Mary Berry's Crab and Sweetcorn Soup

Next on the list of things-I-have-to-use-up-before-next-Tuesday-because-I'll-never cook-with-it-again was a tin of crab meat.  I bought it months ago with the intention of making Leith's Chilli Crab Noodles one night when I needed a store cupboard meal.  That was about eight months ago.  Obviously being tinned, it wasn't too much of a trauma and it didn't take up much space.  But it was sitting there looking too much like a spare can of tuna and it had to go before I decided I wanted a tuna jacket, only to find that all I had was crab meat.

I'd eaten crab a sum total of once before in my life.  That was 25 years ago and then it was only the tiniest morsel as I found it too 'sweet'.  We were on a family trip to Cancale in France - it's a haven of seafood that I'd love to visit now I'm older and would appreciate a plate of fresh-off-the-boat Fruits de Mer but back then all I wanted to do was crack open everyone's langoustines and was then resolutely horrified at the French lady who sat on the side of an oyster bed, picking them out, shucking them and knocking them back like she was doing tequila shots.  It seemed both gross (I was 10) and barbaric at the same time.

The crab dish wasn't at all planned for today.  I had every intention of making Cathryn's savoury strudel from this week's bake off but stuff happened at work and I ended up being dragged along to a free lunchtime Mexican fiesta.  They say there's no such thing as a free lunch.  When you have to walk a mile down hill and then back up it in four inch heels, you certainly pay the price.  But it was worth it to spend time out in the fresh air and laugh at the management team who - replete with fake 'taches - looked like the band from the Doritos ad.

So the soup was the antithesis to the excess of mass cooked, watery fajitas and slightly chewy mystery meat tacos from lunch time.  Storecupboard fodder and simple enough to make when you're also juggling cooking a steak and mushroom ciabatta and fish fingers with Peppa Pig spaghetti.  As I was making it for one I used a whole tin of crab meat so it was much thicker and bulkier than it would have been for two.  The flavours were good although I added some chilli to give it a little heat and that worked really well.

The recipe I used came from my trusty Mary Berry's Complete Cook Book (the original version) but you can find it through this Google Books link.

River Cottage Swiss Style Muesli

Yet again I have to take umbrage with the Channel 4 food stylists. Take a look at the picture from their website below. I know it's not a close up, but I fail to see any sign of dried fruits, nuts and seeds being added to this mix. And unless HF-W uses the world's tiniest apples, I don't get how his muesli looks like a bowl of orange juice-soaked oats with a few seeds and a dollop of yogurt and yet mine is a vibrant, jewel-like bowlful?

What I like about this recipe is that you are told to pick your own mix of fruit, nuts and seeds. Whilst I know that as a grown up I'm fully entitled to exercise my right to adapt a recipe I like that HF-W isn't so presumptuous as to believe that everyone in the world likes hazelnuts and raisins in their muesli. I certainly don't. It also gives you the opportunity to use up all those end-of-packet odds and sods that so often clutter up the back of the cupboard.

Poor lighting + Instagram ruined the colours...

My mix ended up containing apricots, cherries, dates, apple and a few token sultanas (I am not a fan of dried grapes if they are not in a cake but I like to push my own boundaries just a smidgen every now and again). To this I added chopped almonds, pecans and pumpkin seeds, which I roasted for ten minutes, and a handful of pre-toasted coconut flakes.

I followed the serving method, grating in a Pink Lady into the bowl and add some fresh orange juice before giving it a stir and leaving it for ten minutes. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this bit. I'm not a fan of soggy cereal. I've been known to throw a bowl of cornflakes away after just two bites as they've gone to soggy from the milk. I'd much rather eat cereal straight from the box (a habit I'm no longer able to indulge now I'm married) or at a push I'll eat granola with yogurt. Which is how I'll eat the rest of this batch of rather tasty muesli.

Here's the recipe link

BBC Good Food Asian Steamed Fish with Shiitake Mushrooms and Noodles

There is definitely no such thing as a free lunch.  Where I work, the pork pies are one of the favourite features of a working lunch.  I'm really fussy when it comes to pork pies and will only eat them if they don't have jelly in them.  In some ways that's good because it stops me from eating them too often.  I only really like the pastry bit but when in polite company, it's not really the done thing to hoick out the pink (or more often grey) nugget of 'pork'* and scrape out the jelly bit.  But the work pork pies are pretty good.  Pink meat*.  Crusty-ish pastry.  No jelly.

So of course I had one.  Or a half anyway.  My boss kindly showed his chivalrous side and let me have the only diet Coke to make up for a less than healthy lunch.  But even that did little to negate the impact of my poor lunch options and my need for a consolatory Flake in the late afternoon.  Hence why I ended up with a super-healthy fish dinner tonight.

I wrote yesterday that I'm still having trouble letting go of the Olympic Food Challenge.  Three days on, and I was really tempted to do another foreign recipe, but I ended up saving the Chimmichurri Steak (inspired by our esteemed OFC Coach Ewan**) for tomorrow night and cooking a country-agnostic fish dish instead.

Overdid the veg - the fish and noodles are in there somewhere!

Having not quite managed to let go completely, this allowed me to make a second use of the steamer I bought to make Nepalese Chicken Momos for the OFC.  I need to embrace my steamer and make good use of it before it manages to disappear into the black hole that my tupperware dishes have fallen into.***

The dish is pretty simple in that you just pop everything into the steamer for ten minutes, and hey presto healthy, tasty, low fat dinner for one.  The downside is that it is a pretty expensive dish what with the mushrooms, ginger, chillis etc which you can generally only buy in multiples and not in quantities for one - so something that you would possibly only afford once in a while.  It does use Pollack however which is pretty cheap in the fish stakes (no pun intended!).

I still have my head very firmly buried in the sand about just how much I've spent in this past year buying food I wouldn't normally buy just to complete this 'challenge'.

That point has actually given me some inspiration for my future ramblings over on my new blog which will be coming online in October.  I'll also be doing a bit of guest blogging elsewhere - more on that shortly.  In the meantime, I'm thinking about how to best let go of this blog.  I'd like to do so with some input from the lovely people who've taken the time to read my blog.  At the moment, I've had just over 35,000 page views since started.  This has blown me away and so I feel I should draw a definite line at the end of the year and celebrate the finish.  So I'd like to invite anyone who has read this to ask me a question about the blog.  If you visit 'The Last Post' page and leave a comment then I'll do one final post after 26th September (day 366) where I'll answer them all.

PS In lieu of me posting a flag today, I'll leave you with this cartoon I pilfered from FaceAche on the subject of Tupperware.  This sums up my relationship with plastic boxes perfectly.

PPS: The recipe for the fish can be found here


*factory floor sweepings in most cases
**I stole the asterisk thing from Ewan as I use to many bracketed comments in my stream of nonsense (it's not quite a stream of conscience)
***the husband sneaks things he deems to be clutter into the bin when he thinks I've not used them recently and I might not notice they are missing.  I then end up buying new boxes to replace them.  He then throws them away so I buy more....you get the vicious circle...

Olympic Food Challenge: Mousse de Limão - Portugal

Yet another amazing day for Team GB.  Finally, Vicky Pendleton got the opportunity to shine and take gold.  More glory for the men's team sprint.  And sadly, I missed the lot as it's the Mothership's birthday and Olympics appears to be a dirty word in her house.  So much so that my step father keeps sneakily looking at the results on Teletext (or whatever the red button text service is now known as) with the same kind of furtiveness as an alcoholic taking sneaky sips from their stash of gin (he's a bit henpecked).

Summer on a plate

Still, Portugal were represented at tonight's birthday barbecue through a lovely lemon mousse from the fabulous Kerstin's Kitchen.  I met Kerstin through Twitter a while back.  She runs her own business, catering for dinner parties and selling amazing sounding home made products.  I so wish I lived closer to her so I could sample some of her wares.  Earlier in the week, we were tweeting about the OFC and she kindly sent me a couple of recipes to help me out.  The first being the aforementioned lemon mousse which was the perfect alternative to the calorie-laden, super-rich chocolate and coconut layer cake that I managed to rustle up as the star attraction.  I will write about the choc-coconut on my new blog which will be going live in October.

I was a little nervous about making a baked mousse - Kerstin likened it to a souffle, which is something I've managed to avoid making this year - but in all honesty, it was a complete doddle.  Whip up some eggs, flavour with lemon, pop in ramekins, bake et voila.  Fresh, light pudding.  I did have one small problem in that I appeared to lose my egg-separating capabilities and ended up wasting three (omelette anyone) by dropping a yolk into the whites and subsequently bursting it when I tried to carefully fish it back out.  But other than that, they rose beautifully and got rave reviews from my Uncle Jeffrey.

Because I'm still trying to be good, I forewent the cakeage too and was really pleased to have this light alternative.  After a rather meat-heavy meal, it was nice to have something sweet to cleanse the palate without feeling like my jeans were fit to burst with after a massive slice of cake.

Decorated with summer berries, this is really the perfect summer dinner party dessert and I will definitely be making this again when I want to impress.  The plus side is that you can also serve it hot or cold so you can make it ahead or eat it straight from the oven.  I would love to try lining the bottom of the ramekins with some homemade lemon curd, just to give it a little something else - but that will be a later experiment when I'm not trying to impress anyone other than myself.

Thank you so much Kerstin for the recipe and do please pop over to her website to take a look or if your on Twitter, give her a follow (@KerstinsKitchen).  She's a lovely lady to chat to.

As for Portugal, they've sent 77 athletes to London 2012 and are completing in 13 disciplines.  Rather sensibly, they too have avoided fielding anyone to compete in the track cycling.  Last time they were in London, they took a silver in Sailing and a Bronze in Equestrian. So far, they've failed to win any medals this time round, but who knows how they'll fare in week two?

If I was awarding a medal for the recipe, it would get a gold for showoffiness, ease of making and taste, however I'd award the gold to Kerstin rather than Portugal :o)

Olympic Food Challenge: Pollo Encebollado - El Salvador

What a fabulous day for Team GB!  Medals for Wiggo, Chris Froome, the rowing ladies and Michael Jamieson (and hopefully some others that I missed).

Unfortunately for El Salvador, they've never had an olympian make it to the podium for a medal of any colour - so London 2012 could be a first for them.  But with just ten athletes competing in seven disciplines, the odds are possibly stacked against them.

It's almost gold rather than silver

The smallest and most densely populated country in Central America, and situated in the Pacific Ring of Fire, El Salvador is home to some stunning scenery (thank you Interweb for sharing this with me) and diverse wildlife which includes many endangered species.  The food is heavily influenced by Mexican and Spanish cuisine.  This is where I came a little unstuck because yet again, I couldn't find Cassava or Plantain in the local supermarket here in Hicksville.  I'd also already tried and blogged about Horchata - a popular drink in El Salvador - courtesy of Wahaca: Mexican Cooking at home.

Eventually I happened across a recipe for Pollo Encebollado or Chicken Smothered with Onions.  It's commonly cooked in several Central American countries and I picked it because it was something that was simple to do on a work night and - I hoped - would be family friendly.

In a nutshell, it's just chicken simmered with onions, stock and wine.  Inoffensive, not spicy, just plain and tasty.  Of course, I wimped out and let the husband have his usual baked chicken with Uncle Ben's microwave rice and Miss A had scampi and plain boiled rice although she did share my chicken with me and declared it yummy.

It's something I'd definitely consider cooking again although it looks a little insipid on plain white rice - I'm sure the husband would be more likely to eat it if it came with a pile of sautéed potatoes.  I think this deserves a silver medal for the combination of ease and taste.  Well done, El Salvador.  Onwards to Guinea Bissau tomorrow!

You can find the recipe I used here.

Olympic Food Challenge: Jollof Rice - Nigeria

Nigeria have fifty-five competitors competing in eight disciplines at the London 2012 Olympics, hoping to break their 16 year gold-medal drought.  I learn so much about the world from Wikipedia.  Sir Tim Berners-Lee is continuing to help rectify the average secondary education that I had.  For that, and Twitter, I salute you sir.

As for the country, Nigeria is the 7th most populous country in the world and the most populous country in Africa with just over 166m inhabitants but is only the 32nd largest country in the world by land area.  Most importantly, the cuisine is colourful and vibrant with the typical West African spicing.  (Because it says so on Wikipedia, so it must be true).

Jollof is a rice-based dish, and the only reason I picked it was because I was amused by the claim on the website that it's a vegetarian breakfast dish.  I'm assuming that the author considers chicken eaten at breakfast to be quite alright within the confines of a vegetarian diet.

Vegetarian Jollof - with extra chicken

Whilst pondering this post, I Googled other recipes and was interested to see the variance in ingredients.  BBC Good Food has a recipe that adds bell peppers and Okra.  If you ask Wikipedia, it says that Jollof is a rice dish, cooked with tomatoes and spices which you can then add vegetables and meat or fish to.  It's a dish common throughout West Africa, but mine definitely came from a website stating it was the Nigerian version. 


It was a doddle to cook - pretty much like doing a paella but with less faff.  I was intrigued by the addition of Lea & Perrins.  I never would've thought that you could buy something like that in Nigeria - but I am happy to stand corrected.  The best bit was the slightly burnt bits from the bottom of the pan where the sauce 'caught' as the rice had absorbed all of the liquid.


We had it for tea because I couldn't face the idea of a chicken and rice dish for breakfast.  Miss A liked hers, although I'm sure she only ate so much because we bribed her with the promise of a summer pudding cupcake if she finished - we knew she wouldn't.  The husband was intrigued (he had Mary Berry's Chicken Tikka with Dan Lepard's Naans) because it looked just like red rice with Chicken - his Wednesday night staple.  Sadly he spotted it was packed with carrots, peas and French beans.  The closest he gets to a vegetable is when I put his sandwiches in the fridge behind a lettuce.  I enjoyed it and would definitely cook it again as a way of getting veg into the family.  I may just try some other veg like bell peppers in place of carrots and then the husband may just try some.


I think we have our first silver medal on this blog.


You can find the recipe I used here.  Vegetarians, beware!

Olympic Food Challenge: Toiyo and Paw Paw Salad - Solomon Islands

It's finally here.  Day one of @EwanMitchell's Olympic Food Challenge.  Despite having a good few months of notice that this day was coming, I still got caught napping, thinking that we were starting tomorrow.  So I got my knickers in a bit of a twist for only having enough ingredients to do one dinner, no time to shop on the way home tonight.  The dog ate my homework, Miss!  And all that jazz.

It's paw paw - not carrots.  Honestly!

I do have a list of recipes for my countries, neatly organised into an excel spreadsheet with links to the websites (I never made it to the library to look for books) and notes about accompanying dishes and anecdotes for the blog posts I'll be writing.  But I still haven't put them into an order.  The Ocado man is coming on Friday and I have no clue what to buy still.  Other than our usual staples.  Most of which don't fit in with the countries I've got on my list.

Nor have I solved the problem of where to buy cassava from (I really must check out the fresh section at Morrisons on Friday).  I have a feeling I'm going to have to improvise a lot.  As I did tonight in order to deliver my first dish.

The Solomon Islands are group of over 1,000 islands located to the east of Papua New Guinea.  Despite having heard of Guadalcanal before (in relation to WWII) I never new the islands existed before they popped up on my list.  Their head of state is none other than our own Queen.  Population of approximately 523,0000 (thank you Wikipedia!)  You can find out more about their Olympic progress here.

Despite a largeish population,  I found tracking down recipes online harder than for some of my other listed countries.  There was one really good blog about a lady who lived in the Solomon Islands for a while.  And many of her stories reminded me of a holiday that the husband and I had in St Vincent where my father is from (even though it's half a world a way).

When you're from the 'Western World' it's a whole other ball game in so many ways.  Especially when it comes to food.  When we first booked our trip to St Vincent I was looking forward to feasting on all manner of exotic fruits, fresh from the tree.  Two years previously we'd 'done' Antigua for our honeymoon, staying in the Americanised Sandals compound.  But going 'native' is very different.  My father owns several banana plantations and gave us some fresh-from-the-plant bananas one day.  They tasted bizarre.  But that is how a banana should taste when it's left to ripen on the tree.  Not how they do in the UK where they've been plucked from the tree whilst still green, transported thousands of miles and then artificially ripened in a massive warehouse somewhere.

Solomon Islands Flag

Likewise mangoes.  I love the sweet-sharp taste of a 'decent' mango.  Yet when you eat a ripe sugar-mango straight from the tree, it's the most sickly-sweet fruit I've ever tasted.  I picked one that was green as you'd find them in the supermarket in the UK.  My aunt nearly had a fit.  Yet it had a more familiar taste to me.  I was then shocked to hear that my aunt and uncle who had several enormous mango trees in their garden, bowing down under the sheer weight of their fruit, would just leave most of the fruit to fall and rot.  Such a waste.  I calculated that if I paid £2 for a mango in the UK, the tree probably hand about £500-worth of fruit on it.  But they had so much and no market for it, it just went to waste.  I guess in the same way as you often see people with amazing traditional apple trees, just allowing the fruit to fall and rot.

Of course, the exotic fruit and vegetable import industry in this country dictates the state of ripeness we get our fruit and veg in.  So the recipe I chose from the Stilettos in the Solomons blog was doomed from the start.  It was a slightly tenuous Solomons recipe anyway because it was inspired by a Thai dish eaten in Hawaii, but adapted to use local ingredients.  The key ingredient being green paw paw. So I cheated and used a ripe paw paw instead.  I did manage to source a Kaffir lime which I assume is the same as a Bush Lime (they look the same).  Stupidly I only bought one which I used in the dressing so had to use a regular lime for the garnish.

The recipe suggests substituting red cabbage for the green paw paw, but I wanted to try it with the fruit so just went for regular, ripe papaya.  I've never liked papaya so the dressing made a welcome mask for the bland flavour of the fruit.  Again, I wonder how they'd taste eaten fresh from the tree rather than with after gaining a whole bunch of food miles. In all honesty, I didn't much rate the smokey undertones of the sesame oil.  It was different.  It worked.  But it isn't something I'd do again.

I added a handful of coriander (wilted by the intense sunshine in my back garden) and some mint to give it some colour and additional flavour.  The crunch of peanuts was a welcome contrast to the soft flesh of the paw paw and the rather excellent slab of tuna I'd managed to procure to go with it.

I chose to serve it with a simple piece of griddled tuna (seasoned with salt, pepper and lime juice) as I understand that Toiyo is commonly eaten in the Solomons so hopefully I'm not going to lose too many OFC points for not staying true to the original dish.

All in all, an interesting start to the nineteen days.  Do check out the recipes from my fellow participants.  You can find out more over on the OFC blog.

Wahaca: Green Rice Salad

One of my overriding childhood food memories is the annual family barbecue to celebrate my mum's birthday on August 3rd.  You could guarantee a pound to a penny that it would rain and my mum would end up barbecuing in the rain while the rest of us sat inside and watched her.

An Ingram family barbecue always consists of the same things.  To this day.  Sausages and burgers must come from the local butcher.  The only other thing we're ever allowed is chicken.  The salad contains cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes, spring onions and eggs.  Nothing else.  And most definitely no dressing.  Mayonnaise not salad cream.  My grandmother's homemade coleslaw and my mother's rice salad.  And that's it.  Them's the rules.

It's like Christmas day.  We have rules.  God forbid you consider breaking them and trying something new.  And my family always say I'm the unadventurous, fussy one!  In fact, when I hosted Christmas at my house last year, I was so terrified of doing something different from the norm that I very nearly didn't post anything that day.  In a moment of rebellion, I then plumped for Brussel Sprouts with Pancetta but also made regular sprouts for everyone else lest I got in trouble.  I was the only one who ate the 'weird' sprouts.  And very nice they were too.

There are a few green bits in there.  Somewhere.

Mum's birthday barbecue is fast approaching and I'm desperate to get my family to try the Wahaca Three Tomato Salad, an amazing looking Courgette and Goats Cheese Bread by the lovely Fiona Harvey who I met on my recent soujourn to Scotland.  And I want them to try today's rice salad recipe. But I know I'll wimp out and just end up making the birthday cake which I've always been allowed free reign with since I was about eight.

My mum's rice salad contains damp long grain rice, frozen prawns which always seem to have retained a bit too much water, peas, carrots and diced red pepper.  Colourful maybe, but despite the addition of a little vinaigrette, it's so bland.

Whereas the Wahaca salad is brightly coloured and packed with a different taste sensation in every mouthful.  Salty feta, sweet courgettes and corn, spicy chilli and the subtle seasoning of coriander and mint.  I had this for my lunch today and it was really quick to prepare and very filling.  It would go perfectly with barbecued meat but I'm not sure I'm man enough to make it for the big day.

Miers mentions that the original recipe contained leftovers from her green rice recipe but that she now just makes it with plain basmati rice for speed.  I definitely want to make the green version at a later date but the idea of putting green rice in front of my family is definitely a step too far.

If you want to try this recipe yourself, you can find it in Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home.

Mary Berry's Provencal Chicken

"Why is there a whole chicken in the fridge?" was the first thing the husband said to me today at around 11am.  "Because the Ocado man bought it with him" I replied.  The husband eyed me suspiciously.  We never have whole chickens.  It was dead, plucked and shrink-wrapped, I hasten to add.

Poor perspective - this was the Pamela Anderson of chickens

The husband doesn't "do" roast dinner.  We might have roast beef once a year after which he complains that there's too much washing up and that he shouldn't have eaten such a heavy meal at 7pm.  Oh and I forgot the bit where he scrapes the gravy off of every bit of meat, searching for the slightest hint of blush in the flesh.  He needn't worry - I now microwave his so it's as tough as old shoe leather (such a waste).  I then announce that roast dinner is too stressful and I will never cook it again.  A year passes, we forget the fuss and the whole drama plays out all over again.  Just like Groundhog day.  Except he's a bit balder and I'm a little greyer.

So when I finally admitted we were having roast chicken for tea, he rolled his eyes like Miss A does when I tell her she's got to eat what the grown-ups are eating and I know she'd much rather have a chocolate Philly and peanut butter sandwich.  This set the atmosphere for the rest of the day.  A bit of sulking.  Lots of suspicion.  But he's the one who's supposedly on a health kick and when he asked me yesterday why I only feed him stuff from Tiers Four and Five of Michi's Ladder, he got a short shrift because he won't eat anything from the first three tiers.

In essence, the recipe is for a pot roast chicken in a red pepper, tomato and carrot sauce.  There was nothing for him to not like.  True, he doesn't 'do vegetables, but I figured it was pretty much like a fresh version of Heinz tomato soup (overly sweet and orange) which he loves.

It's pretty simple to make.  Stick everything in a casserole, cook for an hour and a half, blitz the cooking juices and carrots, carve and serve.  A few roasties on the side and veg for me, peas for him (peas aren't a vegetable according to the husband) and we were done.

Ready for the oven

I put the plate in front of him, served his sauce on the side in case he didn't like it.  He tentatively dipped the second bit of meat into the pot and asked why I couldn't make all of our chicken as soft and juicy as this.  I didn't know whether to breathe a sigh of relief or slap him.  I've been on tenterhooks all day.  Despite him saying he'll eat whatever I put in front of him, no matter how much he rolls his eyes, it still stresses me out and I'd prepped both regular gravy and a ham and cheese sandwich just in case.  Phew!

This now means that I will have to find lots of other recipes where the chicken is poached rather than baked (his technique, not mine).  But hey, I've got a tick in the box for this blog.  I got him eating something new.  Result.


Because it was only the three of us, there was so much sauce left, that I've saved it for lunch tomorrow to eat as a soup.  Which is a good excuse for me to make Dan Lepard's soup bread from today's Guardian as tomorrow's recipe.  Double result.

And I then realised that today is also Bastille Day so I've also ticked the 'National Celebrations' box with this recipe.  Without even trying.  Yay me.

Recipe - serves 4-6

• 1.8kg free range chicken (without giblets)
• 350ml fresh chicken stock
• 50g carrots, diced if large and whole (I used baby Chanteray ones)
• 1 red pepper, diced
• 1 bulb garlic
• small bunch parsley
• 1/4 tsp dried basil
• 1/4 tsp dried oregano
• 250ml red wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• Maldon sea salt and cayenne pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 190c/170c fan.
2. Separate the garlic cloves and peel half.  Place the unpeeled garlic cloves in the chicken's cavity along with most of the parsley (reserve a few sprigs for the garnish).
3. Season the chicken well with sea salt and cayenne pepper
4. Put the chicken in a lidded casserole dish.  Arrange the peeled garlic cloves, red pepper and carrots around the chicken and pour over the stock.
5. Cover and bake for 1.5 hours or until the juices run clear when a skewer is poked into one of the legs.
6. Whilst the chicken is baking, boil the vinegar until reduced to about 2-3 tbsp.  Put into a blender with the basil, oregano and tomato puree.
7. When the chicken is cooked, lift it out onto a plate and pour the cooking juices and vegetables into the blender.  Blitz until you have a smooth sauce.  If it's a little runny, put in a saucepan and simmer for a few minutes until reduced.
8. Carve the chicken and pour the sauce over, garnishing with the remaining parsley.

Wahaca: Three Tomato Salad

I have hated fresh tomatoes with a passion for my entire life.  They loiter on the side of your plate in pubs, oozing their juice over the best chips or lurk surreptitiously in the middle of shop-bought sandwiches, making the bread soggy.  This makes me grumpy.  If I'm dining in company, whoever my companion is (historically my grandfather or mother, now the husband) will immediately be furnished with said tomatoes in exchange for cucumber and/or coleslaw.  They offend me so much I can't even have them on my plate.  It's the slimy insides I don't like.  And cherry tomatoes are the work of the devil as they have the greatest slime-to-flesh ratio of all tomatoes.

I've got nothing against cooked tomatoes.  Not cooked whole tomatoes, you understand.  But if they're in a sauce then I'm okay with that.  And, one of my favourite recipes from this blog so far has been Thomasina Miers' chilli jam - which contains mountains of tomatoes.  I keep a huge jar in the fridge to dollop into sandwiches or eat alongside salads.

Not quite as nicely styled as the book version but just as tasty

The only time in my thirty-something years on this planet that I've ever enjoyed tomatoes was the first time I met the parents of my very first boyfriend.  Despite him being off to the top end of the weird scale, I really liked his parents and when they offered to make us dinner, I politely accepted.  His dad was a keen gardener and grew all his own fruit and veg.  You can imagine my horror when the aforementioned meal turned out to be chicken with a fresh tomato salad.  But because I was bought up to have good manners (things have changed since then!) I accepted the plate with good grace and steeled myself to do battle with the mound of tomatoes, taunting me.

What a surprise.  These were firm and tasty and had that gorgoeous fresh-grown tomato smell.  I've always loved that smell and it reminds me of when my mum used to grow tomatoes when I was a child.  Dressed in a simple vinaigrette and sprinkled liberally with salt, they were an absolute revelation.  Nothing like those squidgy, slimy, dreary salad tomatoes peddled by the supermarkets.

Sadly for my tomato-eating career, we split up soon afterwards on the advice of his mother.  She had the sense to see I could do better for myself (I couldn't have done worse!).  Don't get me wrong - she liked me. She even told me I was dating the wrong son and that I'd be a fantastic daughter-in-law (I was a late starter on the dating scene).  But the weird, psychotic tendencies of son number two quickly sent me running for the hills.

The past fifteen years have been plagued by further encounters with both people firmly at the wrong end of the weirdo scale and nasty tomatoes too.  I'm sure I've eaten in places that could've changed my tomato fearing mind, but it's just something I would never consider ordering.  When you go out, you go out to eat for pleasure, not to torture yourself.  Lycopersicoaphobia has remained firmly rooted in my psyche.

Until I got my copy of Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home by Thomasina Miers.  If you're a regular reader, you'll know I adore Thomasina's books.  And I'm now eager to holiday in Mexico one day (although I'll be going by myself as Mr Fussy wouldn't eat the food and would worry that he'd get kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel).  Flicking through the book, the one recipe that really captured my imagination was the aforementioned Three Tomato Salad.  Yes.  Seriously.  I've been obsessing about this for a couple of weeks now to the point where I'm wondering exactly why I'm craving something I can't stand.

For the record, I would like to categorically state that I am not pregnant.  My mother will obviously be very disappointed by that.  My boss will most likely be relieved.  As will the husband because he's starting to make noises about me working late too often.  I am actually working to keep a roof over our heads!

Pretty colours

So today, I headed to Morrisons to pick up some real tomatoes.  They've recently revamped the fruit and veg section and you can buy all manner of weird and wonderful things.  And lots of it doesn't come stuffed into a huge plastic box so you can just buy what you need.  Okay, it's probably more expensive, but I don't mind paying a bit more to buy only what I need if it's far tastier than a giant economy pack of flavourless tomatoes.

I was spoilt for choice with stripy Heirloom tomatoes and tiny orange plum tomatoes, regular cherry tomatoes on the vine and pretty orange and yellow tomatoes.  I really wanted someone to share this joyous occasion with but the husband is crashed out on the bed after another session of the Insanity workout and I'm too impatient to save it until the next time I'm at my mothers so it seemed the perfect antidote to yet another wet and dreary day.

The flavours are amazing.  Fresh tomatoes with feta and pineapple, mixed with a red-wine vinegar dressing.  The salt of the feta cuts beautifully through the sweet tomatoes and is balanced well with the acid from the pineapple and the dressing.  In fact this now ranks up there with my all time favourite recipes from this year.  And I have enough tomatoes left to make it again for tomorrow's lunch.  I was planning on using them to make Gazpacho, but it seems a criminal waste of beautiful tomatoes.

I'm now firmly converted!

Lil Ms Squirrel's Rhubarb Fool

There was a recent episode of The Apprentice where some of the supposed finest young minds of modern Britain spent ages coming up with a new product to market, only for one of them to announce "Actually, we've just created the bin."  I felt a bit like this tonight as I set about trying to make a healthier version of James Martin's rhubarb fool and finally realising that I've just about made low fat rhubarb and custard.

Healthier than it looks

Admittedly I've never eaten rhubarb and custard before so it's new to me.  But I missed the obvious whilst going to so much effort.

James' recipe combines ready made custard with whipped cream.  Because I was looking for something lower in fat, I decided to combine my homemade custard (made using skimmed milk) with Greek yogurt.  Having done a little research on the best way to poach rhubarb, I settled on a method from Dan Lepard where you roast the rhubarb with a little sugar.  He rightly points out that poaching it in a pan can leave it watery.  I love his method because you get a thick, tasty syrup in the bottom of the dish.  Trouble is, it's so tempting just to lick the bowl clean.

Because my rhubarb was quite mature, rather than the thin pink rhubarb you get earlier in the year, I left it in whole chunks and layered it with the custard mixture and crushed amaretti biscuits.

It was an okay pudding for someone looking for a healthy, diet friendly pudding to combat a bout of hormonal sugar craving.  And I have the rest of the lovely roasted rhubarb to eat with my breakfast yogurt tomorrow.

Unfortunately for my diet, it's now reminded me that this lovely recipe from Sadia from the Baking Elements blog is still on my to-do-list.  I think my work colleagues are in for a lucky week next week.

Here's what I did.  It's a bit faffy, so you could substitute the homemade custard for a small pot of low fat, ready made custard for speed.

Recipe - Serves 2

For the custard mixture

• 1 medium egg yolk
• 2 tsp cornflour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 200ml skimmed milk
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp low fat Greek yogurt

For the rhubarb

• 400g rhubarb, cut into two inch chunks
• 75g caster sugar
• juice of 1/2 lemon

To assemble

• 4 amaretti biscuits, crushed
• 2 small glass tumblers

1. Preheat the oven to 170c/150c (fan).  Place the rhubarb in a shallow glass dish, sprinkle over the sugar and lemon juice.  Roast for an hour.  Leave to cool.
2. Mix the egg yolk and cornflour together in a bowl.  Heat the milk to boiling point then pour over the egg mixture, whisking quickly.  Pour back into the pan and heat until thickened.  Beat in the sugar and leave to cool.
3. To assemble put a few pieces of rhubarb into the bottom of each glass.  Add a tablespoon of custard and sprinkle with some of the biscuits.  Repeat the layering, finishing with a layer of biscuits.

Mushroom and Ginger Soup

Today's recipe of choice comes from one of those tomes that you pick up in discount book shops for a few pounds.  It's been sat on my desk for years.  I flick through it at least once a week.  I find something I want to make but yet never get round to making it.  Even though the book is entitled "Quick and Easy" and should be full of recipes perfect for someone as time-poor as myself, I just don't seem to have the time to try them.

Never one to make life easy for myself, in addition to having a two-year-old toddler, a full time job with a ninety minute commute and penning this blog on a daily basis, over the coming month I also have to contend with the following obstacles.  "The Olympic Food Challenge" starting on 27th July, my mother's birthday cake and assorted bits for a celebratory barbecue on August 3rd (you can guarantee rain in Winchester that day), at least two different types of cake for the tea tent at my gorgeous cousin Laura May (aka @BridestockBride)'s Wedding Festival on August 4th, a belated birthday cake for my goddaughter on August 5th, a week long Prince2 Practitioner course and training for the Bristol Half Marathon - which is in late September but the training is going on now.

It took longer to eat than to cook (too hot!)

Oh and planning my new blog too.  Thankfully that's currently in the capable hands of one of my best friends who I've coerced into designing the background and logo for me.  More on that another night.

So forgive me for actually finally choosing a recipe from Practical Cookery: Quick and Easy for once.  It was quick, easy, tasty and meets the current criteria for low in fat too.  It also gave me the opportunity to try out dried mushrooms.  I know they're a little pricey, but given that I'm the kind of person who regularly buys mushrooms and then never gets round to using them and throwing them away when they're slimy, having the dried ones to hand means I won't ever waste them.  Unless of course, I accidentally split the packet and the scatter floor-wards into the mouths of my waiting pooches.

Watching them rehydrate reminded me of some fake worms you used to be able to get from joke shops when I was a kid.  I used to stick them in my grandad's cup of tea and watch them grow.  Highly entertaining to a delinquent eight-year-old.  Just like when my delightful toddler peered into my bowl this evening and announced "Euuuuwww.  Mummy, Dexter's done a pooney in your dinner"  Cue toddler giggles.

I did manage to enjoy the meal despite that image being firmly rooted in my brain forever.

Serves 2 (for a main meal)

• 15g dried mushrooms
• 700 mls good quality vegetable stock
• 1 nest medium egg noodles
• 3 garlic cloves, finely sliced
• 1 tsp ginger paste (or 2.5cm root ginger, shredded)
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• handful beansprouts

1. Soak the mushrooms for at least thirty minutes in half the stock for at least 30 minutes.  Drain, reserving the stock.
2. When the are ready, cook the noodles for 2-3 minutes in boiling water.  Drain and rinse.
3. Spray a large frying pan with spray oil and place over a  high heat.  Add the garlic, ginger and mushrooms and stir fry for two minutes.
4. Add all of the stock and the soy sauce to the pan and bring to the boil.
5. Stir in the bean sprouts and cook for 1-2 minutes until tender.  
6. Divide the noodles between the serving bowls and ladle the soup on top.  Serve immediately.

BBC Good Food Griddled Chicken and Corn on the Cob

There's a quote from my favourite film that just about sums up the advice I'd like to give out to several people that I know today.  It's something that I need to learn to remember as well.


"But sometimes a person we love, through no fault of his own, can't see past the end of his nose."


I won't go into any details on the subject, but it just about sums my day up.  And why although I think my day today has been a Crappy day from Crapsville, there are people around me who've had worse days and have worse problems in their lives.  There are also people who I know are currently judging me for apparently not seeing past my own mediocre problems who if they knew the whole story (which of course, is none of their business) would understand my apparent myopia.

This July weather makes for rubbish light in my kitchen

Anyway, enough myopic belly button staring.  Monday's are always a tough day for fodder in our house.  It's a long day in the office, now preceded by a 4am start for a run so by the time I'm home at 6pm, tea needs to be quick, simple and tasty.


Monday's are the day I really rely on the simplicity of BBC Good Food to come up with something from the content of my fridge.  This is from the June 2012 issue of the magazine which is still lurking on my sofa.  I've still to find the time to read the latest edition.


I needed to stop off for a couple of bits and was horrified to find that corn cobs were £1.99 for two.  I know it's out of season, but I just couldn't justify the expense at the moment.  Especially when I know in a few short weeks, they will be selling them fro about 25p each.  So I improvised with tinned corn, cooked it in a smoking hot frying pan and it still chargrilled really well.


There's not much else to say about the recipe other than it's simple and quick.  I'd not thought about making my own spice coating much before - I tend to use the Schwarz pre-made ones - but this worked quite well and I'll use it again to add a bit of variety.  


You can find the recipe online here.


PS: Without Googling, do you recognise the film that this line is from?  I've only watched it about 1,000 times and know it word perfectly.

Mexican Egg White Omelette

This new diet thing is very protein-based and so today, I decided to try an egg-white omelette for my breakfast.  Having done a bit of research online into recipes, I ended up a bit worried that it would be tasteless and runny - according to a Martha Stewart recipe they can be watery - but I was actually pleasently surprised.

An medium egg contains around 70 calories, with only 17 of these coming from the white meaning that it's a good diet choice.  Before I started I decided I'd include one egg yolk in the mix - lucky because I ended up dropping one in! - so I had four whites to one yolk.  With the filling, this came to just 218 cals for breakfast

Shortly before it got really messy!

There's not much else to say on the subject.  I treated it like any other omelette I'd make by seasoning it well with salt and pepper and throwing in a handful of coriander.  Normally I'd add a splash of water too (I can't remember who I picked this tip up from or what difference it makes) but based on the research, I didn't just in case.

Ordinarily I'd fill an omelette with mushrooms, spinach and a sprinkling of strong cheese, but  I was so concerned about this being tasteless, I went for feta cheese and salsa.  In Thomasina Miers' books, wherever she recommends a medium-hard cheese for a recipe, she says that feta makes a good substitute so that's Mexican enough for me.

The colour and taste wasn't as bad as I expected.  The colour was probably helped by the yellow from the single yolk and the herbs.  The texture was a little more rubbery than I would like but this is probably because a lack of fat from the egg yolks.

One bonus was it actually held together getting it out of the pan than a regular omelette does, although next time I'd probably fill it out of the pan as I made a mess with the salsa everywhere - hence the picture of it before folding and serving.

Recipe - Serves 1

• 3 medium egg yolks
• 1 whole egg
• small bunch of herbs (coriander or parsley)
• salt and freshly ground pepper
• 30g feta cheese, crumbled
• 40g fresh salsa
• cooking spray

1. Preheat the grill to high
2. Whisk the eggs together with a fork, season generously with salt and pepper and add the herbs before mixing well.
3. Spray an omelette pan with spray oil and heat over a medium heat.  Pour in the egg mixture and stir with a rubber spatula as the curds start to form, ensuring that it covers the bottom of the pan well.  When the mixture is nearly fully set, put the frying pan under the grill for 1-2 minutes to ensure the eggs are fully cooked.
4. Use a palette knife to release the omelette from the pan and slide carefully onto a plate.  Fill with the salsa and feta before serving.

Cumin Chicken

I've now lost all hope in surviving the next eight weeks of the husband's diet.  I thought that this low fat curry might be a keeper, but sadly not.  It was the way he looked at it when it was put in front of him that told me I'd wasted my time in the kitchen.  I so nearly gave him a fiver to go and buy his tea from the chippie.

However, I quite enjoyed this dish.  I made a small error by adding yogurt (an optional extra) and this curdled the sauce which slightly detracted from the presentation by putting tiny grainy blobs in the liquid.

It was really quick to cook.  I think I spent more time hunting through the cupboards looking for my chilli powder (didn't find it) than I did actually cooking the dish.

One word of warning - if you make this, take care when frying the mustard seeds.  It said fry them for thirty seconds.  After ten seconds, they were popping and jumping out of the pan and scattered all over the kitchen floor.  It may be to do with the size and shape of the frying pan I used.  But don't do this if you've got exposed skin or small people in the vicinity of the cooker - they fly quite a long way.

The blog I found this recipe from explains variations on the dish and how the author had no yogurt one day and so made the sauce with just a stock-base instead.  I also noted that whilst the recipe states to use  tinned tomatoes, the instructions don't tell you when to put them in.  As I had some fresh toms in, I cut one into large chunks and added it with the veg then threw in the tinned toms after the chicken had fried.

I'm guessing this is why mine looked nothing like the picture on the website (I wasn't really going for outstanding presentation anyway) but the sauce in the picture clearly lacks the tomatoes.  But for the thicker, yogurty sauce, I'm sure they're essential.

http://www.greatcurryrecipes.net/2012/04/30/how-to-make-cumin-chicken/  It was so nice to be able to make a quicky, tasty curry without having to resort to a jar sauce, like I normally would for a curry for the husband.  He's always whining that the Loyd Grossman sauces have changed and have no taste.  So I cook him a tasty curry and he still moans.  http://www.greatcurryrecipes.net/2012/04/30/how-to-make-cumin-chicken/

Not long to go now - less than 90 days and counting!

You can find the recipe here.

Inside Out Chicken Kiev

I so, so, so want to make something from my new copy of Wahaca: Mexican Food at Home by Thomasina Miers, but because I'm a) supposed to be on a diet and b) didn't get the book before I booked my Ocado order about two weeks ago, I've been left with basic store cupboard ingredients.  I have feta cheese and avocado and flour tortillas, which I'm sure could go a long way towards trying one of the recipes, but it would most likely equate to my entire daily food allowance.  So I'm just making do with longingly reading the book.

According to a recent study that I read about in the Daily Fail Online, adventurous eating makes us fat. Bland, predictable and repetitive food is the key to slimming because nobody really cares to eat more of that kind of food than they need to sustain them and satiate any hunger.  Which is probably why I've struggled to lose weight doing this challenge.  Baking aside, I know I've not been consistently good - mostly towards the end of the week when I'm exhausted from work and motherhood and just cook something new for the sake of cooking something new and blogging about it.

Uber healthy dinner

Day three of the current diet and the food has still been pretty bland.  I managed to sort myself out with a low-calorie prawn wrap for lunch (stuffed with little gem lettuce and thinly sliced radishes) that was very tasty and breakfast is consistently bircher muesli or a protein bar, but teas are still proving to be a little bland.

Take tonight's recipe from the BBC Good Food website.  I picked it for being low calorie, simple and something that I knew that we could all eat with varying accompaniments.  It was easy to prepare, using all storecupboard ingredients (except my addition of fresh parsley to give it some colour) and I ate mine with a mountain of vegetables.  The crumb was tasty - I used garlic puree for laziness and to save my hand from smelling.  But the chicken was still bland, as was the cauli and broccoli.

The carrots, however were great.  I'm not a massive fan of boiled carrots unless they're accompanying a roast and under a significant puddle of gravy.  I'll eat them by the bucket-load if they're raw.  Or if they're cooked Vichy style - thinly sliced then cooked in a tiny amount of water with butter and a little sugar to make a glaze - so not a vegetable I would normally buy given that we never eat roast dinner at home (apart from Christmas day).

But tonight, I picked up a bag of tiny Chantaray carrots in Waitrose, tossed them with a little olive oil and baked them alongside the chicken.  Yummy.

This is how I made my version

Serves 2

• 2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
• 15g unsalted butter, softened
• 15g natural dried breadcrumbs (I used Paxo breadcrumbs but would've preferred Japanese Panko)
• 1/2 tsp garlic puree (I use Gia)
• couple of sprigs of parsley, finely chopped
• 200g Chantaray carrots
• 2 tsp olive oil
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 190c (fan).
2. Place the chicken breasts on a baking tray and make two diagonal slashes in each, cutting about 2/3 of the way through the flesh with each slash.  Season with salt and pepper.
3. Mix the butter, breadcrumbs, garlic and parsley.  Divide between the tops of the two pieces of chicken. 
4. Toss the carrots in the olive oil and add to the baking tray.
5. Bake for 20 minutes.

Turkey Chilli

Turkey mince.  Not again, thank you.  As part of the husband's planned fitness kick, I'm following the food plan myself and sampling some of the new recipes in advance of foisting them on him.

Low fat, low on taste

Today's effort was turkey chilli.  I got the recipe from Low Fat Cooking on About.com.  It certainly wasn't the tastiest of recipes.  But then it's healthy so I wasn't expecting much of it.  It was edible, but it didn't rock my world.

I think my issue was with the mince.  When you take it out of the packet, it feels like poor quality sausage meet.  Pink, soft, squishy and textureless.  And on cooking, it just goes clumpy and sticks together.  So when you come to eat it, it is kind of in chunks.  But squishy, textureless chunks.  If I made this again, I'd just use regular turkey breast and cube it.

The black beans were a good addition for some contrasting colour with the stark whiteness of the meat.  But in the future, I think I'd just take a regular chilli recipe using beef mince, cutting out as much fat as possible and bulking it out with extra finely diced veg to make it more filling.  In fact, I'm sure a smaller portion of Lorraine Pascale's chilli would go down far better than a larger, bland tasting one.

You can find the recipe here.

Greek-Style Calamari

Today's recipe comes from a book called EatWellLiveWell with Gluten Intolerance which I bought from Holland and Barrett.  A few years back, the husband went to one of those Chinese herbalist places and they decided his general malaise was best treated with a really expensive cocktail of stewed forest floor sweepings.  Which smelt and tasted disgusting.  On top of that he should follow a wheat-, dairy-, tomato- and taste-free diet.

The stuffing

I spent weeks trying to perfect bread that lasted more than thirty minutes before going rock hard and didn't crumble the minute you tried to cut it.  We were introduced to the single gluten-free delight of Black Farmer sausages.  And I bought several recipe books on the subject, all of which are much thumbed but never used because the husband won't entertain anything containing pulses, fish, or vegetables and if there was a chicken dish he might eat, he'd only eat it with two slices of real bread which kind of defeated the object.

So in the original spirit of this blog, I decided I should at least try a few of the recipes myself.  The first being the afore-mentioned calamari.

Now I've only ever eaten my calamari deep fried and usually with a huge pile of aioli on the side.  One of my favourite tapas dishes.  Along with patatas bravas.  And the Spanish equivalent of Melanzane Parmiagana.  And those little meatball things.  And tortilla.  And mini paellas.  Okay, okay, I love tapas already!  Anyhow, this appealed as it was something different with squid.

Squid always reminds me of my first proper date with the husband.  The first time I spent the evening with him, he cooked for me at home (chicken dusted in flour and chargrilled chicken spice then fried served with pasta tossed in pesto; no pudding) because he spun me a line about how it was nicer we could sit in and talk to each other rather than sharing a restaurant with loads of other people.  In hindsight, I now reckon this is because he's 'discerning' in what he eats.

The next night, we went out to an Italian in Richmond-upon-Thames.  I ordered calamari for my starter.  It never occurred to me that the then boyfriend-to-be would baulk at the idea.  Nor that I too would end up baulking at my starter.  Because this was the first time I'd been served whole baby calamari.  Tentacles, eyeballs and all.  Deep-fried with a pile of garlicky aioli on the side.  I wanted to throw up.  Or at the very least hide them in my handbag.  But of course, wanting to make a good impression with the posh Tory Boy-type (or so I thought) who was wining and dining me in Richmond, I soldiered on and ate every last rubbery one.

The finished calamari (scuse the crap in the background!)

Months later when it had become increasingly evident that the husband has a limited palate, I broached the subject of the calamari.  "I couldn't believe you ate those" said he. "I nearly didn't ask you on a third date because I thought you were some strange freak for eating squid brains.  I wanted to throw up"  Ah, the things we do for love!

Anyhow, Ocado (or Waitrose - can't remember which) sell frozen squid tubes which I figured was more convenient than having to faff around and go to the fish mongers.  I'm not sure whether it was the cooking or the freezing of said squid that made it a little rubbery.  Or if it was just a rubbery squid in the first place.  But it has a weird and very firm texture that I didn't really warm to.  I've had 'regular' calamari with the same texture before and often wondered if it was the cooking method or that some calamari are just tougher than others.  Like how you sometimes get a tough bit of chicken or beef, no matter how carefully you cook it.

As for the filling, it was pretty tasteless.  The recipe didn't mention seasoning the stuffing or the sauce with salt and pepper.  It really needed it.  The delicate apricot flavour was overpowered by the rich tomato sauce.  In fact, the stuffing was completely devoid of taste if eaten with the sauce, but alone, the delicate herbs, onions and pine nuts came through.  The lemon zest and apricot still didn't.


This one is probably something that if I was a fan of squid, I'd experiment with.  But it didn't even make my world tremble enough to make me want to try it again.  I wish my world had been rocked.

Recipe - Serves 4

1kg cleaned squid tubes

Stuffing

• 2tsp olive oil
• 2 spring onions, sliced
• 250g cold, cooked basmati rice
• 4tbsp pine nuts
• 4tbsp finely chopped dried apricots
• 2tbsp chopped parsley
• 2tsp finely grated lemon zest
• 1 egg, lightly beaten

Sauce

• 400g tinned tomatoes (the recipe uses fresh but this is too faffy for a school night for me)
• 2tsp olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 3tbsp good-quality red wine
• 1tbsp chopped oregano

1. Preheat the oven to 160c.  To make the stuffing, mix together all of the stuffing ingredients in a bowl.
2. Wash the squid tubes and pat dry inside and out with paper towels.   Three-quarters fill each squid tube with the stuffing.  Secure the ends with toothpicks or skewers.  Place in a single layer in a casserole dish.
3. To make the sauce, heat the oil in a frying pan.  Add the onion and garlic and cook over a low heat for two minutes or until the onion is soft.  Ad the tomatoes, wine and oregano and bring to the boil.  Reduce the heat, cover with a lid and cook for ten minutes.  I would advise seasoning to taste with a tsp of brown sugar and salt and freshly ground pepper.
4. Pour the hot sauce over the squid, cover and bake for 20 minutes or until tender.  Remove the toothpicks before cutting into thick slices for serving.  Spoon the sauce over the top just before serving.

Updated: Skinny Peanut Butter and Banana Bars

You win some, you lose some.  And for me, this recipe is definitely a lose.  A couple of weeks ago I was in conversation with another blogger about writing a guest series of posts.  The series had to have a theme to it and I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do and what my first recipe would be.

Doing a bit of idle research a little later, I happened across this recipe which I hoped would be an inspiration for my first post.  I had really been looking forward to giving it a go but days turned into weeks and suddenly nearly a month has passed without me making it.

Today, however, despite the husband insisting on an impromptu shopping trip (I'm rubbish at shopping in company), I still found time to finally whip up a batch of these healthy little treats.

And I wish I hadn't bothered.  The ingredient list had it all.  Nuts, oats, honey (I substitued maple syrup), brown sugar, spices, rice krispies, peanut butter, chocolate.  And still less than 150 cals per piece.  Bargain.

Ugly blighters didn't photograph well...

I even got a kick out of using my finally procured set of measuring cups - I hate American recipes the way they measure everything in cups.  Is it a tightly packed cup or a loose cup?  I know it's a throw back to the days before scales were invented.  But seriously?  With baking being such a precision art, surely in this day and age you would think that scales would be the order of the day.  But thanks to Sainsburys, I have my own set of cups, thus opening up a whole new world of recipes to me.

The end result had a disappointingly soggy bottom.  I know not why.  I followed the recipe.  It said they'd be moist and chewy.  Which they were.  But the bottoms are resolutely banana-soggy.  I don't see the point of the puffed rice as the sog from the bananas has obliterated it.

I think it's something that I might become accustomed to if I ever get my sorry backside back on the diet wagon (severe relapse into piggy-hood this week in response to a ridiculous bout of endometriosis pain - won't go near the scales for at least two weeks now!)

I was looking for a healthy snack.  I think I'd rather stick the component parts (minus the egg whites) into a little tub and just eat them as they come rather than all mushed up and cooked together.  Instead, I shall just stick with my rather over-priced little Graze snack pots that arrive through my door on a weekly basis.  I've now fallen in love with the giant plain chocolate buttons that ocassionaly find their way through my letter box.  There's something rather decadent about eating chocolate in amongst all the healthy snacks that they send you.  And not that I've been paid for this, but if you use this code (2DF7LP8D), you can get a free Graze box from them.

If you do want to give the recipe a go, then you can find it here.

Personally, I'd rather stick with the Guilt Free Brownies.

Update 13th Feb 2012 - well after dissing these little bars, I did a 9.5 mile run yesterday morning.  Came in, the child was awake so after a quick shower and change, I got up and into a round of making everyone breakfast, whilst slowly expiring from lack of carbs myself.  So I picked up one of these and honestly, it is the best post-run food ever!  Exactly what the doctor ordered with the combination of carbs and fast and slow release sugars and protein (bananas, peanut butter, brown sugar etc).  Going to try to refine the recipe and maybe drop the bananas as I wasn't a fan of the strong banana taste.  They're down, but definitely not out!

Mustard and Herb Baked Salmon

Can you believe I'm *ahem* thirty-something and have never cooked a piece of salmon before?  Well I've put salmon into things like fishcakes and 'luxury' (said a la Come Dine with Me with a Dave Lamb fake Midlands accent) fish pie and smoked salmon bagels.  But I've never actually taken a piece of salmon and cooked it as a dish before.

I've eaten it plenty of times when my family have been 'being' good.  But it's really not my fish of choice. Give me a nice piece of yellowfin tuna or some monkfish.  Even haddock or cod.  But there's something about salmon that's never means it's never really jumped out at me as a fish to buy and cook myself.

Back last month, I made Lorraine Pascale's salmon and sweet potato fish cakes, currently the second most popular post on my blog so far, and had a spare piece of salmon left which I froze with the intention of trying this recipe.

It worked well because every Wednesday, without fail, the husband has chicken sprinkled with Schwarz chargrilled chicken spice, a pack of Uncle Ben's Express tomato rice, two bits of buttered bread and some instant Bisto gravy (his choice entirely - nothing to do with my culinary skills; he was eating this meal several nights a week before I met him!) so as I work a long day (early start, late finish) it's good to have a really quick dish for tea and this one went well alongside the baked chicken.

The topping is really quick and simple to make and smelled beautifully fresh and healthy.  To make it even quicker, I used Garden Gourmet parsley so there was no faffing around chopping herbs.  Just stick a few spoonfuls of various things into a bowl, give it a stir, put it on the salmon and into the oven.

What I liked most was that you could actually taste all the different flavours in the topping.  The parsley was distinct, the mustard cut through nicely and it was accented by lime zest with the salt and sugar enhancing the sweet/savoury taste.

Tasty dinner, poor perspective!

The topping also kept the salmon really moist because whilst juggling lunch box making and zapping rice in the microwave (sigh), I forgot that the salmon was in the oven for 20 mins yet it was still nicely cooked and not at all dry in the middle.

Did it work with the salmon?  I'm not sure.  I enjoyed the dish but the topping was really flavoursome and when eaten with the fish, the delicate salmon flavour was overpowered.

I think it would have worked better with a fish that had a less defined taste.  Or, indeed, on top of chicken.  But a nice, easy, tasty dish for a harassed mum of two - sorry, mum of one, wife of one who set herself a daft cooking challenge on top of a demanding full time job, a demanding child and a demanding toddler.  I mean...  I'm sure you get my drift.

Will I make it again?  I'd probably cook it for guests if we ever had any and if the husband wasn't present as I don't think he'd like the sweet/savoury combo even if it was on chicken.  I might road test it on the child one day and I'd give it a whirl for a quick healthy tea if I had some leftover salmon.

Recipe - Serves 4

• 100g dried breadcrumbs
• 1.5 tbsp soft brown sugar
• zest of 2-3 limes
• 2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• knob of butter
• 1 bunch fresh parsley, chopped
• 4 salmon fillets
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 200c (180 fan), 400f, Gas 6.
2. Mix the breadcrumbs, sugar, lime, mustard, butter and parsley together in a small bowl
3. Place the salmon fillets in an ovenproof dish.  Divide the topping between the four salmon fillets and squish down on top.
4. Bake for 10-15 minutes depending on your preference.
5. Serve with potatoes and green veggies.