Hitchcocks

No, not the films, but the best restaurant in Hull. I'm not saying there aren't places with finer cuisine, but for its fun, its ethics and its eccentricity it can't be beaten.

Hitchcocks serves a yummy vegetarian buffet and fantastic puddings. And their coffee gets the Caffeine Monster seal of approval.

If you live in Hull and you've never been, you really should. You can even play Hitchcocks Bingo. Each person on your table puts 50p in the middle, first person to hear someone in the queue for the buffet say,
"I'll need a steak later. Ha ha."
gets the money.
There really should be a prize for spotting the selfsame "wit" later as he (it's always a he) adjusts his belt to allow for just a little bit more yummyness.

Statement

I eat meat. I respect those who have made a moral decision to become vegetarian but I am no longer one of them. I have also made my decision after much thought and consideration and am content with my decision.
However, I buy only free-range eggs and wherever possible I make sure that they are not only free-range, but also organic and rare-breed.
I buy only organic milk and am trying to move toward organic cheese and butter as I am concerned about abuses in the dairy trade.
I am increasingly choosing organic meat and will only buy chicken if it has a freedom food label at the very least- usually I chose organic.

I am trying to move toward Fair Trade coffee, tea, and sugar but I am having trouble with Fair Trade chocolate as I just don't like it as much!

I try to boycott ALL Nestle products and brands, even though this has meant giving up my favourite San Pellegrino bottled water and Lancome and Maybelline cosmetics.

I do not tell others what they should believe or how they should live their lives. I make decisions according to my conscience alone.

Baked Eggs

One of my favourite lunch or supper dishes.

Take a clove of garlic and cut it in half. Rub the cut edge round the inside of a ramekin. Grease the ramekin with butter and drop in a free-range egg. Add a glug of cream- the thicker the better but anything will do, double, single, creme fraiche, even whole milk if you're really stuck- you need about a tablespoon. You can stop there, or you can top with fresh herbs, grated cheese, a sprinkling of paprika, or breadcrumbs. Put into a baking tray of hot water and bake for 15-20 minutes at gas Mark 4/ 180C.

Eat with toast, crusty bread or a green salad.

More than Macaroni

My mother often used to put some bacon in Macaroni Cheese for the flavour and colour. I never really liked that as I only like my bacon really crispy and hers was always a bit limp and anaemic (apart from this grumble I should say that she's a wonderful cook). I wanted to add a little something to my Macaroni cheese this weekend, so I built it up with layers of cooked spinach (with the water squeezed out) and pastrami before pouring the cheese sauce all over it. I realise pastrami is Jewish not Italian and that by combining it with milk, cheese and butter I'm turning it into the antithesis of Kosher, but I wasn't going for authenticity, I was going for taste, and the peppery coating on the meat was wonderful. It would have been even better with a watercress salad.

New Monday

I woke up this morning and for the first time in weeks my heart wasn't racing and I didn't feel close to panic. It has been an odd feeling. I think that I've probably felt this stressed at the lack of work in September before, but in the past I have dealt with these feelings by eating. When I felt sick with worry I'd eat, when I was upset and frightened, I'd eat. This is the first year I have had to face this feeling of impotence and fear for the future without food as a tranquiliser Intuitive Eating isn't always easy, sometimes we don't want to tune in and acknowledge our feelings, sometimes we want to hide from them and their root causes. It has been strange, but ultimately helpful, to wonder why I was worried and look that worry square in the face. And I haven't turned to food!

It doesn't look like I'll be working today so I'm going to take advantage of the sunshine to get some laundry done. I have huge amounts of clothes mostly living in bags and boxes, unsorted and unused. I'm going to try and get lots of them put away today so I can work out what clothes I actually NEED to buy. I have a feeling I might have about twenty little black tops.

Dante

I followed the links to Julia's blog, which she doesn't seem to be keeping up unfortunately and found this. I appear to be going to Purgatory which is nice. I thought my sexual history would be sending me somewhere colder. I should say that though I am Catholic, I don't subscribe to the doctrinal beliefs of 13th/14th century Italy!
The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

David Tennant

I've nothing to say about this except that I'm having a very difficult couple of weeks and I find a picture of David Tennant always helps.

Irish Stew

Sorry I haven't posted much this week. Things have been getting a bit on top of me but I hope to be feeling less stressed as more work becomes available.
Following on from my Ballymaloe post, this recipe is based on Myrtle Allen's Irish Stew, though I have changed it a bit. I'd give you my Granny's recipe but my Mammy still won't let me have the book!

Ingredients
1.25-1.5kg/2½-3lb mutton neck chops- you can use lamb, but mutton has a much better flavour. I get mine from my local Indian and Continental Stores.
4 medium onions
4 medium carrots
570ml/1 pint stock or water
salt and pepper
4 potatoes
15g/½oz butter
1 tbsp chopped parsley

Method
1. Cut the excess fat from the chops, shred it and render it down in a heavy flameproof casserole, I use the fantastic Le Creuset pan I got for a quid from my parents local dump*.
2. Toss the meat in the fat until coloured.
3. Cut the onions and carrots into quarters, add to the meat and turn in the fat also.
4. Add the stock and season carefully.
5. Simmer gently for approximately two hours, adding the potatoes halfway through. Irish Stew must be cooked on the top of the stove but you need to be very careful not to let it scorch. I did once and it was horrid.
6. When the meat is cooked, pour off the cooking liquid, de-grease and re-heat it in another saucepan. Check the seasoning.
7. Swirl in the butter and parsley and pour back over the stew.

* I should explain to those of you that eat at my house that I do not make it a habit to cook with items scavenged from landfill sights. The staff at my parents local tip regularly save and sell items left by the well-heeled Cotswold residents. I've had two Le Creuset pans and a proper Espresso pot from there so far. Bet you never realised a trip to Dean tip could be so exciting!

On Saturday morning I asked The Boy what he wanted for dinner that night. Did he want fish, chicken, lamb, beef, pork, or meat-free? He decided to be funny and asked for venison. So I went into the freezer and found the venison burgers I got in the bargain section last week. He should know better than to try and catch me out.
We had venison, mash, and green peas, so no recipe for that I'm afraid. Yesterday we had pie, mash and a mixture of peas and endame beans. The Boy was delighted. I do wonder sometimes why I cook at all!
It was good to have a rest though. My heart still feels like it's trying to escape and it's making me feel tired. I'm back at the doctor tomorrow for tests.

Ballymaloe House

I was recently trying to remember the best meals I've ever had and I thought my visits to Ballymaloe House in Cork. It's a famous cookery school now but when I went in the 80s it was just a country house hotel and farm with a fantastic restaurant. The food was all fresh and locally sourced and I remember hearing Myrtle Allen on the phone to her son Rory in the mornings checking what was available so she could decide on the menu. They understood seasonal food and Slow Food long before it became fashionable but they were never precious about it, they just saw it as normal. The food was amongst the best I've ever had but there was no stuffiness about the place, they used to come round and offer seconds.

I love the idea that good food should be free of pretension and snobbery and I think Ballymaloe was a huge influence on me. I'd rather eat a dinner made of the best rare-breed free-range eggs than eat a factory farmed chicken, quality not quantity.

Dieting is so often about making sure you fill up on quantities of low-fat, low-calorie, low-quality foods and there's always been a part of me that hated that. I have always chosen to have a small amount of good butter rather than a lot of low-cal spread and one of the reasons that Beyond Chocolate resonated with me was that it encouraged me to eat the best foods I could possibly afford and enjoy them.

My parents couldn't afford a long stay at Ballymaloe but they chose to take us there for a few days rather than a longer trip to a less wonderful place. I must remember to thank them.

Chicken or Quorn Satay

I've always loved a kind of chicken satay dish that Gill and I used to eat at least once a week. Then I married someone with a peanut allergy. Fortunately The Boy is not allergic to all nuts, he just has asthma attacks when exposed to peanuts, cashews and brazil nuts. I had a bit of a think yesterday and came up with this alternative. It wouldn't be suitable for someone with a severe nut allergy but it's fine for us and actually has a more interesting flavour than the original.

This takes 20 minutes at most. The lemon, almond butter and coconut are all store-cupboard ingredients so I only have to get the chicken or Quorn on my way home from work. Perhaps I should call it a Natasha Express dish!

Ingredients

450g chicken or Quorn pieces.
Juice of 1 lemon
4 tsp almond butter (I used Meridian)
40g creamed coconut

Method

Pan fry the chicken or quorn until cooked through.
Add the juice of a lemon and stir through give it a few minutes so the flavour of the lemon has time to penetrate the chunks.
Add the almond butter and coconut.
Stir til heated through and thoroughly mixed together

Serve with rice or noodles.
We shared this between two but it would probably serve three easily, four if you had a side dish too as it is very rich. In any case I was so full I wasn't hungry for my pudding and am looking forward to having some later today.

Maple, date and banana flapjacks

My local greengrocers has yummy Dorset Cereals for sale very cheaply as they're at their Best Before date so I thought I'd do somehing with them.

* 450g of Date and Banana fruity porridge oats
* 75g soft brown sugar
* 300g butter (should be unsalted but I didn't have any)
* 75g golden syrup
*75g maple flavour syrup (I guess you could use the real thing but I prefer to save that for pouring)


Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas Mark 5

1. Mix the sugar and the oats.
2. Melt the butter and syrup together on a low heat- you will need a big pan for this.
3. Stir in the oats and sugar mixture.
4. Press into a buttered tin, or a silicone tray.
5. Bake for 25 minutes.

I can't tell you what these taste like as they're in the oven at the moment! I'm going to serve them with whipped cream and bananas for pudding tonight.

Argan Oil

I love using a few drops of flavoured oil as a simple salad dressing. My absolute favourite is argan oil from Morocco, or from Harvey Nicols in Leeds if you're me! I first had it when my friend Gill brought me some back from her holiday in Morocco. Don't you just love people who bring you things to eat! It's a delicious sweet nutty oil which is also a fantastic garnish dripped on to a summer pea soup.

If you've ever seen those pictures of goats up trees it's the argan they're climbing and contrary to popular myth the oil does NOT come from the nuts the goats have eaten and digested!

Thanks to Berberman on ukcampsite for the picture.

Not only is it a delicious ingredient, but it's a fabulous beauty product AND a way of supporting the women of Morocco.
Find out more here .

Lentil Curry.

This is the easiest meal in the whole wide world and amazingly adaptable. Quantities are approximate. This probably serves four normal people...

Ingredients

250g red lentils
1 medium onion
1 tin of tomatoes
Half a block of creamed coconut
Spices

Method

1. Finely chop and fry the onion until translucent. (I use red onions and considerably more than one, but that's because we adore onions!)
2. Add your choice of spices or curry paste. (I like to put in a whole red chilli, a stick of cinnamon and some paprika, Hannah uses cumin) Stir well.
3. Add the lentils and the tin of tomatoes.
4. Cook for anything from 15 mins onwards depending on how mushy you like your lentils. Top up with water if it looks like it might stick.

You can stop at this point or add any vegetable you like, fresh, tinned or frozen spinach works really well, but so do roasted peppers, courgettes, green beans or anything you feel hungry for.
If you want a creamy curry proceed to step 5.

5. Add creamed coconut to taste. I shave it off the block a bit at a time and melt it into the curry. For a creamy taste half a block is probably ok.

Originally I thought I once added a whole block of coconut but then I realised that was when I made this with two tins of tomatoes and a sack of lentils!
Serve with rice, pitta, chappatis, homemade flat-bread, jacket potato or anything else you like.
It is also fantastic cold the next day so brilliant for a pack-up.


EDIT- If you're wondering what normal means, I mean not someone who takes one bite and then moans that they're full and couldn't passibly manage any more and not someone who eats a huge bowl and then keeps going back to the kitchen for the entire evening until she's eaten the entire bowl. Guess which one is me!

Love Muffins

I've just discovered that Love Muffins are a euphemism for breasts. As a 38h that seems to be particularly appropriate!

Make ahead courgette salad aka Summer on a Plate.

I invented this salad as part of my Easter Sunday lunch one year. The joy of it is you can make it an hour or so before (in fact it's better if you do) so you don't have to worry about last minute timings. I love this with lamb, turkey or a vegetarian main course like a good quiche. It was such a success that I make it for every buffet I do now, especially as Hannah usually puts in a special request for it.

Courgette Salad.

Amounts are approximate as I tend to cook by eye and taste.

Ingredients.

Enough courgettes to provide two medium sized veg per person. If you are cooking for a large party you can reduce this to one per person as I find people eat less when there are loads of them. If I'm doing it as part of a weekday dinner I increase the amounts.
Good olive oil
Half a lemon for every four courgettes.
Fresh mint
Salt and pepper to taste (Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper please.)

1. Thinly slice the courgettes with a sharp knife or a mandoline (I'm scared of mine so I use the side of my grater).
2. Heat the olive oil in the biggest frying pan you have, a wok is ideal.
3. Fry the courgettes on a medium heat for a few minutes until most of them have some brown marks on them. Do not worry if some are less cooked as the lemon juice will finish the process. Add a generous sprinkling of finely chopped fresh mint before you stir them one last time and remove from the heat.
4. Squeeze the lemon juice over the cooked courgettes, add salt and pepper, stir and cover.
5. Leave the flavours to soak into each other.

I like to serve this at room temperature but if you made it a long time ahead and wanted to refrigerate it that would work too. I love this dish, it always tastes to me like summer on a plate.

Chickpea nibbles.

I have no idea if I read this somewhere years ago or not, but one night I was looking for inspiration for an interesting nibble to serve some Veggie friends and two tins inspired this. It might look complicated and a bit frightening but it is easy as anything.

Spicy Paprika Chickpeas

Ingredients

1 tin of chickpeas
Smoked paprika and Maldon sea salt to taste.

* Take a tin of chickpeas and rinse and drain THOROUGHLY letting them dry out by leaving them out for a while or by patting them with kitchen towel. I know you can soak your own, but honestly who has the patience?

* Heat a tiny amount of very good olive oil in a non-stick pan. You really only want enough to stop the chickpeas sticking and if you really trust your pans I guess you could forego this step altogether.

* Add the chickpeas. This is where you will find out if you drained them enough as water will cause them to spit horribly if you didn't.

* Sprinkle with Maldon sea salt and the spice of your choice- I use smoked paprika because it's yummy and I love the religious kitsch of the tin. Be generous with your flavourings, now is not the time to worry about your salt intake! Leave a few seconds just to let the spices permeate and the chickpeas turn a toasty brown colour.

* Drain on kitchen towel.

Eat and enjoy! They're fantastic with a very cold white wine or dry sherry as a tapas.

Slooooow-roasted lamb.

I love lamb, we had it as the meal at our wedding, in fact my wish for lamb may have been one of the reasons for choosing an Easter wedding!
I found a lovely organic leg of lamb in the supermarket reduced section on Monday and wanted to cook it for dinner on Tuesday. The problem is that The Boy teaches an evening class on a Tuesday night and can be home any time between nine and ten. I usually like my lamb pink but knew there was no way I could get my timings right under those circumstances. Solution- slow roasted lamb.

* Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 3, 170C.
* Seal the lamb on the top of the stove to give it a nice brown colour. I use a touch of olive oil and a frying pan, but you could use your roasting tray.
* Remove the lamb and place it on a bed of herbs and flavourings. I used fresh thyme from the garden and cloves of garlic still in their "paper" but shallots, oregano, carrot, and any other strong flavours would work.
*Season the meat- I always use Maldon Sea Salt.
* Cover the joint in tin foil. The foil does not need to be tight to the meat but it MUST be completely sealed so that the meat does not dry out.
* Leave to cook for 4 hours. You can completely ignore it for that time. If you want to you can turn down the heat after 3 hours and cook it on Gas Mark 1/140C for between 3 and 8 hours!

I love the fact you can leave this for so long without any attention as that completely frees you up to do anything else you need to do like preparing cold starters and accompanying dishes. I'm going to serve this the next time I have friends to dinner. It's also a dream to serve as you don't have to worry about carving, it just falls to pieces. If I were ever to go on Come Dine With Me this is what I'd make!

Hannah's Mud Cake

Hannah made this decadent cake one day and I loved it. It's incredibly rich so you only need to eat one bar to feel satisfied. I boxed some up to give to friends but I think in future I'd cook it for a few minutes longer if I wanted them to travel as they are fantastically sticky!

I've changed the recipe to include half Mayan Gold chocolate as I think it gives a sophisticated spicy flavour but if I was making these for children I'd include a bar of Green and Black's Milk Chocolate instead.

Ingredients

• 200g butter (plus extra for greasing)
• 100g Green & Black’s dark chocolate and 100g of Mayan Gold (their standard bars are 100g which makes life easy)
  
• 2 large free-range eggs
• 100g caster sugar

Method

1 Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Line a 30cm x 16cm baking tray with baking paper, greased and lightly floured.

2 Cube the butter and break up the chocolate. Put in a glass bowl placed over a pan of simmering water and gently melt. Remove from the pan.

3 Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and mousse-like, then add the chocolate mixture and whisk again.

4 Pour the mixture into the baking tray and bake for 12-14 minutes. Leave to cool, then remove from the tin.


There you go, incredible easy! And if you use silicon bakeware you don't even need to faff about with greasing and lining trays. Home Bargains do a good range of bright red silicon bakeware that is far cheaper than any other I've seen and works just as well as my expensive Tefal stuff.
http://www.homebargains.co.uk/

One small step...

So, after years of starting and abandoning diaries, I thought I'd try my hand at a blog. I'll include random thoughts and feelings, my favourite recipies, and thoughts on the joys of Intuitive Eating.
Intuitive Eating, or more precisely Beyond Chocolate, overturned at least 23 years of problem eating and unsuccesful dieting and has given me the strength and the tools to mend my broken relationship with food.