Nutty as a Fruitcake

Today has turned out to be a ‘Try Something New’ day. Breakfast started with a new Rude Health porridge – Top Banana – which had fairtrade dried banana, whole hazelnuts and maple flakes. I like this make of porridge as they don’t add salt or sugar to their products, and yet taste very good. I served mine with some more sliced fresh banana, a teaspoon of maple syrup and a teaspoon of peanut butter for extra protein. The frothy loveliness in the mug is a cafe machiato with cinnamon syrup courtesy of my Tassimo.

Today was a day to catch up on chore and some shopping on the Internet. I buy a lot this way as a ‘shopping trip’ usually involves a 50 mile round trip with no guarantee that we would get the exact item we want. So I prefer to browse online, pick exactly what I want, and then just wait for the Postie.

Lunch was the next new product – Merchant Gourmet Giant Couscous I’d picked this up a couple of weeks ago as it looked similar to a product I had on a holiday in South West France and was wholemeal. I cooked mine with a cup of broccoli florets, and then once it was drained, I added some chopped spring onions, yellow pepper and avocado. I stirred in some houmous, and topped it with some Wife of Bath cheese and chili sauce.

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The last ‘Try Something New’ was Dinner. I got a new cook book ‘EatingWell Serves Two’ and tried the Pork Chops with Mustard-Maple Sauce. The recipe is also available on their web site here.

It turned out very well, but I cooked the pork for longer than it said in the recipe. We don’t like our pork pink. I also made a carrot salad and a bean sprout salad but served that in a separate bowl. We had a slice of a fresh loaf of mixed grain bread and a small jacket potato… lovely.

Its great to get to the end of the week… its been a long one. My brain had definitely decided it wanted to work a four day working week, not a five day one. The thaw has arrived, but we are still seeing unusual birds such as this Fieldfair in the garden scoping out the apples impaled on the willow tree. We can see the green in the garden again, and life is almost back to normal.

Breakfast, as planned, was scrambled eggs on a slice of mixed grain toast. This bread has been fantastic; soft and chewy when first made and excellent for toast over the last couple of days.

I am looking forward to more daylight and am starting to plan what I am going to do in the garden and allotment this year. Work and injury, and then rain dominated and finally crushed my enthusiasm last year, so this year I have decided to take a much more pragmatic approach. I will not grow seedlings this year. I will buy plantlets from the market and Internet. I will try a few rows of seeds but not worry if it doesn’t work out. I will grow lots of peas! And I will not grow too much lettuce! I need to put the joy back into my garden.

Lunch was a quick dish of pasta shapes, tomato passata with a bit of chili, and a sprinkling of cheese. This lunch is not on my plan, but I needed something warm and comforting.

Friday’s work was focused on preparing reports for the businesses reviews next week. I know they have to be done, but the automatic reporting tool we have is tedious and frustrating to use. I hum a happy little tune to myself as I watch the screen freeze again…. lovely.

Afternoon snack for a cafe machiato with cinnamon syrup and two toffee apple biscuits. Boy, did I need that caffeine… I may have an addiction.

The news from Haiti gets worse and worse. Without infrastructure and only one runway at the airport, the relief agencies have a mammoth task.

Dinner was fish tacos and spicy wedges. The corn tortilla was warmed, with a spicy tomato and chili relish, a salad of crispy chinese leaves shredded, watercress, sweet peppers, tomatoes and avocado. Topped with a crispy Basa Fillet and more relish on the side.

We watched Transformer this evening… I think I’m about twenty years too old to enjoy it. They had tried really hard, and spent lots of money, but I couldn’t decide if it was supposed to be a comedy, a children’s film or scary. Oh well.

After all that adrenaline 🙂 I had a celery and cheese snack to calm down again.

Warm moist air creeps over snow covered cold counties and we end up with a pea soup. I left Christchurch late, so was traveling in the dark, but as I started to climb over Cranbourne Chase the fog crowded in and I drove slowly down Zig Zag Hill it got even thicker. It was difficult to see the street lights!

Morning started with a breakfast of cheesy toast, a banana and fresh ‘tassimo’d’ coffee.

My main excitement today (apart from work!) was using our new HD video conferencing facility. It was quite an experience once we read the instructions! What is it about TV zappers that men are always the first to pick them up, assuming that pressing random buttons will just work. After several minutes of zapper ownership, the first male team was complaining that the system was rubbish, not set up properly, blah, blah, blah… Another male team member walked in, picked up the one page instruction sheet, pressed two buttons and we were talking to a team 70 miles up the road in perfect HD.

Lunch was packed. Seed rolls with houmous, lean ham, cucumber and watercress. Clementines and a handful of mini biscuits. I also took a portion of my plum compote, but released at the end of my day that I had forgotten to eat it.

After the perilous drive back, I looked at the weeks meal plan and started preparing the tofu, rice and stir-fry vegetables. I baked the tofu, sliced and covered in szechuan marinade. I added a spoon of the marinade to the vegetables, before combining with the rice, and put the tofu on top.

My daughter was taking her first exam of her MSc today…. it seems to have gone OK, which is good because she had worked incredibly hard.

It had snowed all night and we had about 2 inches of fresh snow on top of the existing covering. The Somerset countryside is amazingly beautiful, with every tree branch outlined in white. I had to drive over the Mendips to Bristol for a very important customer meeting. This is a 14 mile trip on snowy, ice, hilly roads. I was not looking forward to it.

Breakfast was multi-seed toast with peanut butter, a smear of mixed berry conserve and sliced banana. Served with a Starbucks Blend Tassimo Coffee. Comforting and invigorating at the same time.

While I was eating my breakfast, I was watching a strange bird tuck into its breakfast in the garden.. an apple impaled on the tree. It was a Redwing, which is a Scandinavian bird that migrates here for the winter. They usually stay out in the countryside but the prolonged cold weather in driving them into towns to find food. As my Beloved is a committed bird feeder, we have the best type of entertainment to watch while having the first meal of the day. The bird was so pretty and obviously very hungry.

This photo Andreas Trepte, www.photo-natur.de.

The journey was slow, but careful. I soon got into the swing of where the sliding risk was maximised. I was able to relax and enjoy to beauty of the snow. The car park at the Bristol end was interesting, but I got there in plenty of time. I met some of my team members in the cafe for lunch. The selection was excellent, but unfortunately no photos were allowed. I had some celery and apple soup, a salad roll and some yoghurt with apricot puree.

The meeting was very successful and the journey home was even more beautiful as it became misty. Black, white and misty .. a monochrome landscape.

Dinner today was a quick supper of a steak and onion pie from Farringtons ( on the blogroll), pak choi sautéed with a spoon of hoisin sauce and some mashed potato.

The thaw arrives tomorrow, meaning less adventurous driving back to Christchurch tomorrow.

Today was another based at our Dorset site, completing some Development Review for my first line and a few interesting conversations focused on a white paper that I am writing from one of our customers.

However there has been a huge ‘snow’ cloud hanging over my head. I have a very important meeting in Bristol tomorrow i.e. must not be missed and must be done in person. The weather forecast is for about 12 hours of heavy snow and indeed by the time I got home the thick snowflakes were coming down fast. So what to do?

• Travel to Bristol in the snow, stay in a hotel, get to the meeting and not be able to get back home afterwards?
• Or stay at home tonight and hope that the roads will be cleared in time for me to travel tomorrow?

My Beloved was unhappy that I would be traveling again tonight after a having already driven two hours home to Somerset so I decided on the second option. Having made the decision I felt a lot better… isn’t that always the way?!

Breakfast was of the cooked variety, at the hotel, accompanied by a tall glass of orange juice. I always get ‘a look’ from my fellow businessmen as I pass them with my breakfast, as they tuck into their ‘lighter’ breakfasts of toast and cereals. They think they have chosen a healthy options, but I’m having two portions of vegetables, a fruit portion, and some protein… a much more satisfying combination!

I was going to have a hot lunch in our canteen today but it was the dreaded liver and onion so I opted for a cheese and tomato baguette with coleslaw.

I broke my commitment to not eat in the car… I was very hungry (and stressed) by the time I filled the car with fuel and I fell into that trap of buying a snack of cheese.

Dinner was crumbed Haddock with spicy potato wedges. Hot and quick. Just what I needed to warm up after another snowy journey.

I’ve parked my car at the top of the hill…. we will see what happens tomorrow.

This is my first day away from home since starting my blog. This meant I was faced with having to take pictures of my meal at the hotel. I had a practice of flashless photography in my room first and I’m hoping the quality is good enough.

Breakfast was cinnamon porridge with a sliced banana and my plum comport. This was a lovely mix of hot and spicy, cold and fruity.

Porridge with banana and plum

I had a team telecon first thing, followed by a drive through the snowy countryside to Dorset for work. Only to be faced with an icerink car park when I arrived.

A busy morning and two lunch time meetings meant lunch was in three stages. The first at two o’clock, the second phase at three and the rest at five. My planned roast pork had to be replaced with leftover chili as we were piggies ourselves and finished the joint yesterday! Still the chili went well with the broccoli, cauliflower and potatoes. Two clementines and lunchies for something sweet.

The afternoon flew by and by the end of the working day my brain was buzzing. A quick drive to the hotel, a couple of phonecalls and I checked in. I bought a skinny vanilla latte from the starbucks on the ground flour and went to practice my photos. What do you think of the results?

I’m staying at the Village in Bournemouth, which is a good chain that is aimed at the business traveller Dinner was French onion soup which was tasty.

I followed this with a turkey burger with veg instead of chips. I drank spring water and felt too full at the end. It was well prepared but the portion size was way too large.

I think the photos have turned out well….. brilliant.

After dire predictions of snow fall today, in fact the temperature is rising, and now the forecast is for a slight thaw. The whole country has gone mad with panic buying in the supermarkets and worrying about the gas running out. But back to reality…

We had a usual Sunday breakfast, using the frozen bacon sourced from Good Taste Foods as part of their ‘Not Just for Christmas’ mixed box. It wasn’t smoked, which I think is mandatory for bacon, but the Beloved liked it. So scramble eggs, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms with nutmeg and mixed grain pain rustique bread.

This morning I prepared my conference pears by poaching them in the remains of my cider, draining them, and reducing the remaining liquid to a syrup and covering the fruit. I also made some flapjacks with the oats, butter, dark brown sugar and golden syrup. They are currently cooling after 25 minutes in the oven. They look a bit too toffee-ish for my liking, but we’ll see what they are like.

Lunch was pea and ham soup, served with a ham salad sandwich. My, this bread is good. Chewy and Nutty, but still soft.

My Beloved doesn’t believe me, but I singed off all the ends of my eyelashes when I took the flapjacks out of the oven…. which incidentally have turn out to be like treacle toffee with oats in… not the soft buttery chewiness I was after.. Thanks Delia! :} Hopefully I won’t look too peculiar with my mascara tomorrow.

We are watching a blu-ray of Get Smart. This is a really funny film, and very well done. If you like Zoolander, you will love this comedy. The characters are played straight, even though the scenes get more and more surreal. And laugh out loud comedy! I enjoyed a snowball as an aperitif in honour of our snowy conditions.

Dinner was a beautiful piece of organic loin of pork from Sharpham Park Farm Shop. The meat was excellent quality, and the crackling was super crisp. I can’t stand the stuff, but the Beloved like the old pig skin almost as much as the meat. I served it with some of my pears, yorkshire puds, roast potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower. Not forgetting the obligatory gravy.

Today is the start of ‘Reduce Portion Sizes‘ week. I started with halving the amount of porridge in todays serving, but keeping the same amount of toppings. It worked fine. Still looked good, and lasted the right length of time.

I took the car out today for the first time since the start of our Arctic Week. Our road is now clear but there are still some ice clumps on all the roads, especially around junctions, round abouts and car parks. Still, the countryside looks beautiful, and lots of people were enjoying tobogganing down the hills south of Shepton.

We drove a long sunny drive to Waitrose in Gillingham. We love Waitrose. The quality of the meat, vegetables and range of foods is excellent. We learned today that we can order from this supermarket for home delivery, which would save us a 70 minute round trip if we wish. We had lunch at the supermarket. Cumberland sausage whorl in a white roll with mustard and a Cappuccino. Lovely but un-photographed! I’m going to see what quality of photo I can take with my camera phone, or work out how I am going to deal with ‘outside home’ meals.

Dinner was a hearty Chilli Con Carne; extra lean steak mince, chopped carrots, celery, onions, peppers, kidney beans in chilli sauce, passata, and then a mixture of spice, fennel seeds, marjoram, cinnamon and salt. Started on the stove and finished in the oven. I served this with some Cornbread, using a recipe from the Waitrose website. I’ve not made this before, and although nice, it was very dense. The chilli was topped with grated cheese and a dollop of sour cream. Check out the space on the plate… thats the way to do it.

Tonight was an NCIS catch up. Two episodes we hadn’t seen… which, lets face it is quite unusual to find any unseen episodes of anything on UK TV at the moment. We have more channels than ever and yet we watch less TV than ever before. How come?

I finished the day with a dessert, although I think it was too much as I have felt stuffed since. Although this Truffle Mouse looked wonderful, it was too much. I am also trying a new Kopparberg Premium Cider with Elderflower and Lime. It tastes just like elderflower squash, but fizzy. It is very sweet, too sweet. I think it would be good on a nice hot day, but then again, I think I would prefer just the squash.

This is the meal plan for the week starting Sunday. I have a shopping list to go with it and we are going to get the shopping tomorrow before the snow returns.

Greens are vegetables and fruits to make sure I am getting enough

Blues are new recipes: This week from EatingWell Serves Two

The exciting news of today is the the Council Workers arrived at the top of our hill with a lorry full of grit… It was like Christmas, we were so excited. The lovely men spread grit down the entire hill, making sure we were safe. Thank you Somerset Council!

This means I can get to work on Monday and we can go food shopping this weekend. Huge sighs of relief all round (although a little worry about the amount of new snow we get this weekend). The newspapers and TV were all showing this image from a Photo taken by NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response. It is absolutely amazing to see the entire country at once and covered in white.

The temperature fell to nearly -20C in Scotland last night and the lowest local temperature was -14.6C in Yeovilton. Please remember to feed the birds, preferably something fatty, and make sure they have water.

My breakfast was a sort of cheats cheese on toast made with the last of the Parmesan and tomato bread, Red Leicester cheese and sliced tomatoes. Served with a frothy cup of coffee. Lovely. Having a bit of protein with breakfast certainly helps keep me fuller for longer.

The rat man came first thing, and confirmed that the droppings were that of Ratties. He has left some poison to see if they are still around. RIP ratty.

I spent the morning working on my Team Strategy Document, trying to pull together all my various presentations into a single cohesive document. My aim is to reduce the 100+ pages to a more manageable 30+…. but there is so much information. I am going to have to be ruthless.

The second brilliant thing that happened today is that we got post for the first time this week. The lovely postman risked the ice to deliver some outstanding orders from Amazon, including the EatingWell Meals for Two book that I ordered. The recipe collection is very good and I’ve selected a number to try over the next week so keep posted.

Lunch was a courtesy of the freezer (did I mention we need to go food shopping… ) We had Southern Style Quorn Burgers, some fresh cooked French Bread, a salad made of onions, cucumber, tomatoes, olives, feta and some mayo. It has kept us going all afternoon.

After another few hours of laptop work on my Strategy Document, the home phone started ringing while I was on my work phone with my Boss. When I eventually found the phone (!) it was my neighbour to tell me that my Beloved was trying to get in the front door, but I had left it locked with my keys in it. He’d been ringing the doorbell for ages, but the combination of two shut doors (to keep the heat in), my phone call and my little fan heat means I was oblivious. D’oh.

However I rewarded him with the best steak we’ve had for ages, served with broccoli, mushrooms, onions and real chips. That TFI Friday night feeling 🙂 The meat was 21-day matured rump steak from Good Taste Foods. Every item of meat or fish that we have bought from this company has been first class. Although most of their produce comes in boxes of 10 (which I must admit put me off the initial commitment), it has proved to be a very good way of buying meat. I initially bought chicken breasts and haddock fillets. The chicken breasts were very large and I was using one between two of us. The haddock fillets came ‘dusted’ meaning they had a thinner, crispier (and lower calorie) batter on them. They were excellent.

Tonights meat was from one of their mixed box selections of meat for grilling, which include pork and lamb steaks, rib eye and rump beef steaks.

We also decanted my vintage port into the cut glass decanter my brother bought me for Christmas.. good present! But after a small port, followed by a larger Bailey’s (is it supposed to have bits in it?) the inner nutta demanded Ginger Cake.

I’ve had a week of eating what I fancy to see what themes I can work out. It is unfortunate that the shopping has been limited by the weather, but it has given me a pretty good idea. So my observations are:

1. My portion size has crept up again.. the white plates are a breakfast plate size, but I’m starting to pile them up too much. Depth still counts.
2. My sweet tooth has been very dominant and I need to be more selective with what I have – Quality not Quantity
3. There has been quite a lot of fried food and cheese, which I need to tone down.
4. The meals were mostly unplanned (again due to the shopping restrictions)

I am going to address the first three of these one at a time over the next three weeks. The last point I have addressed straight away!