Wednesday Night's Dinner: Falafel

Another easy one! Cooking is easier than I thought! I think I was just scared for nothing really. I actually really enjoyed this one too, and I thought it was pretty fun to make.

Ingredients:
400g of chickpeas
Half a red onion
One clove of garlic
One teaspoon of cumin
A large handful of coriander
Half a teaspoon of chilli powder
Two tablespoons of plain flour (I used wholemeal)
A liberal sprinkling of salt
Sunflower oil for frying

I started by roughly chopping the half onion, garlic clove and coriander, and left it to one side.

I then opened the can of chickpeas, drained them and dried them with some kitchen towel.

I combined all the ingredients above (minus the sunflower oil) in a food processor and blitzed them until them mixture was smooth and could easily be moulded (if you can imagine shaping them into balls as you would do with dough then it should be okay).

I rolled them into balls using my hand and flattened them into disk shaped patties. I made them pretty small (and came out with twelve), but you could make them bigger, though it would make fewer.

I put them in the fridge to chill for a bit (well, around fifteen minutes). This isn't essential though.

Once out of the refrigerator I heated the sunflower oil in a large pan and fried them until they were golden brown on each side. It's important to use kitchen roll once you've fried the falafel and removed them from the pan as it will soak up the excess oil.

We ate the falafel with whole meal pitta bread and an red onion salad (which I did not make). I think it would also go well with cucumber and lettuce, and perhaps Greek yoghurt, though I'm less sure of that. I thoroughly enjoyed this and felt a real sense of accomplishment having made it, despite the fact that it really wasn't that difficult. I honestly wish I had some photos because they looked amazing too!

Monday Night's Dinner: Pasta with Salmon and Pesto

I've decided that in order to successfully lead a truly healthy lifestyle I need to learn to cook properly for myself- I think this would make a huge difference in terms of maintaining a healthy lifestyle in the long run. Today was my first attempt (in a while) at cooking something, so I decided to go with something that was pretty easy and I most likely wouldn't mess up. For me, the most 'challenging' aspect of the meal was cooking the salmon as this was completely new to me (I've made pasta multiple times over the past few years so that was virtually effortless), but it was very easy- all the instructions were on the back of the packet and it was really just a question of whacking it in the oven and leaving it there for around twenty minutes. Unfortunately, I'm not at the stage where I can make my own pesto, so that was shop bought, which did make the dish a whole lot more easy for me to make. I will definitely attempt to make my own pesto when I'm a bit more of an experienced cook.

As I said, the dish is super easy to make and it's also incredibly versatile. For example, you can use as much or as little pasta as you want or need, as well as whatever type of pasta you like (I mixed spaghetti, penne and fusilli, some of which was white and some of which was wholegrain). I suppose you can really add anything else you want (as well as the salmon and pesto); I'm a little sad that I couldn't find any appropriate vegetables to use- broccoli would have complemented this dish perfectly!
The ingredients I used were:
Pasta
Salmon
Shop bought pesto (which I'm sure could be very easily made at home if you're a better cook than I am. I'd actually recommend making it at home if you can)
and Olive Oil, Salt and Pepper to taste.

I baked the salmon first, following the instructions on the back of the packet (wrapped in foil for around 20 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius).

As soon as I put the salmon in the oven I set the water to boil in a pan, with a salt sprinkled liberally in the water. As soon as the water was boiling I added the pasta and left to cook for ten minutes.

I took the salmon out of the oven, unwrapped it from the foil and cut it into shreds. Almost immediately after cutting the salmon, I drained the pasta (after checking to see if it was done by tasting it to make sure it wasn't too hard).

I added the pesto to the pasta and mixed roughly, then added the salmon and mixed it slightly more thoroughly. I also added olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

As I have said multiple times, it was very easy, as you can evidently see from what I've written above. Not only that, but it tasted pretty good, and I got a lot of positive feedback from my family (though they were possibly just being polite). I'd recommend it as a starter recipe for people who want to learn to cook, it gets you off to a pretty good start as it's not challenging, yet it makes you feel like you've accomplished something pretty big.

Reflection #1

I thought I'd reflect on my progress since leaving- it's been nearly three weeks! I can confidently say that I'm glad I left, I know it wasn't the place for me, and though most people would preach about how it gets better, I just need to give it a bit of time, the first year is always difficult or it takes time to make good friends I'm happy I left when I did. It lessens the effect the environment would have had on me. I do feel a bit strange though- not completely miserable like I did before, but... a bit lost I suppose. I didn't plan to leave so didn't expect to have all this time off, and I'm sure what to do with it (plus I feel weirdly guilty, like I should be doing something. I suppose I just need to give it time).

Despite feeling a bit strange, I'm relatively proud of myself. I haven't accomplished as much as I'd have liked, but I've done a few things, and I'm quite happy with that. It's eased my mind, since I was worried that I wouldn't progress at all. I've managed to complete my university application, which I was probably most worried about since I didn't want give up on getting my degree, I just felt deeply uncomfortable in the environment I was getting my degree in. Hopefully I'll like university better the second time round! (and if not I'll be just a stone's throw away from home so I can come back regularly if I need to.)

I've also applied for one job, and will shortly start applying for more. In the mean time, however, I have arranged to do some unpaid work in the school my mum works at to gain some more work experience and fill my weeks out, because it gets quite lonely staying at home by yourself all the time. Hopefully it will help boost my confidence too! I've made a start on some of the activities that I said I would undertake during this time off- I've done a few paintings/drawings, started reading 'Jane Eyre' and I've been in the process of trying to teach myself a song on the guitar (though I haven't touched the guitar in a few days- it probably needs tuning). I've even done a little bit of cooking (and written a blog post about it), which is good for me, because I'm not the most talented chef and, therefore, try to avoid cooking as much as I can. I've also done, and enjoyed doing, a bit of housework. More that I'd normally do. It's relaxing in a way, and it makes me feel like I'm being productive. Plus it's nice to know that I'm helping my family.

I think the next thing I need to do is establish a proper routine, I've been waking up and going to sleep way later than I should, which is mildly disruptive. I think I'll get more done if I set myself a proper routine (and stick to it).  I think I might make a post about my routine pretty soon. I also need to work on applying for jobs, lots of jobs. I'll do reflective posts like these fairly regularly to help me track my progress during this 'gap year,' and to also help me pick myself up if I feel I'm slacking. I'm hoping they'll keep me on track.

Brownies

I had been wanting to make this post for some time but didn't quite get round to it since I've had a few other things that were a bit more urgent that needed doing.
One of the first things I did when I got back to help me settle into my new routine was make brownies. I had decided that I would work on improving my cooking, especially focusing of healthy (or healthier) dishes. I had seen a recipe online for healthier brownies that I had been wanting to try out for a while, mostly to see if it tasted as good as the recipe claimed it did. We happened to have (mostly) the right ingredients in the house, so I thought I'd give making these brownies a go. I'm not the best cook so I was a bit apprehensive about these, especially since they are egg-less, flour-less and sugar-less, but they were surprisingly good! Actually they were pretty damn delicious, and I really enjoyed them. I'll link the recipe I used for these in this post, but they consisted primarily of banana and peanut butter, which is not really something you would think of when it came to brownies.
These basically mimicked brownies very closely- they had a very similar texture (though they were less cakey since no flour was used), and the same chewyness that is one of the key characteristics of brownies. Those things alone made for a pretty tasty treat. They also tasted very similar to real brownies, though the banana taste comes through a bit. It's not dominant, though, so it still feels like you're eating brownies. They were a nice brown colour, though they were a bit burnt around the edges since the mixture didn't make much and ended up thinning out around the sides. I'm pretty sure that's happened to me with real brownies before. They were also amazingly easy to make- I just chucked all the ingredients into a food processor and blended until smooth, poured out the mixture into a baking tray then left it in the oven to bake. The only problem with my brownies is that I used sweetened cocoa powder instead of cacao (it's really expensive!) and processed peanut butter instead of raw peanut butter as the recipe states, so the brownies were less healthy than they should have been, and I'm not sure if they would have tasted as good if I'd used these ingredients.
Having said that, I'm really pleased with this recipe, and proud of myself for make something (kind of) healthy that tasted really nice and that I enjoyed eating. This is relatively rare for me! I would have posted pictures, but they wouldn't have done the brownies justice- they tasted much better than they looked. I've also eaten most of them. I'll definitely make them again though, and this time I'll try and use the healthier ingredients.
Recipe: http://www.loveyourselfgreen.com/2015/01/double-chocolate-grain-free-brownies-100-flourless/  

Making the most of my free time

Since leaving university I have an abundance of free time, in which I have chosen to work on improving certain hobbies and pass times of mine (at least until I get a full time job). I just feel like I need to be doing something productive with my time, and I think that this will really help with my self development. I have certain things that I have prioritised, such as reapplying to university and finding a job, and I will also be doing most of the housework now (I'm very grateful to my parents for supporting me through the whole process and letting me come home immediately when I wanted to), but rather than waste the rest of my time binge watching Netflix, I thought it would be character building to focus on improving on activities I already enjoy. I will probably still do a bit of Netflix binge watching.
These activities include:

• Drawing- I like drawing but I have always wanted to be better at it and learn how draw more realistically. I've decided to choose something to draw and follow some online tutorials and persist at it until I'm really happy with it (if I'm actually ever happy with it). I'll post the progress and results to this blog.
• Playing guitar- I've been playing guitar on and off for years now. I've never been particularly good at it, though I've always wanted to be. Maybe if I stuck at it I'd be a lot better at it. This time I'm going to try and stick at it and see where it gets me.
• Cooking- I generally want to improve my diet actually. I'd like to be healthier and ultimately aim to clear up my eczema as best I can. It would be much easier to achieve a healthy diet if I could cook well and make healthy food, so I've decided to do that too. Again, I'll blog about my progress with this, and share my favourite recipes. 
• Reading- technically this isn't something that I want to improve as such, but I do want to read more widely, and to read things that I wouldn't usually read for leisure. My aim is to basically never be without a book.
• Writing- I want to write more. I've always wanted to write more. That's why I've set up this blog, in order to encourage me to do so. I haven't really had the confidence and I've never known where to start either, so I think this blog is a good starting point. 
• Hair and make up- this one is pretty frivolous, but I thought it would be pretty fun nevertheless. I know there's more to life than looks, but I think it would be nice to see what I can do with my appearance too, and it would be awesome to learn some hair and make up skills. It's not a priority, but it might make me feel a little better in some way. I'm focusing on the inside, but it might be nice to give a bit of thought to the outside too.

I'm going to try and bog about these activities- for the moment this is most likely what I will focus on in my blog posts. I'm quite pleased with my progress so far- I've filled in quite a bit of my UCAS form and I'm beginning my personal statement (this was a great source of anxiety for me but it's far less terrifying than I thought it would be), I've already started reading Jane Eyre, I'm practising a song on the guitar and I've made healthy brownies which tasted fantastic! Oh, and I set up a blog and made two posts :)