So I’ve finally broken the 11 Stone barrier and then this!
Look at that! I’m home alone for one night only and I revert to this sort of thing!
750 calories of pure Sin. But so worth it!
In an effort to balance this, I also roasted Aubergine, Pepper and Onion and made a tasty, healthy soup to have for the next 2 days lunches 
Look at that! I’m home alone for one night only and I revert to this sort of thing!
750 calories of pure Sin. But so worth it!
In an effort to balance this, I also roasted Aubergine, Pepper and Onion and made a tasty, healthy soup to have for the next 2 days lunches
I promise, I have some ideas for real posts soon, until then humour me, ok?
I was recently irked by these otherwise wonderful olives.
Lets take a closer look, can you spot the irksome item?
Yes indeed, thats right, the complete absence of the promised pimento paste is quite a dissapointment!
Given that fact, I still have to say that the olives themselves were still fabulous
Today, we went to Mexborough, my old home town. Which, although I wasnt stepping down from a train, did look just the same.
We were on a mission from the Easter bunny, delivering eggs in advance of the upcoming Sunday “thing”
I presented Nephew Joe with a beautiful Creme Egg and bless him, he smiled sweetly for a moment, then informed me he doesnt like Creme Eggs. Ever the resourceful Uncle, quick as a flash I delved into my bag and produced a Smarties egg originally destined for Nephew Owen.
Sadly, this egg cut no ice. Nephew Joe is 5 years old and a proper little man with a developed personality, he didnt hesitate to explain that he doesnt like Smarties.
“What do you like?”, I asked.
He replied, “chocolate, just chocolate”
“So what’s wrong with Smarties?”
“They’re to crispy”
“and Creme eggs?”
“Too sweet!”
“So what chocolate do you like?”
“Just chocolate.”
Luckily, my Mum had some mini dairy milk bars that I could substitute for the Creme Eggs.
So there you have it, a 5 year old that wont eat or drink anything sweeter than water or solid chocolate, who heard of such a thing?
But do you know, he is my Nephew and I love him!
We are off on holiday for a few days, until we get back help yourself to bangers with bubble & squeak mash 
ps. how do you like my gravy volcano type presentation?
Yay, number one in a (probably short) series of post featuring exciting, exotic and down right strange fruits.
Todays strange fruit is the Pomelo or Chinese Grapefruit.
Lets take a look.
Unwrapped.
Now we’re getting somewhere, look at the thickness of that pith!
Segments, the size is difficult convey without something in the picture to give scale, these are about 8-9cm long!
Ready to eat.
The verdict?
Really rather good, more like an Orange than Grapefruit, I think that is mostly because of the lack of the bitter edge that you often get with a Grapefruit. The flesh is also very robust, almost meaty, and I mean that in a good way
Will I buy one again?
Probably not, the effort involved in opeing it and removing all the membranes just isnt worth it. I’ll stick with nice easy to peel Clementines
Join me next time when I tackle another extreme strange fruit!
We had a heavy night last night and after dragging ourselves out shopping today, we decided to treat ourselves to lunch out.
I ordered the 21 day matured, 8oz rump steak, as you can see, it was a bargain at a fiver
I ordered my steak rare, which can be a problem when it arrives on one of these cast-iron sizzling skillet things. Luckily, it was sitting on a bed of sliced onion that kept it from cooking further.
WARNING : Look away now if you dont want to see its beautiful rareness as testified by the blood seeping out mmmmm, great for dipping your chips in!
That is all.
I know! Get us!
Lobster for dinner, it’s not even any particularly special occasion. Unless you count the fact that I celebrate my love for Paul EVERY day. Sorry, that was sickly wasn’t it?
Any ways, here it is…..
It wasn’t as extravagant as you might imagine. These cooked lobsters are currently available in Lidl for the amazing price of £4.99.
I can confirm that served up, very simply, with buttered wholemeal Hovis and eaten with a little marie rose sauce, it was delicious
So go on, treat yourself
I mean really, could we be any different?
I’m having a lovely piece of Salmon, carefully pan fried to perfection. Paul is boiling some Kippers in a bag.
Of course I loved the Salmon, but I do envy the ability to eat Kippers. I love the taste of the smoked Herrings but I cant abide all those tiny bones.
Although I love the fish (of all kinds) I wasn’t brought up with it. It seems I never learned the trick of eating boney fish with mouthfuls of bread and butter to help the bones slip down!
PS, Please excuse my dirty hob, I do clean it regularly, you’ve just caught me at the end of my clean/dirty cycle
Today my lunch was this wonderful homemade soup. Look at that colour!!
Do I have to mention that it was a triumph?
Oh, and the Butternut Squash are from the brother-in-law’s allotment, aren’t they beauties?
The recipe:
Spicy Butternut And Lentil Soup.
Before I start I’ll just say that although I found the recipe title on the net and thus got the inspiration, I threw away their recipe cos it was boring and made up my own version
Serves 4 (or 2 of me:-)
1 large or 2 smallish Butternut Squash (around 600g)
100g Red Lentils
1 medium-ish Onion
2 cloves of Garlic
2 fresh Chilli
1tsp Garam Masala
1tsp ground Turmeric
1tsp ground Cumin
1tsp Cayenne Pepper
2-3 Cloves
2-3 Bay leaves
Water as required to make the soup thin/thick enough for you
The method:
Rinse lentils in water until it runs clear.
Peel, slice open and de-seed the Squash, then chop into inch chunks. Peel and chop a medium Onion into similar size chunks. Bash open a couple of Garlic cloves, removing the skin in the process. Place the lot in a roasting dish and chuck in a couple of fresh, whole Chillis. Drizzle the whole lot with Olive oil and toss to coat. Stick in the oven at around 200 degrees for 40 minutes-ish, during this time take it out and toss it around a couple of times to ensure even roasting.
Bring the Lentils to the boil in a pint of clean water. Boil for 10 minutes, then simmer for a further 10-15. In my opinion, if you are skimming the water as you go, you can skip the step of changing this water later. Once the Lentils are tender (you can drain them here if you wish and use fresh water), add a Veg or Chicken stock cube. Now you can add the rest of the flavours and spices, the fun part here is deciding how YOU want it to taste. I’d definitely recommend you at least try using the Garam Masala
Let the lentils simmer a little more, they are probably going to disappear around this point, dont worry they are doing their job! This will also give the spices a chance to cook out.
Once the Squash is tender, add the contents of the roasting tray to the soup base. Simmer the lot for another 10 mins (unless youre pushed for time) to let the flavours mingle. Add salt and Pepper to taste, before finally fishing out the Chillis and Bay leaves. You might also take out the cloves if you prefer. Now its your choice of blitzing or, as I did, using a Potato Masher.
My top tip here (and you deserve one if you’ve stuck with me so far!) is that if you are going to use your partners treasured* plastic masher AND you’ve used Turmeric, you might want to think carefully before proceeding!
*Really! Apparently, its made by Prestige and it was a massive £5.95 way back in 1992.
If, like me, you don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I think you’ll enjoy these savoury beauties
I doubled up the recipe and made 24 in normal sized bun cases, I thought that was rather a lot, but they soon dissapeared at work yesterday.
They were, I declared, a triumph!
The recipe.
Courgette and cheddar cheese muffins
Makes 6 large or 12 small
Time 40 mins
150g (5oz) self-raising flour
75g (3oz) rolled oats
1 ½ tsp English mustard powder
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate soda
200g (7oz) courgette, grated
150g (5oz) strong cheddar cheese, grated
75 ml (3fl oz) milk
1 egg
5 tbsp vegetable oil
6 olives
Heat oven to gas mark 4 -180degC – 350degF
Mix together dry ingredients, add the courgette and cheese but reserve a little for the topping.
Whisk the milk, egg and vegetable oil, add to bowl and mix together.
Spoon into 6 large silicone or paper muffin cases, top with an olive and some courgette and cheese.
Place in the oven and cook for 30 mins, serve.
It is my Dads birthday tomorrow, he wont be reading this but I’ll say it anyway, “Happy Birthday Dad!”
We couldnt make it to his birthday lunch with the rest of the family on Sunday, so I suggested taking him out for lunch on Saturday. We picked them up and headed to the Wetherby Whaler in Wakefield. Here’s Mum and Dad as we chatted while waiting for our food.
Hurrah, my “Giant” Haddock arrived. I can confirm that it was wonderfully cooked, the chips were like Gran used to fry and the mushy peas perfectly mushed
On the way home we stopped off at New Miller Dam and enjoyed a treat from the ice cream van. The boy in the ice cream van had 2 hearing aids, he was very good though.
A couple handing out religious postcards were quickly rebuffed by me. Unfortunately, Mum opened things up again, “is it religious? I’ll take one, I am a confirmed Christian.” I then had to spend the next 5 minutes explaining how this version of religion is just a little bit kooky.
We then went for a walk in the woods along the waters edge. An Andrex puppy being walked by a couple caused quite a stir, I put my foot down, no dogs allowed in my house!
We made it back to the car with seconds to spare on the parking meter and completed the journey back to Mexborough, dropping off the parents, finally driving back to Sheffield and liberating a couple of Lagers from the fridge.
A succesful day and mission accomplished
The End.
NaBloPoMo July 08 Day 31 – The END!
I made it! 31 days of food related photo blog posting, its been fun and, once I got into the rhythm, surprisingly easy to keep going each day. It has been interesting (mostly for me I’m sure) to see the variety of foods that I eat in a month, plus some recurring themes too
“What exactly is the story with today’s photo?” I’m glad you asked! This has been something I have eaten on more than half the days in July. I suppose I should have counted this too, for the sake of the project.
These are Ranitidine Hydrochloride tablets, and shown here under the Indian brand name Zinetac. I picked these up in India* the last time we were there. You might know this medicine by the UK brand name Zantac, an over the counter remedy in 75mg strength tablets.
The sharp-eyed among you will see that the pictured Zinetac are 150mg, so double-good right? You may also notice that these are Rupees 5.21 for a strip of 10 tablets which is like 6 or 7 pence, in the UK Zantac are more like 4 pounds for 12 tablets. Personally, for this sort of price difference I can cope with the box being made of un-bleached card, printed in only one colour. Who needs the glossy, over designed colourful boxes they use in the UK?
You’ll probably also notice that it says on there “To be sold by retail on the prescription of a Registered Medical Practiotioner only.” What a laugh, since in India, the the busiest shops in the resorts are usually the pharmacies! You just go in and ask for what you want, no questions asked. I’ved queued up behind all sorts in the past, blokes buying boxes of Viagra to sell back home. Women shouting over their shoulder back into the street, “Mam, did you want some Valium as well?”
So, that’s my little secret, I could choose to be a martyr to my stomach and the unbearable pain of heartburn. Instead, I choose to self medicate, I’m told its a very safe drug, and enjoy life, I want to eat nice interesting rich and spicy foods, not bland boring stuff!
Life is just too short, right?
* We also stock up on Colgate toothpaste and toothbrushes, mozzie sprays and sun creams. Its all so much cheaper than over here, less than half price usually.
NaBloPoMo July 08 Day 30
My brunch snack yesterday, a salad of melon, garlic stuffed olives and spianata calabrese salami.
The super hot peppery salami against the sweet cool flavour of the melon edged by the sour garlicky olives was a sensational combination.
The salami was a surprise for me that Paul brought back from the supermarket the other day. It’s not one I’ve tried before but I’ll be having it again for sure. Here is what it looked like before I chopped it up. I’ve not seen a salami this shape before either!
You can see the peppercorns, I don’t have to tell you how hot it was
NaBloPoMo July 08 Day 29
Monday’s lunch was was an early one, we were on late shift again so needing to eat before going to work. Paul made big fat chips (you may call them wedges) by frying up the leftover potatoes from Sunday dinner.
Add these to some re-heated chicken and gravy and you have got a satisfiying meal
You just can’t beat chips and gravy!
