crunchy salad

Tonight I came in late and wanted something fast and relatively healthy - I made myself a salad with spinach, tomato, mozzarella light (rubbish - no flavour - must remember not to buy it again), pinenuts and pumpkin seeds. I drizzed Belazu balsamic vinegar (the best in the business) and some posh extra-virgin olive oil over the top for some more flavour as the mozzarella tasted of nothing at all. It was nice though, and looks pretty colourful, don't you think?

And for lunch on Friday, I had...

Penne pasta with pesto, pinenuts and parmesan. And veg, but that doesn't begin with a 'p' so I thought I'd put that in the next sentence. Alliteration - every writer's friend. The veg included an onion, a courgette and a tomato. The pasta was brown, so I felt full for longer - I'm assuming I did as that's what you're supposed to find with brown pasta. I just like the more fibrous flavour and consistency, if you cook it al dente - a bit like brown rice versus white rice, as brown's just more interesting.

Anyway, I was full and felt better. I've got a cold at the moment, and as my mother always told me, 'feed and cold and starve a fever'. I tend to feed both, but I'm sure it doesn't matter.

Saturday white anchovy salad - a healthy lunch

This morning we had the hangover after the night before and, having slept it off for ages, we felt we needed some seriously healthy food for lunch. We decided on marinated anchovies (they were packaged in a little pot from Waitrose - expensive but well worth it) on a bed of spinach, watercress and rocket leaves, cherry tomatoes and a few pinenuts and pumpkin seeds as they were so good and crunchy on my salad yesterday. We didn't need any dressing as the anchovies are so powerful and delicious.

I can't eat those horrible little brown and hairy anchovies from tins - they just taste so wrong - but these silver little fillets from Waitrose (or I've seen them at olive stalls in posh markets) are simply amazing. They're pretty, they taste powerfully vinegary, they're smooth and fresh-looking AND they're so good for you, full of all the fish oils and all that. I wish we had them more often... happily I've got another tub of them in the fridge, so I know I won't have to wait long.