Saturday 31 May 2014

May Round Up



I have decided to do monthly round up posts as a way to document what I have done each month and to let you get to know me a bit better. May was the month of my AS exams and I've got to tell you, the month was horrific until the 3:30pm on Wednesday 21st! My exams began on the 13th and although I only had 5, I was so emotional for the whole month which looking back now is completely and utterly embarrassing! I burst into tears several times at school which really is embarrasing. I'm going to put that all down to the stress! Anyway although I don't think the exams went very well at all, there isn't anything I can do about it now so we will just have to wait until results day to find out how I did. 

I've been off school since the 22nd and have literally done nothing productive but I think that's okay for now! Unfortunately I don't get to stay off until September like some people do but I have to back to sixth form on Monday to start A2 work, yipeee! (can you tell I'm excited?). 

In May we also got another guide dog puppy but we are only looking after him while his owners are on holiday. Bumble is a 14 week old Labrador-retriever cross who is an absolute pain but his cuteness sort of makes up for it. I'm really enjoying going out for walks again which is something I always miss when we don't have a dog.

I'm hopefully going to be blogging more regularly from now on. I've got lots of exciting posts planned for June, I just need to take pictures for most of them now. This month really hasn't been very exciting so hopefully in future I'll have more to update you on! I'm also starting eating healthier and exercising so I will let you know how I am getting on next month and if you would like any posts on what exercise I'm doing or anything let me know.

Did you do anything exciting in May or have any plans for June?

Megan x

P.S. Do you think the writing on this post is too big?

Friday 30 May 2014

Simple Summer Salads




Salad is one of those seasonal foods that people tend to eat more in the warmer, summer months. I am trying to make my lifestyle and diet more healthy so when I was kindly sent the Simply Salads book I was really happy as it is a great way to find new ways to make salad. I'm the type of person who sticks to the same thing, pasta salad or ham salad, so this proved a great way to change up what I usually do.

The books contains "more than 100 delicious creative recipes made from pre-packaged greens and a few easy to find ingredients". This book screams easy recipes, most recipe books have ingredients that you would have to fly to Japan to find. All the ingredients included in this book are really easily accessible, the hardest ingredients to find are probably the shellfish and seafood. The recipes are all really easy to follow and are all bullet pointed so the steps are all clear without there being paragraphs of unnecessary text. 

So far I have only tried the Warm Wild Mushroom Salad using Florette Salad but instead of using the wild mushrooms as suggested I just used a range from the supermarket (better to be safe than sorry, right?). This was a great way to use up mushrooms that had been left in the fridge and the salad turned out lovely.

Although the book is very simple and isn't needed in order to make a great salad, it does act as a great source of inspiration if you are looking for ways to spice up salads that you currently eat. I love the pictures in the book, they are large and clear and make the food look great. For me pictures are what makes or breaks a recipe book and the pictures in this book definitely make the book. I make recipes based on how good the pictures for that recipe are so I think pictures are really important. 

The book costs around £15 which I personally think is very expensive for what it is but if you are a massive fan of salads, this is the book for you.  Don't get me wrong I love the book but would never have thought of buying a recipe book of salads, especially as I don't eat salads as a meal very often and only tend to use it to garnish meals. 

I'd love to know what your favourite salad is.

Megan x

*This post contains a sponsored link. All views of the book are my own.