MPM: 29th September 2014

I spent the weekend at a Guardian masterclass called "Free Your Creativity" (possible subtitle: get off your bloody arse and get writing, you noodle).  It was good fun but I feel terribly tired today.  Apparently, two days of being creative in a room full of supportive strangers really takes it out of you (rolls eyes at self).

Part of it is that I'm a terrible homebody; I find being away from my safe environment not a little stressful.  As I arrived back, D had the gin and tonic ready poured, and the cat, gratifyingly pleased to see me, started chirruping from the top of the stairs, and only then did that little knot of anxiety start to melt away.  I think the scent of chicken stew, which is one of the most comforting smells in the world, probably helped too.

Anyway, back to routine and back to meal planning, albeit hopefully with routine slightly adjusted to allow me some time every day to sit and doodle in a my expressly-bought-for-the-purpose Moleskine.  I am tired of saying that I want to be a writer - what I actually mean is, writing is what I want to do and if it remains a personal indulgence that is never inflicted on the rest of the world, then that is absolutely fine.

Yes, meal planning - I keep getting horribly distracted, don't I?  It's all that freed creativity zooming around...

Mussel paella
.
Macaroni cheese

Chunky pea and ham soup

Cardamom butter chicken

Confit duck leg

Revisiting a few old blog recipes there which should be nice, as well as having another run through of our Christmas day dish on which I shall report back if things go to plan.  Have a lovely week all, and, hopefully there will be more meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

Call yourself a foodie?

I have often thought about including daily food diary posts on here. There’s a blog linky called What I Ate Wednesday dedicated to just that and I think they’re fascinating – I love to see what people are eating.

I’ve never worked up the nerve to do it though, and the main reason for this is the title of the blog which was invented on a whim without any real thought whatsoever. I made the mistake of referring to myself as a foodie. Which is probably giving a false impression.

I love to eat and I love to cook and I spend such an inordinate amount of time thinking about what goes in my gob that it is a wonder that I remain gainfully employed. But I’m not a foodie, as anyone would realise the second they actually saw my daily eats. Here are some very good reasons why:

I do not bake my own bread. I am quite frightened of the bread making process. This year, I successfully managed to bake pretzels and steamed buns but I have failed to use this success as a springboard into the further delights of the homemade loaf. (NB: I am going on a bread making course in November to try and combat this because it’s one of those things I really feel I should master).

Oh, pastry also scares me. When I successfully make pastry I get inordinately proud.

I eat ready meals. Or “prick and ping” as Peridot once so delightfully called them, which phrase I have shamelessly annexed. I think some of them are quite nice, especially if they come from M&S. Although M&S have a rather nasty habit of discontinuing my favourite things. The day they stop making my beloved turkey and pastrami flatbread we shall have a falling out.

I eat fast food. I eat in chain restaurants. I think a Big Mac is a thing of beauty, even if it does make me feel slightly dirty afterwards. When we lived in York, we regularly ordered pizza from Dominoes at my instigation. Whatever it is that Dominoes produce it is not pizza in any true sense of the word, but I scoffed it anyway and generally enjoyed it even though it was guaranteed to give me heartburn. Now we live in Leeds we have found a local takeaway firm that makes really rather nice pizza indeed. Sometimes though, I miss a stuffed crust.

When I lived on my own I ate an inordinate quantity of sandwiches and seldom cooked. Cooking for one seemed pointless and sad. My skin (and waistline) suffered.

I’m sorry, but I can’t taste the difference in organic produce.

I drink Diet Coke like it is going out of fashion. I know it is rotting my insides, but I can’t bring myself to give it up.

Other ridiculously processed items of food that I actually like include (but are not limited to): Babybels, Laughing Cow triangles, wafer thin turkey ham, Doritos (cool original, obviously), Haribo Tangfantastics and Dairylea Dunkers. Hmmm, apparently I have a penchant for pallid, rubbery imitations of cheese.

Sometimes, I don’t want to eat expensive 70% cocoa solids chocolate. Sometimes, I just want a bar of Dairy Milk.

Go on, make me feel better! Confess your foodie sins!

Weigh in Wednesday (on Thursday)

Previously on WWF: -46lbs
This week: -2.5lbs
Total loss: 48.5lbs

Good lord but this feels like a slow and tedious process.  I know that slow and steady wins the race, is more likely to stay off, is healthier, is better, etc. etc. ad infinitum.  But when you're in it, when you're in the middle of the process (or rather, not quite the middle, the mid point remains, tantalisingly, out of reach) it feels interminable.

And it is hard to complain about it feeling interminable because the thing is, you let it get that bad in the first place. 

It is also hard to complain about it feeling interminable when you regularly take the day "off" to indulge your fancy restaurant habit or sink a drink or five.

But this is my blog.  And today I feel crotchety.  So I am going to complain.  I am going to whine.  And then I will get over myself and just keep on going.

One for the Yorkshire foodies

Back in April D and I enjoyed a meal in Harrogate's Van Zeller which we rated as one of our best of the year.  Lovely to see then that the very esteemed Guardian restaurant critic Marina O'Loughlin has made similarly appreciative noises about the place this week.

While reading that I noticed a link to an earlier article in which Ms O'Loughlin recommends other Yorkshire venues that might be of interest.  Some places in there that we are determined to check out as soon as possible and, as ever, I'll be sure to report back. 

MPM: 22nd September 2014

I am beside myself with excitement this week, as on Saturday and Sunday I am going down to London to do a creative writing masterclass - one of the programme run by the Guardian.  Of course it means leaving Minx to the tender ministrations of D for a couple of nights but I'm sure they'll both cope.

We cooked a gammon joint in the slow cooker yesterday and so that features a couple of times this week.  I'm not actually sure what one of the iterations will be, although I'm thinking a simple plate of just ham and buttery scrambled eggs, maybe a slice of toast for good measure.  Simple, homely food.

Otherwise:

Salmon in chraimeh sauce with couscous (the Ottolenghi recipe that we were supposed to be making last week got bumped to tonight - I'll be sure to report back)

Tagliatelle with a haggis ragu - this was originally planned out as lasagne but I have fresh pasta in the fridge that needs using, and a piece of haggis in the freezer and I love the idea of doing a sort of haggis bolognese.

Chunky pea and ham soup

Honey mustard chicken and parsnip one pot with mashed potatoes - a lovely, simple stew to greet me off the train on Sunday.

More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

The Man Behind The Curtain, Leeds

We went out for dinner the other night, to celebrate three wonderful years of marriage.  Three years, anyway.  Bits of them were wonderful.  The meal itself didn't quite fall into the wonderful category which is a shame, and I'm often tempted not to write about experiences that I don't really enjoy which is probably why I'd never make it as a bona fide restaurant reviewer.  But there was enough to like to make it worth a post.

There are no pictures, by the way - for which regular readers, used to the dismal standard of photography on this blog, may well breathe a sigh of relief.  Hey, people, I paint pictures with words, yeah?  But TMBTC requests that mobile phones and cameras are "left at the door" so that one can enjoy the food and the company free from distractions.  I respect them for asking, even though I have never really understood why some chefs object to people taking photographs of food so much - it's generally a compliment.  Plus, when you drink as much as I do, a useful aide memoire.

So, The Man Behind The Curtain.  They actually have a philosophy section on their website (you can read it here) which is sort of admirable.  And a dress code (which most of the diners seemed to ignore).  The chef has worked at Noma and, more recently, at a York venue called The Blind Swine about which we had heard great things and were sorry to have missed.  So all the signs were good.

I just found, personally, the food didn't quite support the weight of expectations.  And, to be honest, when it really comes down to it, the food is what I am interested in.

Venue - modern, trendy, wins extra points for being only accessible through one of Leeds most upmarket department stores (we looked at shoes while we waited for the lift up there).  Waiting staff - friendly, professional.  There is a long table set up at one side of the room where the chefs plate up, which is fun to watch and, although not a new conceit, certainly the first time I have seen it done outside of London.  The chefs themselves bring the dishes to the table (very Nomaesque) and were more than happy to chat about the food, which is great.

Some of the dishes were tasty.  We particularly loved the fish course which was halibut with a crust best described as crushed salt and vinegar Quavers - which might sound insulting but is the only way I can possibly begin to describe it to you and, rest assured, it was lick the plate good.  Ox cheek was nice too - cooked to absolute perfection so that it dissolved into a luscious memory of meaty goodness as soon as it was placed in the mouth.  These chaps can most definitely cook.

I felt that sometimes they got a weeny bit over excited.  Some of the combinations, to my mind, just didn't work brilliantly (maybe I am just not progressive enough, but I found chocolate and cep, for example, to be pretty unpleasant.  And I adore both chocolate and mushrooms.)  And some of the courses were a touch...insubstantial.  Stylish, yes.  But lacking in...roots.  Some of the most memorable meals we have had recently (Eleven Madison Park, Five Senses) have had a very strong sense of tradition and place running through them, and I felt that was lacking here.  I didn't quite understand what the chef was trying to achieve, what was in his heart when he designed the food.

I am keen to go back for the next iteration of the menu to see if the personality becomes more apparent; after all, this is still quite a new restaurant and it may yet settle down.  There is clearly talent enough to make it into something very good as long as it finds the story it wants to tell.

The Man Behind The Curtain
68-78 Vicar Lane
Leeds
LS1 7JH
0113 2432376

The wedding anniversary

Today is our third wedding anniversary.

Our first occurred just a few days after D had announced to me that he wanted to separate.  The second, a fortnight after we had moved back in together.   This is the first one to occur in a period of domestic calm.  (Well, it is calm as I write this, but there are still two days to go...)

This blog struggled when I was single.  When I think of food, I generally think of sharing it with my husband.  He is, among many other things, my constant companion in all things culinary, be it eating out or cooking in.  In common with many other people, food is one of the ways in which we express our love, a medium through which we construct and remember our story.

And, also in common with many people, our story has neither been entirely straightforward nor entirely happy.  But it has been enduring, and that is to our credit.

Happy anniversary, D.

MPM: 15th September 2014

Well, so much for increasing the variety of posts.  I was all set to do something yesterday afternoon about the pleasures of a domestic Sunday but was struck down by a horrible, full blown, flashing lights and stabbing pain behind the right eyeball, migraine.  This morning I feel like I have been hit by a truck.  A truck made out of wine which is most unjust since I barely touched a drop all weekend.  I am, officially, sulking.

There is a meal plan, though.

Tonight: home made fish fingers and potato wedges.  I was thinking of making up something akin to a tartare sauce to go with it, although I think a legal requirement of fish fingers might be tomato ketchup.

Tuesday I'm going to NT Live and D is exercising his masculine right to go to the pub.

Wednesday is our third wedding anniversary.  We are going to a rather exciting sounding Leeds restaurant called The Man Behind the Curtain.  Intriguing, no?  More to follow on this one.

Thursday back to home cooking, and some of the Sunday leftovers will find their way into a lamb biryani.

Friday: we're back into mussel season, so it is moules with bacon.

Saturday: D is going to be cooking a dish from "Jerusalem"; I believe a salmon recipe has caught his eye which makes for a pleasingly fishy week.

Sunday: The plan is to slow cook a gammon joint which allow lots of meat for different dishes plus fantastic stock which will form the basis for soup.  I should think Sunday tea will be a simple plate of ham and roasties with some sort of zingy chutney on the side.  Lovely.

More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

Weigh in Wednesday: 10th September 2014

At some point, maybe this blog will become more interesting than a mere reportage of meal planning and weigh in results.  It's hardly scintillating stuff, is it?

See, even Minx looks bored.

After a certain point, losing weight does become...well, boring.  It's a long, hard slog that involves self denial (if you're in a successful phase) or self flagellation (if you're not) - and both of these things are probably rather tedious to read about.

Anyway.

Previously on WWF: -46lbs
This week: -0lbs
Total loss: 46lbs

Yep, that's right, the most vanilla result of them all, a big, fat zero movement.

To be fair, there was drink taken at the weekend.  And rather than slip up on Saturday and return to form on Sunday, I allowed the slip up to remain slipped.  Where I am going to take some small (very small) measure of pride, after a shitty start to the working week I had a very persistent divil on my shoulder suggesting that the blown week stay blown until the cleansing winds of Official WI had swept the slate clean (oh my what a painfully mixed metaphor.  This is what comes of blogging at ten in the evening).  But I stuck doggedly to daily points from Monday onwards and, as a result, did not pay too dearly for my weekend folly.

It goes without saying that this week I want to get a decent result.  I mean, I say that every week.  You can take it as read.  But a decent result this week would prove that I am not to be derailed, I am bloody but unbowed...you get the drift.

Right, off to bed - goodnight and sleep tight Blogland!  Onwards and ever, ever downwards.

MPM: 8th September 2014

Monday morning.  UGH.  And that is all I have to say on the matter.

Meal planning for this week - well, we continue our September policy of staying in for the most part, so nice and quiet.  The freezer needs a serious defrost, so most of the meals are predicated on what we already have in.  At least, that was the original plan, looking at what we're actually eating makes me wonder if I actually stuck to it.  Ah well.  The weekend is still slightly up in the air, with D muttering about fish and chips on Friday night (and who am I to stand strong in the face of Britain's favourite takeaway?  Fortunately, our local does sensible sized portions that don't break the points bank too much).

So, such as it is...

Thai chicken noodle stir fry

Lime and pepper crusted tuna steaks with cucumber "spaghetti" and wild rice

Cheesy toad in the hole with root vegetable mash, onion gravy and kale

Soup

Roast lamb with the trimmings

More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

Weigh in Wednesday: 3rd September 2014

Previously on WWF: -44.5lbs
This week: -1.5lbs
Total loss: 46lbs

Yay!  After last week's stellar loss, I wouldn't have been surprised to stay the same but a very respectable result indeed.  If I could hit the big 5-0 by the end of September (which also, conveniently, takes me into the next stone bracket) I shall be over the moon.  I have another clear week ahead as well (a quiet social life can do wonders for the points budget) so am remaining quietly optimistic.

MPM: 1st September 2014

While alarmed by the speed at which the year is passing, nevertheless, I get a little bit of a thrill writing the word "September" in the title.  We're now coming into one of my favourite parts of the year, that late summer, early autumn period where the light has a certain clarity, the air a little nip and the mind can (very slowly) begin to turn to (whisper it) the C word.

We have a meal plan in place for six out of seven days this week - our plans for Sunday have now changed so not sure what we'll end up doing.  Plenty of time to worry about that though, and in the meantime, I've picked a couple of "classic" dishes from this very blog to revisit, which, overall, gives the plan a wee bit of an Italian feel.  We shall have to redress this with a trip to another continent next week.  But in the meantime, the meal plan looks like this:

Kipper, bacon and new potato salad topped with a poached egg

Chicken (Sunday roast leftovers) and sage and onion stuffing sandwiches

Gnocchi with butternut squash, chilli and sage

Burmese chicken soup (thank you, Mr Waitrose)

Oven baked red pepper and chorizo risotto

Spaghetti carbonara

And that's us!  More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

Weigh in Wednesday: 27th August 2014

Early morning weigh in for me today as I'm not around for my regular 6pm meeting.  This possibly means that today's result is slightly more...flattering than it ought to be.  I DON'T CARE.  I whooped the proverbial arse.

Previously on WWF: -38lbs
This week: -6.5lbs
Total loss: 44.5lbs

So, I blasted through the 40lb loss barrier and am cruising back towards the 50 point.  Also, this week sees my lowest ever recorded meeting weight.  Another 10lbs will put me just below my lowest recorded home weight.  I'm trying not to indulge myself in diet maths but I really, really want to get those 10lbs off as quickly as possible so that I feel that I am making forward progress again.  I don't for one minute think that this week's result will be repeated - nothing like.  But it is the start I needed, the boost that makes all those hungry, sulky moments almost worthwhile (NB: D may not agree).

I'm staying in a hotel tonight, so am somewhat at the mercy of the onsite catering facilities - other than that I have another clear run this week, which hopefully bodes well for another good result next Wednesday.  Fingers and paws crossed!

MPM: 25th August 2013

Last week saw us ease back in to routine after a splendiferous holiday.  It also saw me witness the, ahem, fruits of that holiday on a set of WW meeting scales - not pleasant.  Luckily, we had a delicious meal plan in place to make the transition back to strict pointing relatively painless.  I say relatively...I have had quite a hungry few days.  

This week - well, tomorrow night I'm out at my book group, so will just grab a quick sandwich beforehand, and Wednesday night I'm away for work (staying in a very glamorous hotel just off the M1) - this will leave D to fend for himself (and the cat) and mention has been made of retiring to the local hostelry for beer and a burger.  On Friday, he himself is out so I will probably be indulging in some of the M&S Food Hall's finest nibbles.  Last time I was let loose in there to get my own tea, I ended up with prawn dim sum and cheesy chips.  Happy days.  That leaves us only four days to properly meal plan.  

Tonight we are having whitebait - I am going to be experimenting with baking them rather than deep frying to see if it provides a similar, addictively crispy effect.

A Thursday night homecoming dinner of mushroom risotto.

Saturday, D is going to be cooking a couple of the mackerel that we caught while up in Scotland.  He is hoping to get his hands on some frozen gooseberries to make an accompanying sauce.  

And a Sunday roast - chicken, I think, with plenty of leftovers to form the basis for next week's plan.

More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's!

Recipe corner: Haggis stuffed chicken with carrot and ginger mash and orange and whisky sauce

As recipe titles go, it's not the snappiest, is it?  You will also, if you scroll down, see it is not the lowest points offering in the world BUT it is absolutely delicious.  And look, my food photography is as pitiful as ever, but the carrot mash was in a tower!  That's how I roll for Friday night suppers.

I have had a mild haggis obsession since our first trip up to Western Scotland - four years ago if memory serves (and it doesn't always, I drink a lot of gin).  This is the first time that I have used it as a stuffing and it worked marvellously well - it has a subtle, spicy warmth to it which is perfect as an accent.  Here, the mash and the sauce are both quite sweet (the sauce in particular, which I have vaguely based on a couple of whisky Cumberland sauce recipes that I found online, tastes a little like marmalade - don't let that put you off!)  But when eaten in conjunction with the meat they work brilliantly well.  I also roasted off some curly kale to sit underneath the chicken and I would recommend serving this dish with some sort of iron rich green vegetable for an additional savoury note.

To cut down on points you could use a skinless chicken breast and/or reduce the amount of butter used.  Don't skimp on the haggis though.  They don't call it the chieftain of the pudding race for nothing.

Ingredients

20g butter

2 medium, skin-on chicken breasts
100g haggis (we use MacSween's which is readily available in supermarkets)
Tbsp half fat creme fraiche

3-4 large carrots, peeled and chopped
Fresh grated ginger to taste (probably about a tbsp worth)

Shallot, finely chopped
Juice of 2 oranges
Zest of 1/2 an orange
50ml whisky
Tbsp redcurrant jelly
Tsp English mustard
Pinch of cayenne pepper

Serves 2, 16 pro points per portion

Weigh out your butter - you'll use this across all three aspects of the dish and can adjust what goes where to suit.

The carrot mash can easily be done in advance: boil the carrots until soft, drain and then roughly mash or crush - you are not looking for a smooth puree here.  Grate in the ginger and add seasoning and a knob of butter and combine over a gentle heat until the butter is melted.  Add enough ginger so that it gives your mash a mellow warmth but does not overpower the carrots themselves.

Prepare your chicken: carefully butterfly the breast.  Pop the haggis in a bowl, cover with cling film, pierce and microwave on high for 2 minutes.  Combine it with the creme fraiche to loosen slightly.  Spread the haggis on one half of the chicken breast and then fold up and secure with cocktail sticks.  Season the chicken skin well and set aside.

In a small pan, melt another knob of butter and gently cook the shallot until soft.  Add the whisky - you can light it at this point but, be warned, there is quite a lot of alcohol in 50ml and it will flame high and for quite a long time.  Act nonchalant.  Flamed or not, you want to reduce the whisky down to practically nothing.  Then you can add the other ingredients and stir over a medium heat until the jelly melts.  Don't reduce it here - you'll do that in a minute - you're just looking to get everything amalgamated.

Preheat your oven to 190.  Heat the remainder of the butter in a frying pan and place the chicken breasts skin side down.  Fry for about five minutes, so they get a good amount of colour and crustiness on the skin.  Then transfer, skin side up, onto an oven tray and thence into the oven for about fifteen minutes to cook through.

Keep the chicken pan over a low heat and pour in your orange sauce mix.  Use the liquid to scrape up all the lovely, crusty bits of chicken stuck to the pan and combine with the buttery meat juices.  Raise the heat and start to reduce the sauce down by around two thirds to a sticky, marmalade scented syrup.  If you have made the carrot mash in advance, be sure to reheat it at this stage.

Serve chicken, carrot and sauce preferably with some form of green vegetable.

Tobermory Tales

I don't think I'll ever tire of Tobermory and the Isle of Mull.

We are considering the possibility of visiting some of the other Inner Hebrides next year (Islay alone has eleven whisky distilleries - eleven!)  But I do get a slight pang at the thought of not seeing that beautiful main street sweeping around the bay, at not having dinner at Cafe Fish watching D take down great platters of shellfish with fanatical determination, at not sitting outside McGoghan's with a pint and, of course, not spending most of the week looking out for Tobermory Cat (or Ledaig to give him his proper name).

This time around, as well as spending a fair few hours stretched on the apartment's comfy sofa with a book and a mug of tea, we paid a visit to the Isle of Mull Cheese farm, the Tobermory Distillery and the Glengorm farm shop where we bought two of the tastiest steaks that I've eaten for a long while.  We went to Iona and walked across that tiny, holy island and hurled bright coloured stones into the rain-swept sea.  We fished.  We ate fish.  We drank pints in the pale, tremulous sunshine that appeared later in the week.  We ate more fish.  We went to see a folk artist from Kent who sang in an old fashioned bluegrass style.  We ate some cheese.  And then we ate some more fish.  And drank some whisky.

Good times, my friends.  Good times.

The return of Weigh in Wednesday

So, as promised last week, I tucked my tail firmly between my legs and went back to a WW meeting last night.

My feelings about meetings, as discussed at length elsewhere on the blog are very mixed.  However, there is no getting away from the evidence that my weight loss when attending meetings is far more consistent than when I'm not.  They give my week structure, acting as a proper line - both after a good week (don't get complacent!) and a bad (fresh start!)  I have to accept, once and for all, that maybe I just plain need them to do this.  Do I, subconsciously, see this as a weakness because I should be able to do it on my own?  I'm not sure.  But I've been playing around long enough that I have to now man up and use the tools at my disposal that are proven to work - shoulda woulda coulda as the song goes.

Let's, then, look at some stats.

I am 2.5lbs heavier than my last recorded meeting weight on 22nd February.  Given that was an early morning meeting and yesterday was an evening meeting, the actual difference is probably even smaller than that.  So, overall, six months of no progress.  Sigh.  "You've got maintenance down!" tinkled the leader when she saw my old weigh in card.  Which would be fine if I didn't still look like a Weeble.

I am 16.2lbs heavier than my lowest recorded home weight.  Factor in the difference between first-thing-in-the-morning-nekkid weight and evening-clothed weight, this is probably a bit less in actuality.  It's still a backwards slide, which is annoying.  But I've caught it before it got tooooo serious.  And there is no reason that I can't be comfortably into new territory by Christmas given past form.

So, as ever, onwards and downwards - and hopefully next week I'll be able to report a good first week back result to set me up for the next phase of the journey.  Courage, mes braves!

The hunter gatherers

We love the idea of foraging for food, we really do.  Unfortunately, when you live in the middle of a big city and you work full time, the reality of the situation is that most of your foraging gets done in Waitrose.

We did have some opportunities on holiday though, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Winkles, from the rockpools around Portuairk. D used to winkle a lot as a child, and considers this an essential part of any seaside holiday.  If you've never had them, they are very akin to snails with a slight whiff of the sea - gorgeous just ferreted out of their shells and dragged through garlic butter.  Since we managed to gather such a lot (the pile you see before represents about a half of our total haul) we also had them on toast for lunch one day, and made a little winkle and bacon ragu sauce to accompany...

...the fresh mackerel that we caught on our sea angling trip.  We have been meaning to do that for the last few years and, as expected, it was enormous fun.  I must admit to a certain amount of squeamishness at first when it came to sliding the mackerel off the hooks - just because I acknowledge the reality of eating living creatures for dinner does not mean I find having their blood, literally, smeared all over my hands particularly easy.  Anyway, D being hunter gatherer in chief did the gutting and the filleting, and then we pan fried them and served them over winkle and bacon pasta.  Top notch stuff.

We have six more mackerel in the freezer and are hoping to have a go at smoking a couple - watch this space (either for a post about smoking fish or one in which our house burns down and we have to sleep in the car).

Finally, there were these little beauties, that we picked in Aros Park, just outside Tobermory:

Mushroom picking can be a surprisingly dangerous business, so we made sure that we only picked those varieties that we were absolutely sure about and that could not be mistaken for anything else.  Simply fried up in butter with garlic and parsley and then served up on toast, these could not have been more delicious.

I don't think, if mackerel fishing is slightly too gory for me, that I am ever going to make it out on a shooting party, or even butchering my own meat, but mushrooms - mushrooms I can cope with.

Meall Mo Chridhe: a foodie retreat on the edge of the world

On this, our small island, we are never really very far away from civilisation, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise in Kilchoan.  Situated on the peninsula of Ardnamurchan, the most westerly point in mainland Britain, this little village with an indigenous population of just 150 feels like it could be on the very edge of the world.

It turns out that we foodies get everywhere though.  D and I spent two nights staying in a...well, how to describe it.  Meall Mo Chridhe's website says restaurant with rooms but, to us, it was more akin to a supper club where your hosts ply you with excellent food and drink and then let you pop upstairs to sleep off your dinner, bring tea to your bedroom door in the morning and continue the feeding with a slap up breakfast.  It is quite, quite lovely and, in our experience at least, utterly unique.

The view wasn't too shabby either.

The lovely thing about the owners, David and Stella Cash, was that they genuinely seemed as geekily interested in food as...well, us, with their lounge boasting the most astounding collection of cookery books encompassing all types of cuisines, although, in David's own words their real obsession is the provenance of their ingredients. This particular part of Scotland is blessed with an amazing natural larder of produce anyway, and they have fostered close links with both local fishermen to ensure a supply of the best seafood that the Sound of Mull has to offer and the estate for game in the winter.  But beyond that, they try and produce as much as possible themselves, with their stunning walled garden overflowing with fruit, vegetables and herbs, and a variety of animals roaming about on their own smallholding.

We were there two nights, and on the second evening it was just the two of us dining.  We ate lightly grilled lobster with a Pernod dressing while looking out to sea and feeling, as the light dwindled and the twilight crept across the water, like royalty.

To illustrate just what a special experience the Cashes seek to provide to their guests, I must mention D's Saturday breakfast.  While enjoying a pre dinner gin, D had started flicking through Fergus Henderson's cookery book which David had recommended to us, and was very taken by the notion of brains on toast, a piece of offal that he had never had the opportunity to try before.  David, in to stoke the fire, happened to overhear.  "It just so happens," he said, "That I think I have a venison brain sitting in the freezer at the moment.  Would you like it for breakfast?"  As we went up to bed that night, Stella was in the kitchen poring over a couple of recipe books to determine the best way to cook it.  And, sure enough, brains on toast was proudly placed before my husband the next morning.

(Incidentally, they are very tasty - a light, creamy texture and a very faint taste of liver - like a delicate pate.  David has promised to make us brawn next time we go, as D continues his quest to have eaten every part of every animal that he can.)

D and I have been very lucky to stay in some amazing places, but to come across such a little gem in such an isolated part of the world was just fantastic. They are open, for dinner, to non guests but the number of covers looked to be pretty limited so you would definitely need to book in advance.  The far West coast of Scotland has been a favourite destination of ours for a couple of years, but this particular discovery has made it even more attractive.  And when the scenery is this beautiful, that is really saying something.

Meall Mo Chridhe
Kilchoan
Acharacle
Argyll
PH36 4LH
01972 510238

MPM: 18th August 2014

Holidays are over - sad face.  I'm not back at work until Wednesday since I booked a couple of day's extra leave in order to sit around and do very little.  It is fortunate that I did since the cat, since being collected from the cattery on Saturday afternoon, has been my furry, purry shadow - I think she is appreciating a bit of one on one quality time, much to my delight (although it does make it harder to type).

Our meal plan for the rest of August was, almost literally, sketched out on the back of a beer mat while enjoying a pint in our Tobermory local, so this may be subject to some alterations.

Steak, from the Glengorm estate, with potato salad

Tuna pasta bake

Summer vegetable soup with provolone (courtesy of Mr Waitrose)

Nando marinated chicken pitta breasts - I've got a bottle of marinade in the cupboard which I bought for goodness only knows what reason but it needs using, and I do have a sneaky soft spot for Nandos

Haggis stuffed chicken with carrot and ginger mash - still on a Scottish kick, loving the haggis in any way, shape or form at the moment

Confit duck leg with parsnip and kale

Duck hash - using up some of the duck legs from the night before.

More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

Whither Weight Watchers?

When I made this rather plaintive little post last week I got a text from my mother shortly afterwards telling me in no uncertain terms to stop with the excuses.  Which I thought was a little harsh at the time, but there is no denying that at some point you have to look at all the reasons you have got not to to do something and decide whether they are more important than the reasons you have to do it.  If the latter out weights the former, then perhaps what you are looking at are, in fact, just excuses masquerading as reasons.

Wow, that was a very confuddled paragraph.  Apologies.  I hope you get the drift.

Anyway.  I have spent most of my adult life - and certainly the life of this little blog expending a lot of time and energy over reasons why I can't (or won't) lose weight.

It is not down to whether or not Weight Watchers works - all healthy eating plans work, after a fashion, if you do them properly.

It is down to whether I work.  And, sometimes, I don't.  Actually, often I don't, which is why, from a weight loss point of view this blog occasionally reads like an annoying litany of failure.  Now, now, I'm not being maudlin or anything - I'm just saying that if anyone came across this blog because they wanted to read about someone losing weight with WW they might be disappointed.  Because the periods of success have never been long enough or sustained enough to get me where I want to go.

But that's OK, because each period of success teaches me something.  As does each period of...well, I hate to use the word failure so let's call it...deferred something or other.

It honestly doesn't matter how many new starts there are - and how many times I write a post that says I'm having another new start (although I can understand how it makes frankly annoying reading).  Because as long as I'm prepared to start again and again and again and again, eventually, maybe, one of them will be the start that gets me to the finish.

Back in March, my WW meeting closed down and so I decided to save myself a bit of money and start weighing in at home.  Since March, my overall weight loss has slowed down considerably.  Whether this would have happened anyway I don't know but, I said at the time that if it didn't work out that I would find another meeting (oh!  Hello Mr Deja Vu - welcome back!)   So, that's the plan for when I come back from Scotland (which will be...um...tomorrow if this post pops up at the right time).  I would still like to think that with a good run I have a shot of making my end of year goal.  And D will still be my head cheerleader (and, in his own mind, I don't think he'll renounce the title of Leader - he likes it too much).

London weekend: a trip to the Ginstitute

If you like gin (and, let us face it, who doesn't) then I urge you most strongly to get yourself along to the Ginstitute on Portobello Road.

This is actually the home of Portobello Road gin that you may have come across in your cruises down the Waitrose gin aisle (oh, wait, is that just us?)  But the gin itself is a happy offshoot of the original intention which was to open a little place where people could learn about gin and create their own customised blend.  In the process of practising the distillation of the various botanicals to be used by the punters, the owner came up with a blend that he thought might be marketable and so Portobello Road gin was born.

The experience itself lasts about three hours and costs £100 per person which sounds steep until you realise what that gets you.  You initially spend an hour sipping gin cocktails in London's second smallest museum learning all about the history of the spirit.  It's fascinating stuff, and Jake, with his bone dry delivery, was a skilled storyteller - although I couldn't help thinking that cocktails in lectures could have made a huge difference in my attendance levels when I was at uni.

A very blurry view of the bar in the gin Lecture Room

From there, you are provided with another drink (gin and tonic - hurrah!) and taken upstairs to the blending room.  Gin is, essentially, a colourless, odourless spirit - all the flavour comes from the naturally derived ingredients that are added to the base for the second distillation.  The predominant flavour is juniper but the others can be as varied as you like.

Before we were allowed to decide on our final recipes, we had a session sampling some of the most important botanicals - in original and distilled form, and learned a bit about the different quadrants of flavour that needed to be hit to create a balanced gin.  Then we picked our ingredients - up to twelve was the recommendation, four of which were standardised to ensure that the gin had all the basic building blocks of what we recognise as...well, gin.

You eventually leave there (although not before a gin martini for good luck) with clinking bags - a bottle of your very own personalised blend (which, incidentally, is kept on record so that it can be reordered whenever you like) plus a bottle each of Portobello Road and a sample bottle of Jake's favourite tonic water.  You see now how the £100 begins to look pretty reasonable.

It was a truly unique experience and we adored it.

As an interesting footnote, the following day we did a double blind tasting of our personal gins, the Portobello Road and a fourth bottle of London Dry with my parents, brother and sister in law.  The two personal blends scored head and shoulders higher than the others (sorry Jake).  Although D beat me by 3 points damn him - and I mocked him for throwing everything bar the kitchen sink into his recipe while I was a model of restraint...We're definitely going to reorder the blends we made and I would love to go back and try and completely different combination of ingredients - perhaps something nice and spicy for Christmas.

The Ginstitute (above the Portobello Star Bar)
171 Portobello Road
London W11 2DY
020 3540 7781

London weekend: Opera tavern, hot dogs and popcorn

If you live in London and I could encourage you to do one thing with your weekend it would be to go to Barnyard, which is very close to Goodge Street tube, and get a portion of popcorn ice cream with smoked fudge sauce to take away.  Or you could sit in of course - I'm not a dictator by any means.

I solemnly swear that, wherever else you go that day, this will be one of the nicest things you eat.

Right, now that's out of the way (my God but it was good though.  I mean, just amazing - sweet and creamy and salty and crunchy and...)  where else did we get to last weekend?  Which, actually, because I am writing this and scheduling it to pop up while I am on holiday (oh, the wonders of modern technology) is probably more like two weeks ago.  Time certainly does fly when you're doing something.

Oh, Opera Tavern.  Now this was a really nice place to while away a couple of hours.  It's tapas type food (we're still on a slightly Spanish kick) although some of it is more immediately recognisable as the type of dish you might order in Spain and some of it is is more "this is a small plate of food that we fancy cooking for you", if you see what I mean.  Almost to a dish it sounded lovely though.  We actually ended up veering towards familiar tapas favourites which just made me want to go back and sample some of the slightly less...can I use the word authentic?  No, it just makes me sound like I know what I'm talking about.  Let's just say, the other side of the menu.

The one dish that we'd read about prior to arriving was the Iberico pork and foie gras sliders.  And they really didn't disappoint.

I could have eaten a lot of these.  The pork was more deeply savoury than I usually associate with that meat, but was lifted by the sweetness of the foie.  Juicy, messy and seriously meaty, these were a delight.

Ah, but see here we have a selection of Spanish charcuterie and some gooey little croquettes with aioli and we're back on to familiar territory.

There was much about Opera Tavern to like - not least the wonderful service, with a disarmingly honest yet charming waitress who, despite having to deal with a very large party at latecomers, was still more than happy to chat about the menu, the restaurant and other Salt Yard venues as much as we could wish.  She particularly recommended Ember Yard as being worth a visit - something to bear in mind next time.

We agreed on this trip that we would both get to pick an establishment for lunch.  Opera Tavern was D's choice (well done D).  His wife, yet again, revealed herself to be an utter pleb at heart by opting for Bubbledogs over in Fitzrovia and what can she say?  She doesn't regret it one bit.

Yes, it's a total bloody gimmick.  Bubbledogs is a champagne bar with one of the most extensive fizz lists that I have ever seen.  Alongside the champagne, they serve...hot dogs.  Yep, gourmet hot dogs with a variety of toppings, and sides of tots or sweet potato fries...and that is pretty much the extent of the menu.  I loved it.

The dogs themselves were top quality - well spiced with that pleasing snap that you are supposed to get when you bite into a hot dog skin, the toppings were generous, and the portion of tots we ordered to go alongside were inescapably moreish.

Given that they served a number of the champagnes by the glass for less than ten pounds, you could quite easily get a cheapish lunch in here.  We opted for a bottle, but there are a good range of prices, and some of the varieties are pretty unusual - plus, the waiter was quite happy to chat through different options without ever going for the hard sell.  As I said, gimmick - yes, but a charming and delicious one.  And they're the best sort.

Barnyard
18 Charlotte Street
London, W1T 2LY
020 7580 3842

Opera Tavern
23 Catherine Street
London, WC2B 5JS
020 7836 3680 

Bubbledogs
70 Charlotte Street
London, W1T 4QG
020 7637 7770

Minx Alone

Hello readers of the blog!  It is I, Minx.

I am a hard done by cat, you know.  Scarcely have my humans come back from gallivanting around in a place that they called Barcelona (but you and I know is really Cat-a-land) but they're off to somewhere called Scot-a-land so once again, I am to be dumped in the cattery.  Not that I mind it too much you understand - there are other cats there to chat with and I can play on Mum's guilt for literally weeks when she comes back but still... 

...Why would you want to go on holiday when you have a cat as pretty as me at home?

Mum tells me that she has scheduled some posts to go up while she is away so her beloved readers will not be left to bereft (unlike me - huh).  I did try and help her write them but for some reason she seemed to end up deleting everything that I typed.  Well, I say typed, it was more like stream of consciousness from walking across the keyboard - very modernist says I.  Mum says that this is not a modernist blog.

If anyone wants to send me emergency Dreamies I can be reached care of the Adel Cattery, where I will be mostly practicing my sulky face for the next ten days.  See you on the other side.

Foodie Abroad: Barcelona titbits

As touched upon in my last post, Spanish is not a world cuisine that I know very much about.  Although since I wrote that I started to wonder if I know a significant amount about any world cuisine and concluded that I probably don't.  Especially when you start to take into account the massive regional variations that are going to occur in any country - even a tiny little island like Britain.  But I am always eager to learn, and the best way to do that is to go abroad and, basically, eat as much as possible in an open minded spirit.  In fact, the first time we went to Barcelona, D and I took to wandering in to little tapas joints and just pointing at words on the menu with no clear idea of what we would get.  That is much harder to do now since it seems that most places hand over an English menu as a matter of course, and, equally, with the rise in popularity of tapas chains such as La Tasca, the lingo has become a bit more familiar.

An old favourite that we were determined to revisit was a restaurant that has been a bit of a tourist destination since it opened in the first half of the nineteenth century.  Los Caracoles is a cool, dark, heavily panelled place - full of squinting diners who have just stumbled in off the sunlit street.  The menu is, from what I can tell, very traditional.  The restaurant is named after its signature dish - snails, in a delicious, heavy ragu sauce that comes with a curl of bread, shaped like a snail shell, for dunking.

It is incredibly moreish - although be prepared to spend some time fishing out bits of snail shell - we are not in Michelin land now.  Incidentally, that is a starter sized portion.  If you're my husband, you follow this up with a huge plate of arros negre, a rice dish coloured with squid ink that is sort of akin to a seafood paella.  After this, you will probably require a post lunch siesta.

Seafood abounds in Barcelona - which, given that it is a coastal city, whose port has a two thousand year history, is probably understandable.  On our last full day I was keen to go right down to the marina to eat on one of the terraces down there - it's probably slightly overpriced but the quality of seafood that these places serve is absolutely fantastic.

Clams, mussels and very large...things that were described as winkles but not recognisable as such all cooked to perfection.  Nothing is more delicious than really good seafood and a glass of crisp white wine enjoyed while the sun sparkles off the sea.  Actually, I think that it had clouded over by the time we got there, but my appetite was undaunted.

It was here as well that I got to try my first ever fideua which is basically paella but made with noodles (here, like spaghetti, only much shorter) rather than rice.  I loved this and must try and recreate it at home - I've found a Brindisa recipe online which looks rather good.

And a final foodie highlight to mention - and one that it would be easy to walk past, situated as it is on Las Ramblas and looking like a seriously dodgy tourist trap - is the Jamon Experience.  Yes, that's right, the Experience of Ham.  We spent a very diverting couple of hours in here - first learning about how the ham is made and the different gradings, before getting to scoff six different types with a cool glass of Cava (or beer or red wine depending on your preference).  

There's a shop at the end (where they sell, er, ham) but no pressure to buy - our ham man (which is a rather unfair way to describe him given that it actually takes a lot of skill and dexterity to carve the ham into the tissue thin slices that the product demands) just cheerfully left us to wander - although not before pouring us a second drink to sip among the hams.  Happiness, my friends, truly is.