I feel like it’s been a while since I sat down to do some blogging, so tonights post will be a real hotch potch of finds.
The next issue of my Good Food Magazine came through at the weekend, and I was able to have a look through a load of the recipes and plan a couple of them into this week’s dinner menu (yes, we plan our weeks meals, and although it might sound like a boring chore, really helps us with budgeting and also helps us to experiment so we don’t eat the same five dishes every week, and most importantly, get lots of good nutrients into our bodies! This week we are trying out:
- Garlicky linguine with Cabbage and Anchovy
- Butternut Squash and Spinach Filo Pie (this has 5 of your 5 a day fruit and veg in it – amazing!)
- Chicken, Bacon and Potato Slow Cooked Stew
Yum! I have also already baked Polenta, Orange and Blueberry loaf, although, at the time, I didn’t have any polenta so substituted that for grounds almonds which worked well, but needed a touch more baking time. So, Almond, Orange and Blueberry loaf….
Serves 8
100g Polenta
200g Self Raising Flour
140g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
140g unsalted butter
zest of 1 orange, juice of 1/2 orange (half orange)
1 large egg
200g blueberries
- Heat oven to Gas 3/160c (140c if a fan oven)
- Grease and Line a 2lb loaf tin
- Put polenta, flour, sugar, baking powder, butter, orange zest into a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs
- Combine the orange juice and the egg together. Then pour this into the dry ingredients and pulse again until the mixture becomes a ball of dough.
- Push half of the dough into the lined tin and scatter with half of the blueberries. Cover the berries with the remaining dough and top with the remaining blueberries
- Bake for 1 hr – 1 hr 10 mins and leave to cool for 8-10 minutes before turning out. Cool completely before eating (if you can resist!)
Other things I’m excited about at the moment:
My two trips to London and being able to catch up with lots of friends (many for the first time since I got married and moved to Scotland in September)
I have booked a one night getaway to Aviemore next month when Andrew is working on a Saturday. Aviemore is part of the Cairngorms, around 40 miles away from Inverness (and a 3 hour bus journey each way for me). I’m looking forward to staying in a cute little B&B and using the funicular railway (I’m thinking about walking up and getting the train down if the weather is fine) and exploring Aviemore.
A new blog I’ve started reading is Conversation Pieces and this is where I’ve found out about Blook club– an online book club but which meets up occasionally in Edinburgh – something that I’m thinking about joining. Hopefully I’d have the motivation to keep going with it, my track record with book clubs is rubbish! As usual, these kind of crafty blogs really inspire me, but I never actually get round to get crafty myself (apart from trying new baking recipes!) – can you sense a theme here!
Thanks to Claire for blogging about Robin and Mould – I love their designs. I especially am now coveting their owl tea cosy!
Finally, the last thing to share is that I’m starting to grow my own herbs. (Well, so much in that I’ve bought the pots and the seeds – the soil is still to come!). I’m going to start off with Basil, Parsley and Mint so that we can flavour all of those new dinner recipes that we are using. The pots I bought were really cool – they have mini blackboards on them so we can use them again and again with whatever we grow in them (apologies for the rubbish picture – straight from Amazon!)
What new finds have you been enjoying recently?
😀 oh my gosh so many exciting things Suse!! giggled at dinner rota but actually such a good idea to get nutrients and fun variety. it all sounds yummm, so tasty- lucky andrew. How was the polenta bread? sounds amazing!! so impressed
i love the herbs growing idea!!! so amazing!! (so weird you mentioned this as i got some coriander in a pot last week from waitrose but it died after 2 days) You’ll have to keep up updated on how the herbs do and how you look after them. SO EXCITING. the pots are also very cute.
And trip to Aviemore sounds amazing- wow wow. you’ll have to use your new camera to record the scenery xxxxx