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.