Recipe Box: Tomato and Basil Gnocchi

 Mmmm... Gnocci. One of my favourites! But what to have with it? Well, here's a simple suggestion. It should be enough for around four servings.

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil.
• 1 onion, chopped.
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped.
• 30g fresh basil.
• 800g chopped tomatoes.
• 1 tsp brown sugar. 
• 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce. 
• 1 tsp dried mixed herbs. 
• 1000g gnocchi.
• 25g pine nuts. 
• 2 tbsp cheese, grated.

To the kitchen! 

• Preheat the oven to 200oC.
• Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the onion until softened for around 5 to 10 minutes. 
• Add the garlic and fry for a further minute. 
• Stir in half of the basil, the chopped tomatoes, the sugar, the Worcestershire sauce and the mixed herbs. 
• Bring to the boil and then reduce heat and simmer for ten minutes. 
• Meanwhile, cook the gnocchi by boiling it in another pan for a few minutes until the gnocchi rises to the surface of the water. 
• Lightly toast the pine nuts in a small frying pan. 
• Stir the gnocchi through the sauce.
• Serve up into four bowls and top with the pine nuts, cheese and the remaining basil.
• Enjoy!

Hannah xo

London Diversion: Holland Park

Embarrassingly, I have lived in London for five years and had never been to Holland Park. I had heard that it is beautiful so I made the trip on a beautiful sunny day, rare in London.

         And it did not disappoint. Wow.

My favourite part of Holland Park is the incredible Kyoto Garden, shown in the photos below. 

Lord Holland - the statue.

If you ever get the chance, please do visit for a picnic! 

Hannah xo

Geeky Gamer: Abyss: The Wraiths of Eden

Hello again!

I recently became hooked on an adventure point and click game which has become an increasingly rare occurrence as I get older, wiser and let's face it, less able to spend hours playing games! Growing up is overrated ;) I found myself with a bit of spare downtime after a run of night shifts and treated myself to a trial download of a game. I loved it so much that I had to go and buy the full version!

I tend to love the adventures which bring the scare factor. I love playing games with the lights on low and the music turned up high which inevitably makes me jump far too often but I love it! This particular  story starts when your husband-to-be goes missing while on a solo diving expedition (who does that??) so we go off in search of our one true love and find some rather disturbing creature-types underwater who appear to have kidnapped our beau. Your mission is to free him and escape with your lives but of course, as with all great adventure games, this is not a straight-forward task...

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This game made me jump out of my chair several times, so much so, that I was always on edge every time I moved my character through into another area... So much fun!! And the puzzles are great, not with terribly obscure solutions as I have found in the past but real brain-teasers which are so satisfying to complete. Great story, fantastic effects and atmosphere and the backgrounds and videos are rather beautiful. My only gripe is that is wasn't long enough but then again the best games never are!

Have you played any fun games lately?

Hannah xo

Recipe Box: Vegetarian Tortilla Lasagne!

I adore Mexican food and I could eat lasagne forever so why not combine the two? Sound crazy? It's not as insane as it sounds, I promise! It's actually super tasty :)

Introducing the Tortilla Lasagne...

Want to make this beast? Just follow the instructions below :) It serves between two and four depending on just how hungry you are!

Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil.
• 1 onion, finely chopped.
• 1 red chilli, finely chopped.
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped.
• 1 tsp ground cumin.
• 1 tbsp dried coriander. 
• 780g pinto beans, drained.
• 400g chopped tomatoes.
• 250ml vegetable stock. 
• 1 bunch spring onions, sliced.
• 325g tin of sweetcorn, drained.
• 4 flour tortilla wraps. 
• 100g cheese.

To the kitchen!

• Preheat the oven to 200oC.
• Heat the oil in a large frying pan and cook the onion until soft for about 5 minutes.
• Mix in three-quarters of the chilli as well as the garlic, cumin and coriander and cook for 1 minute.
• Add the drained pinto beans, the chopped tomatoes and the vegetable stock.
• Simmer for ten minutes until the majority of the stock has evaporated.
• Add in three-quarters of both the sweetcorn and the spring onions. 
• Place a tortilla wrap in the base of a round cake tin.
• Spoon in a quarter of the bean mixture, sprinkle over a quarter of the cheese and place another wrap on top of this.
• Again, spoon another quarter of the bean mixture and cheese and place another tortilla wrap on top. Repeat twice so you end up with the last of the beans and cheese on top of the fourth tortilla. 
• Bake for 25 minutes.
• Once out of the oven, sprinkle the remaining chilli, sweetcorn and spring onions over the top and voila, you're ready to go!

Enjoy :) 

Hannah xo

Photography: Jake Baggaley

I particularly like photography which teaches me something and shows me the world from a different perspective. I think that's why I'm such a big fan of Jake Baggaley. He describes himself as a 'social documentary and portrait photographer'. His photographs taken inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone are particularly eye-opening. We've all heard of the tragedy but Jake's photos take us into the lives of the few survivors living within the zone and demonstrate just how isolated and forgotten these people are. His photos are beautiful yet heart-breaking at the same time.

Please do check out his website, his photographs are incredible!

Hannah xo

Favourite Flicks: In Time

I wasn't too keen on watching this film. I tend to add anything I haven't seen before to my Lovefilm list which ends up in me watching a lot of rubbish. And I wasn't keen on watching a film starring Justin Timberlake because well, I couldn't imagine him being a convincing actor. 

But lo and behold, this film was a very pleasant surprise! :)

The concept is rather interesting... Imagine if money no longer existed. It has been replaced with the currency of time. So, instead of paying £3 for a coffee (I live in London!) you'd pay 3 minutes. A car? Well, that would set you back 5 years! You also get paid in time, you pay your rent in time and if you run out of time, well, you just drop down dead. You could literally watch your life ticking away, as in this picture below. Oh, and people can beat you up and steal your time. Watch your back, folks!

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It doesn't stop there... You stop ageing when you're 25 and you have the potential to live on forever. This leads to a lot of confusion as to whether the man you're meeting is somebody's father, grandfather or even great-grandfather. Awkward. It's a little weird seeing Olivia Wilde playing Justin's mother. Even weirder when you find out it's her 50th! It's a strange ol' world.

The film sees Justin taking on the hypocrisy of his odd society, escaping his ghetto and seeing how the other half lives. This makes him deeply unhappy and he becomes a futuristic Robin Hood, stealing time from the rich and giving it to the poor, literally saving lives. It's a very interesting story which raises all sorts of questions about our own world.

Have you seen this film? What did you think?

Hannah xo

Favourite Flicks: Zombieland

Carrying on yesterday's theme of zombies, my favourite 'zom-com' is the downright hilarious Zombieland. If you cross Scott Pilgrim with Shawn of the Dead, you'd probably end up with something resembling Zombieland.

Part post-zombie-apocalypse survival guide, part love story and a whole lot of laughs and gore, this is a little different from your usual zombie flick. Zombies have of course taken over the world and this is a tale of fighting for survival against all the odds. You'd think that this would bring the few survivors closer together, right? Wrong. It's hard to trust anybody in Zombieland. Watch out for a cameo from a Hollywood star playing himself ;) Classic! Expect a rollercoaster ride as anything goes in Zombieland.

Necessary viewing, I insist that if you haven't seen it already then you must. Enjoy!

Hannah xo