Husband left me yesterday. Not completely, thank God, although I recently had a nightmare that he was filing for divorce on the grounds of embarrassment. I have a clear and audible voice which he finds acutely embarrassing in public situations, he on the other hand mumbles, which I find annoying. And talking of dreams I had one where my sister was telling me I was starting to look really old.  My jaw particularly was alarming. "It must be really difficult", she empathised.

But no, jaw is still reasonably decent and husband has not left me completely, but just gone to visit his family. Although it is for four weeks. FOUR WEEKS! I'm already beginning to forget what he looks like.

But luckily I am a calm and undramatic adult, so I wasn't crying all the way home on M4 after taking him to Heathrow yesterday. And I didn't smell his T-shirts when I got home, because that would have been just silly and a kind of a chick-lit cliche, which obviously doesn't happen in real life at all.

But as an ever-devoted wife during the last week before his departure I focused on managing the volume of my conversation in public places and cooking him his favourite foods to make sure he will come back to me.




I asked him everyday what he would like for dinner and his requests were lovely and simple like seafood pasta, which I made on his last day here and true to my incapability to manage the amounts I cook I am now left with a massive container that would probably still feed about 60 people.

Another request was boiled potatoes (like my mum makes them) and roast chicken legs, But then his younger kid announced that he would be coming for dinner and to stay with a friend of his, so I changed the boiled potatoes to home-made oven chips, because of lack of evidence of teenagers' love for boiled potatoes. I made 20 buffalo chicken wings, 6 large chicken thighs and 9 drumsticks with lemon, garlic and herbs and 1.5 kg of oven chips, with a big loaf of garlic bread thrown in. And almost all was polished off.

Husband's kid is a good eater, but his friend was just awesome. I love it when people eat a lot. I told the guy he can definitely come again! Maybe it was just different food from what he normally gets, or he's just a big eater, but for a skinny teenager (and I am used to skinny hungry teenagers) he really could put it way. On the way back home after my substantial breakfast spread munching through the container of peanut butter cookies I had packed with them he had told my stepson that "She's a really good cook!"

My steak and chip dinner wasn't a request by husband per se, but it's a lovely man-meal that he is not going to get in the next few weeks.


I have become really good at barbecuing steaks. I don't really like to fry them on the pan anyway anymore because of the amount of smoke and smell in the house. And the sound of the fire alarm. It's not as bad as at my sisters' where every time she is frying steaks the fire alarm goes off and they then also get a call from the security company and have to insert passwords into all kinds of systems to avoid the fire brigade arriving. Maybe it's payback for being so judgmental about other people's  perfectly normal jawlines.

So I won't let seasons deter me from my coal barbie, but will keep going through the winter. With steaks you don't have to stay outdoors for that long, just quickly pop the steaks on and go back to turn them once or twice. Probably not more than a minute of mandatory outdoor time. I am a hardy arctic fox after all.

Sometimes I cook the steaks just as they are, or maybe with just some herbs and of course salt and pepper, but sometimes I love to marinade the steaks. This marinade is absolutely awesome, I have used it on fillet and sirloin steaks and boy are they amazing every time. This time I thought these might have been the best steaks I've ever had. If these won't bring husband back to me, then I don't know what will.

Marinated sirloin steaks

2 sirloin steaks, thick cut and matured
1/3 cup olive oil (or vegetable oil)
2 cloves garlic - minced
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup red wine
2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon black pepper

Mix all the marinade ingredients in a plastic bag. Remove all visible fat from the steaks and add the steaks to the bag rubbing the marinade all over the meat. Refrigerate overnight or for a few hours turning once or twice.

Take out 3-4 hours before cooking to get properly into room temperature.

Get your charcoal grill going or whatever method you are using. You can fry in a pan, but whatever you use, make sure it's hot.

Fry 3-4 minutes each side seasoning lightly with salt once done. Let rest for 5 minutes in a warm place and serve with healthy side dishes like oven baked sweet potato chips, asparagus and salad
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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.