Foodie Friday - What I Ate In July

July was a month where I ate what I wanted, when I wanted it. When I look back at some of the things that I ate in July it honestly doesn't look as though I ate that badly, and I genuinely don't think that I did. As I said in Monday's post I think it was more about snacking and portion control. Given the heat I also ate quite a bit of ice cream that I haven't mentioned here and I also make a crucial mistake and discovered the wonder that is Cadbury's Dairy Marvellous Creations Banana Caramel Crisp - bad move! So minus the ice cream and chocolate, here's what I ate in July.

First up savouries and something that I'm having again tomorrow, naughty nachos :) I love nachos so much I make a huge batch of homemade salsa which I pour over tortilla chips, top with grated cheese and bung in the oven for 20 minutes. Not the most healthy dish but quick and easy.

I also made be favourite Double Potato And Halloumi Bake, only using feta and mozzarella instead of the halloumi. Alas no pics because they didn't come out too well but the leftovers were mixed with a bought (sorry!) pasta sauce, and some gluten free pasta, to make a quick pasta dish.

I ate a lot of pasta in July, probably more than I have in the rest of the year put together but I've missed it. I'm a huge pasta fiend! One of my favourite pasta dishes ever is macaroni cheese. When I'm in a rush I love the Amy's Kitchen Rice Mac And Cheese, which you get from must major supermarkets. I'm not a huge lover of ready meals but I would definitely recommend the Amy's Kitchen range of vegetarian and gluten free meals for quality and taste. This time though I fancied making my own, so using Heinz Gluten Free Macaroni, I made a huge batch to see us through a few hot days.

After I posted this on instagram a few people asked for a recipe, well to be honest it's so easy that it doesn't really justify a recipe. All I did was cook the pasta, and whilst the pasta was cooking I made a basic gluten free cheese sauce (just a combination of butter, milk, gluten free flour, seasoning and grated cheddar) which I then mixed into the cooked pasta, and a packet of  Redwood Vegan Chorizio Sausage Chunks. I then poured the lot into a huge baking dish, and topped it with a homemade breadcrumb topping made from gluten free bread zapped up in the food processor and mixed with more grated cheddar, garlic granules, and chilli flakes and then baked in the oven till crispy and bubbly.

Me and Mummy Lou devoured this full baking dish full over the course of 3 days It kept really well the fridge and heated up easily in the microwave. I imagine it would also freeze really well too The only thing was the topping went a touch soggy but it still tasted great.

Something else that I made in July was wrap pizzas. I am seriously in love with the Warburtons Newburn Bakehouse Gluten Free Wraps. I particular love them stuffed with salad and hummus but on this occasion I made them into pizzas, topping them with some veg, some tomato puree, and some cheese.

Yes, it's curry loaf again :) Again I made this with pimped up golden vegetable rice, and baked beans only this time I threw a handful of sultanas into the mix for good measure. Really enjoyable as per usual :)

In July my momma had a meat craving! Bless her she's so good and eats more veggie food than meat these days but sometime she just craves burgers, so we headed to Chiquitos to take advantage of the lunch menu. I had the halloumi salad which is incredible, my love for the squeaky cheese hold no bounds! The one downer this time is that they were out of the cranberry and mint relish so I just had basic salsa, never mind it was still yummy.

Mummy Lou got her usual cheeseburger and salad but I fancied being a bit naughtier so I got a portion of sweet potato fries for us to share - so, so good and something that I will definitely order again. After all that Mummy Lou still wasn't satisfied lol, like mother like daughter I guess so we moved on to the dessert, where we both had a portion of the Golden Nugget Cheesecake (alas not pictured) but it's basically a vanilla cheese cake stuff with chocolate and plain honeycomb - being good I left the base which Mummy Lou was more than happy to eat :)

When it came to sweet things through July I tried to be good but July was the month where I discovered the amazing Gower Cottage Gluten Free Chocolate Brownies..

Mmm so good, squidgy, chocolate morsels that you can't event tell are gluten free. You can read my post on them here, and I'm sad to say that my box is now all gone :(

I was a little bit god as you can see here though and I did have mine with some fresh summer fruits. My mum paid a couple of visits to the local fruit farm and bought a mountain of freshly picked strawberries and a couple of punnets of raspberries.

I may have demolished the raspberries but the majority of the strawberries were for jam. My mum loves making jam and she made about 16 lbs of strawberry jam!!! A few jars will go to friends and relatives but otherwise we are well stocked for the winter :) So far I've had some on top of ice cream and on top of some gluten free digestives with some cream cheese to make my own mini cheesecakes, in August though I can definitely see myself making some scones to have an albeit healthy version of a cream tea.

Speaking of home baking Mummy Lou also tried a bit of an experiment and made a chocolate and vanilla marble cake stuffed full of the lightest, fluffiest, butter cream you have ever tasted! So good!

That's just about it bar a couple of Costa Raspberry And White Chocolate Creamy Coolers, and one of my newest loves the Starbucks Banana Yogurt Frappuccino

So that was my July, I really want to try a bit harder to eat more healthily in August but at the same time I also want to experiment a bit more with my cooking, I really think that mixing it up a bit will make a huge difference diet wise, so if you have any healthy, vegetarian recipes hit me up x Thanks for reading and happy eating x