Hi, My Name Is Shona, and I'm a Sugar Addict...

Oh dear, oh dear. Easter has been and gone and has left me firmly back in the grips of my sugar addiction. Most people know I have a massive weakness for haribo sweets and biscuits though recently I'd somehow managed to remove myself from the world of chocolate and all it's deliciousness. But then there was Easter. Chocolate eggs, creme eggs, mini eggs ... all so yummy and too much to resist! Plus when you're given one as a gift it's rude not to accept, eh?

So I'm back to step one again, desperately trying to resist the urge to dive into the box of chocolates a very sweet customer bought for us!

Easter has been lovely but my body is craving fruit and vegis again. I'm hoping that by naming and shaming myself here I'll get a grip and get back on track.

No chocolate

No haribos and 

No Fewer biscuits. 

Is it possible to stay healthy on a road trip?

I'm really excited that in a couple of weeks I'm going to get to travel with Paul and his band while they go on tour for a week around Texas. I love to travel and see new places, their music is awesome and they're a great group of guys so I'm looking forward to it.

However there is one aspect of travel over here which I find more difficult than anywhere else in the world. I've travelled quite a lot. I even gave up my job once to go backpacking for a year so I find it surprising that this element of travel still causes me problems.... food and staying healthy on the road.

When I was a backpacker I was younger and I didn't really care what I ate. My body just seemed to deal with everything... though in reality I think I was quite a few lbs heavier in those days too (probably something to do with not caring about what I ate!). In the last couple of years since I started running I've been much healthier. I'm more aware of what I'm putting in my body and often I physically react badly to an unhealthy meal.
In England I have a fairly good grasp on how to stay healthy when I'm away from home but America is totally different. It is the world of fast food, drive thrus and junk food that is guaranteed to make me feel (and look) like a slug.

Although I've learned which are the 'healthier' options on several fast food menus and learned that Subway is my friend, I'm interested to know what you do to stay healthy on the road.
Which is your favourite energy or cereal bar that is fairly balanced nutritionally? I'm a monster if I don't eat for a long stretch of time so I'm hoping these will save me from dashing to the sweet isle when we stop for petrol! I'm also still not running due to my knee so I'm keeping a keen eye on my relatively small calorie intake (boo)
What do you do to avoid eating from fast food restaurants for breakfast, lunch and dinner when on the road for a week? I should clarify I don't think I'm going to be able to chill food or have ice packs for a cooler as I don't know the facilities in each hotel we'll be staying at. If there is anything I can get before I go (online or in Walmart) that would be preferable. Any suggestions for fresher food along the way they could do with being from places like Walgreens rather than dragging the band off to the supermarket while I do a shop ;)
If you have any ideas I appreciate ALL the help and advice you can give.
Thank you

Learning to Cook with Jamie Oliver

For many years I haven't really have the opportunity or requirement to explore cooking. I could do the usual stuff like stir fry type dinners, but never anything that required much more than some chicken, a jar of sauce, maybe an onion and some garlic!

However things have changed quite a bit over the last couple of years. Firstly, when I moved back to my parent's hotel, my Mum taught me the art of cooking traditional English breakfasts for 30+ people. For a start I was very daunted by the prospect and lacked confidence, however now I love a busy breakfast. It can be completely crazy, with everyone ordering at the same time, but there is no bigger sense of satisfaction than when you send out the last breakfast, knowing that everything you sent out was great! I've had many people say to me that our breakfast was the best they've ever had, and that makes me proud. In turn that made me realise that perhaps I shouldn't be so hard on myself, especially when we won a breakfast award on one of the days that I was cooking.

However this still left a big hole in my cooking repertoire! When I first started coming to Texas I would get frustrated by the fact that I couldn't find ingredients that I was used to cooking. There is a LOT of pre-made food but I really don't like the thought of microwave meals either. There were several things I could cook but I still felt quite limited in my variation. So recently I turned to my iPad for some inspiration to learn how to cook some good food, from scratch. I came across the Jamie Oliver app which was just what I needed.

It has a mixture of classic meals, 20 minute meals and 30 minute meals. What I love the most is that it is step by step guidance with photos all the way. I enjoy cooking but lack confidence so it helps to be able to refer to a picture to check that I'm doing things right! 

As well as awesome step by step recipes it also has video's on some of the basics of cooking such as 'cooking the perfect steak', 'knife skills', 'cooking with herbs' and plenty of others. The recipes also are broken down into shopping lists which can be exported, plus moving through the recipe is made even easier (for when you have chickeny fingers) by using the voice activated scroll. By just saying 'next' or 'previous' the recipe will move to the next step or backwards through the recipe you're working on.
I've done several of the recipes over the last couple of weeks ... this was my version of the prawn linguine

And this was tonight's success.. Lemon and herb chicken with mash

His food is awesome, fresh and PACKED with flavour. I would seriously recommend investing in the app whether you are new to cooking or a bit of a pro!
However just because I'm learning to cook proper food, doesn't mean that I'm not still cooking these every so often :D