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Spiced Mackerel with Horseradish Potatoes

I fell of the gym-wagon. I was training for a half-marathon. I had a spreadsheet in which I logged how far I had run and how long it took me. I went from being awful at running, only lasting a few meters until I hit the proverbial wall, to being able to run a few miles with some composure. I took it pretty seriously, buying special running clothes and shoes and joining running forums. Alas, one day my knees hurt and I missed training. Then about two/three weeks passed and I had not gone back to the gym. I was way behind on my schedule and, although I was always certain that I would start again tomorrow, it didn't happen. The jig was up.

This whole time, my adorable friend Sarah kept innocently asking "how's the running going?" and I would often reply "urghhh! gawd! I'll do it tomorrow!" in the style of a petulant teenager. Yesterday, Sarah said "this is why I don't set big goals, just set little goals and be glad when I achieve them". Those words rung in my head and I decided to go to the gym, not to run 5 miles, my goal was simply to put my gym clothes on, go to the gym, and maybe touch the equipment. This plan worked. I went to the gym, I ran about 1 mile and it didn't feel all that bad, I wasn't sweating like hell and wishing I was dead. I felt good that I had broken the cycle. There was, however, a new reason to feel bad. For the first time ever, my belly actually jiggled when I ran. {thunderbolt}

There's a good chance that I am simply pre-menstrual and this belly weight will go in a week, but still, this was a disturbing threshold to cross. I came home and had a bath but the belly loomed large in the water. This morning, I weighed myself on the fancy scales at my office. I am heavier today than I have ever been. Unless I'm about to do a 6lb poo, action is needed. Iotef was invented to encourage healthy family meals, mostly for the sake of my husband and son. Right now, I need iotef more than ever.

For dinner, I made fish, but I put butter on it and ate it with white potatoes so I might as well just buy a moomoo.

This is the recipe that I followed. It was pretty freaking delicious, and really very quick and easy. The horseradish was a little too much for my son, he added extra sour cream to his plate to calm it down. My husband enjoyed it, he tends to like strong flavors.  I think it was healthy in terms of the balanced meal but not low fat enough. I am not supposed to cook with butter. Even just a little butter and then putting it under the broiler is not okay. How many calories are even in horseradish? I bet it's tons.

Cod Chowder with Leeks and Sweetcorn

My typical regime for choosing what we eat for dinner is to go to the BBC food website and hit the option to search for "healthy" recipes and then find something that doesn't look like a massive pain in the arse to make.

Today, I hit upon a recipe for smoked haddock chowder. My fishmonger doesn't do smoked fish and was out of haddock, so I made a cod chowder instead. I was a little worried that the chowder would be bland, given that the fish was not smoked, so added a little fish stock to the milk to help it along. The result was very flavorful, too flavorful for my son, who added cheese and extra milk to lighten it up. My husband liked it and it all went in one go - no leftovers at all.

The meal was considered "healthy" by the good people at BBC food, and who am I to argue? but it doesn't offer much in the way of vegetables. I'm sure corn is technically a vegetable, but I imagine that the nutritional value is quite low. I'd guess this meal was classed as healthy because of the fish. I could use this (without the new potatoes) as a recipe for fish pie, and then serve it with a side of green beans. I would probably go further as a pie and have more vegetables on the plate. 

Still, the family enjoyed it, and they all have a nice portion of fish in their bellies.

Low-Fat Chicken Curry

We made a low fat chicken curry from a BBC food recipe. We didn't have any chicken stock so used some tomato sauce.  It was too spicy for me and the boy, might have to add sour cream or something next time. The husband enjoyed it. Check out my rice mounds, classy!

Chicken Pot Roast

I used this recipe but used a whole chicken instead of chicken breasts.  It was unreasonably delicious. I served it with string beans. Will absolutely make this again.

Edit: I made it again in March 2014.  Still delicious. See lower picture. 

Cauliflower Crust Pizza

Cauliflower crust pizza is amazingly delicious. It tastes different, like roasted cauliflower tastes different to baked bread, but both are worthy of exaltation.

All credit needs to go to the lady who wrote this recipe on her blog. She's obviously tried a few things before declaring this the ultimate in cauliflower pizza crust recipes. I've never tried any other, so I can neither confirm or deny her claim that this is the best, but it was fantastic. It doesn't make a very large crust, in future I might have to make two of them to feed my family. It was also pretty fun to make, squeezing the cauliflower though the tea towel was exciting - it makes way more water than you would think! Also, I had to go out and buy a food processor - Walmart had a teeny one for $10. It's super adorable. I felt like a kid in a toy kitchen making food for imaginary friends. It took about 4 or 5 loads in my tiny processor to make enough cauliflower pulp for the base.

We made marinara sauce from the BBC food recipe, which was also excellent. We topped the pizza with mozzarella, Parmesan, chicken and red bell peppers, and garnished with parsley.

I served with a side salad ( baby romaine lettuce, golden delicious apple, red peppers and mozzarella), a pasta salad ( penne pasta, the leftover marinara sauce and Parmesan). Perfetto!

Edit: this was so good we made another one for Julia on the 4th of July.

Sopranos Dinners

We started watching to Sopranos. I had never seen it and it's one of Gavin's favourite shows. A few episodes in, we realized that it always gives us a hankering for Italian food. So I decided that next time we watch the Soprano's we'd get red wine and I'd cook something associated with New York Italian cuisine.

1. Turkey Meatballs in Tomato Sauce

This is an adapted Nigella Lawson recipe. I did this but I also added a small cube of mozzarella in each meatball, I added some paprika, and half a glass of red wine.

2. Shrimp Fra Diavolo

I didn't want to make anything else with ground meat and cheese, but tried to make something a little more interesting. I saw Lobster Fra Diavolo on the Wikipedia page for Italian American cuisine so I looked it up. I love spicy shrimp pasta, and I've never heard it called this name. I followed this recipe. It was really wonderful, but it was much too spicy. My boy couldn't really eat it at all, so next time I'll dial down the spice.    It was really easy to make, and didn't take all that long, so I figured I'd add to the authenticity of my dinner with home made pasta. I don't have any special pasta roller, but my amazing friend Julia sent me this recipe, and she told me that you don't really need to leave it to dry. She was 100% correct. The pasta was great and authentic pasta really added to the meal. Good old Julia! She's the best!

3. Zabaglione with strawberries and savoiardi