Ratatouille

Try this tasty, fresh dish as an alternative to regular vegetables on the side or as a great accompaniment to meat and fish. I love it as a meal in itself but it's also wonderful with white fish or steak. I like my ratatouille to be quite saucy -if you prefer it dryer, don't add the tin of tomatoes. I think i'll be making plenty of this in the run-up to summer - I tend to make it in big batches and eat it with a variety of things throughout the week. Enjoy!

Ingredients

2 Aubergines
2 courgettes
1 red onion
2 red peppers (you can use yellow pepper as well if you wish)
4 plum tomatoes
1/2 tin of chopped tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
oil
basil
Tsp caster sugar

1. Chop the aubergine and courgette lengthways and then into chunks. Chop the peppers into slices and place vegetables into roasting tray. Season with salt and pepper and 2 tablespoons of oil. Place into oven on 180 degrees and roast for 40 mins or until soft. Stir occasionally.

2. Chop the onion and fry gently. Add the garlic and some chopped basil leaves.

3. Using a knife, make a cross on the bottom of each tomato and add to a bowl of boiling water. Leave for 1 minute and then remove and remove the skin (this should be easy, if not, place back in the water for a bit longer)

4. Chop the tomatoes and place into the pan with the onions and garlic. Add the chopped tomatoes and the sugar.

5. Once the vegetables are roasted remove from the oven and place into the tomato sauce. Season to taste and leave on a low heat for a further 15 minutes.

6. Serve with a sprig of basil.

Gazpacho

Determined to get beach-body ready (it will happen this year, it definitely will, it must) I have given up carbs... during the week... after 4pm (baby steps people!). In actual fact i've pretty much not eaten carbs so far this week at all apart from some noodles on Tuesday, but I'm not missing them that much. I'm allowing myself carbs on weekends because i'm not the sort of person who has enough will power to give something up entirely and I know i'll just crave them if I can't have them at all so weekends will be cheat days. 

It's making me more adventurous in the kitchen and i'm having to think of meals that I wouldn't normally make. God, I miss pasta, how easy is it?! So I thought I'd share with you my carb-free meals as I go. First up this week is Gazpacho, the spanish classic which is perfect for a hot summers day and is actually much more filling than you'd expect. This is a cold soup but is so tasty! 

Ingredients

(Serves 4)

1 kilo ripe tomatoes
1 green pepper
3/4 of a cucumber (peeled)
1 spanish onion
1 clove of garlic
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons of vinegar (red or white wine)
Salt
1 boiled egg (optional)

1. Roughly chop the tomatoes, pepper, 1/2 the cucumber, 1/2 the onion and the garlic. Leave a small amount of the green pepper aside.

2. Put the chopped vegetables into a blender or use a hand whisk and blend until there are no chunks of vegetables left and it is liquidy. 

3. Add the olive oil, vinegar (do this one tablespoon at a time and taste, if you want more add to taste) and salt. Mix together. 

4. Chop a small amount of cucumber, green pepper, onion and boiled egg and sprinkle over gazpacho.

Rioja Tapas Fantasticas, London

Last weekend, on a nice grey day in London I headed to the Rioja Festival on the Southbank. The best Tapas and Rioja all in one place without having to jet off to Spain? Heaven. For £3.50 you got 4 tokens to sample wines, then you paid extra for the tapas. As much as I would have loved to try all the food - and there were some amazing looking pinxos - our budget did not extend that far unfortunately! 

I tried to keep track of all the Rioja we tried but in the end there were far too many! I love a strong hearty red so I tended to try Reserva or Gran Reserva. Here are some of the snaps I managed to take. 

Chorizo a la Sidre - succulent and bursting with flavour - definitely trying this at home!

Calamares from El Cantara - delicious but for £4.50 could have done with a few more!!

We ended up buying 2 bottles of the Taron Reserva - delicious and not bad at the price of £10 per bottle. 

It was a great event and it was interesting to see how many restaurants there are in London that I haven't heard of or been to before. I think they'll definitely be worth a try. If you want a full listing of all the restaurants and bodegas that were at the event click here.

More than anything else this has made me excited for my holiday to Spain later this summer! I'll certainly be filling my glass with as much rioja as possible.

What I Want This Week

The items on my must-have list this week.

Asos, MAXED OUT Suede Loafers in Aubergine, £32

Cos, Geometric Ring, £6 reduced from £12!

Urban Outfitters, Vintage Renewal Floral Skirt in Blue, £28

Homeslice Pizza, London

Image from homeslicepizza.co.uk

I have never seen such ginormous pizzas as I saw (and ate) at Homeslice in London's Covent Garden. 20 inch pizzas and 11/2 litre bottles of wine make this the ideal venue for dinner out with your friends, where everything is made to a massive scale. It's busy and has a buzzing atmosphere but be prepared to wait - like all popular restaurants in the capital, which you can't book, you have to put your name down and wait. We waited for an hour but they let us leave our number and called us when a table became available, allowing us to go off for a cheeky cocktail to while away the time. 

Salami, rocket and parmesan; Chorizo, corn and coriander

The pizzas are genuinely huge so for a table of four who aren't starving, one would probably be sufficient. We had two and inevitably there was some left over. Homeslice offers the half and half option, allowing diners to choose 2 options of toppings to have on their pizza. Good idea considering one topping would probably get a bit boring on such a huge base and also the fact that surely no one would be able to decide on just one from all the varied and interesting options. Cauliflower cheese anyone?

Cauliflower cheese, aubergine, spinach and harissa; Courgette and artichoke

We opted for Salami, rocket and parmesan; courgette and artichoke; corn, chorizo and coriander and cauliflower cheese, aubergine, spinach and harissa. My favourite? Probably the cauliflower cheese - then again i'm a sucker for coriander and it went so well with the chorizo. To be honest they were all absolutely delicious and I would happily eat them all over again. Next time i'd love to try the pulled pork though - sounds amazing! 

Image from Homeslice

The huge bottles of wine are a novelty and one that comes at a rather pricey £44. That's the equivalent to 2 £22 bottles of wine - not too bad but slightly more than we were expecting. 

One and a half litres of wine!

I'd recommend Homeslice to anyone. The food is good, it's a fun idea, the atmosphere is great and the staff are friendly. Bring your friends and indulge in the biggest pizza you'll ever see - forget calorie counting - this definitely isn't the place for that. 

A Spot of Baking - Chocolate Cupcakes

I went for a picnic yesterday with my girlfriends and decided to bake some cupcakes for the occasion. I love these chocolate cupcakes - so rich and indulgent. I added some honeycomb into the mixture but it all melted so i'm not sure that's really worth doing, although my friend did say she could taste it. If you want to leave out the ground almonds just replace it with the same amount of flour - equally, you can add more ground almonds and just put in less flour. I'd always go with a blend of flour and almonds for cupcakes though. Decorate it them how you like - the butter icing was melting in the heat so I poured the sprinkles on liberally to hide all manner of sins. 

Makes 10 large cupcakes 

Ingredients

175ml milk
100g dark chocolate (the more cocoa the better!)
125g caster sugar
60g unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
125g self-raising flour
25g ground almonds
milk/dark chocolate chips (optional)
Honeycomb pieces (optional)

Icing:

300g icing sugar
100g unsalted butter
milk
40g cocoa powder

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Pour the milk, chocolate and third of the sugar into a bowl. Put the bowl on top of a saucepan with a small amount of boiling water in it. Put it over the lowest heat and allow to melt. Stir regularly. It may be necessary to take the bowl off the saucepan every now and then so as not to overheat. Once melted, set aside.

2. Put the butter in a bowl and beat until creamy with an electric whisk. Add the remaining sugar and vanilla and whisk until mixture is light and fluffy. Slowly add the egg, beating after each addition. You can add in a small amount of the flour at this point to avoid the mixture curdling. 

3. Using a metal spoon, add the flour and fold in three batches alternately with the chocolate liquid.  Add a handful of chocolate chips and a handful of honeycomb. 

4. Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for 15 minutes or until the cakes spring back to the touch. 

5. Leave to cool before icing.

6. Add the butter and icing sugar and mix together. Add small amounts of milk at a time and whisk together until you get the desired consistency. Nothing worse than runny butter icing!! Once you reach the right consistency keep whisking until the icing is light.

7. Put into a piping bag and pipe in a circular, spiral motion.

8. Decorate!

If you've tried any of the recipes on this site I'd love to hear your feedback. I'm experimenting as much as you are!

Men's Swimwear - Top 5

My top 5 picks for the flashiest swim shorts around.

Scotch & Soda, Allover Printed Swim Shorts, £61.95

Vilebrequin, Zebras, £158

O'Neill, Bird Watching Boardies, £49.99

Topman, Pineapple Print Swim Shorts, £26

Oiler & Boiler, Tuckernuck Classic South America Tropical Heat, £44.99

Dish of the Week - Puy Lentil and Salmon Salad

For a low-carb, filling meal this salad is delicious. Get a big salmon fillet and cook as normal (i cooked it in foil with oil, chilli and garlic) and add to these fresh ingredients and hey presto you have yourself a meal which is healthy and guilt-free. The dressing really adds some lovely flavour so don't be put off by the fact it's a salad - the lentils bulk it up a bit! 

Ingredients

Dressing:

Olives (I used green but you can use any you like)
5 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 clove of garlic (finely chopped)
Fresh basil leaves (chopped)
Capers (I love capers so use quite a lot but it's up to you how many you want to put in)

Salad:

Green beans
2-4 eggs (depending on how many you're feeding!)
1 or 2 pouches/tins of puy lentils
4 tomatoes (roughly chopped)
Salmon fillets (1 per head, or if you want to use less you can flake it through the salad)
Rocket
Romaine Lettuce (chopped)

1. Cook the salmon how you like. I cook mine in foil on 180 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

2. Slice the olives in half and put in a small bowl. Add the remaining dressing ingredients

3. Hard boil the eggs. Boil the beans in a separate pan until al dente.

4. Microwave the lentils for 2 minutes (or according to instructions on pack). Pour into a bowl or dish you are using to serve. Add lettuce, rocket, tomatoes and beans and add the dressing. Mix well.

5. Place salmon fillets and the eggs (quartered) on top of the salad. 



I adapted this recipe from BBC Good Food.