The hills are alive with the sound of Stanley

I don't know if any of you have been to Winchester before but there is one thing that makes it stand out from other cities. It isn't the ancient city streets lined with buildings that hold more stories that I could image. Nor is it the Cathedral, a building which is the cultural and spiritual home of the city.
No. It is the hills.
I'm pretty sure the hills move, like the staircases in Hogwarts, because no matter where you go, you are always walking up a hill. If you walk up hill on the way there, you'll be sure to walk up hill on the way back too.
If I don't have a spectacular bottom by the end of this year, I shall be really annoyed.

When I walk home, with a head full of questions like 'how exactly is a one way independent ANOVA going to benefit my life?' and 'do I really need to spend £30 on a statistics book? Won't the lectures cover everything?' (they don't by the way), the only thing that gets me up the aforementioned hills is the thought of a warm dinner soothing my statistics riddled brain.

Fairly lucky I've got a Thermomix then!

One of my favourite things to have for dinner is Lentil Ragu, but it normally takes over an hour to make and to be honest, I don't have the time to faff around in front of the hob, making sure my lentils don't boil over, so I adapted the recipe for Stanley and it is thus:

1 onion
2 carrots
1 garlic clove
250g red lentils
400g chopped tomatoes
1tbsp tomato puree
1 tsp dried herbs
1tsp paprika
1 veg stock cube made up to 500ml

1) Add onion, carrot and garlic and chop a few times on turbo until fairly well chopped
2) Saute 100°c/ speed spoon/ 5 minutes, until softened
3) Add lentils, tomatoes, tomato puree, herbs and stock and cook 100°c/ speed spoon/ 20 minutes.
4) Check the lentils are cooked and if not, cook them in 3 minute bursts until they are cooked through.

I like to have mine with ryvita or a warmed pitta bread, but it is equally delicious with pasta or rice for a really filling meal. This also made 3 servings, so one for the freezer and one for lunch the next day.
And the best thing was, I didn't have to wait around in the kitchen for ages, I could go and watch the telly. I mean do work...

Actually, THE BEST this was is that it cost about £1.80 to make (seriously), which is a jolly good job, because it turns out I do need to buy that statistics book.

Stanley of Stanmore Lane

Upon my return to university, I had 2 concerns which many students face: how to eat healthily and how to do so on a budget.

I have the fortune of having a Thermomix at home, a gadget I've had for many years and have grown dependent on it, so when I started University last year, learning to live without it was quite difficult.

However, the very lovely people at UK Thermomix decided to let me borrow a machine to take to Uni to see how useful it was for the student lifestyle.

So, meet Stanley of Stanmore Lane, my very shiny Thermomix. 

I moved into my new student house on Friday, with just myself and one other housemate as the others were moving in on Saturday. We (Helen and I) both felt very strange being in such a large, cold house by ourselves, and when the issue of dinner crossed my mind, I decided a nice big bowl of soup was the best thing to fight away the homesickness. So I made the Curried Sweet Potato soup from the Indian cook book and instantly felt better. 

Plus, this made 3 servings, 2 two portions were popped into the freezer to save for a rainy day.

On Saturday the rest of my house mates arrived, Mel, Grace and Sam, so with all the excitement of unpacking and being back together again after about 5 months apart, I didn't have much time for cooking. However, I made a simple risotto, meaning I could turn Stanley on and leave him to work his magic. I adapted the mushroom risotto, by leaving out the mushrooms and white wine (and added more stock instead) and added carrots, peppers, courgettes and sweetcorn. A teaspoon of curry powder made it absolutely delicious! Again, this made 3 portions, so one was put in the freezer and the other in the fridge for Sunday's dinner.

On Sunday, my housemate Grace wanted to make some soup. Grace, a dancer and who has recently developed a wheat intolerance has what you'd call an interesting appetite. Many nights in first year we would look at what she brought to the dinner table with a look of 'how on earth is that edible?'. My favourite meal of hers being heated chopped tomatoes with broccoli and Wotsits.

Anyway, eager to get people in my house to use Stanley I showed her how to use him and she made a carrot soup, with the recipe taken from the Thermomix website: (http://www.ukthermomix.com/recshow.php?rec_id=19). When it was finished we stirred in a couple of handfuls of spinach and a delicious soup was made!

Grace and Stanley

I'd say that was a fairly successful first weekend with Stanley!