My Birthday and Graze Box

Hope everyone is enjoying the week. I actually cannot believe it's Thursday already, this week has been non-stop! It was my birthday on Monday, I had a really nice day. Luckily I was on the early shift at work so after opening my presents from Mike and his mum and sisters I got my shift out of the way and was home by just gone half two. When I got home I was greeted by Mike and a cheeky monkey truffle which I forgot to photo but it was yummy and cute!

What's in the bag?

Tada! Nigella!

It's a huge book..

The recipe I plan to make first... Mexican lasagne.

The most yummy looking desert.. hazelnut tiramisu! YUM!

I love the little 'make ahead' and 'freeze' notes - very useful IMO

I also had a Pandora bag to open!

Pretty!!

This charm was from Mike, it's actually not an official Pandora one but it's cute isn't it and I'm certainly not one to care about the labels!

My doggie charm which his sister Emma picked out for me

I can't wait to fill it up with pretty charms, I already have a very expensive wish list forming....

We went to an Italian restaraunt my mum likes for my tea, I hadn't been before but the menu looked nice and veggie friendly. I forgot to take any pictures cause I'm a dopey so and so! But it was nice, if a little posh! We shared a garlic bread and some bruschetta for starters, they were both nice but the bruschetta portion was tiny! For mains Mike and I shared a mushroom pizza and a pasta dish. I was so surprised by the pasta dish.. It was 6 (not very big) pieces of ravioli and it was almost a tenner!!! The meat eaters portions were good but the veggie portions were tiny! At least it left room for desert - tiramisu, of course! The food was nice but I couldn't believe the prices... If I was footing the bill it would not be in my budget - my parents can't have minded since they chose it but still, I didn't like the prices - I'm too much of a bargainista!

We did have a lovely night though, we had part of the restaraunt to ourselves and the music was quiet so we could all talk. Isn't it the worst when you go out to eat and you can't hear yourself think? Unfortunately on my birthday I was the party pooper!! We went home at about 9.30.. knowing I had to be up at 5 and had been up at 5 that day was making me fall asleep!

I got the chance to try a graze box for free the other day, I'm so glad I did, I've been loving it so far! It's been great to have in my bag at work and I loved the fact that you got a surprise when you opened it

Close up so you can see what's inside...

Honey bee good - honey caramelised peanuts, cashews and pecans ate all of this yesterday in one of my breaks at work, loved it! I'm a sucker for caramelised nuts! Despite the fact the portion looks fairly small it was actually very filling and satisfying. I guess I have eyes bigger than my belly as my gran would say!

Love mix - a fruit mix including cherries, gojis and apricots. I love that the sweetened fruits are sweetened by concentrated fruit juice instead of sugar, I always pay more for that if I buy them that way so it's a big plus for me. This was really yummy!

Golden honey nut hazels were lovely too, I'm a sucker for caramelised nuts! Again, these were really decadent and satisfying.


Swallows and amazons, a mixture of brazils cherries and organic mango, it was really nice, I liked having a bite of nut with a bite of fruit, yummy :-)

I was supposed to get a graze box yesterday but it never arrived :-( so gutted! I reported it on the website and since today it still didn't come in the post they refunded it so can't complain. I hope it still arrives though, they make perfect treats for breaktime at work and I was totally looking forward to it making an appearance in my pack-up!

By the way - try your own graze box for free with this code KVRTFJ1 you won't regret it!

A Food Filled Post (and a little running..)

We'll start with the running! We decided to splash out and go to the track yesterday.. I love the track! My planned workout was 3 x 1600m with 1 minute rest in between, ouch!! I decided to modify it a little bit so I could test my fastest mile time. My previous fastest time was 6.53 and ... drumroll please.... It's now 6.43!! Wooooooooooohoooooooo :D

I'm so pleased with that, I thought I'd messed it up after the first 400m when I looked at the watch and it said 5.58 pace, I lost my gameplan as the track was full of teenage athletics people who were training and I was a bit intimidated haha I feel so amateurish compared to others! I felt like they were all looking at me and thinking I was slow, sometimes I wish I could shut my brain off, it's not always helpful! - Re-reading this sentence though, I should perhaps be kinder to my little brain, it has got me to the end of some horrible workouts!

Warm up - 1 mile at 9.30 pace
Mile 1 6.43 (shaved 10 seconds off!!)
Rest: 5 mins
Mile 2 - 7.40
Rest: 1 min
Mile 3 - 7.53

Damn! I missed mile 3 :-( The garmin pace said 7.40 so I thought I was ok but I actually ran 1.05 miles according to the garmin so my pacing was off! I always do this... I put too much faith in the satelites hehe.. My first mile according to the garmin was 6.32 but the track was 6.43, obviously the track is right so that's what I'm going with! The middle mile came out exactly at 1 mile... Mr garmin is confused!

Look at the lovely parcel which arrived through my door on Thursday...
All the goodies! I can't wait to be doing a long run to try the gel out, it's sugar free (brown rice syrup and agave) and full of cherry juice, sounds like my kind of fuel!
First up, the pinacolada bar. Personally I HATE coconut, really hate it! So I let Mike eat most of this but I did try a bite for reviewing purposes. The texture was absolutely spot on, really chewy and decadent, it tasted like it should have a really bad nutrtional profile but it doesn't, there is pretty much no sugar, just a small amount in the rice crispie bits which is minimal overall. It is mainly sweetened with rice syrup which I really like. You can view the full ingredient list here.
Mike's review is very technical - 'it was really nice'... Good thing I'm not relying on him for any other flavours!! He did also say how cruel it was to leave them all out with a note saying he could only try one and to save me a bite while I was at work.. He said it was far too tempting, but I must say he didn't give into temptation, he did insist we opened another one pretty much as soon as I walked in the door though!

Next we tried the Hunza nut - this had a nice flavour too, the name made me expect hazelnut but the hunza nut actually refers to apricots! I preferred the flavour of this bar but the texture was my favourite thing about it again, I really love the chewiness. Sorry no pictures... I let Mike take them... he says it's the cameras fault.. I'm not convinced! They all came out blurry though! This one is one I took!
The refuel bars were both chocolate based flavours with around 14g protein per bar I liked the chocolate date bar best I only wished they were both more chocolatey.. as a chocoholic they didn't quite hit the spot.. They were really nice but I wanted more chocolate!
Again... Mike took the pictures as he ate half this while I was at work... No comment, although it is better than the Hunza nut effort!
Mike liked the chocolate banana flavour best out of these two and likened it to a banana bread nakd bar.
*Disclaimer* - Mule bar sent me these products for free to review. All the opinions are my own (or Mike's where stated) and I was not paid for the review. Regardless of being sent something for free I will always state my true opinion.

Finally, here's that pizza I promised almost a week ago! Clearly I'd never make it as a food blogger as this is how much was left when I remembered to photograph it! It's topped with tomato puree, fresh basil, mushrooms, onions, sweetcorn, pineapple, veggie ham and of course cheese!

It's all gone now!