Countdown Has Started

As usual on his last day away Steve had breakfast in the office canteen rather than the expensive hotel option. Although on leaving the hotel he mentioned that he had not slept well on the Tuesday night due to the raging wind outside managing to get inside and blowing through the air-con vent in the room - the hotel duly made a note to refund the cost of that nights stay in line with their guarantee of a good nights sleep - well done Premier Inn. Back in the office he settled for Special-K followed by an apple and a bottle of water (in an attempt to start drinking the recommended daily H2O intake). Steve managed an impressive 1.5 litres which is around 1.5 litres more than he would normally drink. Lunch was an omelette with salad (again) but as usual the healthiest option available.

Nic had toasted homemade granary with marmite for breakfast and leftover bún bò nam bô for lunch.

With Steve back home again it meant that Nic was not eating alone and the evening meal was an old favourite of Mexican bean burgers with lime yogurt and salsa in mini tortilla wraps with pink pickled onion. We also pushed the boat out and shared a bottle of alcohol free cider having not had any alcohol since 1st January and sticking to our dry January target. Things might be a little messy however on Saturday when we are having a stint out with friends in Toon - starting at The Hotspur.

Fit to Drop

Breakfast of Weetabix again for Nic and leftover lunch of yesterday's chicken.

Nic's evening meal was Bun Bo Nam Bo - a Vietnamese noodle dish that's easy to make and fresh, light and healthy and has featured before on this blog, so no heavy-duty detail here. More pickled carrots too - mmmm. And enough for tomorrow's lunch, perfect result. Nic also did a good stretch of Fit To Ski exercises, emerging purple and perspiring again and Fit To Drop. The pain that results over the next day or two is hopefully pain she won't be feeling on the slopes in a few weeks' time.

Meanwhile Steve started the day with Special-K then grilled mushrooms & scrambled egg with OJ and coffee - trying hard to keep the calories down. After a day of meetings it was back to the hotel for an evening meal of grilled chicken wings in a fiery sauce followed by mexican chicken salad - not brilliant but trying to work his way through some of the (apparently) healthier options on the menu. After dinner he checked his new toy - Fitbit One, to see if he had hit his daily targets only to find he was just over 800 steps short of his daily 5,000 step target. So back to his room to get his coat as the weather was foul and off into the night to get his step count up. Eventually back to his room and well happy with how the day finished off against his targets: 6,170 steps of target 5,000; 30 floors climbed of target 10; 2,444 calories burned of target 2,184.

Baby's on the road again

Steve's off on his travels again, all the snow's gone and it's blowing a hoolie outside.

Weetabix - with cold milk, naturally (hot milk on Weetabix is an abomination) - for Nic for breakfast, followed by a repeat of the stuffed peppers and tzatziki for lunch, as all the ingredients were in the fridge & larder and it's an easy dish to fit in around conference calls.  The delights of working from home. Steve settled for a cup of soup and a roll.

Nic's evening meal was adapted from an old Nigel Slater standard. This is so simple it's almost criminal, and tastes astonishingly good. Equal quantities of dijon mustard and red wine vinegar are used to marinade trimmed boneless chicken thighs. These are then grilled until just cooked through, still juicy and succulent within and with some of the (slightly curdled) marinade making a spoonful of sauce. Nigel adds equal quantities of olive oil to the marinade alongside the dijon & vinegar, but we're waist-watching ahead of skiing in a few weeks time. The chicken is served up with potatoes, beans and broccoli in this case, but it's equally lovely with crusty bread and a dressed salad. And there's some left for tomorrow's lunch - joy!

Snuggled up in front of the tv with Great British Menu, spicy fragrant chicken and the fire on, it's almost possible to ignore the wind and rain ripping up outside.

In the meantime Steve hit the restaurant in the hotel and tried to find a hooky website so he could stream the Newcastle match to his iPad and watch it with Malcolm while they ate their dinner. No luck so we had to settle for occasional updates to the Sky Sports Football app on Steve's iPhone and text messages Malcolm received from each of his sons. Football-less the dinner was no great shakes better consisting of calamari followed by grilled steak with potatoes and salad - the latter which failed to arrive and was eventually delivered after the attention of the waitress was caught halfway through the meal. The standard of service does seem to be slipping.

It's all Greek to me

Monday morning fried egg on tattie scone for Nic, accompanied by a conversation with her Mum & Dad who are facing some pretty tough weather conditions over in Queensland right now: 130kph winds, 45cm of rain in 24hrs and 24m waves offshore! It's good to be able to check in and make sure they're ok - and fortunately, apart from a few minor leaks, all's well.

Then leftover roast tri-tip and dijon on granary for lunch. The tri-tip has been an excellent buy. It's still juicy and succulent, bursting with umami.

The evening meal was a favourite of Nic's - always, till now, cooked whilst Steve's away in Edinburgh so it was a special request on his part:  roasted peppers stuffed with couscous, feta, cherry tomatoes and olives, accompanied by tzatziki. It has vaguely Greek ingredients but we're sure it's never been on a Greek menu anywhere. Nevertheless it was a bright, sunshiny meal for a very wet and miserable day. The snow has now given way to torrential downpours and the beautiful crisp covering of white in the garden and street has all but gone.

Steve went gaming this evening, whilst Nic watched Great British Menu, did another Fit To Ski session (legs're going to feel it tomorrow!) and read more of - appropriately - Stephen Baxter's "Flood".

The Australian Open

Well, we were guaranteed no lie in this morning as the Australian Open Final was on TV and Andy Murray was playing - Nic would have probably foregone all meals today just to ensure that she did not miss it. After a quick call to her Mum & Dad in Oz to catch up on things she sat down to a breakfast of fried leftover haggis slices, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried egg, potato scone and baked beans. A right plateful but she needed the energy to see her through the match.

Steve also baked a granary loaf, again the Hovis mix which was semi-successful, dropping slightly. Still not at all sure what's going wrong, though it's still light and moist with a delicious just-crisp crust.

Game suitably over and Nic consoled with a cup of tea, we headed off to see Steve's Mam and take her on the weekly food shopping trip.

Lunch was leftover tri-tip beef, rare, with dijon on the granary (& pickled onions of course!) and was followed by a lazy afternoon for the two of us watching The Bridge. After great feedback from friends who've seen it, it's proving to be a big hit in this house too.

Dinner was a mixed fish pie: salmon, smoked haddock and cod, leeks, peas, lemon and saffron sauce with a bit of tenderstem broccoli on the side. 

Saturday - Ups and Downs

Thankfully the weekend arrived at last to provide a welcome break from work. Saturday started with a quick check out of the window to see how much snow had fallen overnight, with Steve very disappointed with only 2-3 inches of snow. Nic headed off to put the pork & leek sausages on to cheer him up. Lightly toasting the last of the loaf that Steve made on Sunday we had some very tasty sausage sarnies before Steve headed off to clear the drive of last night's snow.

With ski boots chucked in the back of the car we headed off to Snow & Rock to get Nic's boots adjusted. However, after about 10 minutes of foot measuring and boot checking we established that the boots could not be stretched and Nic had to buy a new pair of boots putting paid to the plans for a new ski jacket.

Leaving Snow & Rock with Nic's bank account a wee bit lighter we headed into Toon and hit The Forth first for a quick (soft) drink and a snack. We made do with ginger beer as we are staying dry during January and had a light snack of salt 'n' pepper squid with lemon mayo - extremely lighly battered and very tender. So nice to find somewhere that can cook squid so that it is not turned into a rubber band. After The Forth we headed off to Pink Lane Coffee Shop for a couple of coffees and a shared Rocky Road cake. Both having different black coffee with totally different flavours we set about the cake which was extremely moist while discussing the coffee flavour web drawing on the wall.

Suitably refreshed we headed off around Toon for some retail therapy at a Chinese Supermarket, Debenhams, Apple Store, Lakeland, North Face before eventually going to the Laing Art Gallery for a late lunch. We can safely say that this was a big mistake with Nic giving up on her scone after one bite and Steve only finishing the soup as he was hungry - "At least the tea was nice" said Nic.

Nevermind, we headed home safe in the knowledge that we had our tri-tip lined up for dinner. And what a fantastic piece of beef it was too. Really juicy, full of flavour and cooked to pink perfection by Nic. Served up with oven roasted tomatoes, griddled mushrooms, peas and oven chips. Plenty of beef leftover for sarnies tomorrow and other left-over meals no doubt.

Burns Night = Haggis

Marmite on toasted homemade bread for Nic's breakfast, followed by cualiflower dahl and pickled carrots for lunch - all this interspersed around watching the Murray/Federer semi-final at the Australian Open on the BBC sports website in between meetings and calls! Meanwhile Steve settled for his usual Friday 'treat' of a bacon roll & coffee from Greggs to start the day then a cup of very chunky chicken soup for lunch.

The evening meal tonight is - obviously, given that it's 25th January - haggis, neeps and tatties. Steve likes a whisky sauce with this. The haggis was handmade by Charlotte of Charlotte's Butchery fame in Gosforth which Steve picked up on the way home along with some pork & leek sausages for tomorrow's breakfast and a piece of tri-tip beef for tomorrow night's dinner. The haggis decided it wanted to shed its natural stomach skin during the cooking process but this did not detract from the beautiful peppery taste and the extremely meaty texture. The haggis was followed by Cranachan - a traditional Scottish dessert.

Vietnam nostalgia

Marmite on toasted homemade bread for breakfast and a bastardisation of huevos rancheros for Nic's lunch: a miscalculation meant there were no huevos ... Undeterred, she crisp-fried some thin slices of chorizo to top her corn tortilla and rancheros sauce before adding a bit of grated cheese, some yoghurt and jalapeños.

Meanwhile Steve opted for Special-K with OJ and an apple for his breakfast before heading off for a morning of meetings. His lunch was a hasty cup of vegetable soup and a low fat strawberry yoghurt before the afternoon meetings commenced with a rather hasty 2 minute laptop shutdown and thankfully a lift to the station to head off home.

And then a nostalgic trip down memory lane for dinner. Not very far, just to October 2012 but frankly with Nic's memory that may as well be 1975. We visited Vietnam in October, travelling from Hanoi to Halong Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Mekong Delta and Saigon/Ho Chi Minh.  The food was some of the best we'd ever had: light, fresh, bright-tasting, texturally varied, delivered with love and care. Tonight's attempt was to recreate Bún bò nam bô, a dish of vermicelli noodles with lemongrass beef. This was accompanied, as ever with Vietnam food, with a veritable garden full of herbs and crunchy veg, dressed with the ubiquitous and addictive nuoc cham, finished with crushed roasted peanuts and finally, accompanied by the most amazing pickled carrots. It brought the flavours and scents of Vietnam flooding back. Definitely a make-again.

Invention

The great thing for Nic about working at home a lot of the time is the ability to be a bit inventive about meals.  So while this morning's scrambled egg on toast was a standard, she'd been thinking about the half of red cabbage unused following Sunday's roast and last night had devised a classic combination salad with a twist for today's lunch.

So the classic combo of red cabbage, pork and apple with a zingy cider vinegar and mustard dressing was topped off with chopped pecans and pomegranate seeds.  It was a really light and refreshing lunch, made to feel more substantial with the red cabbage, still crunchy but slightly softened through sitting (marinading/pickling slightly) in its dressing in the fridge overnight.

Likewise, Nic's been seeing references all over to cumin-roasted cauliflower and after last week's dahl success (and as a cauli dhansak seems such a great idea), she fancied experimenting with dahl & roasted cauli. Mixed results following a (slight ....) overcooking of the cauliflower, but a blob of yoghurt and some pomegranate seeds on the top soon disguised that :)  - STOP looking at the crispy bits!

Meanwhile Steve made the most of his meal deal breakfast with his healthy head on and had Special-K followed by grilled mushrooms, grilled tomato and beans for breakfast. Could have pigged out on a full grill, but that is not the point at the minute. Lunch was omelette and salad again - boring, but he made up for it by meeting up with Connor for dinner that evening.

After heading into Edinburgh to meet Connor at Artisan Roast in Bruntsfield where he was running his Brew Club they headed off together (coffee purchases in hand) to a recently opened restaurant about 10 minutes walk away - Tuk Tuk. Tuk Tuk serves Indian street food in tapas sized portions and very nice it is to. The recommendation is 3 dishes per person accompanied by rice and/or breads. So after ordering a couple of soft drinks to start (Thumbs Up lemonade & cola) we settled down to some poppadoms with assorted chutneys while we waited for the main courses to arrive. Main courses were:

• Bengali Fish Cakes - Rustic railway station patties (served with a pickle)
• Tarka Dhal - Yellow and black lentils
• Chicken Achari - One the bone chicken cooked with lime and pickle
• Railway Station Lamb Curry - On the bone lamb curry cooked with fresh spinach
• Dahi Bindi - Thinly cut lady fingers cooked with yogurt
• Frankies - Chole Frankie spiced chickpeas with herbs, pickled vegetables and chutney
• Khushka Chawal - Steamed Basmati rice
• Classic Naan

All washed down with a jug of Mango Lassi and a damn fine it all was too. In fact, despite being tapas sized portions we still could not finish it all.

Top Left - The Bairn
Top Right - Chutneys
Bottom Left - Bengali Fish Cakes
Bottom Right - Chicken Achari, Tarka Dhal & Naan

Top Left - Railway Station Lamb Curry

Top Right - Dahi Bindi

Bottom Left - Frankies

Bottom Right - Mango Lassi

Here I go again on my own

Whitesnake earworm for you there.

With Steve off early to Edinburgh, Nic cooked egg muffin for breakfast then had a pork  - yes, the pork is still going strong and is as delicious as ever - and mustard sandwich in Steve's homemade bread and some cherries left from last week (omelette and salad for lunch again - it being the best option in the canteen).

Steve had made a white Hovis breadmaker loaf on Sunday.  After initial success with the Wrights bread mixes, we've had failure after failure lately, with sunken dense loaves.  Steve's tried every trick going to get the mix to rise, but no joy.  So our current go-to mix is the Hovis brand. The white is light but still retains a bit of chew and has a good depth of flavour, though the granary is favourite. In an attempt to improve things even further, Steve has a Artisan Bread Baking Course booked on the 2nd February at Blackfriars Restaurant in Newcastle (thank you Nic) so expect some future blog post on the success/failure.

Nic was late finishing work, so the always welcome and quite speedy Huevos Rancheros was a good choice for dinner. Then more Fit To Ski exercises (more purple-faced leaping to entertain the neighbours), catch-up on GBBO and more reading.  She also prepped tomorrow's lunch, as it's a busy day of meetings and the gaps between are pretty much non-existent. 

As Steve was heading off to his customer site straight from the hotel the next morning he opted for a meal deal, which meant he got his evening meal and breakfast the next morning. So, dinner was breaded portobello mushrooms with red pepper dip followed by bean burger. Former not so good, latter OK.

Noodling

You'll see that leftovers play a big part in our cooking.  We don't like waste and figure if we pay for food we're going to use all of it, if at all possible.

Leftover apple sauce from the Sunday roast and blackberries from the crumble and muesli gave Nic her idea for breakfast: a big bowl of yoghurt topped with apple sauce, chopped apple, blackberries and chopped nuts.  This gave her free rein to have a treat of bacon muffin for lunch - leftover bacon of course! Meanwhile, because of the lousy weather, Steve settled for a cup of tomato soup and low fat yoghurt for lunch - very little choice in the office cafe.

The evening meal was designed to use up some of the leftover roast pork.  A spicy, coconutty bowl of Singapore vermicelli rice noodles was based on a Ken Hom Simple Chinese Cooking recipe, but with added beansprouts to up the veg tally and a few chopped raw king prawns from the freezer.  Apparently Singapore noodles isn't a real thing and is never served anywhere in Singapore, but it was warming, comforting and a great foil for the succulent strips of pork and juicy pieces of prawn. So, our house, our rules: Singapore noodles IS a thing.

Steve cleared the drive of snow in a valiant effort to keep the elements at bay, though with more forecast overnight he may get more benefit from the exercise involved than from the clear drive. He also had to pack for a 3 day stint in Edinburgh this week.  It's always a slightly gloomy affair, packing to go away with work.

Nic's reading Stephen Baxter's Flood at the moment, as a complete contrast to Bring Up The Bodies.  As a reward for doing the ironing she was allowed to read that and to watch GBBO (Steve watched it from behind his fingers in horror at some of the car-crash baking on the screen).

Pork, pork, pork

The Met was forecasting a snowy Sunday, so hunkering down at home would have been wise - but as is the norm for Sundays when we're not away, we take Steve's Mam food shopping.  So after a bacon muffin we struck out on our expedition. The roads were surprisingly clear again, so shopping done and Mam safely back home, we were soon back in front of the fire with a bowl of Tesco's Chipotle black bean & sweetcorn soup.  It's shop-bought soup that reminds you why you make your own. This was a bit insipid, but filled a hole.

We had an enjoyable afternoon of reading, playing games and messing about with exercise games on the Kinect. Nic proved quite rapidly and unequivocally that following instructors on a screen demoing exercises was not her strength - to Steve's (well-disguised) amusement.

Evening meal tonight had been planned for some time, as soon as we heard that Charlotte's butchery would be open on 18th January and that she would ensure there was some good quality pork available.

There is little finer than a moist piece of roast pork complemented by crisp crackling, sharp apple sauce and a savoury gravy. This was exactly what we cooked.  And added to that we managed all five of our 5-a-day in one sitting ...

A trip out in the snow

There's plenty of snow out there but the roads are clear, so we took the opportunity to have a day pottering about in the 4WD.


First to have a neb at the newly refitted Northumberland Cheese Farm Tea Room. Lovely job, but good that they're planning on redoing their menu, as brekkie choices are bacon sarnie and teacake. Yep, that's it! So that's what we had.


Then, off to Gosforth, where Charlotte Harbottle's opened a new butchers on Ashburton Road. Great little place, jam packed and nigh on sold out. We believe she's the only female butcher to run her own place in the North East and only the third in the country. Picked up a cracking piece of pork loin on the bone - watch this space ...

Lunch was next to a crackling wood-burning stove at The Fat Hippo in Jesmond, the only place we've found that'll do a rare burger up here. Burger and chips for Steve - beef was full of flavour but needed more caramelisation and a firmer burger bun would have been ideal. Nic went or the beanburger, which was moist and packed with veg and kidney beans with a touch of chilli heat and a contrasting crispy outside. The accompanying deep-fried pickles could have done with a much lighter batter but were well seasoned, not overly salty.



Then to Archers for a treat: Snickers icecream for Nic, a scoop of Pannetone & a scoop of Snickers for Steve.

Shopping in town, we picked up some Mexican ingredients from our favourite deli, "mmm..." in the Grainger Market: chipotle powder, chipotle ketchup, fresh corn tortillas and bayo beans. Great little place that's about to expand into the next unit. The owners, Simone and Ian Clarkin, are real foodies too, always up for a chat and some advice. Also grabbed a pomelo (we love the Grainger Market!) for later in the week and some fresh crab.







Coffee had to be at Flat Cap Joes on Ridley Place. Tucked under the "alternative" Elula gift shop, down a rickety flight of stairs, it's a little gem of a coffee shop. Cosy, buzzy and owned by a guy with a passion for coffee. Joe is competing in the UK Barista Championships this year again, with the regional heats at the Centre for Life on 15-16th Feb. We'll be popping along to cheer him on. He whipped up a flat white for Nic and a Yirgacheff V60 for Steve, reliably excellent.







Our evening meal needed to be light! Steve threw together linguine with crab and cherry tomatoes. The brown crab meat makes all the difference to this old favourite of ours. Add lemon, basil and capers. Gorgeous.

Friday night is Pizza Night

Bircher muesli made a welcome return this morning, with blackberries leftover from last night's crumble, apple and chopped nuts.

Steve and Nic both working from home today - good job given the snowy weather - and since Friday lunch traditionally comprises scrapping about for the last bits n bobs from the fridge, cheddar on sourdough toast with Garners pickled onions and sliced tomatoes was pretty much inevitable: it was about all that was left!

Despite the weather we made it out for our Friday night treat. It's cheap-skatish, so shoot us! Asda build-it-yersel pizza, no cheese, then loaded with added extras. So it's chilli, red onions, mushrooms, peppers, fresh tomatoes, anchovies (and spicy beef/chicken for Steve). It's become a bit of a habit ...

We kicked off watching Hunderby tonight, something we'd recorded last year. Cracking series, we're both enjoying it thoroughly.

Minor bit of excitement as well when Nic glanced out of the kitchen window and noticed that someone had vaulted the fence and been tramping about all over the garden. Suspecting a villan casing the joint and about to call 101, Steve popped next door to warn the neighbours ... whose son and pals hadn't been able to resist the lure of our fresh crisp snow and had leapt over the fence to dance about in it! Call to police aborted ...

Thursday - Homeward Bound

In Canada a few years ago, we stayed in a B&B that provided us with one of the best breakfasts we'd ever had.  We ate some amazing food that holiday, but one of the most enjoyable things was being introduced to new dishes.  Breakfast Bircher Muesli in the B&B was one of these and has since become one of Nic's favourites.  It's so simple.  Soak porridge oats in apple juice overnight, refrigerate  and the next morning add plain yoghurt, fruit and chopped nuts, then mix and eat. Before and after shown below with blueberries, chopped apple and mixed nuts:

Nic's lunch was made up of leftovers: yesterday's Mexican piled onto a slice of toasted sourdough - not bad, as it happens!

Steve started the day badly by skipping breakfast due to being up and out of hotel to catch train into Edinburgh city centre for meeting at customer site starting at 08:30. This turned out to be a rather long and boring affair sustained only by a cup of coffee.

Once, thankfully, the meeting had finished Steve headed back to the office making it back in time to just grab another cuppa before having to sit through an hour long web conference. Nic was on the call too but had the luxury of being at home. Needless to say the meeting ran to 13:30 which meant that he hit the canteen late again but thankfully they still had not packed away the omelette bar. So, omelette and salad for lunch with a can of Pepsi Max as they had no OJ or smoothies left.

By the time lunch was over Steve only had about 1.5 hours to go before he would need to head off for the (as ever, uneventful) train journey. Between train and home Steve dropped into the supermarket to pick up some naturally smoked haddock, Bramley apples and blackberries for dinner - all pre-arranged with Nic via text messages on the train. Nic had done all the prep for kedgeree followed by apple & blackberry crumble with Doddington's vanilla icecream. Ages since we have had this and it was a welcome change after the week of food in the hotel.  Doddington's is great locally-made icecream, consistently creamy and with powerful flavours that are true to the original ingredients, no synthetic taste at all. Their ginger icecream with a good squeeze of lemon over the top is just beautiful

Ah, Midweek - Home Tomorrow

Day two in Edinburgh started with the shuttle bus from Edinburgh Park Station to the office followed by a far healthier breakfast than Steve would normally have. Bacon roll replaced by Special-K cereal, apple & orange juice. Following a raft of meetings and emails it was time to get taxi over to customer site. Booking raised on internal system at 10:05 for taxi at 10:30. Job not assigned until 10:35 and then failed to arrive so had to jump into Waldman Taxis - relatively clean inside (for a change).

After arriving 15 minutes late for the start of the meeting it turned out to be a very uninteresting meeting lasting over 2 hours meaning we arrived back at the office at 13:50 and after the canteen had stopped serving food. Lunch for Steve was therefore limited to Ryvita with light Philadelphia followed by low fat yoghurt and all washed down with mango and banana smoothie. At least by the time he left the office at 18:15 he was starting to feel just a little hungry. Arrived back at the hotel to find that could not get a table to eat in the restaurant until 20:15 so was going to have to wait a little longer, giving him the chance to read some more Hydrogen Sonata. Evening meal was hot-smoked salmon niçoise followed by house burger, which turned out to be rather nice. Expecting a bad morning of customer meetings tomorrow so off for a 'relatively' early night.




Nic meantime was having her favourite lunch - leftover curry :)  (see Curry Favour for details...).

Her evening meal was a regular from the Tommi Miers Mexican Made Simple cookbook, squash and chorizo soft tacos.  Being a thrifty soul, she also added some saved spicy refried beans from the freezer, and topped it off with fresh salsa, pink pickled onions and a yoghurt & chipotle drizzle. Plenty of washing up for a single-person meal - thanks goodness for the dish-washer!  Pleased to say there's leftovers for lunch tomorrow too ... Sorry for the picture quality though.

There's been lots of toast for breakfast this week, so for a change Nic put some oats in apple juice to soak overnight, ready to create some bircher muesli in the morning.

All this, and another round of Fit To Ski exercises.  More perspiration from an hour of these exercises than ever were shed on the slopes, they must be having an effect!

Some excellent news tonight too - the trip to see Connor and Estelle in Paris in May has been given their seal of approval, so full steam ahead with arrangements now.

And finally, Bring Up The Bodies reached its inevitable conclusion and Nic's now dithering about what to read next.

Curry favour

With a couple of inches of snow on the ground, an icy chill in the air and Steve off to Edinburgh for three days, Nic's focus was on warming comfort food.  So the Madhur Curry Easy cookbook was out again.  This has probably been one of the most used recipe books we've ever had.  Everything in it just works.  Using up the remains of the monkfish that had been squirrelled away in the freezer following our Lebanese recipe and some frozen leftover coconut milk (there's always leftovers!), she tackled the Sri Lankan fish curry and adapted a green bean recipe to the sadly underused courgette.  Not one to make life easy, instead of opting for rice with this, she made a red lentil dhal.  Four pans and much chopping and stirring later ... well, she does love it! ...

Nic hit the kindle again tonight.  Hilary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies is proving as - if not more - enjoyable as its predecessor, Wolf Hall. Nearly finished it though, sadly.

Meanwhile Steve had an early start to head off to Morpeth station to get the train to Edinburgh. No breakfast but homemade coffee in his Bodum again to see him through the journey. Lunch was a healthy omelette and salad with a strawberry & banana smoothie. Eventually left the office just before 18:00 and headed back to the hotel to read some more of The Hydrogen Sonata before dinner of squid & salad starter with a main course of steak, potatoes and salad - drinks restricted to lime and soda to maintain the no drinking rule during January (and probably February too).

Monday Greens ...

It's always good to start off the week with a treat on the horizon, and by cooking a green lamb curry from Madhur Jaffrey's Curry Easy book on Sunday, Nic had made sure we had something to look forward to.

The great thing about curry is that leaving it overnight to mature softens the flavours and adds depth and this curry was no exception.  It's made with two large bunches of fresh coriander whizzed to a paste, so not one for the coriander-phobes (of which there seem to be a surprising number).  The book recommended accompanying it with a mushroom and pea curry, not something we'd ever tried.  My but it was gooood! Chestnut mushrooms kept their texture in the spiced sauce and were savoury amongst the sweet, bursting peas.  This could be a great veggie main dish on its own with rice and dhal. It really didn't need a meat accompaniment.

In fact the dinner was a hugely welcomed feast after the lunch Steve had - Pea soup followed by a low fat yoghurt. Mmmm.

Steve took his usual celery and spicy houmous to gaming tonight, whilst Nic angelically did her Fit To Ski exercises (actually, what the Fit To Ski exercises neatly proved was that she needs to do a lot more Fit To Ski exercises!) Less than 6 weeks till Avoriaz ....

The Rat Inn

Not quite the lazy start of yesterday as Steve was awake around 07:30 so he decided to get up rather than disturb Nic by tossing & turning. Finished off the muffins for breakfast (with egg this time) and then Steve jump started Nic's car and took it for a 20 mile, 30 minute drive to get the battery recharged while she spoke to her Mum & Dad. It really needs to get used more often to stop the battery from running down.

Anyway, we decided to get the shopping in while we had a bit of time and after getting it all back home it was not long before we had to leave to head over to The Rat Inn for our lunch, something we had been looking forward to all week. Today, being Sunday, it was the traditional Sunday lunch on offer with a choice of starters and sweets. Steve plumped for the pheasant terrine starter with Nic selecting the Serrano ham. The pheasant came with well dressed salad leaves and pickled mushrooms, which just set the terrine off really well with the wedge of brown bread. The Serrano ham starter came with a really tasty pickled red cabbage, both crunchy and full of flavour, and salad and pickles. Nic reckoned she could have eaten a jar of the cabbage on its own.

The beef was on the chalk board as served pink and this is exactly how it came. Nice thick slices all very juicy and not dried out and grey, as is often case at other pubs. The accompanying veg was abundant and well cooked - the carrots and broccoli al dente - and so wonderful to see spring greens on the plate. The other main course of roast pork was full of flavour - we've become so used to the prepacked supermarket bland pork that tastes of almost nothing, it's great when you get "porky pork".  It was accompanied by a nice sharp apple sauce - note to everyone, apple sauce shouldn't be sweet!

It was a bit of a disappointment that Nic couldn't manage a sweet but Steve plumped for the chocolate and brown ale cake served with bitter chocolate sauce and chocolate ice cream. Many would think that this would all be too sweet but just not the case. The cake (sponge really) was probably the lightest he had ever eaten and really flavoursome. The chocolate sauce was not overly sweet and the ice cream had nice chunks of dark chocolate in it. The waitress kindly provided an extra spoon ...

All in all, a fantastic end to the meal with hugely attentive and friendly staff.

After filling our boots we headed back home so the Nic could complete her tax return and Steve could play with one of his Xmas games - Assassins Creed III. Nic eventually headed off to cook a lamb curry from Madhur's Curry Easy book for Monday night's dinner and Steve eventually packed in and did the prep (and later cooking) of a light evening meal (had to be after the lunch) of sea bream on couscous with preserved lemon and roasted pepper salsa from the Jamie's 15 Minute Meals cookbook. This worked out great. There was a good variety of textures: crunch from the pistachios and pomegranate contrasted well with the delicate sea bream and couscous.  The sweetness of the fruit again contrasted well with the sharpness of the salsa. Really tasty and something we will do again. Pretty as a picture too.

Interesting Drive, Pizzas And The Hobbit

Well, there was definitely going to be an interesting day ahead of us. After a lazy start to the day and breakfast of bacon muffins we pottered about and I got the car ready for a drive over the A69 via 2 pick-ups in Wallsend. Meaning I topped up washer fluids, chucked boots, shovel & blanket in the boot just in case the forecast snow hit when we were out.

Our morning was already mapped out with picking my Mam up from Wallsend then driving back on ourselves to pick her friend (Viv) up from the other end of Wallsend and driving them to the Gilsland Spa Hotel. Nothing planned, they just fancied going over there for the night so they could dance in the evening and meet other old people to talk about nothing in particular. Needless to say there was never a silent moment on the drive over as they talked non stop and we lost count of how many times they said 'Yes'.

Having dropped them off it was time to drive halfway home to call in on Marion & Mike for a late lunch of homemade pizza and lemon cheesecake and an afternoon of chit chat. We even managed to show them a suitably reduced number of our photos from Vietnam just to give them a flavour of what it was like.

Fed, watered and all chatted out we headed back to Silverlink to see The Hobbit. Luckily our coughing was not as bad as it could have been so we don't think we spoiled the movie too much for everyone else at the screening. A fantastic movie with some great CGI scenes underground with the goblins. Can't wait to see how the story moves along with the next movie.

TGIF

Yay, the last day of the week and a great weekend to come.

Another night of coughing for Steve but it does seem to be getting better, although trip to doctor's later will confirm. After an easy drive into Newcastle he grabbed a bacon roll and coffee from Greggs which, to be honest, is a damn sight better than anything from the canteen or any other cafe nearby. Overdone the cured pork products this week much?

A round of calls in the morning saw Steve head off into Toon for a burrito from Zapatista Burrito Bar. As usual full of flavour and a very popular place, and I now have a loyalty card - which could be a big mistake.






After an afternoon of emails Steve headed off to the Doctor's only to be told there was nothing they could do for the cough and he just had to ride it out - Hey Ho. A quick trip to the shops on the way home saw the ingredients for a chilli with baked potato in the shopping basket then making their way home with Steve sorting dinner while Nic finished off work. And, even if I say so myself, it was a rather yummy chilli.

Thursday - Headed Home Tonight (Yay!)

What can I say - bad night's sleep, bacon roll and OJ for breakfast. At least my own coffee is good.

45 minute conference call followed by 2 hour workshop with customer followed by another 1 hour meeting with customer meant we arrived at the canteen after they had closed. No sarnies but they could offer nachos and chilli or would retrieve a slice of gammon with potatoes and broccoli / bowl of spaghetti bolognese. Looking at the puddles of oil/fat sitting on top of the bolognese sauce I gave that an extremely wide berth - I would hate to see the results of an analysis of the calorie/fat/protein etc. content of it. The nachos and chilli  did not look much better as it was covered by a carpet of high fat cheese so that left me with a slice of gammon which turned out to be OK in the end. As expected the broccoli was overcooked but the gammon had very little fat (which I cut off) and was actually quite tasty.

Because of the late lunch I only had just over an hour before I needed to head off for the train home and a big hug from Nic and some great food - Lebanese.

Nic got this book for Christmas from Paul and Joy:  The Lebanese Kitchen.  We forgot to take photos so these are from the book, but they're an accurate representation of the plated meal, to be fair.  The starter was grapefruit, red onion and mint salad - unusual in that it also had salt and olive oil, but it was delicious. The main was monkfish in sumac with a saffron and cumin rice.  She also made an authentic tabbouleh to go with it.  It was really excellent, the monkfish was tender and savoury, the rice meltingly sweet and jammed with flavour, whilst the tabbouleh's freshness set everything off beautifully.  AND we finally finished Homeland on the Sky+! Result :)

Midweek - Still Rubbish Food

The one thing about working away from home is that unless you are staying in a hotel in a city centre your diet tends to be pretty rubbish. They have changed the menu (and possibly chef) at the hotel and I am going to have to work my way around and see what is best, because so far I am not impressed with the food in 2013.

Anyway, as breakfast costs £8.95 at the hotel and I can get a bacon roll and OJ for £2.69 in the office it's a no brainer. Also, as I have brought one of my Xmas presents with me (BODUM Travel Press) along with some ground coffee I am saving a fortune on coffee and having something that tastes a damn sight nicer. Suitably fuelled by the roll, Wednesday brought a fun filled day of emails, drafting new documents and conference calls in the morning with a break for a (bad) ham salad baguette at lunchtime. The afternoon was taken up by a 2 hour workshop with one of our suppliers to discuss our proposed approach for the desktop/laptop deployment of approx 10,000 machines over 5-6 months to 182 educational establishments - boy do I get the fun jobs ;o)

Finally knocked off at 18:00 and headed back to the hotel for an hour's read (The Hydrogen Sonata: A Culture Novel by Ian M. Banks) before dinner of prawn cocktail and steak with potatoes and salad. At least they managed to cook the steak right tonight but they have definitely changed supplier as the steak was pretty tasteless, not a patch on what they used to serve up last year. Anyway, headed off to room early so I could have a chat with Nic before another night's sleep constantly broken by coughing fits.

Nic meantime was in charge of her own destiny and cooked an adaptation of the prawn and coconut curry from the Hairy Dieters cookbook.  She added extra veggies to bump up her 5 a day.  It was good, but not great.  So far the Hairy Dieters' recipes seem to fall a wee bit short on the flavour front.

A Night Of Coughing

After coughing for the first 30 minutes Steve decided to head off to the spare bedroom and hopefully allow Nic to get some sleep. 40 minutes later still coughing but eventually dozed off only to be woken every 1.5 to 2 hours by another coughing fit. Needless very little sleep was had through the night not helped by having to get up at 06:45 to head off for train to spend next 3 days in Edinburgh.

On arriving in the office. Busy day of meetings, calls and financial re-forecasting followed broken only by a break for a lunch of omelette and salad. Followed by a 30 minute chat with someone who I have enjoyed knowing for the last 12 months but who has just resigned.

Finally packed in at 18:15 and headed back to hotel for late evening meal of grilled steak and veg - requested it rare and it came back more grey than a battleship so was promptly returned to the kitchen for them to cook a proper steak as ordered.

Hoping for a better nights sleep in advance of another long day tomorrow. Hey Ho.

Meanwhile Nic was a bit more in control of her meals: remains of the cawl for lunch and a dinner of roasted peppers stuffed with couscous, feta, olives, mint, parsley and cherry tomatoes.  She's in bed by 9 with a sore throat and cough though, having (inevitably) caught Steve's bug.

First Full Week Back At Work

Well, it had to happen, didn't it.

Nic and I were both ready (sort of) for a full week back at work but perhaps not the early start. Alarm set for 06:00 so that Steve could run Nic into the Newcastle Central Station to get 07:05 train to London for her day of meetings. Dropped off on time Steve headed straight into the office (first one in) for a suitably long day with a lunch consisting of carrot & coriander soup.

Evening meal (alone) was leftover Welsh cawl from Sunday, which was absolutely gorgeous then Steve headed off to meet up with gaming mates for the evening while Nic eventually made it home around 21:30 and enjoyed her own bowl of cawl for dinner (alone).