Cauliflower and Broccoli Cheese

So easy and so tasty, heaven.

Cheese Toasties

There was enough left over from the Late Christmas Meal to have for lunch on Sunday. After going for a four mile run I ate my 2nd Christmas meal and then later on didn't really feel like cooking much or eating much either. I was rummaging around in the cupboard and came across our toasted sandwich maker. Inspiration! I can't really remember the last time I had a toastie but having one was like being in a time warp. I can remember my first toastie. It was white bread and cheese, nothing too fancy and it was made in a frying pan. I was about 10 years old. Then a few years after that my Mum and Step-Dad got married and my step-sister bought them a toastie maker as a wedding present. My brothers and I spent a lot of time using the toastie maker, probably more than our parents did. I know people moan about them and how difficult they are to clean but I love them. My next toastie memories are uni related and I survived most of the first term on cream cheese and sweetcorn toasties at 3am!

Late Christmas Meal

Last Christmas (no I'm not about to burst into song) I managed to arrange a meal with my friends where we each bought a course along with us and we generally sat, ate, drank and chatted and celebrated Christmas. The Christmas just gone we tried to do the same but it immediately became apparent that we weren't all available on the same weekend before Christmas so we decided to do it in January. January started to pass pretty quickly and we realised that the next available weekend was the last weekend in February. Unfortunately one of us four got flu on Friday and wasn't able to come so the whole girly, Christmassy reunion thing didn't entirely happen but the food was good.

To start we had snacks. We were meant to start eating much earlier than we did and so snacks would have been good, and they were, but not entirely necessary. Snacks consisted of delicious tortilla chips topped with chopped avocado, tomatoes, sweetcorn, sour cream and cheese. After ten minutes in the oven they were delicious and we accidentally ate the whole tray!

I was trying to discretely take photos and I forgot to take one of our starter which was a lovely parsnip and apple soup. I had had quite a few glasses of wine and then attempted and failed to get the timing right for the veggies to go with the mains. I had made some mushroom and leek filo parcels for the veggie main and then braised cabbage, roasted new potatoes, parsnips and carrots too. The roasties were all a bit over cooked but edible. The filo parcels were really nice and the others had some creamy chicken thing from Sainsbury's with theirs. 

Apologies for the blurriness of the photos, trying to take them discreetly whilst tipsy obviously doesn't work. Anyway moving onto the best bit, the pudding person hadn't come (that's not the best bit) so I made chocolate fondants and they were awesome served with vanilla ice cream.

Crumpets

I had succumbed to buying a packet of biscuits on my way home from work on Friday. Caramel digestives with chocolate on top if you're interested. I had eaten most of them by about 6pm. The plan for Friday was to make some spinach pancakes with cheese sauce and jacket potatoes but I got a call out at 5.40pm (20 mins before the end of my 24hr duty session). After giving extensive telephone advice I decided I really needed to attend so I did. I got back at about 9pm. I definitely didn't feel like cooking or eating much then so I had a couple of crumpets. One with Nutella and one with peanut butter. The biscuits had kept me going for most of the evening.

Carrot and Parsnip Soup

Parsnips were on special offer on the stall today, 50p for a massive bag, so I popped some into this soup for supper. The rest will be roasted at the weekend.

Carrots and parsnips cooking off in butter, garlic and cumin

Vegetable Curry with Basmati Rice

Courgette, peppers, mushrooms, sweet potato, onion and quorn pieces went into this evening's curry. A nice easy, tasty dinner after my run...

Winter Vegetable Stew and Dumplings

The VSTs had guests last night, a fairly rare occurrence! Veggie stew and dumplings was on the agenda anyway, having bought one of my super winter stew packs (3 onions, 6 carrots, a parsnip, a swede for £1.50) so I just suped it up with a couple of sweet potatoes and an additional couple of parsnips so that it would feed four and then two for lunch tomorrow which it did! I made one and a half times the dumplings too, I didn't think that any more would have room to grow in the pan and as you can see they were quite successful. Lovely evening.

Veggies and Pasta

I had a choice when I got home from work which is perfectly represented by this picture...

To run or not to run that is the question.

I decided to run and felt better for it. On my return I made my pasta.mmm Good, simple food........

Back to a simple supper tonight after weeks of rich food. Pasta and veggies with a tin of tomatoes and some veggie stock. Mr VST pointed out yesterday that shortly after we bought a huge bag of pasta we stopped eating it so it was about time to start again

Mother's Home-Cooked Meals

13th and 14th February


I was 'home' last weekend and treated to my mother's delicious home-made food again. Heaven! On Sunday night she treated me to my favourite all-time meal of her vegetable lasagne served with a crispy vegetable salad.

On Monday she tried out a new recipe, this Quorn Coconut Curry which was very quick and easy to make as the recipe suggests and very tasty too.

15th February


I was travelling back to my home on Tuesday all evening so didn't really have any supper. I treated myself to some Cadbury's mini-eggs and a creme egg. It was all I could face. I concur with the Harry Potter theory that when you have met with dementors the only thing that will revive you is some chocolate. I had been battling with my own dementor over the previous two days and these Easter-time treats helped to heal my soul, just a little bit. For lunch I had something that I hadn't had in a very long time, a cheese toastie. It was fantastic! We do have a toastie maker in the back of the cupboard but I haven't used it in quite a long time. The lunch-time toastie hit the spot. Back in uni I ate quite a lot of these with cream cheese and sweetcorn in, ah happy days!

Sunday Roast - but not as we know it

Today with the birthday boy suitably hungover there was a very good plan to meet up again for a traditional Sunday roast at a nearby pub.

The options were meat or vegetarian so, of course, me and Mr VST both went for the veggie option. I was expecting either a nut roast or some kind of meat substitute sausage and then the usual. It came with cabbage, carrots, roast potatoes and mashed swede. 'It' was the most bizarre combination of two Yorkshire puddings filled with roasted vegetables in tomato sauce topped with a grilled round of goat's cheese. Mr VST with his history of bizarre combinations thought nothing of this. I on the other hand thought that it was like eating two very separate meals in one go and I can not recommend Yorkshire puddings filled with roasted vegetables in a tomato sauce with traditional roastie trimmings, it was strange. I ate it nevertheless and it filled me up so that no supper other than snackage has been necessary.

Thirty

I have attended a few 30th birthday parties over the last year and there are a good few more coming up this year too, including one this weekend. The person celebrating their 30th birthday this weekend is in the process of renovating his house which comes with quite a large garden too. For his birthday he was lucky enough to have a group of friends who will do (pretty much) anything as long as they are fed! Of course we all wanted to help out Mr 30 especially as he and his wife are expecting their first baby in June, as well as being fed and so that is what we did.

After a beans on toast breakfast at the in-laws we randomly decided to do a supermarket shop and then got stuck into some gardening (weeding - me) and general demolition (Mr VST). A tea break was quickly followed by a barbecue on Mr 30's new gas barbecue which I have decided is the definition of middle age. I believe that when man has given up the battle between fire and food he is indeed middle-aged. Us veggies, of which there were three, were treated to quorn veggie burgers with plastic cheese and ketchup and also some rather nice breadcrumb covered vegetable filled burgers.

Back to a bit of work, albeit less enthusiastically on the part of some due to beer drinking, and a few hours later there was a clearer garden, newly erected shed and plaster-boarded room.

We were then fed again! A massive roasted pork joint was carved up and consumed by the meaties and two vegetarian pizzas were consumed by three veggies. Sides consisted of potato salad, rocket salad and garlic bread on the side - mmm.

Mr 30's Mum made him two birthday cakes. They were both the same but she had to make sure that there would be enough to feed the hordes and to keep him going all week. It, well both, were the most amazing, triple-layer chocolate cakes consisting of chocolate sponge with Cadbury's flake, fondant icing in between the sponge layers and then covered in Cadbury's Dairy Milk fondant icing. One word - Ah-May-Zing!!

Cheese Pie, Jacket Potato and Carrots

Friday night saw us travelling down to the in-laws. Mr VST had requested a speciality of his mother's, her cheese pie. This consists of pie crust, bottom and top, with cheese sauce inside it. It is nursery food at it's best. There are sometimes Quorn chicken-style pieces in the pie but then it changes it's name to Quorn pie! On Friday I detected some onion in there. It was good pie and I ate FAR too much of it. This was served with some boiled carrots and a jacket potato and then followed by a proper crumble. It was an apple and rhubarb crumble with a thick (2cms) crumble on top which was the perfect texture mmmmmm.

Holiday Catch-up

As you may have noticed that there are large gaps in my blog for February, I shall attempt to fill them in here...

Saturday 5th February

A long day of working hard followed by packing for snowboarding. Our flight was an early one which meant that we had arranged to stay near the airport the night before. We ate before we went up, as there was not an awful lot left in the fridge we had a pick and mix from the freezer consisting of potato waffles, veggie sausages, veggie burgers and baked beans.

Sunday 6th February

A ridiculously early start this morning, the alarm went off at 4am followed by a long day of travelling by plane and coach. We arrived in the French Alps at around 3pm to be welcomed by a lemon drizzle cake and a fresh French baguette. Although it felt as though we hadn't stopped eating all day these were soon demolished. Our lovely chalet host, Ollie, then started our foodie week as he meant to go on. He was single handedly catering for ten adults, two of which were vegetarian, and two small children. His day consisted of nothing but cooking for us! Anyway, our first evening meal started with some fizz and canapés. Unfortunately for the vegetarians the canapés were cucumber sticks with plum sauce wrapped in soft flour tortillas, the meaty ones had duck in them. These were more successfully followed with home made (and delicious) carrot and coriander soup. The veggie main was the most mouth-watering mushroom stew served with creamy, mustard mash and honeyed carrots. For dessert we had equally mouth-watering dark chocolate and orange mousses.

I think I'll catch up with my more boring every day blogs and add to this when I can....

Monday 7th February
Monday's starter was goats' cheese bruschetta with rocket salad and a balsamic dressing. Mouth-watering. I could smell the balsamic vinegar beginning to reduce down as I left for the slopes that morning. The main was a creamy pasta with pesto and roasted veg accompanied by a stuffed tomato. All was delicious of course and to finish we had a pear sponge with creme anglais.

I can't remember what cake it was on the Monday, it might come back to me.

Tuesday 8th February
We were greeted from the slopes once more with a baguette, butter and conserves and the best cake of the week I think, a chocolate and orange cake with chocolate icing on top. Dinner was home made tomato soup followed by a pepper stuffed with mushrooms and goat's cheese with roasted courgettes on the side. The dessert was a melt in the mouth baguette and butter pudding again served with creme anglaise.

Dahl with cheese and crackers

Did I mention before that I cycle to work? Well I do. It's less than a ten minute ride but cycling is quicker than walking and I enjoy it. I carry a back pack so that I can transport the necessary items to and from work and carry home any shopping I do during the day. As I have taken to buying all our fruit and veg from the local market stall this means that I quite often have a heavy rucksack full of veg to carry home or handlebars with plastic bags of veg balanced on them. The other week I had a meeting across town and carried the rather substantial files with me on my bike in a bag for life on the handlebars. The journey was so wobbly that I decided to buy myself a pannier rack. Luckily Mr VST had a spare pannier bag that I could use. As we have been away he has only this evening managed to find the time to fit it to my bike for me and I have been avoiding stocking up on heavy items until it had been fitted. The only meal I could think of that required the minimum of veg was dahl so that's what I made. Carrying home the onion that I needed for the recipe made no difference to the wobbliness of my journey!

Veggie Valentine's Meal

I'm back!

I hinted that I was going away snowboarding and had every intention of posting a blog before I went away but didn't get the time. There will be posts to fill in the gaps but I thought I'd start with last night's Valentine's Day meal. Yes I realise it was two days late but I was up country for the day itself so we celebrated last night instead.

We went to our local vegetarian restaurant, Herbies. While we were there we realised that we have been living here for nearly five years but only been to the restaurant twice including last night's visit. The last time we went was Valentine's Day 2009!

The food was absolutely delicious. To start we shared a generous portion of granary garlic bread. Tasty, thick slices of bread, generously topped with garlic butter and melted cheese. They were an excellent start to the meal unfortunately I don't have any photos.

For our mains Mr VST had a Winter vegetable crumble with baked potato wedges. The crumble was a thick savory crumble with oats and seeds. The vegetables included celariac (which I never quite know what to do with) as well as some of the more usual ones.

I went for the Greek filo pie which was a crispy filo basket with roasted peppers, tomatoes, aubergine and olives with feta cheese and a lovely tomato sauce. 

It was amazing! I went for a salad to accompany this and a bowl of red cabbage coleslaw, potato salad and green salad came out. I couldn't manage it all and so the waitress kindly packed it up for me to take home.

Valentine's gifts consisted of large amounts of chocolate so we didn't really need desert although I think I might have to go and try the maple and pecan tart soon....

Jacket Potato with Bean, Cheese and a side of Pizza?

That's what happens when you're trying to use up the food in the fridge before you go away!

Bangers, Mash and Onion Gravy

I'm using up all the stuff in the fridge so an onion for the onion gravy, some potatoes for the mash, carrots and broccoli on the side and our freezer is never short of Linda McCartney sausages - perfect for this yesterday....

Cottage Pie with Sweet Potato Mash

I'm going to weigh myself tomorrow in the hope that I have shifted the last of the layer I put on over Christmas. My clothes are certainly back to fitting better anyway but I would quite like the scales to confirm it. This is all before I go away next week on a snowboarding holiday which is fully catered and as I understand it we will be fed breakfast, tea and cakes on our return from the slopes and then a three course meal with wine each evening. I'm not sure if the snowboarding will cancel out the calories consumed but I'm not really that bothered either!

Anyway back to today. Cottage pie made with Quorn mince and half normal potato and half sweet potato mash has to be one of the more filling low calorie dishes that I make at about 235 calories a portion and when I am counting that makes it a winner!

Parsnip and Carrot Soup with Cheese and Crackers

A lovely smooth creamy soup with crackers and cheese for dinner this evening. The recipe is here.

Hearty Root Vegetable Stew and Dumplings

The temperature dropped off again over the weekend and yesterday was freezing. I woke up to a frosty wonderland. What better than a lovely warming stew and light fluffy dumplings to satisfy the belly and the soul!?




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