I love
September! Going back to work makes
September almost feel like a new year. It’s time to start afresh and head back
to my usual working hours after rejuvenating myself over the summer
holidays. As much as I love the time
off, I also like being back into the routine of work and my days having some
sort of structure too. Back to school
for me also signals the start of autumn- my favourite season of the year. It’s already much darker in the mornings when
I get up (because I can’t do my make-up at the window in daylight
anymore...such girl problems) and I think it feels like there is a definite nip
in the air too. I just love it and can’t
wait for the autumn skies, golden leaves and ‘I can wear my new coat’ weather
to properly kick in. My dad’s allotment season is coming to an end too, meaning
that there’s always a pile of veg for me on my doorstep to cook up or freeze
for later use.
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| Some pretty impressive home-grown parsnips! |
Autumn
brings with it a change in our taste buds.
Salads don’t hit the spot this time of year and I crave warm food. It’s also the time of year where it’s easy
for me to pile on weight, so I make sure that I stick to healthy, clean eating
but opt instead for soups and casseroles.
The freezer is piled to the brim with Hemsley & Hemsley soups and I’ve
already made my first casserole of the season:
Black Bean and Parsnip Casserole (serves 4, approx 393
calories per serving)
I came across this recipe years ago
in the Sainsbury’s magazine. I have
adapted it slightly and use healthier sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes.
Ingredients:
A splash of olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
4 carrots, sliced
500g sweet potatoes
500g parsnips
2 tablespoons of mild curry powder
1 litre of vegetable stock (about 2
stock cubes made according to instructions)
2x390g cartons of Sainsbury’s So
Organic black beans (can’t find them anywhere else)
250g baby plum tomatoes
Method:
1. Heat the oil in a large pan and gently fry the
onions and garlic for 10 minutes.
2. Add the carrots, parsnips and sweet
potatoes and fry until the vegetables are golden.
3. Add the curry powder and stock to the
pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for around 20 minutes until the veg has
softened.
4. Throw in your black beans and plum
tomatoes and simmer for a further 5 minutes.
5. Serve with either a side of extra
vegetables or some crusty, wholemeal baguette.
Leftovers can be frozen and this dish can be made in advance- I cooked
it yesterday so it’s ready for dinner on Monday night!
Blueberry and Chia Jam
My dad
delivered me a pile of blueberries a few weeks ago- a good half kilo of the
things! I love blueberries and they are
considered a super-food packed full of vitamin C and antioxidants, so I happily
snack on them as they are or add them to porridge. They can be frozen too and I now have a good
supply of them in the freezer. The trick
with freezing is to lay all the blueberries out on a baking tray, freeze them,
then once they are frozen, they can be transferred into freezer bags. This stops
the fruit from clumping together. It’s
easier as well to just grab a handful of them out of the freezer to add to
porridge (they will defrost as soon as you throw them in) or to snack on-
chewing on frozen blueberries is becoming a new habit and is way healthier than
a Magnum!
I also used
some of the blueberries to make the Hemsley & Hemsley Blueberry and Chia
Jam. This takes minutes to make and is a
tasty, sugar-free treat for your toast in the morning.
Ingredients:
180g blueberries (defrosted if they
have been frozen)
2 ½ tbsp of chia seeds (I use these ones from Holland and Barratt, they were included in the penny sale!)
1 tbsp of honey (adjust according to
taste)
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
A squeeze of lemon juice
1 tbsp of warm water.
Method:
1. Mash your blueberries in a bowl using a potato
masher/ a fork. You want them to be
quite pulpy but it’s nice to have a few chunks of fruit leftover too, as you
would find in regular jam.
2. Mix in your chia seeds, the water,
vanilla extract and lemon juice. Throw
in the honey at this point too but add this gradually and keep checking how
sweet the mix is after each addition.
Obviously, you may need less honey if the blueberries are already quite
sweet. I’ve never had to use more than a tablespoon and find that this amount
sweetens the jam enough, but also leaves it a little tart too so that you can
taste the fruit.
3. Put into a jar a dish with a lid and
allow it a couple of hours in the fridge to set.
4. Spread it on a whacking piece of
toasted, wholemeal bloomer and enjoy. Peanut butter to go with it is optional,
but I’m a total sucker for peanut butter and jam!
In other
news this week, being back to school means that I am more efficient at making
the most of my time over the weekend. I’ve
started back at yoga over the summer and have been booking myself in for the
10am class on a Saturday morning. I’m an
early riser on a Saturday too since Ste is up for work, I tend to be up with
him at 8am. I have a couple of hours to
do my paperwork, clean or lounge around with a book (just finished the second
Hunger Games book...amazing!) before heading off to yoga. Then I have the afternoon to do whatever-
though this Saturday afternoon was spent browsing for ingredients. Every
Saturday, I try to cook a new recipe which I haven’t made before and after my
new Gizzi Erskine book arrived, I’ve been dying to try a few things from
it.
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| I was raving about my new book on Instagram the other week! |
I love all of Gizzi’s books. Her
recipes never fail, are pretty easy and also delicious. She too believes in the ethos of keeping our
appetites well fed, but with the best food to nourish your body and keep you
looking and feeling fabulous.
We all know
how in love I am with Thailand and Asian cooking (post here), so I knew that
Gizzi’s recipe for pad Thai would have to be the first one to try. I learned
how to cook this at a cooking school in Bangkok, but never really tried it at
home.
The end result was delicious and
took me right back to munching street food on Khao San Road. I’m definitely going
to dig out my old recipes from Thailand and have another go with them, as well
as cooking plenty more from my new Gizzi book.
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| My first attempt at Pad Thai #nailedit |
Happy
eating!
