10 Stone 13 Pounds

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 🙂

Guilty pleasures ;-)

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 🙂

Olive you to to work it out.

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 🙂

Easter Mission

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!

🙂

Look at them bangers!

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?

StrangeFruit #001 – The Pomelo

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!

Saturday bloody Saturday

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.

Lobster dinner

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 🙂

Salmon & Kippers or Chalk & Cheese ?

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 🙂

Spicy Butternut And Lentil Soup

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.