Anne's Kitchen has turned 7...with A Little Foodie round-up!

So March saw a lot of things happen - for a start my blog turned 7! I had in the back of my mind it was somewhere around now but was still slightly surprised to see my first post here was on the 22nd of March 2007! Gosh so much has happened during this time! Where on earth has it gone?! 

Seven years on I am a much better cook for a start and I have met some truly wonderful friends during this time, discovered lots of lovely new foods, drinks and housewares's. Not to mention having some pretty unique opportunities and experiences too along the way! From starting out as just a place for keeping my recipes together as I was struggling with lots and lots of word documents, to actually properly researching and writing out posts, engaging on social media including my twitter feed and facebook pages, its been a ever evolving blog! 

My blog has also changed colour and style several times, the most recent header was thanks to the lovely Jac who writes Tinned Tomatoes, who was fed up with my previous, ancient one and made me a lovely one using a professional photo I had done - believe me I spend most days in Hello Kitty pyjamas with no make-up on but its nice to look good sometimes! I keep looking at going over to self hosting and adjusting the blog name slightly but its work in progress and I will keep you updated!

Life during the past 7 years has been a rollercoaster too, involving many housemoves, lugging boxes of kitchenalia around, not to mention all the cookery books too much to the horror of friends and family who kindly helped! And yes I do need it all. My career and relationships have changed, friends have come and gone, and after battling through ill health and life's other challenges I have somehow muddled it through and I sit here today in amazement over it all! When you hit rock bottom the only way is back up!

What I have learned and accept most is to just breathe, what will be will indeed be and sometimes you just have to evolve too - you can only ever go forward, its impossible to re-live yesterday after all! I have no idea how the next 7 years will pan out, I just hope my health improves and that I will continue to have all my wonderful, lovely family and friends around me because without them, I don't think I would be sitting here now writing about the past 7 years. Thanks guys n gals :)

And so I did promise some food in this rather cathartic post - over the past few months a few items have popped through the door that I've been playing with - first us is these dinky pastry shells from Pidy - I used their spoons to make little canapes filled with a thick spicy Beetroot soup, topped with a teeny drop of clotted cream and sprig of coriander - they were very cute and even B ate several of them, I think I have truly converted him to Beetroot now! The 'Spoonettes' held the soup very well without going soggy and are very appealing to the eye!

In my job I work the odd night shift and eating sensibly during the small hours I find quite hard - I get peckish and I would normally have a banana but I did tested out some some new healthy snacks called 'Go Nuts' from EPJ Health and whilst I didn't care for the cinnamon flavoured ones, I really enjoyed their coconut ones and it really helped give me a 'natural' boost to get through the last few hours of the shift, which are always very busy ! They are made of a fruit and nut mixture, are low GI and well balanced. 

Whilst I make a fairly decent pizza, for convenience we sometimes pick up a ready made pizza -and recently Dr Oetker kindly gave us some vouchers and we discovered their gorgeous Spinaci pizza - its a nice crisp base, topped with Spinach leaves, a tasty tomato and garlic sauce and both edam and gooey mozzarella cheeses - we both loved it and I would definitely buy again! I served it with our favourite rocket, sundried tomato and pine nut salad - delicious!

So overall many thanks to all my fabulous friends, family, readers of my blog and all the companies I've worked with over the past 7 years! Its been great!

Do you have a favourite recipe on my blog? Please let me know - I love to receive your comments!

Anne

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