Author: minceandskirlie

Writer, poet, musician, and sometime IT professional in the North East of Scotland.
Thoughts

Whisky temptation

minceandskirlie

Argh! They’ve done it again. Why do single malts direct always send their email out when I’m skint?

Last time it was full of great sounding speysides like a 17 year old Benriach finished in Rioja casks. Who doesn’t like the sound of that? But as tempted as I was, funds are low just now so I had to pass (though I did get as far as adding the bottle to my basket and had my pointer hovering over the checkout button on the site).

Today’s email has special offers on Ardmore, Dalmore and Laphroig (and I’m all out of peaty whisky just now…), but I still don’t have much cash to my name.

Having said that it is payday next week and I’ve got a couple of weddings approaching, so I need something nice to put in my hip flask…

Pasta, with spinach, bacon and sage
Food and drink

Pasta with spinach, sage and bacon

minceandskirlie

After the pork dish earlier in the week I had some spinach and bacon needing used up so I thought a quick pasta dish would do the job perfectly.

Due to it’s quickly botched together nature I don’t have any accurate measurements, but to be honest this sort of dish shouldn’t be exact. Add more of what you like and take out what you don’t, you’re the one that has to eat it after all. Continue reading “Pasta with spinach, sage and bacon” →

Recipe

Ripailles – Pork Butchers Wife

minceandskirlie

The Guardian and Observer Food Monthly recently compiled a list of the 50 best cookbooks:
Numbers 50 – 11
Numbers 10 – 1

So inspired by the list I thought I’d dig out my favourite recipe book (which didn’t make the top 50 unfortunately) for a recipe blogpost.
Continue reading “Ripailles – Pork Butchers Wife” →

Health and fitness, News

Pizza is good for you!

minceandskirlie

Now I’m normally very skeptical about news stories regarding scientific research and food. More often than not they’re just PR puff pieces masquerading as news and the study in question has been commissioned by the food companies themselves or their PR puppets.

However, I really, really want this one to be true:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/aug/16/pizza-save-life-improbable-research

Unfortunately even the journo who wrote the article doesn’t sound convinced (I guess the clue should also be that he’s the editor of a journal called The Annals of Improbable Research). But like similar stories regarding red wine, beer and chocolate I’ll continue to cling on to the vain hope that they’re doing me some good.

Health and fitness, Thoughts

Lifestyle Balance

minceandskirlie

Recently I worked with a guy who had a bit of spare weight he wanted to lose. Having been there myself I tried to give him some pointers, as did some of the other people in the office who are into fitness and nutrition. In the end he didn’t really pay attention to what we said to him (make small, long term changes and do more exercise) and ended up going down the path of diet pills and depriving himself of all the food he actually likes. He lost a decent amount of weight quickly but got frustrated as it slowed down.
Continue reading “Lifestyle Balance” →