Friday Favourites

Tilda rice packets

I've always found lunchtime difficult. Unless I know exactly what I'm eating, and when, I won't eat. Terrible I know. These packets of rice from Tilda have been so useful at helping me get myself into a lunch-eating routine. I can pop half a packet into the microwave or a pot for a few minutes, add some vegetables and know that I've made myself a healthy lunch. The packets themselves travel well and take up little space. Annoyingly they don't reseal, which would be useful for me as I tend to eat half a packet a day. My favourite is the brown basmati and quinoa [pictured above]. It's flavoured with vegetable stock and it's delicious just by itself. To make it even better I like to add soy sauce (which goes well with mushrooms and dark leafy greens like kale) or a spoonful of tahini, which adds a rich nutty flavour and is great with peppers and tomatoes. 

£1.59 for a 250g packet; available at most supermarkets

Today's lunch: Tilda basmati rice and quinoa with chickpeas, tahini and cherry tomatoes

Salted almonds

I can't believe I haven't written about these before given that I eat them several times a week. Whole salted almonds make an amazing alternative to crisps and they're great for anyone who prefers salty snacks over sweet. They have the crunchiness and saltiness of crisps with many more vitamins and minerals: they're high in fibre, protein, magnesium and calcium. They're also lovely chopped up and added to a dark green leafy salad, as part of a tapas-y lunch of dinner, or with some Manchego cheese and a lovely glass of wine.

£1.79 for 100g; available from Waitrose


Google Calendar

I started using Google Calendar a few days ago after researching how to make an editorial calendar so that I can keep up-to-date with blogging. It turns out that unless I have a specific time set to do something, it doesn't get done, hence the sporadic frequency of my blog posts! I've found Google Calendar really, really easy to use. I can see clearly what I need to get done and it helps me contextualise tasks within the rest of my day, week, and month. I love the colour-coding feature - different calendars (work, blog, housework etc) can all have their own colours, making it easy to see how many types of tasks I have planned. The 'Tasks' feature is brilliant  too - it allows me to add mini checklists to every day, which is fantastic for anyone who, like me, needs to break tasks down in order to get stuff done. It's very simple to edit, It's easy to share with others for group working, and it can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. I'd recommend it to serial procrastinators and the perpetually disorganised. I've had no problems with it yet and my only slight annoyance is that I didn't discover it sooner.

Happy Friday!

Thanks for reading! x