Thank God for the glutein-free craze, whether a justified health trend or a fad. It means that now after husband's diabetes diagnosis there are actually decent alternatives and we can still enjoy our pasta without spiking husband's blood glucose levels.

I love pasta, not as much as I love husband, but still a lot, so it would be difficult to let go of it altogether. So thank you all real and pretend celiacs and the food industry who are often maligned, but who actually do really good things. Like food for people to eat. Like pasta.

I am working my way through all these different options out there and hopefully will be able to give a better review at some point.

So far we've had slightly embarrassing mushy green pea pasta (I'm sure it can be really nice, but I overcooked it), reasonably nice red lentil pasta and excellent edamame pasta.

An excellent pasta alternative that won't leave you feeling cheated or deprived

There are of course the wholewheat and spelt pastas which we always used to eat anyway because they taste better and are at least a little bit healthier than white pasta. But they do still contain a lot of carbs. But then it also gets a bit scientific, because apparently these varieties contain resistant starch which is ok, so some diabetics in the know say the best way is to test. Literally test your post-prandial blood glucose after eating different foods.

I knew there had to be a reason for me to suffer through 5 years in a shit inspiring but challenging job in diabetes care.

So now we test. Husband is really cute when he tries to protest, but then obediently but looking a bit victimized gives me his shovel-sized hand and lets me prick his finger. With the sarcastically named "Delica" device (gotta love marketing), which of course is not delica but fuckinhurtica.

We have just started the testingbiz so there's not much to report yet. Today's dinner of herby hake with 3 small new potatoes, lots of fresh podded peas, broccoli, spinach and leak was awesome. PP glucose 5mmol/L! That's what I'm talking about!

Not what the doctor ordered yet, but wife knows best.

If husband dies of starvation it was for a good cause and with a nice low glucose reading!

Some interesting ingredients that these new pastas are made of that I have come across so far:
- chickpeas
- green peas
- edamame & mung beans
- soy beans
- black beans
- spirulina (a bit too new age for me)
- brown rice


So for anyone who wants to keep away from those nasty spikes whether you're pre-diabetic, diabetic or maybe you just like eating weird expensive (non)pasta, they offer a great option of indulging in that real pasta feel without shooting your blood sugar through the roof. I haven't been so hot on the calories, but I'm sure there is a great weight loss opportunity here as well. Some of these pastas have a lot of protein and other good stuff like potassium. Potassium is awesome for hangovers, which of course you won't have if you follow a real diabetes and heart-healthy diet. But if you don't, good for you!

Most supermarkets will nowadays have some of these pastas. I found a couple of varieties in my local Morrisons, but healthfood shops usually have a good selection. Wholefoods is amazing. It has become my new shopping Mecca.

One of my favourites so far is the edamame and mung bean fettucine I found at Wholefoods the other day. It's got a nice bite to it and to my pretty forgiving and flexible taste buds it actually tasted really nice. Like it actually had a taste, or maybe it was all the nice stuff I surrounded it with.

Here's the recipe I did using this edamame and mung bean fettucine. Unfortunately I didn't have the blood glucose monitor at hand then, so we don't know what the real life effects would have been. But I assume they would have been ok, the pasta only contains about 11.3g or carbs in 100g (vs 65-70g in normal white pasta!!), and the portions consisted of a lot of veg as well.

Edamame and mung bean fettucine with chicken and spring vegetables

For the chicken:
Rapeseed oil
2 boneless chicken breasts
Salt
Pepper
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp dried oregano or marjoram

½ cup fresh (or frozen) podded peas
1 leek
Bunch of asparagus

For the dressing:
2 tsp dried or 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil
1/3 cup feta
3 spring onions
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar

For the pasta
150g Edamame and mung bean fettucine (or other pasta of your choice)
water
salt

Vegan parmesan to sprinkle

Bring the water to boil in a large pan and add in a good pinch of salt.  Cook the pasta according to pack instructions.
Cut the chicken breast into bite size chunks and season with salt, pepper and oregano. Pod the peas and prepare the asparagus cutting it into one inch pieces. Wash and chop the leeks.

Heat oil in a large frying pan and once hot add in the chicken and cook until browned on the outside and cooked through. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon and et aside.

Add a little rapeseed oil in the pan and add the leek and asparagus. Continue cooking for 3-4 minutes on low to medium heat. Add the peas and continue cooking for another couple of minutes until all the veg are al dente.

Toss the chicken, vegetables and sauce together and make sure it is all piping hot.
Sprinkle with healthy and diabetes and heart friendly vegan parmesan
Serve immediately with a fresh green salad.

Some Italian inspiration for a change in the form of this lovely creamy seafood risotto which combines my favourite tastes of saffron, dill and seafood. The thought was brought on by our Roman holiday last weekend. We had a lovely four days in the eternal city and I got to practice my Italian which I have studied with a mobile app since January.

I don't think I am as fluent as the ad for the app promised, but what I had learned came handy as soon as we arrived. The housekeeper at the B&B we were staying at didn't speak a word of English. So I managed to get us through the check-in process and understood most of her explanations of where everything was and that it was not so much a B&B as just a B since there was no breakfast unless you made it yourself. But when she said (as she was leaving us to our own devices), if you have any problems call me, I thought to myself I would not be able to make much sense of her or she of me on the phone. The communication was heavily reliant on lively gesticulation, pointing and pantomime and not many full sentences were coherently delivered or understood.

Husband was not particularly impressed with my Italian (=repeatedly saying "si" whether I understood what the housekeeper was saying or not) at this stage. And I have to admit this whole monoglot housekeeper scenario came a bit too quickly for me. I did a lot better in situations were I had more time to prepare sentences in my head, like purchasing medicine for husband's man flu in a pharmacy when I had had the whole morning to prepare what I would say. Or talking to the taxi driver on our last day asking him to make two stops, one at the hotel so we could pick up our luggage and then at the airport.

Although afterwards I realised I had probably asked for two roasts (arrosto) rather than stops (arresto), but the driver didn't laugh at me, I didn't tell husband and no one will ever know. In all fairness they should make words more different from each other to avoid these sorts of mix-ups.

So I was pretty proud of myself and at this point husband was so impressed that he asked me to act as an interpreter while he wanted to discuss the Roman housing market with the driver. I did manage to ask about the house prices in general and how much a two bedroom flat in the centre of Rome would cost and even understood the answers, but further than that my linguistic skills wouldn't take me.

Still, well done I think. I will continue my studies as we are planning to go to Venice later this year or at least at some point in the next future. I also have a business trip to Milan in September, so can impress my colleagues by casually chatting to hotel staff in Italian.

Otherwise the holiday followed our normal format of energetic (maniacal) sightseeing with the minimum of 10k walked each day and husband happily following me wherever I chose to take us. I once tried to let him lead. I was walking ahead of him on a narrow cobblestoned street in Trastevere and decided I'll let him go first for a change, so I slowed down and tried to fall behind him, but he slowed down at the same rate and by the time I was behind him we had come to a complete stop. "Why did we get stuck", asked husband. I resumed my leading position.

And we had coffees, teas and glasses of wine in pavement cafes people watching and just enjoying the fact we didn't need to be anywhere else. In Vatican I nipped into a little shop to send my father, the philatelist, a postcard with a Vatican stamp on it, because I thought that's the kind of thing that will get him all excited and he can go to his weekly philatelist meeting and show it to the others and they can all be completely awed by this thumb sized miracle. Anyway, when I came out I couldn't find husband anywhere. Finally I spotted him behind one of the drinks vans drinking a Corona sitting on the pavement. He encouraged me (not a difficult job to be honest) to get a drink, so I got one of those little chilled bottles of wine. They had no glasses so there we sat hiding from the Pope and the sun behind the van swigging our sinful drinks straight from our bottles.

Wearing our newly purchased rosary necklaces.

I don't think God minds though. If he did, I don't think he would have let Jesus in on the water to wine trick.

We did a tiny bit of shopping as well. Husband bought the inevitable hat he always buys when we go anywhere and I bought the inevitable scarf.

We also ate lots of good food of course. The lack of breakfast initially was a bit of a disappointment, but on the first night we nipped to the corner shop on our way home and got some cereal, juice, cheese, butter, bread and tomatoes and actually it was really nice to start the days this way, just the two of us putting a simple breakfast on the table planning the day ahead.

And then of course we would eat out wherever we happened to be when we got hungry. My favourite was Linguine allo Scoglio which I had a couple of times and I think husband's favourites were the swordfish and the tagliatelle bolognese. He wasn't impressed with his lamb chops, which he felt were a different dish to the juicy and soft chops I cook for him (bless him). Another disappointment was the seafood pizza which had no cheese and was just "bread, ketchup and cockroaches" (mussels, and clams). Oh, and I had a lovely pizza on the first night. My health-consciousness doesn't allow me to have restaurant pizza often, the last time was a seafood pizza in 2011 in a restaurant in Pimlico, so it was about time. It was gorgeous.

Swordfish - this chef might not be focusing much in his garnishing and plating, but the fish was very tasty.

Bread, ketchup and cockroaches or Pizza allo Scoglio as it's known in Italy

Linguine allo Scoglio - loved it!

Pizza Cappricciosa - because it is so very thin apparently it has less calories than a banana.

I also got pooped on by a pigeon. Only on my arm but husband helpfully told me it was all over my hair and videoed my panicked wet wipe action. There was no poop in my hair. Sometimes husband's taste for comedy surpasses his survival instinct.

Prawn and crayfish risotto with saffron and dill

This risotto is a lovely meal on its own served with a crisp salad. But this time we had it with some seared tuna,

Oil
1 leek
2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
pinch of saffron
2-3 tbsp chopped fresh dill
4 cups of low salt fish stock
180g king prawns
150g asparagus spears
120g crayfish tails
50g butter (or less if you want to be healthy)
50g grated parmesan
Salt and pepper

Wash and chop the leek. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a deep non-stick pan and add the leek. Saute for a few minutes and add the rice. Keep frying on medium heat for another 3-4 minutes stirring so it doesn't catch. Add the lemon zest and juice, crushed saffron, dill and wine.

In the meanwhile bring the fish stock to boil in another pan. Once the wine has almost evaporated start adding the fish stock one ladle at a time stirring until it has been absorbed then add another label. Keep going until the rice is almost cooked, then remove the ends of the asparagus spears and cut the spears into one inch pieces and add to the pan. A couple of minutes later add the prawns. Once the prawns are cooked, add a knob of butter, the parmesan and the crayfish. Season to taste, stir until all is incorporated and crayfish are heated through. Serve immediately.

This is a fantastic dish. It's satisfying and comforting just as a proper lasagna but quicker and easier to prepare.

I was supposed to do some kale shit last night, but as I happened to walk past the local fishmongers I decided to look in. I only noticed this shop a few days ago and I don’t think they have been there for very long. It was a lovely hot day and I thought it would be a crime not to light the BBQ.

There was a big open counter in the front of the shop covered with ice and fish. They had all kinds of fantastic fish, which you kind of expect from a fishmongers. I was so excited being used to the supermarket sea basses and Greek sea breams, which are perfectly lovely, but it’s so nice to try something different. At the back of the shop there was a guy leaning back on a chair asleep.

I didn’t know what to do to wake him. I couldn’t very well go and poke him. I would have found that really embarrassing for both parties. In these kinds of situations I always pretend that I haven’t noticed that anything is amiss. I’m the person not to be around when you have spinach in your teeth, your fly's open or your skirt is stuck in your knickers, because I won’t tell you.


And sleep is such an innocent and vulnerable state. Plus sleeping at work – even more embarrassing. I have only done it once and it was fully intentional and therefore not embarrassing, maybe more incriminating in the eyes of the employer though. But I was young and reckless then. There was this fantastic riverside music festival in the town where I lived every summer and I had been out all night and was really hungover, so I locked myself in the marketing materials cupboard which was big enough for me to curl up on the floor on pile of babyfood posters for a little nap. I was the babyfood brand manager after all, so it made sense really.

With the fishguy still sound asleep I wanted to make some noise as if by accident, so that he would wake up and I’d then pretend that I just noticed him there (in plain sight) and say – “Oh hello, I was wondering if you have any fish”, or similar. But there was nothing I could use to make accidental noises with unless I started slapping two fish against each other. So I tried to shuffle my feet really loudly walking back and forth by the counter examining the fish.

After a few minutes of this zorbas action the guy finally got up, so appearing surprised I said “Oh hello, I was wondering if you have any nice fish for barbecuing?” He did! He told me what all the wonderful fishes were and I chose a lovely big wild sea bass, which originally I was against because we have sea bass so often, but he promised it is completely different than the non-wild ones. I also took a red grouper because it looked so much fun with it’s crazy face, which looked even crazier when the guy had cut it in half as he butterflied the fish beautifully.

It was way too much fish for just the two of us, but oh well. It’s one of those things, when you finally find something you’ve been looking for a long time, you sometimes go a bit over the top.

BBQ red grouper and wild sea bass

I wanted to keep things really simple. On our honeymoon last year in Santorini we had fantastic grilled fish a couple of times in gorgeous little seaside tavernas. And the fish was perfect, just served with grilled vegetables. I wanted to make my fish just like that. I seasoned them with salt and pepper and filled them with lemon slices, dill and parsley and brushed with oil before putting on the barbecue just so it wouldn't stick. I also tossed some asparagus, courgette, peppers and aubergine in olive oil. lemon, salt, pepper and dried Greek herb mix.

Ooh it was so lovely. The fish turned out absolutely fantastic, lookswise I think I can improve. My tong action was a bit clumsy and the BBQ was too full so I struggled turning the fish over. But overall a resounding success. The seabass was soft and melty and the grouper light and flaky. We actually ate it all, I am not ashamed to admit. I think when you are responsible for taking a life the least you should do is cook it with love and eat it all.

I will definitely pop back in and tell the sleepy guy how nicely it turned out and try some more of his fish. I might also ask a few questions about his daytime sleepiness, because it could be related to a serious medical condition. And I need to have a discussion about where he gets his fish (I bet nothing more exotic than Billingsgate market) and about the sustainability, carbon footprint etc. I just did some reading and I think this red grouper for instance was flown in and apparently is also overfished. So next time I will be a better citizen and friend of the planet and not just think about own belly.

I made these smoked salmon, feta and asparagus fillo tartlets a while ago already prior to my parents visit about a month ago. We had some of them then after coming home from the VE day concert at Royal Albert Hall. I’ve been trying to do some freezer emptying this week so defrosted a couple for husband as a late evening snack last night.

Tarts and quiches used to be pretty much the only thing I could cook for a long time before I started to get interested in cooking only a few years ago. Whenever I had people over it would probably be a tart of some sort. It wasn’t much of a dinner party central at mine those days, more of a let's get rocked kind of a place with heavy metal music and lots of vodka. Those WERE the days.

I remember one "Let's do something civilized for a change" evening with a friend. We decided to do a wine tasting which predictably turned out a bit like Patsy and Eddie in France. After some goat cheese tart, we were both carefully and elegantly zipping the wines and making notes in our little notebooks referring back to our wine guides. A few hours later the note books and guides had been abandoned, Black Sabbath was blasting and we were falling off our chairs all but swigging the wine straight from the bottles.

I remember another night with the same lady. It was just before Christmas and we were at her place with her newly found boyfriend who ended up being the father of her 3 children eventually. Instead of gluewein she had bought something called gluecognac. Exactly! It didn't bode well.

If I remember correctly, which is unlikely, the evening ended with her blaming her boyfriend of trying to murder her and me somehow managing to get a cab home after she passed out on the kitchen floor with murderous boyfriend already gone to bed. Fun times, but stay away from gluecognac.

Things have mellowed down a bit and liver is ever so thankful for that. My love for all kinds of quiches and tarts remains unchanged. They’re great to have in the freezer for a surprise visit or other kind of tart related emergency.

This is a very flexible recipe, tarts often are :) so don’t worry if you don’t have all the ingredients. Just make a nice tasting filling, fill the fillo cases with it, bake and eat with a modest amount of crisp white wine.

Double salmon, feta and asparagus tartlets recipe (makes one big round tart or 12 muffin sized tartlets)

1 pack of filo pastry
50g butter melted
Oil
100 g Smoked salmon
100-150g hot smoked or poached salmon
100g asparagus spears
Half a large leak
Zest and juice of half a lemon
1/2 cup finely cubed Feta
1/3 cups milk
1/3 cup Sour cream
1 egg
Salt
Lemonpepper
Fresh dill

Salmon filling

Start by preparing the filling. Chop the leak and dill. Cut the pretty tips of the asparagus spears and keep them to decorate the tartlets and chop the rest roughly. Heat a tbsp of oil in a frying pan. Fry the leak for some minutes on low to medium heat until it softens. Add the asparagus, dill, zest and juice of half a lemon and 1/4 cup of white wine. Cook until liquid has evaporated. Roughly chop the smoked salmon and flake the hot smoked or poached salmon. You can also use left over pan-fried or baked salmon in this. Add the salmon to the leak mixture. Add the cubed feta. Mix sour cream, milk and egg together and add to the filling. Season with salt, and lemon pepper. Check taste and add seasoning or a dash of lemon juice if necessary.

Pastry cases:

You can of course just do one big tart in a round tart dish, but this time I wanted individual small ones and decided to make them in my muffin tray.  Melt the butter. Place one sheet of fillo on clean surface, brush with butter. You can sprinkle with breadcrumbs, but this step is optional, it maybe adds a bit of crunch and keeps the pastry cases flaky and airy. Place another fillo sheet on top, brush with butter and sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Add one more layer like this and finish by placing the 4th fillo sheet to cover.

Lightly grease you muffin tray. Cut the fillo into circles that are big enough to cover the bottom and sides or a muffin mould using a big round cutter. Or you can cut to squares and then just trim the overhanging edges.

You may need to repeat the whole process with more fillo sheets to make more pastry cases depending on the size of your sheets.

Fill each pastry case with filling all the way to the top, but not covering the edges of the pastry. The filling is not going to expand so it won’t overflow. Decorate each tartlet with one of two asparagus tips. Bake in 200 C oven for about 15 minutes or until the pastry has turned golden and the filling has firmed up.