CURRENT: R E C I P E S

Now that my painting & decorating stint (hell) is almost over, I have committed myself to blogging again. But I would be lying if I said my heart was really in it. In fact my urge to blog has pretty much taken a massive leave of absence. Still.

I am much more committed, however to going out on lots of runs & cooking up lots of new recipes. Which leads perfectly into my next blog post. Because I have a pile of recipes here I need to tell you about...

I'm kind of not a huge risotto fan. I used to love the stuff. Then I discovered that it's actually a lot easier to cook than people think it is which resulted in me cooking it about twice a week for a year. To the point I just got bloody sick of it. But I spotted this Jimmy Doherty risotto in a magazine and fancied giving it a go because he uses pearl barley instead of risotto rice & I ABSOLUTELY LOVE BARLEY. I don't know why. Is that weird?

To serve 2 people you will need: veg stock, 100gm peas, 125gm asparagus (cut into pieces with woody stems removed), 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 spring onions (finely chopped), 1/2 leek (finely chopped), 1 clove garlic (finely chopped), 175gm pearl barley, 100ml white wine or pale lager, 50gm broad beans (I used frozen), 1tbsp mascarpone, 1/2 small bunch fresh mint (roughly chopped), 40gm finely grated parmesan plus shavings to serve, rocket or pea shoots (to serve), extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

1. Heat oil in a pan & add spring onions, leek & garlic & cook for 3-4 minutes. Add barley and lager (or wine) and cook for 1-2 mins.
2. Add 500mls veg stock and cook for 40-50 mins, stirring every so often and adding more stock when required. 
3. Add the asparagus, broad beans and peas to risotto and cook for a few mins. Remove from heat and stir through the mascarpone, mint & parmesan. Top with the peas/shoots and olive oil. Or truffle oil if you're feeling decadent.

-

This photo is utterly crap. After dropping my gorgeous shiny iPhone 6 into a basin of soapy water, it ultimately died a death. And no amount of evenings spent in bowls of rice, hours spent on top of a hot radiator or just plain begging, pleading and crying have managed to revive it. As a result I bought a second hand iPhone 5 from a bloke on Gumtree to keep me going until it's time for my upgrade. However said camera on new phone is awful. To the point I think it's worse than the camera I had on my old iPhone 4. How does that work? I would really like to know. Anyway I made this King Prawn & Chickpea Curry from Skinny Scottish Cook & it tasted all kinds of awesome.

What you are looking at is a Moroccan Chicken Salad with Pistachio Crusted Fried Goats Cheese and it was possibly the nicest salad I have ever made. I mean I pretty much inhaled it. And now that I am thinking about it again I might have to make it this week. Twice.

This was one of those situations where I couldn't be bothered to go to the supermarket after work so had resigned myself to making an omelette for dinner. Then I got a bit stressed out and pissed off and we all know the only thing that makes me feel better when I'm stressed out and pissed off is to drink wine, listen to music and cook in my bare feet. So that's exactly what I did. After a good hour of perusing my recipes, I finally managed to find something I could cook that I had all the ingredients for. It ended up being this Summer BBQ Chicken & Quinoa Salad and was the perfect mid-week supper. If I call it supper does that make me middle class? Worth a try.

Let me tell you a little story. I keep going for runs because I absolutely love doing it. Smashing 6k before I've even made it into work of a morning makes me high as a kite. I feel healthier, I get all those buzzy endorphins that you thought people just made up & it just makes me feel all smug and virtuous. The only problem is, as someone who is pretty disciplined during the week when it comes to her healthy eating, it makes my appetite go through the roof. And I do that thing where I 'reward' myself for said runs by having a glass of wine on my usually booze free Monday nights or indulging in a Kit Kat Chunky as I'm an athlete now so it's allowed.  After one particular binge/run cycle that went on for quite a few days I made this amazing Vegan Abundance Bowl to try and make up for it. 

I don't know what this is. At first I thought it might be my Best Fish Pie Recipe Ever which I blogged about previously, then I realised that it looked nothing like it. I spent frigging ages stalking my own Instagram to see if I could find it and recall what the hell I had actually made. I still don't know. It could be anything. But here's a pretty picture of it anyway.