Oh, frabjous day!

aka why you gotta keep the faith (as Bon Jovi so rightly said)

So, you may remember that this time last week I wrote a post all about how I was completely ok with the fact that, despite my bestest efforts, the scales were being a little bit stubborn about moving.  And I wrote how I was being totally Zen (man) and that I trusted in the fact that if I kept on keeping on all would be well.

I am SO glad that I can report this week that I was right in every particular, because I don't know how long I would have been able to sustain that oh-so-sensible outlook.  This week I lost three and three quarter pounds, bringing my total for January up to four.  Which, at a rate of between one and one and a half pounds per week is absolutely perfect.  I am very happy.

I am not just very happy because I have lost some weight.  I am happy because I have done it with relatively little pain.  I look back at what I have been consuming over the last couple of weeks and can honestly say that it has been tasty, enjoyable and it is a way of eating to which I am happy to adhere.  That's the key, isn't it?  Whether you want to lose weight or maintain weight, you can only do it in the longterm if you eat in a way that you enjoy and that fits in with your lifestyle.  Hopefully when I'm back at home, I'll have time to blog a few more recipes - they  have been a bit thin on the ground recently and I've got some dishes that I would really love to share with you.

So this week and next week, being away from home Monday to Friday, are going to be a little trickier.  I am estimating points for everything I eat and hoping to fit a few swims in, and we'll see what happens.  I know from experience that I can quite easily maintain when I'm out of my home environment and I'm hoping that by being extra vigilant and trying to cut down on a few extras that sneak in (like biscuits with afternoon coffee and wine with dinner) I can manage a small downwards drift.  We'll see.  It's all good (man).

Meal planning Monday - 23rd January 2012

Really, there is very little meal planning going on this week. The reason? Once again, I’m abroad – by which I mean away from home rather than in an exotic location, teaching people how to be analysts. After two weeks which were successful in both a meal planning and a weight loss sense (more of that to follow in a later post) it is rather a blow to once again be in an environment where I have little control over what I eat. Poor D is left to keep the home fires burning with a fridge full of fresh soup, roast chicken leftover from yesterday’s fabulous Sunday dinner (if I do say so myself, I do a very good roast) and Christmas ham.

But there are still three dinners to be eaten at home.

• Friday – I am hoping to be presented with a chicken and bacon salad with crispy leek fritters. However, D may well be out gallivanting, in which case this will get bumped (possibly to Sunday?) and I’ll have something gloriously simple like a poached egg on toast – which believe me, I’ll need after a week of institutionalised force feeding.

• Saturday – I’m doing a belated Burns’ Night supper – haggis, neeps and tatties and a whisky cream sauce (probably made with half fat crème fraiche in an attempt to make it slightly more WW friendly).

• Sunday – Not sure here: could be bumped salad, or we could end up with leftover haggis: I quite fancy it pan fried and piled into soft white rolls with spicy chutney.

As always, head over to Mrs M’s for more meal planning fun.

On not feeling the scale love (and being ok with that)

I would describe my relationship with my bathroom scales as…uneasy. We studiously ignore each other most of the time, apart from the odd period of frenzy when I hop on every time I enter the bathroom. This seems to suit us both.

At the end of last year I was attending a weekly WW meeting, which meant that the home scales could be disregarded altogether. But because of all the travelling that I have been doing for work recently, I was missing as many as I was attending, and it became difficult to justify the cost especially since I seldom stayed for the meeting proper. So this January, I’ve switched back to online membership and I’ve had to pick up with the boys in the bathroom again.

They are not loving me so far this year. Last week, I recorded a STS (Stay The Same) which I could accept quite happily given that my first post Christmas weigh in had shown what I thought was an undeservedly low figure. But this week, this week I was expecting big things. If they handed out prizes for WW Sainthood I would have won. I tracked diligently, I ate sensibly, I even exercised restraint on my alcohol consumption. I reached Sunday evening with points to spare and a decided air of smugness.

Those bastard scales sure put an end to that. Quarter of a pound off, if you please. Quarter of a pound! I could probably have lost that just by shaving my legs.

Old Me would have thrown a terrific strop. What’s the point, she would have said, why bother, let us just sit in bed and eat cake until they have to winch us out through the window.

But New Me is much more Zen. New Me looks back at last week and says – ok, you gave it a good shot and you didn’t get the loss that you were hoping for. But did you feel deprived? No. Did you enjoy the food you ate? Yes. Did you feel healthy and satisfied? Yes, most of the time. Is there anything you could do differently? Well, I could possibly spread my weeklies a little more evenly. Will the scales drop eventually? Yes, for sure.

I am not, I refuse, to be ruled by the number on the scales – I will not give them that power over me. I will continue to try, succeeding sometimes and other times not so much, and eventually I’ll see that figure meander downwards.

Hopefully.

Meal planning Monday - 16th Jan 2012

This has been a fairly easy week in terms of planning; we have two reappearances after successful debuts last week and one dish that ended up bumped. Continuing with a spring clearout theme, we’re trying to eat down the freezer so I can (joy of joys) defrost it; therefore I expect the next few weeks to be a little repetitious.

• Reappearance no 1: Chunky pea and ham soup – a D creation, loosely based on a recipe in this month’s Good Food magazine and bursting with so many veggies that it yielded four instead of the expected two portions. We’ll have the other half tonight with some garlic bread bites.
• Reapparance no 2: Sweet potato cakes per a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe – two large potatoes produced enough for 11 little cakes, so five went into the freezer and will be served again this week.
• Bump: Lamb and green bean curry.
• Pesto spaghetti with slow roasted cherry tomatoes and mozzarella pearls – I’m think in terms of the pasta version of a caprese salad.
• Grilled mackerel with harrisa and coriander couscous - I believe that this first popped up on a pre Christmas menu plan and for one reason or another never got made; this will hopefully be the week that the poor old mackerel is finally liberated from the freezer
• Haddock with a cheddar and basil crust with mustard mash – fish from the Waitrose Cook range, for an occasion next week when I’m feeling lazy. Or, rather, even more lazy than usual.

Head over to Mrs M’s for more meal planning fun.

Recipe Corner - Good Wife Cookies

We've been doing some de-cluttering over the last couple of weeks. You would have thought that there is a limit to the amount of stuff it is possible to cram into a two bedroomed flat, but several bags later there is still a way to go.

Last Sunday was particularly traumatic; I managed to uncover some skirting boards that haven't seen the light of day in a while and promptly wished I'd left the layer of camouflaging clutter alone. Feeling like a thoroughly bad housewife, I promptly repaired to the kitchen and made these. Nothing like a bit of baking to restore one's sense that one IS, in fact, a domestic goddess. Anyway, I enjoyed them so much that I whipped up another batch today. Truly the sign of a successful recipe.

I must admit that I have been eating these for breakfast. But this is kind of ok; just like muffin is acceptable breakfast food (despite being cake by any other name) so is any baked good that contains oats - because it's practically porridge.

These lasted in an airtight tin for a good 3-4 days.

Date and stem ginger cookies

Ingredients

175g butter
175g soft brown sugar
100g golden syrup
85g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
250g porridge oats (you see!!)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
100g stoned dates, chopped
100g stem ginger, chopped
2 tbsp boiling water
1 medium egg, beaten

Makes 24 cookies, 5 pro points per cookie

Preheat the oven to 180 (fan 160) and line several baking sheets with baking parchment.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter, golden syrup and sugar together over a gentle heat. Meanwhile, measure out your dry ingredients.

When you have a sweet, golden pool bubbling away in the pan then tip in your dry ingredients and stir well. Add the raw egg and water in the hope that it will stop you licking the spoon (it won't).

Allow the mixture to cool slightly and then, with slightly damp hands, form into balls and place them on the baking sheets, flattening them out slightly as you put them down. They will spread when cooking, so allow plenty of space - I got six to a normal size baking sheet.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. They will appear very soft on removal from the oven but they will firm up as they cool.

Serve for breakfast or otherwise.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Notes from my Christmas kitchen

Apologies for those of you who would rather eat their own hand than revisit the gluttony of the end of December, but I’m running a bit behind with blog posts owing to spending a chunk of last week feeling sorry for myself. Go and make a cup of tea and this will all be over soon.

You see, last year’s Christmas dinner was the first one I have ever cooked myself. Mum was in charge of sauces (I don’t eat sauces of the bread and cranberry variety so felt that I was not the best candidate to make them) and helped with the dishing up (which turns out to be one of the most stressful parts, especially when you have run out of oven space to warm the plates) but the majority of the cooking was done by yours truly. It is odd how very nervous I was about it, especially considering it is just a glorified roast dinner.

I wanted to make a few notes about it, more as an aide memoire to myself than anything else. After all, there are many miles to go and glasses of wine to be consumed before next Christmas, and the chances of me remembering anything useful between then and now are…remote.

Course the First

We started off with a selection of pates, which worked really well. Mainly because pate is a cinch to do in advance and because people can help themselves to as much or as little as they like, depending on how much room they have betwixt their navel and their waistband. To go with the pates I whipped up a batch of the brown soda bread that I blogged about a little while ago, only this time I produced a series of misshapen rolls rather than a single misshapen loaf. Incredibly easy to do, delicious served still slightly warm from the oven and kudos to the chef for producing fresh bread on Christmas Day. The rolls took about 20-25 minutes to bake through compared to the full size loaf.

Course the Second

To accompany the three bird roast (D was quite disgruntled that this had replaced the traditional turkey but I thought it was nice) we had:

Sausage meat stuffing (a family staple)

Sage and onion stuffing – homemade and, can I just say, I will never be able to use Paxo again after actually bothering to make this from scratch. I used a Mrs Beeton recipe that I found on the BBC website, baked it in a foil tray rather than within a bird and it was lovely.

Roasted potatoes and parmesan roast parsnips

Braised red cabbage

Brussel sprouts pan fried with bacon and chestnuts – a minor triumph here. My Dad proclaimed them the nicest sprouts he had ever had, which, given his feeling for them probably translates as “Least awful sprouts ever,” but still. We shredded and blanched them on Christmas Eve so all that was required prior to serving was cooking some finely chopped bacon and chestnuts in butter and then tossing through the sprouts with plenty of seasoning. I like sprouts, but even I have to admit that I prefer them shredded, although if you’re serving them like that be sure to give them next to no cooking to ensure you don’t end up with green mulch.

Crushed swede – my brother had said beforehand that he considered this a side dish too far, but I love swede smushed up with a bit of butter and loads of black pepper with my roast dinners.

Most of the side dishes were prepared in advance and placed in foil trays. The two stuffings and the potatoes and parsnips needed cooking through but the swede and cabbage only required warming ten minutes before serving. In any case, it was just a question of being organised with regards timings rather than having a lot of cooking to do which made for a relatively relaxed day. In retrospect we could probably have done with another green thing in there – I had intended to do peas but completely forgot when it came down to it. But all in all, I was pleased. And writing it down is making my mouth water a little bit which must be a good sign.

Course the Third

Although I adore Christmas pudding, I never want to eat it after Christmas dinner. It was D’s idea this year to produce a little trio of desserts which appealed to my pretentious side, although future S take note that there were a few tense marital moments during the baking of numerous miniature pastry cases (D and I do not cook well together – he is as orderly as I am haphazard).

We made miniature chocolate salted caramel tarts which were absolutely scrumptious. The original recipe, by Rachel Allen, can be found here; we halved the quantities which produced about eighteen dinky little tarts in total, assuming you’re not trying to show off it would be far easier to produce a full sized one and just serve slices. If you like chocolate and salted caramel and tarts (and who doesn’t?) then I urge you to give this a go. I’m rolling it out again (boom, boom!) for our next dinner party.

To either side of the tarts we had a burnt orange ice cream and little squares of Yorkshire parkin. I will share the parkin recipe with you in a future blog post, because it is a cake that deserves to be more widely known. The ice cream is a recipe of Tamasin Day Lewis’ which I can’t find online although there are appear to be a few similar ones if you dig around; basically you make an orange infused custard and then a caramel which you take just slightly over “done” (hence the burnt) and combine with glorious results.

Et fin…

And after all that we were too full for cheese! Which is not something you hear very often in our family. Cue one household snoozing, replete, in front of the television – which is just how it should be on Christmas Day...now but a distant memory (looks at plate of salad and weeps a little weep)...

Meal planning Monday - back for 2012!

Thank you for all those lovely New Year messages on my last post. I didn’t respond as unfortunately I was laid out on my sickbed having succumbed to a winter sickness lurgy. I have been looking very mournful for the last few days, I can tell you! Nothing makes me sadder than having to miss meals.

 I have rallied, you’ll be pleased to hear. Unfortunately, my system was obviously thrown into such a state of confusion that several days of close acquaintance with the bathroom floor followed by several more days of erratic eating have resulted in…a stay the same. I am sanguine. If I were my digestive system, I’d be confused too. And seeing as I didn’t gain any weight over the festive period this seems like a fair pay off to me. Still, one week into the New Year and I haven’t yet gained any weight – 2012 is not to be written off yet.

 This year I do want to stick to regular meal planning posts as much as possible, so feel free to come and beat me with a big virtual stick if you don’t see one during the first few days of the week.

 Then without further ado, what’s cooking chez moi this week?

• Sweet potato cakes with crispy bacon, salad and a yoghurt and sour cream dressing
• Smoked salmon and spring onion risotto
• Classic macaroni cheese
• Ham, fresh pea and leek soup with a lemony yoghurt swirl
• Thai style quick lamb and green bean curry with rice and naan bread

Which should take us up to the weekend. My shopping / planning is slightly out of sync at the moment, so not sure yet what Saturday and Sunday will bring…(oh the excitement of living on the edge!)

 As always, check out Mrs M’s blog for more meal planning fun.

Happy new year!

I have spent the majority of my Christmas break in hibernation. Quite, quite literally – there have been days where I have barely left the confines of my bedroom except to fetch a fresh cup of tea, and have been mostly nose down in one of my new books or my shiny new Kindle (which I love, love, love!) It has been absolutely blissful and has meant I have started January feeling incredibly peaceful and content.

2011 was a good year for me in retrospect – although like the curate’s egg in reverse, it had its moments. I got married, which was lovely, despite the moments of stress and anxiety in the run up to the big day; I love being a wife and catch myself grinning down at my left hand even now. I stumbled, more by luck than judgement, into a new role at work which gives me a massive amount of job satisfaction and, yes, even enjoyment. It’s on secondment at the moment but will hopefully become permanent within the next couple of months so I'm tentatively feeling as if, professionally, things have started to come together. The downside of that was quite a lot of time away from home which I found difficult at first – I’m a homebody who thrives on routine and safety nets. And, looking back, I can see that outside of work and the W, my home life was a little stultified this year. I fell out of my gym habit, I didn’t do as much creative writing as I intended and missed quite a lot of my writing group’s monthly meetings. Having said that, I have kept up with this blog, albeit it has sometimes meandered quite a long way from its original purpose – but I guess that is the nature of blogs, they represent our very selves, complete with all our contradictions and falterings and what nots.

It was not a stellar year for weight loss. I tend to throw away records in fits of pique, or “fresh starts”, so I’m not sure what I weighed at this time last year but it sure as hell wasn’t significantly different to what I weigh now. That is frustrating. I am not going to waste time or emotional energy bemoaning the fact that another year has passed and I’m still a long way from where I want to be. The question I need to ask is: what now?

The first answer is – I keep trying. I want to be slimmer and fitter for both health and aesthetic reasons. As I mentioned here, I need to to rediscover the me who loves lipstick and high heels and that me wants to be at the very most a size 12 and probably (given my frame) smaller.

The second answer is – I address why I keep failing. It is not the plan I follow (if anything, WW’s new innovations have made it even more flexible and easy to use), it is not for lack of support. I have a platform here to work through those tangled emotions that keep getting in the way of success and I need to use it. So, expect the odd navel gazing post this year, and bear with.

The third answer is – I get fitter. I talked about my love hate relationship with exercise a bit here, and I am determined to get back into a decent routine this year if it kills me. Which it just might.

So my friends – here is to a fabulous (as opposed to flabulous) 2012 – to all of you out there in the ether, let’s make it a good one!

Tag: I'm it!

I’ve been tagged! The gorgeous Jenny, whose blog I make a point of never reading when I’m hungry has tagged me to take part in the Food Bloggers Unplugged series which was started over at A Little Bit of Heaven on a Plate . Which means I get to ramble on about two of my favourite subjects – food and, er, myself.

What, or who, inspired you to start a blog?

I first started writing about food….oh, about five or so years ago. D and I had developed a bit of a restaurant habit and I started writing reviews – partly to amuse myself and partly so that we had a record of what we were eating. Then, back in 2009 a piece I wrote about The Old Vicarage in Sheffield won a competition which gave me a bit of a confidence boost and I decided I wanted to give myself an outlet to write more regularly.

The thing is, there were so many wonderful blogs out there already, I didn’t want to join the party as it were without a bit of a different slant, and that is where the WeightWatchers angle came about. I’ve spent most of my life trying to be thinner (rarely succeeding, mind) and the older I get the more I realise I only want to do it on my terms – i.e. avoiding uninspiring, tasteless “diet” food as much as possible.

Who is your foodie inspiration?

Hmmm, tricky.

I’ve always enjoyed both cooking and eating, and that’s thanks to my parents who encouraged us as children to eat widely and well, and ensured that we had all the basic skills we needed to be able to look after ourselves and not have to rely on takeaways and toast.

But my inspiration nowadays…well, I would probably have to say D. Since we met we’ve had so many culinary adventures together, and it has been those that have really inspired me to cook more and eat more and generally be more curious about food.

Your greasiest, batter - splattered food/drink book is?

I have a lot of recipe books, but I must be very honest and say I tend to treat them a bit like novels and day to day am probably more likely to cook from recipes I’ve found online. Which is something I really must change. Probably the most used book in the collection is Mary Berry’s Complete Cookery Course – mainly because it is a copy my Mum has had for donkey’s years that she gave to me when I moved out (buying herself a new edition, I believe!). It’s an incredible useful guide for basics.

Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

A few years ago we went to Copenhagen and had dinner at Noma, which went on to be named the best restaurant in the world. The food there was truly amazing, like nothing I’d ever had before. They only serve Nordic ingredients, many of which are foraged, so most of the flavours were quite alien to what I was used to, but it was stunning: fresh and vibrant but also playful. I love food with a sense of humour! I couldn’t pick out one particular course as the best – the whole experience was just fabulous.

Another food bloggers table you'd like to eat at is?

 Without wishing to sound creepy (she did nominate me after all!) it would probably have to be Jenny’s. I do always think her food sounds seriously good – proper home cooking.


What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

I was lucky enough to be given a KitchenAid this year as a wedding present, and I’d like some more attachments for that, please Santa.

Who taught you how to cook?

I used to bake a lot with my maternal grandmother – scones and sponges and that sort of thing. Basic cookery skills – that would be my Mum. To be honest, I’ve never really understood people saying that they can’t cook, if you can read, taste and you understand a few basic techniques then you can follow a recipe, so a lot of skills and techniques I tend to pick up as I go along.

I'm coming to you for dinner what's your signature dish?

If you’re coming for a dinner party at our house, then D will be your head chef – he tends to be in charge of the “event” cookery. I do always make gougeres though – lovely little cheesy choux puffs to enjoy with a drink beforehand.

In terms of midweek cookery – I tend to cook lots of things not very frequently, if you see what I mean. I am a huge fan of pasta though, so you’d probably get a bowl of pasta pesto if you caught me on the hop! It has been a staple since my student days.

What is your guilty food pleasure?

I try not to feel guilty about any type of food – everything in moderation, etc.! I do probably enjoy Dominos pizza far more than I should though – after all, no Italian would recognise those doughy, gooey utterly delectable monstrosities as pizza would they? Perhaps they should invent a new name for it.

Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

Now this is quite hard...I am an open book! And also, quite dull!

OK…there must be something…I am a grade 8 clarinetist, and did think about turning professional for a while back in my younger days – I won the Junior Musician of Havering at one point, which was probably the pinnacle of my musical career. I haven’t played for years now, and keep thinking about picking them up again.

That’s probably the best I can do.

Right, I’m supposed to tag five people to do this, although around this time of year I suspect most of us have other priorities…so I’m going to cop out and say anyone who happens to see this consider themselves tagged – diet bloggers as well!

Recipe Corner – Mrs Scrooge’s Piccalilli

We ventured into York on Sunday. For the uninitiated, York, whilst a very beautiful city with many fine features, is what can only be described as a Tourist Trap. Especially around this time of the year when the main street seems to play host to one rather twee Christmas market after another.

Yes, I know. Bah humbug.

I love Christmas, I really do, but the advent of Internet shopping has spoiled me utterly and I can no longer bring myself to love Christmas shopping. I found myself in the Marks and Spencer’s food hall shooting imaginary death rays at all the old age pensioners who had decided that, despite the fact they have the ENTIRE WEEK to go and do their shopping, Sunday – and the Sunday two weeks before Christmas at that, is the very, very best time to venture out for mince and onion slices. The American tourists who were absolutely fascinated by the contents of the tinned goods aisle – apparently they don’t have Heinz Cream of Tomato soup in the States - were also on the end of my patented Beam of Death.

It was my husband that made me brave the ravening hoards to purchase the ingredients for homemade chutney. And it’s a good job he did really – I should have made it a couple of weeks ago but I’ve been shamefully disorganised. Last year I went it for a Nigella recipe inspired by all good flavours of Christmas, but this year I’m experimenting with a slightly simpler spiced apple recipe which I think will work beautifully with strong cheddar. It spent the night burbling away to itself in the slow cooker which made the whole process even more painless than usual. I’ll also be revisiting a fabulous piccalilli which I discovered a few years ago on the Waitrose website and which is reproduced below. This stuff is truly fantastic so I try and remember to make enough to both give away and retain a jar for us.

The only ingredient in this that the dedicated Weight Watcher needs to worry about is the sugar. I would therefore reckon on a single point for a good dollop.

Ingredients

700ml malt vinegar
2 tbsp coriander seeds
500g cauliflower, broken into small florets
2 onions, peeled and chopped
3 tbsp English mustard powder
3 tbsp plain flour
1 tbsp Tumeric
2 tbsp ground ginger
150ml Cider vinegar
100g French beans trimmed and sliced
½ cucumber, quartered and sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
200g granulated sugar

Makes 1.7kg

Place the malt vinegar and coriander seeds in a large pan and bring to the boil, at which point add the cauliflower and onion and simmer for about five minutes until slightly softened but retaining some crunch.

Meanwhile, put the mustard, flour, turmeric and ginger into a small bowl and gradually whisk in the cider vinegar to make a smooth paste.

Add the remaining vegetables, garlic and sugar to the pan and stir over the heat for 2-3 minutes until the sugar has completely dissolved. Drain over a large bowl to collect the vinegar.

Put the mustardy mixture in the pan and bring to the boil. Gradually add the malt vinegar back in and then allow to simmer for 10 minutes, until it coats the back of a spoon. Now replace the drained vegetables and take off the heat.

The piccalilli can now be spooned into sterilised jars (the easiest way to do this is to run them through a hot dishwasher) and kept for as long as you can resist it. Not very long in our household.

Maybe this time next year I'll have a Beachbody...

One of the things that I really, really want to get off to a flying start this coming January is a proper exercise routine. Throughout 2010 I was managing fairly regular attendance at the gym – to the extent that I was actually choosing to get up before nine on a Saturday to get to a Body Combat class. All that has rather petered out in the latter half of this year.

My general attitude to exercise was always one of dislike and suspicion, a seed planted back in my school days. I was not, it is safe to say, a sporty child, nor had any ambitions in that direction and can’t say I ever cried myself to sleep at night when I missed out on a place in the netball team. While we’re on the general subject, I never really understood the edict that every single pupil had to have some sort of role in Sports Day, but tried to get on board (generally by putting my name down for the relatively safe Tug of War every year as soon as the sign up sheet was posted). With the exception of swimming I steered clear of sport in general. And I think the world of sport was probably pretty grateful.

But then, back in (I think) about 2009, D and I began attending a local gym on a reasonably regular basis. I started off by just sticking to gentle lengths of the pool before cautiously venturing into the gym proper and then discovered that some of the classes were actually OK as long as you stayed at the back and avoided catching sight of yourself in the wall to wall mirrors. It would be too much to say that I ever enjoyed myself, but I definitely enjoyed the feeling of well being that followed a good workout. And I also enjoyed the fact that exercising allowed me to eat more. Weight Watchers allows you to earn bonus activity points to be consumed or not as the individual sees fit – well, I generally always saw fit (I am quite very greedy) and still achieved a steady weight loss as well as some fledgling muscle tone beneath the flab. So what happened in 2011? Hard to say. We’ve fallen out of routine, and, I must admit, the thought of having to build up all that fitness again from scratch does fill me with dread. More than once in the last couple of months have I thought about cancelling my gym membership.

Perhaps, then, it was more than a little bit lucky that a few weeks ago I had an email from someone who wondered if I’d be interested in mentioning some of their products on here. If I tell you the site was called beachbody.com you may understand why I was more than a little surprised – there may well have been some incredulous laughter on my part. But I read her mail and was touched that she said that she’d seen that I have posts relating to “living a healthy lifestyle”. And I thought, well, they may have been a bit thin on the ground lately, but living a healthy, balanced lifestyle is in fact the point of this blog. I want the people who visit me here to understand that losing weight or maintaining a healthy figure isn’t about deprivation but about balance. Have your cake, eat it, but make up for it somehow. Eat salad for dinner or (and here’s the bit I’ve certainly been avoiding for the last six months) go for a swim or a jog. I’ve lost sight of the exercise bit of a healthy lifestyle recently, but this was a salutory reminder, and just in time for New Year Resolution season.

Beachbody have some new products coming out which they’ve asked me to link to, and, in the spirit of spreading the exercise love I am more than happy to do so, although I should add that I haven’t tried these particular ones myself – unfortunately, my living room doesn’t lend itself to home workouts. I have however done some Les Mills Pump classes at the gym and always found them good in a painful sort of way, plus, strength training is a really good way of boosting your metabolic rate. The slightly amusingly named Body Beast workout looks to be more aimed at those people who are wanting to build some serious muscle – not my thing, but ideal if you’re after a more Fatima Whitbread look (hats off to her, the woman looked amazing on I’m A Celebrity). And I had actually heard of the P90X2 workouts, which seem to be a mixed bag of strength training and cardio previous to seeing them on the site – to have penetrated my consciousness they must be doing someone some good.

I should also say that although it is an American site they do international delivery at no extra charge, which is nice of them.

Many thanks to the very sweet Emily from Beachbody for what may well be the gentle nudge I needed to get me back in the direction of the gym – I can’t imagine that I’ll ever be what you would call a gym bunny, but I do need to make it a part of my life again. Are you there, Bonus Activity Points? It’s me, Seren…

Recipe Corner – Roasted Parmesan Parsnips

This post could well have been called: “Time to talk turkey (or in our case, three bird roast)”. You see, I’m rather excited – this year I am cooking Christmas dinner not just for myself and D, but for my parents, my brother and sister in law and my eleven month old nephew. Discerning palates all, especially the baby.


The menu has been more or less finalised and hopefully a lot can be done in advance which I think is the key to any sort of entertaining and means that I can spend most of the actual day drinking Bucks Fizz (Mum, if you’re reading this, I’m just kidding. I promise to remain upright at least until Doctor Who.)

As well as roast potatoes, the best ever braised red cabbage, crushed Swede, the ubiquitous sprouts (of which more in a later post) and, of course, peas, I will be serving some scrumptious crunchy coated parsnips. I’ve tested this recipe twice now (D has been forced to eat variations on a theme of Sunday dinner two days in a row – how he suffers for my art) and think I’ve cracked it timing wise. In terms of prep, both the potatoes and the parsnips will be parboiled well in advance, probably on Christmas Eve, and allowed to cool completely. Not only does this seem to give the best, crispiest roasted roots, but it also is one more annoying job out of the way.

I’ve given the rough amounts for 4 people here, but it is easily doubled or halved depending on the size of your family and, indeed, how much they like parsnips.

Ingredients

6 parsnips – look for short fat ones as they tend to be easier to cut
2 tbsp couscous*
20g fresh grated Parmesan
½ tsp ground cumin
Black pepper
2 tbsp vegetable oil

Serves 4, 6 pro points per serving

* The original recipe that this is based on called for polenta which I wasn’t able to find in its correct form in our local Tesco. I substituted couscous, a store cupboard staple in our house, as an experiment and it worked well. It is probably a coarser crumb than polenta but it still gave a lovely, crispy coating to the parsnips. By all means use polenta if you can get hold of it.

Cut the parsnips into rough quarters length ways. Your pieces all need to be of similar size, so if you have a particularly rotund specimen you may need to cut it into eighths. These look about right:

Photo credit: Waitrose.com

Put the parsnips into a pan of cold salted water and bring to the boil. Once there, boil them briskly for a minute before draining. Use kitchen towel to blot off any excess water.

While your veg cook, put the couscous, Parmesan, cumin and several good scrunches of black pepper in a suitable receptacle – I used a shallow.

Now transfer your drained parsnips into the couscous mix and toss well to coat. You should do this while they are still warm. You can do this bit well in advance – the vegetables will roast well from cold.

When it comes to cooking them, preheat the oven to about 200-220 degrees. Heat a the vegetable oil in a roasting tray for about 15 minutes. Tip the parsnips into the hot oil and roast in the oven, turning once or twice for 25 minutes until golden and crispy. Serve alongside your bird with lashings of gravy.

This is why we plan our meals...

The lack of a meal planning post on a Monday indicated a lack of, well, meal planning on my part which in turn has led to a series of rather thrown together (albeit nice) suppers and culminated in a meal out last night (if Gourmet Burger Kitchen can be considered "out"...I suppose it is, in that it is outside of the house)   Which was rather foolish since we're trying to save money at the moment and I weigh in on a Thursday.  And also because I try to limit eating out to really special places these days, and whenever I go somewhere less than special I feel vaguely cheated because I probably could have cooked whatever I'm eating myself and had it while wearing my pyjamas and watching NCIS rather than having to pretend to be civilised.  Anyway, D told me sternly (well, he said it in an email so he didn't use a specific tone although I imagined him saying it with a stern voice and slightly furrowed brow) to get back to it and achieve some "consistency" with regards food shopping and the cooking thereof.

(As an aside I still managed to lose half a pound at weigh in - hurrah - and GBK was...underwhelming really.  I mean, nice enough burgers and I loved the fact that the skinny fries were actually matchstick fries, oh, and the garlic mayo was good.  But it was pricey in a sneaky way which I didn't like - charging extra for a dill pickle in the cheeseburger for example, when to have a cheeseburger without a dill pickle is sacrilege as far as I'm concerned).

Anyway, let's talk meal planning.  There is still a decent amount in our freezer, so most of the meals this week are based around ingredients that we already have.  Oh, and the cunning amongst you will notice that there are nine meals listed, so this meal plan, taking into account there is likely to be at least one night out thrown into the mix, should see us through until the end of next week. 

• Roasted chicken thighs with mashed swede, Parmesan parsnips, roast potatoes and Brussel sprouts with bacon and chestnut butter.  Two of the sides are trial runs for Christmas dinner.
• Bolognese pasta bake - bumped from last week.  What is it about poor old Bolognese that it always gets bumped with me?  The sauce is already made though, so this will be a good one for a night when I just.  Can't.  Be.  Bothered.
• Mackerel fillets with harissa and coriander couscous.
• Lamb seekh burgers with cumin carrot slaw and potato wedges
• Shepherd's Pie (I have a lot of lamb mince to use up...)
• Egg, chips and beans - another one for a lazy evening
• Bacon and broad bean risotto
• Bangers and mash with red onion gravy
• Nigel Slater's mild and fruity salmon curry with naan bread

So, should keep us going for a while.  Potato seems to be featuring quite heavily, but it is a potatoey time of year.  I might make the wedges sweet potato and add parnsip to the Shepherd's Pie topping just for a but of variation.

As always, head over to Mrs M's blog for more meal planning fun.

Recipe corner - Exceptionally easy brown soda bread

So, bread. The idea of making bread scares me a little bit which is odd because usually I am quite gung-ho about cooking in general. And I have been baking since I was knee high to a grandmother. But bread? Nope, slightly wary.

It was our recent trip to Roganic that inspired me to take a little baby step into the world of bread making. We were served the most delicious brown soda rolls while we were there (see below, second from front), dense and sweet.

The Roganic bread basket

I knew (or rather, had a vague idea) that soda bread didn’t involve any messing around with yeast and suchlike. So I took to the net and lo, found a recipe for a brown soda bread by the Irish Goddess that is Rachel Allen. And last weekend I dusted off my beautiful Kitchen Aid (which I have not named, no, really, I haven’t), and set to making the most basic version.


Voila!

 As you’ll see the result is somewhat…well, let’s be honest, rustic. A little misshapen, a little clumsy looking. But I suspect that no baker has ever been prouder of a loaf. It tasted surprisingly good as well, especially considering how little effort was involved. We ate it on Sunday evening with some good Italian cheese – and I suspect D’s enjoyment was only very slightly marred by me saying, “I made bread!” in a wondering tone after every bite.

Ingredients

225g wholemeal flour
225g plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 egg
375-400ml buttermilk*

(*Instead of buttermilk I used normal skimmed milk with a hefty squirt of lemon juice. Set this aside for about ten minutes before using.)

Serves 12, 4 pro points per serving

Preheat the oven to 220.

Sift together the flours, salt and bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre.

In another bowl, whisk the egg into the buttermilk. Pour most of the liquid (I went for about two thirds) into the flour mixture. Using your hands with your fingers outstretched like a claw OR the dough hook of a beloved food mixer, bring the flour and liquid together, adding more liquid as necessary (I didn’t use the full 400ml in the end). The dough should be quite soft, but not too sticky.

Turn onto a floured work surface and gently bring it together into a round about 4cm deep. Or, as per the picture above, something vaguely approximating a puddle shape. Cut a deep cross on the top (this is to let the fairies out!)

Place on a lightly oiled baking tray and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 200 and bake for a further 30 minutes.

The loaf is cooked when it sounds slightly hollow when tapped on the base. Although to be honest I spent quite a long time knocking it wondering exactly how that sounds. Maybe a seasoned bread baker would have less difficulty. In any case, the timings provided seemed to work well.

This is best eaten on the day it is baked, preferably still warm from the oven and oozing with butter. However, we stored the loaf under a tea towel and ate some the following evening and it was still fine for dunking in soup.

Mirror, mirror

Warning: intense navel gazing and retrospection follows. Avoid if such things make you feel slightly nauseous – but return later in the week to learn how to make the Easiest Bread In The World™.

So. Two separate things got me pondering last week.

The first was that I was staying in a hotel in London and I found that I was discombobulated by all the mirrors in the room. Seriously, everywhere I looked I could see my reflection – even when I was in the shower. It made me uncomfortable.

Then, on Saturday I went to the hairdressers for the first time in ages and the prospect of having to sit and stare at myself for an hour made me reflexively grope for the war paint in a state of mild panic.

And it made me realise that I just don’t look in the mirror very much anymore. In our flat we have one in the bathroom, of course, and a full length jobby in our bedroom but the former shows only one’s topmost bits and the latter is placed in such a way that it is not particularly easy to get a look at yourself unless you stand on the bed. Which I don’t.

I’ll usually give myself a quick once over in the morning, and I’ve got a compact in my handbag so that I can do the old spinach on teeth check if I’m out and about and I’ve just eaten spinach. But I just don’t spend a lot of time looking in the mirror, so I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my appearance. I wonder if that is one of the reasons that my weight loss efforts tend to be a little half hearted.

Most women can’t dwell on their appearance without the issue of body image rearing its head. It’s just a fact that a lot of us use our weight and our size as one of the defining measures as to whether we look OK or not. If you are overweight, it’s sometimes difficult to hold your head up and be proud of your appearance if every single measure of attractiveness that society uses tells you that you’re at the bottom of the scale. It tends to puncture your vanity.

When I was in my early twenties, I went through a stage of being very vain indeed. It was just after I had left university. I had lost a few stone and was in one of my rare thin phases. I got my first job working in a warehouse where most of the staff were male and in their thirties or forties and girls, particularly young, pretty, naive ones, were thin on the ground. The work itself was a mind numbingly mundane and so myself and the other girls in the office occupied quite a lot of time flirting with the warehouse men. Perhaps for the first time ever I felt attractive, validated by the male interest. I would get up at stupid o clock in the morning to style my hair and apply make up before work. I lived in high heels, despite the fact I had to walk several miles a day to get from the station to the office.

A decade later I have gone completely in the other direction and, actually, that’s not an entirely good thing. Of course, you should feel validated by something other than how many whistles you’ve collected on your daily totter around the warehouse, and now, older and wiser and in a far more suitable job, I do. But equally, taking a bit of an interest in your appearance isn’t necessarily just about vanity but about believing that you, yourself, are worthy of a little bit of time and effort. You’re worth the five minutes it takes to whack on a bit of lip gloss, or apply body lotion after the shower, or paint your toenails. And, equally (because I had to make this a bit about dieting, right?), you are worth the little bit of time and effort it takes to plan healthy, sensible meals, track your points, and generally look after your health.

You’re worth it. I’m worth it. And it’s definitely worth a little bit of concerted effort so that the mirror can become a friend rather than an object of fear and loathing.

Meal planning Monday 18

November continues, grey and miserable and unremitting. I have perked up a bit though. Firstly, I had a much needed haircut on Saturday which I absolutely love (it’s all short and curly now, a bit like a poodle only, er, not) and I got an email from the lovely Lauren to say that I had won her chocolate giveaway! How can one be grumpy in the face of funky poodle hair and chocolate? Plus, a new series of The Killing started on Saturday night. My cup runneth over.

Meal planning recently as been as much based around the contents of the freezer as possible. This is a) to make room for all the Christmas goodies that I will no doubt buy despite the fact we will then end up eating mini sausage rolls in February and b) because money, as always, is too tight to mention. Especially with the aforementioned Christmas coming up. So the rough plan for this week is as follows:

• Broccoli and blue cheese soup with home made soda bread
• Spaghetti Bolognese (the other half of the sauce that we had a couple of weeks ago – I might ring the changes by making this a pasta bolognese bake)
• Sticky pork belly with noodles and bok choi
• Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs with toasted English muffins (one of the ultimate comfort dishes identified in my last post)

As always, head over to Mrs M’s for more menu planning.

In which I am grumpy



Picture from amazon.co.uk

I was just flexing my fingers to write about how much of a grump I am today, how I nearly threw a full on temper tantrum this morning before setting off for the station this morning (sample dialogue: “Don’t wanna go to work. Don’t wanna.”) and how all I want to do is sit in bed and swig red wine and read trashy novels when something compelled me to check the archives and look! It appears I was feeling almost exactly the same at this time last year!

It’s official my friends – I’m allergic to November and should therefore definitely be allowed to pass all thirty days of it in a state of hibernation. But since the Department has cracked down on sick leave I’m going have to come up with an alternate plan.

Incidentally, I note that last year I self prescribed risotto, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs and chicken soup. So that’s half of next week’s menu plan sorted then.

Come dine with us!

So, Saturday evening we cooked a meal for my parents. You know how whenever you watch Jamie or Nigella and they talk about how they like really informal dinner parties where everyone just helps themselves from a steaming platter of something in the middle of the table? Yeah, that’s pretty much the opposite of how we do dinner parties. We like it formal. Multiple courses with matching wines. Cheese before pudding. 

This does mean that most of Saturday and a couple of precious Friday evening hours were spent in the kitchen, but I really don’t mind. I do honestly love cooking and I love cooking for other people. Although I do find sharing a kitchen with D to be quite a stressful business. He is a very precise cook whereas I am more chaotic and clumsy and tend to lose basic motor skills when feeling under pressure.

Particular highlights included D’s fantastic mussel and saffron soup – which is a recipe I’d love to blog for you if a) he lets me and b) it works out as reasonably WW friendly, and a rabbit in mustard sauce which I think mentioned in a meal planning post a couple of weeks ago when we did a practice run. The recipe we used for the rabbit is here – and I would recommend giving it a go if you can bring yourself to eat Bugs. Although the ingredient list makes it sound like it is going to be overpoweringly mustardy, it actually bakes down to quite a mellow flavour.

In the interests of accountability, I should make it clear that not a morsel was pointed. But a midweek Weigh In (capital W capital I) this morning showed me only half a pound up from the official number on Thursday, which I take to mean that not too much damage has been done.

Notes from a big city – part the second

So when last we saw our hero and heroine they were on a train back to Romford with full tummies and a couple of hip flasks full of Old Pulteney liqueur. (Extended parenthesis: I don’t think I mentioned the hip flasks in my previous post – suffice to say, D had decided to indulge himself and his best man with a small, metal container from which they would be able to swig alcohol on a forthcoming camping trip. I’m not quite sure why either.)

But back to the important part of this post which is that the following day, once tummies had been sufficiently deflated, they…we (maintaining a third person pronoun will end up making me confused) headed back out (in?) to the metropolis in order to have lunch at Roganic.

Roganic claims to be a pop up restaurant – which I feel is up for debate given that it is going to be kicking around for a couple of years. This suggests to me not so much popping as….well, just being. But it doesn’t matter because it is only right that the capital gets to appreciate the genius of chef Simon Rogan and his talented team. Rogan has a restaurant up in a remote corner of the Lake District called L’Enclume, where D and I enjoyed one of the finest meals we have ever had in this country. It has one Michelin star but I am fairly sure that if it were in London it would have at least two. It deserves three. It is absolutely amazing. If you are ever up North then go. We were hoping for more of the same at Roganic and we were not disappointed in the least.

Now, I should be clear that if you are not the type of person who thinks that the word “interesting”, when applied to food, is a compliment then this is probably not your sort of place. Does that sound patronising? I do hope not. I merely mean that there are some people, close friends and relatives of mine among them, who want their food simple and their combinations classic. And to be honest, for my last meal on Earth I’d probably be more interested in bangers and mash than a plate of wizardy pokery and edible doo-dahs. But D and I also love going to restaurants where the chef is going to challenge our taste buds. Simon Rogan’s food is definitely different – some of the ingredients he uses you won’t even have heard of. But you won’t care because they taste so good.

I won’t bore you by detailing all the ten courses we chomped through. I will, however, share some of the pictures with you because the dishes were as beautiful as they were delicious. Also, they were taken by D so they are of a slightly higher quality than the risible food photography to which you are usually subjected.


A couple of particular highlights for me were the chargrilled langoustine (pictured fourth above) which was served with yoghurt and elderberries (prawn! With yoghurt! And fruit! Crazy, but utterly amazing) and the bilberries with dried caramel and iced lemon thyme (sixth above) which was as fresh and sweet as…a river nymph. But it is hard to pick a favourite moment in the face of such consistent quality.

The staff were absolutely lovely as well, happy to chat and engage throughout – although I felt a little bit sorry for the waitress who asked us what our favourite course was and was subjected to a whole five minutes of earnest debating. Oh, oh and the butter for the amazing bread was served on a stone that looked like a potato! I think I have a picture of that as well, actually…

So, Roganic. Do go along. And go to L’Enclume as well while you’re at it – I promise you’ll thank me for it.  Just make sure it's within, er, two years (or so) of reading this or it may well have popped off...

Roganic
19 Blandford Street
London
W1U 3DH
0207 4860380

Meal planning (let’s pretend that it is) Monday 17

Do I start every single one of these posts by saying how quickly Monday has come around? Shall I try and ring the changes this week? Or just revert to formula? But it’s true…I feel like I’ve only just finished one meal plan before the next hoves into view. And much as I love the idea of meal planning, the reality is that as soon as I sit down (proverbial) pencil in hand, every idea and recipe vanishes from my head and I wonder how many times I could get away with serving up beans on toast. It’s a bit of a far cry from when D and I first moved in together (nearly seven years ago – wow!) I went into full on 1950s housewife mode - we probably didn’t eat the same thing once for the first six months, the tiny kitchen was always absolutely spotless and I made his sandwiches for him every evening. How times change.

Anyway. This week we’re planning round a few things. My lovely parents are coming for dinner on Saturday evening, so that menu is being organised separately – it will involve a repeat of the delicious rabbit dish that we cooked a couple of weeks ago (that I never got round to blogging – bad food blogger!). We always over cater, so we’ll probably have plenty of leftovers to get us through Sunday.

Tomorrow, D is out which normally means prick and ping but it’s the night before weigh in so I want to keep things quite light and low sodium – I’m thinking eggs of some description on toast.

Thursday we have a few jobs that we want to do (and a poor, neglected gym to visit) so it needs to be quick and easy – step forward slow cooker Bolognese. I think spag bol has popped up on a number of meals plans recently and it always seems to get bumped, poor thing. But I can bung all the ingredients into the slow cooker on Wednesday evening while my eggs are cooking, switch it on Thursday morning and quick and easy tea when we get in – perfect.

Friday – shopping and prep to do for Saturday evening, so again speed and simplicity is our watchword. I’ll probably just bung a pizza in the oven to be perfectly honest.

Not so much a meal plan this week then as a succession of throw togethers. You could always try checking out Mrs M’s blog for something more sophisticated…

Recipe corner – Braised fennel with butter and parmesan

It goes a bit against the Weight Watchers grain to advocate a vegetable side dish which is higher in points than the chunk of protein that is sitting alongside. Vegetables are zero point under the WW regime which means that the hungry WWer can be inclined to develop the mindset of vegetables as bulking agent rather than vegetables as delicious thingummies in their own right.

Well, no more. As delicious as the slow roast pork shoulder was on Sunday evening, this braised fennel dish was the undoubted shining star of the meal. We had originally intended to make some roast potatoes as well but neither of us could be bothered when it came to it and to be honest, I really didn’t miss them. Yet again proof that I never need as much food as I think I do to be satisfied.

This very simple but fabulous recipe is by the quite lovely Simon Hopkinson and the original can be seen on the BBC website. The only tweaks I have made are to reduce the amount of butter and Parmesan slightly – not by much, mind you, but it has shaved a couple of points of per portion. The point of the dish would be lost without the buttery, salty richness provided by these ingredients, but I should add that even in the original recipe, the delicate sweetness of the fennel is enhanced rather than overwhelmed.

Ingredients

1 large fennel bulb, cut in half lengthwise and trimmed
40g butter
4 tbsp vermouth
40g Parmesan cheese, finely grated

Serves 2, 7 pro points per portion

Pre heat the oven to 170 degrees while you prep the fennel.

Put the butter in an ovenproof dish and stick in the oven to melt (or, conversely, melt the butter and pour into the dish). Season the fennel halves and then add to the butter, cut side down along with the vermouth and the trimmings. Season the whole well with salt and pepper. Cover loosely with foil and roast in the oven for half an hour.

One the thirty minutes have passed remove from the oven and turn over (trying to maintain the structural integrity of the fennel bulb while doing so!) Return, covered, to the oven for a further thirty minutes or until the fennel is tender.

Tip the trimmings and cooking juices through a fine sieve into a small saucepan. Warm through gently and add two thirds of the Parmesan cheese. Using a small blender, whizz this mixture up until smooth.

Pour this over the fennel halves, adorn them with the remaining Parmesan and then stick under the grill until golden and bubbling.

Thursday Thoughts

I was standing in the queue for the scales today (Thursday is my Day of Ritual Humiliation aka Weigh In) alongside about a dozen other gloomy looking women when I found myself thinking petulantly, “They’re none of them fat! What are they even doing here? That woman’s waist has a smaller circumference than my HEAD!*”

It’s grossly unfair of me. I don’t know any of these women nor their weight histories. Perhaps they have successfully slain their weight loss demons – and hey, look at that, they actually manage to maintain their weight loss by continuing to attend meetings. They haven’t regarded this as a finite process.

Or perhaps they have recently noticed that their jeans are a little tight – they’ve gained, say, half a stone and they want to deal with it now before the half a stone becomes twenty stone and they can’t see their feet anymore.*

Either way, Me gave Me a good dressing down for being small minded.

Then, after a gain (unsurprising given a weekend of debauchery in London – this is one particular gain I am quite happy to own because I enjoyed every single unpointed mouthful) I made the spectacularly daft decision to substitute my planned lunch (Prêt Italian chicken salad = 9 pro points) for a pint of cider with D (= 7 pro points - gah). Although WW advocates eating everything in moderation, I hardly think this is what is known as a sensible meal plan. I now feel more than a little sleepy. And I’ve promised to go to the gym this evening.

In other, slightly more cheerful news, the red cups are back in Starbucks – and people, you know that this means that the countdown to Christmas has officially begun. I’ve yet to have my first (skinny) gingerbread latte of the season but it’s surely imminent…

*Possible exaggeration brought on by scale induced hysteria.

Notes from a big city – part the first

So, London baby! D and I had a wonderful weekend down there steeping ourselves in art, culture, and, most importantly, food.

We were blessed with perfect weather for tramping the city; the air had a crisp edge but was still relatively mild for the end of October. We walked past the tents at St Paul's, crossed the river at Millennium Bridge and then made our way up the South bank towards Borough Market, with a brief pause to take in the Tacita Dean film in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall (joint opinion: interesting, but nowhere near as powerful as the big, black box that they had there last year).

I’m ashamed to admit, as a self proclaimed foodie and gastronaut extraordinaire, that I have never really explored Borough Market before and our visit this weekend was a little on the whistle stop side. We did pause for long enough to D to enjoy some brown shrimp served up in a cutesy scallop shell (although I would be careful not to apply the adjective cutesy to the rather burly stallholder) and for us to tick the “Come to London – see a celebrity” box. Yes, who should walk past us while we were standing by the fish stall but TV’s Dr Hilary Jones! (NB: he is VERY brown).

Shrimp!

From Borough it was off to one of our favourite haunts on The Embankment, Gordon’s wine bar, for bread, cheese and a cheeky glass or two of red. Apparently, it’s the oldest wine bar in London. A word of warning: do not ask for a Diet Coke in here or a scary barman will frown at you and refer you to a website in which all the evils of the world are laid at the door of the Coca Cola corporation. Stick to the wine here, it’s safer.

Bread and cheese!

Wine!

A couple of happy hours were passed following in the footsteps of Sherlock Holmes before we hotfooted it off to Soho to secure a table at much lauded Polpo. You can’t book in the evenings so we were there at half five, noses pressed up against the glass like the Little Match Girl (and Boy). And a good job we did too – by six the place was filling up and when we left at about quarter past seven the bar was three deep with people disconsolately eyeing up the tables of those with the sense to come early.

We really liked Polpo. It’s tapas in the sense that you order a series of small dishes for the table, but the food has an Italian rather than Spanish influence – this type of restaurant is apparently is known as a bacaro and originated in Venice. It’s a style of eating that greatly appeals to me, partly because it removes the possibility of menu envy (you know, that sick feeling you get when you realise that your dining partner has made the better choice and your own food turns to dust in your mouth).

The stand out dish was probably the grilled flank steak that was served with rocket and a porcini cream – definitely something I want to recreate at home. I also loved the calves liver with sage and onion: it was rich, dense and luscious with a thick gravy that was perfect for soaking up with the oily foccacia. We were delightfully surprised by the fig, mint and prosciutto bruschetti – a fabulous flavour combination which shall be making an appearance amongst our Christmas canapes. The fritto misto, ordered as an afterthought, pushed us over from pleasantly replete to rather full, but still, it was a lovely little selection of crispy, fishy nuggets – especially good to see some whitebait on there. Our overall bill for (I think) seven plates of food and a bottle of prosseco came to £93 including service charge, so not bad value at all.

Steak!

Fried Fish!

But it doesn’t end there, with our hero and heroine surreptitiously undoing top buttons on the train back to sunny Romford. For tomorrow they were heading for Roganic and, had they but known it then, a lunch of such magnificence that even the excitement at seeing TV’s Dr Hilary Jones would be overshadowed.

Meal Planning Monday 16

Thank you for your lovely cupcake comments! I haven't any other wedding pictures to share at the moment - we didn't have an official photographer - but if any more arrive in my inbox I will post them here!

We had an amazing weekend - posts to follow soon, but in the meantime, it is, of course, time for some meal planning.



Another pretty short week meal planning wise which will find us eating:

A Toulouse sausage and butterbean casserole, using some sausages we picked up from the legendary Ginger Pig.

Ham hock, leek and potato gratin.

Slow roasted pork shoulder with roast potatoes and fennel braised with butter and Parmesan.

Hmmmm, a wee bit piggy-wig orientated! But very tasty sounding none the less.

As always, head to Mrs M's blog for more meal planning fun.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wedding Cupcakes

I couldn't resist sharing these with you - just when you thought all the wedding stuff was over and done with!

These are our wedding cupcakes - and aren't they pretty?  The cerise gerbera daisies on top match the bridal flowers exactly, and, although you might not be able to see exactly from these photographs, the frosting was sprinkled with edible glitter.  Very kitsch, very adorable.

We made up our mind a long time ago that we preferred individual cakes to one big one.  Aside from anything else, both of us have something of a morbid fear of posed photos and we knew that if we had a full on wedding cake someone would try and get a picture of us cutting it.  These fitted the bill exactly - and we invested in some clear individual cake boxes so that people could take them away and marvel at their beauty in the comfort of their own home. 

And what is especially, especially nice was that our lovely friend and former colleague E made them for us entirely free of charge, even though she wasn't actually at the wedding.  Weddings are expensive things, and as the planning progresses you become inordinately grateful for any little savings it is possible to make; this was a major saving and not a whit of compromise was required for which I am incredibly grateful.