Penne... vodka?

We had absolutely no idea what to have for tea tonight so I pulled out my copy of veganomicon and started flicking through, after several meal ideas we couldn't agree on we settled on trying the Penne Vodka. I've been wanting to try this for a while as I was interested to see how the almonds worked in the sauce. We only had one problem, no vodka... I've probably comitted some cooking blasphemy here but we went ahead anyway, it's unlikely I will ever have vodka in the house, neither of us like it or drink it so I figured it couldn't be bad without. It was really yummy! Since I'd already ignored the recipe and omitted the vodka we decided to ignore it a little more and add spinach and sweetcorn to get a bit more veg action into the tea! It was really good and reeeeaaally filling, we'll definately make this again!


This is the pasta we used, it's yummy and v. healthy!


I haven't done much baking lately :( I need some willing guinea pigs! I'm going to make Mike some truffles later that'll have to do for now!

I mentioned in my previous post about the 20 pull-up challenge and the 100 push up challenge, see links for more info. I'm starting the push ups tonight and I'm in week -2 of the pull-ups, the only thing I don't like about it is that it starts at -2, that's kind of annoying to have to start before week one! It would have been better to just add 2 weeks IMO, but that's just me being penickety! According to these websites I should be doing 100 push ups in 6 weeks and 20 pull-ups in 8!! I'll keep ya posted, I hope I get these results it does seem a bit optimistic but I'm gonna give it a go.

We've been having a back-off week this week to let our muscles recover, on Wednesday our workout consisted of 100 chair dips, 100 push ups (girly style on my knees!), 100 squats and 100 sit-ups.. doesn't sound too bad does it... it was!!! I'm still aching! I didn't even feel too bad when I'd finished but I woke up on Thursday sooo sore!

On Thursday I played badminton with Mike and my dad, they both always beat me but it's still fun, anyway this week I beat my dad, amazing lol I'm not sure if he was being kind though I told them not to let me win though, it's not so sweet that way hehe

Today, Friday I did the Randy Couture circuit I've mentioned before, I did it light and had 3.5 kg on each dumb bell as opposed to my usual 6kg so it gave me a light workout without stressing my muscles too much, my legs still hurt today and I'm hoping to go running tomorrow so I didn't want to burn out..

Lots of baking!

Wow it's been a long time since I got round to posting, I'm a bad blogger! I'm going to have to blame uni work and general tiredness! Here's lots of pics and a bonus pic of my beautiful hamster at the end to make up for it!

It was my mum and dad's birthday yesterday, they're both the same age, born on the same day, very odd coincidence.. We had tea at their house so I helped with the veg and my mum did their main meal, I also brought all the deserts. They request carrot cake, the apple spice caramel cupcakes from vcon and something chocolatey... I tried to make a carrot cake but for some reason it didn't work and wasn't cooked right so I decided to make the carrot cupcakes from VCTOW I did a lemony cream 'cheese' frosting to go on top... that's right, I had a full family of omnis eating vegan cheese!! I also decorated the carrot cupcakes with some marzipan carrots, my grandad loved them! For the something chocolatey I made the chewy chocolate raspberry cookies from vcon but I used ginger preserves and made them chocolate ginger cookies, my brother ate two before we even sat down to eat!

The spread at my house before I took it all round


Carrot cake cupcakes with lemony cream 'cheese' frosting and marzipan carrots!


this one looks like it has a smiley face!!


Caramel apple spice cupcakes
My mum didn't like the nuts on these last time so I roasted some cashews and brought them in a bag for people to put on if they wanted to

Chocolate ginger cookies


Bonus hamster pic!