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

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!

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!

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!

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

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

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!

I’ll be adding some pictures to future posts, but for now (and as I’m in a hurry), here we are:

This recipe was taken from the fantastic Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s book, The River Cottage Year (listed as Roast pumpkin soup).

Ingredients

• 1 large butternut squash
• 3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled, lightly crushed.
• some chicken stock

Method

Peel and roughly chop the squash into large pieces, discarding the seeds and surrounding fibres. Put them into a roasting tin, together with the garlic, and drizzle with oil. Roast for 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat some chicken stock (about a litre of liquid is needed). When the squash is done, add to a blender, together with the innards of the garlic (discarding the skin). Add the stock, and blend to a smooth consistency. Adjust the liquid level, by adding more stock, or boiling water. Return to a pan and heat through.

Before serving, optionally add a bit of double cream. Finally, sprinkle a few leaves of fresh coriander.

As she’s mentioned in her first post, the point of this is to document the successes and failures… We shall see