LET'S GET COOKING

Finally I am back in the swing of things when it comes to cooking. For a while I'd throw a sweet potato and some peppers or an avocado in my bag for lunch and on more than one occasion I would place a bowl of porridge in the microwave for dinner. I guess that what happens when you're busy! However, since starting to regain my mojo (see previous post) I've really started to enjoy cooking and searching for new recipes. Over the last year or so I have bought a few new cookbooks and some of them have been ones that I have very rarely looked at due mostly to the complexity of the recipes and when a recipe has a million ingredients including stuff like bee pollen or some expensive, impossible to find ingredient that are only sold in that one health food shop a hundred miles away then it makes things hard!

However, two recipe books that I've been really enjoying recently are Ready Steady Glow by Madeline Shaw & The Art of Eating Well by Hemsley and Hemsley. Granted both of these books sometimes ask for difficult ingredients, the majority of the recipes however are made using ingredients that you most probably already have in your cupboard.

Over the last few weeks I have slowly been making my way through both of these recipe books making everything from big meals fit for a feast to delicious cakes and biscuits (I have't got pictures of all of these meals as basically I ate them too fast and I forgot to take pictures!). From the Hemsley and Hemsley book I have made dishes such as baked broccoli fritters and avocado dip, courgette fries, lentil stew, ginger & cinnamon cookies, banana bread (favourite), lamb meatballs and cauliflower tabbouleh & black bean brownies.  From Madeline Shaw's Ready Steady Glow I have made delicious meals such as the chickpea curry and the most delicious curry I have ever tasted the lamb and spinach curry (although I made it with beef but will definitely be making it with lamb next time).  I also recently made a Jamie Oliver chocolate and beetroot cake which was actually delicious.

I know that wellness and these types of books have been gaining a bad rep recently with articles such as this one from Vice questioning how actually healthy this type of clean eating is, but I can honestly say that these meals are delicious and filling and I feel much more energetic having eaten them in comparison to just eating porridge and sweet potatoes!

I have also been looking for new cook books and have a few waiting to be bought in my amazon basket including Fearne Cotton's Cook Happy, Cook Healthy and Sirocco: Fabulous Flavours From the East. 

April / Ebrill - Favourites | Music

I listened to a lot of music in April. I mean I listen to a lot of music every month but in April however, I listened to a lot of new* (and old) music(*new for me). So I thought why not compile them all together in one playlist to share with all of you. I discovered a lot of music in April through random spotify playlists, THIS New York Times video and general radio listening. Also, I turned 22 in April so of course T-Swizzle has been played a lot (but alas she is not on spotify). Thrown in here are some awesome Welsh language stuff that I think everyone should listen to - if you speak Welsh or not, as well as some old French songs, classic Rolling Stones stuff, Springsteen (of course),  as well as some classic Indie and pop. A bit of everything for everyone. May/June are also going to be superb music months with Manic Street Preacher, Super Furry Animals and Bruce Springsteen gigs lined up... YAAAAY!

Finding My Mojo

It's been a long time no posts here on Lisiloo. There is no one particular reason as to why, it was simply that I didn't think I had anything much to say. Or possibly rather, I didn't really want to say anything. Although I did. I did want to write, write, write - I just couldn't for some reason. But I guess that's stress for you. I kind of turn in on myself when I'm stressed with even the simplest task such as emptying my suitcase feeling like the biggest mountain to climb. When I'm anxious I tend to exercise a lot, eat a lot of porridge, not get much sleep and I start to doubt my decisions. Lets just say that over the last few months I lost my mojo. However, over the last few days I have had one or two tasters of my ol' mojo and it has been enough for me to start trying to reclaim it once more.

Yesterday afternoon I actually sat down for around two hours with no worries in the world, listened to good music, read some awesome blogs, looked at some pretty cool photographs and watched some great documentaries. This is something that I have not done in a very long time. I had no guilt and I could actually physically feel my muscles relax. Of course about an hour later my body was back as tense as anything but for those two hours on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon - life was bliss.

I'm not going to set out goals for the next few weeks because I don't want to place extra pressure on myself but here are a few things I want to concentrate on in the near future - listen to some more cool and morale boosting podcasts such as Emma Gannon's Ctrl; Alt; Delete, read more, listen to more music, practise more yoga (not all exercise has to leave you collapsed on the floor at the end), have more interesting conversations, worry less to clear room to think more, listen to my body and get back to writing regularly.

Other things that have been going on in my life recently: I took a trip back down to Richmond for the weekend and had the best time with friends; had my 22nd Birthday; ran a half marathon; drunk quite a lot of prossecco; climbed a mountain; started a new project at work; went to an Eurovision party; started gardening (rock n roll life); I've eaten a lot of mexican food; attended a few comedy shows; walked many miles; ran hundreds of miles; became obsessed with peanut butter (again); spent many hours on the phone; driven many hundreds of miles; danced until the early hours of the morning; realised that being in yours 20s is weird as everyone is at a very different stage of their lives be that still at uni, working, travelling etc; I've also learnt that having fun is allowed and encouraged.

I will undoubtably be writing more in-depth posts about one or two things mentioned in the paragraph above but until then I'll speak to you soon.  Here's to slowly but surely getting my mojo back!