My answer to the burning Catalan independence question is paella. We love paella in this household and this time I wanted to find a way to make it really healthy without compromising the taste. Not that paella is that unhealthy to begin with, but still wanted to see if I can pimp it up a bit with great ingredients and lots of veg and herbs for our fish Friday dinner last night.

This is what this awesome seafood bonanza looked like. And it tasted awesome.


And this is how husband repaid my lifesaving efforts the day after:

Fish and vegetables - what could be wrong with that, he says.

Actually I am all for giving yourself a break every once in a while. Or that's what I say to maintain a more relaxed and tolerant image. At least this time it was a very good plate of fish and chips. I know because on top of my tiny beetroot and goat cheese salad I had some space to try some of it.

This was the park cafe in St. James Park, but next time we will stay inside, just too many pigeons and pigeon poop everywhere it the outside area and kids feeding pigeons off the tables and wings flapping everywhere. Why their parents thought it is OK to feed pigeons in a restaurant I do not understand, but I understand that better than kicking pigeons which is another habit a lot of kids seem to have that their ignorant parents think is acceptable.

That's all I have on pigeons this time.


So this is what I did to the good old paella. To keep the glucose index lower than traditional paella for husbands diabetes I replaced the bomba rice with black venere rice, which is a whole grain and on top of it's better glucose profile apparently also has all kinds of antioxidants and other healthy stuff. It is the veritable blueberry of the rice family. And I upped the veg content to add lots of fibre to soak up some of the glucose and ensure slower release in the body.

I left out the chorizo which is full of salt and saturated fats, cooked the seafood by steaming it on top of the dish rather than frying it and of course used healthy rapeseed oil and was a bit careful with salt.

The end result was absolutely delicious, but the black rice has a different taste and texture, so it is a bit of a different experience from your traditional paella.

Black venere rice paella with lots of vegetables and seafood.

Serves 4-6

1 onion
2 garlic cloves
1 fennel
1 bell pepper
Pinch of dried red pepper flakes (or fresh chilli)
1 tsp of turmeric
3/4 tsp smoked paprika
Pinch of saffron
Salt
Black pepper
1.5 cups of black rice
Zest and juice of one lemon
1 glass of white wine
Small bunch of parsley
Small bunch of dill
2.5-3 cups of low salt fish stock
Fresh or frozen peas
2 fillets of cod
2 fillets of redfish
250g mussels
250g squid rings
Fresh herbs or spring onion and lemon wedges

Chop all the vegetables and herbs. Heat oil in a paella pan. Add the onion and saute on low heat until the onion starts to soften, add the minced garlic and continue to cook. Add the spices and mix well. Add the chopped fennel and bell pepper.

Crank up the heat, add the rice and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the lemon zest and juice and he wine. Let the wine evaporate a bit before adding the herbs and the stock. Reduce heat, cover and leave to simmer for about 15-20 minutes until the rice is almost done (check pack instructions). Stir every once in a while and add water if necessary

While the rice is cooking cut the fish fillets into quarters, season the fish and squid with salt and pepper and you can drizzle on a little rapeseed or olive oil and lemon juice. Clean the mussels well and throw away any that don't close when tapping the shell.

Once the rice is nearly done stir in the peas. Then add the seafood in the order of required cooking time pushing the fish pieces and mussels into the rice. I added the mussels and fish fillets first, let them steam on top of the paella with a lid on for 6-7 minutes until they were almost done, then added the squid for just 2-3 minutes.

Sprinkle with some lemon juice, fresh herbs or chopped spring onion, add some lemon wedges on top and serve with a crisp salad.

This authentic and very healthy Mexican Chilli con Carne recipe works as a traditional chunky chilli served with rice. Or if you want to enjoy it as a hearty soup, just add a bit more water and serve with a crusty roll. Delicious either way!

There is definitely a whiff of winter in the air. I wore an angora dress and boots to work this week. On the way to work I noticed a big hole in the front of the skirt created by the moths (at least I think it was the moths, but evidence is purely circumstantial)  we've had in our house which now seem to have disappeared together with the hand-knotted Persian rug that had made such a lovely home and breeding ground for them. Cold-heartedly replaced by a hostile synthetic IKEA rug. Thank you IKEA, unfortunately too late to save my dress.


Apart from the hole in the dress, I was very elegant and seasonally appropriate.

And to replace the moths we now have weevils, those minuscule beetley buggers who live in cereal and flour. Never a pest-free moment in our household.

Apparently weevils are ok to eat when cooked. Just saying to any future dinner guests who might be concerned. S'ok.

This minced beef and mushroom chilli soup is a lovely easy winter weeknight recipe, and it's healthy. We had a bit of a break from our healthy lifestyle this weekend. We had dinner on Saturday with friends in a Persian restaurant, which was not hugely unhealthy, but it was followed by about ninety-five cocktails in our favourite Italian bar. We discovered the wonderful Spritz Aperol drink in Venice and after spotting the bottle on the shelf in the bar we ordered a few of those. It's basically booze and prosecco which is brilliant and it comes with a slice of orange for added vitamin C. And we did have some Jack Daniels just to add some rock'n'roll into the proceedings, if I remember correctly.

On Sunday we didn't move from the sofas and had a takeaway. I even ate some sweets, which I almost never do, but I found this tub of Finnish salty licorice and had a couple of handfulls until blood pressure was about 190 over 130. I still wasn't quite right on Monday and had a chocolate biscuit at work, which is very uncharacteristic for me. I must have been still hungover to engage in that sort of craziness!

But apart from these occasional weekend lapses we have been very good. Husband has stayed away from naughty snacks and I haven't bought or baked him any biscuits or cakes for weeks. Yesterday, because he has been so very good, I brought him an enormous cinnamon bun from the Nordic Bakery in town. I haven't seen him as happy for a long time. For a moment I though he was going to burst into tears. But so sensible has he become that he ate half of it leaving half for later so as not to elevate his glucose levels too much. What a good boy!

Hearty and healthy minced beef and mushroom chilli soup

Rapeseed oil
1 brown onion
1-2 celery stalks
2 small carrots
1 red bell pepper
250g low fat minced beef
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or fresh chillies and/or tabasco if you like it hot)
2 tsp dried oregano
Black pepper
150g mushrooms
400g can of tomatoes
Water
Beef stock cube / pot
400g can of beans (black beans or red kidney beans or I had rosecoco)
Salt if needed
Fresh coriander for garnish (optional)

Add a splash of oil in a large non-stick pan or dutch oven. While the oil is heating start chopping your veg and add them to the pan as soon as you've chopped each of them, first onion, followed by celery, carrots, pepper and garlic. Make sure to stir regularly.

Then add you minced beef breaking it into pieces with a wooden spoon. Add all the spices. Add sliced or chopped mushrooms and keep sauteing for another couple of minutes.

Add the tomatoes again breaking them with the spoon (or you can use chopped canned tomatoes), add 1 - 1.5 cans of water and the stock cube or pot. Leave to simmer, You can simmer it up to a couple of hours if you like, just make sure to stir every once in a while and add water if it looks like it's drying out. Then add the drained beans and simmer for another 10 nimutes, check the seasoning and serve.

But if you don't have the time, simmer on low heat for 20 minutes, add drained beans and simmer for another 10 minutes and serve.

You can use less water and make it drier and it's just a normal chilli you can serve with rice.

Many people call this squid ink pasta but it is actually cuttlefish ink. The two molluscs are closely related, I'm not sure I can tell you more about them or their ink, but just thought I'd mention they are not the same thing. Like Finland and Sweden. Not the same country.


This dish was inspired by our lovely, romantic weekend in the absolutely awe-inspiring Venice two weeks ago. I love Venice, I have about five thousand pictures of the canals, I particularly loved the small, quiet side canals. An avid motorist, husband was mainly amazed by the lack of cars. So, lots of walking and exploring as always on our holidays, and of course good food. I've probably had more pizza this year that in my entire life so far.

View of San Marco's square from Santa Maria della Salute, Venice

Gondolas, Grand Canal

I blame the questionable decision I made in January to study Italian which has partly influenced our recent holiday choices. I thought it was an easy language that you could master by adding a random vowel at the end of each word, cranking up the volume a bit and waving your hands for effect. Disappointingly it doesn't work like that. I won't go into the depressing detail of conjugating verbs, irregularities and the hundreds of tiny little one or two letter words that need to go absolutely everywhere. But I take comfort in the fact that I pronounce it like a boss. In Finnish we roll our R's and have a similarly passionate relationship with our double consonants. I think this might have made our travelling companions believe I was more fluent than I actually am. All I actually did was some ordering in the restaurants and buying a stamp - un francobolli - I love that word. So powerful. FRANCOBOLLI, pronounced with a proud double k, perfectly describes this fearless little square of paper and glue that boldly takes all kinds of secret and controversial messages wherever they need to go. I need to tell my dad, who has been a devoted francobollist all his life about this wonderful word, he will love it.

Sometimes the streets get busy - DHL delivers

So we were travelling with another couple, a friend of husband's and his quirky wife who made us laugh a lot. Our last evening back at the hotel after our night out husband was brushing his teeth and I could hear him struggling behind the bathroom door as he was repeatedly bursting into hysterics. I can't share the joke that made us giggle helplessly because it's one on those things you had to be there for = not a very good joke. It involved death and jellyfish. But you know how after 15k of walking, Italian food and several glasses of prosecco, tired and happy, it doesn't take much to crack you up.



My only slight grievance during the holiday was that I was left to make all the decisions about where to go, what to do, when to meet for breakfast etc. I am very bossy by nature, but I would like a break every once in a while. But these guys, I would really like to run my leadership culture workshop with them. And this includes husband. You'd think evolution would have had its way with this kind of aimless ditherer. "Oh there's a massive, hungry-looking lion. Which way do you reckon we should run (=dawdle)?" "Oh I don't know, you choose, I'll just dilly-dally after you." "Well you know, I don't really have a preference, I quite like the look of those bushes, but then there's the nice little river as well, what do you th..AAAARGH."

But then actually I'm often more comfortable with my own decisions than anybody else's. Probably because mine usually are of course much better. The only time the others made a decision during the trip I nearly burst into tears. I had completely fallen in love with the beautiful, colourful, little island of Burano and wanted to stay there and explore but the others wanted to go to the boring stupid island of Murano. But to my credit I hid my anger and tears very well under my sunglasses. I think husband might have possibly suspected something, partly maybe because I said to him three times that I would have wanted to stay. I managed not to stamp my foot, which is a sign of my maturity. But as soon as we landed on Murano husband plied me with a Spritz Aperol, which is an awesome mix of the aperitif Aperol, prosecco and some other stuff. So peace and jollity was promptly restored. But if you ever go anywhere near Venice make sure to visit Burano, and if your friends want to leave the colourful fishing village for a pretentious glass art tourist trap, let them go and find better friends.

My happy place - Burano

In the food front I mainly luxuriated in the beautiful seafood pastas. There is an absolute classic of a dish called Spaghetti con seppie alla Venetziana, spaghetti with cuttlefish Venetian style. I had been eyeballing it on the menus on previous nights but it does look a bit hardcore, so had opted for easier looking clam and mussel pastas. But I am happy I had the courage to try it, it was very very good.

Spaghetti con seppie alla Venetziana

Our first evening - pizza by the Rialto bridge

Pizza on the go

As this inky messy thing might be a bit too much for husband I decided to ease him into the world of black pasta by a slightly more approachable version. I bought this black pasta at the Venice airport, but you can get it here also. Just head for Carluccios or any other Italian delicatessen.

Squid in pasta with lightly smoked salmon, prawns, mussels and squid

Rapeseed oil
400g cuttlefish ink pasta
1 red onion, finely chopped
2 spring onions, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 chopped fresh chilli (optional)
Zest and juice of 1 lemon2/3 cup of white wine
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Handful of fresh basil, chopped
Salt
Blackpepper, freshly ground
Dried italian herbs
Half a bag of spinach, chopped (optional)
300-400g Seafood of your choice (mussels, squid, prawns)
2 lightly smoked salmon fillets, skin removed and cubed (or use normal salmon)
2 heaped tablespoons of low fat sour cream
Pecorino, grated

Cook pasta in salted water according to the pack instructions leaving it al dente and preserving some of the cooking liquid.

In the meanwhile prepare the seafood sauce. Heat a tbsp of rapeseed oil a deep non-stick pan. Add the onion, garlic and chilli and fry on medium heat for a few minutes until they start to soften, add the zest and juice of the lemon and the white wine and cook down for a few minutes. Add the tomatoes herbs, seasoning and spinach and continue cooking until the spinach has wilted. Add the sour cream and the seafood in the order of how long things needs to cook. Don't over cook, the salmon cubes only need a few minutes and squid only a minute.

Add some of the pasta cooking water if you need more sauce. Once your sauce is cooked add in the pasta, mix careful not to break up the salmon too much. Sprinkle with fresh basil and grated pecorino.