Follow your heart not your brain!!

So after a couple of weeks of going through a hundred different thoughts and ideas about what I want to do ( I felt like I was going through career guidance at school again!!), I have have come to the conclusion that the only person that I need to impress regarding my own development, is, shock horror, myself. Given that I am my own worst critic, this is a tall order to meet. I have to be realistic in that we will hopefully be expanding our family in the next couple of years and J is not starting school for a couple of years either, so it would be ridiculous to start trying to complete a degree, or try to give a language or other course my full undivided attention, until we have got to a place as a family, where I can focus on something other than us as a unit. So I decided that as I am the chef of our household, I would throw myself into something I LOVE. Learning how to cook and bake.

So I am following my heart in order to feed my family and my brain. Plus The Great British Bake Off has started and there is no better time in my eyes to try and increase my baking and cooking knowledge, whilst using the medium of media to motivate myself, plus every episode makes me want to bake more and more exciting things (Battenburg here I come!!).

In order to get myself started, I decided that I needed a few things, so I made a trip to my local cake decorating shop in order to stock up on a few "essential" (cough, cough) items that I could not do without. I am not too sure that I definitely needed the icing roller or the three different shades of green food colouring/paste, but I got them.

So with my new kit, I have also decided to order an organic vegetable box on a weekly basis. This is the best thing I have ever done. Plus I am stupidly excited every Wednesday when Alan brings our delivery. Fabulous. I am making things that I have never ever thought I could. Not only that, I am realising that recipes are not really that difficult, as long as you read it properly. In fact the only reason I made the same 4 dishes over and over ( lasagne, chicken casserole, sausage casserole and beef in ale, in case you were wondering) was because I found the names of recipes and the huge amount  of ingredients really daunting.

One of my first exciting new creations were courgette polpettes and home made naans, which J helped with of course:

As you can see he was not too impressed with the dough!

All I can say is thank you Hugh Fearnly Whittingstall (?????). His recipe for the polpettes were delicious. Even J ate them, which considering they had green veg in them was a miracle. Admittedly they are not the prettiest things, but boy they were good. The only thing I would have added was possibly some cumin to give it a bit more of a kick, but I suppose you could add some chilli if you wanted some added kick. We will definitely be wheeling these out again.

I am so pleased that I have finally given myself a break and am doing something that I am really enjoying. the only problem now is that I may have to take up running in order to burn all of the extra calories off!