Veggie Chilli

Work has turned out to be busy. I go through periods of having 4 things that all need to be done at the same time to sitting twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the next bit of work. My new schedule has turned out to be pretty hectic and so I've been eating weird meals at weird times. Which is bad.

So this afternoon when I felt the start of a cold brewing I knew I had to make something good for my dinner with lots of healthy healthy things.

The result was a vegetarian chilli packed full of vegetables and pulses with spinach through it. Frozen spinach is one of my favorite ingredients, as it almost instantly makes any meal more nutritious as can go into pretty much anything!

Yes the end result isn't the most attractive meal in the world but when it's cold and dark outside, who really cares when it's warm, comforting and filling.

You can almost see the warmth and comfort coming out of the pot!

Veggie Chilli

1tbsp oil
2 small onions, chopped
1 clove garlic, sliced
2 small green chillis, chopped (keep the seeds)
1 stick celery, chopped
1 red and 1 green pepper chopped into large pieces
1 tin tomatos
1 tin kidney beans
1 tin chickpeas
a small handful red lentils
pinch cayenne pepper
1 tbsp chipotle chilli sauce (or anything else with a smoky hot flavour)
salt to taste

Heat the oil in a large deep pan. Add the onion, garlic and celery, toss in the oil and then turn down the heat. Cook the vegetables until the onions are soft. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. There should be enough liquid from the tomatos to cook the lentils, you don't want to add more else it will end up too wet.
Cook until the lentils are done. The veg should still have some crunch and adjust the heat and seasoning to your taste.

Serve up in a big bowl with rice and top with cheese.

Very berry "cookies"

Not really cookies, but tasty and a pretty colour! And yes that is an oven shelf as an improvised cooling rack

Tonight I attempted to make cookies... And they turned out like no cookie I have ever made before. I'm going to say this was probably my fault and not the recipe, as it was one I had made before which has previously turned out well.

So what happened tonight? For starters I measured out the wrong amount of flour and didn't realise until after the first trays of cookies were in the oven... Secondly I added the filling and the flour at the same time. Normally this would be ok, but when your filling is frozen you don't really get a feel for how solid your dough is as the butter rehardens. The final 12 mini cookies appear to have turned out ok as I had added a helluva lot more flour by that point.

I say these were a bit of a disaster but only in terms of consistency. The taste was exactly what I was going for, fruity, fresh and a little bit naughty. I would definitely make these again, only I would do it properly and carefully....

Very berry cookies

200g butter
200g sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp golden syrup
300g flour (though you may well need a bit more)
1 small bag frozen summer fruits (or anything else you fancy, like smarties, or chocolate etc)

Start by creaming the butter and sugar together until smooth. Add the vanilla, flour and syrup and mix well until it starts to form a dough. At this point add your filling in, and using your hands distribute through the dough. If your filling is frozen, beware! The dough will go very stiff and so add more flour, even if you don't think you need it.

Divide the dough into even sized balls and place on a lightly greased baking sheet. Flatten the balls slightly.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 15 mins until the edges start to firm up (if like me you didn't use enough flour be prepared to increase your baking time a lot...)

The smaller ones worked better. And tasted good!

Fish with salsas

Sunday night = proper food. 

After a weekend of going to the gym and picking up a few bits and pieces I needed to supplement what I brought down last weekend, this afternoon has been a chance to relax. As well as doing all my filing and filling in the forms I needed to do for work I decided to make a proper dinner, making the most of the empty flat.

Yesterday I made salsa and had quite a bit left over so I decided to make something which could incorporate that. Originally I had been thinking about a fish pie, but with a salsa instead of a white sauce. As I started getting everything out for dinner I remembered that I had picked up some fresh cooked beetroot in the reduced section. After a quick internet search quite a few places came up with results for fish with beetroot salsa and so I changed my plans. In the end I made fish with 2 salsas, a tomato one and a beetroot one, alongside mixed cubed potatoes and some broccoli. The end result was delicious and so colourful. Surprisingly the flavours all worked together well, despite no sort of planning of this aspect. The earthy flavours of the beetroot worked well with the fish, and the chipotle really melded everything together.

The recipes for the various components are given below.

Tomato Salsa
1 tin tomatoes
1/4 tin tomato puree
half a green pepper
half an onion
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp chilli sauce
salt and pepper to taste

Blitz the onion, pepper, garlic and chilli with the oil and tomato puree in a food processor. Once everything is pretty fine, add the tomatoes and blend again briefly. Taste and adjust seasoning, extra chilli can be added as can lemon juice to tart it up a bit.
I heated this salsa up slightly to act as a sauce for the fish

Beetroot Salsa
2 small cooked beetroots
1/2 tbsp olive oil
dash lemon juice
chipotle chilli sauce

Blend beetroots with  olive oil, a good dash of lemon juice and a decent amount of chipotle chilli sauce. The salsa should be pretty chunky, this is the aim.
This was also warmed up, though less so than the tomato salsa.

Red tomato salsa and purple beetroot salsa warming up as the plate is used as a lid.

Oven baked fish
2 small white fish fillets per person
large clove garlic per person
lemon juice
salt and pepper
olive oil

Preheat oven to about 180C, line an oven dish with tinfoil and place the fish in it. Rub the fish with garlic, add a dash of lemon juice over the fish and season well. Drizzle with a little oil and wrap up well. Bake for about 25 minutes if using frozen. (I have to admit that I got bored waiting as everything else was finished so I finished up in the pan, which worked out very well)

One week in Derbados

So I've been here a week, completed my first week at work and am yet to see a single drop of rain. In fact it's pretty much been sunny all week, which coming from the Scottish summer has been a bit of a shock. Wandering into town today I thought I might expire, I was so glad that I had remembered to put water in my bag.

So the first week. A lot of information given out across the first couple of days, and I mean a lot. I had to go out and by a filebox for it all and more folders so that I could keep it all sorted out. By far the biggest revelation was meeting the other grad, as neither of us knew the other was coming. It turned out that we had both put our money on the other during the interview process which was pretty funny. On wednesday I got to spend a day wandering around London being a trainspotter, standing at the end of platforms watching trains go in and out and watching the signals change.
Everyone seems very friendly and the office dress code seems pretty relaxed for the women, black trousers and some form of top seems to be the norm. I feel a bit sorry for the guys as they are suits, shirts and ties, although that does remove all element of choice and thus stress from the morning routine.

In terms of other things to do Derby seems to be well stocked. Lots of rowing clubs, but I'm putting that off for now as last weekend's outing caused an old injury to flare up badly. To fix this I've put myself onto a recovery regime which so far consists of yoga, pilates and lots of stretching. One yoga session and I can already feel a massive improvement, I'm excited about the start of pilates to really improve things. Oh and I signed up for an indoor duathlon at the gym, as I don't really care for swimming. Need to work on my running speed and get on the weights to boost leg power for the cycle. Got nearly 2 months to prepare so I'm pretty confident and excited.

Monday brings the start of work proper, 8:30 to 5, for the next 10 weeks, with the exception of a couple of courses and meetings along the way. I'm excited to finally find out what my job is, as so far when people ask what I'm actually doing I have to say I have no idea.

In terms of food, creative meals are taking a back burner at the moment as I try to find my feet here and sort my life out, but fear not, I have some plans for exciting fish in salsa and some breads too in the pipeline.

The start of working life

Today I became, what I would class, a grown up. 

That's right I started work and joined the 9-5 club (or more accurately 8:30-5 or 9-5:30). As far as first days go it was good, though not without surprises. 

Surprise number 1 arrived at approximately 8:45 when a guy I remembered from the assessment day turned up and we both found out that they had taken on 2 graduates, without telling either of us. But to ensure we didn't get too comfortable our placements start incompletely different locations, so it's unlikely we'll be in the same place at the same time. Still it was nice to have someone in the same boat as me!

Surprise 2 was the issue of all the cool free stuff: laptop, rucksack to carry laptop, work boots and high viz jacket. 

Surprise 3 was the lack of biscuit tin in any of the 4 office kitchens, much to my disappointment.

I have to say that commuting in Derby is a pretty stressful experience as the entire place is surrounded by a ring road, so there's lots of stressful lane changes to be done if you want to go anywhere. I think I'm going to stick to my bike as much as possible in the future, especially as there are lockers and showers provided!

Still not made any friends here :( But I am very tempted to just join Derby rowing club because of its convenience and just learn how to scull, as seeing people out on the water tonight made me a bit jealous. There also seems to be a lot of people that do nothing but loiter all day long around the city centre which is a bit odd, which makes going exploring a bit daunting as they all just stand and watch.

On a final note it's sunny! And will be for the next week! Madness!

Welcome to N'Derbz

So the big move was yesterday and I made it down no problems and have most definitely got the hang of motorway driving. Navigating around Derby is not so down. I keep accidentally taking detours... although I think this is partly down to satnav lying to me about number of exits of roundabouts and the like. Despite the fact that I can't navigate to or from it, the flat it nice. Very cream coloured which scares me a little bit. Flatmate also seems good, but not seem him much which is ok I guess.

I'm going to start eating and drinking exclusively beige or transparent things only as a precaution

This morning I got up early (I figured it would be good practice for tomorrow) and headed down to have a look at the local rowing club. Turns out its about 3 mins cycle away which is a plus point. On the downside it's mainly a sculling club more than sweeping which means I either need to get sculling or not go on many outings. From what I've seen there aren't many experienced sweep rowers in the club so it's possibly not the best place for me to be, but I shall give it a chance.

In other news I went on an adventure to asda last night. It said online it was a superstore. It didn't lie. I swear I have never been in such a big supermarket in my life, I feel like it might even be bigger than slough tesco. I found the biggest bottle of chilli sauce there I had ever seen so obviously bought it. Mmmm chilli sauce with everything time!

That's what 920g of chilli sauce looks like. Mmmm spicy