I don't think I've mentioned this yet, and I don't want to brag or anything, but after about 3 months on my revised healthy eating plan husband's HbA1C, which is the long term measure of glucose control, had gone back down to a level that is considered pre-diabetic. The doctor was flabbergasted and asked what was behind this miracle. The wife, answered husband.



I have to give him part of the credit. He's been a very good boy and has completely cut out chocolate and other sweet snacks from his daily diet and is sticking to the contents of the lunchbox I lovingly prepare for him every morning. It usually contains sandwiches made with rye or other wholemeal bread and filled with lean meat or oily fish, tomato and cucumber slices, and for snacks there is unsalted nuts and seeds, fruit and veg like mini-carrots or cherry tomatoes.

There are occasional relapses I'm sure, when the lure of the bounty bar beats the crudites, but that's ok.  Like last Saturday when I dug out some chocolates for the kids, husband ran to the bowl crying "Chocolate!" then grabbing a few explaining he hadn't had any for a long time and happily munching away. No one has to be perfect every single day, what matters is the long term trend. Husband did a "how long do I have left" test on FB and apparently he's going to live another 66 years, which would take him well onto his second century, so that's good news!

I may need to review my red wine and cheese consumption if I want stay here for same amount of time and I definitely think I should if only to make sure there is someone around cooking him healthy meals.

This fish bake has all sorts of good things, like spinach and broccoli and of course the fish, filled with good oils. The potato topping is made healthier and lower GI by leaving the skins on and replacing some of the potato with sweet potato which surprisingly is lower GI than the regular tattie. We find it a bit sweet on it's own, but it works great when used half and half with normal potatoes. If you let the potato slices cool after par-boiling you can even create a nice pattern. Mine were too hot to handle, so the design is a bit more rustic, but beautiful:



Superfood spinach and broccoli fish pie with potato and sweet potato topping

A couple of sprays of rapeseed (or other healthy) oil
2-3 unpeeled potatoes, thinly sliced (I used a mandolin)
2-3 unpeeled sweet potatoes thinly sliced
1 large onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Florets of one broccoli
A bag (150-200g) fresh spinach (roughly chopped)
Zest and juice of a lemon
2 fillets of salmon, cut into chunks
2 fillets of cod, cut into chunks
3 heaped tbsp of 0% fat yoghurt (or a couple of tbsp of low fat sour cream)
Small bunch of fresh basil, dill or parsley or 2-3 tsp dried herbs
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 200ºC

Par-boil the thinly sliced unpeeled potatoes and sweet potatoes in slightly salted water until they have softened a little, drain and set aside.

Spray a large non-stick pan with oil and saute the onion with a small sprinkling of salt for 2-3 minutes. Add minced garlic and continue frying for a minute or so. Add the broccoli florets and saute for another five mins. Add the spinach and black pepper and cook until the spinach begins to wilt. Spread the vegetables evenly in a baking dish.

Prep the fish, remove bones and skin and cut into bite size pieces. Season lightly with salt and pepper, add the chopped fresh or dried herbs, yoghurt, zest and juice of a lemon and mix well. Spread the fish mix on top of the vegetables.

Top the dish with the potato slices, season lightly with salt and pepper and give the top a light spray
of olive or vegetable oil.

Bake for 25 - 30 mins or until the potatoes are golden and crispy around the edges.

I will be glad when this launch that I have been working on is over next week. Particularly if it goes well of course. It's been fun but very intense. I had a dream last night that I was launching French sausages and it was the night before the launch when I realized there was no English text on the packaging. Merde. Luckily I am not launching saucissons and the packaging definitely has English text.

We've also been doing some media training in case we get opportunities. It's been a while since I have done any media interviews. I used to do quite a few early in my career when I was looking after the Easter egg range for a large confectionery company. It was a shitty product category, seasonal products, Christmas and stuff. No one wanted to do it. Imagine you get your timings wrong and miss your dates by a week. Not good. Anyway, I was often interviewed around Easter about the latest trends in Easter egg toys etc. I even once made it to the national TV, they wanted me to present our latest brainwave, finger puppets! Proud moment.

There were some tricky interviews as well. I remember one from a religious magazine about a little plastic raccoon sitting next to a barrel seemingly happily drunk. Apparently not appropriate for children. But ingeniously I turned the question around. Maybe the inappropriateness was in the eyes of the beholder, because clearly looking at it with the innocent eyes of a child it was a barrel of honey and the raccoon had just overindulged a little. Ever heard of Winnie the Pooh you dirty old bigot. I didn't say that last bit. Because I had been rigorously media trained, you see. Lesson one - don't call the journalist names.

So last night I was very glad to wind down and make husband proper dinner. I haven't been a completely useless wife this week, I made him really lovely chickpea and courgette burgers one evening, I might even blog the recipe at some point. And one evening I followed a recipe that promised to be the best ever lentil soup. It was really good, but I didn't realise that yellow lentils expand quite so much more than red lentils. I had to keep adding water. It reminded me of the story that dad told about the time he cooked rice for the first time in his student days. Had no idea that they would expand, ended up with enough to feed a Chinese village. Anyway lentil soup was nice and fed us for several nights and there is a good portion in the freezer.

The b(igg)est ever lentil soup

Our Friday dinner is a special thing and often I opt for fish. This time I had some lovely slightly smoked salmon fillets which I baked and made this orzo, basil, pesto, tomato and mozzarella bake. It's a tasty little side dish that I invented. I'm sure some one has thought of chucking these same ingredients together before me. It's not the most out there combination, the ingredients kind of all belong together naturally. There is nothing stopping you having it as a main. Side or main, or just cold from the fridge the following morning while waiting for your husband to wake up for breakfast - very yummy.

Beautiful heirloom toamatoes, the big green one was tough as old boots, but doesn't it look lovely.

Red pesto, tomato and mozzarella orzo bake (serves 2)

Oil
200g orzo
3-4 spring onions
1 small clove of garlic
2 large or 10-15 small tomatoes (heirloom for extra pretension)
2 tbsp of red pesto (or green)
Bunch of fresh basil (about 1/3 cup chopped)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
Salt and pepper
Ball of mozzarella (about 125g)

Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Cook the orzo in salted water until almost done, but still slightly al dente. In the meanwhile chop the spring onions and tomatoes and mince the garlic, Heat oil in a frying pan and saute the vegetables for a couple of minutes until the tomatoes have softened a little.

Drain the pasta. Add the vegetable mix, pesto, parmesan, salt (not too much because there is salt in the pesto and parmesan), black pepper and chopped fresh basil (leave some for garnish) to the pasta. Mix well and check the seasoning, add salt and pepper, if necessary. Pour the mix into a baking dish. Slice the mozzarella and place the slices on top.

Bake uncovered for about 15 minutes until the mozzarella has melted and the top has got some colour. Garnish with basil.

Game pasta bake with moose and smoked reindeer (serves 4)

A Finnish Christmas table traditionally has been crowned by several different kinds of bakes (casseroles in US English) depending on where in Finland we are talking about. There are regional differences and some may have fallen on the wayside and now these three remain: carrot, swede and potato. But the greatest of these is potato.

The smelliest is the swede.

And the one no one cares either way about is the carrot bake. It's like the Lady Edith of Christmas bakes, a thoroughly uninteresting character with uninteresting suitors, who go missing without no one giving a damn. Potato is obviously the shiny, pretty and lovable Lady Sybil and swede is Lady Mary who's got a definite nasty whiff about her, but who you couldn't have Downton Abbey without.

The dish is called sweetened potato bake. Potatoes are first boiled and then mashed. Then they are sweetened in the oven. You mix in a little bit of plain flour, cover the pan and put it in the oven. Then the magical Christmas oven fairies turn the mash into a shiny golden sweet gorgeousness. Or maybe it's the enzyme amylase in the flour that reacts with the starch of the potato. Either or.

You can use golden syrup for added sweetness if the natural process won't quite do it. The temperature is key, if your oven is unreliable and the temperature is wrong the sweetening won't happen, you need to keep it above 55C and below 75C at all times. But even then sometimes the potatoes are just recalcitrant, so there is no shame in a squirt of syrup.

The bake is enjoyed hot fresh from the oven with different types of fish like gravadlax of course, hot smoked salmon, gravad whitefish, pickled herring and baltic herring. And it's not all fish, there is always also a massive ham, which is salted in brine for several days and then baked overnight in low heat until "overdone". Then it's dressed with mustard and whole cloves and baked until nicely browned on the outside.

This potato bake takes all day, the potato mash requires several hours of "sweetening" in the oven. Before you season it and bake it for several hours. Little active prep time, but lots of hanging around the oven and drinking mulled wine singing carols time.

Finnish sweetened potato bake (will make a lot - I made half a portion)

2 1/2 kg potatoes (floury: King Edward or Maris Piper)
1/3 cup plain flour
2 cups milk
Salt
1 tsp nutmeg
3-4 tbsp golden syrup
Butter

Peel and wash potatoes (the most traditional recipes recommend boiling them unpeeled and then peeling them hot, but that's really such a pain that I can't be bothered, if you want to do it, go for it and good luck to you and your thumb). Boil the potatoes in unsalted water until well done. Drain the potatoes preserving the water and mash the potatoes.

Cool the mash until it's little warmer than lukewarm (about 60C). Add about half a cup or a bit more of the preserved cooking water and mix.

The mask should be 55-75C, otherwise the sweetening won't happen, so make sure you cool it down to right temperature and that you oven is between 55 and 75C, ideally around 60C. You can also do this bit in a warm water bath, but I don't know how you would control the temperature so I always do it in the oven.

Once you think your mash is the right temperature mix in half of the flour. Cover the pan and place in the 60C oven.  After half an hour mix in the rest of the flour and leave in the oven for minimum 4-5 hours, but the sweetening process can take up to 8 hours. You don't want to disturb the potatoes a lot during this time. The potatoes are ready when the mash has loosened and become shiny and sweet.

When you are happy with the potato mix add enough milk to make a smooth loose porridge-like mix. It should be thinner than porridge but thicker than soup. Add the nutmeg and season with salt. If it is not sweet enough add some syrup.

Butter one or more baking dishes and fill each a little more than half way with the potato mix. The potato will bubble while baking, so it's important not to overfill. Add a couple of knobs of butter on top.

(If you want to serve the bakes later, you can refrigerate or freeze them at this stage and do the final baking just before you want to serve them.)

Bake in 150C for 2 hours and serve hot.