Friday 11th July – The Phoenix Rises from the Flames in a wobbly sort of way

I decided, much against my better judgement that I ought to try harder at rejuvenating my flagging will to slim today.  I am still rather hormonal.  This makes it very difficult to ignore the rest of the birthday cake, the chocolate cornflake cake and the entire bowl of small packets of chocolate that I have left over from prize giving birthday party type activity.  I mainly just want to dive in face first and not even bother to unwrap things.  I feel that this would probably be unwise.

I started off thinking I would have a green day using the Slimming World plan.  I find green days easier because I like to chomp my way through pounds of carbs, and I naturally eat lots of pasta, rice and potatoes.  Green days allow you to do this as much as you like.  However, by tea time I had eaten hardly any carbs except a handful of baby new potatoes and the rest was fish, so I did a cunning swaparound so that I was doing a red day, which meant that I didn’t have to count my fish as syns, because you can eat as much fish as you like on a red day.  I was amazed by my own genius and allowed myself a chocolate penguin and two dough sticks from Pizza Express to celebrate.  How decadent!

This morning I had another raspberry based breakfast.  Sadly I had eaten all the delicious Tulameen raspberries and just had to eat the good but slightly less delicious Waitrose Scottish raspberries instead.  I forced them down in about thirty seconds flat.  Consoled myself with the thought that I’d never eaten a nasty raspberry and further consoled myself by patting myself on the back for having avoided another banana.  All credit to me.

I waited until I’d taken the kids to school to drink my coffee.  I make a large cafetiere of coffee every morning and usually end up drinking it on the run and not savouring it properly.  Today I waited and it was wonderful.  I drink Illy coffee by choice. It’s very expensive, but it’s also rather delicious and nice and dark.  I like strong coffee with a tiny, tiny amount of milk.  In fact you basically show it the milk, wave a pipette over it and that’s it.  It’s splendid, and I drank the whole lot.

Lunch was prawn salad.  I love seafood and I particularly love shellfish.  Prawns are fabulous and even when I was a child and could have won Olympic Gold as the world’s pickiest eater I was still crazy about prawns.  Whenever we went out for a meal I would always have prawn cocktail as my starter.  I know they’re not very fashionable now, but I prefer to think of them as a ‘retro’ delight.  You can keep your black forest gateau, something I’ve never liked, but I’d still walk a mile over hot coals for a really good prawn cocktail.  They’re fabulous.

Today’s salad wasn’t quite as exciting as prawn cocktail because I couldn’t have the sauce due to the fact that it’s nine billion calories a centimetre.  I thought about the sauce while I was eating the prawns and it was almost as good.  I had an apple for pudding, mainly because there was one lying near to hand and I still needed filling up.  It wasn’t a spectacular apple, so I will move on.

Jason came home from work early and offered to take us to dinner.  He is brilliant.  He took us to Pizza Express, which is a firm family favourite.  They hand cook their pizzas which we like, especially because the kids can watch and it keeps them entertained.  Because they hand cook them it also means that Jason can eat them.  He hates cheese, so most pizza places that are chains are out for him, which is fine by me. 

One of the best things about Pizza Express is that the children love it.  They love everything about it.  They’re always well behaved when we go there and they always eat everything.  The kids menu is brilliant and good value.  This means that Jason doesn’t get stressed out at the cost and the fact that the children might leave their food.  The kids behave themselves, and get to have pudding because not only do they finish what’s on their plate (they have to, if they want dessert).  It’s fabulous.  God love them and may they go from strength to strength.

I had a salad Nicoise.  For those who don’t know, Salad Nicoise is a green salad with tuna, boiled new potatoes, green beans, capers, anchovies, olives and boiled eggs.  Occasionally people put tomato and/or cucumber in.  I don’t mind.  The more the merrier.  I love it best when the tuna is a steak that has been lightly seared, but can manage if it’s tinned tuna, which it was today.  Ask Pizza do theirs with tuna steak and I think it has the edge, but I’ll take either.  It’s easy to make and it’s one of my favourite types of salad.  It’s very filling.

If you’re making your own salad Nicoise, here are some tips:

Boiled Eggs:

• Put them in cold water and bring them to the boil.  If you drop them into boiling water they crack.
• Once the water starts boiling an egg takes about seven minutes to hard boil.
• Run the eggs under the cold tap before peeling them.  It stops you burning your fingers off.
• I quarter my eggs length ways for Nicoise. You can roughly chop them if you like. Quarters look neater.

Green Beans:

• Top and tail them if you haven’t bought ones already done by the supermarket (although I top and tail these ones too)
• Either steam or boil them in a little salted water.
• I like my green beans crunchy.  I cook them for about four minutes max.
• If you like them more bendy try seven minutes.
• Rinse them in cold water as you dont’ want them to lose their bite, or wilt the rest of the salad.

New Potatoes:

• Chop them before you boil them.  The smaller the pieces, the quicker they cook. Cut them into regular sized pieces.  If they’re different sizes they will cook at different rates and you will end up with a mixture of mush and raw that is really unpleasant.
• I like Jersey Royals at the moment.  There are lots of other new potato varieties, the names of which I have forgotten.  There are some that look like nobbly fir cones that are really tasty.  If you’re desperate, just use regular potatoes and cook them small.
• I boil mine with the skins on in already boiling salted water for between five to ten minutes depending on the size of the potatoes.
• You know they’re done when you can skewer them with the tip of a sharp knife and they fall off the knife easily.
• Drain and let them sit for a few minutes so that they dry off a bit.

Green Leaves;

• Green salads don’t have to be the boring affair they once were.  There are loads of lovely and different tasting leaves on the market these days.  You just have to find combinations you like.
• Rocket and Mizuna are both peppery leaves.  Wild Rocket is pepperier than farmed rocket.  Both taste good.
• Chard, spinach and other greens that you might cook you can also eat raw.
• Lambs lettuce is a favourite in our house.  It’s a dark green, smallish leaf which has quite a dense flavour but none of the pepperiness of rocket.
• Watercress is a favourite these days.  I’m not keen.  It is peppery but has a peculiar floral aftertaste that I’m not a big fan of.

Tuna:

• Tuna from a can and tuna steaks from the fishmonger are two entirely different things.  You genuinely would not know that they are the same fish and if you haven’t tried tuna steaks you really should.  There are lots of different types of tuna and they are all delicious.
• Tuna steaks are not cheap, but rather like salmon, they are a very meaty, flavourful fish, and I find a little goes a long way.  It doesn’t taste rich and oily in the same way as salmon.  It’s much more meaty than that.
• It takes only a few minutes on either side to pan fry or roast a piece of tuna.  I like mine very rare, so usually only give it a minute to a minute and a half on each side.  If you cook it for too long it will be dry, so you really need to keep your eye on it when cooking.
• You can eat tuna raw.  I like it as carpaccio, which is basically thin slices of raw meat or fish which are then drizzled with lemon juice.  The lemon juice cooks the meat but leaves it tender and delicious.  It is usual to have carpaccio of beef, but if you get your fish monger to slice the tuna thinly for you, it works beautifully.  I serve it on rocket with a few capers sprinkled over it.

Capers:

Capers go really well with fish of all kinds.  They are nasturtium seeds which are pickled in brine or vinegar and are quite tart tasting.  A few go a long way, but they can add really interesting flavours to your dishes.  I often use them in Italian sauces.  They work really well in puttanesca sauce as they complement anchovies beautifully.

Anchovies:

• For tuna nicoise I tend to use the jars of salted anchovies that you get from the supermarket.  They are very, very strong tasting and two or three per serving is usually about as much as a person can stand.  I love them, so usually ask for extra.
• If you find the saltiness too much you can always try the anchovies that have been marinaded instead.  These are a staple of good Spanish Tapas bars, but are now becoming available over here.  Waitrose sell them, and I have seen them on the deli counters in the big Sainsburys’.  Try them.  They don’t taste anything like the salted anchovies and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Back at Pizza Express, I cracked and ate two of the dough strips that come with it, but other than that it fit beautifully into my eating plan, and I was full because the portions are sensible.  They also serve San Pellegrino, which is my favourite type of fizzy water (and yes, they do taste different), and they make a damn good coffee.  When we got home I had a rather delicious white flesh nectarine.  They are my favourite type of nectarine, but are quite difficult to get hold of, and very expensive.  Because I was trying to tempt myself back onto the wagon when I put in my Ocado order I treated myself to four.  At two quid for four that’s not cheap, but they are delicious.

So, as long as I don’t blow it and eat twenty pieces of birthday cake while slobbing out in front of the telly I would say that it has been a most satisfactory food day all round.