Recent eats: an interminable January

I think January might have lasted forever. And even though we are, let's be honest, over a third of the way through February, February has just proved itself to be something of a January 2.0. Cold, wet, miserable and utterly ennui-inducing. D is only finally now shaking off a cough he's had since before Christmas, I've been feeling rundown and lurgy-ish and none of this has got 2025 off to a particularly dazzling start.

I decided to dust off the blog to do a recent eats post and went searching through my phone for pictures to share - needless to say, found very little. Little by way of food pictures, that is - if you want a picture of the cat asleep on the back of the sofa then I have several hundred iterations. We really haven't left the house very much, one exception being a lunchtime trip to White Cloth Hall, a relatively new Leeds venture which features a number of street food(ish) type vendors. We shared a Jamie Thiccston sandwich from Morty's Focacceria which was an absolute beast of a thing, but delicious for all of that. I would have liked slightly more burrata but, then, I think most things would benefit from more burrata. In general, the ratio of bread to filling was pretty good, there was plenty of salty, slippery mortadella and it wasn't so ridiculously huge you couldn't fit it in your mouth in one go to get the full benefit of the layers.

We've done some home cooking, of course,  and have enjoyed several dishes from Meera Sodha's latest book, Dinner which I commend to your attention, especially if you wish to up your vegetarian and vegan cooking game. Having said that, looking back over the archive meal plan, I think one of my top food moments from January was carnivorous; tucking into haggis, neeps and tatties on Burns night, smothered in a fabulous whisky sauce. Classics are classics for a reason. Oh, and I baked some blondies for my Dad's birthday which turned out rather nicely. 

But all in all not an awful lot to share from these first few weeks of the year. We plod on.

2024: a year in review

This is, above all things, a food blog and so the year in review has to primarily about food. But it is inescapable (for me, at least) that 2024 was the year I lost my Minx Cat. I miss her every single day. We have Millie now, of course, who has brought a great deal of joy, but Minx was a great love. D got me a photo book for Christmas of every single picture he had of her, and I must admit, I cried buckets as I looked through it. She was my girl and I will always, always feel the lack of her.

And now I've made myself cry again so let us all move on and talk about good eats in 2024. Looking back over our year - we went to Mull twice which was wonderful. Barcelona in June - now, that was a foodie trip - and a cheeky long weekend in Vienna. We've also had some fabulous ad hoc meals, including our first trip to L'Enclume since it gained its third Michelin star and fish in a shack on the beach in December.

I'm trying to remember highlights, and it is hard, especially since my memory is appalling. D fell in love with the food of Kiln in the summer, and, I have to admit, I still think about the soy glazed chicken thigh. Returning to Cail Bruich was a pleasure and a privilege; the Isle of Wight tomato with smoked crowdie, basil and elderflower was a blinder of a dish. I had possibly the best beef tartare of my life at The Hare in Scawton - and I've eaten a lot of tartares. And I definitely seem to have rediscovered my sweet tooth this year, although Brett's warm chocolate mousse did nearly finish me off.

Chocolate!

Tomato!

In terms of home cooking, I think that the focaccia that I made for our Easter Sunday feast was one of my proudest achievements of the year - and the credit lies entirely with the recipe. We cooked a Murakami inspired menu for my brother - I am now officially obsessed with Japanese rolled omelettes - and introduced our good friends A&K to the wonder that is D's mussel and saffron soup. Scrolling back through our meal planning spreadsheet, I suspect that the most consumed dish was D's mushroom sauce - served with chicken and pork respectively, always to great acclaim. 

And now onwards to 2025. As I write this, snow lies thick on the ground, the sky is entirely devoid of colour and I could very much do with a nap despite it being only 11am. January, as a month, is a shocker. But I am full of positivity and optimism for the year ahead, once this initial hump has been - well, humped. Happy New Year to everyone.

The Food Wot I Ate - a 2021 retrospective

2021 was the year that started with a lockdown and ended with not-a-lockdown-but-most-of-us-choosing-to-stay-indoors-anyway. It did a good impression, in parts, of being normal but it really wasn't. It was the year where many of us queued up like dutiful citizens to get not one, not two but three jabs in the hope it would grant us freedom but then realised that freedom was slightly scary. A funny old time.

In the latter half of the year, as reflected in my occasional blog posts, D and I tried to get back into the swing of eating out and we were rewarded with some absolutely fabulous meals. Whether it was because after twelve months of home cooking and takeaways the novelty of restaurant food triumphed over all critical faculties, or that the restaurants we visited were just that good it is impossible to be entirely sure, but we were blessed with some truly superlative dishes. And I haven't even told you about our trip to Roots yet at the back end of the year, where Tommy Banks's team is doing fantastic things on the banks of the River Ouse.

It's been tough to narrow it down, but there are definitely a few dishes that deserve an extra special mention:

Starter / Snack of the year:

It faced stiff competition, but the "prawn toast" at Lake Road Kitchen wins the day. A heady combination of fresh, bouncy prawn, garlic butter and a crispy brioche coating. The whole table could probably have just sat and eaten a bucket of these and been perfectly content. Nothing outlandish going on with the flavours and ingredients, but flawless execution shows that it isn't always necessary to push boundaries - garlicky, buttery seafoody goodness will always be a pleasure to eat.

Bread of the year:

Not just of the year but probably ever - the brioche at Raby Hunt has to be tasted to be believed. It really says something that in a magical multi course tasting extravaganza, the bread course is still the memory that really lingers. Special mention, though, to Roots where the warm sourdough was served with what they described as "cheese custard" and I will describe to you as "grown-up Dairylea". Yum.

Meat / fish of the year:

Often, the meat and fish courses on a menu are slightly less exciting than the beginning and end of the meal - don't you think? The snacks and starters and desserts are where much of the innovation and fireworks tend to take place. I say that - but then, am reminded with a smile of the amazing lobster ravioli at Raby Hunt, or the doughnut stuffed with venison and damson jam at Roots. Still, the stand out for me is, I think, the amazing lamb shoulder at Le Cochon Aveugle. A buttery potato pancake, topped with shredded lamb, yoghurt and black garlic. I might be a little biased, since lamb is my absolute favourite meat to eat, but this was a really high quality piece of cooking.

Cheese course of the year:

D and I absolutely love it when restaurants do something a little different for the cheese course. I mean, we love it when we're presented with a big cheese trolley as well (who isn't?) but it's exciting to see something else - and the soufflé at Raby Hunt is the perfect case in point. The vin jaune sauce and walnuts added different flavour notes and textures but the star of the show was the fluffy, cheesy cloud trembling in the middle - at once both incredibly light and fearsomely rich. Bliss.

Dessert of the year:

Again, in the face of stiff competition, Lake Road Kitchen triumphs here for me. I still think about that Savarin-Brillat cheesecake on a fairly regular basis. Simple - a plain cheesecake and a couple of fruity twiddles - but perfect. A special mention, though, to Inver's rice pudding which...well, suggested to me that maybe rice pudding isn't the worst thing in the world after all but that in the right hands can be a lovely, lovely thing. Well played, Inver.

Home cooked dish of the year:

Like all good (obsessive) foodies, we keep records of what we cook and eat and scrolling back through 2021 I can see lots of comfort food type dishes on there which is probably indicative of our state of minds whether we realised it or not. We don't very often cook the same dish regularly, which suggests that Diana Henry's teriyaki salmon was a real favourite (made twice within the space of a month). I also recall absolutely swooning over the smoked haddock hash that we made at the start of the year and then never got around to repeating - definitely one to have again soon. However, I think the most representative dish of the year must be the humble meringue. Since lockdown #1 D has been making all the household mayonnaise from scratch and, as a result, I have been regularly making meringues to use up the surplus egg whites. We eat them with Chantilly cream and whatever fruit we happen to have to hand, and they have been one of the great simple pleasures of the year. Not one that I appear to have taken a photo of though - so please accept a picture of the cat instead, enjoying her dish of this and every year, chopped fresh prawns. 

New year, same old foodie

I sometimes find it hard to believe that I've been burbling away to myself in this little corner of the internet since 2010. So much has changed in that time - and, as the saying goes, so much has stayed the same. Last year was the lowest volume of posts since the blog began, and I think the majority of those were talking about meals we ate out. And I still haven't told you about our trip to Roots in December. 

I won't make any promises to blog more -I've given up on anything vaguely resembling a New Year Resolution. But it would be nice to keep this ticking over, if just because it is a lovely thing to look back on and enjoy foodie memories, whether they be at home or abroad. 

I hope all of you out there in the ether had the happiest, most peaceful of Christmases and wish you all the best for 2022, whatever that means for you. I'll be back soon to do a rundown of some of my top eats of 2021. Please try not to fall off the edge of your seats.

Happy New Lockdown

We watched that all time classic film Groundhog Day on NYE; it seemed peculiarly appropriate as we prepared to say farewell to 2021. And, turns out, peculiarly prescient too, as last night England was plunged back into the lockdown that everyone (apart, perhaps, from the actual government) knew was coming. And even though it won't make an awful lot of difference to my life in the immediate future (we had more or less decided to hunker down for the next few months anyway - and are blessed enough that we can do so) still, I lay awake for hours last night feeling sad and anxious.

I am worried for the health of my friends and family. I am worried for the sanity of those of them who have to go back to trying to home school their children alongside everything else. I am worried for all those businesses, particularly those in the hospitality trade, who must be limping along in hope of a miracle: what will survive when we finally make it out? I also realised, extremely selfishly, that I am worried about the food shortages that happened last time (who could forget that dreadful few days where I COULDN'T BUY EGGS*) and then started worrying about the fact that it is somewhat morally dubious to have such concerns in the face of all the others. 

*(And we get eggs delivered every week now, by our friendly local milkman, so we are usually overrun with them).

Let's talk of happier things, shall we? Did everyone manage to have some sort of Christmas? We were lucky enough to see my parents briefly on Christmas Day - I don't know how lucky they felt given that I wept all over them - which was gorgeous. I baked Gougeres for the first time in ages which almost made me feel like a hostess again. Christmas Dinner was our standard fare - confit duck leg, duck and black pudding bonbon, mash, red cabbage, creamy mustard sprouts - which, as ever, was sublime. And, for the first time ever I made a Yule log! I'd share a picture but, dear Teapot, my food photography skills, lacking at the best of times, have not been kind to the poor beast and I wouldn't want to put anyone in mind of...well, you know. Suffice to say, the sponge was light, the filling flavoured with cherries and Kirsch was airy and boozy and the chocolate ganache was dark and slightly bitter to balance everything out. I declare it a positive triumph.

Amazingly, our waist lines escaped the whole festive period relatively unscathed. We'd already been making efforts in that direction before Christmas (of which maybe more in a future post) and I think we naturally managed to balance the more indulgent days with lighter ones. My last hurrah meal before work re-started yesterday? A poached egg on toast. And very nice it was too.

A couple of recipes to share with you (I'll add the links to the relevant page). I used several different recipes for the Yule log, but the basic chocolate Swiss roll was from the GBBO site and I was extremely pleased with the way in which it turned out. Some recipes call for beating the eggs and sugar up over a pan of warm water, but warming the eggs slightly first is so much easier! My sponge was perfect after 8 minutes of cooking, but my oven is a beast so the 10 minutes specified in the recipe is probably fine for most. 

And this carrot and sesame seed bread by Dan Lepard (I'm getting slightly obsessed with the man) was divine - although I found that my mixture needed a splash more liquid than specified to completely come together. Marvellous flavour and texture in the finished loaf though - and a crisp crust that particularly suits it for toasting.

2021 may not have got off to the greatest of starts, but I hope everyone out there is bearing up. (Sort of ) happy new year all!

Into the twenties

Towards the end of last year I was pondering the future of this blog.

When I first started, I had a vague USP - or at least an SP, as it was hardly U. I was someone who enjoyed good food who was following the Weight Watchers diet. It was supposed to be a record of losing weight while cooking nice meals. It was also a nice way of interacting with other people in the diet blog community.

Well, times have changed. I may still be Weeble shaped but I no longer follow Weight Watchers and have come to believe that, for me at least, anything which involves endless counting and measuring of food is not really a good idea. And many of the blogs I followed back then have disappeared, their authors with them.

I still wanted somewhere, though, to act as a virtual recipe repository and a record of special meals. So I toyed with the idea of a new blog and even went so far as to investigate domain names. But, nah.  There might be stuff on here that makes me squirm a little bit (encouraging the use of half fat butter and cheese to make macaroni cheese springs to mind) and I wish that it didn’t have WW in the title (would anyone believe me if I pretended that it stood for something else? World Wide? Whimsical, Wobbly?) But it’s mine, dammit. And I am very fond of it, crappy food photography and all.

So, this year, as challenged by D, I am going to blog more regularly and make sure all our favourite recipes and meals are recorded. I might even go back and revise some of those earlier abominations dishes.

Happy New Year to all, may your 2020 be a good one (and may your shadows never grow less).

MPM: 21st January 2019

Ugh, I am so over 2019. I have spent much of the last few weeks feeling under the weather. Not ill enough to indulge myself like a proper invalid, just a bit bleurgh. I’m well into my second week of the cold that just won’t quit, I had to get emergency dental treatment last week to prevent me from having to go out in public resembling an extra from Deliverance and my stomach continues to object to anything I care to ingest. Harrumph.

Still, I’m sure it’s not all doom and gloom. Oh, I know. We finally, FINALLY cracked and bought ourselves a dishwasher which got plumbed in this weekend. Our kitchen, which is ridiculously wee compared to the size of our dining room because of piss poor planning by whoever designed the house, does not really have room for a dishwasher. But the unremitting washing up was just dragging us down so we moved our gorgeous 1950s style fridge into the dining room, convinced ourselves that it was a design feature, and moved the dishwasher into newly created space. Deep, deep joy. The eventual plan is to knock through and create one big kitchen-diner which would be a much better use of the overall space. But until such time as we win the lottery (oooh, or perhaps someone reads this blog and offers me a Changing Rooms style makeover in return for a good write up! Get in touch!) this will have to do.

Of course, this means that I am currently desperate to cook things that require multiple pans and bowls just for the pleasure of bunging them in the dishwasher and NOT washing them up. Regardez:

Monday: soup

Tuesday: mushroom stroganoff with rice

Wednesday: prawns with sweet potato and coriander mash and chilli sauce

Thursday: gnocchi baked with courgette, garlic and chilli

Friday: haggis with neeps and tatties (happy Burns Night to my Scottish friends!)

Saturday: Szeuchan style braised pork belly

Sunday: salmon with curried mussels

Have a lovely week all!

New year, new you?

What is it about January 1st that makes us all think we will suddenly ditch our every bad habit and arise from the ashes of our previous failures like a glorious, slender, beautiful, healthy, mindful, balanced pheonix?  I've lived through enough Januaries now to know that it NEVER happens and, also, that the darkest, wettest, coldest more miserable time of you is probably the period in which you are least likely to succeed in instituting lasting changes.

With regards to weight loss, I long ago tried to ditch the "I want to weigh xxx by yyy" because, well, that way certain madness lies.  And it most definitely has improved my general relationship with food such that I have managed to end the last two years lighter than when I began them, which is progress in the right direction. 

My experience trying WW Flex last year was a really positive one.  I lost weight and felt like I was eating really well.  But after a couple of months, the old itchiness started creeping back in.  I started resenting the constant measuring and tracking and starting yearning for all those things that just didn't fit naturally into the programme.

Previous to that, I managed to lose weight successfully, and keep it off, using intermittent fasting and here, too, I see many benefits.  You get all the unpleasantness out of the way across two days and the rest of the time you learn to practice moderation.  And you really do - no longer are you stuffing in a full size pizza because "diet starts tomorrow".  But the fast days were really, really hard - I'm horrible to be around when my blood sugar gets too low - and increasingly I was making excuses to skip one or both fasts a week.  Which means you're then just eating normally all the time - which is fine if you're maintaining but not if you have weight to lose.

It strikes me that by combining the two I might be on to a winner.  One fast day a week - not fun, sure, but doable.  To counter: one "day off" built into the week: a day to cook that roast pork belly recipe that won't fit in to your daily points, or get that takeaway or eat that doughnut.  Five days a week of counting.  Maybe four - if I can get away with a day and a half "off" (generally Friday evening and Saturday) and still lose a pound a week, I'd be perfectly happy.

So that's the long term plan.  But, for now, I'm using January to lay the groundwork.  I'm not back to pointing yet but I have instituted the one day a week fasting.  For the rest, I'm concentrating on getting back to eating in a regular, moderate way after the madness that is the latter half of December.  Snacks are out, midweek drinkies are definitely out (alcohol reserved for weekends only).  Plenty of vegetable based meals.  A proper routine at bedtime and in the morning to get my sleep sorted out.  More steps daily, even if it just means getting of the bus a stop early.  Little, healthy habits.  It's not dramatic or exciting but I think, from now, on I'm treating January as less of a fresh start and more of a gentle transition.

2018 - the year in review

As with most years, 2018 was like the curate’s egg – good in places.  For the most part, it involved a lot of keeping on keeping on.  Work ramped up and became considerably more stressful in the latter few months for various reasons beyond my control – bad.  I struggled a bit with my continuing digestive issues which began to have an impact on my mental health – tedious beyond belief for all concerned.  But there were no big upsets, or dramas or traumas – good.  We had a couple of lovely trips away, including a few days in a little shepherd’s hut in York which I never got around to detailing on here – excellent.  Yet again, I have managed to end the year lighter than when I started it, mainly thanks to a successful re-acquaintance with WW back in the summer.  That may have trailed off a bit of late but I am keen to get stuck back into it now we are emerging from the month of December, when somehow it becomes normal to eat mince pies for breakfast.

Dishes of the year is a tough one to call.  We went back to Raby Hunt and loved it every bit as much the second time around but given that many of the dishes were almost exactly the same as the ones that we had eaten previously, I don’t feel quite right to hand over another coveted trophy to them. 

An early contender was most definitely the stunning duck dish that we had at Joro in Sheffield.  We liked it so much that we recreated it at home for our Easter Sunday lunch, and I am not convinced that our version wasn’t even better!


The duck at Joro

The duck chez nous

But, to be honest, the thing that still stands out for me is this little fellow.

Pizza, Jim, but not as we know it

This was the scallop sashimi, spring truffle and togarashi spice “pizza” that we ate in Skosh back in June.  As mentioned above, I never really got around to talking about our York trip in much detail but we were lucky enough to eat some wonderful food and this dish was just head, shoulders and upper chest above pretty much everything else we’ve eaten this year.  Put it this way: we liked it so much that we immediately ordered a second one.  It sounds weird, it sounds like everyone’s idea of badly done “fusion” but the combination of flavours, the delicately balanced marriage of the sea and the forest floor, was absolutely sublime.  Skosh changes the menu pretty regularly, so I doubt I’ll ever get to have it again.

Dessert of the year came in the closing moments, and it may sound ridiculous when we’ve eaten at some truly wonderful venues, including Il Ridotto in Venice where we were served the most glorious, challenging pudding combination of truffle, ginger and pumpkin which was as strange and wonderful as it sounds.  Yet nothing can compare to the dessert that D made me for my birthday this year – the sticky toffee parkin.  A mash-up of the traditional sticky toffee pudding and the Yorkshire parkin.  I have the recipe and I will be blogging it shortly.  If you like sweetness and spice then you will adore this, I promise.

Sticky toffee parkin

And an honourable mention to the Guinness cake that I ate during my first visit to the Rusty Shears.  The thought of this still makes me smile.

More icing than cake

At home, we’ve been dousing everything with sriracha and coriander and green chilli chutney – sometimes both at the same time.  My palate is becoming better and better at tolerating heat and I’m really beginning to learn how, like a pinch of salt or a drop of acidity, it can really bring cooking to life.  If I was going to commend one recipe to your attention this year it would be the chutney / sauce / salsa / whatever because it is such a good fridge staple.  I can think of few savoury dishes that would not be enhanced with a hefty splodge of this stuff.

As ever, I’d like to thank everyone who pops by and reads my little blog.  I still enjoy writing it after all these years, as a chronicle of adventures both at home in the kitchen and further afield.  And while it may not be a diet blog per se, it still stands as testament to the fact that I will never quite give up on trying to nudge the scales down to unremarkable levels. 

To all of you I wish a very happy New Year and here is to great things for all of us in 2019.

Post Christmas blue(berry scone)s

Seasons greetings to all! We are now in the period of the year where, if your household is anything like ours, you will be barely moving apart from the well trodden path between the sofa and the kitchen. Secretly, you will already be planning the health kick to end all health kicks on which you plan to embark at one minute past midnight on January 1st. And then you remember that you’ll have a fridge full of NYE leftovers at that point so best hold off until you return to work.

Today is my birthday. Most of the year, I dislike having a birthday so close to Christmas but, I must admit, there is something nice about having an event to look forward to post Boxing Day if only to punctuate the naps. I woke to the smell of blueberry scones in the oven - there are few better smells than home baking and, I might almost suggest that it beats the more commonly evoked scent of bacon frying into second place. But I digress. Behold these beauties which were sweet and buttery and perfect with a cup of tea. They were an almost exact replica of the old Starbucks berry scones that I used to adore back in the day and which the bastards saw fit to stop producing (in the U.K. at least).

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Christmas dinner? Our duck legs were as delicious as ever (I don’t really understand why we only tend to cook them once a year). And D’s last minute brainwave of making shredded duck and black pudding bonbons, very lightly flavoured with Chinese five spice, was a genius addition.

We were due to spend Boxing Day eating a Christmas dinner proper with my parents. And, indeed, D managed it. But I took to bed mid afternoon with a stomach like a washing machine - a potent combo of my gnarly digestive system in uproar about the surfeit of rich food and drink that I had dared to subject it to, and that wonderful monthly visitor that makes it such a pleasure to be female. I am rather sad about this, although 24 hours of barely eating seems to have calmed things down slightly and my Mum did package up some turkey and sausage-meat for me to enjoy a traditional post-Christmas sandwich. Hopefully, it will be sorted out early in the New Year (the gnarly digestive system rather than the being female bit) at which point I might buy a turkey breast and offer to cook them a not-Christmas dinner in recompense.

That aside, it has been a lovely festive season and I have once again been reminded of how lucky and blessed I am. A blog is a funny thing - even one which is ostensibly about dieting and food will often come to be treated as a sort of confessional and that means the focus here might be skewed towards the less positive aspects of my life. This year, like all years, has brought its issues and struggles but also its gifts and it will be the memory of these latter that will endure.

Chips, cheese, chips and cheese

Heavy snow at the end of last week meant that we were slightly worried about the journey up to Mull. Luckily, the roads were clear but we were treated to stunning views like this:

It's been grey skies and rain for most of our time here; fortunately we don't come to Scotland for the weather. And, at last, this morning we have been treated to the clearest of blue skies and an island awash with winter sunshine.

As I mentioned in my last post, not much is open here. And the places that are open are offering somewhat limited menus. Which means for the last week we have basically been eating things accompanied by chips or covered with cheese.

On one occasion I ordered a macaroni cheese and it came WITH CHIPS. Just...why? Actually, the real question is why did I eat most of them...

I think it's safe to say that the 2.4 lbs I lost during the first two weeks of the year will be back on Monday and they may be bringing a couple of friends with them. Ah well. It's been a lovely, relaxing break but I am well and truly stodged out which means that I am positively looking forward to a couple of days of fasting next week (remind me of that when I'm drooping and moaning on Monday!)

Foggy Friday

Bloody hell, another week as positively whizzed by and we're already nearly half way through January!  Out first week of fasting yielded me a pound loss (hurrah!) and D a magnificent 3.8 pounds.  He's being quite strict on non-fast days as well, so the result was hard earned and well deserved.

All has been quiet chez nous; I've practically been hibernating since the start of the year and I have no intention of doing very much this weekend either.  There are books to read and films to watch and cats to cuddle and cups of tea to be consumed and very content with that I am too.  However, we are rousing ourselves at the end of next week and decamping to Mull for a week.  A week which we will probably spend mostly reading, watching films and drinking tea, just in a different environment and without the cat. 

It turns out that lots of things shut on Mull in January.  Actually, in other parts of Scotland too, since we are stopping off in Ecclefechan (home of the famous and delicious Tart) and planned to visit a famous Scottish person's birthplace which is situated there, only to have our intentions frustrated by out of season opening hours.  So we're going to Gretna Green instead because I've never been and it's on the way. 

If you're still ploughing through the remains of the Christmas turkey, I've got a marvellous recipe to share which post I will schedule now while I am thinking about it.  If you're not, how go your New Year Eatings? 

Have a lovely weekend all. 

The first meal plan of 2018

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! I do hope that you had a lovely time and are ready for a fabulous 2018. I myself have spent much of the day dozing over an Agatha Christie novel - starting as I mean to go on, you see.

We are all sorted for a meal plan this week and, indeed, are starting as we mean to go on by including some new recipes from a new recipe book on Saturday. We're aiming to cook at least one new dish a week this year.

Fasting is back on the menu as well and, to be completely honest, I'm almost looking forward to it. The first one in particular will no doubt be tough but my system feels a bit overwhelmed at the moment after a couple of weeks of profligate consumption. I'm keen to give it a bit of a break. Lunches on non fast days will be kept light and simple and veggie packed and, hopefully, once I'm back in routine, normal digestive service will be resumed (ahem).

Monday: we're neither of us inclined to do much today so it will be a few M&S nibbles from the freezer and some cheese and biscuits. I did mention something about baking bread but I'm hoping that oatcakes will suffice since I really can't be arsed.

Tuesday: fast day - soup

Wednesday: some midweek vibrancy courtesy of one of our favourites - salmon with pasta pesto. The pasta will be packed full of courgettes and peas to boost the green quota.

Thursday: fast day - soup

Friday: D is out and, at the moment, scrambled egg on toast is looking like my top choice for a solitary supper.

Saturday: a Chinese fakeaway, and, an opportunity to cook from one of the new additions to the household library - Fuschia Dunlop's "Every Grain of Rice". We'll be having smacked cucumber in garlicky sauce followed by chicken thighs with black beans and steamed rice.

Sunday: the rest of the chicken thighs will be roasted up and served with mashed potatoes and a selection of veg - so sort of a roast dinner. I'm seriously considering making Sophie Grigson's delicious sprout gratin as a side dish, not having had any Brussels so far this year. Although I am not sure that cream, bacon and cheese fits in with my current yen for all things ascetic.

Return to the Black Swan at Oldstead

Happy (nearly) New Year! Hopefully everyone out there on tinternet had a wonderful Christmas and is looking forward to seeing out 2017. It's been a good year for us - we finally bought our house, we installed the log burning stove that we've always talked about, work has been challenging but rewarding, D got a much deserved promotion and, most importantly, we've eaten some AMAZING food. So much so that I'm going to do an entirely separate post about my top dishes.

But first, I just had to tell you about my birthday meal. I'm a Christmas baby, and a couple of days ago, I donned a blindfold (well, a scarf over my head) and was whisked off by my beloved on a surprise Birthday Adventure. And it really was a surprise, because the destination turned out to be the Black Swan at Oldstead, a restaurant we visited earlier this year.

Poor old D. We've had numerous conversations about our favourite restaurant experiences of 2017 and apparently I had said, on more than one occasion that the Black Swan wouldn't be my priority to revisit. Which is not to say at all that I didn't like it, just that I'd not found all the dishes to be entirely to my taste. I think that he was a bit worried as to how his choice of destination would be received - but, as he explained, many places close over Christmas, and a good meal in a nice, localish venue with attached rooms had been tricky for him to locate.

As it turns out, we were bowled over by our second visit. The service was as charming as before, the restaurant as pleasant to sit in and the food, well, the food was absolutely fantastic. I'm not sure what had changed - whether it was just that this selection of dishes just happened to suit me better, which, when you only serve a tasting menu is bound to happen - but, for me, the stars aligned and I really started to appreciate the genius of chef Tommy Banks.

Undoubted dish of the night was a scallop with fermented celeriac. It was an absolute triumph of balance - sweet scallop, earthy and sour notes from the fermentation, an underlying rich creaminess from an ethereal celeriac purée and a hit of fragrance from the vivid dill oil. I've really fallen out of love with scallop dishes recently, but this one was perfect.

The main course, again, was all about balance and the harmonious coming together of a rich velvety piece of venison and a sweet-sour sloe ketchup. The sauce alone had a medicinal quality that made it slightly odd on the palate but as soon as it was paired with meat and the dark iron of cabbage everything made perfect sense.

And a blackened apple tarte Tatin with rye ice cream - oh my lord. Buttery, sweet, salty, sharp, savoury - every element came together, contributing to a perfectly fabulous mouthful of a dessert that was both familiar and very, very new.

When I first wrote about The Black Swan I said watch this space. Now, I say go to this space and marvel at the quality of the cooking emerging from this most modern of kitchens. A fabulous way to end a fabulous year of dining out.

2017: and so it begins

Happy new year lovely blog readers! Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I basically decided to do the square root of FA over the Christmas period and very nice and indulgent it was too. We ate, drank and were generally merry for most of the time. I turned another year older, which briefly curtailed the merriment as I reflected on the fact that I am now ANCIENT. But I got a lot of lovely presents, which eased the pain.

Some of said presents were very much on a theme of food so I think warrant a mention here. D, who is an awesome giver of gifts, has booked me on to a one day artisan bread making course at Betty's Cookery School in Harrogate – that made me squee quite a lot. D2 (my brother) presented me with a leg of Serrano ham, complete with stand, which is currently sat on our dining table taunting us every time we walk past. He also gave me a sack of goodies which contains everything I need in order to cook Korean food. Expect a report back on my adventures in Kimchee making shortly, I’ve been meaning to try for ages and now have no excuse!

Of course, after the indulgence comes the encounter with the Scales of Doom (TM Peridot). I hopped on gloomily on Monday morning and was up 3.4lbs from my last weigh in. A bit of an ouch, but considering said last weigh in took place on a Thursday in mid-December just after a fast day, it could have been a lot worse. Two and a half weeks of indulgence in exchange for a quarter of a stone isn’t the end of the world.

Now here we are on Thursday and D and I have completed our two fast days for the week (Monday and Wednesday). They were not easy, I’ll be honest. In fact, I spent a good chunk of Monday asleep to try and distract from the misery (the advantage of fasting on a Bank Holiday). But, as of this morning, the scales have dropped a whopping 4.2lbs. I don’t expect to maintain the whole of that loss over the weekend, but seeing that quick fall has really inspired me to try and be sensible during the coming non-fast days. I think this is one diet plan where daily weighing might be a help rather than a hindrance.

Anyway, the truth will out come next Monday. In the meantime, I hope that all of you have a fab start to 2017 and look forward to sharing another year’s worth of eating, dieting, cat-stroking and general, all-purpose bimbling with you.

Woo to the hoo

Today was my first weigh in of 2016.

I like to weigh in on a Thursday.  It's far enough away from last weekend that you've had the chance to reverse any gain but it also allows you to get a low day under your (capacious) belt before launching into next weekend.

In order to give myself a starting point, I gritted my teeth and weighed myself last Thursday.  Which, if you'll recall was New Years' Eve.  I then proceeded to have an extremely indulgent lunch and an evening of profligacy (turns out that my brother makes a very good chocolate salted caramel tart and that I like Parma Violets when they are in cocktail form).

Still, I started tracking on Monday which clearly sent my body into a profound state of shock since I stand before you delighted to report a 2.6 lb loss on last week.  It's a start!

Loss / (gain) this week: 2.6 lbs
Loss / (gain) in 2016: 2.6 lbs

I (do not) heart January

Very January-ish

What I would like to know is who the hell decided that the New Year should start in January?  January is the very, very worst month.  It’s grey and damp and dark and cold and there isn’t a single Bank Holiday on the horizon until Easter.  It is a time of year when no one wants to be getting all gung-ho about healthy eating plans and exercise regimes and productivity goals.  They want to be eating Toblerone on the sofa while catching up on The Bridge or reading their way through the pile of paperbacks that they got for Christmas. 

Just me?  Really?

I want to make 2016 a good year, I really do, but I also want it to start in kind of mid March / April time, when the weather is improving and it is not dark ALL THE TIME and I can remember what it feels like to go out and not have to worry about my hair frizzing up in the damp. 

Still, they don’t let the likes of me decide the calendar.  And so, to tackle January head on.  Yesterday, being the first day back to school was the first day when I actually troubled myself to count points.  I have, for the time being at least, broken away from the official Weight Watchers fold and decided to stick with their (now obsolete) pro points plan, which I have always found works well for me.  If this becomes too difficult then, obviously, I’ll have a rethink.  But thinking, specifically, is what I DON’T want to have to do too much of at the moment, so the devil I know is the preferred option.

Being no longer bound by the Rules of the Gods of WW, I found that I got to the end of the day with 10 points leftover but still, I stopped eating.  WW decrees that you MUST eat ALL your daily points every day or your body will enter STARVATION MODE.  Frankly, after the amount of calories I’ve consumed over the last couple of weeks, I imagine that my system was relieved to have an ease up.  I don’t intend to make a habit of it, but neither do I think it will do significant harm every now and then.  And I woke up this morning actually feeling hungry, which was nice for a change.

I’m not going to set any lofty goals for 2016.  I think, in general, to aim to have more good days than bad is enough.  I would also like to end it lighter and fitter than when I started.  But I would also like to end it richer and happier and cleverer and…with better hair.  I just need to get through January first.

Foodie at home: the best of 2015

Being a terribly sad spreadsheet obsessive, I keep a record during the year of our evening meals. Not all of them, just the ones that we would be happy to repeat.  I also note how many times that particular dish is cooked so that I can measure the popularity.  I've been doing this on and off since midway through 2012.  I probably need to get out more.

Anyway, it does mean that come the end of the year I am well equipped to reflect upon what we have been cooking (and eating).  Which is lucky for the purposes of this post.

As ever, our most consumed dish is the ubiquitous pan fried salmon fillet with pasta pesto.  which we have had seven times this year.  I don't know what it is about this particular combination of flavours that we love so much but it is a household staple.  The pesto is out of a jar, making this incredibly quick and simple to throw together.  Often, we stir ribbons of courgette and a handful of peas through the pasta for added green.  I don't think that I will ever get tired of eating this.

We try and have a roast dinner at least every other Sunday, and 2015 was the year of the roast lemongrass and turmeric chicken from Diana Henry's stunning "A Bird in Hand".  This recipe is all kinds of tasty.  And, as an accompanying side dish, my coronation rice salad works perfectly.  I'm so proud of that recipe - it definitely surpasses the original supermarket version that inspired it in the first place.

Continuing on a theme of spice, 2015 was the year when D created the masala spiced fish finger sandwich as an anniversary meal which I absolutely loved.  A good sandwich is a thing of beauty and a joy forever and this one was superlative.

Another innovation for 2015 was to institute "Sunday breakfast" as a way to extend our early morning fare beyond bacon sandwiches.  We've had some gorgeous dishes so far, but my favourite is probably the bhurji pau - spicy scrambled eggs.  I owe Babu Street Kitchen a debt of gratitude for opening our eyes to the possibility of spice at breakfast time.

From India to Italy - and one of my ingredients of the year (I banged on about it enough) has to be the 'nduja sausage that I bought from The Ham and Cheese Company.  Oh, but I love this stuff.  I've got lots of ideas for introducing it into different recipes, but to be honest, you probably will never better just spreading it thinly on toast, drizzling with a little olive oil and flashing it under a piping hot grill to melt slightly.

Talking of toast, I think that this year I might finally have conquered my fear of bread making.  Certainly, I have become distinctly more proficient and my confidence continues to grow.  The satisfaction of eating freshly baked bread, warm from the oven, is immense.  I don't have a huge repertoire as of yet but this Hairy Bikers' recipe for a rustic Spanish loaf is definitely a current household favourite.  I might have to write that up over here actually, as recipes on the BBC website have a nasty little habit of disappearing.

And finally, there was very little in the way of Weight Watching this year and nowhere is this more evidenced than by this remarkable dessert that we made at Easter - hot cross bun pudding with salted caramel.  We served it with a stollen flavoured ice cream, but it would be just as good drowned in cream.

Here's to more good cooking and eating in 2016!

Foodie Abroad: the best of 2015

This year we were lucky enough to go to not one but two 2* Michelin restaurants.  While Michelin is certainly not the be all and end all, two stars still means something – generally seriously good food and service as slick as a dolphin’s tummy. 

But there were delights to be had all over the place at every price point.  2015 was the year we inaugurated the CNO (Cheap Night Out) in Leeds – and although we tailed off a bit in the last few months that is definitely a habit we are going to get back to next year.  Leeds has an embarassment of riches when it comes to fabulous little independent joints producing top class dishes.  And not just Leeds – we also experienced some fantastic food in Harrogate which is the merest hop, skip and jump away.

Our annual trip to the West of Scotland was as wonderful as ever and full of good eating experiences, from city to shore.  We also experienced the delights of Nottingham (although I’m still bitter that D wouldn’t let me visit the kitty café) and the truly majestic fish and chips of the Magpie in Whitby. 

But what were the highlights?  The dishes that made our eyes roll back in our heads, the places that made us feel all warm and fuzzy?  Read on, dear friend.

The Geri Halliwell award for “Spicing up our Lives” goes to…Babu Bombay Street Kitchen in Glasgow.  We only went there for breakfast but it inspired two – two! – recipes when we got home, as we realised that life would never be complete without bhurji pau in it.  We’re planning to go back next year and check out the lunch menu.  Honourable mention to Tharavadu for a Keralan sea bass dish that I would eat every week if I could.

The Augustus Gloop award for “Pudding of the Year” goes to…the strawberry cheesecake at Norse, Harrogate.  Fairy light but packing a serious flavour punch – this was truly skilled cooking and a sublime eating experience.  Honourable mention to Restarant Sat Bains for producing what was, essentially, an ur-Aero.  An Aero to transcend all others. 

The Jeeves award for “Sublime Service” has to go to Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons, and to one waitress in particular who spent the entire meal gently ripping the piss out of D.  He loved it.  It goes to show that the mark of truly fantastic waiting staff is to understand your customer and tailor their experience accordingly.  Oh, and also to bring along extra marshmallows for the entire table.

The Bruce-Willis-in-the-Sixth-Sense award for “Plate of food that causes the Jaw to Drop”…now, this was a tough one.  But in the end, I had to go for the kohlrabi tagliatelle with pesto at Restaurant Sat Bains.  It was a prime example of a dish that sounded humble but tasted anything but.  It was the highlight of a truly awesome meal that included the bread of the Gods and frozen chicken livers.  And it was vegetarian.

All in all, an excellent year with the promise of more good stuff to come in 2016.  I can’t wait!

Leftovers

Our Christmas was pretty quiet which, after a trying end to the year, was exactly required.  There were several days where I didn't make it out of my pyjamas.  Unrivalled sloth, that's me.  My birthday falls on the 28th December and, as I said to D, you couldn't have designed a more perfect day if you'd tried - I got up late, had my favourite breakfast washed down with stiff mimosas, then went for a nap (drinking in the daytime makes me sleepy), then watched a couple of films, then ate my favourite dinner, then went to bed.  Not for nothing is my nickname based on Enid Blyton's Sleepy Sloo.

As ever, a big part of the celebrations was the food and we had some unparalleled successes this year, including a sublime Christmas pudding ice cream on the day itself, and a majestic rib of beef at my parents' house on New Year's Eve.  But some of the very nicest things were those meals that were thrown together from the leftovers.

I'm considering buying a turkey breast joint soon just so that D can make another turkey curry.  This was a thing of serious beauty: the meat simmered alongside cubes of potatoes in coconut milk, a splash of cream and mild spices.  We ate little else for two days running.

Traditional Boxing Day sandwiches were a highlight:

Turkey, gammon, sausage meat, strong Cheddar, lettuce, cucumber and a generous swipe of mayo.  We didn't even have turkey on Christmas Day - we just cooked one so I could construct this beast of a thing.  Excuse the photo by the way - bad even by the standards of this blog - this was taken quickly just so I could send it to my Mum.  Who immediately responded with "Wow, that is a sandwich".

Speaking (sort of) of gammon, one lunchtime D constructed little ham hash cakes, fried until crispy and topped with a perfectly poached egg:

A perfect brunch dish.

And as a final hurrah, a couple of weeks ago we used the last of our Christmas cheese to make a tartiflette, that classic apres-ski dish.  If you haven't, y'know, actually been skiing this is almost (almost!) too rich, but with a hefty spoonful of sauerkraut on the side we powered through and D has already requested a repeat performance.  This Hairy Bikers' recipe is a close approximation of the one I used - highly recommended, but go for a good long walk beforehand.  And, possibly, afterwards.