Birstall white horse.

That's me full of roast beef and yorkies. Just waiting for the dark chocolate salted v caramel tart now...

A confection by North's at Rothley. Salted caramel sauce and dark chocolate topped salt caramel fondent in a shortbread case... I choked it down. 

Suffolk shore crab bisque.

So on holiday, living on an old Dutch barge, with only a simple Aga to cook on, do central heating, and all the hot water (best shower in ages!) The Twa Gebroders is a lovely place to stay for a weeks holiday and worth the money and occasional drop of condensation as you sleep...
Shore crab bisque came from HFW's river cottage 'Edible Seashore'. A great book if your off on holiday to the seaside. While I read the recipe it was not slavishly followed, as I'm on a boat in a tiny hamlet in Suffolk... Ingredients being harder to comeby at times.
This recipe worked really well. Though timing was totally out the window!
A pressure cooler would make this a 20 minute cook rather than the hour and a half I spent...
Anyway the recipe.
Take a half small bucket of shore crabs.
3 carrots
2onions
A big leek
3 sticks cellery
2 cloves garlic
Some smoked sweet paprika
Some smoked hot paprika
A tin of chopped toms'
A bottle of Suffolk cider (300ml for cooking  rest to keep the chef happy so get a big bottle)
Olive oil and butter
Dry dill 1 tsp.
S&P
Some milk or CREAM. DOUBLE. NO REALLY! JUST A DASH!!!

Half a bucket of shore crabs?
When cooking for two I used about 10 or 15 of these little crabs, they all fitted into a colander easily.

Top tip on cooking crabs or crustations of any kind, stick them in the freezer for 30 mins to 1 hour before you plunge the poor Buggers into a big pot of very salty boiling water. The big chill puts them into a very... Limited state of being, making plunging them alive into hot water as humane as possible.

1 chop all the veg, and soften in a big casserole with the olive oil and butter. Soften not brown.

2 whilst that's doing bring a big pan of salty water to the boil. (the aha was brill at this) then drop in the crabs bring back to the boil and then cook for 3 minutes. Drain and cool, before chopping.

3 when the vegies are softish, add the paprikas and dry dill and fry for one minute more then add the chopped crab.

4 mix in a measureing jug the tin of tomatoes, a tomato tin of the cider, and top up to 1liter with water. Season.

5 after stirring the crab into the vegies, and cooking whilst you mix the liquid, add the liquid. Stir, put lid on and cook till the vegies are really soft... (this took a goodly long while in the aga oven, wine was enjoyed.)

6 put a sieve over another saucepan. When the vegies are sore laddle into the sieve in small amounts pushing and squeezing as Much through the holes as you can.
Be strong! Repeat till you have a pan of soup.

7 Check the seasoning of the soup. Add S & P as required. Then Stir in the cream or milk.  Bring back to near boiling and serve with the croutons I forgot to tell you to make earlier. Sorry.

8 go back in time, chop into cubes nice sourdough bread and fry in olive oil and butter with 3 cloves garlic s&p. Till crispy and gorgeous.... Low and slow is the way here. While your waiting for the stuff to cook. Really worth it.

Meat-ona-stick

9 hours into a 12 hour shift the other day, and I got my lunch break. Utterly starving what do I get to eat as we travel back to station? Well on the day in question I found a new Turkish restaurant and takeaway on Narborough road, 'Istanbul'. I didn't have much time so I couldn't choose one of the really tasty kebabs sitting there waiting to be grilled over the charcoal, but the nice family guy serving suggested the schwarma, lamb or chicken. I said yes please, lamb please.
To the uninitiated, schwarma looks a bit like Donner kebab. And I have a place in my hear for donner, but at three in the afternoon... Schwarma is different in that meat is sliced thinly, marinated and spiced then arranged on the big vertical spike for grilling. This is different from the thoroughly minced fat rich and often industrial product that is the Donner we know and secretly love. Schwarma are usually made in house and as such differ in flavour wherever you get it.
Istanbul serves its schwarma on a bed of really tasty shortgrain rice, with a separate tray of salad and pickles and half of a substantial flat bread which was moist and chewy coated in sessame and tasty. The lamb was so rich and flavoursome I'm thinking it was hogget, but all the better for that in my book, lightly spiced but with good flavours.
£7 for a whole takeaway meal? It was worth it. And for the same price I could have eaten it there if i'd had more time. Another day another kebab. Happy days.

Fasting for Life

Since watching Michael Mosely on the BBC's Horizon telling us, with scientific evidence, why having the odd day a week off eating, or with minimal minimal intake will be good for her longterm health, I have been intermittently fasting.
I have tried the odd diet in the past when feeling a little on the porky side, gorging on meat while reading the work of doctor Atkins, or avoiding mixing carbs and protien or even, shock eating less and doing more! With all the diets I tried I did lose weight, though with the exception of the eat less do more diet, it all involved constant denial. Whilst the eat less do more didn't ask me not to eat less just to climb mountains each day if i wanted to enjoy my food. Happily for me at the time I was living and working in the lakedistrict as an outdoor instructor and so found this disciplin doable.

These days my work is much less physical, and becoming a gym rat, well I tried it but... Nah.

I am  very food focused, it occupies my thought most days  from early on, and by the time Phil asks me if iv'e any thoughts on 'whats for dinner?' I tend to give some quite detailed suggestions. This leads her to letting me know in no uncertain terms, that if I  fancy  prawn and pork potstickers, or calamari, or Smoked low 'n' slow beef brisket on the bbq, then i'm doing the cooking...
It can get a little tireing, constantly thinking of what to eat, what I need to get in and how to prepair it, especially as we rarely have the same meal repeated.
For all these reasone intermittent fasting has been a sucessful part of my life for a few months now. The weight loss is slow but steady and the process pretty painless.
Two non consecutive days a week  I eat less than 600 calories generally in one large veg or salad fest'.
Doesn't that hurt? or leave me all wobbly and faint? nope. hunger comes and goes, the urge to gorge on a mighty burger or stuff cheesy pasta down my neck, (or bag of doughnuts) doesnt happen.
Due to the whole 'intermittent' thing i know that Burger, bun, bagel, beef, beer or backlava are all mine tomorrow.
So here's to intermittent fasting, long life and a healthy appetite.

Getting cooked for.

Tonight Phil cooked for me. Roasted marinated chicken thighs and drumsticks, garlicky herby potato wedges and tahini harrisa mayo with a good load of salad and some Spanish red. Super tasty comforting and satisfying food. Thanks Pippa!

One of the best breakfasts?

Lazy day before back to work tomorrow so whats one of the best ways of setting yourself up for a day of lazing about and maybe some light gardening?
The answer today was toast. Unfortunately the bread bin was bare, but when I have a toast head on there's no stopping me, and I'm just glad we have a waitrose down in the village so good real bread is available every day.
Today big French white was called for. All toasted under the grill, and served with home made jams, Turkish 'gul receli' a rose petal jam, and of course Marmite! Washed down with a gallon of tea and the 'I' crossword.

Heavily buttered toast, your mums marmalade, tea and the paper... heaven? close.

Phillipas' 'Marmalion' a dandylion marmalade? sounds odd, but tastes great.

Chilli con carne chipotle powered.

Now, I like a good chilli, but when I developed my chilli, back in the day, I was a vegi... So I do a kick ass vegi chilli, but don't have a really good meat chilli to go to.  I've been researching it for a little while, and since getting the new Chipotles thought now was a good time to try again.
in the past I've tried using fresh spices and not been happy with the depth of flavours in the finished dish. Reading a bit led me to try making my own chilli powder using the sublime chipotle peppers.
Finding a decent recipe for making your own chilli seasoning is relatively easy as the foodies of the USA have left the odd recipe lying around. I borrowed from this one by Alton Brown.  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/abs-chili-powder-recipe/index.html

However my other half is less keen on all things flaming hot, so I tempered the recipe using both sweet and piquant smoked paprika, 3 chipotle chillies, 3 dried Indian chillies, dried oregano, allspice whole cumin and garlic powder. All the whole spices got dry pan toasted then ground and mixed with the others in a blender. The smell is great, rich and smokey and the heat subdued, but you can add heat but can't take it away, as I have found to my cost at other times...

The chilli powder with the chillies in it made I got some other bits together. As well as the bits in the picture I dry fried and drained some beef mince, and fried some lardons. Next I added the onions and garlic, sauted till soft and coloured then added the mince and spice.  Once in and cooked off for a few minutes a good crust of flavors was beginning to form on the base of the pan.Most of a can of finest Murphys stout loosened the goodness and once reduced added to the overall smoke flavours.

Tomatoes, salt and some kidney beans are stired through then an hour in the oven with the lid on. Smelled good, looked good, tasty... How to serve it? On rice? Tortilla? Decided on baked in the still hot oven wrapped in soft corn tortilla with grated cheese and coriander, topped with more chilli and cheese... Healthy appetite required but 4 hours weeding the lottie in the weak January sun had sorted that! Lime and coriander coleslaw on the side and some guacamole... Added a fresh and zingy note and dinner was done. Feedback from the Mrs was 'this isn't a burrito its an enchilada' but she did eventually admit the chilli was great too.