currently watching Come Dine with Me, which is in Northampton this week. Unfortunately tonight’s host is a bit irritating; but on the plus side he’s just selected his meat from Arthur Longland butcher in Northampton. I can verify, this is the best butcher ever with great proper job service and banter.
Good choice!
Was my turn to do cricket teas the other week and I found good inspiration in Good Food magazine which had a recipe for Scotch Egg Pasties in it. Well easy, and really nice – but take heed, they are extremely filling indeed!
Here’s one of the beauties:
ready roll shortcrust pastry
8 good quality sausages
6 spring onions
9 eggs
Roll out pastry and make 8 circles (around 13cm diameter). Squidge out sausage meat and mix in chopped spring onions. Spread over pastry circles leaving a gap at the edge. Boil 8 eggs for around 6 mins, then peel and cool. Place egg in centre of pastry sausage thing, wet edges and pull together to crimp into pasty shape. Beat final egg, brush pasties and chill for 30 mins. Wang in medium hot oven for 25 mins, eat warm with a bit of Brown sauce. Nomity Nom.
The other thing I’ve tried recently was a layered salad for the proms at Althorp on Saturday. Into a tupperware dish, scoop in 2×200g tubs of hummus, sprinkle on some chick peas, then put on some home-made tabbouleh (bulgar wheat, red onion, tomato, parsley, mint, dressed with lemon zest, juice and olive oil), followed by crumbled feta, black olives and ripped up romaine lettuce. Chill.
This was really lovely and am eating the left overs for lunch this week – it’s really tasty even a couple of days on. Yum-tastic!
Ever get the feeling that something is great, because it’s so bad?
I am an avid watcher of ‘MasterShout’ (AKA Master Chef) whenever I have evenings in; and I feel like this towards this brilliant but cringe-worthy programme. I love it, and hate it at the same time.
Greg and Jon’s attempt to out-do each other on piling as much food as possible on to their fork is at once gross but highly entertaining. Their proclamations that the show will “CHANGE THEIR LIFE” and that “COOKING DOESN’T GET TOUGHER THAN THIS” are ridiculous and sublimely brilliant. Greg’s near-orgasm at “EXCEPTIONAL” sugary puddings and Jon’s puppy-dog eyes at good looking women who cook crazy combinations are almost too much to bear.
Almost. But not enough to stop me watching.
It’s not so blurry for The Boy. He just hates it. Until I bring him a lovely PLATE OF FOOD for his dinner!!
Much to The Boy’s disgust, this week I have been watching cookery programmes in the evening, whilst waiting for my fake tan to dry (can’t move when fake tanned, so consigned to watch telly whilst holding arms out in air). I’ve taken in Nigella, Hugh and Jamie and here’s my thoughts on the three of them:
I hate her. She does good recipes, as evidenced by my Cherry+Chocolate pie I cooked from her ‘How to Eat’ book at the weekend. But the woman is a pain in the arse. Her smug face is made less tolerant by what comes out of her mouth. “Plumptious beauties” is not the way I would refer to cranberries. Plumptious isn’t even a word woman!! The Boy was driven to absolute distraction by her drivel, even wailing out at times because he couldn’t bear it any more. Recipes = good. Nigella = only good as form of torture for boys. I can’t bear to watch her again, with her ethnically balanced dinner table guests (production crew), her lickety lips and her overembellished wordage – she’s like Russell Brand on that front, but with better hair and fatter hips.
I like Hugh. I’ve always liked his style of killing, cooking and eating. In his programme he shot venison which immediately got The Boy’s interest. I liked watching him butcher it up as well and exude delight that he could use the suet in his Chrimble pudding – which was a roly poly – what’s that all about? A good attempt to be different but not my idea of a Christmas pud, Hugh. Having said that, his staff at River Cottage looked like they were having a really good time, especially the mushrooming/vodka duo who took delight in winding each other up. Boy and I agreed that Hugh would be a good boss, we reckon, although I would have permanent envy of his veg patch.
Jamie was on last night and this was my last fake-tan-cooking-programme combo. I like Jamie, a friend bought me his cookbook and I’ve done loads from it – it’s my kinda food. The Jerk ham he did looked really fantastic and something I’d like to try, and the turkey and leek pie? I was saying out loud that I wanted to eat it now and Jamie said in the next instance “You wanna eat that, don’t ya?”. I also liked the addition of the slightly bonkers Italian man – he looked familiar but I couldn’t think who he was, but the combo of him and Jamie worked. Despite this positivity, Jamie still irks with me as he’s another one who makes up words which don’t exist, in the hope of making his food sound more delectable.
Hugh’s the winner for me.
Oh, and the fake tan worked out well – streak free. I am now what I consider to be a plumptious beauty.
With apologies to my mate Rob, who’s fed up of diets, I can’t help but write about fighting the flab as I’ve come over all motivated today. Hoorah!
I recently had 2 weeks off work which resulted in my fitness regime crumbling, my fruit intake nosediving and my alcohol consumption rocketing. It’s sad that a bit of free time puts all my previous work to pot, but now that the normal service of a 9-5.30 job and meal times at regular hours has returned I feel I should be able to get back on track with B2B beautifying preparation (D-Day minus 11 months you see). I also see the rugby season fast approaching and need some serious fitness work, having been out of the game for 10 months.
This morning I made a good start by managing to drag myself out of bed and into the gym (yawning, unattractively) by 0725. A sleepy warm up on the bike was followed by some strength work, trampette running (harder than it sounds) and bounding/agility running to get the dodgy knee going. I’ve also (foolishly) agreed to go along to a Body Pump class tonight with some girls from work. I was looking forward to it until I found out they do 3 minutes (three. Three!) of sit ups with weights at the end of the class. I might actually be sick.
Anyway, on the foodage front, as if psychic, a matey of mine emailed today and is also keen to have a bit of a blitz on the bod so we’re becoming Body Blitz Buddies. Ideal. I’m rubbish at self-motivation where not eating is concerned and especially where pear cider is concerned, so a like minded lady who I can share progress (or disasters) with will really help I hope. We’re already on track – tonight is measure yourself and get a food diary night and we’re both out on Thursday for beer and curry, so already planning what low cal options will be best at the restaurant.
I’ve done Weight Watchers in the past and had great success at the time (which was boosted by being dumped and only eating maltesers, sparingly, for four days) – but over time I’ve slipped a bit I must admit. I don’t want to get back to my depths-of-misery-lovelorn skinny minny look, but a few pounds off and a slightly trimmer waist (and ribcage?) would be welcome.
So, here goes. Won’t bore you with my progress and food diary entries, but wish me luck…
Aaaah. Just returning to blogging after a week away and off-line in Cornwall. To fill the gap left by my ever present computer screen and to cheer ourselves up after lashings of rain, The Boy and I treated ourselves to some fine dining whilst down there.
First up was the famous Rick Stein Seafood Restaurant in Padstow. We waited rather a while at the door to get noticed but once we were we were shown straight through to our wee table for 2. They pack them in a bit at this place but actually we were more than happy with our table. Namely because, as I sat down, I spied none other than I.T.Botham sitting across from us with his family.
A proper sporting legend within yards of us was at least as exciting as the menu choices on offer from Stein and it was made all the more exciting when Rick himself showed up to share some seafood chat with Beefy. Back to the food though, we decided against the a la carte and went for the convenient ‘tasting’ menu which comprised of 6 courses, aimed at those wanting a wee bit of lots of things – ideal for us. The best course was the sea bass with hollandaise and samphire. Samphire was new to us two but we liked it – actually I really loved it, it’s a strange flavour but quite lush with some white fish. The lobster and John Dory courses were also good in my view but the crab and ginger broth was a bit too fiery IMHO. Choccy pud to finish was lovely, although a bit more goo would have been nice. All in all though, there wasn’t a lot to fault here, although the Boy concluded, “if that’s the best that fish gets, I stand by my view that you can’t beat meat”. Refined, he is not. But at least he knows what he likes.
Furtive glances to Botham throughout the meal didn’t detract from what was probably the best fish dishes i’ve eaten, in a lovely setting. Although I was perturbed to see someone ask for the man’s autograph when he was clearly on hols with his family – rude.
Moving on to feast number 2, a gang of us visited Odds-The Restaurant in Cubert on our last night and wow, did this place blow us away. It’s nothing to look at at ground level but a level down, carved into the hill, is a lovely little restaurant with fantastic views across the hills to the sea. We were pleased to find we were chatting to the owner of the restaurant, Adam Coad, whilst he served us drinks and we took the chance to ask more about the background to the restaurant and the attached farm from which much of the meat comes.
The meal began well with pigeon with beetroot carpaccio for me. I’ve never had pigeon before but if it always tastes as this dish did, I’ll happily wolf it again – it was simply LUSH.
pigeon at Odds. Yum
Moving on to the main, I chose Cornish duck which was cooked beautifully – again, probably the best duck I’ve ever eaten. I don’t know who their chef is, but he’s a keeper! The Boy had pork loin and belly and OMG, I tasted some belly and it was like eating caramel – utterly gooey, sticky and slightly sweet. delicious. The other 2 eaters had a beef dish and a veggie option of Aubergine and goats cheese tian – and we were all making similar ‘mmmm’ noises throughout.
With such a high standard of food, we had to delve into the puddings – I chose a cheese platter which sounds boring but came with home made oat biccies and a spiced pear which was a lovely touch. One of the eaters had a chocolate fondant and we all witnessed the gooey lushnuss emerging as his fork went in. Perfecto!! Boozy coffees ensued until we were completely sated and the last group left in there.
Despite a small glitch with the bill you really couldn’t fault the service at this place either – it was friendly and unpretentious. And Odds proved good value too, with my duck main £20. A bargain for what it was. With only a year under its belt I get the feeling this place will be going up and up in food rankings and develop quite a name for itself -I’m just glad I’ve been there in its early days whilst it’s still got seats available! (no sightings of Beefy there yet…)
Hmmmm. I always knew this weekend would be tricky, but my detox diet has been completely submerged by a tide of beer, pastry, cakes and gin. Whoops.
First off, it was my turn to do the Boy’s cricket tea for Saturday’s game. Now, I am competitive in everything I do – including baking. So, Friday night was spent at the oven producing fresh pasties, two cakes (which didn’t rise to my expectations, quite literally) and the piece de resistance – a home made gala pie. I knew that the one way I could smash every other WAG’s cricket tea effort out of the water would be to produce this pork and egg combo. I think I did well – check it out:
And here’s the inside:
I’m not generally a fan of recipes involving lard, but this one worked for me. After a bit of stress about the pastry holding up, it all turned out pretty damn well. I reckon I have this year’s cricket tea top marks in the bag. Result!
As you’d expect, my detox was compromised by the need to taste test some of the cricket tea – any cook work their salt does this, for sure. So that was Friday gone.
Saturday was no better, in fact it was a lot worse – owing to a hen bash. A rugby girl’s hen do is bound to be messy, so I was psyched up for beer drinking. A light soup at lunch was a good option, I thought – until I then started drinking and realised there wasn’t enough stodge in my belly to compensate for the beers. I carried on regardless and found myself, three beers and three gins later, on the waltzer at the fair next door to the rugby club. Really, not a good move. Didn’t mix well. Bad times.
After a big trough, I decided to plough on through – which meant eating lots of burgers and crisps. The second wind came along and I partied on until the early hours. Again, not a good option diet wise in terms of beer and burgers, but needs must. An almighty hangover yesterday meant I had to keep eating grease (it’s the only thing that works for me) – so it was crisps, egg butties and peanut butter on toast all day. So, detox is definitely shot to bits, it’s fair to say.
This morning I was full of good intention, starting with high-fibre cereal. I packed up loads of fresh fruit and a healthy prawn sandwich for lunch. But, I’ve just sat at my desk and realised I’ve left my lush packed lunch on the front door step (the handy place to put stuff on your way out the door) – boo it. I’m not back till late tonight so will find a whiffy fish sarnie growing ever more rancid on my return. Oh well. I will have to try and seek out some healthy stuff from the canteen…but I’m not holding out much hope.
