Riley's Fish Shack, Tynemouth

Of course, with a storm hitting the country, a red weather warning in place and wind and rain in abundance, it made perfect sense for us to drive out to the coast and choose to eat our dinner in a beach side shack. Seaside shenanigans in December? Why not!

But we love Riley's and, actually, it was one of the most atmospheric meals I think that I've ever had. The shack itself was full of heaters and blankets so it was entirely possible to be cosy while the waves murmured and crashed out in the dark. And the food here is wonderful; if you find yourself in the North East then I wholeheartedly recommend this as a venue, whatever the weather. The only disadvantage is that you have to walk up an awful lot of steps to get back into town, which is not always easy, especially after you've stuffed yourself silly on glorious seafood.

The star of the show was an unctuous squid ragu. I was initially resistant because it came topped with polenta (I am not a fan) but the waiter (and D) talked me into it, and I am grateful to them because it was utterly delicious. Squid should either be cooked very fast or very slowly, and when done slowly it becomes like velvet. But here it was velvet in a sublimely flavoured, deeply savoury red wine sauce. I need to try and recreate this at home.

But a very close second was my John Dory in Cafe de Paris butter. Beneath the blistered skin, the fish itself was as sweet and tender as a kiss and the incredible butter (which includes all good things such as anchovies and capers) was the perfect accompaniment. I devoured it, despite being rather full.

As usual, we over ordered, but were able to take some bits home with us to enjoy the next day in slightly warmer circumstances, which was a wonderful bonus. 

I cannot recommend this venue enough. Yes, on paper it might seem more of a summer jaunt, but I enjoyed our winter sojourn there; it felt oddly otherworldly. 

And a postscript - if you do happen to find yourself in Tynemouth then please, whatever you do, make sure you get to Gerald James and buy brownies. They are amazing and you will be forever grateful to me for the recommendation. You're welcome.

Riley's Fish Shack

King Edward's Bay

Tynemouth

NE30 4BY

Recent eats: a Diana Henry week

July’s themed week was an homage to the wonderful food writer, Diana Henry.

I vaguely recall that she appeared on some daily programme on the food channel years ago - Market Kitchen? Good Food Bites? - and she has the kind of cosy screen presence, and, indeed, writing voice which makes you inherently trust everything she says. I hope that she wouldn’t be insulted to be described as more of a home cook but, like Nigella, a home cook with an encyclopaedic knowledge of food and cooking techniques, who draws on multiple traditions and cultures like a foodie magpie to create interesting dishes that you really want to eat.

We own a number of her books and such is my admiration for her that I even have my mother saving Stellas (the Sunday Telegraph magazine) for me so that I can tear out her weekly recipe columns. There is currently a teetering pile of these on our dining room table, alongside the teetering pile of food magazines and shelves crammed with books - more dishes than could ever be cooked in a lifetime.

For our meal plan, we drew mainly on two books - “A Change of Appetite” and “Simple”. The former appealed because, divided as it is into seasons, it was easy to pick dishes that were appropriate for the current weather and available produce. The latter - well, the clue is in the title. What with the recent heat and the ennui that it occasioned, simple cooking is definitely the way forward.

As usual, we had two fast days in the mix, so five meals by the divine Ms Henry.

Monday - Linguine all’Amalfitana. Monday is nearly ALWAYS simple pasta supper night here and this was a great one to add to the repertoire. Garlic and anchovy are cooked slowly in olive oil to create a savoury backbone but the twist comes in the form of chopped walnuts which add not only texture but a welcome bitter note. Lovely.

Wednesday - Teryaki salmon with quick pickled vegetables. Served with sushi rice this was the perfect summer supper. I love this style of food and teryaki is so quick and simple to do. The addition of the pickled veg brought a perfect balance of sour and sweet and a pleasing crunch to the dish.

Friday - Seared tuna with preserved lemon, olives and avocado. What a flavour bomb this was! It sounds a bit unusual on paper, almost discordant, but here is where the trust comes in and I am so glad we did. Everything harmonised (to continue with my music metaphor) absolutely beautifully. Not to mention it couldn’t be quicker or easier to do but tastes far more special than the lack of effort would suggest. Perfect Friday night fare.

Saturday - Poulet au Comté. Some people might think that chicken baked in a rich cheese sauce, traditionally served after Alpine sports, is not really the thing for a blisteringly hot July evening. To them I say - you’re probably right. But this was one of those recipes torn from a magazine that I’d positively drooled over, so I pressed ahead. You’re either the type of person who is going to adore chicken baked in a rich cheese sauce or you aren’t - I most definitely am and can’t wait to cook it again when the nights draw in. I served it with a lemony orzo here, which helped cut the richness a bit, but come the winter all bets are off and this is going to be accompanied by a Matterhorn of mash.

Sunday: Yoghurt marinated spatchcock chicken with herbs and pomegranates. No one knows their way around a roast chicken like Diana Henry, and I think I have probably raved about her book “A Bird in Hand” on here before. This was a great summer roast with lots of zing and vim and an extremely tender, delicately spiced bird.

Elsewhere in the week, we enjoyed a delicious chocolate olive oil cake - this recipe is available online and would be a great dessert to make if you need to cater for gluten and dairy intolerances. Rich, decadent and fruity, we garnished with creme fraiche, berries, and a flurry of sea salt flakes.

So another successful theme week, and a few dishes already added to “regular” (if there is such a thing in this house) rotation. Some of Diana Henry’s recipes are freely available on t’internet (while the ones on the Telegraph site are mainly behind a paywall) so if you do come across any then do give them a whirl. She’s an absolute treasure whose food writing is up there with some of the best this country has to offer at the moment.

Recent eats: the interminable winter edition

I find myself so intensely boring at the moment that I haven't wanted to inflict any blogging on the world. Lockdown has not been good for me. I have basically turned even more sloth like in my habits and my hair is, frankly, ridiculous. Funky, asymmetric styles are all very well until they start growing out and then they just look like someone can't cut straight.

So we've been cooking and eating, which is fine. What can I tell you about? We brined a roast chicken the other week - or, to be strictly accurate, we brined a chicken for 48 hours prior to roasting it which was delicious. It would have been better, however, if I hadn't managed to roast it upside-down. Which meant that the underside was golden and crispy and buttery and the breast was...a wee bit pale and flabby looking. D removed the breast skin and crisped it up under the grill, while I languished on the sofa wondering how on Earth I have reached the age of 40 without knowing which way up a chicken should go. 

I made pizza last week, and remain very impressed with Dan Lepard's dough recipe, so that was good. We cooked a smoked haddock and kale hash from one of the new Christmas cookbooks which was DELICIOUS. It is actually online, here, if you're interested. It is one of those dishes that somehow manages to be significantly more than the sum of its parts. Highly recommended.

Oh, and D splashed out and treated us both to a Dishoom bacon naan takeaway kit thingy. Good, but we think we can tweak it to make it even better (it will probably include a liberal drizzle of our beloved coriander and chilli chutney, aka "green stuff").

In the background, we've both been trying to shift a bit of weight which I am loathe to talk about really because - see first paragraph it is SO BORING. And I'm conscious that this blog is like bloody Groundhog Day for Diets - except that it's not, not Bill Murray actually learns and grows during Groundhog Day and me...not so much. But I will say that a few months ago - mid-October time - we introduced low calorie days back into our week, so we now follow a programme of intermittent fasting which involves only eating for 8 hours a day and, on two of those days, only eating 500 calories. A mash-up of 16/8 and 5/2. And it does work, albeit slowly, and it is a hell of a lot easier to manage low calorie days when we're at home not really doing everything. Whether it will be sustainable when the world goes back to normal...not so sure. But since that shows no sign of happening for a while, we'll keep going for now! 

MPM: 12th August 2019

For the first time in a long time, last week we cooked, and ate, all seven meals as planned. It felt good to be in control to be honest.  All to often, if we deviate, it is because we have "accidentally" gone to the pub after work and ended up ordering a takeaway or eating toast in lieu of an actual meal OR it is because we have been infected with a generous dose of ennui and ended up not eating a proper meal at all but grazing.  To make a plan, stick to a plan and actually enjoy eating all meals on said plan was really nice.

Oh, and Beth - chickpea mash?  The recipe is here.  A pleasant twist on the classic bangers and mash although I found that the chickpeas did need a judicious whack of seasoning and lemon juice to perk them up and the inclusion of a scattering of caramelised onion was a welcome note.

Onto this week, and the plan is to be in every night again and eat as follows:

Monday: carrot, tomato and feta soup (the other half of the batch we started last week.)

Tuesday: a freezer dive - chilli con carne with rice and a decent dollop of cooling sour cream.

Wednesday: pasta with nduja pesto and roasted cherry tomatoes.  Now, this pesto is part of the Sacla range which tend to be pretty good for a weekday meal.  But I'm not clear on how nduja pesto is different from just plain old nduja.  I guess I am soon to find out!

Thursday: a red wine and mushroom risotto, from The Silver Spoon.

Friday: and diving once more into the recipe book library, tonight we will be cooking Gung Bao chicken from Fuschia Dunlop's fantastic "Every Grain of Rice".  If you are a fan of Chinese food then I would highly recommend this tome.

Saturday: lamb seekh kebabs - sides tbc.

Sunday: Pollock (or whatever white fish looks good at the fishmongers) with chickpeas and chorizo, courtesy of Mr Tom Kerridge.

Have a good week one and all!

Meal planning and catching up

*Slinks back in with a new post.  Torn between starting with abject apology for absence (which always feels slightly self-aggrandising since it pre-supposes that anyone actually missed self in the first place) and just acting like it never happened.  Wrestles with dilemma.  Deletes and rewrites and deletes same chunk of text multiple times.*

Anyway (in lieu of any excuses, I’ll opt for an aggressive stance), in this day and age how many people still read blogs?  Especially little backwater blogs like this one where the writer still uses their original Blogger template and eschews any sort of decent photography preferring to stick with everything look like primordial sludge.  The blogging scene ain’t what it was all those years ago. Feel free to shoot me down if I’m being an unreasonable cowbag but I reckon that it used to be about sharing personal experiences with like-minded people in a nice, low-key manner and creating a little virtual community of kindred spirits.  Now, you get people who actually put the career of Influencer on their passport (or would do if you still had to list your career on your passport).  So everyone who has a blog wants it to be the biggest, shiniest, shoutiest blog in the world in order to attract attention and, thus, money.  Oh, not to mention the bloggers have to have a presence all across social meeeeeja.  Which kind of puts paid to the fact of anonymity.

I think that it’s a little bit sad.  But then, I suppose if someone had Discovered me and offered me ludicrous sums of money / amounts of free stuff to write about what I love, thus saving me from a life of Desk Bound Drudgery, I would probably have taken them up on it.  So maybe it’s just envy talking.

ANYWAY.  What’s going on with me?  Work – busy, busy, busy.  But good.  Food – we’ve cooked some really lovely stuff lately that I hope to get round to posting, but there may not be pictures because I think I have to really give up on the whole pictures thing.  I’ll just illustrate everything with a photo of my cat.  Weight – well, still there.  At this stage of the game I think it’s going to take a serious bout of novo virus to kick-start things on a downwards trajectory again. 

And as for meal planning this week…

Monday: as long term friends will know, we often have ready-made soup on a Monday night.  This is partly a hangover from our 5:2 days, ensuring a relatively low calorie start to the week.  It also means that after getting through Monday we don’t have to worry about any elaborate cooking.  But D finally cracked and said what we were both thinking – soup can be a bit dull.  So now, Monday is going to be soup-and-bread-and-cheese night. We’ve got some chicken and vegetable broth along with a lovely looking piece of Caerphilly to enjoy.  I’ve had some baguette dough defrosting in the fridge since this morning – I’ve not tried freezing it before, so not sure how it will turn out but am hopeful it will work well.

Tuesday: currently, spiced monkfish with chutney and flatbreads, but this may end up bumped to the weekend.

Wednesday: spaghetti carbonara – D is out for a couple of pints after work but I should be able to whip this up quickly when he comes home starving.

Thursday: roasted vegetables with couscous and feta.  We used to cook a stove-top version of this on a regular basis when I was a student.  It was the go-to “We’ve been eating rubbish for several days and require some proper nutrients” meal. 

Friday: we’re both out for a leaving do, so no current plans in place.

Saturday: might end up being the monkfish.  Otherwise, we have steak in the freezer all ready to be turned into steak sandwiches.

Sunday: D has a yen for chicken Kiev.  So he’s going to make that.  He has done a homemade version before and it worked out very well, so I have high hopes for this.  What could be nicer than crispy chicken drenched in garlic butter?

And that takes us nicely back round to Monday.  Quite a meaty weekend, so might need to balance that out with a few more veggie based meals next week (never a major hardship).  Hope whatever you find yourself cooking and eating is lovely. A bientot! 

MPM: 24th June 2019

It's a brand new week and a typically grey, muggy day here in Leeds.  I am not a fan of heat at the best of times, but this particular brand of damp stickiness is particularly unpleasant.  Either we need to get on and have a bit of a summer or admit defeat and lurch straight into the cool, crisp days of Autumn.  Sort it out, weather.

Today also marks the start of my fourth week in my new role which has been full on and busy from the get-go but which is all going well so far.  I feel a little bit like a hamster on a wheel, and I don't think that I will ever see the bottom of my inbox again, but at the moment that still feels OK.  A few months down the line, if I am tearing my hair out in fistfuls, please feel free to refer me back to this.

Meal planning this week - I'm going to a bottomless brunch on Saturday, so it is unlikely I will still be upright come tea time.  The planned curry is going to be made in the slow cooker in advance so will be there if I need it.  Otherwise, a quiet week (well, it is the end of the month).

Monday: soup, as per often.  Crusty bread on the side.

Tuesday: spaghetti in tomato butter sauce and with turkey meatballs.  These meatballs are not, to my shame, homemade, but have been lurking in the freezer for a while and need using. 

Wednesday: trout fillets, minted hollandaise (again, the hollandaise is not homemade!  My foodie credentials are taking a battering today), potato salad, asparagus.

Thursday: fishcakes, but I'm thinking of going down a slightly Scandi route.  This Rick Stein recipe for "frikadeller" with remoulade looks nice.  I've got half a fennel bulb in the fridge that needs using, so I'll probably thinly slice that and add it to the remoulade to boost the veg content.

Friday: I'll keep back some of the tomato butter sauce from Tuesday and use that, alongside a batch of frozen dough, to put together a Friday night pizza.

Saturday: cardamom butter chicken

Sunday: a D choice - steak and chips

Hmmm not a bad selection at all, although it would be nice to see a couple more veggie options on there - something to balance out next week.  Have a good one everyone, and happy cooking!

Foodie abroad: Brat, Shoreditch

Shortly before we went to Brat, it just so happened to be voted the second best restaurant in the entire country by the National Restaurant Awards.  This was a happy coincidence.  D had chosen and booked it months before off the back of, I believe, a glowing Jay Rayner review.  But coincidence or not, it definitely added a certain additional frisson of excitement as we headed across town to Shoreditch on Wednesday night.  Shoreditch is becoming increasingly trendy now, isn't it?  I mean, I don't really keep track given that I am safely confined to Yorkshire for most of the year and tend to come over all Country Mouse whenever I visit London, but judging by Brat itself, and the surrounding venues, it's certainly nicer than it used to be and boasted quite the collection of hipster beards.

Brat was very nice.  I enjoyed my meal there very much.  But I have to start out by saying that while I have no idea what criteria the panel of the NRA were using, I disagree with their conclusion.  Let's get the moaning out of the way first.  I think I must be getting old because the general layout of the dining room - with tables so close together as to be practically communcal - was not particularly to my taste.  Although D and I did enjoy singing a rousing chorus of "Happy Birthday" to the nice gentleman sitting next to us.  Also, while I welcome the move away from the starched linen and hushed tones that accompany traditional fayne dayning, part of me does want a little bit of ritual and reverence and...well, special fairy dust, if for not other reason than to soften the blow of the inevitably hefty bill.  For me, I found the atmosphere Brat to be a little frenetic and (possibly as a result) the pacing of the meal overall was not quite perfectly judged.  Finally, for the love of all that is coverd in chocolate, if you're advertising a baked cheesecake on your menu then WHY would you not give it some sort of biscuit base, or at the very least, a garnish of crumbs?  Why this modern trend for puddings that entirely lack textural contrast?  I do not approve (although, in fairness, the cheesecake tasted very nice).

Burnt cheesecake with rhubarb

These whinges aside (and I am very aware that many people will disagree with my take on the general ambience being, y'know, not a seventy old trapped in the body of a thirtysomething) all was lovely.  Brat's thing is that nearly everything on the menu is cooked on a specially designed, wood-fired gril which imbues the food with wonderful char and smoke.  At its best, this makes your dinner here akin to the most amazing barbecue you've ever tasted.  In common with pretty much every other person in the place, we ordered the turbot.  Oh, the turbot.  Brought to the table partly boned out, the pearlescent flesh tinged with flashes of gold and black, this was a thing of beauty.  It is sprayed with vinegar while it cooks and then seasoned to salty perfection.  A mouthful of this carried a faint memory of traditional fish and chips, as eaten next to a beach bonfire at dusk.

Turbot.  A heavenly thing.

Elsewhere, the smaller plates were mostly miniature masterpieces.  A highlight for me was the grilled bread, crunchy and blistered and smothered in wild garlic and summer truffle.  And the smoked cod's roe, a current household obsession, was utterly amazing.  We definitely needed a few more portions of this.  It takes a brave chef to serve dishes of such simplicity, but the execution, in general, could not be faulted (cheesecake aside).

Grilled bread with wild garlic and summer truffle.

Smoked cod's roe on toast

Is this the second best restaurant in the country?  Subjectively speaking, if I was the head of the NRA judging panel then the answer would be no (and, also, I would be tremendously fat and have the liver of a foie gras goose).  To my mind it lacked the innovation and flair and touch of quirkiness of, say, a Raby Hunt but then, the two respective chefs are aiming for completely different things and vive la difference!  For the turbot alone, I will forgive Brat much.  But please.  Put a base on the cheesecake.

MPM: 27th May 2019

For some reason, I failed to hit Publish on this yesterday so here it is, a day late...

Happy Bank Holiday weekend to all UK readers! And a very happy birthday to my lovely Mum who is twenty one again today.

Meal planning this week - we're both out on Friday night (separately) so nothing planned then and D is popping out for a couple of end-of-the-month pints tomorrow so something quick and easy that can be thrown together when he gets in is required. 

Otherwise (and some of these are uncharacteristically vague):

Monday: salmon and rice bowl with pickled ginger and radishes, spring onion and pea omelette, wasabi and sesame cucumber salad, crispy onions, crushed wasabi peas and Sriracha mayonnaise.  It's suppose to sort of nod towards sushi flavours.  (Edit: we didn't end up cooking this last night as I was suffering from tummy trouble. Apparently, the medication I'm on to counteract my body's total inability to handle food is in short supply which means despite putting my repeat prescription in well over a week ago, I still ran out and had to miss some doses.  Sigh.  I've been in a tremedous sulk over this, since I'm actually in quite a lot of discomfort and spending far more time on the toilet than is ever desirable.  Sigh again. I'm supposed to be cooking it this evening, but I'm still feeling a wee bit delicate so might do something a bit less elaborate and bump this to next week.)

Tuesday:  leek, potato and taleggio tangle pie.  A tangle pie, by the way, is when you use shredded filo sheets on top rather than pastry so it feels slightly healthier than a normal pie.  Making the filling with lots of oozy butter and cheese should successfully counter any health benefits.

Wednesday: spaghetti Carbonara

Thursday: fish (whatever looks nice) with new potatoes and asparagus

Saturday: it's a weekend fakeaway, courtesy of a Teeside Parmo

Sunday: roast pork belly (from the freezer) with, er, two vegetable sides, tbc.  I was thinking this braised fennel recipe might be nice.

Recipe corner: A springtime trout tray-bake

A momentous thing happened today: D bought his first ever umbrella. Up until this point, he has claimed to be agin them. Unless they are made by Aquascutum and cost several hundred pounds and, short of a lottery win or an elderly, hitherto unknown eccentric millionaire relative leaving me their fortune, I am NEVER going to think that is a good idea.

Anyway, he now has an umbrella which is useful, as it looks as if Easter weekend was a temporary aberration and we are back to the chill, damp days of the English spring. And to celebrate, last night we ate a meal that was extremely springlike, a celebration of all of the wonderful produce around at this time of year. If you have a jar of Hollandaise lurking in the back of your fridge (as we did for some reason) this is the work of minutes. You could make your own if you like. Or you could sub in a nice, rich mayonnaise or creme fraiche or even plain yoghurt.

This is seriously easy, low effort (difficult sauces aside) and a delicious Friday night fish supper.

Ingredients

2 x trout fillets
Heaped tsp of Dijon mustard

250g new potatoes
Pack of asparagus, woody ends snapped off
Tbsp vegetable oil
Tsp dill

2 heaped tbsp Hollandaise sauce
Small handful of mint leaves, finely chopped
Squeeze of lemon juice

Serves 2

Preheat the oven to 180.

Cut the potatoes in half and place in a pan of cold, salted water. Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes, before removing with a slotted spoon into a large bowl. Bring the water back up to the boil and then throw in the asparagus spears and simmer for one minute. Then drain and run cold water over the spears until they have cooled down.

Toss the potatoes in the oil, dill and season well. Transfer to a large ovenproof tray (I used my flat Le Creuset casserole but a baking tray would do as well). Place in the oven and cook for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, pat the asparagus dry and put it in the potato bowl. Swish it around so it gets coated in any remaining oil. You might need to add a drop or so more at this point. Season the asparagus.

Brush the underside of the trout with the mustard. Season the skin well.

After 15 mins, remove the tray from the oven. Push the potatoes to the edges and then bung in the asparagus and lay the trout fillets, skin side up, on top. Return to the oven for another 12 minutes. While this is cooking, stir the chopped mint and lemon juice through the Hollandaise.

After 12 mins, the trout should be cooked through, and the asparagus tender. Serve, with dollops of minted Hollandaise sauce on the side.

Hello from Mull

So I promise to blog more regularly, leave you with the recipe for a truly excellent curry that FAILS TO LIST ONE OF THE KEY INGREDIENTS (thanks, Beth) and then disappear again in a puff of smoke.

The good news is a) the medication that I’m taking gives me a NORMAL DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. I cannot possibly convey to you how exciting that is after over a year of being nervous whenever I had to eat curry in public. And b) I am currently on holiday which is lovely. I write this from the flat we always take in Tobermory. There is a view across the harbour from the window. There is crappy television on the set. It is not long after seven and we are in PJs and drinking wine. We consumed rather a lot of seafood at lunchtime. Bliss.

I’ll be back soon, especially because I want to fill you all in on the most wonderful meal we had on the way up here, at a restaurant that sits right on the shore of Loch Fyne. In the meantime, Tobermory Cat (Ledaig to his friends) sends greetings.

MPM: 7th January 2019

It’s 2019 mes amies! And how has it started off for you? I am not going to spend my first meal planning post of the year whingeing so I’m just going to say it is Sunday evening, my cat is on my knee and I had the most AMAZING steak ever last night. Reader, Google reverse searing. It will change your life.

This makes it clear that I’m not doing Veganuary. While I wholeheartedly applaud any of you who have risen to this particular challenge, I am just going to come out and admit that I love animal products far too much to ever give them up. We buy the best quality that we can possibly afford but even so, my refusal to give up eggs, cheese, steak, smoked salmon...(continue list ad infinitum) probably makes me selfish. I certainly intend this year to make renewed efforts to ensure that a high proportion of my meals, particularly during the day, are meat free.

Let’s look at meal planning then. I’m going to brunch with some work colleagues on Saturday (and, by brunch, I mean extended piss up) so I’m assuming I won’t need supper. D has a Ginger Pig pork chop in the freezer that he plans to devour. Elsewhere:

Monday: roasted spiced squash and red onions, couscous with olives, goats’ cheese. We have some beautiful Yellison leftover from Christmas that I am excited to use.

Tuesday: soup

Wednesday: more goats’ cheese, this time combined with some beautiful green veg and lemon to make a zingy risotto.

Thursday: we’re going to use some homemade Merguez sausages to do a spicy twist on a toad in the hole, with harissa onions.

Friday: monkfish with Romesco sauce.

Sunday: we’ve been bumping a Diana Henry miso chicken and sweet potato traybake for weeks now and, dammit, we’re doing it this week.

Happy cooking all!

MPM: 1st October 2018

As I write this on Sunday afternoon, I am full of cold and feeling most grumpy about it. I do not feel ill exactly - certainly not poorly enough to spend tomorrow at home, more’s the pity, but stuffed up and sniffy and sorry for myself. I have spent the majority of the day in bed, in some sort of vague protest against germs, kept company by the cat (when I am not making too much noise sniffing and sneezing) and one of Stephen King’s recent doorstoppers which is very bleak and apocalyptic and exactly suits my mood.

Meal planning then; on Friday D will be out on the first of his many birthday celebrations, so I will probably opt for prick and ping, and on Saturday we are going out for dinner with D’s sister and her husband - probably to The Reliance because my brother in law, who is an absolutely lovely chap, appears to have quite a limited range of food that he will consent to eat and The Reliance serve fish and chips. I must admit I do struggle to deal with the concept of otherwise sensible, intelligent adults who have the palate of toddlers but hey, I like The Reliance so it’s no skin off my nose. Recently we had a delicious bar snack there of roasted peppers with ricotta and capers piled onto crusty bread which is something I must recreate at home at some point.

Elsewhere on the meal plan:

Monday: Spinach, ricotta and roasted tomato gnocchi bake. I have so enjoyed rediscovering some of my older blog recipes in this latest crack at WW - there’s some really lovely stuff in those archives. This is exactly the kind of stodgy deliciousness that I’m going to need if this cold carries on into the beginning of the working week.

Tuesday: Mushroom risotto. D is in charge of this one. He promises that there will not be too much butter and Parmesan, but he may need close supervision...

Wednesday: Potato, bacon and asparagus salad topped with Epoisses. The original recipe called for green beans (which D detests) and Brie (we have Epoisses in the freezer leftover from last Christmas that needs using before we start buying cheese for this Christmas). I do enjoy a substantial warm salad for supper and have high hopes for this one.

Thursday: Salmon with pasta pesto. Haven’t had this in a good six weeks and it is one of our absolute favourite things.

Sunday: Fish pie - perfect Sunday fare.

Have a fabulous week all - stay warm and avoid germs!

Recipe corner: Tuna melt fish cakes

Many people might start this recipe by suggesting it as an excellent use for leftover mash and to them I would say - I never have extra mash. If I make too make mash then I eat too much mash. God, I love mash.

My sister in law, who has a way with potatoes, got us on to making mash by pushing the spuds through a sieve. This method will produce the smoothest, silkiest mash that ever there was. You’d achieve a similar effect with a ricer but I don’t know...something about the sieve method is preferable. Maybe it’s because the additional effort you end up putting in adds a subtle seasoning to the finished product. I should add, however, that it is harder to sieve cold potatoes, so take the time and trouble to make the mash when the potatoes are just cooked.

These fish cakes were thrown together rather, but many of the best dishes are. The thing is, I had planned to cook jacket spuds for tea, but when I actually investigated the potato bag, I had three rather shrivelled, sprouty littleuns that would not have been fit for purpose. This was a more than acceptable alternative that made use of store cupboard ingredients, thus meaning that I did not have to nip out for shopping - after the day I’d had, it is quite likely that a bottle of wine or five would have fallen into the basket. And that would NEVER do.

Ingredients

250g potatoes (raw weight) peeled and thinly sliced
10g butter
50g half fat Cheddar cheese, grated
Heaped tsp English mustard

Can of tuna in brine or spring water, drained
4-5 heaped tablespoons non fat plain yoghurt
Small handful of capers in brine, drained and chopped
2-3 spring onions, finely chopped
Tsp dried dill
1/2 tsp dried chervil

25g plain flour

Serves 2, 9 Smart Points (WW Flex) per portion

Put the potatoes in a large saucepan, cover with cold water, add a pinch of salt and bring to the boil. Simmer for around 10 minutes or until soft and yielding to the point of a knife.

While the potatoes cook, combine the tuna with the yoghurt, capers, spring onions and herbs and season. You want the consistency to be fairly loose so add more yogurt if necessary - fat free plain yogurt is zero point on Flex, so it won’t make a difference to the total.

Drain the potatoes into a sieve and then push them through said sieve back into the pan. Return it to a low heat and stir through the butter, cheese, mustard and seasoning until everything is smooth and incorporated.

Combine the potatoes with the tuna mix.

Sprinkle the flour on a large plate and on to your hands, and shape the mix into six small cakes. Coat them well in the flour and then cover and chill for at least an hour.

Fry in a good non stick pan (use a few sprays of oil if necessary) for 5 minutes or so on either side until warmed through and crisp of crust.

Serve with...well, I went with salad but I am never sure what is the best accompaniment for fish cakes. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Meal Plans and Mini Goals

A day late for an MPM post but yesterday was a Bank Holiday so I don’t think that it counts as a proper Monday. We had a lovely day here, a nice walk in the morning followed by a lazy afternoon and finally finishing off season 2 of The Good Place which I think is tremendously good.

Anyway, I’ve noticed that I am not quite as focused now as I was back when I first started which is, of course, to be expected but I’d like to ensure a bit of momentum is maintained so I’ve set myself a little mini goal. It’s our wedding anniversary on 17th September and we’re going away for the weekend to Whitby via Darlington – not quite so random as it sounds given that our sole stop off point in Darlington is The Raby Hunt, which bastion of culinary pulchritude we first visited last year. If I can be half a stone further closer to goal by the time we go, then I get a new outfit to wear (and, no doubt, to spill food on).

In general, I am very very anti setting “I must be x weight by y date” goals because we none of us can control the rate at which our bodies choose to shed the lard. We can do everything right but sometimes the scales just don’t budge and I don’t want my sense of achievement tied up with the arbitrations of such a randomly cruel being. However, I am keeping this casual and treating it as a little bit of fun and additional incentive to stay on track, stop allowing the odd day “off” to creep in and keep up with the exercise. If I don’t make it, then I still plan to stick on some glad rags, make my nails all sparkly and have a wonderful, indulgent few days away.

Onto the meal plan and the theme for the first half of the week is on a theme of “It’s pay day on Thursday.” Last night, this led to a slightly random salad and pasta bowl – roasted courgette with watercress, baby spinach and basil in balsamic dressing, pasta and peas tossed in watercress pesto with half a pack of goats’ cheese and red onion fiorelli bunged on top for good measure.

Today – eggs baked in spiced tomato and spinach sauce with toasted pitta for dunking.

Tomorrow – pan fried chicken breast in creamy mushroom and tarragon sauce, mashed potato, honey roast carrots.

Then on Thursday we celebrate the start of the month with a trip out to The Moorcock Inn – the online menu looks intriguingly lovely so I shall look forward to reporting back. And the weekend can be slightly more decadent because, wahey, we have money again.

Friday – trout with beetroot and horseradish (a bump from last week)

Saturday – mussels cooked with white wine, shallots and Bayonne ham, with a crispy pile of oven baked fries on the side

Sunday – still to be decided.

Have a good week all!

MPM: 20th August 2018

I meant to do this first thing this morning and then got distracted by, ugh, work.  And I meant to introduce the post by spending a good five minutes moaning about how TIRED I am but, actually, I might save that for tomorrow and just concentrate on meal planning today. 

This week, we have my parents coming for dinner on Saturday, which if D has his way will mean a multi-course, thousand point extravaganza.  I am wondering if everyone would settle for a couple of takeaway pizzas and a few hands of cards.  Other than that, the week is a quiet one which is fine by me.

Monday: Spiced tomato and lentil soup

Tuesday:  Thai spiced turkey patties with rice noodle salad

Wednesday: Crispy lemon sole with brown shrimp butter and cucumber salad

Thursday:  Pork with mushrooms in creamy tarragon sauce, mash

Friday:  Chilli con carne

Sunday:  Trout with horseradish

MPM: 13th August 2018

I’m so tired this morning. This, despite the fact I had a nap yesterday afternoon and then went to bed at nine o clock, I feel like I could sleep for a week. Thankfully, God invented caffeine and I’m sure that the second cup of strong coffee will be the charm.

Anyway, meal planning. A quiet week ahead with some nice food to look forward to.

Monday: Pan fried salmon with Bois Bourdan sauce and crushed potatoes. A Heston Blumenthal recipe from his “At Home” book.

Tuesday: Creamy butternut squash and red pepper soup, homemade flatbreads brushed with smoked butter

Wednesday: Kale and blue cheese gnocchi

Thursday: D is out, so filled pasta for me.

Friday: Skate wings with black butter and capers. This is one of my all-time favourite things to eat but, dear Teapot, butter is high in points. The recipe I’ve used before suggests 75g butter between two people. That’s 14 points worth of butter a portion! I mean…I’m going to eat it, but I will be licking any excess butter off the plate when I’m done and will probably be whingeing about it a LOT.

Saturday: A homemade fakeaway - Nando’s chicken pitta. Now, we went to Nando’s the other week on a pre cinema jolly and I was SO disappointed. I think they might have changed their recipe, or else we just got a really duff cook because it was not nice at all. Too much chill heat without any rounded flavour, woolly, over cooked chicken and the chargrilled vegetables were not so much chargrilled vegetables as crappy, overcooked mulch. So I’m going to make my own Piri-Piri style chicken at home and it will likely cost a hell of a lot less than the £30 we paid for two of us to eat remarkably mediocre food.

Sunday: roast dinner. Probably chicken. Depending on the weather, I’ll either do roast potatoes and standard trimmings, or we’ll have it with a couple of salads, maybe some bread. It’s distinctly cooler and greyer this morning here in Leeds, perfect roast potato weather, but we’ll see how the week pans out.

Recipe corner: Creamy salmon pasta

Everyone has a dish that they remember, perhaps from childhood or perhaps from a holiday, something that sticks out as being the absolute essence of Delicious. For D, it is a creamy salmon pasta dish that he once had while on a skiing holiday in Italy. He cannot explain what it was that made it so perfect, and, as with so many things, I suspect that it was partly a configuration of particular external circumstances that makes the memory so precious but, nevertheless, I wanted to have a creamy salmon pasta dish in the repertoire to please him.

The thing is, the majority of creamy salmon pasta dishes that I looked at are pretty much salmon, cream and pasta. Maybe a bit of white wine and/or lemon. There never seems to be much to them which I think makes them sound pretty bland.

Here, I’ve upped both the umami and the acidity. The shallots, Parmesan and, importantly, the anchovies, add a savoury note to the cream, while the wine and the lemony cooking dishes add much needed zing. I also really like the mustard here - not so much as to make its presence too obvious but just an underlying hum of warmth. Salmon, mustard and dill is a fantastic combination.

This is simple, quick to cook comfort food of the highest order. It may not quite live up to that one plate of pasta eaten by a young man in the Italian Alps, but the slightly older man who had it for his tea in a living room in Leeds seemed pretty content just the same.

Ingredients

1 large salmon fillet
Half a small lemon, thinly sliced
2 tbsp white wine

2 small or 1 large shallot, finely minced
Generous knob of butter
2 anchovies
50ml white wine
150ml double cream
30g Parmesan, finely grated
Scant tsp of English mustard
Generous tsp freeze dried dill

150g dried pasta

Serves 2, generously 

Preheat the oven to a 180. Put out a large square of tin foil and lay the lemon slices out in the centre of it. Season the salmon fillet well and then sit it, skin side down, on the lemon. Gather up the sides of the square foil, sprinkle over the wine and then bring the edges together to make a parcel. Bake in the oven for 15-20 mins (the timing will depend on the thickness of the fish) until the salmon is almost cooked through but still moist.

Once the salmon is cooked, the sauce can be prepared in the time it takes to do the pasta. So bring a pan of salted water to the boil and set a second, large pan over a low heat.

Tip the pasta into the water and set a ten minute timer.

Melt the butter in the other pan and, just as it starts to foam, bung in the shallot. It should be minced fine enough that it turns soft and translucent pretty quickly - 2-3 minutes. Add the anchovies and cook for a further couple of minutes until they have melted into the shallots.

Pour over the wine and turn up the heat. Reduce until practically all the liquid has disappeared and then pour in the cream, add the mustard and simmer for a couple more minutes. Reduce from the heat and stir through the Parmesan until melted completely.

To finish the sauce, flake through the cooked fish (discarding the soggy skin), ensuring that any fishy, lemony, winey juices also get poured in. Season with salt, pepper and dill.

Drain the pasta, reserving a little bit of cooking water. Stir through the sauce adding a splash or so of the water, if needed, to ensure a clinging texture (particularly pertinent if you prepare the sauce in advance).

Recent eats - the at home edition.

The days fly by so quickly that, on the few occasions when I have sat down to write this post, I have ended up spending a good five minutes staring at a blank screen while attempting to remember what on Earth I have actually cooked recently. I mean, I do cook - most days. And it usually tastes pretty good. But I have an appalling memory, especially when it comes to blogging. I’ve resorted to going back through my photos as a reminder which means that this post ends up being a summary of the dishes that I have photographed recently rather than particular favourites, but there. I suppose that if I was moved to photograph it, I probably liked it.

Actually, I’m going to start by talking about something fantastically delicious for which I do not have a picture. I mean, I do have a picture but it is so spectacularly bad, even for me, that I’m not prepared to use it. And that is D’s Merguez burgers. When he made his last batch of Merguez sausages he reserved some of the meat to make into patties. We fried these and then loaded them into a brioche bun with houmous, slices of roasted red pepper and a minted yoghurt and feta whip. What a combo. What a burger. Why am I writing this post while hungry?

For something a bit more refined, I commend to your attention Nathan Outlaw’s pan fried fish with spring vegetable nage. Such a versatile dish. Such an understated pleasure to eat. I’m having a bit of a moment with hake recently, so that is what we chose to serve here and just behold that wonderful, salty, crispy skin - a perfect foil to the silken creaminess of the nage underneath.

And another lovely seafood dish: the always wonderful Diana Henry’s crab, tomato and saffron tart. I used the recipe in her latest book, but this online version looks much the same. Now I, personally, often find crab a bit cloying, but the layer of almost jammy tomatoes cuts through that richness and provides a welcome contrast. Unfortunately, my pastry skills remain poor and I struggled with the shortness of the dough here; I ended up smushing it into the tin like Play-Doh rather than rolling it out. Still good though, and it did us two suppers and one packed lunch accompanied by a variety of salady bits and pieces.

Finally, not so much a dish but another very welcome addition to the fridge: I’ve been strewing these pickled chillies over a lot of things recently and they’re a lovely way to add tiny pops of both acidity and chilli heat to all sorts of dishes. Along with my continuing sriracha obsession, and the fact that I manage to find a way to incorporate D’s green chilli and coriander salsa into practically everything I eat, I’m becoming quite the chilli fiend!

MPM: 8th May 2018

I know life is busy, but at the very least I should be making times for meal planning posts. I mean, it is a basic right of all my beloved readers to hear about what I am eating, is it not?

I jest, and although I always feel that the first post after something of a pause should contain an apology for the blogger’s absence, it is something of a liberty to assume that people notice or care. Apart from my Mum, who texts me asking where the blog is. But she’s my Mum, and is therefore contractually bound to consider everything I do important and special.

The truth is that the last few weeks have been busy and stressful. We’ve not been sticking to 5:2 particularly and any weight loss has most definitely stalled - boo. Things should be improving now though, so we approach the new week with renewed vigour. I am also seriously considering signing up for a 5k run to incentivise me to actually complete the Couch to 5k programme. Every time I have started it, I have actually quite enjoyed the session but it is finding the motivation to trek out to, er, the garage in the first place which is proving tough (and yes, reading that back I know EXACTLY how pathetic it sounds). There’s one in a local park in mid July but I’m fretting that might be too soon as I need 8 weeks to do all the training runs and would then like to have at least a month of consolidation, including some Park Runs, to feel confident going in to the actual, organised event. So I might see if anything is going on in late August or early September. A lot of my colleagues are quite into running and from chatting to them I have gleaned that there are quite a lot of events going on from which to choose.

And so to meal planning. D has spent the last couple of days doing some serious batch cooking, so the garage freezer is now stocked with umpteen Merguez sausages and several pots of chilli. Our goal for the rest of the month is to try and eat down the indoor freezer. I’ve been desperate to own a Smeg fridge for quite some time now, and we’ve agreed that since we can’t afford to do the kitchen renovations we crave at the moment, we can at least splash out on a pretty fridge to make the space slightly more attractive. I mean, how beautiful is this?

Anyway, this is a convoluted way of trying to explain why sausages pop up not once but twice this week, albeit in different guises.

Monday: a bank holiday fast day - soup.

Tuesday: to celebrate the lovely weather, I suggested a salad. So tonight there is going to be some element of shredded veg and then some sort of satay dressing, probably with noodles and definitely prawns. This dinner is still rather at the concept stage.

Wednesday: already looking set to be a shocker of a day for me work wise. So I suggested something simple but oh so comforting with a half pack of sausages lurking in the freezer - the good old sausage sandwich. D is to contrive some sort of red onion marmaladey accompaniment.

Thursday: more soup.

Friday: a summery fish dish. Again, this evening is still rather at the concept stage.

Saturday: I am cooking the books, the book in question being Diana Henry’s latest (“How to Eat a Peach”) and the dish in question being crab, saffron and tomato tart.

Sunday: Merguez sausage stew with couscous.

Happy cooking and eating all!

Recipe corner: tagliatelle with mussel butter sauce

For such a simple recipe, this looks bloody long when it's written out. Sorry. But if you like mussels, and pasta, and all good things, and if it pleases you to end a meal and have a glaze of butter about your lips then this is the dish for you.

I've already got a mussel pasta dish on here from years and years ago - I'll have to make it again soon to compare and contrast.

Ingredients

1kg fresh mussels (in their shells)
Small glass white wine

250g fresh tagliatelle

Tbsp olive oil
Shallot, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
Red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
50g butter, cubed
Small handful fresh dill, chopped
Squeeze of lemon juice

Serves 2

Sort through the mussels, discarding any with broken shells. Remove the beards. Heat the wine in a large, lidded pan and when it just starts to simmer, tip in the mussels and cover. Cook for 5-6 minutes until the mussels are all steamed open, plump and glistening. Discard any that are closed and set the rest aside to cool slightly.

When no longer too hot to handle, remove the mussels from the shells and strain the winey juices. All this can, of course, be done in advance.

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil and, on a second ring, place a second pan (large enough to accommodate all the pasta) over a low heat and measure in the oil to warm.

Sweat off the shallot, garlic and chilli with a generous pinch of salt, then pour over the mussel juices. Reduce the liquid down by about a third. Start to add the butter a cube at a time, stirring well. Once all the butter has been incorporated you can throw in the mussels and dill.

Put the pasta in the now boiling salted water and cook for 3-4 minutes or per the packet instructions. Meanwhile, taste the sauce - season and add a splash of lemon to lift it slightly. It may taste slightly salty at this point but this will balance out when eaten with the pasta.

Toss the tagliatelle through the mussel butter sauce and serve immediately.