Meal Planning Monday 8

Meal planning didn't quite work out last week as one or other of us was out five nights out of seven.  I've mentioned before that I absolutely hate cooking for one, so when I'm on my own I don't tend to bother with anything more than a microwave meal.  Yes, I know, my foodie credentials get smaller and smaller don't they?  Of course, if I was really organised I'd keep a load of pre-portioned homecooked meals in the freezer for such occasions.  One day, I will be that person.

So, given the recent heat, I've been trying to come up with lighter meals for this week.  I think I'm naturally more of a winter cook (if there is such a thing) as I do find summer meal planning a little bit more difficult.  Or perhaps I just find meal planning difficult full stop because I long to be spontaneous and fabulous.  Ah well.

So, in particular order:

• Chilli con carne.  Not particularly light or summery, but a firm household favourite
• Three cheese pasta.  Oh look, another not particularly light or summery dish.  But I've had this in my head for a while now - I want to try and make a version of a childhood favourite that is slightly WW friendly.  Stay tuned for a recipe if it is successful.
• Chicken Caesar Salad - salad cos it's summer, see?
• Prawn and scrambled egg stir fry.  
• Mediterranean style fish stew with crusty bread on the side
• Sweet mustard salmon with roasted veg

As always, if you're lacking in a bit of meal planning inspiration you can head over to Mrs M's blog for more ideas.

The skinny on...Warburtons sandwich thins

The older I get, the less likely you are to find ostensibly diet products in my kitchen. One of the lessons that I have learned over my years of Weight Watching, of which I still need to remind myself on a regular basis is, I never need as much food as I think I do (i.e. I am fundamentally greedy) and another is that quality is almost always better than quantity. It is for this reason that I have stopped buying low fat plastic spreads – I eat real butter, just in a measured way. And, much as I am a fan of their eating plan, I very seldom purchase Weight Watchers branded products. I just don’t like them that much.

Of course there are exceptions. While my aim is that the recipes and products that I talk about on this blog are healthy-living friendly rather than expressly designed for us slaves to the calorie counting, I do sometimes have to bend my own rules, especially when it comes to dairy. Take the asparagus cream pasta I made last week for example – I used Elmlea, a cream alternative, which, the website tells me, is made of buttermilk and vegetable oils. I sometimes choose reduced fat cheese for cooking with and I almost always eat reduced fat yoghurts rather than the real deal. You pick your battles, depending on your taste.  And I don't think that there is anything wrong with a bit of compromise.

The actual point of this post was to enthuse about a new product I have stumbled across, after years of reading about them on American food and dieting blogs – sandwich thins ( and I should add at this point that I pretty sure that no one in the Warburtons marketing department knows I exist, particularly as that last line sounds a bit like marketeer speak.)

As far as I can see it, the point of the sandwich thin, which is basically…a square, flattish, slimmish bread roll type thing but without a crust (er, am I selling it yet?  See, definitely not in the employ of Warburtons!) is that it minimises the points (calories, grams of carb etc. etc.) that you spend on the receptacle which you are using to convey your sandwich filling to your mouth. Don’t get me wrong. I am a massive fan of bread – proper, yummy, warm, crusty bread. But when I eat a sandwich, I’m more bothered about what is in the middle of the bread. Otherwise I’d just be eating the bread on its own. Well, thickly smeared with butter anyway.

The thins are 3 pro points each and, I think, around 100 calories. And, as I discovered at breakfast time on Sunday, they are just about the right size to accommodate a fried egg (done in just the merest teaspoon of oil). Hurrah.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

That’s it my friends. It’s all over.

I knew in my heart it must be. But still, a little quiver of hope arose in my breast when I saw Tesco were doing 2 for £2.50 on what I dared to believe was the tail end of the season’s harvest.

Not so. When my shopping arrived on Tuesday evening, the asparagus within was from Peru.

So, looks like British asparagus is done and dusted for another year. And, since I really wouldn’t bother with the Peruvian stuff as a general rule, that’s another ten or so months before I can enjoy it’s rich, greeney goodness again (to me, the best way to describe the flavour of asparagus is just to say it tastes “green”. You can understand why I don’t hold out any hope for a long-term career as a food writer). Anyway, to celebrate and commiserate in equal measure, (and to give me some inspiration next year) here’s a little retrospective of the whirlwind romance of the season.

It started off simple, classic. Egg, lemon, salty cheese, all classic asparagus adjuncts. But this dish was so much more than the sum of its parts.


I could never decide whether to steam or roast my asparagus until the lovely Mr Heston Blumenthal introduced me to a method that gave me the best of both worlds. Oh, and his soft boiled egg and smoked salmon and asparagus soldiers combo was pretty tasty and worked equally well when the smoked salmon was subbed for Parma ham.

Asparagus doesn’t always have to be the star of the show – it doesn’t mind playing a supporting role as long as you keep the accompanying flavours simple with a bit of zing. We’ve had it with simple roast chicken and lemon couscous (which is always a favourite dish in our household at this time of year) and also with some lovely, garlicky lamb and a fresh little potato salad.

And finally, this dish which I cooked the other night despite the fact that Tesco failed to provide me with the Real Deal. It was very simple and very tasty, and is recorded here for posterity so I remember to cook it again. Please don’t judge me for using a cream substitute (here, Elmlea) – there is simply no way I can build 70ml of full fat double cream into my daily points allowance without subsisting on dust for the rest of the day. And the dish itself didn’t appear to suffer overly much for my shortcomings – although I imagine should you use proper double cream you’d end up with something even more luxurious and decadent.

Asparagus Cream Pasta

Ingredients

1 bunch of asparagus
142ml reduced fat double cream substitute
2 small garlic cloves, peeled and slightly bruised
40g Parmesan, half finely grated, the other shaved
200g pasta

Serves 2, 19 pro points per serving

Put a large sauce pan of salted water on to boil. Meanwhile, snap the woody ends from your asparagus and slice off the tips.

Boil the asparagus stalks for about five minutes – I reckon that slightly overcooking them makes them softer and easier to blend later on.

Remove the stalks from the water and drain. Tip your pasta into the water, bring back to the boil and set a timer for 10 minutes.

Now put your cream into a small saucepan, add your garlic cloves and bring slowly up to the boil. When it gets there remove from the heat, stir through the finely grated Parmesan and put the resulting mixture into a blender along with the asparagus stalks. Whizz up into a beautiful pale green sauce. You could remove the garlic but I wouldn’t bother – it doesn’t overpower by any means.

2 minutes before the pasta is ready, thrown the tips into the boiling water.

Drain the pasta and asparagus tips, stir through the sauce over a gentle heat to warm through. Taste for seasoning – Parmesan is quite salty so you will need to be judicious with the salt, but I like plenty of scrunches of black pepper here, and then serve with the Parmesan shaving strewn over the top.

Lunch at the Ledbury

It was actually writing restaurant reviews that first got me thinking about blogging. When D and I first started venturing out to higher end restaurants, I started writing reviews - just to amuse ourselves you understand. I wasn't of the opinion then (and am certainly not now) that I had anything particularly new or innovative to add to the milieu. But I have a decent palate and, more importantly, a fully paid up membership to the club of Food Obsessiveness, which means I am endlessly interested in the ways in which chefs combine ingredients and utilise techniques both classic and modern and I endlessly wish to communicate that interest to other people, whether or not they share it.

This blog is not a restaurant review blog. I don't eat out enough for a start. And if I did eat out more I'd probably be even plumper than I already am. But I hope that you will indulge me the odd swerve from the path of WW righteousness once in a while (!) for some full on Food Porn.

We went to The Ledbury a couple of Saturdays ago you see - two Michelin stars and much praise from People Who Know. And I really, really wanted to write something witty and fabulous to pay tribute to such a gorgeous meal. But when it came down to trying to write some notes about it, all I found myself scribbling was “Food = VG”. Then I started doodling daisies. Yeah, Fay Maschler must really be trembling in her boots.

But I really don’t know how to be more eloquent about it. After every single course I wanted to send a request back to the chef to send me out a second, supersized version. After every single course I wanted to pick up the plate and give it a damned thorough licking. In fact, D succumbed to this, perfectly understandable, urge at one point (well, ran his finger round and licked that, almost the same thing) and got caught out by the charming Aussie sommelier. Who laughed, but agreed with D’s assertion that there can be no greater compliment to the chef than to risk turning oneself into an object of ridicule in a crowded dining room.

I suppose (and this is by no means a criticism) it wasn’t desperately exciting. And exciting is a dangerous adjective when applied to food: exciting can mean tongue tingling new combinations of flavours, can mean theatre and fireworks, or it can mean (and I have said this in both The Fat Duck and Noma – regarded as two of the world’s best restaurants) “I just don’t like this.” There were no dizzying highs, when I felt sure that the dish in front of me would be remembered for ever as one of the pinnacles of my foodie experiences. But equally, there were no dips down from the level of “Wow, this tastes so gooooood. Waiter, bring me a bucket of them there rabbit beignets and don’t spare the pine salt”.

Rabbit!

Picking a favourite dish was tough.  My Dad was all about the meat: he couldn’t decide between the melting pork cheek which was slow cooked with liquorice and spices, and served with a smear of bitter chicory and little spots of soft, honeyed sherry jelly, or the equally tender beef short rib which was accompanied by a cloudy mouthful of buttery mash.  I mean, pomme puree. 




Pork cheek!



Beef!

 But D and I were very taken with a fantastic plate of mackerel – a flame grilled fillet accompanied by a little mackerel tartare wrapped in cucumber gel, celtic mustard and shiso.  I also think an honourable mention needs to go to the scallop tartare which was served with a horseradish snow and managed to be sweet and cool and fiery all at the same time.

Mackerel!

Scallop!

Because we were having the tasting menu, there was no element of choice as to what we were served.  Perhaps that is why I remember the puddings as slightly underwhelming: the caramelised banana tatin with peanut parfait was lovely, but I’m always slightly disappointed when I have a pudding that is not chocolate.  The three of us did sterling work on the impressive cheese board though, picking fourteen of the twenty odd on offer between us, to the slight bemusement of the waitress who had evidently assumed we would want one cheese course between three.  D fixed her with a somewhat steely glare.  “We like cheese,” he said.

Banana!

Cheese!

Of course it was expensive. You don’t go for a lunch at a top London restaurant, order the tasting menu and attendant wine flight and expect any change out of can’tbringherselftosayanactualfigure quid. But I believe they do a very reasonable set lunchtime deal which I will definitely be trying to persuade friends along to next time I’m down in London. I’ll be aiming for a secluded table in the corner as well, so I can indulge in plenty of plate licking without the risk of being spotted.

My Elephant

This morning as I was getting dressed, I pulled out a top that I hadn’t worn in a while despite the fact I am fond of the colour and the fit. As I stood there, still rather bleary (it was six o clock after all), I remembered that the reason it had ended up at the back of the wardrobe was that the cut of the neck and shoulders leave my bra straps rather visible. Which isn’t really a big deal these days (sometimes it is positively de rigueur) but I had relegated the top to weekend wear only because I was concerned that the whole bra strap on display look wasn’t suitable for work. I went through the whole thought process in my mind. Then I put the top on reasoning, “I like this top, I want to wear it and that whole bra thing probably isn’t that bad. I’ll just do some subtle hoiking if it becomes a problem”.

And of course, now I’m sitting here, painfully aware that I am displaying greying bra straps to the world and his boss. And his boss too. And yes, I did not even bother to put on a nice bra at any point in this decision making process.

For those of you struggling to see the connection between whether or not my underwear is visible and food / WW then here we go. I am a supposedly intelligent person. And yet I make the same mistakes over and over and over again. Not only that, but sometimes (as this morning) the logical part of my brain chips in to say, “Hang on a minute, is that really such a good idea?” and then some other entirely irrational part notes the objection and goes ahead anyway.

Every time I’ve made a bad food decision, every time I’ve eschewed the gym in order to loll on the couch watching old episodes of “Charmed”, somewhere there has been a voice screaming “Noooooo! Don’t do it!” in a slightly melodramatic manner. But you only have to look at my recent track record (particularly in relation to exercise) to see that the voice is being well and truly drowned out.

And I don’t think it is just me. My brother was telling me about this self help book the other week which is all about instigating change. The analogy that the book uses is that your logical self is a Rider upon the Elephant of your emotional self (bear with). If the logical Rider and emotional Elephant want to go in different directions, then the Elephant will almost always win because it is stronger. The Rider therefore has to come up with strategies that will allow him to retain control and the Elephant to remain calm and biddable. For example, shaping the outside environment – in a weight loss scenario this might mean getting rid of anything in the house that will trigger overeating - or setting small, achievable goals that will not spook the Elephant but will give it something tangible to walk towards. And so on and so forth until the analogy is stretched beyond all recognition.

It’s an analogy I recognise and like. So much so that I’ve invested in a little silver elephant charm for my Pandora to remind me to keep control of my Elephant. Getting the mental stuff right is, I reckon, a good 99% of the battle.

Now, if you will excuse me, I need to nip to the ladies to rearrange my clothing. Again.

Meal Planning Monday 7

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed the lack of a meal planning post last week. Well, there are no excuses. Or rather, there are plenty but they are so pathetic that if I type them out I risk losing all remaining self respect. In the end it didn’t matter too much because I was struck down by a horrible stomach lurgie towards the end of the week which meant for several days I could face nothing more exotic than plastic cheese slices on toast.

This week needs to be different – poor D will revolt if he doesn’t start getting proper meals.

So. Tonight we have peppered chicken with roasted courgettes and cherry tomatoes and sun dried tomato and garlic couscous.

On Sunday I want to do a proper roast dinner. I love roast dinners and we don’t have them nearly enough. A recent post by the very lovely Jenny has put me in the mood for a slow roast pork shoulder, which I’ll serve with all the trimmings.

Then in between: they’ll be prick and ping for me one night when D is out carousing (much as I adore cooking I absolutely loathe cooking for one. I think it dates back to a rather miserable period in my life when I was living alone in an absolute hovel where the kitchen was so disgusting I refused to use it other than to make tea and toast.) I’ll be making what might well prove to be our last asparagus dish of the season, a rather delicious and sinful looking asparagus cream pasta from the BBC Good Food magazine website. We have a couple of squashes that need using, so I’m thinking of revisiting this rather lovely risotto recipe (and updating it to include the pro points value in the process). And alongside said squashes, there are some slightly mournful looking new potatoes languishing in our storecupboard, so I think I’ll keep it simple and serve up the salmon, roasted new potatoes and crushed, minted peas that I cooked a couple of weeks ago.

Finally, D was muttering something about having a yen for whitebait at the weekend which I think would be a fantastic Friday night supper – simply dusted with seasoned flour and fried in a little oil and then served with some mayonnaise for dunking. I don’t know yet whether I’ll be able to get hold of any, but I’m going to have a go.

Pop over to Mrs M's blog for more meal planning fun.

Cheek to Cheek

It may not really be the weather for it (yes, there has been sunshine in the North, Peridot!), but we had a delicious stew for tea last night from a recipe by Mark Hix. Pork cheeks, slow cooked with chorizo until they were on the verge of disintegrating entirely into the port enriched gravy, then served with a glossy sprinkle of broad beans which had been tossed in a little butter. The original recipe is here if you are interested; I tinkered with it a little to make it a little more WW friendly and more suitable for the slow cooker I was planning to use.

The point of the post is, though, have you cooked pork cheeks yet? And if not, why not? Once you finished reading this, get yourself down to the Waitrose meat counter, or indeed, your local butcher (should you be so fortunate as to have one) and acquire some. And yes, I am being bossy – but I promise you’ll thank me for it. Unlike other cuts of meat which have been proclaimed cheap by “sleb” chefs (which causes everyone goes out and buys them so that the price rockets), pork cheeks are genuinely, rock bottomely cheap. A couple of your English pounds will get you plenty enough for four portions.

Pork cheeks benefit from long, slow cooking - treat them with a bit of care and languor and the meat will be gloriously tender. As I mentioned, I used my slow cooker – eightish hours on the low setting and they were perfect. But equally, we have cooked them in the oven for a few hours which worked perfectly well. And in terms of Weight Watchers, I reckon (from information garnered on t’Internet) they are about 3 pro points per 100g raw meat – which is roughly the same as pork shoulder. Not at all bad. I’m currently thinking they would work well in a curry (vindaloo is, I believe, traditionally made with pork) or perhaps with some Chinese style spicing…yep, I definitely feel a trip to Waitrose coming on…

Beside the seaside

I ended my week of freedom with a trip to Scarborough with D. Now, there is a town that I will forever associate with childhood. Back when I was younger and lived within spitting distance of the M25, North Yorkshire was a regular family holiday destination. Being your typically insular London-born child, I subscribed wholeheartedly to the belief that everything north of the Watford Gap (also known as “The Norf” in East Londonish) was a peculiar, foreign place. The idea of one day living there would have seemed laughable. How times have changed. Not only do I now live in the Norf but I am preparing to marry a Norferner and if we decide to have children, they may very well grow up with Norfern Accents. How very odd.

Anyway, Scarborough. They say that the sense of smell is the one most closely linked to memory, and there is definitely something about the scent of the British seafront that carries me straight back to being a child again. The combination of saltwater, hot fat and melting sugar with just a whiff of fish that has been left too long in the sun – there’s nothing else like it in the world is there? And that’s even before you’ve factored in the accompanying soundtrack: the mournful squall of the seagulls, and incessant plinkity-plonk of the arcade games.

We ate sugared doughnuts, fresh out of the oil and blisteringly hot. And we shared a portion of proper chip shop chips while sitting on a bench looking at the North Sea. Delicious and nostalgic; tastes which still have the power to transport me backwards in time so that for a moment or two I am that little girl again rather than her older, fatter, sillier, sadder counterpart.

I'm Still Here...

Radio silence has ensued the last week or so while I've been busy introducing my five month old nephew to the delights of Yorkshire. We had a fantastic meal at The Ledbury last week which I want to write about, and I'm keen to get back into the swing of meal planning - I have dress fittings looming!

Speaking of meal planning, some bright soul has created a website that does it all for you - randomly generating meals for a week in a single click: Grocery List. Clever stuff. If BBC Good Food or some other similar faction could do a British version I, for one, would be extremely grateful.

Enjoy the sunshine!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Three Star Asparagus

I mentioned yesterday how much we had enjoyed the combination of asparagus, smoked salmon and soft boiled eggs last week. Well, apparently one of us enjoyed it so much that he decided to go off to the supermarket and buy all the constituent parts so we could have it for tea again last night. And it was just as scrumptious second time around.

The real revelation has been the method that Heston Blumenthal suggests using to cook the asparagus which I am going to share with you here. It’s easy peasy and produces perfectly cooked asparagus with just the right amount of bite and a slightly “roasty” flavour (I initially put charred as the adjective there and then realised that not everybody wants their food to taste burned-by-any-other-name).

So, step 1: preparation. Snap the woody ends off your asparagus. Retrieve, from your slightly chaotic cupboard, a medium sized saucepan and attendant lid. Put two pieces of kitchen towel down beside the hob.

Step 2: pre-cooking. Place a scant tablespoon of olive oil into your pan, then bung (a technical term) the asparagus on top and season with plenty of salt and pepper. Lid on.

Step 3: apply heat. Put the lidded saucepan over a medium heat and set a timer for five minutes. This would be a good moment at which to pour a glass of wine. You may wish to shake the pan vigorously several times during the cooking process to redistribute the stalks inside – or simply to work out some of the day’s frustrations.

Step 4: remove from heat. Tip onto sheet one of the kitchen towel and use sheet two to absorb any excess oil.

Step 5: serve.

WW note: I would reckon on counting a single point per portion of this to account for any oil – remember that most of the excess is blotted off.

Meal Planning Monday 6 - and a weekend round-up

I was going to bemoan the fact that Monday always seems to come around far, far too quickly. And then I remembered that I actually wrote my last meal planning Monday post on a Tuesday. And didn’t really start following said meal plan until the Friday. Life gets in the way, you see! Well, a combination of life and langour (on my part).

The meals that I did manage to cook, following my previous post, were delicious. There was the asparagus with soft boiled eggs and Heston B’s tea smoked salmon, which combination I thought was an absolute treat (although getting the smoked salmon to co-operate and form elegant strips to wrap around the asparagus was challenging. We just had it on the side).

Then, in front of Dr Who on Saturday we had venison burgers, brought all the way back from Scotland, cooked until only just pink and slapped in a bun with a plastic cheese slice – I’m sorry, but regardless of the quality of the meat in your burger (and these were top notch) a plastic cheese slice is entirely necessary. In a fit of productivity, we whipped up a batch of home made mayonnaise which was perfect for chip dunking. It really was a team effort – D whisked while I trickled the oil – which seems to make the process easier. And Sunday, it was pork cheek stew, which deserves a post all of its own (although I have noticed that every time I comment that I’m going to do a separate post on x or y subject, it never tends to materialise. Bad, butterfly brained blogger!)

So, onto this week. And from Friday onwards we will be out, off down to London for my gorgeous little nephew’s christening, and, more importantly for the purposes of this blog, lunch at The Ledbury. Only four meals need to be planned. Tonight will be asparagus with something…probably eggs of some sort. One meal will be brought across from last week. And in addition, I plan to cook:

o Lemon salmon with minted crushed peas and new potatoes

o Aubergine and red lentil curry – I have blogged about this dish before here, it is a very simple but very tasty midweek veggie supper. If we have new potatoes left, I might do some sort of spicy fried potato thingy to go on the side.

Pop over to Mrs M’s blog for more meal planning fun and have a lovely, fun and food filled week!

Au naturel

Whether you are looking to lose weight, or maintain your already svelte figure or keep yourself and your family healthy, everyone has to exercise a certain level of control over what they eat.

Take two of my very closest friends. They have absolutely enviable figures – perfectly proportioned, slender, healthy. Not too skinny, but certainly no inches to pinch (as an aside – these are the two nymphs that for some reason I chose as my bridesmaids. And then chose them beautiful, flattering dresses. No, I’m not sure why either.) They are both what people might refer to as “naturally slim”; they do not diet, they eat cake and drink wine and while they exercise (A enjoys walking while R is a keen hockey player) it is by no means a daily occurrence for them.

But I’ve observed them closely. And while they’ve neither of them counted a point or a calorie in their life both of them are naturally able to regulate their eating. I believe that it is instinctive or, if not, then a lifetime of practice has made it almost so.

I remember having a conversation once with R when she confessed to a “binge” – over the course of an afternoon she’d eaten an entire (largish) bag of yoghurt covered raisins. I nodded, and sympathised, but later reflected that “binge” in my world meant something very different. She probably ate little, if any, tea that night. I don’t think I would have done the same in the circumstances.

It makes me wonder if “naturally slim” does not mean (as I have jealously but deludedly maintained to myself for years) a naturally speedy metabolism, but a natural ability to ingest as many calories as the body needs, and adjust all the peaks and troughs of consumption over a period of time, so as to not end up with a surplus that then settles as a layer of podge.

Of course, we all know exceptions to this rule – but I bet they’re fewer and further between than perennial dieters would like to think. The reality is that in general, the larger you are (assuming you’ve not reached the stage where you are rendered immobile) the higher your metabolism because your body has to work that much harder to transport you around from place to place.

I wonder if the fact that I had already had a taste of calorie counting before I hit my teens has permanently robbed me, and others like me, of the ability to achieve that natural balance? Or whether, like a good sense of smell, or an ear for music, it is simply something one is born with?  OR whether it is something that one can learn (or re-learn) with a bit of time and care?  I know that I am guilty of not always listening to my body but perhaps, if I'm really, really quiet, I might start to hear a wise little voice telling me exactly what I need to do.

A non food related post about weddings

Yesterday I mentioned that my wedding is a mere four months away. And it has become increasingly apparent to me that I do not have a long term career as a wedding planner, or indeed, any sort of planner. Despite having two years, yes, TWO YEARS to organise the thing, I’m still woefully under prepared.

The problem is, you see, that we booked the venue within a couple of months of getting engaged, without looking at anywhere else. The Star Inn at Harome is one of my favourite places to stay in the world and we have been going for my birthday every year for the past….oooh, six or seven years. When I found out that they hold weddings there, I didn’t need to see anywhere else. I love the setting, plus I knew that the meal would be absolutely top notch (if you happen to watch Great British Menu you will have seen the chef proprietor, Andrew Pern, get voted through to the final as the North East representative.) So that was all booked and sorted ages ago. And at the beginning of the year I stirred myself to arrange a registrar as well (I thought it might be a good idea), and took my bridesmaids shopping for dresses (top tip: if you’re buying high street for bridesmaids, hit the January sales. We got two absolutely gorgeous Monsoon dresses for something ridiculous like £40 apiece). And then I sort of…stopped. People would ask “How’re the wedding plans going?” and I would wave a hand airily and say, “All under control.”

The thing that most people are curious about is The Dress. And, funnily enough, that has been one of the least important aspects for me all along. As a girl who has battled with her weight since a very tender age indeed, I have never taken very much pleasure in clothes shopping (regardless, it has to be said, of whether I’ve been going through one of my rare slender phases or not). Changing rooms are, as far as I am concerned, Hell on Earth whatever size you are. The idea of going into one of those very posh wedding shops and trying on a range of sample sized gowns – which, let’s face it, were bound to be so ridiculously tiny that I’d end up with some poor woman desperately trying to squidge some delicate little bodice around my comedy boobs - was not one that appealed.

I thought I’d be quite happy to just pick something up, off the hanger, nearer the time. And then I made the mistake of Googling images in an idle moment. And I saw The Dress. It was so beautiful and so perfect and so exactly the kind of thing I wanted – even though I hadn’t even known what I’d wanted until then, that everything else just looked plain wrong. Fortunately, I think I have found a dressmaker who thinks she can recreate The Dress, and in time for September, and for an amount that will just about squeeze onto my credit card. So I guess that one more thing ticked off my non-existent list (which I really should get around to making…)

Meal Planning Monday 5

So, meal planning. I had every intention of getting online to do a shop on Sunday, but to be honest I was feeling a bit…Sundayish. Which feeling has lingered through Monday and on to Tuesday. Perhaps it is the fact that the sunshine has disappeared. Or perhaps I’m beginning to get pre-wedding jitters. I’ll be sauntering down the aisle exactly four months today, and I have only just reached the stage of thinking, “I really should make a list or something….” Really, I shouldn’t be allowed to be in charge of organising so much as a trip to the pub, let alone a wedding.

All of which is entirely beside the point of this post. This post is about all the delicious things that we will be eating this week as soon as I rouse my lazy self and actually acquire the stuff with which to make them.

So (in no particular order):

Asparagus wrapped in smoked salmon and dunked in soft boiled eggs a la Heston in the current Waitrose ads.

One pot prawn and tomato curry with carrot and cumin salad and naan bread (eagle eyed viewers might note that this appeared a couple of weeks back, but for reasons which currently escape me, it never got made and the prawns have been languishing in the freezer ever since).

Spaghetti puttanesca – I think I must have seen a couple of blog posts about this recently, because for some reason it has lodged itself in my head.

Gnocchi with butternut squash a la D.

Venison burgers (brought back from the west coast of Scotland) with oven chips (classy, no?)

Pork cheeks with chorizo, white port and broad beans served with mustard mash.

Pop over to Mrs M's blog for more meal planning fun.

Tastes of home

Eating out is, or should be, a pleasure and a privilege.  And to complain because one has just had to spend a week eating out, paid for by their employer, is inappropriate.  Really, it is, and I'm not going to do it.  But the unthinkable is starting to happen - I am beginning to get to the stage where nine times out of ten, I would rather eat at home.

Let's forget about the whole foodie-on-a-diet thing for the moment as well - the fact is, it is possible to eat out and still lose weight, but it is difficult.  So generally, when I'm away for prolonged periods I accept that the weight is going to stay the same or perhaps creep up a little.  I've made my peace with that.  I just can't bring myself to be the person on the table who orders the green salad with dressing on the side.

But the fact of the matter is, most of the time nowadays when I eat something in a restaurant, I find myself thinking that I could do better at home.  And I am not, for one moment, claiming to be a great cook.  I am a competent cook.

There will always be restaurants where what comes out of the kitchen is a little bit special, that gets your heart racing a little bit faster.  I've bored you all before by our bordering on obsessive love of J. Baker's Bistro Moderne.  Later this year, we've managed to get a reservation at Heston Blumenthal's new London venture, Dinner.  And we're already engaging in spirited debate as to what we'll eat when we go there.

But other than that, I think I'm content to limit my going out from now on.  It's unlike me to take a mature line on anything - perhaps being thirty is finally beginning to catch up with me.

This, by the way, is what I came home to on Friday:

A roasted chicken breast with salty, crispy skin.  Some simple, asparagus picked just up the road.  And a portion of D's delicious lemon couscous.  Completely simple and completely delicious, the highlight of my culinary week.

Recipe corner - Rhubarb crumble muffins

Nothing makes me feel more thoroughly domestic goddess like than baking. A loaf of banana bread today to keep D company next week (am away for work AGAIN), some fabulous hot cross cupcakes for my parents for Easter:





And this weekend, a batch of very lovely rhubarb crumble muffins to welcome a couple of visiting friends.





Muffins are great. The thing is, they're basically cake, but cake that you're allowed to eat for breakfast. Cake as legitimate breakfast food! And these are not only very tasty examples of the genre, at 6 pro points they are relatively virtuous too.

Ingredients

175g caster sugar
175g rhubarb, diced
2 tbsp sunflower oil
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
125ml buttermilk
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the crumble:

50g light muscovado sugar
50g plain flour
25g oats
1 tsp ground cinnamon
50g butter

Makes 12, 6 pro points per muffin

Heat the oven to 220 and line a muffin tin with 12 cases.

Stir the caster sugar into the rhubarb and set aside.

Make the crumble topping by combining the dry ingredients and then rubbing in the butter until the mixture resembles damp sand.

Stir the oil, egg, vanilla and buttermilk into the rhubarb - it will look quite wet at this stage. Now add in the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate and stir well.

Spoon (or ladle) into the cases and top with a thick layer of crumble. Bake for 15-18 mins, until a skewer inserted into the muffin comes out clean.

Allow to cool - and then proceed to enjoy at any time of the day.

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Meal Planning Monday 4

Back to reality and Mrs M's


Hmmm. Well, strictly speaking this is meal planning Tuesday. But we'll draw a veil over the lack of accuracy to the title, shall we? And forgive a poor little brain addled by a week of sunshine and cider?

After a wonderful time away I am not really in the mood for anything as sensible as meal planning. Or, indeed, work. Fortunately I'm off to Birmingham for a meeting today, so several hours can be whiled away on the train catching up with blogs and staring into the middle distance wishing that I was still on holiday...

The meal plan for this week is rather brief and rather dull:

Roast chicken breasts with asparagus

Smoked salmon linguine - final recipe not yet decided

A one pot prawn and tomato curry with rice and naan to accompany Dr Who on Saturday

Garlic and rosemary lamb with new potato salad

Plus a lovely meal with friends at my beloved J Baker's and a night out in Birmingham on expenses! But since we're talking civil service expenses that is far less exciting than one might expect!

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Foodie Abroad: Foraging

It turns out that I had a deprived childhood and never even realised. You see, despite numerous childhood beach holidays, sandcastles and 99s a-plenty, my parents NEVER took me winkling. I shall be having stern words with them when next we meet, I can tell you. Because it turns out I love winkles.

Here they are, recovered after some extensive scrambling around in rockpools and a grazed shin. Aren't they lovely, though?


I haven't included a photo of the winkle sans shell because they are not things of beauty - what shellfish are, quite frankly? But they taste amazing, little iodiney bites of seaside and sunshine.

We had them pretty simple and unadulterated - after rinsing they were boiled for twenty minutes and then piled into bowls where we fell upon them with pins - you have to "winkle" the flesh out you see, just like snails. A dish of garlic butter (I couldn't shake the escargot connection) proved a lovely addition, but they were fabulous just by themselves as well.

Unfortunately, it is late in the mussel season, so our foraging in that direction was slightly less successful: those that we found were delicious but a little on the dainty side:


Still, they made a perfectly pleasant, if light supper, briefly boiled with wine, the resulting juices being strained and combined with cream and garlic.

We've been walking along the beach today and have found a new spot which looks to be a veritable treasure trove of mussels - D reckons if we head back in September we could be in for a feast of crustaceans. Which is good news as far as I'm concerned; not only because I adore shellfish (and it is, incidentally, fantastically diet friendly) but because the act of gathering it yourself somehow makes it taste all the sweeter.

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Foodie Abroad: A bit o' Scottish style tapas

Greetings from Scotland! The sun may have disappeared as soon as we crossed the border, but we still have our fingers crossed for a week of rest, relaxation, the odd dram of whisky and, of course, as much local food as we can get down our gullets.

To start with, I bring you a selection of light bites served up by the Clachaig Inn in Glencoe. D and I ordered three starters, a portion of cheese and pudding to share.

Locally smoked salmon with oatcakes:


A Haggis taster plate with more oatcakes:


Stornaway black pudding with apple purée and still more oatcakes:


Local cheeses and, yes, oatcakes:


And, finally, a piece of Ecclefechan tart. This was a new one on me but absolutely gorgeous - just imagine all that is good about Christmas pudding and encase it in buttery pastry:




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(Not a) Recipe Corner - Roasted Asparagus

This weekend we paid a visit to our local farm shop and eagerly acquired some of the new season asparagus, picked just up the road.




We try and eat as much of this stuff as possible during it's all too brief season. Tonight's supper was simple but absolutely delicious; not so much a recipe as an assembly of happily harmonious ingredients.

Ingredients

Bunch of asparagus
Tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp of butter
Zest of half a small lemon
1-2 tsp lemon juice
30g Cornish Yarg (alternatively use Parmesan or Gruyere)
2 medium eggs
Tbsp white wine vinegar
Salt and pepper

Serves 2, 9 pro points per serving

Preheat the oven to 180. Snap the woody ends off the asparagus spears, then toss in the olive oil and season well. Place in the oven and set a timer for 15 mins.

Put a pan of water on to the boil and add the vinegar. Break the eggs into ramekins ready for poaching.

Use a potato peeler to reduce your cheese to a pile of shavings.

Melt the butter over a low heat and add in the lemon zest and juice.

As the asparagus comes up to the end of it's roasting time, slip the eggs into the boiling water for 2 minutes to poach.

Drizzle the lemon butter over the roasted asparagus, top with the cheese shavings, the poached egg and an extra scrunch of black pepper.

Consider having some crusty bread on hand to mop up the butter and egg yolk - or, if you want to save points, throw etiquette to the wind and use your finger.

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Meal planning Monday 3

I’m not sure how far we’ll be sticking to the plan this week. We are off to Scotland on Saturday and therefore should really be eating down the contents of the fridge. But social commitments on Tuesday and Thursday (and one should note that in my world, “Social Commitment” is usually shorthand for “Drinking until you fall over”) make it quite likely that any sensible dinner plans will be replaced by toast. Or takeaway. Or, indeed, takeaway on toast.

So…

Monday: We’ve got some beautiful looking asparagus which I shall be roasting and serving up with lemon butter and shavings of Cornish Yarg cheese with a poached egg perched proudly on top. Simple, light and scrummy.

Tuesday: I saw these chicken fillets with a caesar style melt when I was doing my online shop (I had a 25% discount voucher with Ocado – necessity, sadly, makes me more of a Tesco or Asda girl normally) and, since chicken caesar salad is a favourite of mine, I couldn’t resist. The plan is just to have the fillets on some lightly dressed Little Gems.

Wednesday: Chilli con carne – a household favourite. We’ll be making it in the slow cooker and freezing a couple of portions to take to Scotland with us.

Thursday: I may have promised D a curry to celebrate the start of the holidays. We have a fabulous Indian takeaway just across the road from us and I do spend a large proportion of my life trying to ignore the wonderful smells that frequently drift across…but sometimes, you just have to indulge.

Friday: A play it by ear kind of day – although I had vague intentions of throwing together a macaroni cheese and again, making a couple of extra portions for Scotland. It may not be very summery, but who can resist macaroni cheese at any time of the year?

Continuing in the not-very-summery-but-who-cares vein, we have a mass of leftover chicken from our Sunday pot roast and some rather sad looking mushrooms in the fridge, so I am wondering if whipping up some chicken and mushroom pie filling for the freezer could be in order? I love a nice pie, and it is relatively easy to make them a little more WW friendly by just having pastry on the top of the meat (which I always think is more of an inverted tart than a pie, but to-may-to, to-mah-to.)

Also this week, D has requested that some of the humongous pile of rhubarb in our kitchen be made into crumble, and I am more than happy to oblige.

Pop over to Mrs M's blog for more meal planning fun.

Recipe corner - Gnocchi and butternut squash with chilli, garlic and sage

This post was supposed to be about fish and fruit. But that will have to wait for another day because last night's tea needs to be recorded for posterity (and, hopefully, your delight and delectation.)



I really wish that I could take credit for it but nope, it is all D's work. I just stood on the sidelines warning him to watch the butter content. Then took one of my trademark Pollockesque food photos.

It was absolutely yummy - so much so that the other half of the gnocchi has already been earmarked for a repeat performance.

Ingredients

Butternut squash, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 red chilli, finely diced
2 tsp chilli flakes
salt and pepper
250g gnocchi
50g butter
8-10 sage leave - finely sliced
10g Parmesan cheese

Serves 2, 11 pro points per portion

NB: The cooking times below were for pieces of squash about 1cm cubed, but feel free to go chunkier if you wish, just adjust timings accordingly.

Toss the diced squash in two cloves of crushed garlic, the diced chilli and half the chilli flakes along with plenty of seasoning. Roast in a 140 oven for about an hour - you want it soft but not on the verge of disintegration.

Blitz half of the squash pieces.

Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the gnocchi and boil for 3 minutes. You'll know they're ready when they float to the top of the pan.

Meanwhile, finely slice the final clove of garlic. Melt the butter until foaming, and then throw in the garlic pieces for a scant ten seconds. Add the blitzed squash sprinkle with the other tsp chilli flakes and fry for one minute before adding the sage leaves and the roasted squash cubes. Cook through for another couple of minutes.

Drain the gnocchi and put into two bowls. Divide the squash mixture between them and toss a little to combine. Finish with the grated Parmesan.

Serve with a fork and a smile

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Meal Planning Monday 2

A groovy MPM graphic!  Courtesy of Mrs M.

The weeks do seem to fly by, don't they? Don't worry though - I'm on the countdown to my holibobs now, so this next one is guaranteed to crawl.

And with no further ado, here is how the meal plan is looking this week:

Monday:  Gnocchi with roasted butternut squash in sage butter. Bumped from last week. It's a good job that squashes are hardy things, this one has been sitting patiently in the cupboard for a while now.

Tuesday:  Hake with tapenade and caramelised pears. This dish deserves a post all of it's own!

Wednesday:  Tinned ravioli on toast. Classy, no? D is out so I'm indulging myself with a super quick and easy taste of childhood.

Thursday:  Peppered chicken breast strips (still clearing the freezer and have no idea why we ended up with these) with sun dried tomato and basil couscous and some Mediterranean style veg.

Friday:  Fish in breadcrumbs (another item unearthed from the dwindling freezer) probably with mash and peas and lashings of ketchup (tartare sauce for D).

Saturday:  We're celebrating our "anniversary" this week (seven years since our first date in a sticky carpeted York pub!) so tonight will be a special candlelit dinner.

Sunday:  In further adventures with the slow cooker, I'm doing a pot roast chicken with mustardy gravy as seen recently on Dinner Diary served with roast potatoes and something green!

Check out Mrs M's blog for more meal planning fun.

Oh! To be in England, now that April's here...

We're coming to the end of a glorious weekend of sunshine. A nation waits with bated breath to see if it is here to stay or if we have just experienced British Summertime in it's entirety.

This weekend, I have mostly been walking. Well, that's not quite true - in fact, walking has only accounted for four of the last forty eight hours. But it felt like more.

D, you see, has appointed himself Chief Whipper Into Shape. This involves the two of us doing a dogged seven mile trek along the river every other afternoon. But in honour of the beautiful weather, this weekend we did it on two consecutive days.

I should say at this point that sometimes I quite like a walk. When the scenery is pleasant, the pace pitched somewhere around "gentle saunter", and there is a pub or two to take in, I can think of few more pleasing ways to while away an afternoon. But D is not doing this particular walk for Fun - nope, this is all in the name of Fitness.

I'm just not built for serious walking. I have short little legs and therefore a short little stride. While D powers purposefully along, I am having to trot, whimpering, at his heels. And my other serious problem is that I am the lucky (?) owner of what we like to call in the trade Comedy Breasts. This means my centre of gravity is all off - I'm in constant danger of toppling forward, and very frequently do.

Having said all that, there is no denying the plus side. The scales are descending at a gratifying rate. And yesterday I managed to quaff four pints of delicious, sun-dappled cider without going into points deficit. What? If this is, indeed, British Summertime then it's only right to indulge in the very British pastime of drinking until your nose turns a fetching shade of lobster...

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Some first anniversary navel gazing

It’s been nearly a year since I started this blog.

If this was primarily a weight loss blog, I’d be sheepishly admitting that my weight probably is about the same now as it was when I started that first entry. It’s been lower and higher, but overall, there has been no significant change. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

Well, disappointed, of course.

But also, after a very turbulent few years which have involved all sorts of personal traumas, part of me is rather pleased that I’ve at least broken the pattern of gaining. The depression and anxiety issues, which are the root cause of much of the poundage I now carry around, are improving. I may be taking anti depressants for life, but as my lovely GP said, if you had a thyroid issues, or were diabetic, you would take that medication for life and not think anything of it.

It strikes me, reading that last paragraph back, that it smacks a bit of excuse making. Is it an excuse? I’m not sure. I certainly think, had the last few years not been as difficult, I would be smaller. I absolutely know that, especially in the early days of the anxiety, when a vague feeling of dread hung about me like a cloud punctuated only by moments of extreme, white-hot panic, I was self medicating with food and alcohol. It’s natural to turn to things that you love in times of stress. And there is a limit to how much you can ask of your loved ones before your depression starts sucking all the life and joy out of them as well whereas food is an unquestioning, undemanding constant.

To go back to my original point, I have always wanted this blog to be about more than weight loss, but a celebration of wonderful food as well. I wrote, back in my very first entry, about how some of my favourite memories were foodie ones, and it was absolutely true; food has always been a great love of mine and probably always will be but, somewhere along the line, it also became my weapon of choice. That’s sad. It makes me sad that I’ve abused something I am so very fond of and turned it into something harmful. But, at the very least, my eyes are now open to that. And it is nearly impossible to binge mindfully. The essence of bingeing, especially when you’re using it as an escape mechanism, is mindlessness.

Gosh. A bit heavy. I feel the urge to chuck a recipe in now, for something frivolous like fairy cakes, or fudge. Instead, let me consider for a moment where I want to be in another year’s time? Well, still writing here. Still sharing a virtual meal with all you lovely people. Hopefully slimmer. Definitely healthier, both in body and mind.