Sunday 30 October 2016

RECIPE: Feta and pesto pasta

Recipe for using up feta pasta in a healthyish way

When life gets busy, I tend to return to the same recipes, time and time again. It sometimes means having a food blog suffers, though, because I can’t really keep posting recipes for chorizo pasta or lentil dhal or burrito bowls, can I? It’d get very samey. Anyway, life currently is busy, and it means I’m not making much that’s new. But this recipe has entered my repertoire this year, and has quickly become a firm favourite.

It’s vegetarian and extremely cheesy. It’s also excellent for those times when you have half a block of feta to use up, which happens to me every time I make Moroccan dippy eggs. But despite the cheesiness, it’s not terribly unhealthy. Yes, there’s cheese, but there’s also plenty of vegetables including tomatoes, peppers and loads of garlic - and I usually throw in spinach, too - which all have lots of health benefits including helping your brain perform better. And if you are watching the calories, I’ve stretched the sauce over several portions of pasta, which means it’s actually under 350 calories per serving. For all this cheese. Not bad, really.

Feta – like many blue cheeses – changes in a sauce. It becomes less salty, less potent and turns into something creamy and delicious. It’s best mates with pesto, although you might not have guessed it.

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Thursday 27 October 2016

REVIEW: Everdine - healthy, frozen meals delivered to your door

Everdine review - frozen healthy meals delivered to your door

There are so many services at the moment that claim to make evening meals a bit easier. Some of them carefully measure out the portions of every last ingredient, others deliver whole meals to your door. I've never quite found one that works for me, but when Everdine got in touch and asked if I'd like to try them out, I thought it sounded promising.

Everdine's USP is that it offers frozen, 'clean-eating' meals. I agree with Jennie's point about the phrase 'clean-eating' - let's not suggest some food is 'unclean', shall we? - but I appreciate the sentiment here. These meals aim to do what I try to with my cooking - fresh, healthy ingredients that aren't packed with chemicals and ingredients you can't pronounce. Some of them are meat, some are fish, some are vegetarian and some are vegan. They're all fairly low in calories and fat, and you can pick and choose which you want to receive based on your preferences.

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Monday 24 October 2016

A story about a ring.



When I was 16, my mum gave me this little silver ring which used to be hers. I wore it on the middle finger of my left hand until I was in my thirties, by which point my fingers were no longer lithe and teenaged, and I couldn't take the ring off any more.

Last year, I went to a wedding and popped a cocktail ring on the same finger. I pushed it down too far, foolishly, and it got stuck over my silver ring. I had to get both rings cut off at Minor Injuries. It was not my finest hour.

I threw the cursed cocktail ring away and left my mangled silver ring in a jewellery box, thinking I'd maybe fix it one day. We moved out of our flat, and the jewellery box was buried in my Granny's attic with the rest of our things, waiting for us to buy our house.

A few months ago, my boyfriend went through the attic and found the ring. He got it resized, mended and cleaned.

Then, when we were in Scotland recently, he showed me the ring. He told me what he did. And he got down on one knee. And asked if I would consider wearing the ring on a different finger for a while, until we could choose one together.

And that's how I got engaged.
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