Still alive!

I have several posts almost ready, just not had the time to finish them off!

Good news: Still losing weight.
Bad news: Cooking not as varied as I’d like.

The Goose Was Cooked

Ok, I’ve been bad. Its been far too long since I have written here. Despite early success and enthusiasm, I have had a block on actually writing about my cooking.

The Good News

I have been cooking new things and, in general, avoiding takeaways.

I’ve also lost a lot of weight. A stone from the start of this blog to be exact. This would appear to be the equivalent of two holes on my belt. Also of note is that I now need a belt for my trousers. This is good news: I get to buy more soon! Well, only when I hit my target. Another stone to go…

The Goose

Last night TinyLily was visiting, and, as we hadn’t had dinner together for awhile, we cooked the goose that I’d picked up in Tesco just before Christmas when it was looking like we wouldn’t get to travel because of the snow. In the end travel was fine, and the goose ended up in the freezer.

The goose was 5.5kg in weight, and I roasted it for 3 hours. A hot 30 minute sizzle at 200C (fan oven), followed by 2.5 hours at 150C. This seemed to work just right, with the meat being soft and tender, while not being dried out.

I’d stuffed the goose with a stuffing made from breadcrumbs, almonds, raisins, thyme, rosemary and onion, combined with the goose’s liver, finely chopped. this was loosely pushed into the body cavity.

Accompanying this, I kept things simple, with kale, fried leeks and roast potatoes (in goose fat). A squeeze of lemon juice over the kale just before serving improves this underused vegetable.

Served with gravy made from some of the giblet stock, and a couple of bottles of wine, this filled us up perfectly.

A lovely way to spend an evening!

Smoked Salmon Scrambled Eggs

A friend suggested this simple recipe, and we had it for breakfast. Yum!

Beat four eggs (serves two) with a little milk. Add 100g of smoked salmon, chopped into small pieces, together with some chopped fresh tarragon. Place into a saucepan, and scramble over a low heat. Serve with a slice of bread. Yum!

Braised Pork with apples and cider

After a short break in blogging, and I never did get round to making the bolognese, I’m back! (Woo). So quick summary. Last night ended up being pork Thai curry, as I was short on time, and the night before I cooked Lamb Tika with rice, and my own Tika sauce.

So, tonight, I tried making up a recipe.

Ingredients (serves 2)

• 400g Pork Escalopes
• 1 onion
• 1 apple
• 1/2 pint cider
• sage (fresh chopped, or dried)
• some honey

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 130 °C.
2. Slice the onion and apple, and place them on the bottom of a small oven proof dish.
3. Sprinkle with sage.
4. Lay the pork on top of the onions and apples, and pour over the cider.
5. cover the top of the pork with honey
6. Bake for an hour or so, checking that the pork has not dried out (add more cider if required)

This went pretty well for me, other than discovering that our oven thermostat has broken, and so the pork ended up a bit burnt. Still tasted good though!

Lasagna tonight!

Home made lasagna tonight with fresh pasta from Tesco (not enough time to make my own today) and the last of my bolognese.

Recipe for that tomorrow, as I’m making another batch

First Supper

Quick post about supper: I had a mad plan to have just a glass of wine and some biscuits for supper. Not healthy, but low calorie.
This was obviously not sustainable!
Luckily, I had a small pot of (home made) beef red Thai curry in the freezer. 2 oz of rice each, and the curry bulked out with some broccoli and mushrooms that needed using, have left us not feeling empty, at least.

That was the last pot, so I need to make some more.

Weigh in

Ok, so the other reason that I’m trying to cook better food is that I’m overweight.

Latest: 14 stone 8 pounds.

This is the heaviest I’ve ever been, and, I have to say, it shows. I’m heavy boned, so I think my ideal weight is just under 13 stone, but this does mean that I’m two stone overweight. This is not good.

Aim for the year: 1 lb loss per month, sustained. Nice food, small portions!