Butchers stew........

I went to the butchers at Callenick after work to try and get some inspiration for dinner. There were two ruby red beef steaks sitting on the marble slab and I realised how few stews I have made this winter. Stews are a dieters friend so I made this boozy little number...

Beef and Rattler Stew.....(Serves 4 or one girl and one hungry man!)

500g stewing steak
3 celery sticks
4 carrots
2 small red onions
2 cloves garlic
5oz mini chestnut mushrooms
3/4 pt beef stock
A few splashes of worcestershire sauce
3/4 pint Rattler cider
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
pepper

Trim off all the extra fat from the beef. Chop into pieces the size of 50p pieces. The beef I bought was so amazingly tender, it was like slicing butter. Spray a pan with olive oil and add the chopped celery, onions and garlic. Lower the heat and soften the vegetables. Turn the heat up and add the beef. Brown it.

Once it has a lovely brown colour, add the stock, cider, worcestershire sauce and carrots and boil for 2 minutes. Sieve in the flour and give it a good stir. Now you can either pop it in a casserole dish in a 150'c oven for one hour or place a baking tray on top of the saucepan and pop it in the oven. I don't have a casserole dish so had to make do.

After an hour take out of the oven and serve with brown rice and cabbage. Yum.

Plum pudding....

Cornwall feels a bit like Narnia this morning. The white witch has been defeated and the snow is beginning to melt. Shoots of grass have started peering out of the blanket of snow like a sleepy teenager fighting dawn. Crocus' have even nervously started to glimpse at the winter sunshine wondering whether it is safe to come out yet.

It's a bit like my insomnia. I feel like I am finally starting to see the sunshine again after two long years of frosty sleepless nights. The acupuncture has been amazing leaving me with just one restless night a week. And it's had a massive impact on my decision to lose three stone this year. I'm moving more. Eating less. Appreciating food more.

Baked Plums with Custard Marscapone (although I have them with low fat vanilla yogurt!) Serves 2

4 plums
2 heaped tbsp brown sugar
125g marscapone
1 egg (separated)
1 vanilla pod
1 tbsp caster sugar

Pre heat the oven to 180'c. Slice the plums and remove the stones....(why is this so difficult? Plums seem desperate to cling on to their stones!)

Place in a baking tray and sprinkle with the brown sugar. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Take the egg yolk and in a small dish whisk with sugar until light yellow. In another bowl whisk the egg white until firm. In ANOTHER bowl (sorry washing up haters) put the marscapone. Mix in the seeds of the vanilla pod and egg the egg yolk. Mix together. Add half the egg white and fold in with a metal spoon. (Throw the other half away). Take the plums out of the oven and serve with the marscapone custard.

I still had loads of plums left so I popped them in a saucepan with 4 tbsp water and 1 tbsp sugar. Bring to the boil and pop in a bowl in the fridge. Serve with yogurt or any left over marscapone.

A winter salad to alleviate the snow blues....

We've been up since dawn, noses pressed against the window, hoping it will snow like this again....

Remember you can see loads of Cornwall in the snow pictures here including an aerial video of snowy Cornwall.

Although we should be eating hearty stews and shepherds pies I wanted a salad last night. A warm, comforting salad as crisp as the ice underfoot. Next winter I'm going to try and have a steady stream of salad from the garden.

Chicken and Ratatouille Salad (serves 2)

1 bag of mixed salad leaves
1 handful basil leaves
1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 handful cherry tomatoes
1 red onion
2 courgettes
2 handfuls penne pasta
1 handful green olives
2 chicken breasts
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
1 pinch sugar
salt and pepper

Put the mixed salad leaves in a bowl. Chop the onion, courgettes, peppers and tomatoes and place in a baking dish. Drizzle with olive oil and roast in a 180'c oven for 20 minutes or until slightly charred. (I cheated because I had a glut in the summer and had roasted a frozen loads of vegetables, so I just popped them in the oven to defrost them)

Rip up the basil and chop the olives roughly and add them to the salad leaves.

Pop the penne pasta in boiling water and boil for 5 minutes or until soft.

Roll the chicken breasts with a rolling pin to make them thinner and cook them on a griddle for 7 minutes on each side.

Slice the chicken into strips. In a bowl mix 2 parts olive oil to 2 parts balsamic vinegar and mix. Add the sugar and salt and pepper.

Add the roasted vegetables and warm pasta to the leaves and with your hands mix in the dressing. Place a good sized pile on each plate and top with the chicken and a few more basil leaves.

Homeward bound....

I've read a lot on other people's blogs about the excitement of sitting around the radio waiting to hear whether their school has been closed. This week I've been on the other side. I'm the one taking the hundreds of calls and emails, writing the lists, making sure they are correct....while producing a breakfast programme at the same time.

I've felt a bit like these ponies battling the snow in Davidstow. (All these photos are from here)



The moment when you pick up the phone to find out the Met Office has issued a severe weather warning of heavy snow about to hit.....you know it's coming...you just can't see it yet.....Then it comes. Disruption. Everything comes to a halt. Every light flashes on your phone screen.

Then the programme finishes. I stand outside the gates of the radio station and watch everyone playing on what is normally a busy roundabout. Sledging down the banks. One boy threw a snowball at a policeman. The policeman just laughed. A two year old wobbled along the road, wrapped up in twenty layers, and threw a tiny snowball at me as I leant against the wall....

I've had to stay in Truro for the last three nights. But it has been so much fun walking into work together in the early hours of the morning, crunching through the snow, with only a few slippery cars for company. But now I'm home....

Ready to take it all again on Sunday.....this is what the other half got up to in the snow. Strange boy.

Award Wednesday!

I'm so excited about receiving a blogging award from Cooking at Marystow.

I'm so excited. Especially when it's so cold and snowy down here.

I'm staying in Truro tonight for a second night so I can get into work for 4am tomorrow!

If you want to take part in this blogging award you can! Just follow the instructions.

1. Copy the award image into a post.

2. Then list 10 things that make you happy

3. Tag 10 bloggers who brighten your day

4. Put in a link to their blogs

5. Notify the award receivers

6. Award recipients must link back to sender's blog

Ten things that make me happy...(in no order)

1. My lovely family

2. Standing on the top of Samson Hill on Bryher, breathing in a massive gulp of fresh air fresh of the Atlantic

3. Crumpets and poached eggs

4. School friends that know you better than you do

5. A good night sleep

6. My job and my work friends

7. Fancy hotels with jacuzzi bubbles

8. A kiss from my other half

9. A hedgehog ice cream with my toes in the sand

10. Planning a holiday and imagining myself 2 stone thinner!

Ten blogs that brighten my day....

1. Nora the Kitchen 'Splorer

2. Rosalie Tinted

3. Cupcakes and Cashmere

4. Joy and the YamDaisy

5. JenLovesKev

6. Young House Love

7. Apple and Spice

8. Peacock Feathers and Diamond Rings

9. Brabourne Farm

10. Three Men and a Lady

Skinny dipping....

I know that most people dread going back to work after Christmas but I've got a secret. Sssssshhhh.... I'm glad to be back. I like the routine of getting up at the same time, coming home at the same time. I like seeing my work friends again....

And in the same way I like getting back to normal foodwise. I like fruit and yoghurts instead of biscuits and chocolate coins. But before I tell you about my new healthy eating regime, here's what I did on Sunday.....

On Scilly we don't have any real woodland so I'm fascinated by them. Intrigued by the creepiness and the way the plants engulf everything around them.

We went to Tehidy Woods on the North Coast......

It was such a lovely day. Despite that we only saw one other couple...

I got completely disorientated. Luckily my other half has inbuilt GPS!

Then we jumped back in the car and drove 5 minutes up the road to the coast....this looks up to Perranporth and Padstow.

Anyway back to the healthy eating. I'm sure many of you are trying to think of ways to cut down on calories so over the next few weeks I'm just going to be blogging low fat, low calorie meals.

But I promise you one thing, they will be yummy! So it's goodbye Christmas sandwiches (farewell festive ham) and hello poached eggs and marmite on crumpets....

Promise I made, starting to fade....

New Year is all about promises. Promises to eat more healthily, be nicer to your family, save money, read more books. But it's also about broken promises. Eating Eggs Benedict for breakfast when it was supposed to be blueberries. Sulking with your boyfriend because he just washing the whites with our Christmas red tablecloth.

I also promised to blog about the food I made for our new years eve party. But I drank several bottles of wine and didn't take any photos.

So I will just give you the recipe for the Stilton and Leek Tart. Imagine crispy, buttery pastry with gooey, green creamy leeks spill over the top. Meanwhile...here's what the party looked like.

Stilton and Leek Tart (serves about 8 people)

1x340g block shortcrust pastry

Spray oil

3 leeks

2 onions

a knob of butter

1/2 pt double cream

3 eggs

50z Stilton

2oz Parmesan

Preheat the oven to 200'c. Roll out the pastry into a large circle. Spray a large flan tin with oil and place the pastry over the top. Push the pastry into the fold, letting some over hang. Roll your rolling pin over the top and it will cut off most of the overhanging pastry leaving you with a neat edge. Get a fork and prick the pastry base. Place a piece of grease proof paper over the top and fill with baking beans or lentils. Pop in the oven for 15 minutes so it cooks through. Then remove the paper and lentils (carefully...mine went everywhere) and pop back in the oven for 5 minutes to brown a little.

Melt the butter in a large pan and add the finely sliced leeks and onions. Over a medium heat fry them for 15 minutes or so, every now and again giving them a stir so they don't catch. Leave the cool somewhere.

In a bowl whisk the eggs and the cream, 3oz of the Stilton and 1oz of the Parmesan. Add to the leeks and mix through. Pour into the pastry case and bake for 30 minutes or until the top has browned and it looks as if the egg mix has set.

Serve warm, cold or at room temperature with pickles, chutneys and salad. (Do not do as I did and serve it with several bottles of wine.)