishman punt than it is at Mure's. If, like me, you want it and forget to ask for it skinned. Skinning blue eye is not, as I discovered, that difficult. I skinned my beautiful whole fillet by putting it skin down on the board, tail end facing me, gripping the tail end, I eased the knife between the skin and the flesh and just pushed the knife against the skin and away from my body and voila! Easy as that. :D Or better yet, get your fish guy to do it.

In the interests of keeping my interest in eggs I am forgoing the PLAN's frittata tomorrow and having asparagus with soft boiled eggs and parmasen, Cook and the Chef style. Yum! I love you Maggie. I love you Simon. I figure if I cook enough asparagus I can use the leftovers for a frittata or omelette tomorrow.

Oh and my hot tip for those wanting to make the hommus do not despair! It is perfectly normal not to have tahini in your cupboard - you can do it without tahini, see Stephanie Alexander's recipe from Cook's Companion. Don't tell me you don't have Cook's Companion it is not normal to not have that knocking about your kitchen.

Ciao for now!

Food! Glorious food!

I just had my first class with Hannah. I am wobbly. 'Nuff said.

Today for lunch I am having leftovers from last night. I had things to be used in my refrigerator so I veered off the the PLAN and into the wilds of experimentation.

Cajun chicken (from here) with steamed green beans, cauliflower couscous (like cous cous but made out of cauliflower. I know! Genius!) and salsa verde (loosely based on Stephanie Alexander's recipe).

2 large free-range chicken breasts
paprika (I used smoked paprika, which I get from the Italian Pantry - lovely)
cayenne (I may have been slightly enthusiastic about how much of this I used)
1/2 bag of green beans from the Hmong

Cauliflower Cous Cous
1 small cauliflower (the fresher the better, which is why you want some leaves on a cauli to give you some idea of how fresh it is)
1 tsp of olive oil
2 tsp of butter
some cheese (I used wasabi... I did say that this was a fridge special, didn't I?)
s&p

Salsa Verde
handful of baby spinach (ie what was left in the bag)
some parsley
1 small gherkin (not as small as a cornichon but not as big as a dill pickle, if you're using cornichon I'd go 2)
some pinenuts
3tsp of olive oil

I processed the cauliflower (florets only, you can use the stems but I don't think the texture is as good) till it resembled couscous. I gently fried it in a tsp of olive oil and 2 tsp of butter and some s&p (google tells me that you can also do this by steaming (looks annoying) or baking (perhaps if I were turning on the oven anyway). It takes about 7 - 10 minutes depending on how you like it. At the same time I had the chicken (see the link for instructions on that) on the go in the George and the beans steaming. The salsa verde I blitzed with the little bowl thingy for the trusty bamix.

It all came together quite well. (I'll add a picture later.) Husband like it. There was enough for us both to have leftovers for lunch. Hurrah!

Buns of steel, thighs of pain

Thanks to Bonita on Saturday morning I now know what quadriceps do. Quadriceps are the muscles that prevent you from falling down the hill at the Botanical Gardens after the pram. So whilst it is the buns that push your baby up the hill, it is the quadriceps that ensure that he goes down the hill at an appropriate and safe speed. Quadriceps also assist in the clinging on to imitation horses on alarmingly fast antique steam-driven carousels (see here).

Killing two birds with one smoothie

Dear Reader,

I've had a fabulous idea. Emma (a colleague and fellow 60 Day Challenger) and I are teaming up for the mystical pond slime challenge. You see the problem is that a blender makes around 4 serves but those serves only keep for around 2 1/2 days. I'm not so keen on drinking homemade algal blooms that I'm prepared to try it defrosted. And I have some storage issues in my freezer that we needn't go into right now. So... Emma and I are taking it in turns to blend the living daylights out of innocent vegetables. This morning I made 2 serves each (bottled in Decor 1l plastic food/drink bottles - currently about $4 at Woolies!) and stashed them in the work fridge. Which means I'm done until Thursday night! Wooohooo! The bonus is that by working together we're keeping each other on track to make the most of the remaining 6 weeks or so of the challenge. :D

Today's special (which I have yet to have a serious swig of, I'll get back to you in an hour or so)

1 3/4 c. chilled water
1 bunch of spinach (from the Hmong)
1/2 bunch of rocket (also from the Hmong)
1/2 a smallish iceberg lettuce
1 Haas avocado
2 sticks celery
1 granny smith apple
1 pink lady apple
an inch cube or thereabouts of ginger
a small handful of parsley leaves
juice of 1/2 lemon

It only made about 1.4l - it was only a small iceberg so maybe a whole small one or half a large one and an extra stick of celery would be a good idea - I'm aiming for about 1.6l which is about the most I can squeeze into old faithful (my kenwood food processor and blender).

Ciao for now!

A life of leftovers

First things first. The leftover greek bean and silverbeet stew I made the other night (see here) made a great pasta sauce (once blitzed with the beloved bamix) for my 17 month old son, Max. Max, you'll be somewhat astonished to know, also polished off the last of batch 1 of the magic green goo. I wouldn't have given him any but he asked in his emphatic wordless way, so I complied and he ate the lot. One spoon would go in and 'lo and behold!' the little bird mouth would promptly open demanding another. Unbelievable!

Saturday, oh my! I trotted along to the 8am class with the lovely, Bonita. Then, for some unfathomable reason, I drove to Fahan for an informal boxing session with the Booty crew.
There was actually a reason to put myself through a barre session and then a boxing session and that was to test out this idea of doing cardio straight after a barre session (see the Barrecode FAQ page!). I think I liked it? I'll try it again next week. We'll call it research.

I ate a roast potato Friday night and half a roast potato on Saturday night. I can resist cooking potatoes. I can resist any second potato worth the name. But if someone else cooked the delicious precious thing it would be just plain rude if I didn't eat at least one. I had to know if it was as good as it looked. It was. And so was that other one. And I loved every minute of wicked starchy goodness. I did not, however, eat a custard bombaloni from Daci and Daci. I bought one for my husband and made him eat it instead.

And there endeth Saturday.

Confessions

Dear Reader, I have a confession to make... Today I succumbed to the barest sliver of my evil workmate's delightful pastry from Daci & Daci. It was delicious. I loved it. You can't make me feel bad about it. I loved every little flakey, sugary, fruity moment of it. I washed it down magic greeen goo so I think that makes it okay.

Grunted and sweated (and laughed) through my second Fusion class with Deborah after work (I think I'm going to make it a regular thing. It's a great class). The incessant smiling makes it kind of better, kind of worse. :D My calves are still sore from yesterday's class and now my abs are stinging right up around my ribcage. I live in the hope that by the end of this 60 Days it won't hurt so much. I might miss it a little bit though... At least you know you've done exercise when your disgruntled body reminds you of it constantly. Many balls were dropped today - I'm just thankful I didn't fall over as well as losing control of my ball.

Al (the husband) has remarked that I already seem brighter and straighter, more energetic . I know I certainly feel it. I must say that the workplace benefits of increased concentration and energy is probably balanced out by the increased number of toilet visits - all that water I'm drinking has to go somewhere.

Dinner tonight (as recommended by the Great and Marvellous PLAN) was thai beef salad. Bloody bugs have eaten my mint and I failed to notice the chillis when I read the recipe so didn't get any, and I used iceberg instead of butter lettuce and probably made only half the dressing but it was delicious nonetheless and we'd definitely do it again. Al has enjoyed all of the food so far and has been impressed with how quick and simple everything is and how little washing up there is compared with the food I usually cook. Hahaha!

Ciao for now!

Little Every Day Challenges

As part of the 60 Day Challenge I have also swapped my daily double shot medium soy latte at Harbour Lights for a single shot long black - saving myself $1 a day and who knows how many extraneous calories (here's an article about how caffe lattes are making us all fat). Woohoo! 8 weeks of the Challenge, 4 working days a week, that's about $32 I will have saved myself. Excellent. Not to mention the savings I'm making by taking my lunch in more regularly.

For the love of goo

Breakfast this morning was leftover frittata from yesterday. The PLAN called for making a vegetable frittata but I had leftover sweet potato, spinach, feta and pinenut salad from Tuesday so used that as the base for my frittata instead. I added a little more baby spinach which I fried up with some rice bran oil spray, poured in 4 eggs mixed with a little pure cream, s&p, then tossed the leftover salad in on top. I popped a lid on jsut to help it set a little bit before sticking it under the grill to cook the whole way through. It was quick to make and delicious.

I've taken the plunge and blended the living heck out of a metric tonne of leafy greens to make the dreaded green goo, I mean smoothie, that nobody I know has been game enough to try yet. I used the following amounts

1 bunch of spinach from the Hmong (which makes about 7 loosely packed cups when chopped)
half an iceberg lettuce
3 big leaves of silverbeet left over from last night's dinner
1 avocado
1 granny smith apple (skin on, core cut out)
1 crunchy green pear (skin on, core cut out)
2 sticks of celery
about 1 1/2 c. of chilled water
2 inch cubed sized lumps of ginger grated (bless the microplane)
juice of most of a lemon (some went in my morning lemony water drink)

I wasn't sure if it would all fit in my trusty blender but it did! It was a little bland until I put the lemon juice in. It smelled like grass clippings. It made about 1.5l I've stored the remainder in the fridge in a glass jug with plastic wrap smoothed over the surface like you would homemade mayonnaise. I'll let you know how it goes. Heaven knows what my workmates will think of the electric green slime in the work fridge!

Ciao for now!

Ladies who do lunch

I did some lady lunching today with a gf at knoppies. In the interests of dynamically eating I ordered the poached salmon and vegetables with lemon buerre blanc and had a glass of water with a slice of lemon instead of my usual glass of vin rouge. I recommend asking for the lemony buttery goodness on the side though, the poor fish was delicious but positively drenched.

Because I was lunching at lunch I went to the after work class at the Customs studio. It was my first class with Maggie. She looks so nice but my thighs are not friends with her. I got the most amazing case of wobbly legs during the clam - wobbliest ever. Go Maggie! Even with the same instructors there seems to be something new every class, seeing a few different instructors through the week is certainly spicing up my barre experience. ;)

Dinner... All that talk of exercise has me thinking food again. I followed the link for balsamic chicken and white bean salad and ended up quite accidentally at a recipe for greek bean and silverbeet stew which I can't seem to make a link to... Damn technology. But here's a picture of the one I made. I added chicken thighs to the recipe as it didn't seem to have enough protein to pass muster otherwise.

I have put off making the green goo for another night. If you don't know what I'm talking about google "green smoothie".

Why 120bpm?

Why 120bpm? Because that's the speed of Hung Up by Madonna which got me through barre class on Monday and a vigorous walk around the block with the pram on Tuesday and inspired me to write a blog! I suppose I should actually tell someone I'm doing a blog otherwise it's merely a diary... Mmmmm... I'll think about it.

Yesterday - no exercise other than doing the shopping with a toddler in tow and a vigorous walk around the block with the pram to encourage said toddler to succumb to a morning nap.

Had a soy latte in the morning with husband before he went to work. Oomph on Macquarie St do an excellent babycino - Max seemed impressed with the density of foam and smiley face scribbled on the top.

For lunch I had some mummy buddies over. With the barest nod to the "dynamic eating plan" plan I prepared a sweet potato, spinach, bulgarian feta and pine nut salad and a salad of beetroot, beetroot leaves, ruby red grapefruit and bulgarian feta (Max loved the beetroot). I also served pate, gerkhins, triple cream brie with garlic-rubbed toast (16 hour white from Jackman & McRoss).

For dinner made cajun chicken with avocado salsa on steamed green beans from this recipe. Instead of frying the chicken I grilled it in the George Foreman and I used spring onions instead of chives. Quick, delicious and filling. I'd go it again.

First things

Once upon a time there were lots of things that I didn't "do". I didn't "do" blue jeans. I didn't "do" exercise. I didn't "do" blogs. Welcome to my blog about being a mother (who frequently wears blue jeans) and is a new convert to the barre method and is doing a Barrecode 60 day challenge in an attempt to get her sagging baby body back in shape before having another baby. I thought I'd share some exercise stories and recipes (I'm doing the eating plan that goes with the challenge) and hopefully a little success. Here goes...

Today is probably Day 6 of 60 days, I started on Thursday. Since then, I've done a class on Thursday after work (Fusion with Deborah at Customs - oh my!), the Saturday morning class (very painful thanks to Deborah on Thursday), Sunday I pushed my son Max around the golf course for the 5k event for the Cadbury Marathon, and yesterday I did a barre class at lunchtime at Customs which left me with wobbly legs when I went back to work.

Yesterday I also got my first look at Christie's (the Barrecode Guru) Dynamic Eating Plan. I also don't "do" diets but I thought given that I don't do exercise either I might as well give it a go, you never know, I might like it!