A commitment to a moment.

Recipe of the week...
... Spinach and Mushroom Spaghetti

Ingredients: 200g wholemeal spaghetti, 1 vegetable stock cube, 120g fresh spinach leaves, 250g chestnut mushrooms, 1 white onion, 150-400g Greek yoghurt (depending how creamy you like your pasta), cooking oil, and salt and pepper.

Serves: Two decent platefuls of spaghetti.

Time taken: Half an hour or so.


Hi readers,

How are you all today? Are you doing okay? Not feeling too worse for wear, I hope, as we near the end of the Bank Holiday weekend. (Yes – to all readers outside the UK – we’ve had ANOTHER Bank Holiday weekend. Can’t get enough of them! Although, sadly, this does spell the end of our glorious run of four day weeks – we aren’t treated to another til the end of August now. Sigh sigh sigh).

Have you been up to much with your long weekend, readers? Hope you’ve been out enjoying the sunny Spring weather, while it lasted! And I hope you’ve been making the most of your time in the sunshine, spent with friends and family. As a write, readers, I’m in bed in my room in Sheffield and it’s raining a little bit outside. My room doesn’t look much like mine anymore as I’ve officially Started Packing, ahead of moving house next Saturday.

With just a week to go, I rolled my sleeves up this weekend and set about bagging and boxing up most of my things. There are now three different heaps of my stuff about the house. Mounds of shoppers filled with homeware and kitchenware and books and shoes... and I haven’t even packed any clothes yet (which, really, you’d think is all a human being needs – their clothes) but already there is A Lot of Stuff.

Like, if I lay down on the floor and my stuff was rained down on me, I would definitely die. It’s a killer amount of stuff. So, it’s been  good to have had the long weekend, really, as an opportunity to get cracking with packing (see what I did there??). But. Knowing that I have to unpack it all again, somewhere new, next weekend is like ohhhh MY GOD why why why why whyyyyyy meee. The prospect isn’t filling me with joy, readers.

Sadly contemplating my shell of a bedroom right now, I’m reminded of a line from a book I’ve been reading these past couple of weeks. Bittersweet, by Stephanie Danler. If you appreciate good food and drink, witty / clever / sarcastic lines, and the lure of a dangerous man – do go read this book. Pronto. The line that spring to mind, as an apt descriptor for my mood at present, iiiiis…

“You know what I dislike? When people use the future as a consolation for the present. I don’t know if there is anything less helpful.”

Bittersweet, Stephanie Danler. p.346

… this, I firmly agree with. Yes, maybe I’ll be moved in five days. Maybe I’ll have dropped a dress size and attained a gorgeous boyfriend in the process. Two of them! Who knows. But right now: It’s drizzling. And I’m sat in a stripped room populated mainly with re-usable carrier bags, bulging with my stuff and including certain items that I shouldn’t really have packed. I was being overenthusiastic and now I can’t find several things that I want back. It’s likely I won’t find them for a week or more. They’re lost in a sea of supermarket branding.

This present moment may be a little shit, readers, but – do not fear – as I’m going to turn it around with some great food. There will be a girly evening in. Nail polish, chocolate, chick flick. All will be well again. First, though, I want to say a big GO YOU to anyone who got the worker bee tattoo done this weekend, in support of the fundraiser for those victims and families affected by the terrorist attack in Manchester last week (you can donate here).

For anyone who doesn’t know, there’s been a tattoo appeal going on over the Bank Holiday weekend and tattoo parlours up and down the country have been giving their time to help out. If a person donates £50 towards the MEN fundraiser, then they can go get the worker bee tattooed at no cost. Loads and loads of people have been doing this, they’ve been queuing to get through the doors of tattoo parlours, and now the fundraiser is over 90% of the way towards hitting its target. Incredibly, with over fifty thousand supporters.  

I’m awed by it. By people! And the great things that they can bring about and achieve. As is the point of the quote from Bittersweet, there is no help in telling those poor people on the receiving end of the Manchester attack that tomorrow will be a better day. Help comes from those people who go out and do something about it – anything they can do – to make a real difference today. High five to anyone with a worker bee healing on you right now!

It feels to me as though, when everything rocks a little, like everything did seem to do last week in the wake of the attack, that people come together more. Like shaking a box full of beads. It’s felt by all and it’s experienced in unison. Everyone’s rattled. We’re all still thinking about it and talking about it, and trying to comprehend what happened. And we go on.

In another excerpt…

What did he call his tattoos?

A commitment to a moment?

Bittersweet, Stephanie Danler. p.228

… it’s a wonderful and a terrible moment that we’re in, readers. I’m grateful to experience the spirit of togetherness, fostered in the wake of the attack, and I hope that it won’t be lost as the tattoos heal. And – with that – I’ll say no more. I’ll leave the fundraising total to rise and will leave you, terrific readers, with one final thought… which is that good food alllways improves the present moment. Disprove me, I dare you. Or try your hand at my recipe of the week, which can be yours in just ten simple steps…

Recipe: Spinach and Mushroom Spaghetti

1.     Pour a drink, calm your mind and set something upbeat playing.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: Me and my dad have been listening to the album that’s been released alongside Guardians of the Galaxy 2, with all the songs from the film. There are some GREAT tunes on there – I recommend. 

2.     Fill the kettle and set it boiling, and sort veg prep while you wait. Peel your onion and chop into small pieces, and quarter your mushrooms.

3.     When the kettle’s boiled, set a two-portion amount of spaghetti cooking in a saucepan with half the stock cube crumbled in.

4.     Heat some cooking oil in a wok or a large frying pan, and fry your mushroom and onion for five minutes until they’re beginning to brown.

5.     Then, add 200ml water from the saucepan, along with your yoghurt and the rest of the stock cube.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: I added 150ml yoghurt as I’m not a fan of very creamy sauces, but if you’re thinking ‘the creamier the better!’ then go for it. Add up to 400ml if you like.

6.     Meanwhile, once your spaghetti is cooked you can take this off the heat and drain.

7.     Leave the contents of the pan to simmer until the ingredients come together, and they begin to thicken and look more like a sauce than a liquid.

8.     When things are getting saucy in the wok, tip your fresh spinach into the pan and – one wilted – then add the pasta.

9.     Give everything a good stir together and season with salt and pepper.

10.  Then, take off the heat and divide between two plates. You can serve up and tuck in!

Et voila!
A plateful of Spinach and Mushroom Spaghetti

What do you think, readers? Are you keen?? Does this sound do-able? I found the recipe in Tesco’s May 2017 edition of their free magazine (entitled ‘The Healthy Issue), on page 67, and decided to give it a go as a simple, healthy, tasty dinner. Ordinarily, I almost always rely on a shop-bought sauces, but this recipe provides a great way to make your own sauce without many ingredients and without it being particularly time consuming or difficult to do.

Also, I like that you can make this dish more or less creamy to suit your taste. And that creamy sauces don’t necessarily have to be cheesy, though they often are. Plus – you have options. You could switch the spaghetti for tagliatelle, if you like, or a regular pasta like penne or fusilli. And, if you’re vegan, you could adapt the recipe by switching the Greek yoghurt for a plant-based alternative (like Alpro).

Have I convinced you yet, readers?? If not, may I add what a filllling.. delllicious.. richhh and indddulgent plateful of food this is. Truly, it’s a delight! Go on, readers, give this recipe a try and please let me know what you think. Did things go to plan in the kitchen? Did your pasta turn out well? And did you enjoy the taste of it?? Keep me posted on your antics in the kitchen (good or gory) and please send all recipe feedback my way! Hit me with it!

Until next time, readers, in a new room on a new road in a new month,

Spaghetti safely,

Hayley

FEED YOUR MIND AND YOUR TUM ON FRIDAY

Recipe of the week...
Avocado Carbonara!

Ingredients: 1 avocado, 1 tablespoon plain yoghurt, ½ a lemon, 1 teaspoon chilli flakes, 2 platefuls of wholemeal spaghetti, 2 dozen cherry tomatoes, a courgette, a pack of mushrooms, cooking oil, salt and pepper.

Time taken: Half an hour.

Serves: 2 decent plates of spaghetti. 

Hi readers,

How are you on this fine Friday?? Is it pissing it down with rain where you are, like it is in Sheffield?! I hope it isn’t and you’ve found somewhere sunny to live! Enjoy the sunshine for us sodden Sheffielders, please. I hope too, readers, that now you’ve blasted through a kick arse kind of week at work, with highs and lows and everything between, that you have a well deserved alcoholic bev lined up for this evening.. now it’s the weekend! Holllllaaaa!

This weekend I plan to drink wine. Eat lots of tasty food. Sleep well. Run (if it stops raining). Read my book in bed. Shop – as I’ve been paid. And, hopefully, go see the animals at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park. A good plan for a weekend, I think. If I manage even half of those things.. I’ll be happy. How about you, readers? Much planned for the weekend?? You’d better make it fabulous!

So, recently I’ve been thinking that – although I write a blog – I could make a much bigger effort to read other people’s blog posts. Both as a way to find interesting articles to read (which is always good!), and to learn things from them that I might use to improve my own blog (we live in hope!). This week, I decided to put this plan into action. I read some cracking blog posts and thought.. what a great idea it would be to link my own readers to these!

 Maybe you read lots of blogs already?? Or perhaps mine is the only blog that you follow? Either way, in the spirit of introducing you to some other great bloggers out there (and expanding your minds, y’know) here’s a blow-by-blow of the top three articles I read from blog-land this week. You should definitely take a look at one or all of them. Some top reads..

So, the first fab blog post I read this week is entitled The Key Steps to Making a Food Budget That Works for You, written by Jessica Fisher (which you can read HERE). I found this article reeally interesting as I’m of the opinion that the best food isn’t always the most expensive, and that you can eat well and still spend low overall by only purchasing a few high cost items. Which you’ll really appreciate more as there are only a few of them in your basket!

Plus, a recommendation within this article, for a strategy to help get your shopping under-budget, is to eat more meatless meals. Which – of course – I think is a brilliant idea! I’m always hopeful that the recipes on this blog will be taken up by meat eaters and veggies alike. So, if you’re looking to spend less on food and enjoy your meals, then I thoroughly recommend you give some tasty vegetarian recipes a proper go. And eat with an open mind.

The second blog post I read this week is entitled 22 Ways To Empower Yourself, compiled by Jessica Sletmo (which you can find HERE). I clicked to read this article because, as a girl, I am of course always on the look out for ways to steal power from the boys. I wasn’t expecting world domination from one blog post but I think this article does hold great potential.. as a Tool of Empowerment!!

The post links you to five documentaries, nine quotes from successful women, and eight powerful books, all written by female authors. The five documentaries I definitely intend to watch throughout March, as I don’t watch too much TV but when do it has the habit of turning my brain off… this will be a habit no more. The eight quotes – you have to read these! They will make you laugh and fill you with hope for the course of ageing, I promise.

 And the eight books, I’ve ordered online. Will read and feedback on these soon. Last year, I came across an article listing the ten (I think) favourite books of the actress Emma Watson. I ordered immediately, read them all over the year, and gained a lot from this reading. I’m hoping these eight empowering novels, now on their way to me in the post, will be a similarly meaningful project to have on the go throughout 2017.

Then, the third blog post I read this week is called How To Make Learning A Habit For Life, also by Jessica Sletmo (which you should read HERE). In a similar spirit to the last post, this article links you to three others. The first article is aimed at those of us who have finished with school now and are searching for ideas on: quote “how to keep that curious mind fed”. This post is filled with ideas for ways to continue learning after you’ve left school – something I firmly believe we all should do! Take a look, have a read – this has encouraged me to both join a book club and ‘get into podcasts’ (will report back on how that goes).

Next, the second article you’re linked  to recommends places to learn outside of school. This post advocates reading and writing – the pillars of my existence (along with eating) – and proposes an action plan for discovering where you can learn outside school: you figure out what interests you, and then there will be a workshop or an online resource that you can find to pursue this. So, do it. The third and final article follows up with similar advice on how to keep learning outside of school. Focus: self discipline. And quote: “While the pressure of a grade may not be there, it’s up to you to make it happen!”.. a very good point, I think.

Anyways, I’ll leave it there for now as I don’t want to overwhelm anyone. But, if you have the time, do take a look at these articles. They might surprise you, readers. And I’ll try to come back with some more great blog posts for you to try next week.

BEFORE THEN.. my recipe of the week, this week, comes to you from a lovely little freebie recipe booklet that I picked up while at the Union Street pop up café in Sheffield. This is the SLAAW healthy, colourful and wonderfully delicious recipe taster booklet, written by Sophie Lane, and gleefully thumbed through by me as I waited for coffee at the counter.

Filled with a simple-sounding recipes and photos of delicious-looking foods, this booklet is a gem and all recipes are accredited by a Nutritional Therapist so you know they’re good on the insides as well as the eyes. I’ve had the booklet for a few weeks now and finally had the opportunity, and the ingredients, this week to try out a recipe inside.

I went for an Avocado Carbonara on the basis that I loooooove avocados and, quote: “This ‘carbonara’ is so much better for you than the one we’re used to which contains lashings of butter and cream, with the healthy fat of an avocado instead. Courgettes are wonderfully high in vitamin C too, helping to give that extra TLC to our immune system”.

Feeling like some healthy, colourful and wonderfully delicious food is EXACTLY what you need?? Treat your insides! Here’s how to throw together an avocado carbonara for two, in just 10 easy steps…

1.     Pour a glass of vino and set some smooth tunes playing. Heat the oven to 200C.

2.     Cut your courgette into bite-sized chunks, and halve your tomatoes and mushrooms.

3.     Tip all your med veg into a baking dish and drizzle with cooking oil. Season with salt and pepper, and safely transport into the oven to roast for around 20 minutes.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: After your med veg have been in the oven about ten minutes, I’d get them out and drain away any excess oil. Then give the veg a gentle stir about in the dish to flip them over, before returning to the oven.

4.     While your veg roast, you can set the kettle boiling and tip enough spaghetti into a saucepan to feed two mouths. Set your spaghetti boiling for 10-15 minutes.

5.     Next, turn your attention to the avocado. Slice this in half and remove the stone from the middle, then scoop the inside flesh out of the avocado into a bowl.

6.     Squeeze the juice of ½ a lemon into the bowl. Add the yoghurt and chilli flakes, and season with salt and pepper.

7.     Use a fork to mash the contents of the bowl together, until they form a creamy green sauce.

ChefBeHere Top Tip: At this point, I’d pop a couple of plates in the bottom of the oven to warm. Set the table for two and top up your wine. Light a candle – why not?

8.     Once your spaghetti has boiled, drain and then return to the pan. Add the avocado sauce, and heat over a low heat, while stirring, to warm the sauce through.

9.     Remove the roasted med veg from the oven, along with your plates and turn the oven off.

10.  Spoon your spaghetti evenly between the two plates and top each with a shedload of med veg. Serve your spaghetti. Et voila!

And that, readers, is all there is to it. Ten simple steps and you’ve whipped up two platefuls of healthy, colourful and wonderfully delicious spaghetti. You star! I think this makes a great recipe to have up your sleeve.. maaaybe for a date night?? As it’s a pretty impressive recipe to have made from scratch, in my eyes, and spaghetti is the food of love – is it not! Mhmm!

What do you think, readers?? Does this recipe sound do-able? Does the pic look appetising? Are you open to the idea of avocado as a pasta sauce?? Let me know your thoughts! And, if you try your hand at this and give the recipe a go, please let me know how you get on in the kitchen and what you think of your Avocado Carbonara.. do you like it??

I will leave you now, readers, to go frolic and enjoy your Friday night. Drink safely, party wildly, and live as though today were your last day alive. Take care.

And spaghetti safely,

Hayley

 

The food.. of loooove