hugh fearnley-whittingstall's white beans with artichokes

Ooooh, we're getting right creative in our attempts to lose weight not by doing any exercise, or by drinking less, but by trying to eat our way to becoming thinifers.

So after last week's resounding (and frankly unscripted) success, we're back on Saint Hugh's white beans with artichokes, if only because we've still got half a jar of artichokes in the fridge and everybody has some sort of half-abandoned bag of salad in there...

The only difference between this week and last week, is rather than large rounds of goat's cheese, we've gone for Feta which works much better in a not-clogging-your-mouth-up-with-a-cheesy-coating manner. I suspect however, if you could find that goats cheese that comes in a pot rather than a log, that would be even better.

sources
white beans with artichokes - River Cottage Veg Everyday! HFW, p 240

hugh fearnley-whittingstall's warm salad of mushrooms and roasted squash

So, Ana's out tonight with the laydeez having cocktails (and cote de boef it turns out) in The Depot, and having completely crashed out with Milo after dropping Ana off, I'm keen to put myself back to bed. Only this time using the tried-and-trusted method of two bottles of vino collapso, and a good book.

However, that two hour power nap peps me up slightly more than I had allowed for. So rather than getting an early night I end up, well, updating the blog at 01:16 having first watched the Osprey's put the Dragons to the Sword on BBC Wales (Shane Williams: Legend), slightly drunkenly collecting Ana on the Best Bike Ever, listening to the Horrible Histories soundtrack, and then phoning Dr Robert Peter Manwaring. An Englishman.

Fortunately for the purposes of this blog, I also managed to squeeze in a little experimental creation which despite my drunken fumbling with a very-large-but-mercifully-slightly-blunt knife, was bloody delicious. Behold Saint Hugh's Warm Salad of Mushrooms and Roasted Squash:

I have to say, despite being one bottle of Rioja, one bottle of Vouvray and a cheeky sloe gin down, it really is lovely: Rich and earthy, but offset by the creaminess of the blue cheese, and the peppery-ness of the rocket. Not for nothing is it in the 'Hearty Salad' section, and we'll be having this again, hopefully when I'm not as drunk - although does that matter?

Wine Time
Rioja and Vouvray. And Sloe Gin. Although if you're being sensible, a light red would work really well, so actually a young Rioja, or maybe a Cote du Rhone to offset the pepper of rocket and the seasoning.

sources
warm salad of mushrooms of roasted squash - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, River Cottage Veg! Everday, p94

marinated goats cheese and walnut salad

I love Jilly D, and I've been over-excited about cooking this dinner all week. So much so in fact, I planned to have it last night for "Meat Free Monday", but fail to take into account the cheese needs to marinade over night.

Twenty-four hours later, I'm genuinely very excited to get home after rugby and looking forward to cooking this. I had a goat's cheese salad in harbour-side restaurant in Roscoff on holiday and thoroughly enjoyed it, so if I could sum up one more time: Goat. Cheese. Salad. V. Excited.

The marinade smells amazing, and it the whole thing only takes as long as the french beans need to cook to be ready, obviously discounting the 24-hour marinading. It looks fan-bloody-tastic:


However, I think I got over-excited because after the first few mouthfuls, going to myself "This is the best thing you've cooked all year", I decided it was far from the best thing I'd cooked all year. The marinade was lovely, the beans were great but next time I'm going to forget the toasted walnuts as they were just too bitter, and maybe I'll swap the garlic paste for chopped garlic, just to take the edge off.

Don't get me wrong, it was very nice but I think it could be better. Also, after an eight mile cycle ride and two hours of the best rugby since Robert Jones showed Nick Farr Jones how to manage a scrum, it's not the most filling of meals.

sources
marinated goats cheese and walnut salad - Jill Dupliex, Delicious magazine cull so 2005 or 2006

Incidentally - and I knew these pictures would eventually come in useful - here's a shot of me recreating that great R Jones - Farr Jones moment at the same stadium in Brisbane. I'm R Jones *obvs*, to the wheelie bins N F Jones.


And here's me recreating Jerry Guscott's series-levelling try in the same match. Although I think I'm at the wrong end. Even so, how many stadiums can you walk into these days where they'll let you recreate your team beating their team? None I should think...


If only Ron and Sarah could renew their vows, I could do it all again.

mediterranean halloumi salad

Kay's birthday (and summer) dawns grey and grim. Just think, this time last year it was baking and we had the barbie out, and even April was better than this.

Still we had five excellent reasons to ignore the perma-mist today:
1. Milo went directly from his room to the front room to 'entertain' grandma and grandad;
2. June's Delicious is stuffed with inspirational recipes, so we have a whole week of experimental, 'healthy' dinners to look forward to;
3. Ana exclusively reveals she's lost 4Lbs this week (as opposed to the £80 I lost at Ocado ho ho!);
4. We've got a table booked at the Brown Dog for Kay's birthday lunch later, and finally
5. Ocado have delivered a fridge full of cheese:


There's six (count them), six different cheeses in there - Leerdamer, Emmental, Cheddar, goat's cheese, cottage cheese and some Port Salut. Bring it on!

Before we can get stuck into the fromage, we have a birthday lunch to deal with, and very good it is too. Ana has courgette risotto, Mike and Kay have roast lamb with yorkshire puddings, I have Dorset Crab and milo splits his time between playing with a beagle puppy called 'Mirabelle' behind us, and fish and chips. It's all very well done, but massively over-priced. Lucky the diets preclude pudding...

Dinner is an infinitely low-key affair with the first of this week's experimental dishes, but it ticks a lot of boxes in anaworld: Halloumi and salad.



It definitely needs crusty bread, or pitta bread as ana thinks, but the combination of basil, olives, capers and roasted peppers scream summer, and it's surprisingly hearty. Deffo a keeper.

Food of the Milos
Not an awful lot for breakfast - toast, grapes and cheese - but for lunch he eats all of his fish (non-battered), and chips at the pub, with gallons of water and juice. More sausages for dinner, this time with broccoli and a left-over white bean polpettine to at least give the illusion of a healthy, balanced diet.

sources
mediterranean halloumi salad - Delicious, June 2010, p24

cheese toasties

Bad parenting-a-go-go sees us spend about a million hours in Kingston A&E only to discover the milos haven't really done anything to their foot. By the time we get home I can't be bothered to pick the remaining meat off the chicken carcass to make a pie, so we have cheese toasties.

I'm less than inspired, but at least he hasn't developed tagliatelle hamstrings or gouty foot through his recent close contact with Daviss and Greggy.

Food of the Milos
Before hospital Zoe stuffs him with pizza from annabel karmel - she's become quite the thing hasn't she? - and we fill him with raisins in casualty.

The lucy's, if you're commenting as I'm writing this at half ten at night, how sad are we (to the power of 30)?

macaroni cheese

A long bank holiday drive back from Dorset after a weekend of over indulgence requires one thing, a big slab of carbs coated in four cheeses care of Mr J Oliver. I read somewhere recently that adding cauliflower into it is a really good way of increasing your veg intake, so I bung some in as well. Naturally this is offset by a really small salad.




It goes a very small way to making up for the following massive meals ingested over the weekend, naturally washed down with booze:
Vegetarian AND meat lasagne from Greggy
Chicken curry, chana masala and what looked like green slime in lentils but probably wasn't from The Star of Daviss
A massive roast lamb from the Good Lucy's &
Ratatouille from me via Saint Hugh

In retrospect it doesn't seem like much, but I feel like I've put on about a bazillion pounds. The anas have been stunned into silence by the sheer weight of carbs.

warm mushroom & halloumi salad with red wine vinagrette

Experimental cookery evening, and tonight we're trying a new salad. Ana 'loves' experimental cookery, but she's hoist by her own petard; the recipe is in her hand-writing in the black new zealand book. I bought all my Donna Hay mags back, so it could've come from either the original Aussie version of Delicious, or some random antipodean ladies mag. 'Zust' maybe?


Anyway, we like but maybe we'll be keeping it for the summer?

Food of the Milos
Tonight he had a big bowl of the ratatouille with some wholemeal pasta, a kiwi fruit and a fromage frais.

Mrs White (does hand actions), we haven't tried him on tuna yet I don't think? I think it'll happen as we reacquaint ourselves with the fush. You're quite right about it all changing when they speak, and I'm dreading that day.

Brendas, surely B-Jamin' will be on goujons of whatever Davisss can hoik out of the river?

hearty vegetable cottage pie

The freezer cull continues with the return of the veg cottage pie, with Delia's cheesy leek topping.

Only 4000 litres of assorted soup, and some liver to go...

hearty vegetable cottage pie with cheesey leek topping

Base from Delicious, prep done Wednesday afternoon, Delia's topping from How to Cook Book Two done last night.

Enough spare for Milo to have some for dinner today, and some in the freezer for him next week.