Carbo-loading with Pizza and Macaroni Cheese (with Leeks)

I've been reading over the race instructions for the Great West Run tomorrow and just realised that I should have been carbo loading for the last three days. Tonight's meal was planned, macaroni cheese with leeks but last night's pizza and garlic bread fest was a mistaken carbo load.

Mr VST had laser eye surgery yesterday and we were staying with friends nearby so that he could go back for his check up today. We had originally planned to have an Indian take away but we soon realised that, unless I was to spoon feed him, Mr VST probably wouldn't manage to eat curry, well at least not without making a mess and I'm pretty sure he didn't take a spare change of clothes!

I decided to go out for some frozen pizzas for dinner as these would be much easier, and less messy, for Mr VST to eat. Our lovely, patient, caring hosts already had some garlic bread in the freezer so my carbo loading started in earnest.

Moving onto this evening the macaroni cheese served the dual purpose of being very comforting following the surprising disturbance of being nurse/patient and also providing me with the carbs necessary for the run tomorrow.

When I was growing up my step-dad taught me how to make a very simple, and tasty version of macaroni cheese. It was one of the first meals I learnt how to cook. I was taught to cook a load of macaroni and then drain it and grate in a ton of cheddar, stir until the cheese melts, add ketchup and eat.

This evening I went for the more traditional version which involves the same cooking of macaroni but then adds the making of cheese sauce, adding a sliced leek to the sauce, mixing it all together, putting it into a dish and then grating a bit more cheese over the top before putting it in the oven.

It was inspired by this recipe from the BBC but I decided not to do all the faffing about with the infusing of milk etc and it was still pretty good. I have made it before but it's dangerously more-ish and loaded with calories so it is a rare treat.

So tomorrow I am due to run 13.1 miles eek! It is co-incidentally International Barefoot Running Day and although I won't be running completely barefoot I'll be running in my Vibram Five Finger Bikilas which is nearly as good. I'll let you know how it goes.

Leek and Feta Frittata

A quick and tasty favourite for dinner this evening.

Spinach and Feta Pie

Mr VST is on holiday this week and I threatened to make him cook for me all week. He had other plans but did make me his signature dish of spinach and feta pie. It just keeps getting better every time he makes it and it was delicious for lunch today too. He served it with lovely Cornish new potatoes.

Asparagus and Pea Risotto

Asparagus has been on the market stall now for a few weeks but it looked a bit poorly. I saw it there in Saturday though and couldn't resist. I decided to make a regular Summer favourite, asparagus and pea risotto. I found the recipe a few years ago on the BBC Food website. It's really easy and the only adjustments I make are adding a bit more wine and a bit more stock as I find it tends to dry out before the rice cooks properly.

Family Lunch

It was my father-in-law's birthday today and as it was a bank holiday Mr VST, his two brothers and the WAGs all got together for lunch. My mother-in-law put on a great spread. We started with some home made tomato and carrot soup and then had a super mix of quiches, salad, coleslaw, new potatoes, etc. Pudding was ice cream, giant cookies, flapjack, mini eggs and mini cadbury's creme eggs.

After all that I didn't really feel like supper. Mr VST made himself some pasta and pesto though. He is carbo-loading for his 60 mile cycle over Dartmoor tomorrow.

I have nibbled on, well finished, my lindt egg and had a couple of crumpets with marmite - yum!

The One Eyed Cat, Truro

After another day on the beach Mr VST and I were at a bit of a loose end. We decided to go and watch a film, Arthur, in Truro, which was very light hearted and easy to watch. We wondered the deserted streets and came to the One Eyed Cat, Truro's only bar and brasserie, apparently!

We browsed the menu and were delighted to see that not only was there more than one vegetarian option but none of the options were a goat's cheese, balsamic and red onion tart.

We started with some drinks and I chose the very refreshing mocktail Virgin Mule which was made with ginger beer and apple juice and had lemon and mint in it. Mr VST went for a pint of Cornwall's finest, Tribute.

Mr VST went for the risotto of the day which was leek and sun blushed tomato. It was plentiful, thick and creamy with just the right amount of leek.

I chose the stuffed field mushroom. It was stuffed with spinach, sweet potato and some delicious, sweet glacé red onion on top. Mine was served with sautéed potatoes and sun blush tomatoes.

Both meals were really tasty. The other options were a nut roast with all the trimmings (as it was Sunday) and a feta bubble and squeak. The One Eyed Cat was lovely with excellent service and a relaxed atmosphere. We might have to go and have to back and try the other options....

Barbecue on the Cliffs

We went down to Cornwall on Saturday and had a lovely time with friends at Godrevy beach. We got several barbecues going and Mr VST and I had some Linda McCartney sausages and Quorn burgers with plastic cheese, white bread rolls and ketchup, perfect!

Tortilla Stack with...Kale!

I decided that I would make the very popular tortilla stack for dinner on Friday. There wasn't an awful lot left in the fridge or cupboards to go with it. I had been given some kale by a work colleague who had grown it himself. I haven't eaten kale before and wasn't quite sure what to so with it so I googled it and decided to steam it. The stack itself was slightly over cooked as I was on holiday time i.e. not watching time at all! The kale itself was a bit like a bitter cabbage. I think we're going to try stir-frying the rest.

Easter Treats

On Good Friday we started the day with a toasted home made hot cross bun each with butter and honey and some toasted brioche that my Mum had made too. We then decided to exchange Easter gifts as we were going away for the weekend and with hot weather forecast I didn't think it was a good idea to take chocolate in a hot car. 

I bought Mr VST some of his favourite Lindt Lindor eggs, a minimally packaged Cadbury's egg with two solid eggs inside and finally, and my favourite, chocolate egg and soldiers from Hotel Chocolat. 

I am known to graze on my chocolate, nibbling on it over time. I was given a bag of mini eggs, a bag of smartie eggs, a delicious lindor egg and a chocolate egg sandwich from Hotel Chocolate - chocolate heaven!

We also had a box of chocolate half eggs filled with different flavours from my Mum as well as a large dark chocolate egg and some delicious little praline and orange filled mini eggs too. 

I had read Felicity Cloake's perfect hot cross buns article which of course came too late for my bun making (and I'm pretty sure I won't be faffing around with milk and bruising cardamom). I noticed that quite a few of the people commenting recommended eating hot cross buns with cheese so I thought I'd try it and it was awesome!

 

Quick Burger

I was extremely tired this evening and didn't fancy much for dinner. The sunshine made me fancy a burger and so Mr VST put some under the grill, added some plastic cheese slices and ketchup to the buns and served us up some Summery burgers.

Hot Cross Buns

Hot cross buns, hot cross buns, one a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns. You're lucky you can't hear me singing that! I'm not the best of singers. I hope I'm a better baker than I am singer, I think I am. Anyway, I decided that I would make my own hot cross buns this year for Good Friday. I'm not someone who eats these all year round even though they are available in the supermarket regardless of when Easter is.

I did a quick online search for recipes and came across this one from The Times online archive. Having looked at a few other recipes I decided that life was too short to peel my own lemon, orange and lime so I bought some Italian mixed peel instead. I also chose to use 150g of wholemeal strong bread flour and mix it with 300g of white strong bread flour to give it a bit more flavour.

They were surprisingly easily to make, just a spiced bread dough with fruit really and then of course, there is the cross on top. I'm sure Mr VST asks every year "How do they make the cross?" and this year I could answer him! It is a surprisingly easy, just a sugar, flour and water paste.

The dough was very sticky and I kneaded a lot of flour into it. I would probably use 500g of flour next time. The recipe also suggested, and I followed it, breaking the dough into 12 and then leaving the buns to rise. I would just leave the whole lot to rise and then divide it up afterwards as they didn't rise very well. 

It was too late to make the glaze so I just brushed them with milk before putting them into the oven. They were a little on the heavy side I thought. Mr VST had one pretty much straight from the oven, un-toasted, and enjoyed it. I had one toasted for breakfast and it was surprisingly good. My boss had one un-toasted and said it was a bit on the heavy side. We will be finishing them off, toasted, for breakfast tomorrow. I think I would add a bit more spice and I might be tempted to make them again before next Easter.

Easter Chocolate Cake

Last week at work I was requested to make an Easter treat for my colleagues at the office. I had seen this easy one-bowl chocolate cake on Not Quite Nigella's blog last week. I was going to make it for the weekend but the rhubarb cake took my fancy instead. I thought I'd turn this chocolate cake into an Easter one by adding some mini eggs.

You may notice that I have returned to full fat, non-vegan cakes this week! With a recipe full of eggs, chocolate and butter I couldn't really go wrong. The recipe was extremely easy to follow although I ended up making two bowls messy rather than just one and the large bowl I have is metal and so I couldn't melt the chocolate in the microwave in it.

I also made a bit of chocolate icing to make sure the mini eggs stuck onto the cake. I guess that makes it a three-bowl cake!

I'm blaming my fan assisted oven but I think I left my cake in too long as well and it wasn't quite as moist as NQN's. It still went down very well at work though and was amazingly dense.

Veggie Mexican

A old favourite that we haven't had in a while. There were lots of veggies in the fridge and some soft flour tortillas in the cupboard, a perfect combination.

Herbies Vegetarian Restaurant

The story about how I became vegetarian is on here in the 'about me' section. My little sister is also vegetarian and her story was quite similar although it involved Pingu rather than any 'real' animals. She watched Pingu and his friends eat and catch a fish and thought that there was something wrong about that. When she was offered tuna for lunch she refused to eat it. She was only about three years old and has pretty much been vegetarian since. My Mum and her partner also eat vegetarian meals fairly often and were looking forward to a meal at a veggie restaurant.

We shared some mixed olives and granary garlic bread with cheese to start. All was tasty. I don't think there was quite as much garlic on the garlic bread this time though, I would have preferred some more.

All mains are served with either the salads of the day comprising of three salads or potato wedges. The salads were green, red cabbage coleslaw with celery and apple and a rice salad with peas. My Mum, her partner and I all had the salads with our and Mr VST went for the potato wedges.

It is a novelty as a vegetarian to be able to choose from anything from the menu. We all found it hard to choose what we were going to have. Mr Mum went for the Greek filo pie, her partner for the satay, Mr VST chose the spinach and mushroom lasagne and I had the sweet potato and cashew nut loaf. It was really moist and delicious. It came with a little jug of rich tomato sauce which complemented it well. I couldn't eat all of the loaf or the salad and they gladly gave us doggy bags for this and the left over satay and salad my Mum and her partner left too. The dessert menu looked amazing but none of us could face and more food! My vegetarian little sister enjoyed some olives and garlic bread but was pretty tired by the time her jacket with cheese and beans came. She is also a little sweet tooth but was too tired to ask for pudding.

Doggy bag leftovers for lunch on Wednesday

Another enjoyable experience at Herbies. I think we're going to have to keep going back and eat our way through the menu.

Bangers, Mash, Onion Gravy and Veggies

On Monday night I had the family over for dinner. I went for an easy and delicious option - bangers (Linda McCartney's of course), mash, Anna's onion gravy, broccoli, braised red cabbage and carrots.

It went down well with everyone and then we tucked into a lemon meringue pie from Marks and Spencer for pudding. 

Chip Butties

On Saturday night after I had spent all day making rhubarb cake and shopping for the picnic as well as cleaning (muh! my least favourite job) I was a bit tired. I fancied something potato based and Mr VST volunteered to go and get some chips and bread rolls so that is what we had. We were pretty good as far as chips go, we shared a large portion. There is also a time and a place for tasteless white bread rolls and that was it. They were good buttered, filled with chips and ketchup.

Spanish Omlette (and the rest of our picnic)

How did it get to Wednesday already? Not that I'm complaining, especially when it's a four day week. On Sunday Mr VST and I went to meet my family who were staying in a cottage about half an hour away. We had agreed to bring goodies for a picnic and it turned into a bit of a bake off!

When we were in London a few weeks ago one of the guys had a great big wedge of Spanish omelette aka tortilla. I decided to make one for our picnic and went for a Delia recipe. Everyone says that you can't go wrong with a Delia. I find that the recipes test my patience. I didn't use a potato peeler to slice the potatoes, I just sliced them thinly. Having regularly made my frittata without very much oil I was surprised at how much this recipe used. I don't think a whole tablespoon was necessary when you put the egg, potato and onion mix back in the pan.

The tortilla itself was really tasty, simple and quite sweet tasting. It was a good addition to the picnic.

There was really far too much food for just the five of us! Olives, cheese, crackers, potato salad, crisps, date and banana cookies, tea bread (which was delicious btw), home made brioche and wholemeal bread (Mum has a new bread maker!)

My Mum also brought one of her Mother's Day presents too, a juicer, and Mr VST tucked in with the juicing oranges. It was a great gadget and got loads of lovely juice out of the oranges. 

Rhubarb Cake

My Mum made this rhubarb cake ages ago, May 2008 to be precise. It was delicious and I asked her to email me the recipe and that is how I know (I'm not THAT obsessed with food!). I haven't made it since then. Rhubarb is in season and they had large bunches on the market stall this week for £1 each. I love rhubarb and especially rhubarb crumble but I thought I'd like to do something slightly different and something portable so that I could take it to the picnic.

So you need:

For the base                                                          
300g Rhubarb
Juice of half a lemon
165g self-raising flour
175g butter
175g caster sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

for the topping

25g butter
2 tbsp self-raising flour
1 tbsp caster sugar
2 tsp ground ginger

1. Set the oven at 180 degrees C (160 for fan ovens)
2. Grease a cake tin or in my case a lasagne dish!
3. Chop the rhubarb into 3cm lengths and mix with lemon juice
4. Cream together butter and sugar, mix in flour, eggs and vanilla extract.

The recipe says whisk together the ingredients in 4. but I tried that and the butter just went into little lumps. It didn't make any difference to the overall taste though.

5. Fold half the rhubarb into the batter mix and spoon it into the tin. Scatter the remaining rhubarb over the top.

6. Make the topping by rubbing the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and ginger and sprinkle over the cake.

Bake for 50 minutes and then leave to cool for about 10 minutes before serving.

The result is a really moist sponge with a subtle gingery topping and lovely chunks of rhubarb throughout. Mr VST and I had to try it before serving it to my family of course so we had some with ice cream. It was equally delicious cold and eaten as a cake today.

Friday Night Curry

An easy cook on Friday night. Everything that was left in the fridge went into the curry! It was an interesting mix of mushrooms, aubergine, sweet potato and spinach.

Mushroom One Pot

Made a regular favourite this evening, Mushroom and Rice one-pot. Very easy and tasty. I actually followed the recipe this evening as I haven't made it in a while. I even rinsed the rice properly before I put it in the pot. This meant that the texture of the rice was completely different. I think Mr VST and I prefer our sticky rice!

Sweet Potato Mash, Veggie Sausage and Broccoli

A quick banger and mash yesterday with instant veggie gravy, not quite as good as the onion gravy but the mash was good.

Ezo Turkish Restaurant, Bristol

Look at me getting about and eating in all these cities!! Work took me to Bristol this afternoon and I was lucky enough to meet up with a couple of friends for dinner once I'd finished.

We went to a Turkish restaurant, Ezo on Gloucester Road. A lot of the food on the menu looked very familiar to me. My Nan is Greek and the hummus, haloumi and moussaka all looked the same! I'm sure my Nan would say that they they were Greek not Turkish!

Wherever they come from the food was delicious. We shared a plate of cold mezze and I had the moussaka which was really rich in flavour. Packed full of potato, aubergine and other veg in a rich tomato sauce, topped with a
béchamel sauce. It was mouth watering.



Even though we didn't need it we ordered dessert. I went for the baklava which again is Greek or Turkish depending on where you're from. It was amazing. A thick layer of nuts on filo pastry topped with more layers of filo and honey. It was so good I'm afraid I ate it all and didn't take a photo :(

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The King of Frittatas

Not much in the fridge apart from a couple of potatoes and an ever-shrinking block of cheddar. I picked up some organic leeks and salad from The Real Food Store which has recently opened. They didn't have any feta so I got that from the supermarket. When I got home after my run I rustled this easy frittata up with some salad.

Vegan Brownies or Energy Bars - You Decide!

Despite my disaster with the vegan chocolate blueberry cake the week before last when I saw this on one of my favourite food blogs I was intrigued and I had to try it. I think because I am ever hopeful that there is something remotely low in calories that could be good for me and satisfy my sweet tooth. It's a long shot I know! I bought the ingredients on Friday in my excitement and then had to wait until my return from London before I could try them out.

A large part of my job is managing expectations, sadly, in most cases, keeping them low. These were listed on the blog (well two blogs) as raw brownies. Now the recipe I use for brownies is Nigel Slater's, it is full of chocolate, eggs, sugar and butter and is absolutely mind-blowing. Finding a recipe without those ingredients that would match up was unlikely. I presented these to Mr VST, without telling him what the ingredients were, as home made energy bars. I think this was more realistic and managed his expectations. He tucked in and said that they were really tasty. I think they were OK. For some reason, and I think it was the dates, the base didn't gel together at all. When blended, the base ingredients were supposed to look like potting soil, unfortunately, mine stayed that way! I bought some dates which were fresh but not medjool, I think I will make sure I get the right ones next time. I also thought about mixing the 'icing' and base together and freezing them to see if that would work.

I bought whole walnuts and have a new appreciation for walnut shellers

Potting soil!

No that's not vegan ice cream!

Brick Lane Weekend - Part 2

We wandered around picking up our treats and ended up in the food market at Spitalfields. There were so many delicious smells. We did two laps of the food stalls before deciding what to have. Mr VST went for some noodles with tofu and vegetables. It was really tasty. I tend to avoid tofu because it seems to only taste nice once it has been deep fried! I think the tofu in this meal had been fried and it was really good.

The one at the front, left hand side

I went for a Thai pumpkin curry. It was pretty hot but really tasty. I can't get enough pumpkin, butternut squash etc. The curry also had cauliflower in it and some other veg. There were some stalls selling vegan cup cakes, waffles and crepes which I was really tempted by but I was so full up I couldn't manage anything else. After lunch we decided to head home.  

We had already picked up a spinach and feta flatbread, some olives and a slice of banana cake for a picnic on the way home. The flatbread was really tasty, like a cross between bread and a thick pancake with a slight bit of spice and packed with spinach and feta. Lovely. We also had some very moreish feta stuffed, herby olives.

Feta and Spinach Flatbread

Feta stuffed olives

We also had a thick slice of banana cake but unfortunately we ate it before I could take a photograph. It was thick and sweet and packed full of bananas. 

What a lovely way to spend the weekend.

Brick Lane Weekend

Following on from our little picnic on the way down to London the weekend was planned and revolved around FOOD - yipee!

Saturday started with toasted muffins, scrambled egg, fried mushrooms and cheese made by the friends we were staying with. We then headed onto Brick Lane which was just around the corner from where we were staying. We could smell the curry when we arrived on Friday night, it was amazing.

We strolled down Brick Lane and over to Spitalfield Market. There weren't any stalls open on Saturday but we wandered around the shops. There were some delicious smells coming from a few food stalls. We wandered into a cheese shop which was selling, amongst other cheeses, Cornish Yarg.

Lovely blue skies and
 sunshine

Walnut & Pecan Tart with Strawberry & Kiwi Tea

From there we moved on to Patisserie Valerie in Spitalfields. We had cake for lunch! Mr VST had a double chocolate slice, I had a pecan and walnut tart and our friend had a custard slice. All were delicious and very filling. I also had a flavoursome pot of strawberry and kiwi tea with mine.

Yes that is a profiterole on top!

After some more strolling around we went to a bar and started the early Summer with Pimm's.

For the evening we split into groups of girls and boys. Us girlies went to Tayyabs for curry. None of us were particularly spice fans. I went for a mixed vegetable karahi with pilau rice and a peshwari naan. The spice level was just right for me. We also had some spicy and plain poppadoms to start with spicy raita, mango chutney and a very spicy tomato sauce that only I tried. 

Moving on to Sunday, we started with some toast. No cooked breakfast as it was late. We had been up late nattering and so had all slept in. Spitalfields market was full of wonderful creative things. Lots of clothes, jewellery, pictures and art. It was lovely to just wonder around all the stalls. There were a few good food stalls in amongst this lot and we picked up a few snacks for tea.......