Smart Points review - one day in

Weight Watchers relaunched their points based counting system at the end of last year with Pro Points  (PP) evolving into Smart Points (SP).  Now I, personally, had a lot of success on Pro Points and found it relatively easy to balance everything within my allowance.  My initial impression is that this is going to be a lot harder to do on Smart Points.

For the uninitiated - every Weight Watchers member has a daily points allowance and an additional "bank" of points that can be drawn on throughout the week.  Both the daily and the weekly allowances decrease as you lose weight.  In addition, exercise earns you "Fit Points" which can be swapped for food once you've earned more than a set amount - which amount rises as you lose weight to make you work harder.  With me?

My daily points allowance on SP is about the same as on PP, my weekly bank has decreased by 7.  So, overall, fewer points.  I think I'm going to be needing those Fit Points, especially as most foods, with the exception of some lean proteins, have gone up.

I wasn't particularly organised today, and had to buy lunch from our on-site shop.  I chose fairly wisely - a sandwich that, at 370 calories would have come in at 9-10 PP and a small pot of low fat yoghurt.  The sandwich turned out to be 11 SP and the yoghurt a whopping 4 SP.  Ouch. Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs for supper came in relatively low though, so it balanced out.

It feels, though, that Weight Watchers really don't want me to consume anything containing any amount of sugar or fat.  I adore butter, and used to be able to get 7g for 1 PP, which was enough for decent coverage on a slice of toast.  The same amount is now 3 SP.  Any and all sweet treats have gone up - a two finger Kit Kat, for example, has gone from 3 PP to 5 SP a bar.  All of these increases, combined with the lower allowances, makes it feel a lot more restrictive and "diet-ey".

I've come in bang on my daily allowance today but more by luck than judgement - I need to spend the weekend doing some careful planning to allow me to stretch those Smart Points further.

Oh woe, oh woe, back to WW we go

So, thoroughly disenchanted with WW, especially after the change to Smart Points, I decided that I needed to find an alternative plan.  A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was trying something but wanted to give it a fair shot before writing about it.

Cue hollow laugh.

The thing was, I was sick to the back teeth of counting.  I wanted to do something else and what I came up with was the 5:2 plan, which involves having two fast days a week and eating normally the rest of the time.  My reasoning was that, OK, the fast days would be thoroughly miserable and would involve some form of counting to ensure that I came in under 500 cals, but the rest of the time would be "normal" eating - exactly what I craved.

The fundamental problem was that it turns out I am RUBBISH at fast days.  I think I managed one properly - perhaps two - and hated them.  And I struggled with choosing the days.  It couldn't be the weekend.  It couldn't be on a Monday because that's tutorial day and I can't concentrate on seven hours of tax legislation on an empty stomach.  So that left Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  But Tuesday and Thursday are the good exercise class days - Tuesday is Body Combat followed by Aqua Aerobics, and Thursday is Clubbercise and I was nervous about exercising on 500 calories. I messed around and, basically, didn't achieve anything.

So I'm accepting the inevitable and dragging myself back to WW.  I am going to give Smart Points a good go - my gym buddy A has lost a stone and a half in the last few weeks so it clearly works.  I have bought a Fitbit and linked it to my account so that I can rack up Fit Points which I will probably swap for food, accepting that this will mean a slower loss.

As far as I can gather, Smart Points is pushing people towards a high protein, low fat, low sugar diet.  Which sounds rather joyless but, as ever, I will be trying to bend it to my tastes as much as possible and report back here as to the results.  I'm not necessarily going to publish Smart Points on the recipes that I post though, because I really like the freedom of just sharing stuff that I like without having to write a "Sorry, this is so high in points..." precursor.  As ever, if you want the Smart Points then please just drop me an email.

D also wants to drop some weight and has decided to do a month of Dukan - which is also geared towards high protein and low fat, so the two should mesh fairly well, although I am far too greedy to give up carbs altogether, which is pretty much what he is intending to do.  Again, I'll let you know how that goes.  Once he is in "Cruise" phase, which allows some vegetables, I can see the spiraliser getting a LOT of use which will be interesting.

Wish me luck my loves.  For the fifty one billionth time.

TWTWTW: Easter 2016

The weather outside may be frightful (par for the course during a UK Bank Holiday weekend) but here, chez WWF, all is peaceful.  Apart from the feline member of the household who was bombing around just a minute ago - not sure what it is she is chasing.

So on Wednesday we took ourselves off to Whitby for a couple of nights.  The colour theme of the sojourn can pretty much be summed up by this picture:

Very Grey.  But hey, you don't go the seaside for sunshine.  You go for atmosphere.  You go to take random pictures of seagulls:

You go for FISH AND CHIPS:

That plateful of loveliness is brought to you courtesy of Trencher's which I heartily recommend to you if you find yourself in Whitby and don't fancy queuing outside the Magpie.  I really liked the fact that they offered a small portion which was perfectly Seren sized.  I can never manage all the chips in a standard - when D and I get takeaway I always push for two fish and one chips between us.

Ha, but check out what happened on the Friday that we were heading back to Leeds:

The Weather Gods can be right bastards sometimes.

In other Easter tidings, I made my first ever batch of hot cross buns:

Yes, not things of beauty, are they?  They tasted nice though - a denser, breadier texture than shop bought offerings.  My next attempt will up the spice content, but the basic recipe I used can be found here.

Some sad news cast the slightest of shadows over the long weekend; my parents' beautiful tabby cat, Minnie, has been diagnosed with a tumour and is only like to be with us for a few more weeks.  I got the chance to see her yesterday and she is still in very good health and spirits, eating well and quite happy, so it looks as if the rest of her time here will be peaceful and content, as, indeed, was her whole life.  She will be very much missed.  I wrote a bit about her here.  Minx has kindly agreed that this week, Minnie should provide the obligatory cat picture.

TWTWTW: vet, 80s, teriyaki

I've been quiet all week - full of cold and rather sulky.

Obligatory cute cat picture

Minx went to the vet this week for her yearly jabs and was an angel throughout. The vet commented that she was a "perfect" weight, a rarity in our household. She doesn't appear to be overly bothered by food and will graze from her bowls throughout the day as and when she remembers. A salutary lesson for us all.

I go back to the 80s

I am writing this before the week is truly over, prior to heading down to London for an 80s themed birthday party. I have packed fingerless gloves and blue eyeshadow and will probably need to be steaming before I set foot outside the hotel room. Being aged 0-9 in the 80s, I wasn't particularly au fait with the fashions so have spent some interesting sessions on Pinterest acquainting myself with what passed for style back in the day. I am hoping for proper retro buffet snacks - cheese and pineapple on sticks, Monster Munch...oooh, boil in the bag fish! Not really a buffet snack but I remember eating it a lot as a child - can you still get it?

I do not quite succeed at lamb teriyaki

There has been a dish on the Wagamamas menu for a while now of teriyaki lamb with wasabi and pea noodles of which I have always liked the idea. I tried to make something similar this week and although it was fine it didn't blow my socks off. Perhaps my mistake was, per this recipe, making the teriyaki sauce from component parts - perhaps it's one of those things that you just have to buy pre-made. If anyone has any teriyaki tips then please let me know - I am sure that this dish has potential but I need to have a bit of a rethink.

Have a good weekend dear readers (insert witty sign off here).

That was the week that was

I want to get into the habit of doing the odd round up post. As I get older, I get increasingly forgetful - although it might be the effect of gin rather than years - and lots of lovely things get consumed and then never make it as far as the blog.

Plus it will give me an excuse to throw in Cute Cat Picture of the week:

My culinary horizons are expanded

Last night, if I had been wearing a hat I would have been forced to eat it. We went for dinner with friends and got the opportunity to sample some authentic, home cooked South African food. I, having looked up bobotie online, was not convinced. But it turns out to be divine! Somehow the richness of the meat and the complexity of the spices perfectly balances with the sweetness. I am really quite tempted to try and make it myself. I do not, however, intend to garnish it with banana (sorry, Les) - that was just one step too far from my palate.

Oh, also, peri peri chicken livers. You NEED these in your life, dear readers.

We order too much Thai food

In the hope of reviving my occasional "Cheap Eats in Leeds" series, D and I had dinner at Leeds institution Thai Aroy Dee. Unfortunately, I was tired and he was grumpy after a whole broken glasses saga, so we clearly ordered far too much food and came in over the £30 mark. Mind, we ended up taking an awful lot of it away to eat the following day. We intend to return and give it another go.

Giant Couscous is my new favourite thing

Served this week with lamb and haggis meatballs, roasted aubergine and a creamy aubergine purée - this little grain is an absolute revelation! It has made me think that I need to be a bit more creative with my staple carbs and mix up the standard pasta, rice and potatoes rotation.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday lovelies...(insert witty sign off here).

Cooking with Yorkshire rapeseed oil

The latest product that I've been lucky enough to try as part of my ongoing quest to be the BBC Good Food Show's most annoyingly enthusiastic blogger was some fabulously garlicky rapeseed oil. Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil is produced over in North Yorkshire not far from my old stomping ground of York and, to be honest, was an easy sell. D and I always tend to use rapeseed oil as our house standard not just because it is a local thang but also because we love the flavour - light, very slightly grassy, very slightly nutty, it is great on its own and perfect for cooking. Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil for the win.

I must admit that, in the past, I've thought the idea of flavoured oils slightly gimmicky but this garlic oil may well have started to convert me. The problem with garlic is that it is very, very easy to burn - adding a subtle garlic hit through oil instead is genius. I used it to roast tomatoes and aubergine earlier this week and was very pleased with the results.

Along with the oil itself, I received a book whose title I have shamelessly poached for this post which made for very interesting reading, not least because the number of cake and pudding recipes in there really emphasised the versatility of rapeseed oil. I do have a tendency to reach for butter when I'm baking but I'd definitely be up for using oil as an alternative. From a health point of view I've completely lost track of where we are in the whole good fat, bad fat, three bags full fat debate, I'm mainly interested in using the best tools for the job. If oil makes a good cake or a good scone then, fine, I'm on it.

Dipping my toe in these waters, I knocked up a batch of cheese and garlic oatcakes using the garlic oil. The results made me wonder why I ever buy oatcakes. Give them a go - maybe with different flavoured oils (my book tells me that Yorkshire Rapeseed oil also make herby oil, peppery oil and spicy oil - the tinkers) or different cheese or (sob!) no cheese.

Ingredients

120g oatmeal
25g mature cheddar, finely grated
Tbsp garlic rapeseed oil
Up to 50ml freshly boiled water

Makes 8-10 oatcakes

Top cook tip! Don't have any oatmeal to hand? Just do as I did and blitz any oats you have knocking around the cupboard (I used a 50:50 blend of jumbo rolled oats and steel pin cut oats).

Preheat the oven to 160 and line a baking sheet with parchment.

Place your oatmeal, or blitzed oats, into a large bowl with the finely grated cheddar, plenty of black pepper and a pinch of salt, and toss together lightly.

Pour in the oil and, preferably using your hand in a sort of claw shape, gradually combine with the dry ingredients. Add the water a drop at a time until the mixture comes together into a soft dough.

For shaping these babies, I found the easiest thing was to take a small piece of dough, form into a ball and press flat between my two palms. The result is somewhat more rustic than the picture in the book but it worked and was amusing to do.

Bake the oatcakes for 20 mins or so until firm and golden and beginning to brown at the edges. It's advisable to flip them halfway through cooking to ensure an even bake.

Scoff. Preferably with additional cheese.

Thank you, Yorkshire Rapeseed Oil!

Top Notch Brunch Spot: Ox Club, Leeds

I mentioned Ox Club in passing a couple of weeks ago as a top notch brunch spot.  After visiting it for a second time this Sunday (D treated me as a Mother's Day gift from the cat) I decided it deserved a write up all of its very own.

Mainly, because the food was, again, absolutely gorgeous.  But also because I decided to be a proper blogger and take some "mood" shots of glasses of water and whatnot to set the scene.

D says that you can't just put your cutlery at a funny angle to your orange juice and call it "art".  I, respectfully, disagree (and think that he should have moved his hand further out of shot).  And here, I instagrammed the bejeezus out of a Bloody Mary:

Because a bit of Tilt Shift (not to mention a stiff vodka first thing in the morning) makes EVERYTHING BETTER.

But, to more important matters - just feast your eyes on this, the current menu (or, if you can't make that out, the website can be found here):

How is it possible not to want to eat every single thing on there?  Last time we went, we both had the Korean fried chicken and I very nearly ordered it again because it was such a paragon of brunch time yumminess.  I was strong though, and went for the Huevos Rancheros that popped up on the Specials' Board.  You'll see the picture is decidedly more functional since I wanted less art and more food in my face at that point:

Two perfectly cooked, fudgy-yolked eggs, a generous scoop of black beans and a salsa that had a generous hum of chilli and coriander all perched on top of a couple of very pretty, purple corn tortillas.  Lovely.

D was similarly appreciative of the steak and cheddar eggs, particularly the skill with which the steak was cooked to a perfect, blushing pink.  We also both commented on the well judged portion sizes - the last thing you want after brunch is to feel so full that you need to go back to bed for a nap.

What I especially like about Ox Club is that yes, you can have your Full English, but a lot of the other options are a wee bit different, offering a real departure point from other venues.  It remains to be seen how frequently the menu will change, but the inclusion of specials is a pleasing sign, suggesting that the kitchen has the potential to stay on its toes.

Worth bearing in mind is that the service, certainly on a Sunday morning, is very friendly and very chilled - this is a place to linger rather than expect to swoop in and out.  Save that for another day of the week and another restaurant.  One party decided not to stay, citing the lack of vegetarian options - and OK, if you don't want something sweet and there are no specials on, you'd be restricted to avocado toast - or toast with baked beans and house fries cobbled together from the "Extras" section (which I personally don't think is much of a restriction myself).  Again, just worth bearing in mind (although English breakfasts don't tend to be particularly veggie friendly wherever you go).

Amongst the rest of the clientele, though, one hour after opening, the place was full of people enjoying good coffee and excellent food.  It is definitely our new favourite place to brunch in Leeds and we're already considering going back for an evening service to see if the kitchen retains its high standards later in the day.  Hopefully, for your sake dear reader, it will be too dark on that occasion for any more photos...

Ox Club @ Headrow House
The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 6PU

07470 359961 (NB: they currently don't take reservations for brunch)
info@oxclub.co.uk

The BBC Good Food Spring Show - more news!

The sun is shining today and there is definitely more than a touch of Spring in the air so I can officially start to get even more excited about the forthcoming Good Food show. And what could be more exciting than a whole host of amazing producers from the good county of Yorkshire trying to sell us all food.

Now confirmed as having stalls are:

York & Dulgent fudge - prizes for the clever reader who manages to guess a) where they are based and b) what they make. I love fudge and am intrigued by some of the flavours mentioned on the website.  Raspberry and prosecco are two of my favourite things and united in the medium of fudge - this I need to try.  I'm rather taken with the notion of limoncello fudge as well.

Amos and Tom's popcorn - now, oooooh! I do love popcorn and, as everybody knows, it is practically health food.  Even when it is sea salted caramel flavour...

Sloemotion - top marks for the punning name here. I believe that D and I have tried their sloe gin in the past to decided nods of approval but I hadn't appreciated that they do a range of other products, so will definitely be having a good sniff around their stall. Bramble whisky sounds very interesting indeed.

Patrick Macarons and Patisserie - an entirely new brand to me, but, Patrick, you had me at macaron.  And then you had me still further at "Forced rhubarb and ginger". I do like a macaron and they strike me as the kind of thing that one should never attempt to bake oneself but to leave safely in the hands of the experts. Like Patrick. It's my father in law's 70th birthday during the weekend of the show and I reckon a box of macarons would be a very classy way to mark the occasion.

Will bring you more news as I get it (that phrase makes me feel like a roving reporter!) and if you are planning to attend the show then let me know - I'll meet you by the macarons.

MPM: 7th March 2016

Morning meal planners! And how are we this fine Monday morning? Actually, I don't know if it is fine because I'm writing this on Saturday afternoon. There is a bit of a blue sky over North Leeds at the moment which is nice after yesterday's freak snow storms.

We're doing one final week of meals from the freezer and, taken together, it looks rather meaty so lots of lighter, veggie based lunches methinks. D is out one night and we're seeing friends next weekend, so only four meals on the planner at the moment and very nice they sound too:

Spaghetti Bolognese (sauce from freezer)
Lamb and haggis meatballs (yes, mince and Haggis from the freezer) with giant couscous and smoky aubergine purée
Venison sausages (from the freezer!) with mash and red onion gravy
Homemade pizza (base and sauce from...ALL TOGETHER NOW...the freezer!) with blue cheese, salami, walnuts and rosemary

What will be delighting and delecting your taste buds this week? More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

To all the Mums

It is Mothers' Day this Sunday. Yes a gimmick, yes a cynical attempt from the card companies and florists to extract money, yes cheesy. But it's nice to stop and think about mothers and what they do from time to time. I know I'm guilty of not doing it enough.

I went for afternoon tea with my Mum on Thursday, at Harvey Nichols:


Which was lovely (albeit FILLING). What was even more lovely was the chance to spend some time together, just the two of us. We gossiped, pored over the Charlotte Tilbury counter in the HN beauty hall and generally idled away a couple of hours in very girlish and pleasing style.

Our relationship has not always been easy over the years - we're very alike which makes us very close but, equally, capable of hurting each other very much when things get fraught. She's a worrier and I know she constantly frets about not just me but all the family, which drains her and makes her tense. If I could wish her one thing this Mothers' Day it would be the chance to put all her worries into a big balloon and let them go for a little while.

Picture from pusheen.com

I would also remind her of how the next years are going to be AMAZING. She and my Dad are having adventures all over the world, she has two beautiful grandchildren whom we are all excited to watch grow (not to mention a beautiful if highly strung grand-cat) and her children are happy and healthy and secure so her job is done and done well.

So happy Mothers' Day Mum, I think about you and worry about you more than you know and am always, always wishing you lhos.

And to all Mums out there, doing a difficult and sometimes unrecognised job - have a good weekend and remember that raising the next generation is probably the most important work in the world. The future is literally in your hands. Kudos and - keep going. But remember to demand breakfast in bed on Sunday.

MPM: 29th February 2016

Huh. So you know that I said that last week we were eating down the freezer in preparation for an influx of meat? Well, said meat didn't arrive when it was supposed to arrive. The good people of Westin Gourmet will be feeling my wrath this morning. And by wrath I mean that I will be phoning up and murmuring very politely that I was slightly disappointed that I had ordered something for a certain date and they haven't, you know, fulfilled their end of the bargain and I hate to be a pain but, you know, could they please let me know when I can expect all my meat to turn up (thankyouplease). Yeah, I'm quite British when it comes to being wrathful on the phone.

Still living in hope that we shall be awash with meat at some point this week, we have another round of freezer diving planned, with a couple of other top notch dishes thrown in for good measure. On Thursday, I am taking la mere out for afternoon tea at Harvey Nichols, so a nice, light bowl of soup is all that will be required in the evening. Other than that, the week looks fairly uneventful. Hurrah for a quiet life!

So, this is what the menu plan looks like:

Tuna steaks with wasabi and lime mayonnaise in brioche buns with oven baked French fries (from the freezer) on the side
Cholent (from the freezer) with crusty bread for dunking
Fish pie
Caribbean chicken soup (from the freezer)
Oxtail and chorizo stew (from the freezer) with mashed potato
Vada pav (Mumbai potato "burgers") with okra fries - D is aiming to recreate a dish from our beloved Bundobust. Nothing in this dish is coming from the freezer.

Have a good week's eating friends! And wish me luck in my Meat Mission...

Sloth

I have never been a big fan of exercise, being more akin to a sloth than any other creature in God's green Earth.  My nickname is not Sleepy Slouj for nothing.

Sloth.  Or me?  Image taken from https://gifts.worldwildlife.org

What I really want though (really, really, want) is to have a healthy, balanced approach to not just food but life in general, and exercise and fitness have to play a part in that, however much I would like to hide away from it (preferably in a pillow fort with my cat).

Recently, a friend of mine (well, I suppose officially she is a friend of D's but I am nicking her because she is the only person I know who gets as overexcited as me at the prospect of a Space NK discount code) tentatively suggested going to a class at the local fitness centre, on the strict proviso that we stand at the back.  The class in question was Clubbercise, which is basically just prancing around in the semi dark with disco lights and glow sticks.  It is waaaay more fun than doggedly stomping away on a treadmill.  And, subsequently, we have tried Aqua Aerobics (which I also love although have to spend most of the class attempting to stop my boobs making a break for freedom) and Kick Fit (great stress reliever).

I won't go so far as to say that I am a gym bunny, but I do find classes to be quite motivating and it is lovely to have someone to go with.  I have gone so far as to sign up for a monthly membership (the rolling kind which can be cancelled at any point - I know myself and the limits to my enthusiasm pretty well).  I'm very unfit at the moment, but I hope a few weeks of regular attendance will see a marked improvement.  Now that the weather is becoming distinctly more spring like, I'm hoping to get my walking boots on and if I could get up a hill without sounding like The Little Engine That Could, I would count that as a major achievement.

Recipe corner: American style chocolate chunk cookies

Picture courtesy of zazzle.co.uk  How cute is this fabric? 

I sometimes think that people (and I most definitely include myself in that all encompassing term) have forgotten what a treat actually is.

A treat is not something to be consumed every day - certainly not in any quantity. It is something to be anticipated, something to savour, something special.

When I was a young kid, sweets were for weekends and fizzy drinks for high days and holidays. The only pudding we tended to have during the week, if at all, was yoghurt. And then oh, the giddy joy at going to the sweet shop on a Friday to pick out the evening's delicacy (rhubarb and custards, or Munchies, or the wonderous thing that is a Caramac) or the pleasure taken in the sponge pudding or a crumble after Sunday lunch.

As I got older, of course this was less enforceable and, being a teenager with a remarkably sweet tooth, visits to the school tuck shop were a pretty standard part of the day. But now, as I get older still, I quite like the idea of going back to that mentality where a treat is not for every day. I want that sense of anticipation, and that sense of specialness that makes sweetmeats all the sweeter.

So I made cookie dough and shaped it into a log and I wrapped it in cling film and consigned it to the freezer so that I can bake up a slice from frozen every now and again. An oozing, chocolatey cookie, soft in the centre with a suspicion of crunch around the edge, headily scented with vanilla and on the verge of being slightly too sweet, that sort of cookie definitely falls into the treat category. Especially if consumed within minutes of coming out of the oven so it is still warm and the chocolate is liquid and smudges your fingers. I do not intend to bake up a cookie every day. But, if I am going to make my treats really count, this is definitely the way to go.

Use any kind of chocolate you like. I'm thinking about making the next batch with Smarties.

Ingredients

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
75g caster sugar
75g soft brown sugar
1 medium egg
Tsp vanilla extract
225g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
100g chocolate, chopped into chunks

Cream together the butter and the sugar until soft and fluffy. Stir in the egg and the vanilla extract.

Sieve the flour and the baking powder into the mix, add the salt and stir and, finally, fold through the chocolate chunks. The mixture should be soft and malleable, like Playdoh.

Spread a large piece of cling film on the work surface and tip out the cookie dough. Use your hands to push the mixture together and shape it like a log. Then wrap the clingfilm round and roll it, so the log rounds out and becomes a sausage. Freeze.

When coming to bake, preheat the oven to 170. Use a sharp knife to take off a slice of dough - any size you like but the log should yield at least 12. Sit in on baking paper on a tray in the oven for 11 minutes. When you take it out the middle will still looked uncooked, but it will become former as it cools. The edges should just be turning golden brown.

Wait a few minutes (anticipation, remember?) and then dive in, face first. Heave a contented sigh.

Recipe corner: Vietnamese style braised pork with vegetable fried rice

Believe me when I say that you have to make this dish.  I mean, I know that I probably say that about all of them but this one is an absolute must cook.

In the last few years, D and I have made an effort to make more Sunday roasts.  I love a Sunday roast, I really do, but it is one of those things that I didn’t make myself until I was well into my twenties.  And there is no question that it can be a bit of a faff; the individual processes may be easy, but timing everything to be ready together is less so and the whole faffiness is exacerbated when you are working with a tiny kitchen and a distinct lack of dishwasher.   Nevertheless, it is a proud British tradition and one that we have tried to embrace at least a couple of times a month.

What is also a proud British tradition (at least, it certainly was for my grandparents and probably my parents too) is “leftovers day” when the remainder of the joint is served up for supper in cunning disguise. I love leftovers day as much, if not more, than I love the roast.  Sometimes, I’ll just opt for cold meat with a side dish, or even sandwiches (roast beef and horseradish sandwiches are a thing of beauty and joy forever) but I have been trying to get a bit more clever.  That is where this recipe comes in.

In the top five countdown of roasting joints, pork has always scored fairly low for us – there is nothing wrong with pork but it’s not a favourite.  D has now declared that pork must move higher up the rotation of roasts so that we can make this leftovers dish on a regular basis.  And who am I to deny him.

We spied this recipe on the Guardian site (an excellent resource for foodies – so many interesting recipes to browse through) where the author in turn adapted it from a recipe book, and so the recipe Chinese whispers go on.  I reduced it down to two portions (while upping the meat quotient slightly) and served with a lovely stir fried veg and egg rice, which I am expect is entirely non Vietnamese but was just what I fancied and worked terribly well. 

Ingredients

200g cold roast pork, chopped into chunks

Tsp. black peppercorns

Tsp. coarse salt

Tsp. soft brown sugar

2 cloves of garlic

Shallot, finely chopped

Tbsp. fish sauce

2 tsp. soft brown sugar

100ml boiling water

100ml reduced fat coconut milk

90g basmati rice

Selection of stir fry veg (I used spring onions, baby corn and sugar snap peas)

Clove of garlic, crushed

Tbsp vegetable oil
2 eggs

Pinch of chilli flakes

Splash of fish sauce

Serves 2, 14 Smart Points (WW Flex) per portion

In a pestle and mortar, bash together the peppercorns, salt, one teaspoon of the sugar and the garlic until it forms a murky looking paste.   Stir this, along with the shallot, through the pork and set aside while you make the caramel. 

In a heavy bottomed saucepan, place the remaining two teaspoons of sugar over a low heat.  Resist the urge to stir but swirl the pan from time to time to ensure that it is melting evenly.  Meanwhile, stick the kettle on to boil, weigh your rice into the bottom of a steamer pan and slice your veg to suit.  Keep half an eye on the sugar as it will go from caramel to sticky, burnt mess very quickly.

Once the caramel is golden brown and liquid, add the boiling water.  It will bubble up, so exercise a degree of caution.  Allow to bubble frantically for a couple of minutes and then add the coconut milk.  Stir briskly to combine and then throw in the pork and combine everything well.  Reduce

the heat as low as it will go and simmer for around ten minutes.

Cover the rice in water, add a pinch of salt and bring to the boil.  Once it is boiling, turn the heat down and put the veg, in a steamer basket, over the boiling water.  Cover.

After five minutes, remove the vegetables.  Re-cover the rice and turn the heat off.  Allow it to steam for a further five or so minutes until cooked through. 

Heat the oil in a wok or large pan and stir fry the lightly steamed vegetables.  After a couple of minutes, stir through the crushed garlic and cook a little more until the garlic smell has lost its raw edge.  While these are cooking, lightly beat your egg with seasoning and chilli flakes.

Once the veg are beginning to soften but still retain some bite, you can stir through the rice.  Then, make a well in the centre and pour in the egg.  Once it has started to lightly set, mix through the rest of the ingredients.  Add a splash of fish sauce and check the seasoning. 

Check the seasoning of the pork as well – you may need to add more sugar or more fish sauce to get the sweet / salt balance just to your liking (although I found that these measurements worked perfectly).

Serve, and thank goodness for roast dinners and leftovers.

MPM: 22nd February 2016

Certain eagle eyed readers (hello, Mum!) will have noticed that there was a recipe for Vietnamese braised pork up here at the end of last week which has now vanished, for which I wholeheartedly blame the Blogpress app. I went in to correct a spelling and it did something funky to the formatting of the entire piece. Perhaps it is progressive - perhaps it believes that this is the way that blogs of the future are supposed to look, with varying line lengths and weirdly floating margins but I say, NO. And I deleted the app in a fit of pique and returned the blog post to draft status until I can get to a computer to rectify that damage / questionable style decisions. 

I suppose the actual lesson is to proof read things properly in the first place and to try and pretend to be a proper writer as opposed to someone who just dashes off stuff in between bites of the Real Life cherry. That's how bloggers get book deals, people. Although, I am most disappointed to note that despite the fact I have spiralised every week since the turn of the year and baked spelt bread I have not suddenly developed flawless skin, swishy hair, tight buns, a six figure readership and a similarly pearly toothed agent. Disappointing.

So, this week's meal is mainly courtesy of the murky depths of our freezer. Last week I ordered a hamper of meat from an online butcher because it was too good an offer to turn down. I now have to work out how to store said hamper of meat when it turns up on the doorstep next Friday. To this end, D and I had the shelves of the freezer out on the kitchen floor today trying to do an inventory cum tidy up. 

D is out on Thursday so I will have one of my favourite quick suppers - filled tortellini (from the freezer, bien sur) tossed with butter, Parmesan and lots of black pepper. We're both out for dinner on Friday and Sunday is, as yet, unplanned. Elsewhere this week:

Cullen skink 

Leftover lamb biryani with cucumber raita and homemade flatbreads

Sausage and bean casserole

Steak (from afore mentioned meat hamper) and oven baked French Fries

More meal planning shenanigans to be found over at Mrs M's.

MPM: 15th February 2016

It is Sunday afternoon as I write this and Sounds of the Seventies is on in the background. Satisfyingly Sundayish. This weekend has mainly been about cooking - a four course Valentine's extravaganza last night (very good, if I do say myself and which probably merits a blogpost of its own) and pottering with the Sunday roast today. So far, I've parboiled potatoes, and made herby carrot mash and cauliflower cheese to accompany the pork shoulder. Frankly, I don't think we'll need the meat.
So, what does this week look like meal planning wise?

I'm out on Thursday - off down to London to see Matthew Perry's play. Yes, I know the review have been awful, but I was a teenager in the nineties and convinced that I was going to end up Mrs Matthew Perry (or, more accurately, Mrs Chandler Bing). I couldn't not see it, and even though I will spend eight hours getting there and back on a National Express coach, I am squeeingly excited. D will have to fend for himself.

We had chilli scheduled for Saturday but might need to eat down the freezer a bit before attempting to squeeze another batch cook in there. Otherwise, we have:

Leftover chilli crab cakes (from Saturday night) with salady bits
A mussel spaghetti, similar in style to this one to use up some leftover mussels (from Saturday night. Are you sensing a theme?)
Vietnamese style braised roast pork with vegetable egg fried rice
Mackerel fillets with a giant couscous salad
Roast lamb

More meal planning fun over at Mrs M's.

Cinnamon raisin spelt bread and Mercer's preserves

So if you find yourself at the BBC Good Food Spring Show (hard to say after an afternoon on the gin) in Harrogate this April one of the lovely stalls will be run by the good people of Mercer's of Yorkshire. A Yorkshire based company run by a husband and wife, they sell a lovely selection of preserves and sauces. Having been sampling their delectable lemon curd and onion marmalade (not necessarily together) this month, I can confirm that they are definitely worth checking out.

I was particularly taken with the lemon curd which is a real favourite of mine but one of those things that I never bother to make myself because other people do it so well. When we were kids, my brother wouldn't eat "jam with bits" - i.e. pretty much all jam - so we tended to get through a lot of lemon curd (and seedless raspberry which to my mind now is something of a travesty). Standard Saturday breakfast was baguette slathered with butter and curd and very lovely it was too.

Given my recently discovered mania for bread making, I decided to bake a loaf which would work with both of these products. Spelt flour is slightly harder to work with than the standard stuff but it yields a gorgeous, nutty tasting loaf with a slightly cakey texture that toasts well. I would recommend spreading thickly with soft goats' cheese before dolloping on the onion marmalade - the cinnamon and raisin combo really complements the salt / sweet / sour flavour profile. Equally, just spread thickly with curd and perhaps a little creme fraiche, it is utterly delectable.

Ingredients

250g wholemeal spelt flour (if you can't find it in your local supermarket, Holland and Barratt or similar health food stores stock it)
Tsp salt
Tsp fast acting yeast
Tsp sugar
Tsp ground cinnamon
30g raisins
Tbsp vegetable oil (I like rapeseed)
200ml cool water (you may not use all of it)

This is a sticky dough, so best made in a stand mixer with dough hook attachment. If you make it by hand, prepare to get messy.

Tip your flour, raisins, cinnamon and sugar into the mixing bowl. Add the salt to one side of the mixture and the yeast to the other so they're not touching. I don't know the specific reason for this, but Paul "Silver Fox" Hollywood tells me that never the twain shall meet and I believe him.

Set the mixer on to its lowest setting and pour in the oil and then gradually add the water. You'll need somewhere between 150ml and the free amount - enough for the mixture to come together in a shaggy dough. Once it has formed a rough ball, ratchet up the mixer and let it do its thang for about 5 minutes. The dough will be slightly sticky, but elastic.

Transfer to an oiled bowl, cover and prove for an hour.

Grease or line a loaf tin and tip in the proved dough. Give it a second prove for twenty five minutes. It's obviously working on a very hard theorem. While this second prove is going ahead, preheat the oven to 200.

Bake for around 30 mins, or until the internal temperature has reached around 200 degrees. Allow to cool slightly before falling on it armed with butter knife and topping of choice.

Look!

The BBC Good Food Spring Blogging Community website is now live! It's here! There's me!

I'll be sharing a recipe with you this weekend which works beyootifully with a couple of the lovely Yorkshire preserves that I received to try this month so be sure and keep you eyes peeled (peeled I tell you!) for that. And do check out all the other blogs on the list (but remember that I'm your favourite...)

Of cabbages, kings, diets and...fried chicken

The very lovely Steph has been writing a lot recently about CBT with relation to food and eating disorders and it makes for interesting reading. I was particularly struck by what she has to say about being a WW member and how it contributed to having a wacky approach to food because it has been on my mind of late.

The holy grail of the diet world is two fold - to be a healthy weight AND to have a relaxed relationship with food. At the moment, it feels like when I am NOT following WW, but just eating in a natural, instinctive, normal way, I hit point number two. I maintain my weight without difficulty, I gravitate towards a balanced diet, my portions are sensible, my appetite regulated. The moment I start up with the pointing, that goes out of the window. Food is defined as good or bad depending on whether it fits into that day's allowance. Days are also defined as good or bad - or perhaps on or off is a better term. When you're on, it's fine, but when you're off, you spend the time in a sort of feeding frenzy, consuming all the foodstuffs you won't be able to have when you're back on, whether or not you really fancy them at this point in time.

Is this making sense to anyone but me?

The problem I have at the moment is that to be mentally healthy, I don't think following a diet plan (this sort of issue is by no means exclusive to WW) is the right thing to do. But to be in better physical health, I need to be slimmer - no two ways about it. And I don't know how to balance both. I'm trying something a bit different at the moment but I don't want to say too much until I've given it a fair shot. I'm planning to stick with it for the next six weeks (which also happens to be Lent) and assess where I'm at come Easter, at which point I will share more with you.

Right, that's that.

In other news, our quest to find the best brunch venue in Leeds may be at a premature end because I can't imagine anything beating this:


It's Korean fried chicken with wild rice, kimchi and pickled cucumber topped with a crispy fried egg and it is served at a recently opened venue called Ox Club. The menu is DREAMY. But even in the face of such delights as ricotta pancakes with honeycomb and berries, or corned beef and kale hash, both D and I had to order the chicken and neither of us could stop making yummy noises the entire time that we were eating it. The service is friendly but laid back to the point of almost comatose - I wouldn't recommend this place if you like to be in and out quickly. But if you're happy to linger over coffee (which I think is fine at brunch) then go! Eat fried chicken for breakfast! Be glad you live in such a decadent age!

MPM: 8th February 2016

I wonder if the fact that Chinese New Year, Pancake Day and Valentine's Day have fallen in the same week this year is an indication of some sort of forthcoming Foodie Apocalypse. Certainly, it spells Likely Doom for the dieter hoping for a good result on the scales. And also Not Much Fun for people who have schlepped over here to read an entertaining meal planning post.

So in between Chinese food (we're going to Red Chilli in Leeds which has featured on this blog before - it's fab), pancakes (bacon and maple syrup or lemon juice and sugar?) and a three course romantic extravaganza, what will we be eating? Not much! We have the remains of a roast chicken in the fridge so I can see us just grazing on that throughout the week. By Sunday, we will probably have eschewed cutlery altogether and just be chewing happily at the carcass. Nice.

For actual meal planning, do, please feel free to check out the lovely people over at Mrs M's.

Random

I have recently been going through the photos on my phone and deleting them to create some storage space - the iPad is their home now. One of my plans for this year is to actually get some physical copies printed and do some scrap-booking. How quaint.

My photos can be divided into broadly three categories: Minx, Food and Other. Given that Minx spends 85% of her time asleep, I am not sure exactly why I have ended up with so many pictures of her. But then she is very beautiful.


I have a soft spot for this one because it was actually saved from the Cat Protection League's website - this was the shot they used in her bio and, so, the first picture that I ever saw of her. She looks so scared and sad here, doesn't she? Very different from the contented, purring bundle of fur that is curled up next to me as I write.

There is a sub category of Other which could best be described as "Shots of D where he is trying to pretend that he is not being photographed". I like these (and note the edge of a thumb creeping in to the top left hand corner of the shot).


But the number of food pictures - ridiculous. Particularly since some of them, I no longer remember what or where they are. Here we have a very pretty, but entirely random, cup of something with something else on the side.


Sometimes it must have been home cooked dishes that I intended to blog but failed in doing so. I can only assume that is why I have a picture of what I think is baked eggs and toast:

And another of sea bass (?) with parsnips (?) and garlic (?). This was one of D's and I'll bet he never wrote the recipe down so it will never be recreated exactly.  And what is the beige mush next to the roasted garlic cloves?  I seem to recall that this was a delicious plate of food and I'm now intrigued.

Sometimes it's restaurants that, again, I meant to write about but didn't. These are from our first trip to Homage to Fromage but they're no good for a review now because I haven't got a scooby what the dish on the left is:

Or what any of these cheeses are:

Although for all that, if you are in or around Leeds and like cheese then it comes highly recommended.  You have to really like cheese though - the menu does not cater for the lactose intolerant.

So it's been a pleasant (if slightly random) trip down memory lane, going through all of these and the lessons we take from it are - er, make notes, write up blog posts when you say you're going to do so and never serve up beige mush.  The other lesson is take photography lessons.  It is slightly disappointing to realise that my photography skills have remained so consistently terrible throughout the years.  Perhaps if I ever win the lottery, I can employ the very talented Lesley to take photos for me full time?

Anyway, I'm now off to delete all said random food pictures. A cull. A purge, if you will.  Which, clearly, will leave me with plenty of memory space for more adorable cat shots...

MPM: 1st February 2016

Greetings, fellow meal planners! Welcome to the month of February! Hopefully it will be slightly less damp than January...

Speaking of January, it was not a good month for British icons with the death of Terry Wogan yesterday completing a triumvirate of loss across music, film and broadcasting.



I was fans of them all. The funny thing when a celebrity dies, especially one like Terry Wogan who you think you actually know by virtue of his presence in your car or at your breakfast table week in and week out, is that it feels a bit like losing a friend. I felt disproportionately gloomy all day yesterday.

Anyway, setting maudlinisms aside, on with meal planning. D is out a couple of nights this week - Minx and I have no particular plans and may well eat beans on toast (NTS: do cats eat beans?) Other than that:

Smoked mackerel and chorizo potatoes with a peppery watercress salad
Caribbean chicken soup
Spicy sausage rice (from Gordon Ramsay's "Ultimate Cookery Course")
Roast chicken with all the necessary trimmings

I was also planning on making a delicious sounding honey roast root veg salad from January's "Delicious" magazine, but we have quite a lot of odds and ends of cheese in the freezer, so may throw together some sort of cheese pasta dish with those. We'll see.

More meal planning fun, as ever, over at Mrs M's.

Pass the hemp...

I seem to be accidentally turning into a health food person.

Exhibit A: the spiraliser.  I love the spiraliser!  It gives me a profound sense of satisfaction to use.  Yesterday, I added spiralised courgettes to my pesto pasta and spiralised carrot to my salad.  I find myself eyeing up items in the fruit and veg aisle wondering what else I can make into pretty ribbons.

Exhibit B:  my lunch today includes nut loaf and lentil crisps.  The latter I only picked up because I liked the sound of the creamy dill flavour, but turns out that I quite like the texture of the crisps themselves - a bit poppadum esque.

Exhibit C: D and I are currently slightly obsessed with spelt bread which we have been purchasing in Waitrose, such that I am researching recipes so that I can make it at home.  It has a subtly, nutty flavour and it ROCKS.

A book deal featuring 100 ways with lentils and tofu much surely be in the offing...

Meat free musings

Well, we went a whole week without eating any meat or fish at all.  And, for the most part, what a delicious experience it was!  While I am not now having some sort of Damascene conversion and eschewing animal flesh forever (I ate a smoked salmon sandwich yesterday and it was lovely) I certainly am now more aware than ever that it is perfectly possible to eat delicious food that happens to be vegetarian (as opposed to vegetarian food that happens to be delicious).

One thing I noticed was that the range of veggie friendly food on the go is a bit lacking.  I work away from the office on a Monday and tend to pick up a sandwich in good old M&S.  In this instance, unless you were a fan of cheese or egg, there wasn't much there, especially in comparison to the plethora of chicken based options.  Fortunately, I love cheese and egg, but it felt a wee bit uninspiring.

The only meal where I positively missed the meat was my vegetarian Sunday roast.  I made a carrot and cashew nut roast from this recipe which was delicious (I had some cold for lunch today with salad and homemade coleslaw - lovely) but, for all the onion gravy and roast potatoes and buttery braised cabbage, it just wasn't quite the same.  I would rather have had chicken with perhaps a slice of nut roast fulfilling the role of the stuffing.

Which leads me on to my next point - that just because you're eating vegetarian food, your calorie consumption is not necessarily going to go down.  The nut roast is a case in point - the recipe serves 4-6 with a quarter portion coming in at something like 15 pro points (which would be somewhere in the region of 600 calories).  That's higher than for a decent sized portion of lamb, the fattiest of the Sunday meats, and significantly higher than a good helping of the leaner chicken, turkey or pork.  I also found myself eating more cheese than I might do in the normal course of things - probably because I really like cheese and, when it came to meal planning, it kept springing to mind as a natural protein source.

I think only one of the meals that we had was entirely vegan - Nigella Lawson's tomato and pea curry with coconut rice.  I really enjoyed this, although am slightly ashamed to say that D and I both commented on how nice the tomato curry would be as an accompaniment to some  spiced lamb cutlets.  Sigh.

All in all though, a success, and a salutary reminder of how it is not only possible but actually pretty easy to go meat free if you need to.  D will be serving up his meat free week at the end of February and it will be interesting to see how we compare - he tends to be a more adventurous cook than I, so probably less cheese and more spice.  I'm sure that there is a Spice Girls joke to be had there somewhere...

MPM: 25th January 2016

Today is my Dad's birthday. Happy birthday Dad! We'll be meeting up for cheese and sequins later in the week to celebrate and I am very much looking forward to it.

Other than that, it's another pretty quiet week which is good because I have far more work to do than I have time to do it in and I'm anticipating some long days. Plus, I'm currently reading "The Count of Monte Cristo" at the moment which is good but never appears to get any shorter no matter how many pages you read. It's a bit like when you're on a walk and you sight the pub and think a cool pint is at hand but then, half an hour of trekking later, it's still not any closer. I need to make some headway (in the book, not the hypothetical walk) or I run the risk of falling behind in my Goodreads challenge to get through 52 books this year.

Right, meals for the week:

Burn's Night: haggis, neep and tattie nibbles (from the M&S Christmas range), some excellent Scottish Brie and Cranachan for pudding.
Lemongrass and turmeric chicken (leftovers from last week's Sunday roast) with coronation rice salad
Salmon with pasta pesto, courgette and peas
Ham and pea soup (using the stock from our Christmas gammon)
Mushroom and Barolo risotto
Oxtail and chorizo stew with mashed potatoes

More meal planning over at Mrs M's.