Been a while!

Wheeww!

Sorry the blog has been quiet for so long – in case you hadn’t already guessed, things have been pretty hectic!

So; the house move has happened, the rooms have (mostly) been painted, half the curtains are up, the picture frames have been unpacked and the furniture has been delivered.

Furnishing this house has been a nightmare. Firstly we needed a new bed, which we decided on a lovely walnut king size from NEXT. They have been an absolute terror with their customer service, we were supposed to receive everything on the 4th of March and after 4 deliveries that have gone wrong (they kept trying to send a 10 tonne lorry to my fairly quaint narrow road which I frequently informed them of) the bed is still not complete. Currently waiting for them to replace a faulty mattress – it’s supposed to arrive on Thursday but I’m not keeping my hopes up. For the trouble they caused us, you would have thought they would have sent something as an apology – but no. Even the £30 voucher for their own store they said they would get to me nearly 3 weeks ago hasn’t arrived yet. Maybe they sent that in a 10 tonne lorry too.

IKEA and John Lewis have been great on the other hand, we now have a beautiful new wardrobe with sliding doors, stunning lampshades and a comfy little sofa. The main problem has been how narrow our front door is – being 4 inches smaller than a standard frame certainly made sofa shopping difficult but we got there in the end and when everything is in it’s place I will post up some photos.

My little one is now a week away from being 5 months old (how time flies!) and last week he started to roll over, which has now turned in to rolling both front to back and back to front and shuffling in a 360 degree fashion. Terribly cute yet slightly alarming.

It feels like home here, which I am so happy about. No more disruptions from careless neighbors, no horrendous stairs to climb when you arrive at the front door and something which I am enjoying more than I actually thought I would is that when you leave the house there are no hills, unlike our last home where venturing out meant either a trek up a rather daunting looking hill or a sort of ‘slip n’ slide’ down an equally mountainous walkway. Problem is we’re 5 minutes from a Starbucks here and seeming as I’m on the 2nd stage of the Dukan diet now – the ever promising look I get from the chocolate fudge cake and butter pancakes I walk past every morning is starting to worry me.

Well, unfortunately there are many things to do and I must carry on with my very long list but thought I would check in on the way.

With Love,

Ms.Monroe

xox

nude and black set

nude and black set by msnadinepenny featuring heel pumps

Top
$22 - weekday.com

Citizens of humanity jeans
$180 - net-a-porter.com

Moschino
€61 - pret-a-beaute.com

Carvela Kurt Geiger heel pumps
£100 - kurtgeiger.com

Mulberry oversized bag
£1,100 - matchesfashion.com

Alexander mcqueen jewelry
£205 - harveynichols.com

THOMAS SABO butterfly jewelry
£119 - harrods.com

black and white skull set

black and white skull set by msnadinepenny featuring cubic zirconia stud earrings

Barbara Bui lace shirt
£289 - farfetch.com

American apparel t shirt
$69 - americanapparel.net

Balmain white skinny jeans
€995 - shopmrsh.com

Norma kamali swimwear
£290 - brownsfashion.com

Lipsy synthetic shoes
£75 - kurtgeiger.com

Alexander McQueen black jewelry
$470 - forwardforward.com

THOMAS SABO cubic zirconia stud earrings
£43 - harrods.com

Juicy Couture silver heart necklace
$50 - stylebop.com

Carb free Dukan friendly noodles!

O.M.G.

This week, I found the best Dukan product ever, the carb free, Dukan friendly noodle.

I found them in my local Chinese supermarket – they’re called Shirataki and are absolutely lovely in an oriental dish.

I cooked them today for lunch with chicken for a stir fry.

The stir fry is absolutely simple to make so I won’t bother with a full on recipe – basically I browned red onion, garlic and some chopped chilli in a pan added ready cooked chicken strips for convenience but you could use whichever type of meat you wish, then added a selection of roughly chopped veg – I used peppers but again you could use anything you like, I am a particular fan of broccoli. After this has either cooked or warmed through drench with soy sauce , season with pepper, tip in the (twice) rinsed noodles and make sure it’s piping hot before serving.

I have been having massive cravings for a take away and this has literally, taken them away!

Right, I have loads to do, as you can probably imagine so I am going to keep this post short.

With love,

Ms.Monroe

xox

P.S. We found a couple to take on our flat on the first viewing, wahoo!

It’s all happening now!

Good morning lovelies!

Well, what can I say? It’s literally non stop right now – my little boy is teething, being really vocal and is growing at an incredible rate! He’s only 3 1/2 months old and already in 6-9 month old clothes! It’s absolutely fantastic seeing him learn new things every day.

We found a house to move in to – going to say goodbye to our lovely 2 bed flat. I will miss our balcony and fabulous shared garden (more like a park, actually!) that we all have – and our neighbors. Saying that actually, not all of our neighbors. We have 6 students who live above us, and they literally are a herd of elephants despite our numerous tries to get them to quieten down when traipsing past our front door. I think they all have amnesia (“Oh gosh, sorry yes – yes of course we’ll be quiet, I’m SO sorry” slam, bang, slam).

And then there is next door, a lovely family who has a delightful son who is about 7 years old and practices his trumpet / saxophone /clarinet /trombone collection between the hours of 11pm and 7am. Shudder.

We wern’t actively looking for a new place, but recently I’ve been absolutely set on moving in to a house. So I found one, completely out of the blue and fell in love with it. It’s a small mews style house, 2 bedrooms, huge bathroom and kitchen and a little garden in a lovely area of town very close to shops etc. At the moment it has an incredibly messy family living in there and the house definitely needs a lick of paint, new curtains and a whole lot of love but I am so excited.

This means that we need to find someone who wants our flat though! So, it has been viewings galore the past few days and trying to make our flat picture perfect with baby in toe is fantastically hard work!

The big move happens on the 3rd March – I really went for it!

The Dukan Diet is going well, I am currently at 8 stone and 9lb – so I am very near my goal. Loads of people have commented on how slim I am looking which is lovely. Not had much time for exercise lately though! I was meant to be starting back at the gym this week and also starting water babies classes with the little man, but I think it will have to wait now.

I have a quick little recipe here which I really love on PP and PV days, it’s fantastic by itself or with salad.

Tuna fish cakes

Time to make: about 10 mins including cooking time

Ingredients: (will make 4-6 fish cakes depending on size)

• Chives or Parsley – a handful to taste, again I love the frozen packs for convenience
• 1 egg either whole or just the white depending on how many you are allowed on your day
• Salt & Pepper to taste
• 1.5 tbsp Oatbran
• 2 Shallots, finely chopped
• 1 can of tuna in springwater, drained.

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients together in a medium sized bowl.

2. Form in to cakes using your hands and heat non stick frying pan

3. Dry fry the fishcakes on each side for about 3-4 mins.

You can experiment with different herbs and spices with this, another favorite of mine is using coriander and some curry powder or paprika. They are so versatile!

 

With love,

Ms. Monroe

Delightful Dukan bolognese with courgette pasta

I love this main course.

Love, love, love it. Its such a tasty and delicious evening meal and the courgette ‘pasta’ is a brilliant idea because it really does feel like you’re having something substantial.

This recipe is a complete mix of many things that I have seen across the internet and books, so I have taken the best from them and made what I think is the best Dukan bolognese. The best thing is that if you make too much, you can store it in a container and it tastes even better heated up for the second time.

Time to make: About 40 mins (This can be longer or shorter depending on the time you simmer.)

Ingredients: (will serve two people with left overs)

• 2 courgettes
• 225g unsmoked fat free bacon, finely diced
• 2 onions, diced
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• 125g mushrooms, chopped ( I used a mix of Shitake and Button, but you can use whatever you wish)
• 3 sticks celery, diced
• 500g mince (I used 5% fat beef mince, but you can use whichever you like)
• 2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
• Dash of balsamic vinegar
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Method

1. To make the bolognese sauce, heat a large saucepan over a medium heat. Add the bacon, onion, garlic, mushrooms and celery and fry for about 6 minutes or until soft but not browned. Stir in the mince and stir-fry until it is evenly brown and crumbly. Add the chopped tomatoes, bay leaf and very lightly season with salt (the bacon is quite salty). Add pepper to taste
2. Simmer the bolognese gently for half an hour until it forms a thick, flavoursome sauce, then bay leaf and parsley and stir in a dash of balsamic vinegar. Whilst you are simmering, make thin strips from the courgette using a potato peeler or similar to make the ‘pasta’.
3. Just before you are ready to serve, drop the courgette into a pan of boiling water. Cook until al dente – about 4-5 minutes. Drain thoroughly and heap into a serving bowl. Ladle over the bolognese and serve.

With love,

Ms.Monroe

Delicious dukan curried egg verrines!

The thing that I love about this dish is that it is so pretty and it is definitely something you could make at a dinner party or to impress friends without obviously looking like you’re on a diet. It is a little time consuming but that is because of the presentation and you do definitely need to like eggs for this one!

To make two delicious curried dukan egg verrines with chives:

You will need two small tumblers or bowls, glass is best because then you can see the lovely layering. It is much easier if you have an egg slicer for this recipe – it is an adaptation of the French recipe you can see here- Oeufs mimosa en verrine.

Time to make: 25 mins (including cooking and cooling time)

Ingredients:

-3 eggs

-½ tsp curry powder

-1 tbsp fat free fromage frais or greek yogurt

-1 heaped teaspoon medium Dijon mustard

-½ tsp wholegrain seeded mustard

-1 tsp lemon juice

-3 tsp finely chopped chives

-Salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Hard boil the eggs  for ten minutes, pop in to a bowl of iced water for a further ten mins and then peel. (You can get some other things done whilst you’re waiting for this!)

When the eggs have cooled, slice them open and gently remove the yolks and place them in a separate bowl.

Gently crush the yolks with a fork and add the curry powder and Dijon mustard.

Finely chop the egg whites into small, even squares using an egg slicer or a very, very steady hand!

Separate the chopped egg whites into two small bowls. In one bowl, add to the egg whites the chopped chives. To the other whites mix in the seeded mustard, fromage frais, lemon juice, and season to your taste.

Arrange evenly in your glass or bowl, starting with the chive mix, then yolk, then egg white with mustard.

With love,

Ms. Monroe

Busy Bee

Good afternoon everyone,
I have been so incredibly busy these past few days, with a teething three month old, shopping , shopping and more shopping for this little boy who seems to just keep on growing at this incredible pace and my ever emptying fridge – the Dukan diet is an all you can eat ok?!? Hahaha.

Tried out some brilliant and some not so brilliant recipes the past couple of days so I will be sharing those with you soon! I was going to do a bit on some cosmetics too so that’s something to look forward too.

N.I. Mammy is busy with the big move and plenty of other bits and pieces to do as well but watch this space!

Off to the doctors surgery now for my little Prince to have his second lot of immunisations!

With love,

Ms.Monroe

Pre and Post Natal Workouts

So – as I was saying before, the reason I’m on the Dukan diet is to lose my little postpartum ‘pouch’. However, I really don’t want to get rid the lovely curves that being a new mama has given me, so I thought I would start (in this case, carry on) some exercises specifically tailored to shift that naughty bit of wobble.

So, just to let you know the background, before pregnancy I was about 7.5-8 stone (varying on the time of year!) and I have been since I was about 18. During pregnancy I put on a LOT of weight. Now, this wasn’t all over body weight, it was specifically boobs, bum and BUMP. Seriously, my bump was outta control, people literally stop-in-thier-tracks looking at me down the street, random members of the public asking me if I needed to sit down or if I was ‘O.K’ every five minutes, and at this point I was only 7 months pregnant. You woulda thought I had a little litter in there, but as it happened, only one heavy ‘little’ boy!

By the time I was ready to go in to hospital (42 weeks!) I weighed just over 11 stone! Immediately I lost 13lb, and then week by week the weight slowly dropped off.

Because I had a c-section I was not allowed to do any exercise until at least 8 weeks after the birth, and because during pregnancy the muscles in my stomach had separated, otherwise know as diastasis recti, there are still some excercises which I cannot do yet (i’m at 12.5 weeks).

When I started the Dukan diet and the exercises I was 9 stone 6lbs – and wearing size 10 tops and 8 jeans. Now 2 weeks on I am 9 stone and back in to my size 8 tops and size 6 jeans (UK) but I still have a ‘step’ that I want to get rid of, I’m assuming that this will get a lot easier when my stomach muscles come back together a little more and I can start to do routines with Crunches, sit-ups, obliques or crunches- basically anything that  ‘jack-knifes’ my body.

There are a couple of things that I am doing at the moment but I will start off with telling you about my personal favorite – which is something I actually did throughout my pregnancy as well.

This is the Davina McCall Pre and Post Natal workout DVD, and personally I would recommend to any expecting or post pregnancy mum, of whatever fitness level, whether it’s your first, second or fifth time!

I bought this when I was about 20 weeks pregnant and have used it all the way through (apart from the 8 weeks after having baby). What I especially like about this DVD (apart from how hilarious I find Davina) is that she literally does everything with you. Through the prenatal part, Davina is pregnant too and then she catches up with you 11 weeks after having her baby to finish off with the postnatal exercises. Davina even shows off her post pregnancy belly at one point and this made me actually feel fantastic that I am not the only person in the world (it sounds ridiculous but until you see another belly, you think it’s just you who looks like this!)

In this DVD, Davina McCall and her personal trainer joke around as they show you the gentle but effective exercise routines. And let me tell you, i’m glad it’s only my baby who can see me doing this, aerobics in the living room in fits of giggles by myself with the TV. Highly embarrassing if anyone ever caught me.

This is another thing I love about this DVD – it doesn’t make you feel like you need to start some mad and relentless out of this world exercise routine to get your old self back, and I think that is one of the main reasons why I have stuck to it so well and didn’t find it a chore to do through pregnancy or beyond.

The Pre Natal and Post Natal routines both include a warm up (make sure you do these or you’ll be as stiff as a board the next day!), some low impact aerobics and heaps of great toning exercises, (especially for those all important pelvic floor muscles!) followed by a really good stretch and relaxation section. I also found it fantastic how before doing certain exercises they actually tell you how to check your abdominal muscles to make sure that everything is safe for you to do.

As an extra on the DVD here is also a small section called Davina’s tips, and if you are a first time mum, like I was, you really will find that this settles some of the fears about labour and birth and being a new mum. This girl really talks some sense and sat down watching it I really felt like I was being talked to by an old and wise friend i’d known for years (how do you do it, Davina!?)

All in all I would say it was probably one of my best purchases that I have made in the last 12 months (ohhh lala!) and if you ever read this, thanks Davina!

With love,

Ms.Monroe

The Dukan sandwich!

Hey everyone,

Today has been a pretty hectic day so i’ll probably keep this post short and sweet. I’ve got another recipe to share – drum-roll please!

The Dukan sandwich! I have actually quite missed the taste of something naughty and ‘carby’ lately so thought i’d try my hand at making some Dukan bread and see what happens. The results were surprisingly delicious!

For the Dukan bread:

You will need a microwave, I’m unsure if you can do this in the oven or not, I haven’t tried! This recipe will make enough bread for two sandwiches.

Time to make: 15 mins (including cooling time)

Ingredients:

-4 tablespoons oat bran

-1 teaspoon baking powder

-Herbs or pepper to taste

-2 tablespoons fat free Greek yogurt

-2 eggs (1 yolk and 2 whites)

Method:

1. In a bowl, beat together dry ingredients and then slowly add the eggs until completely combined and a little foamy.

2. Pour the ‘dough’ in to a microwavable dish. (A square one works best!) I used a Tupperware container but if you wanted perfect bread you could use something with a nicer shape.

3. Microwave on high for four minutes.  Remove dish from microwave and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Don’t be concerned with what emerges, once you’ve cooled the bread and sliced it, it is remarkably like real bread.

*Tip. I also toasted my bread to make it feed extra naughty and a lot less spongy.

For the Dukan mayo:

You’ll need to keep this one chilled, and because it has raw eggs in it, I tend not to keep it for that long, but it is yummy and you do need something to spread on your sandwich!

Time to make: 5 mins

Ingredients:

-1 tbsp Dijon mustard

-1 Egg yolk

-3 tbsp Fromage Frais (or quark)

-1 tbsp chopped parsley or chives

- Salt to taste

- Black Pepper to taste

Method:

1- Mix the egg yolk and mustard in a small bowl

2-Season with salt and pepper and add either the chopped parsley or chives depending on your taste.

3- Gradually mix in the fromage frais or quark, whichever you have to hand, and stir continuously.

Steps for making the sandwich from here are pretty straightforward, I’m sure you’ve made one before!

But just to let you in, for my pure protein day I used Dukan mayo, sliced chicken, sliced ham and sliced gherkins. It was awesome.

In other news, I walked for nearly 2 hours trying to find a pack of Avent size 2 teats today – a story for another day. Phew!

Happy lunchin’ amigos, and night night!

With love,

Ms Monroe