Courgetti carbonara, a 5 minute dish made simple from courgette spaghetti, a whisked egg and some toppings. Carbonara but not as you know it.
Also, the last 4 years of blogging!
On 30 April 2011, I sat down and wrote my first blog post. A simple recipe using my new spiralizer toy, a courgette and an egg. Badly photographed, but energised with all the passion for sharing my ideas for healthful eating – the reason I started blogging.
Anniversaries allow us to look at our lives, to categorise all that has happened since the last anniversary, or since the event first occurred. I guess one can’t predict where life (and blogs) will be in the future, but I certainly didn’t imagine this. When I started back in 2011, I knew very little about blogging. There were a couple of healthy living and food blogs I followed – like Wholeheartedly Healthy, but it was only when I started blogging myself, I realised I needed to read more, and interact, to becoming part of an online community. Staying true to your own voice when you read so much can be a somewhat distracting challenge, it does lead you to truly speaking from your heart.
I was watching the lovely film Julie & Julia last weekend at a film and cake event I organised in conjunction with a local film festival. When Julie gets caught up in the fame of blogging, she almost forgets why she started in the first place – for the sheer pleasure of writing about food. It was good to be reminded of this right now, and I do, I honestly do, still love the simple pleasure of stringing words together. This blog started as a pleasure, but I can’t ignore the fact that it has contributed towards shaping my life and career in a new and exciting way.
I am not a pro blogger. I earn a little from the odd sponsored post or a small bit of advertising revenue, but it’s the exposure that has allowed me to showcase my teaching and recipe development skills. It is also an online portfolio for my writing and cooking, and place to spread news about my cooking classes and events.
So just for fun I jotted down what I think to be the pivotal moments in the past four years:
- April 2011, published first blog post as Cucina Ceri, using a simple WordPress template and a Blackberry™ phone camera as tools.
- October 2011, I started a nutrition short course at College of Naturopathic Medicine (CNM).
- June 2012, my Mum passed away.
- September 2012, bought a real camera, went to Food Blogger Connect (FBC) and I reduced my days at work from five to four, to work on an ebook that never happened.
- October 2012, went to Ashburton Cookery School for a week long intensive course.
- April 2013, rebranded from Cucina Ceri to Natural Kitchen Adventures.
- May 2013, got accepted to the Bauman College Natural Chef Training Programme and resigned from my job as Projects Director of a London orchestra, where I had organised people, concerts, and events for ten years.
- July 2013, invited to act as Moderator at Food Blogger Connect.
- August 2013, ten years after joining the orchestra, I left.
- September 2013, moved to California for six months to complete my Natural Chef training at Bauman College. In November, I helped at a cooking class and felt like I’d found an outlet for my passion in teaching.
- March 2014, moved home, started part time chef work for Retreat Café.
- July 2014, did a test class at Blackheath Cooks and started to plan classes from September onwards, then in the Autumn I did the same at Made In Hackney
- Nov 2014, finished working for Retreat Café and rethought my chef career, opting to spend more time teaching and writing.
- Dec 2014, released my first my first ebook, Everything but the turkey.
- In the early part of 2015, so much happened, new things occurred daily but…
- March 2015, filmed You Tube cookalong videos for Action Against Hunger’s Live Below the Line campaign.
- April 2015, turned 33 and on the same day was awarded a Highly Commended in the Health Category at the UK Blog Awards.
I am sure you can see how blogging has changed my life. I often wonder where I would be right now if I hadn’t started the blog? Would I have still been interested in healthful food? Would I have left my comfortable job to retrain as a Natural Chef? Maybe this was just meant to be. I’m not going to say that blogging saved me from a terrible life I once had, because it wasn’t terrible at all. I will say that using my energy to grow a new passion definitely distracted and helped me through the difficult period of my Mum passing in June 2012 and every day going forwards. This little internet space has constantly urged me to be better. Write better, photograph better, cook better, style better – to keep up with the Jones’ – me!
Through all the changes, one thing has remained constant. I still love to cook. I still love to share. I was reading an article this week, which discussed our worldwide obsession with sharing photos of our food. We create something we are proud of, or choose something wonderful in a restaurant, or just see something that makes us happy and we want to share that with the world. It’s gaining validation for what we are, the internet is an easy place to make this happen. Instantly.
A basic template in WordPress, an early blog name, and a dinner made from spiralized courgettes was how I started. Looking back is a good thing, so I decided to cook that recipe and share it with you again. Now I see errors in my basic recipe writing (thankfully I have attended many courses), I see that I had no idea how to season my food (salt isn’t even mentioned), I see my white bowl balancing precariously on the edge of my sofa (why?) and despite my cringing I leave all this on the blog for you to enjoy.
Four years on, I still take great pleasure in sitting down to write my blog, and I am sure I always will. Thank you for reading.
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- half a red onion, diced small
- 1 courgette, spiralized or cut into strips with a julienne peeler
- handful of spinach
- 2-3 sundried tomatoes in olive oil, finely sliced
- 1 egg, lightly whisked
- ½ teaspoon salt, or to taste
- 1 Tablespoon toasted pine nuts
- ground black pepper
- Optional: shavings of Parmesan to top
- Heat the olive oil in a medium frying pan over a medium heat and sauté the onion until translucent – 3-4 minutes.
- Add the courgetti into the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes until softened. Add the spinach and stir till it wilts down. Add the sundried tomatoes.
- Take the pan off the heat then pour in the egg, tossing the egg with the courgetti so that it coats it well, and doesn’t set like scrambled egg. Season with salt.
- Turn out into a pasta bowl and top with the pine nuts, shavings of Parmesan and heaps of black pepper.
Thanks Ceri. As usual your recipe sing to me, but your story has resonated too.
Thanks Tasha – looking forward to watching your story grow as you develop as a blogger now too!
This is so inspirational. Thank you for sharing it with us. And congratulations for all that you’ve accomplished in four short years.
Thank you Linda. Well, if I can’t share it with my blog readers, then who can I share it with? Here’s to many more years of blogging! For us both!
Beautiful post, loved it! Congratulations!!
Thank you! and thanks for reading!
Dear Ceri,
What a lovely post and recipe. I think many of us share a similar blogging journey, starting off with a passion to share something we have a keen interest in, but not ever realising just how important and pivotal this platform becomes to our daily lives and what changes develop from it! There’s something truly magical about blogging that can only be understood when experienced.
I’m happy to see in the direction you are taking this passion, knowing how much you love all this and how much joy it brings you. And I’m happy to have met you in person in the beginning of my blogging adventure and to have become friends. I wish you all the best and continued success with Natural Kitchen Adventures and in the rest of your life.
By the way, coincidentally, I’m posting a recipe of courgetti on my blog and mention you! 😉
Love, Debra
PS: I have to try this carbonara dish… sounds delicious and so easy to make! Thank you for sharing this and everything else, and most especially yourself. <3
Thank you Debra. Thank you for these kind words, and for joining me on this journey over the last few years. You are quite right – it is definitely an experience that can only be understood when experienced! Wishing you all the best yourself as you adapt to the new changes in your life. I’m going to check out your courgetti recipe right now! xx
So much about this post made me smile – not least of all the fact you were just so ahead of the curve / craze owning a spiraliser back then! I should have known you’d be onto something… I love how you’ve taken the opportunity to remind yourself that blogging is so much about what you love. I like that. I like it a lot. This picture is beautiful and truly does paint a thousand words. You’ve come such a long way, and will continue to travel even further. You’re a pleasure to not only call a friend but a fellow bellow. Someone I hold in very high regard and am the first to refer others too – unlike me, you are far better at kindly instructing people properly how to cook wonderful dishes rather than referring to mixing a bit of this, that and the other together to hope for the best.
Thank you so much kind Ruth. Me – a trendsetter?? Thanking you so much for joining me on this mad journey as a fellow bellow – a great pair we are! I think there is something quite wonderful in cooking with a bit of this and a bit of that – so don’t stop doing it! x
Happy blogaversary! I’m celebrating 4 years of The Happy Coeliac this month too… you put me to shame with what you’ve accomplished! Very inspiring. Keep up the good work! 🙂
Thank you Sam! And congrats on your 4 years too! It’s certainly a milestone to celebrate 🙂
Ceri, it is such a delight to know you. I think your journey in blogging, and in life, is such an inspiration. So often I get caught up in the hype of blogging and need to remind myself to get back to basics – spreading the word about nourishing food and good cooking. I have a spiralizer I don’t use often enough, and to be honest I’ve never tried warming the courgetti I make, I’ve always had it raw. I’m going to try your version out, sat at the table and eaten mindfully 😉
Ah shucks Katie thank you. I’m just me, being me, muddling along doing the best I can. As are you. Nourishing food and good cooking is definitely where it is at on our internet spaces – lets keep spreading the good word. And yes – get out that spiralizer and have some courgetti mindful fun! 🙂
Ah! CONGRATS on 4 years! My 4 years will be next February!! So much to reflect on for sure! 🙂
Thank you GiGI. 4 years seems such an age doesn’t it? Well done on making it this far too – looking forward to reading your post in February!! 🙂
You really are an inspiration for me Ceri. I love how your photography has come on and how you have progressed with your blogging and your teaching. You must remind me what camera you were recommended…I am on the look out for a dslr but don’t have a clue what to get!!!
Thank you so much Vicki, what a lovely thing to say. Its been a long and steep learning curve that’s for sure – blogging and making a career in healthy food. The camera is a Canon EOS 100D, yet another steep learning curve to come as I work out how to use it! Thanks for continued reading and support I’m in good gluten free blogging company x
I really hope you don’t mind me copying you but I have been procrastinating for too long so I am going to buy this one too! If the recommendation come from someone with that skill then I’m in!!! Thank you for sharing! We can share our journey of learning!! 😉
Amazing. Look forward to sharing the journey! Thoughts on lenses is personal so you might like to seek another opinion on that one too 🙂 x
Yeah, I am going to get just the body and 18-55 lense then see how I feel. Thanks! Excited. Off to Currys now ;). (something to cheer me up on my miserable diet!!!).
It’s in offer so a good time. To be honest I bought mine as a cheer up gift too 😉 you’re doing so well with the diet – am impressed! X
You’re doing so well though! I actually bought mine to cheer myself up too 🙂 It worked!