Healthy & Tasty Tuna pasta bake

Easy Tuna Pasta Bake Recipe

Here's a recipe for a full of flavour but still healthy pasta bake, the only fat comes from the cheese & you can always substitute wholewheat pasta.  I have deliberately not put measures, you can adjust the ingredients to suit your own taste or dietary requirements.  It's amazingly easy to make, the only cooking (other than 25 mins baking in the oven) is cooking the pasta).  It's also infinitely changeable in terms of which vegetables you use.  So here it is, warm comfort food without any effort....

Ingredients:
Pasta
Can of chopped tomatoes
Can of tuna in spring water
Leeks
Handful of fresh basil (I keep a basil plant in the kitchen, looks good, smells great & you always have fresh basil)
Freshly ground black pepper
Cheese

Variations:
Chop a chilli & add into the mix. Or
Add a squeeze of harissa or chilli paste this will make it nice & spicy or
Add a bit of chopped garlic or
Add any vegetables you have about the place Esp broccoli, courgette or carrots (these will need par boiling first) or
Substitute onions for leeks

Method:
Boil the pasta & while that's cooking chop your vegetables and put the tuna, tomatoes & vegetables into an ovenproof dish.  When the pasta's cooked, add it to the dish, mix them all together gently & cook for 25 mins of until cheese bubbles

Enjoy

Pic to follow

YSL Black Opium Review

This is my unboxing & first impressions video of Black Opium by YSL


http://youtu.be/tYCVUIkHmJY

Autumn / Fall Outfit Idea

As Jane Austen said it is a truth universally acknowledged that autumn follows summer (ok she didn't write that part).  Today I'm looking out of my window at the pouring rain, the thunder and lightening are competing with each other and it seems that sunshine is a distant memory.  That's why I thought I'd share my outfit idea which goes across the seasons and still manages to not make you look like there's snow on the ground.

The Mac is by Ilse Jacobsen Sweden and is just so well designed.  It's light, but windproof.  Her zips are rubberised so they don't go soggy in heavy rain (nor will anything in your pockets get wet).  The lining is a soft light fleece and the hood fits nicely (I hate it when a hood is so huge you can't see out of it).  My top is made by Pyrus London and is beautifully light & soft and the jeans are Vero Moda (double button so slightly high waisted).

Moving on to accessories, the bag is Vince Camuto lovely soft leather and uber practical with a zipped gusset which make the bag about an inch wider (big enough to put a bottle of water in).  The wallet beside it is by Love Moschino and matches it well and once again, is really practical with lots of card slots and a zip all round so nothing can fall out.  Finally the studded shoe boots are from zara and just give the outfit a little quirky touch.

New Youtube Haul - Birthday Boots & Bags

Just a quick one to let you know that I have filmed a new haul video, it includes my autumn / fall bags & boots from Kurt Geiger, Ugg, Ralph Lauren & Vince Camuto.

Time flies!

Hello Minxes,
Today's the last day of July, I know everyone says it, but where did the month go? Because I'm just getting over a nasty bout of flu & August is my birthday month, I've decided to take a month for myself.  I have various work roles (rather than just one job) and so I have taken a holiday from one of them (I will try to limit the time I spend on the others) because I want and need some ME time!

I think that part of the reason why I got the flu was that I haven't been taking enough care of myself (like a lot of folks I've been focused on other people's needs) and somewhere in there I forgot about me, so the plan this month is to ease off work, try and read some good books, work out what really matters to me in life and how to achieve it and generally get my stuff together.  The reason why I need a month to do it, is because I have ignored these questions for so long that they now need my complete attention.  Which is where the point of this blog comes in,  don't forget about yourself & your needs, life is NOT and should not be something that happens to you while you're doing something else.

The main challenge, in my opinion, is how to [nicely] stop other people draining all your energy, this may sound selfish and I know that by helping others you can help yourself (I do volunteer work, which I enjoy), but this point is really about boundaries.  You have to have a little area inside you with enough time & space to figure out the things that are important to you, then the time to make plans about those things and finally to act on those plans.  Admittedly, buying a mansion in the country may not, currently, be an achievable goal, but saving for a deposit & selling all those things you no longer need may be more reasonable.

Anyway, this is just a little reminder from one who knows, that you have to find time for yourself.  I plan to keep writing this blog throughout August (it's one of my guilty pleasures), speak to you all again soon.

Minimalism & In Praise of the New...

Sometimes I like to have something new, whilst this may not be good news for my struggle towards minimalism I do believe that it is good for both the spirit & for keeping up with innovation.  The reasons why I believe it's good for the spirit come from the belief that inside us all is a little child, who loves to have a treat and who also loves new shiny objects!  In other words, when we get something new it makes us feel special.  I know that you're probably yelling at the screen right now that we should be mature & regulate our desires etc.  But I honestly think that a little of what you fancy does you good, subject to certain restrictions, namely, that you can afford what you're buying & that it will genuinely give you pleasure for more than five minutes.

In all fairness you could keep playing your old CD's and make your calls on an old brick mobile (with no sense of post modern ironic style) for as long as your equipment lasts, or you could favour the Kondo Minimalist idea of keeping what you love and gently saying goodbye to the other items, which does give you the opportunity to replace some of them with shiny, new, more efficient & usually smaller items (an Ipod versus a CD collection) and yes, my whole music collection fitted onto my Ipod Classic (even though it amounted to over 90GB).

Minimalism teaches you to work out what is important to you and attach values to what you have in terms of what it adds to your life, so if you do choose to upgrade or replace something for a shiny new item, don't feel bad, but do make sure that you savour every moment of unwrapping it, playing with it and generally enjoying the kidlike pleasure of a treat - just don't get sucked into buying too many of them!  

In Praise of Order

 

Hi fellow Minxes

Today I want to talk about a subject very close to my heart, I'll start from the beginning....

My name's Minx and I'm a list maker, I've been a list maker for as long as I can remember, possibly I was making lists in my pram & hiding them behind my teddy!  Seriously though, I see a lot of YouTube advice about how to pick the prettiest planner & how to get the nicest paperclips & post its, but in all these videos helping you to get more organised there seems to be very little emphasis on ACTUALLY DOING WHAT'S ON THE LIST!

Perhaps it's just me, but I write a list of to do's in my diary (day to a page) and strike them off as I get them done. If it's a busy day, I will put time slots beside them.  I also have lists of things I need to buy on torn up bits of recycled paper in my purse (not the prettiest, but they do the job & I like to think they also help save the environment too).  I must admit they do not add to a minimalist sense of order around the place BUT they do get the job done (and then you have the minimalist satisfaction of throwing them away).  Watching some of the videos I get the distinct impression that the planning is an end in itself! From my perspective, there are few things more stress reducing than knowing what you have to do at any given time & (even better) knowing that you have done it at the end of the day.

While I admit that in the ideal world we would all write our lists in elegant tooled leather notebooks with beautiful fountain pens, the reality is that scribbling ideas on a crowded bus is probably best done on a smaller scale and that although it's lovely to write all these lists & plans, don't forget that on this occasion, it's the bottom line that really counts.

Do what you love....

 This is a somewhat random post (it's one of those mornings when you wake up & just have something to say).  Firstly, I appreciate that we all have responsibilities and things we have to do which are outside our control, but, I am just really becoming aware that we all only have one life and so if we spend it doing all the things we (may) need to do for other people, our lives will be gone & we can't get the time back.

I know there will be some of you who say that it's more fulfilling helping others, I appreciate that (I do volunteer work every week), but I would also say that if you don't help yourself you might just look back & say "I could have ....".  Another point to consider for those people who are possibly responsible for others, be they children or perhaps family members, is that you cannot care for another person if you are not truly on top of your game.  You will not be as much use to them, nor will you be any benefit to yourself.

In conclusion, next time you decide that you don't have time to exercise, watch your favourite TV show, have a face pack or just sit & read a book, don't feel guilty about it & don't resist that urge.  Start with the little things like that, which help to remind you of who you are & what you like to do.  On a larger scale when you next have a chance to do or have something which could enrich your life, don't only think of your responsibilities, remember what life was like when you were a child & could make decisions solely for you (admittedly now you may not be able to do this all the time) but the sheer pleasure which comes from knowing that you are actually living your life is intoxicating.