York, health food and farm shops

Thank you everyone for the overwhelming response to my finding balance post! I’m glad so many of you found it interesting and thought provoking and I truly appreciate all of the comments. I’m going to try and respond to all the comments, so please check back later!

Anyway, onwards and upwards! On Wednesday me and the hubby had a lovely short break down to York. We both like York as its not too far to travel, has a nice relaxed atmosphere and plenty of things to do. Before we made the journey down I hit the gym for a workout. I did 30 minutes on the treadmill followed by 30 minutes of HIITs on the cross trainer, step machine and bike followed by my abs and core exercises. I rushed myself home and had a quick breakfast of Dorset Cereal cherry, cranberry and almond muesli with two chopped nectarines and rice milk:

The drive to York was a bit of a slow one due to road works but we got to our lovely hotel, got checked in and headed off in search of food. We ended up going to the Slug and Lettuce more because we were starving and couldn’t be bothered to look for a more inspiring option! I had a surprisingly tasty and filling spicy sweet potato, chickpea and couscous salad:

After lunch we had a good wonder about the shops. I stopped off at a little place called Xing for a fresh beetroot, carrot, apple and lime juice:

We also sheltered from the cold in Cafe Nero where I enjoyed a lush creamy soy chai latte:

After a little bit of shopping (more on that in a mo!) we went back to the hotel to chill and get ready to head out for dinner. The hotel we stayed in was lovely, its called The Blossoms, the room was really pretty:

I like to stay at little B&B’s rather than big chain hotels, they always have so much more character!

James is a big fan of Italian food so we ended up having dinner at a little Italian Kitchen, unfortunately I can’t remember the name of it! All the food was prepared fresh to order. I started with some olives:

Then for my main I had some tagliette with red pepper, courgette and sun blush tomatoes:

This was delicious! James had a big pizza that was topped with some wonderful creamy goats cheese that he doesn’t like so I scooped it off his pizza and popped a big dollop of that on to the pasta which just made it more tasty. After our meal we went for a drink, I had a large glass of Rioja:

I can not handle my drink at all so this large glass left me well tipsy!

For breakfast the next day we ate at the hotel as a light breakfast was included with our room. The choices were pretty crap to be honest but I still ended up with something quite tasty. I had branflakes with chopped nuts, dried apricots, dates, 2 clemintines and an apple. I brought a little carton of rice milk with me and added that on top:

We had another walk into town for a mooch about which of course included coffee, grande soy caramel latte:

Of course I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t check out the health food shops in the area! I went to an excellent place called Tullivers and found several interesting bits and pieces. We also had a walk out of town to a place called Alligator Wholefoods. I was hoping they would have more fresh veggies but they seemed very low on stock. Between the two stores I ended up purchasing:

Wholegrain couscous, coconut flour, vanilla hemp protein powder, amaranth,  green tea and ginger chocolate, vanilla chai tea, seitan in tamari and carob powder. I thought I’d try the hemp protein as a cheaper alternative to my Sun warrior on some occasions and I’ve been curious about amaranth, coconut flour and carob powder for ages.

We headed home before lunch and went straight to the Metro Centre. For lunch I bought a mango and blueberry super salad from Marks and Spencer and paired it with a mixed salad bowl to make it more filling and to get in some extra greens and beets. I also had some melon and grapes:

I picked up a few random clothing items which I shall post about soon, including a bargain denim shift dress from Mango which I am in love with!

As the veggies in Alligator had been disappointing we decided to try and find a local farm shop which we’d heard about but never got round to visiting. Its only a 10 minute drive from where we live and it was fabulous! Mountains of cheap organic and mostly locally grown veggies and other organic products such as tinned beans, breads etc. I was over the moon! I got bananas, aubergine, courgette, onions, huge bag of purple kale, broccoli, red pepper, kiwis, plums and a jar of peanut butter all for under a tenner, score! How beautiful is this kale?

When we got home I did my quick yoga and core workout then put the kale to good use in a smoothie alongside frozen berries, rice milk, almond butter, matcha, spirulina and maca topped with gojis:

For dinner I dug out a wholemeal pitta bread from the freezer and made pitta pizza. I roasted red onion, aubergine, courgette and red pepper then topped the pitta with passata, the roast veggies and some vegan cheezly mozzarella style cheese that has been languishing at the back of my fridge for a couple of months. I served it with a big spinach and lettuce salad topped with cool oil, braggs and gomasio:

Yum, yum! I was well impressed with the cheese, it melted really well! Dessert was some broad berry’s rose flavoured raw chocolate with two chopped apples:

Now that I am exceptionally well stocked up in fashion and food items the time has come to start cutting back my spending considerably. I’m not doing another budget challenge but I will be going back at looking at what I learned so I can start making some savings, particularly in my grocery budget!

Well I am off to enjoy the rest of my day, a lovely relaxing bath is calling my name, oh how I love having time off! Hope your all having a great week and have a good weekend planned. I’ll be enjoying more time with James before he starts his new job next week! :-)

Tagged as: holiday, italian, pitta pizza, shopping