Today’s objective was to eat a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.  Oh yes, and to do loads of housework – boring!

I started with a smoothie which I made with:

About 1/3 of a large pot of fat free vanilla yogurt
½ a banana
1 passionfruit
1 nectacot
Blueberries
1 tbsp sunflower butter

I really enjoyed it, although it was a bit sweet which I guess is from the vanilla yogurt.  I should stick with natural yogurt.  It was a tasty breakfast though and it kept me going until lunchtime.  Oh no it didn’t.  I had an apple and a coffee mid morning.

Lunch was a large salad but I did not really like the dressing.  I made up a salad base with lamb’s lettuce, cherry tomatoes and celery.  I added the falafel I had saved from lunch on Monday.

I made a dressing by blitzing about a third of a cucumber with 2 tbsp sunflower seeds in the small blender until pureed.  Plus I added some potted ham.

The potted ham was delicious and I preferred eating it in a salad to on toast because I could enjoy the flavour more.  So good to know I was enjoying a pork product from a happy pig and that didn’t have any rubbish added.

I adapted the dressing from a recipe I had seen in a book but I really didn’t like it much.  I also realised I particularly dislike this brand of falafels and will not eat them again.  I will try and make my own next time.  But apart from the dressing and the falafel, this was a good lunch.

Harvey’s friend Lucas was round for the day and they had a great time together.  We all walked in the woods together but apart from that, they amused each other so I got my chores done.

Supper was a red kidney bean chili with brown basmati rice.

Red Kidney Bean Chili.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 2 tbsp groundnut oil
• 1 onion, peeled and chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 yellow pepper, cored, desseded and diced
• 2 carrots, peeled and diced
• 1 stick of celery, diced
• ½ a red chili (more or less, according to spice preference)
• 1 large jar of passata
• 1 can of red kidney beans
• 2 ripe apricots
• 3 sprigs of thyme
• 1 level tsp sweet smoked paprika
• Salt and pepper

Method

• Heat oil in large pan which has a lid.
• Add onion, garlic, pepper, carrots and celery and fry gently for approximately 10 minutes until the vegetables are beginning to soften.
• Stir in the chili, passata, red kidney beans, apricots, thyme and paprika.

• Bring to a simmer and simmer for about 20 – 30 minutes until all the vegetables are soft. Season to taste and serve.  I served this with brown basmati rice and Gruyere.

It was tasty.  Not amazing but good enough and we both ate it.  Harvey had seconds which I could have done but I am trying to eat smaller portions.  I hope you noticed how modest the portion was.  In case you missed it, here’s another photo, of my half empty bowl 🙂

This would have been a brilliant day for healthy eating, if only I hadn’t snacked on dried fruit and pecans while I cooked supper.  Even so, it wasn’t a disaster and I am pleased I ate such a variety of fruits and vegetables.  14 to be precise.  14 different fruits and vegetables.  And that is not including the kidney beans.  Not so hard is it, to eat a minimum of only 5 a day?