Okey dokey. That pesky book has now been written and published. I feel like talking about food again, but can't seem to find the time to update Dietgirl and WNP as it is. Hmmm.
Yes, for shame, I will need to admit defeat on this food blogging caper for now. At least until I get this stinking Dietgirl book written. No, I'm not one of them high-falutin' bloggers with bookdeals, this is a personal project I have undertaken purely to see if I can rise to the challenge. But I have been far too easily distracted from it lately. Thanks very much, bloody World Cup.
The thing is, I have cooked so many wonderful healthy dishes that I'm sure the lard busting crowd would be interested in hearing about. As I've said before, I'm not short of ideas and I love writing about food. But after wasting the first third of 2006, I came up with a timetabled writing plan in May and I am determined to stick to my deadlines. So this is it for now, unless I suddenly become ridiculously ahead of schedule :) Thank you for all humouring me as I made my ill-advised foray into the foodblogging arena.
I made this pavlova today and I could spend hours composing a witty post full of childhood pavlova anecdotes, but instead I will just link to the caption on Flickr which outlines my problems. If you have any handy hints on how to make my meringue taller, I'd love to hear from you!
A couple of weeks ago this strange and seemingly extra-terrestrial vegetable appeared in our organic box delivery. Thanks to the clever citizens of the internet, I quickly discovered it was kolhrabi.
Most people recommended I try it raw, and indeed the lovely and famous Clotilde once wrote about the joys of pressing slices of it into a wee pile of sea salt. And it sounds even more exotic in French: le chou-rave!
In the end I opted for this Kohlrabi Slaw. If you're trying to lose some blubber, SLAWS ARE YOUR FRIEND, people! Sick of lunchtime salads? Tired of grilled fish for dinner? Worrying about how to fit in your Five A Day? Just get out the grater, baby. It's easy to mow through a pile of vegetables when they're in slaw form. And you don't need barrells of mayo either! This recipe calls for just a few tablespoons, but I think it would taste fine if you left it out altogether and just used the lime juice and vinegar.
We had this with some tuna steaks and a oven-roasted potato wedges. The kohlrabi is zingy and fresh and makes a nice change from ol' fashioned cabbage-based slaws. Thanks for your help, Internet Detectives!
KOHLRABI SLAW
Serves: 4
Source: Slashfood
1 large kohlrabi, peeled and grated
1/2 fuji apple, peeled and grated (I used a whole bog-standard Braeburn!)
1 carrot, peeled and grated
1/2 sweet yellow or red onion, thinly sliced
handful of chopped parsley (whoops, forgot this)
juice of half a lime
3 or 4 shakes of sherry wine vinegar (I subbed white wine vinegar)
mayonnaise, just enough to bind ingredients
sea salt and fresh ground pepper
Combine everything in a large bowl. Mix well. Chill 30 minutes to blend flavours. Serve. You cannae get easier than that!
Serving dish courtesy of New Blossom Chinese takeaway down the street. One day I will take a proper photo instead of hasty snaps of leftovers!
Food labels, while essential and informative, are often amusing in their painful obviousness. Like when your bar of Hazelnut Cadbury Dairymilk says "May Contain Nuts" on the wrapper. But a recent purchase from Marks and Spencer really took the cake.
M&S have a new range called Eat Well, with over 1,000 products that are nutritionally balanced and contain no artificial flavourings, colours or sweeteners. In order to distinguish them from their delectable melting chocolate puddings and highly addictive caramel shortbreads, all Eat Well products are marked by a bold sunflower logo.
M&S seem keen to let us know they're flogging healthy stuff too, but are we really living in an age where we need a little sticker to tell us a potato doesn't contain any colours or sweeteners? Plus a wee note that you really shouldn't eat the sticker?
Next thing we'll see Suitable For Vegetarians or FAT FREE labels splashed across a bunch of celery.
Healthy recipes tend to taste light and clean - full of fresh herbs and strong flavours, like Elise's amazing Seared Tuna that we've been devouring every week since she posted it. Just one mouthful of dish like that makes you feel holy and virtuous.
But sometimes you don't feel holy and virtuous. Sometimes the body screams out for decadence, comfort and stodge!
Traditionally, comfort and stodge means a pound of butter and/or a pint of cream. But the best healthier recipes make the most of ingredients that add maximum richness and flavour without mega calories. This Weight Watchers mushroom risotto proved a great example - rich and creamy without actual cream or dodgy low-fat dairy. Just look at the main ingredients:
The beauty of most Weight Watchers recipes today (apart from the shitey ones with artificial sweetners) is that they cleverly reduce the amounts of the most calorific yet flavoursome ingredients, while adding bulk with low-cal or low-fat stuff like vegetables. The recipes taste a bit lighter than the Original versions, but not so "diet-y" that you feel you're being defrauded. It was nicely luxurious, with all those mushrooms making for a meaty and satisfying meal for this faux-vegetarian.
My tiny mods to this recipe: I used bog standard cheapo button mushies but added a pack of Tesco "Mixed Exotic" mushrooms for fun. I should have written down their names, but we're basically talking all the odd-shaped weird ones. They were mighty flavoursome. I probably twice the specified quantity too, that way I got to have more in my bowl!
I forgot to buy parsley so chucked in some baby spinach, which was noice. I also stirred in the parmesan in the saucepan, as opposed to sprinkling on top, so you get that nice creamy cheesiness in every bite.
WILD MUSHROOM RISOTTO
Source: How To Cook The Weight Watchers Way
Serves: 4
20 g dried porcini mushrooms
150 ml boiling water
low fat cooking spray
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
350 g arborio rice
100 ml white wine
1.2 litres hot vegetable stock
200 g mushrooms, sliced
a small bunch of fresh parsley, chopped
salt and freshly ground pepper
50 g Parmesan cheese, finely grated, to serve
Place the dried mushrooms in a measuring jug and add the boiling water. Soak for 25 minutes.
Heat a large, heavy saucepan, spray with the cooking spray, and gently stir fry the onion and garlic until softened.
Add the rice and and stir to mix well, then add the wine. Drain the dried mushrooms, reserving the stock, chop into small pieces. Strain the soaking water through a fine mesh sieve or piece of muslin and add to the risotto (I did not strain it: too lazy/hungry), with the reconstituted and fresh mushrooms. (I actually stir-fried fresh mushies a wee bit before I added the porcini and liquid)
Add the vegetable stock in small quantities, cooking and stirring frequently until all of it has been absorbed.
Check the seasoning and stir in the parsley (or spinach til wilted). Serve with the parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top.
Per serve: 418 calories, or 6 WW Points
NB: Photo is copyright of and unceremoniously nicked from the Weight Watchers UK website, as once again I forgot to photograph before eating! Oh dear.
UPDATE: Thanks to Pamela who cooked this recipe and pointed out there was no mention of stock! Oh dear. The ingredients list has been amended :)
I made a pilgrimage to the Edinburgh Farmers Market this morn and my eyes fell upon a most holy vision of loveliness. A giant, fragrant pyramid of fresh baked hot cross buns.
Only yesterday I'd received an email from Tesco offering me a free six-pack of their Finest Hot Cross Buns with my next order as thanks for my loyal custom. I know I'm supposed to trot around to local providores and cheesemongers in search of groceries, but I live out of town so we get a weekly delivery from the evil global conglomerate.
So I was going to add these Free Bunz to my shopping list tomorrow, but then I saw these lovely fresh ones in Edinburgh today, just 50p each. That's 50p more and five less than the free 6-pack, but that's when I had to ask myself, Do I need six free hot cross buns?
My mother used to have one of those flippy calendars beside the telephone, you know those Day To A Page ones with a daily quote from Confucious, Winston Churchill or some other approachable smart person. I was about ten years old when I read this quote:
Cheap is dear, because it tempts us to buy what we need not.
I can't remember who said it, but I do remember filing it away in my insufferable ten-year-old memory. On our next trip to the supermarket, I trailed behind my mother waiting for my moment. As soon as she started scavenging through the reduced-price yogurts and discounted mince, I intoned sagely and smart-arsedly, "Cheap is dear, Mother; because it tempts us to buy what we need not."
Pre-teen smugness aside, it's good advice in terms of weight loss. Six free hot cross buns may sound like a good deal on paper, but one good quality 50p hot cross bun, savoured slowly with a smidge of butter and a cup of tea, is much better for the size of my arse.
Happy Easter, groovers!
Rumours of my spectacular failure at this stinking food blogging caper are entirely true have been greatly exaggerated!
I am having to re-evaluate my Writing Goals at the moment, to phrase it in a wanky fashion. I started the year out with massive lists of ideas for all of my blogs, with the intention of ploughing through said lists like a MACHINE! But instead I seem to spend an average of six hours per blog entry on What's New Pussycat, faffing around and angsting over every word. Everything on Dietgirl is written in an awful, guilty rush, and poor Ginger falls by the wayside, and not helped by the fact I keep cooking lovely new dishes but bloody forgetting to take a picture before I scoff it all down!
Meanwhile, the idea list keeps growing and growing out of control. I am not getting anything done and getting stressed, which is bloody hilarious when you consider blogging has no deadlines and noone is putting pressure on you and/or cares about your blogs as much as you (cf. brilliant Blog Depression article).
The real problem is that I am not doing any of my other, non-blogging writing projects. A quarter of 2006 is gone, dammit! It's time to stop pissfarting around.
In terms of my blogs, I am attempting to recapture the good ol days, where I blogged quickly and unselfconsciously and with a big middle finger to perfection. This was meant to be fun, dammit. So you may see more typos and clumsy language, but I am going to give myself a time limit and just churn it out and enjoy it. Blogging needs to be toned down so I can focus on my other tasks. So it will be more of a fun diversion instead of an outright Avoidance Tactic. Woohoo!
Here's a few links I've wolfed down while I was busy with my Blogging Paralysis:
The Pheast has the dubious honour of being the place where Gareth and I dined immediately following our wedding(s) at Graceland Chapel. We were going to splash out on an overrated overpriced "proper" restaurant, but I got my head ripped off by a condescending wench at the Bellagio when making a simple enquiry the day before our connubials, and I was bloody fragile and FREAKED OUT as it was, since we'd just been to the courthouse to get our marriage licence and there were convicted felons wandering round in orange overalls, and everyone seemed to have a GUN and Vegas was so overwhelming and the portions were so huge and I thought my dress wasn't going to fit plus there was just general wedding nerves THEREFORE I never got round to finding us somewhere nice to eat after our spectacular elopment.
So that's how we ended up spending our first married meal at the Pharaoh's Pheast. I'd desperately wanted a meal to remember, not only for romances sake but because I'd been so vigilantly healthy to get into that damn wedding frock and now I wanted to celebrate. I ended up with was salmonella salads, questionable meats and painfully sweet desserts. Yet sitting there surrounded by faux-Egyptian decor and surly waitresses with my brand new husband was somehow so bloody perfect and hilarious considering the how the wedding turned out.
We were so full of bloat and regret after the Pheast that all we could do was slump on our hotel bed and moan in pain, as opposed to moan in the midst of consumating lovin'. We watched Judge Judy reruns then waddled out to see Tom Jones perform at the MGM Grand. Happy, happy day :)