Super Busy

Today I've managed a great day in the kitchen. Got shopping nice and early (well, lunchtime, but it is the holidays!). Bought loads of veggies and have made a few meals for us all to eat over the coming months.

For the girls, I crushed three cloves of garlic, fried in olive oil until just going golden and then added two tins of tomatoes, some dried tarragon, oregano and two dessert spoons of sherry vinegar. I bought some nice quality ones today as well to add sweetness. I reduced these for about 30 minutes whilst roasting five very large red and yellow peppers on a high heat in the oven. Once cool enough to handle, I deskinned the peppers, put them into the tomato sauce and blended. I served this over pasta with a mixture of grated cheddar and Parmesan. Was it successful? Biggie said 'Mummy, you're a winner' and downed the whole lot in less than five minutes. Baby Big Girl ate at her usual speed and about forty minutes later we threw about half of her portion away, cold. I don't think she disliked it...hope not, as there are five portions now in the freezer! It's a recipe I'll make for Husband#1 and myself in the efforts to reduce cholesterol - not so much cheese I guess for us!

Whilst the peppers were roasting I decided to make the pesto for Tuesday - the girls are going to join us on this one, it does create pressure! So I roasted about 100g of pine nuts and cooled. Then I added about three and a half large basil plants (stalks and all), two crushed cloves of garlic, half a triangle of Parmesan, chopped and blended with a mix of olive oil and extra virgin olive oil until just as I wanted. I added a little salt and tested a spoon on the Biggie. She approved. Hope she likes it on pasta with a nice piece of fish!

Beautiful Colours!

Pasta with Roasted Pepper Sauce and Cheese

Busy Busy Busy...and breathe.

Well I haven't bogged for quite some time but that doesn't mean I haven't been eating! In the time since I last posted, I have probably put on more weight than I've lost and I've also gained 'raised' cholesterol - not sure what the damage is there, but let's face it, I don't believe in margarine, olive oil or other ominously named 'spreads.' I only eat butter. But taking that into context, I won't reach for the butter tub on a weekly basis, so the chances of everything being solved by my moving over to a special 'spread' that lowers cholesterol if I take 3 portions per day don't exist. I have moved to low fat mayonnaise - but again if I use that twice a month it's lucky. I drink skimmed milk and since Baby Big Girl turned two, we no longer have blue in the house so even porridge is made low fat these days. I even read that lowering your salt intake might be a bad thing to do when you have cholesterol...hurrah!

Chocolate. That's my problem. I am convinced. Okay, so it hadn't yet made me diabetic but it has made me book a ten minute 'dietry advice' session with the doctor. Great. Will update in that one later.

In the meantime, I've been to the coast with Husband#1and whilst we were there we fully intended to partake of a large amount of lobster, crab, whelks and whatever delights might be on sale, but there were none to be had. Well, hardly. Due to the excessively cold weather, there have been no lobsters for ever. Or so it seems. We managed to get a crab one day and I made a lovely starter of crab, tomatoes, red onion and basil all chopped up and mixed with a little olive oil and a tiny drop of balsamic vinegar. It was really fresh and will definitely have that one again if the fishermen ever manage to catch any more crabs. We did also manage a small tray of whelks as a snack, but they didn't count as they were a) the big chewy ones, which are tasty but not as nice as the usual small, juicy beauties that Arthur the fishmonger sells and b) Biggie was around which meant a three-way share. Great. She's just at that age where she wants to try everything, which I am very proud of, but just not when I only have a small tray of whelks!!

So the next day, we tried to have Ina's lobster mac and cheese but no lobster to be found again and so a change of plan was needed. Haven't roasted a sea bass for ages so I bought a couple (which the man from Morrison's couldn't price, so he gave me for £2 each!) and stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes and pine nuts and served on roasted peppers, potatoes and red onion. Surprisingly satisfying when you consider we were expecting lobster mac and cheese by Ina!

The final, and again, healthy triumph was the sardine open sandwich. Ciabatta, roasted peppers, hearts of romaine lettuce, juicy tomatoes and red onion and topped with grilled, fresh sardines, anchovy fillets and a hard boiled egg. Drizzled with a little olive oil, it was again, delicious and I believe the doctor would approve...