We were treated to some amazing Asian food a few weeks ago when we visited an ex-colleague of mine. He and his wife have their roots in Hong Kong and they have also travelled in Japan a lot, so I think we were served some pretty good stuff by any standards. Oh and she's a trained chef.

One of husbands favourites out of all the goodies we were given that evening were the crispy deep fried Vietnamese prawn and turkey spring rolls. And I think they probably were mine too. I asked my friend for the recipe and he gave me the one they'd loosely followed as well as the recipe for the Japanese gyozas which also were amazing and which I will try at some point.

My sister has also really gotten into Asian food and it's been all bamboo steamers, katsucurry and chopsticks for quite a while with her. Only yesterday she WhatsApped me a picture of a gyoza miso soup she'd made for lunch. She doesn't do it to make me feel inferior. I know because she also shares the details of experiments that go wrong. Like the dumplings even the visiting dog refused to eat. To make it worse the dog was a labrador, I'm not sure I've ever seen a lab refuse anything.

But I decided to start my Asian exploration with the spring rolls as husband really loved them, and it's our special food as well. When we first started going out we'd often finish the night getting those large £1 veggie spring rolls from a little take away near Leicester Square. So I want to surprise him when he comes back with amazing tasty and crispy spring rolls. Although I suspect it won't be a total surprise as I already divulged this to all in Facebook so he will have seen it.

I didn't have any turkey mince so decided to go meatless. Also because of my current obsession with losing some weight I obviously had to modify the recipe. I left out the noodles and just used prawns and a stir fry vegetable mix of carrots, cabbage and edamame beans. I deep-fried half of the batch and oven-baked the other half to see how much difference the deep-frying makes. Sadly it does make a bit of a difference. The oven baked ones were absolutely ok, but just not quite as nice and crunchy and crispy as the deep-fried ones.

But like my bamboo steamer wielding sister said when I proudly sent her the pics, we are not likely to eat these that often, so it doesn't really matter if I deep-fry them when we do.

My Vietnames spring rolls two ways, the oven baked ones to the left and the deep-fried to the right.

I particularly loved the dipping sauce. I accidentally put in some shallot. I thought it was on the recipe, but it wasn't. But actually it works really well. So feel free to add shallot or leave it out.

This is the original recipe and my friend has substituted the pork with turkey mince and also used spring roll pastry rather than rice paper as did I.

My friend's wife (the chef!) - had commented on the picture I put on Facebook, that my spring rolls "look legit"! Now I know how the MasterChef competitors feel when Marcus Waring likes their sorrel sorbet or pigeon bonbons.

Vietnamese prawn and vegetable spring rolls with nuac cham dipping sauce

(makes about 10 medium sized spring rolls)

10 sheets of spring roll pastry
200 grams of uncooked prawns, deveined and finely chopped
1 cup of stir fry vegetables (cabbage, carrot etc), cut into thin strips
1 egg
2 tbsp fish sauce
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 tsp sugar
Salt
Pepper

Nuoc Cham dipping sauce

1/2 shallot, finely chopped
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 - 1 red chilli, finely chopped
2 tbsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1 small grated clove of garlic
2 tsp sugar

Mix the chopped prawns and vegetables in a bowl, add in the egg, fish sauce, shallot, sugar, salt and pepper and mix well.

Take one sheet of spring roll pastry and add filling to the bottom of the sheet forming it into an even rectangular shape (there are great videos to show if you're not sure how to do this). Fold the sheet over the filling and fold in the sides neatly, roll all the way up. Brush the end with a tiny around of water to  seal the roll.

Keep both the stack of pastry sheets as well as ready spring rolls covered until you've done all. Otherwise they may dry.

To bake in the oven brush the spring rolls with vegetable oil on both sides and place on a wire rack in a 220 C oven. Turn a few times while baking. Bake for about 15 minutes or until crisp and brown on both sides.

To deep-fry, place 2 cm of vegetable oil in a sauce pan. Heat until small bubbles form when you place a handle of a wooden spoon in the oil. Place the rolls in the oil, don't overcrowd the pan. Once they are a nice colour on the bottom turn them around and cook on the other side. This should only take about 5 minutes. Take the rolls out and place on paper towels to soak some of the oil.

For the nuoc cham mix all the ingredients together, and that's it - you're done.

Serve the spring rolls with lettuce and the nuoc cham.

Husband is going away for a month to visit his family. A month is a long time but he does have a lot of family. I can't go with him this time because of work, but I will go and see my family while he is away. I will go for 4 days which is proportionate to the size of my family.

I have been missing him this week already although he hasn't even left yet. I was even sniffing his T-shirt one morning after he'd gone to work. He really pissed me off yesterday though, so there has been no sniffing of any kind today. Actually we have made our peace. The argument was not that serious after all. It was about my car's heating / air con. I know it's not working properly and I happened to mention this to His Highness, the Automobile Overlord. I know the system is not working because I drive the stupid car everyday whereas his hypothesis based on fuck all is that I don't know how to use it.


It is quite complicated after all for a little lady like me. There is this on/off button which you have to press and then you have to choose your temperature. Like OMG all these numbers, what do they all mean! Anyway, we are on friendly terms again, so I made him this lovely seafood lasagne which is also easy for him to heat up for lunch next week when I'm in the  office.

Super simple seafood lasagne with shrimp, salmon and sea bass 

Serves 6

1 yellow onion
1-2 cloves of garlic
2 stalks of celery
1/2 fennel bulb
1 courgette
Small bunch of fresh dill (or other herbs)
Salt
Lemon pepper
1 chicken or fish stock cube

Approximately 800g seafood, I had:
- 2 salmon fillets
- 4 sea bass fillets
- 1 pack of raw king prawns
Zest and juice of a lemon

1 litre milk
60g plain flour
1 cup grated parmesan
1 cup grated cheddar / mozzarella or a mixture
250g wholewheat (or white / green) lasagne sheets
Chop the onion, celery and fennel. Grate the garlic and chop the herbs.

Heat a splash of vegetable oil in a large non-stick sauce pan. Add the onion, celery and fennel onto the pan, season with salt and lemon pepper and sauté on medium heat until the vegetables start to soften. Add the garlic and  herbs and continue to cook for another minute.

Prepare the seafood. Devein the prawns and remove skin and any bones from the fish and cut into cubes. Add zest and juice of a lemon, sprinkle with salt and lemon pepper and mix.

Cut the courgette into 1 cm chunks.

Add the flour into the vegetable mix, keep stirring for a minute or so. Pour in the milk and add the stock cube. Keep stirring and bring to simmer. Add about half of the cheese. Check the seasoning and adjust if needed. Add more milk or a splash of water if the mixture seems too thick. Add the courgette and the seafood. Take off heat and start assembling the dish.

On the bottom of a rectangular baking dish add a layer of the fish sauce. Add lasagne sheets on top and then add a generous layer of the seafood sauce. Add lasagne sheets, then a layer of seafood sauce and keep going until the sauce is finished. Finish with a small layer of seafood sauce on top. Sprinkle the rest of the grated cheese on top.

Cover the dish with foil and cook in a 180C oven for 25 minutes. Remove the foil cover and cook for another 10-15 minutes until the pasta is cooked and the cheese if golden and bubbling.

If you don't like dill, you'd better stay clear of my house when I'm in a Nordic summer cooking mood. There is dill in everything, including the drinks and dessert and possibly my hair. Definitely in my teeth.

I have been working very hard in the new job for the past 2 weeks, so an extra day off and a chance to cook for a friend was just the ticket. The shock of hard work has been exacerbated by the most amazing couple of months prior to the start. I have been on what is officially called a gardening or garden leave, which is basically just paid leave with no obligation to work.

You get one of these by:

a. taking a new job with a competitor company
b. being "open and honest" about reasons that made you resign
c. helpfully sharing your views about the leadership of the company
d. just generally being a bit of a pain in the ass
e. combination of any of the above (the more you manage to combine the quicker the exit)

Or like a friend from work put it:



Husband was bemused and amused in equal measure and kept telling people: "Wife got sacked."

But it is the best kind of holiday, full pay for the entire notice period which in my case was a luxurious 3 months. You have no responsibilities other than committing to not entering your place of work or starting in a new job. Can you imagine, someone pays you for not working! I can thoroughly recommend it. These opportunities are somewhat difficult to orchestrate, but worth the trouble.

It's total relaxation. You can't stress about your old job because you have resigned and you can't stress about the new job because you haven't started yet and don't really know what to stress about. In a way I suppose this is how retirement will feel, but just with added joint pain and a more depressing end point.

Some people always say that they can't just be, can't not do something, and go around ironing every ironable object in the house, clearing cupboards, weeding and cleaning like maniacs. I'm not like that. My accomplishments during my gardening leave were:

• Cupboards cleared - 0 
• Epidodes of Downton Abbey watched - 43
• Episodes of Pride and Prejudice watched - 6 + the film
• Episodes of Mystery Diners and Jamie at home watched - Countless
• Prosecco breakfasts - 2 (a shockingly low number)
• Gardens gardened - 1 (by Izabela the gardener)
• Long lost friends reconnected with - 1
• Delicious meals cooked for husband - very many
• Naps - > 30
• Neighbours' cats fed daily - 2
• Holidays within a holiday - 2 
• Purgings of negative energy from previous job by burning sage in bedroom - 1 
• Flummoxed husbands - 1

So to celebrate the little window of freedom and the summer that is here I cooked a very Finnish menu of lovely seafood and lots of dill. Funnily enough I miss my homeland a lot more during the summer than winter (the winters are a bit gruelling in case you didn't know, that might have something to do with it).

And also we did just win the Ice-Hockey world championships, which is a big deal. It's a proper mans game, a bit like rugby in terms of the number of teeth left in the players' mouths, but on skates. Anyway, that was a big thing and any patriotic Finn would now be swimming in a fountain in the 7 degree Helsinki, because that is what we do when we are very happy apparently. I chose not to this time, much as I love my homeland, but instead I decided to honour my Finnishness with this menu:

• Crayfish Skagen in cups
• Finn-Crisp and smoked salmon rolls
• Lemon and dill hummus
• Smokerbag salmon
• Dill and vinegar cucumbers
• New potato salad
• Strawberry and goat cheese salad
• Blueberry tart and custard

Feel free to use the full fat versions of mayonnaise and creme fraiche, but it is really delicious with the lower fat options also.

200g crayfish tails
1/4 cup low fat mayonnaise
1/4 cup low fat creme fraiche
1 bunch of dill chopped
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Salt
Lemon pepper
2 tsp salmon roe and some dill for garnish


Mix all the ingredients and serve as a starter on toast or rye bread, or as I did in little crispy cups decorated with  some fish eggs and fresh dill. The classic way is to fry slices of toast in butter and serve the Skagenrora on top.

No, it's not a cinematic lethal Eastern European double agent with impossibly shiny L'Oreal hair, muscular thighs with which she strangles men for a pastime and immaculate make-up which stays immaculate throughout the two hours of thigh-strangling, but a deliciously creamy fish dish with Duchess potatoes and a Bechalmel-type sauce with mushrooms. Or you can leave out the mushrooms if they're not your thing. You can make this dish with any white fish, but in Finland it's most often made with Zander / Sander / Pikeperch. It's one of those funny retro-cool (=uncool) dishes that can be quite festive somehow.



There's a story about Napoleons mistress Countess Walewska that has something to do with this recipe, well clearly the name, and the Finnish independence hero Baron C.G.E Mannerheim, Marshal of Finland, is somehow involved. I think it was one of his favourite meals or something. A bit poncey our C.G.E, and quite the gastronome. Finnish-Swedish you see, they have always had finer sensibilities and tastes than us bush-Finns who have been perfectly happy with our porridge, turnips and pork butt. But of course in this case we forgive him, because of saving the country and all.

It has taken several generations, but today a Finnish man can be seen cooking or reading a food blog without people thinking he is either gay or Swedish. Usually he would still be wearing a rude apron with pictures of genitals on it, just to make a point of his masculinity. But still, progress! Emancipation for our menfolk!

I decided this Christmas to steer away from any traditional Christmas dishes, because mostly they are rubbish. People ate the stuff hundreds of years ago, because better things were not available. Like lutefisk, fish preserved in lye. There is a reason why in these days of freezers and air-freighted fresh fish from warmer climes we don't preserve our fish in lye. It might have to do with the fact that the whole thing smells like dead people.

And no Waitrose during the Greater Wrath, was there? And I kept to plan, apart from a jar of pickled herring (incidentally from Waitrose). And because of the herring I also had to do the traditional  Finnish sweetened potato bake which mysteriously and not at all amusingly turned green during the 5-6 hour sweetening process. I've made it successfully many times and never seen this before. I know the potato type that I used wasn't optimal for this purpose, but I didn't expect a reaction this dramatic.

After witnessing this unexpected development, I just replaced the lid, pretended I didn't see anything and put it back in the oven. A friend suggested it as a great recipe for St. Patrick's day. Not helpful. But as husband doesn't really know what colour it's supposed to be, although I think he might guess not green, I went with it. In the final baking it did change from green to a weird brown - still not massively appetising looking, but so awesome tasting with the herring and some whitefish caviar. I never thought about why these tastes just work so perfectly, but of course the sweetness of the potato bake is the perfect companion to the salty, pungent herring and caviar with sour cream and onions.

Some Italian inspiration for a change in the form of this lovely creamy seafood risotto which combines my favourite tastes of saffron, dill and seafood. The thought was brought on by our Roman holiday last weekend. We had a lovely four days in the eternal city and I got to practice my Italian which I have studied with a mobile app since January.

I don't think I am as fluent as the ad for the app promised, but what I had learned came handy as soon as we arrived. The housekeeper at the B&B we were staying at didn't speak a word of English. So I managed to get us through the check-in process and understood most of her explanations of where everything was and that it was not so much a B&B as just a B since there was no breakfast unless you made it yourself. But when she said (as she was leaving us to our own devices), if you have any problems call me, I thought to myself I would not be able to make much sense of her or she of me on the phone. The communication was heavily reliant on lively gesticulation, pointing and pantomime and not many full sentences were coherently delivered or understood.

Husband was not particularly impressed with my Italian (=repeatedly saying "si" whether I understood what the housekeeper was saying or not) at this stage. And I have to admit this whole monoglot housekeeper scenario came a bit too quickly for me. I did a lot better in situations were I had more time to prepare sentences in my head, like purchasing medicine for husband's man flu in a pharmacy when I had had the whole morning to prepare what I would say. Or talking to the taxi driver on our last day asking him to make two stops, one at the hotel so we could pick up our luggage and then at the airport.

Although afterwards I realised I had probably asked for two roasts (arrosto) rather than stops (arresto), but the driver didn't laugh at me, I didn't tell husband and no one will ever know. In all fairness they should make words more different from each other to avoid these sorts of mix-ups.

So I was pretty proud of myself and at this point husband was so impressed that he asked me to act as an interpreter while he wanted to discuss the Roman housing market with the driver. I did manage to ask about the house prices in general and how much a two bedroom flat in the centre of Rome would cost and even understood the answers, but further than that my linguistic skills wouldn't take me.

Still, well done I think. I will continue my studies as we are planning to go to Venice later this year or at least at some point in the next future. I also have a business trip to Milan in September, so can impress my colleagues by casually chatting to hotel staff in Italian.

Otherwise the holiday followed our normal format of energetic (maniacal) sightseeing with the minimum of 10k walked each day and husband happily following me wherever I chose to take us. I once tried to let him lead. I was walking ahead of him on a narrow cobblestoned street in Trastevere and decided I'll let him go first for a change, so I slowed down and tried to fall behind him, but he slowed down at the same rate and by the time I was behind him we had come to a complete stop. "Why did we get stuck", asked husband. I resumed my leading position.

And we had coffees, teas and glasses of wine in pavement cafes people watching and just enjoying the fact we didn't need to be anywhere else. In Vatican I nipped into a little shop to send my father, the philatelist, a postcard with a Vatican stamp on it, because I thought that's the kind of thing that will get him all excited and he can go to his weekly philatelist meeting and show it to the others and they can all be completely awed by this thumb sized miracle. Anyway, when I came out I couldn't find husband anywhere. Finally I spotted him behind one of the drinks vans drinking a Corona sitting on the pavement. He encouraged me (not a difficult job to be honest) to get a drink, so I got one of those little chilled bottles of wine. They had no glasses so there we sat hiding from the Pope and the sun behind the van swigging our sinful drinks straight from our bottles.

Wearing our newly purchased rosary necklaces.

I don't think God minds though. If he did, I don't think he would have let Jesus in on the water to wine trick.

We did a tiny bit of shopping as well. Husband bought the inevitable hat he always buys when we go anywhere and I bought the inevitable scarf.

We also ate lots of good food of course. The lack of breakfast initially was a bit of a disappointment, but on the first night we nipped to the corner shop on our way home and got some cereal, juice, cheese, butter, bread and tomatoes and actually it was really nice to start the days this way, just the two of us putting a simple breakfast on the table planning the day ahead.

And then of course we would eat out wherever we happened to be when we got hungry. My favourite was Linguine allo Scoglio which I had a couple of times and I think husband's favourites were the swordfish and the tagliatelle bolognese. He wasn't impressed with his lamb chops, which he felt were a different dish to the juicy and soft chops I cook for him (bless him). Another disappointment was the seafood pizza which had no cheese and was just "bread, ketchup and cockroaches" (mussels, and clams). Oh, and I had a lovely pizza on the first night. My health-consciousness doesn't allow me to have restaurant pizza often, the last time was a seafood pizza in 2011 in a restaurant in Pimlico, so it was about time. It was gorgeous.

Swordfish - this chef might not be focusing much in his garnishing and plating, but the fish was very tasty.

Bread, ketchup and cockroaches or Pizza allo Scoglio as it's known in Italy

Linguine allo Scoglio - loved it!

Pizza Cappricciosa - because it is so very thin apparently it has less calories than a banana.

I also got pooped on by a pigeon. Only on my arm but husband helpfully told me it was all over my hair and videoed my panicked wet wipe action. There was no poop in my hair. Sometimes husband's taste for comedy surpasses his survival instinct.

Prawn and crayfish risotto with saffron and dill

This risotto is a lovely meal on its own served with a crisp salad. But this time we had it with some seared tuna,

Oil
1 leek
2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
pinch of saffron
2-3 tbsp chopped fresh dill
4 cups of low salt fish stock
180g king prawns
150g asparagus spears
120g crayfish tails
50g butter (or less if you want to be healthy)
50g grated parmesan
Salt and pepper

Wash and chop the leek. Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a deep non-stick pan and add the leek. Saute for a few minutes and add the rice. Keep frying on medium heat for another 3-4 minutes stirring so it doesn't catch. Add the lemon zest and juice, crushed saffron, dill and wine.

In the meanwhile bring the fish stock to boil in another pan. Once the wine has almost evaporated start adding the fish stock one ladle at a time stirring until it has been absorbed then add another label. Keep going until the rice is almost cooked, then remove the ends of the asparagus spears and cut the spears into one inch pieces and add to the pan. A couple of minutes later add the prawns. Once the prawns are cooked, add a knob of butter, the parmesan and the crayfish. Season to taste, stir until all is incorporated and crayfish are heated through. Serve immediately.

This Aegean prawn recipe is all mine, but the idea is completely stolen from the new menu at the Real Greek restaurant. I've had it a couple of times. It's a lovely mix of plump prawns, rice, tomatoes, saffron and feta. Other than that I'm not sure what's in it. I would not pass the masterchef palate test, I can't necessarily pull apart a dish into an exact recipe. But I can build one of my own, because Monica Galetti is not here to roll her eyes and frown at me.

One ingredient that I added that definitely wasn't in the original is every Finn's favourite herb, dill. I love dill in almost anything. It's great with feta, surprisingly goes really beautifully with saffron rice which the Persians figured out 2000 years before me, and of course is the natural best friend of fish and seafood. So leaving it out of this dish should in fact be a criminal offence. Insprired by my own writing I just actually went to the fridge and scooped in a couple of spoonfuls. I know you're not supposed to eat rice cold like that, but this is good enough to risk a bout of food poisoning for.

You could leave out the dill or replace with another herb if you are insane not so fond of dill.

I haven't done a lot of cooking lately because husband has been away for a shocking three weeks visiting family. The only proper meal I've cooked during the time was a pot of squid puttanesca two weeks ago. We'd had our work Christmas Party (a slight timing misshap by the organising committee) and I was hungover and thus in acute need of carbs, so whipped up a quick puttanesca with some squid rings, wholewheat pasta (healthy healthy!), shook a quarter of a bottle of tabasco and about a pint of parmesan on top, sat on the sofa to watch cookery programs and shovelled the whole lot in my gob before muting Jamie and enjoying a refreshing 5 hour powernap.


Other than that I have been eating bread, cheese and tomatoes, which is my favourite food. But still, a bit pathetic. I did buy a couple of microwave meals at some point, but was disappointed so returned to bread, cheese and tomatoes which never disappoint.

Apropos of calamari and puttanesca I have started to study Italian. Knowing myself this will not last long. I can speak a few languages but I have also energetically studied many without learning a bloody thing: French, Arabic and Spanish to name a few. And Esperanto. Yes, that would have been a waste of time even if I'd learned it.

But so now I have a plan to take husband to Rome for a romantic long weekend as a birthday present later this spring, so I though it would be nice to be able to chat relaxedly with the locals over a limoncello and someone had told me Italian was an easy language. Complete lie, or alternative fact like obvious and proven untruths are called nowadays.

Anyway the plan was to become fluent in Italian in a couple of months which is pretty much how far my attention span streches. So I downloaded an app which I've been using instead of playing candy crush in the evenings for the last couple of weeks. And I even watched the Sleeping Beauty and an animation about a zoo escaping lonely elephant in YouTube in Italian. Still can't speak it. Vaffanapoli!

So I was originally thinking of cooking something Italian today for a friend I had invited for lunch. But in the end I went for more of a Greek influence. It was so much fun to cook again. I clearly need someone to cook for, I am not enough of an audience for myself.

I had made a couple of dips for starters, a tuna caper butter, roasted red pepper hommus and a feta, olive and sundried tomato spread which we ate with some bread and pitta crisps.

For mains I did the Aegean Prawns which we've both had and loved at the Real Greek. I also made some greek spiced chicken, pan-fried halloumi with vine tomatoes, asparagus, and oven chips.

The dessert was a chocolate fondant with rasperry cassis coulis and vanilla ice-cream. I've never made chocolate fondants before. I can't believe how easy it is. I thought it would be a bit more complicated as they keep doing them in Masterchef and then oohing and aahing when they come out right and are all gooey inside. I did take them out and put them back in the oven about 27 times, but in the end I thought they were pretty well executed and gooey. And I even managed a cute ice-cream quenelle on top.

Easy peasy

But mostly I'm proud of these Aegean prawns, I don't want to brag, because I'm such a naturally humble person, but I think my dish beat the original Real Greek one hands down. Sorry Tonia Buxton.

Aegean prawns - prawns with rice, feta, saffron and tomato 

Oil
1 small red onion
Brandy
2 large tomatoes
Pinch of saffron`
1/4 cup chopped fresh dill
Juice of half a lemon
1 cup of risotto rice
Vegetable stock pot
Abt 2 cups Water
Salt
Pepper

200g Prawns
Feta

Chop the onion and tomatoes finely. Add a splash of oil in a deep lidded sauce pan. Add the onion and saute for a few minutes on medium heat. I added a generous splash of brandy and flambed the onions, I'm not sure if it did anything to the taste of the end result, but I just think it's fun. I often flambe things whether it's in the recipe or not.

Add the tomatoes and continue cooking until tomatoes soften. Pound the saffron in pestle and mortar and add boiling water and leave to soak for a few minutes. Chop the fresh dill.

Add the rice, dill, lemon juice and saffron to the pan. Add  2 cups of water, the vegetable stock pot, salt and pepper. Bring to boil, cover and leave to cook on low heat stirring every once in a while until the rice is done. This should take about 15 minutes. Add water if necessary, in the end it should be reasonably dry, much drier than a risotto. If the mixture is too wet in the end, leave to cook without a lid for a few minutes.

In the meanwhile devein the shrimp and season with salt and pepper.

Once the rice is almost done add the shrimp and continue cooking for a couple of minutes until the shrimp have turned pink. Fold in a handful of crumbled feta. Serve immediately.

You know the days when your husband wakes up grumpy and stays grumpy. (Scientific term for prolonged assholiness after waking up is Sleep Inertia and it's linked to being woken up at the wrong time, from deep sleep. Probably by your wife). So grumpiness continues until eventually husband's grumpiness makes you grumpy and then he asks you all innocent "why are you so grumpy?"

But you made all sorts of vows in the presence of God and before his congregation not to forget the registrar and picture of Her Majesty the Queen in Ealing town hall. As a smart girl you also know the general household grumpiness is not going to diminish if you tell husband to go stick his fingers in the toaster.  And then he says that he loves you a lot, grumpy or not, so you end up having a nice day and making him an awesome seafood marinara for dinner.

Because often occasionally it is the other way round. Not that he ever makes me seafood marinara.

So that was our Sunday, we ended up having a nice afternoon in the summery Regent's Park with husband's kids, just walking around admiring the black swans and the flowers, buying hot dogs for kids and Pimms for ourselves.

I read this article today and it kind of confirms our experience yesterday, that in marriage it's not about you, it's about the other person, you should always put your partner's happiness first. That's what true love is and that's the route to a happy marriage. Along with lots of biting your tongue and locking yourself into the bathroom to scream silently into a bath towel when your partner is being an annoying selfish butthole. Just theoretically.

But yes, this whole "because you're worth" it culture has gone a bit too far. It should be "because he's worth it". (Or if you're a man reading this it's "because she's worth it", or "he" if you're gay. But you know, not you, them!)

Divorce rate amongst Black swans is just 6%, because they put their partner's happiness before their own.

Fittingly to the relationship theme husband was dishing out life advice to the older of his sons. The kid's not a very adventurous dresser and seems to often wear his favourite pair of jeans. Husband was telling him that that way he will never be able to find a wife, which I'm sure is one of the kid's top priorities having just turned 18.

So according to husband these jeans will be ok for the first date, although they could be a bit looser and the waist could be higher in husband's ideal world of appropriate trouser wear. But for first date, fine. On the second date the girl is likely to notice if he is again wearing the same pair and think that that's a bit weird. But the boy is nice so she'll give him a third chance. But again the same trousers. The girl will not be impressed and may very well have serious concerns about the boy's personal hygiene. She'll say she'll just pop quickly to the toilet and disappear never to be seen again.

So there, if someone's ever disappeared on you you might want to think about your sartorial choices. I once was supposed to be taken out for a date. The guy said he'd just go to gym for a quick workout and I never heard of him again. But I'd only met him once, so it couldn't be the jeans situation. I think he probably had a dumbbell related accident and died. RIP gym boy.

So that's my relationship corner this time, more wisdon to come in future posts. But to finish, here's a recipe that can add happiness to any relationship. But only if you use fresh seafood, otherwise maybe less happiness.

Some early bloomers in Regent's Park

Spaghetti with scallop, prawn and mussel marinara (serves 4)

Oil
3 shallots
Red pepper flakes or chopped fresh chilli (to taste)
2-3 garlic cloves
1 cup of fish stock
2 x 400g cans of tomatoes (ideally San Marzano)
Salt
Pepper
A couple of sprigs of fresh basil
A couple of sprigs of fresh oregano (optional, sometimes hard to find)
300 - 500g mussels (in shells)
150-200g scallops
150-200g king prawns
2 tbsp grated parmesan (optional)Chopped fresh herbs to garnish

500g fresh pasta (spaghetti or linguine)

Chop the shallots and mince the garlic. Heat a splash of oil in a deep sauce pan. Add the onions and saute on medium heat until they start to soften, down let them brown. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes (or chopped fresh chilli if using). Continue to saute for another minute. Add the tomatoes, fish stock, salt, pepper and sprigs of fresh herb. Bring to boil breaking the tomatoes with a wooden spoon.

Leave the marinara to bubble on low heat for 15 minutes.

In the meanwhile cook pasta according to pack instructions leaving it al dente. Keep some of the cooking water for the sauce.

Once your marinara has been cooking for 15 minutes, remove the sprigs of basil and oregano, add in the seafood and cook for 5 minutes until seafood is done. I used small scallops, king prawns and ready cooked mussels, so they all cooked in the same time, but adjust the time according to what you are using. Add some pasta cooking water if the sauce is too thick.
Drain the pasta and add to the marinara sauce.  Add parmesan and chopped fresh herbs and mix well. Some say you shouldn't add parmesan to seafood pasta, but I say sue me.

Serve immediately.

It was my birthday this week. It's great to get older, at least compared to the alternative. Otherwise it's not so much fun once you've turned ten.

A friend asked if I was aware that I was now closer to 60 than 30. Sixty is the new thirty, I have decided. To be honest I have been closer to sixty than thirty for a while.


But it's kind of a nice day always, you feel a bit special. It doesn't even matter that your own parents forget it completely.

Not even a text message.

Husband surprised me with a lovely pair of walking trainers, exactly what I needed. I have two great pairs of running shoes, but my walking shoes were knackered. It's like with face creams you need a different one for all different facial areas (when you are closer to 60 than 30). There is one for under the eyes, another for above the eyes, one for around the mouth, one for neck etc. It would be easier to just pull a bag over the whole thing. As one of my brothers always used to suggest when he saw me doing my make-up.


But anyway similarly with trainers there are different ones for all possible exercise and activity. I'm very boring with my exercise, city terrain running and walking is all I do with a bit of gym thrown in. I don't body jam or zumba or engage in any other kind of humiliating group exercise involving flinging your arms around. Trail running sounds fun and I'm sure would require specific shoes, but it's too dangerous for someone with gait as low as mine. I once tripped and broke my ribs because the pavement was a bit uneven and caught my toe.

It turned out to be a stroke of luck, because soon after we had a team meeting with my back-stabbing colleagues in a previous job with curling as evening activity. So I didn't have to take part, but got to watch as they all kept painfully falling over on the ice. Completely worth the broken ribs and the pain of laughing with the broken ribs.

When I was leaving the job my colleagues asked what I would like as my leaving gift to remember them by. I said a set of knives. They got me the set.


Advice nugget: If you break your ribs, do not sneeze for at least 3 weeks.

I got a piece of lovely Hummingbird bakery cake from a work mate, which works perfectly with the trainers. Eat the cake and then walk approximately 29 miles to burn off the calories.


But my best birthday present was our little blackbird. He has lived in a tree outside our bedroom window ever since we moved here. Or maybe he doesn't actually live in the tree, but just works there, I don't really know much about blackbirds. But every morning from early spring till summer he arrives in the tree promptly at 4 am and starts bellowing out some formidable tunes. He's got two main melodies that he keeps repeating a bit like many modern pop-stars, although they usually just have the one. Dee-de-dee-de-dee and dee-dee-dee-dee-dedde-dee goes the blackbird and chirrup chirrup in between. He is very loud and energetic. The earlier the louder I think. He may have influenced our decision to get double-glazing, which work like ear plugs in a heavy metal concert.

But this spring he didn't come. It was April already and not a song. Every morning I woke up at 4 am as perimenopausal women do and listened. But he wasn't there. I googled the average life expectancy for blackbirds and found out they only live for 3.5 years on average. Although there were individuals (on Mediterranean diets I bet) known to have lived past 20 years. We have been in this house for 5 years this summer.

That made me really sad. Our screamy little ASBO bird had died. I was wondering how he had died. Was it of natural causes or an accident? Was he alone? Where was his little body lying? I thought of the sad bird funerals that we organised as kids for all the birds that flew against our windows and died. And there were loads, stupid seventies full wall windows.

But then one sunny and bright evening this week, my birthday, walking home from the train I heard him. Just up the road from where we live. I stopped and listened wondering if another blackbird could just be mimicking him exactly, but decided it must be him and the thought made me very happy.  I listened to his familiar tunes for a while before walking home. God bless you little blackbird, I hope people under your new tree have double-glazing and no hand-guns.

For my birthday dinner I cooked a lovely seafood pasta. Husband did offer to take me out, but we soon agreed we wanted me to cook because
- I love cooking and not letting me cook for my own Birthday dinner would be cruel
- I had bought a lot of lovely fish and seafood from John Lewis Food Hall
- Husband gets stomach ache from restaurant food
- My food is so good that we couldn't think of anywhere in London with better food than mine

I may have slightly tweaked the last bullet point. But the pasta was pretty awesome.

Seafood pasta with garlic and herbs (serves 4)

Oil
4 anchovy fillets
1 large yellow onion
2 cloves of garlic
Pinch of crushed red pepper
1 cup of white wine
Salt
Pepper
2 tbsp of fresh oregano (or 2 tsp dried)
2 tbsp fresh basil (or 2 tsp dried)
2 tbsp of fresh parsley (or 2 tsp dried)
2 tbsp tomato paste
250g cherry tomatoes
1 cup pasta boiling water
1 fish stock pot (or cube)
250g mussels or clams
200g jumbo prawns
250g tuna (or other fish/seafood, squid would be lovely)
2 tbsp of grated parmesan and some extra for decoration

Prep your seafood, I used ready cooked mussels in garlic and white wine for this, so they were ready to go. Devein the shrimp and cube the fish. Drizzle with oil or garlic oil and sprinkle on a bit of salt and pepper.

Boil the pasta according the the pack instructions leaving it slightly undone and preserving 1 cup of the cooking water.

Chop the onion and mince the garlic. Heat oil in a large non-stick saucepan. I used some of the anchovy oil. Add the anchovy fillets, garlic, onion and red pepper flakes in the pan and saute until soft. Add the white wine and let reduce until the liquid is almost gone.

Chop your herbs if using fresh and halve the cherry tomatoes. Add the herbs, tomato paste, tomatoes and the fish stock pot or cube to the pan. Saute until tomatoes start to soften Add a cup of the pasta cooking water and the parmesan.

You have to estimate how long your seafood take to cook depending on what you use and add them in the right order at the right times. My seafood all took about the same 5 minutes so I added them all at the same time. So stir in you seafood and cook until almost done. Toss your sauce and drained pasta together and let simmer giving the pasta a chance to absorb some of the sauce.

Sprinkle with fresh herbs and parmesan.

                                                             

I didn't get to cook for us last night. Kids asked if we could go for Chinese food. They love a Chinese buffet. Husband and I are not huge fans, but they don't ask often, so of course we went. I remember how much I liked going out to eat when I was a kid.

Back then in the tiny town were we lived there weren't that many options of different cuisines. We used to go most Sundays for lunch to the same restaurant on top of a cliff with beautiful views to a big lake. Mum and dad had wiener schnitzels or something equally 70s. My older brothers had Frankfurters and fries and I had a mushroom omelette. Not hugely adventurous perhaps, but we were happy with our choices. My younger sister and brother were still on baby food, so they just sat in their baby chairs at the end of the table having no clue and chewing their toys. My brother had a squeaky plastic teddy bear wearing green overalls that he loved and would probably still be hugging and chewing it if it was socially acceptable.

And afterwards dad gave us some change and me and my older brothers ran to the bar to buy some spearmint chewing gum. About 12 years later on many a Saturday night I was standing at the same bar with my older brother and some friends downing Tequila Sunrises, Tom Collinses and Cuba Libres. Happy times, both the mushroom omelette days and the disco nights.

So to Chinese buffet we went. We tried to avoid the pretty horrible Dragon King near where we live. It's always too busy and noisy, but everywhere else we tried either didn't have a buffet, were permanently closed, or just closed at the time, because we were kind of between lunch and dinner. But if you advertise an all day buffet, then you have a buffet all day. A buffet that is closed for a couple of hours between lunch and dinner is not an all day buffet, I had to tell the guy at the Hungry Yeti. I don't think he took my feedback very seriously, there was much too much shoulder shrugging and not enough apologies for my liking.

So after driving around West London for over an hour, we finally ended up at the dreaded Dragon King. It was as bad as we remembered, maybe slightly less busy because we were still quite early. But everything including the drinks was deep fried. I managed to find some non-deep-fried vegetables and rice. The kids loved it at least.

So today I wanted to demonstrate how much nicer and more satisfying a fresh home cooked healthy meal can be. There really is no need to ever deep fry anything, if you ask me. I stuck to the Far Eastern theme and made a soy and honey glazed side of salmon with egg-fried rice and king prawns. Very pretty and colourful. And tasty. I'm not sure if the kids were thinking "OMG, why did I ever eat KFC, I must have been out of my teenage mind" or that they are any less likely to ask for the occasional fast food treat, but my food went down well. We finished the whole 1kg side of salmon and all that was left over was a spoonful of rice.

Egg fried rice with peas and prawns (serves 4)

2 1/2 cups of basmati rice
Oil
2 garlic cloves
4 spring onions
1 cup of peas
3 eggs
Salt
Pepper
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp butter
350g raw king prawns
garlic oil
1/2 lime, zest and juice

In the meanwhile devein the shrimp and season with salt and pepper, drizzle with garlic oil, add the lime zest and juice. Mix and leave to one side.

Wash the rice in a sieve under running water and soak at least 30 minutes in cold water and a sprinkle of salt. Drain and cook in plenty of water until just done. Drain.

Mince the garlic and chop the spring onion. Crack the eggs in a bowl and whisk lightly with a fork.

Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan or wok. Fry the garlic on medium heat for a couple of minutes, add the spring onion, peas and rice. Move the rice to one side and pour in the eggs. Scramble the eggs and just as they start to set mix everything together.

In a separate pan melt the butter. Add the shrimps and fry on medium heat until they turn pink. Add the shrimps to the rice and mix everything together making sure it hot.

Soy, honey and lime glazed salmon (serves 4)

1 kg side of salmon
Salt and pepper
2 tbsp oil
3 tbsp honey
3 tbsp soy sauce
1 lime, zest and juice

Pre-heat oven to 200C.

Make sure salmon has no bones. Oil the bottom of an oven dish lightly and place the salmon in the dish. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Don't go overboard with the salt, because the soy sauce adds sals to the dish.

Mix oil, honey, soy and the lime zest and juice. Pour over the fish. Bake for 20-25 minutes until done basting with the juices a couple of times during cooking.

Baking salmon with a sour cream topping is quite a traditional everyday way of cooking salmon in Finland. We like our sour cream, we call it Smetana. It's one of the few good things that has come to us across our eastern border. No, just kidding, although miraculously can't think of anything just now. Other than that the Finnish food culture is indeed very interesting, because we have all the western Scandinavian influences as well as the Eastern European touches on top of our original Finnish cuisine. We love smetana with fish roe and pretty much anything fishy and many a soup and sauce is improved by an added blob of Smetana.

This was our Saturday dinner with the kids last week. I often opt for meat, because I think kids like that more, even though they have been pretty good with salmon. But this time traumatised by the Friday night meat fest at my company Christmas do (I don't know why he chose the turkey and pigs in blankets etc. when there was also fish on the menu) husband specifically asked for fish, so I thought I'd make this juicy version.

If you want to go all fancy-pants, you can do the same with wild Atlantic salmon and crayfish tails. Not long ago I did exactly that inspired by the crayfish that I found on the fish counter. I asked for a whole side of gorgeous, bright orange wild Atlantic salmon. As the fishmonger weighed it on the scales he mentioned the price which was quite a lot. I had read the wrong label with less than half the kg price.

At that point I should have said "oh dear, that's a bit expensive, how about that perfectly fine looking piece of farmed Norwegian salmon, how much would that be". That would have been completely reasonable and the fishmonger probably would not have laughed at me or pointed at me with his fish scaly finger shouting to all other customers: "look at this one - can't even afford to buy a piece of fish - should have gone to Lidl".

Instead I just smiled slightly stiffly and took the package without a flinch pretending I routinely buy stupidly expensive food and wished the stupid greedy monger a nice day. It's the same with the hairdresser, sorry, stylist, you can never tell her that she has completely fucked up your hair and happiness for the next 4 months, you thank her smiling sycophantically in your horrible 3-year-old-boy-hair, buy some stupidly priced heat protection spray you're never going to use and leave the salon to run into the dressing room of the first women's clothing store (in my case it's the Covent Garden Next) and burst into tears while trying to stretch your hair to cover your forehead, which in my case is a long distance.

So my advice regarding the fish (for hair I have nothing), is to do this with a normal lovely fresh salmon and prawns. It's just as lovely unless it's a special event and you want to impress. You can even skip the prawns, but they make it a bit more interesting.

Salmon topped with sour cream and prawns

1 side (750g-1kg) of Scottish, Norwegian or Atlantic salmon (or appropriate amount of fillets)
Bunch of fresh dill
1 lemon
Salt
Lemon pepper
1 pot (170ml) sour cream
1/4 cup single / double cream
 200g prawns (or crayfish)

If you can, season the salmon a few hours before cooking with salt and lemon pepper, a couple of tablespoons of chopped fresh dill and the zest and juice of half a lemon. Let it sit in the fridge for maximum flavour.

When ready to cook heat the oven to 190C. Mix the sour cream and cream, season with salt and lemon pepper, zest and juice of half the lemon and a couple of tablespoons of chopped fresh dill. I just thought of this, a spoonful of runny honey might work really nicely here, Spread about half of the sour cream mix on the fish. Mix the prawns with the rest of the sour cream mix and keep for later.

Place the salmon in the oven and cook for about 20-30 min (depending on thickness of your salmon) until the fish is almost done. Insert a knife into the thickest part of the fish to check doneness. I like my salmon pretty well done but not overcooked, so I will cook it until it flakes and has just turned pink. Some people like it a bit underdone in the middle and leave it slightly orange.

So about 5 minutes before your salmon is perfectly done to your liking take it out and spread the rest of the sour cream and prawns on top. Cook until the prawns have just turned pink. Garnish with fresh dill and lemon segments serve immediately with potatoes or rice and salad.

This is kind of a rough version of Bouillabaisse. I love the elegant French soup with it's beautiful velvety broth, but this time for our #fishfriday last week I thought something a bit chunkier and less refined was in order. Like sometimes George Clooney would be more fun if he wasn't quite so smooth, profound and political, you know. With a flawlessly smooth, profound and political wife. I mean, a human rights lawyer, seriously, who does he think he is? Bridget Jones? Sometimes something a bit more ruffled and earthy is the way to go.


I love saffron in these kinds of tomato based soups and stews. And this can be either a soup or a stew. If you want to make it thicker and stewier, you can serve it with rice or pasta. I made mine more soupy and we ate it with warm ciabatta rolls.

My friend's cat is staying while my friend is on hols and he joined us at the table lured by the lovely fishy smell emanating from the kitchen. He naturally got his little share of the fish.



Recipe: Mediterranean fish stew or soup (serves 4)

1/2 leek
3 shallots
2 garlic cloves
4 tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato paste
1 cup white wine
1 cup (or more) fish stock
4-6 new potatoes
1/2 aubergine
1/2 courgette
2 tbsp fresh basil
pinch of saffron
400 g fish, one or two different kinds (I had cod and fresh tuna steak)
400g other seafood, I had scallops, prawns and mussels
fresh basil for garnish



Chop your leeks and shallots and mince the garlic. Heat oil in a pan. Fry leeks and onions for a few minutes until they start to soften, add the garlic, chopped aubergine, courgette and sliced new potatoes and continue frying for a few minutes, add chopped tomatoes, tomato paste and white wine.

Soak a pinch of saffron in boiled water for a few minutes. Once wine has evaporated a little add the fish stock, basil and saffron. Season with salt and pepper and leave to cook until the vegetables are done.In the meanwhile devein the shrimp and cut the fish to bite size chunks. Once vegetables are done add the basil and saffron and your fish and seafood, and cook just until all the fish is done, don't overcook.

I love the craziness of the Portobello market, particularly the northern part where the music is playing, you see all kinds of people and smell the occasional spliff. I used to live in the area when we first started dating so it brought back old memories. I remembered the time we went to walk around the Notting Hill Carnival and he bought me one of those cut open coconuts to drink.