So yesterday I went with husband to see his doctor. I have threat promised to do this for a while, but wanted to give my husband the illusion of authority and empowerment. I have sent a few messages and helpful suggestions to the doctor through husband before, but they haven't really seem to have fallen on fertile ground. So now I have had enough, the doctor is just not taking husband's blood pressure situation seriously enough, so time for face-to-face wifely intervention / meddling.

A bowl of minestrone with a seeded wholemeal bun

Surprisingly the doctor didn't seem over-the-moon to see me walking in husband's wake into his office. Which I think is crap. I work in medical technology and know that there is nothing to improve compliance and health outcomes like the support of a loving spouse. Anyway this one, not so delighted.

He also didn't seem to be particularly pleased with my thorough knowledge of the NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guidelines on clinical management of primary hypertension in adults. Or my detailed log of husband's blood pressure results from the previous 4 weeks. Or my obvious mathematical modelling skills as I presented him the averages and medians and modes. I'm glad I didn't make them into ppt slides to present from my laptop, that would have been a waste of time with this unappreciative individual.

I was even being a lot friendlier and nicer than I felt (=stapling the NICE guidelines onto his forehead). And not for his sake, but for husband's because he gets a bit uncomfortable when I staple stuff on people's foreheads. I didn't even threaten to sue or anything.

But I wouldn't budge. Something had to be done. If there was nothing he could do about it he should send my husband to someone who could. Or carry me out of his office.

He made the sensible decision and referred husband to the hospital to be set up for ambulatory BP monitoring and promised a subsequent referral to a neurologist for his headaches.

So I didn't make a new friend exactly, but I got what I wanted. I don't give a shit about the doctor and his bruised ego, husband's health is more important. I don't even care that he attempted to patronise me which I think is part of the curriculum in some med schools. This time it didn't work for him much. His final attempt to exert his power and shut me up was saying he'd like to hear his patient's view on the referrals. That would actually be completely reasonable, but as he has so far refused to listen to anything he has to say, I'm not sure where this sudden interest came from. The patient's views in this instance of course were same as mine (thank you my lovely loyal husband). I was adult enough not to smirk at the good doctor or do the thumb on nose and wiggly finger thing or an L sign on forehead.

I have a lot of respect for the medical profession, I have always had good care myself whenever I have needed it. It's a tough job and so important. My own lovely father, my hero and idol, is a wonderful physician who committed all his working life to helping people. But he would always listen to the patient and the worried wife.

After the appointment we went to the gym. I forgot my water bottle so husband kept watering me on the treadmill, which I took to be a sign of his gratitude for fighting his corner. After the gym I wanted to make us a tasty wholesome dinner of oven baked falafels with homemade wholemeal pitta bread which I'd made earlier in the week. The plan was to share the falafel recipe.

Wouldn't that have been the perfect ending to a health related post. Unfortunately the falafel turned our really dry. Husband almost suffocated in one of them and later complained about heartburn and constipation which really was not the intention after all that hard work on behalf of his health. So I don't want to share the recipe really. Unless anyone wants to suffocate someone, then pm me and we can have a chat. Cheaper than a hitman.

Pitta trying to swallow an enormous dry fucker of a falafel

So I'll just share my fab idea of doing some healthy wholemeal seeded rolls and plump pitta breads at one go!

Wholemeal pittas and seeded buns recipe (Makes: 4 pittas and 6 rolls)

150g strong white bread flour
350g wholemeal flour
1.5 tsp salt
7g instant yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
3 dl lukewarm water
Extra flour for dusting
1 dl of mixed seeds

Dough 

Add the flour into a large mixing bowl with the salt and yeast. Mix and make a well in the middle. Add the oil and most of the water. Mix the ingredients together by hand or using a wooden spoon. Add the remaining water a little at a time, you might not need all, until the dough is soft and sticky. If too dry add a little water.

Tip the dough onto a floured work surface and knead for 5-10 minutes. The dough is ready when it stops being sticky and forms a nice smooth ball. Put the dough into a bowl and cover with a clean kitchen towel until it has doubled in size (about an hour or more).

Pittas

Plump!

Preheat your oven to 225C. For the pittas place a baking tray in the oven to get hot. If you have a pizza stone use it.

Tip the dough back onto a floured work surface. Divide the dough into two, place the other half back to the bowl and divide the remaining half into 4 equal balls. Flatten each ball and using a rolling pin, roll into an oval. Don't overdo it, just a gentle roll and leave it to minimum 0.5 cm thick. If you work the dough too much at this stage or make it too thin it might not puff up!

Take the hot tray or pizza stone out of the oven and dust lightly with flour. Lay the pittas on. Sprinkle the oven with some water to create steam to help the pittas to puff up. Bake until the breads puff up and get some colour around the edges - about 5-10 minutes.

Once out of the oven wrap them in a clean kitchen towel. Eat immediately or keep for a few days and heat for a couple of minutes in the oven before serving.

Seeded buns

Tip the rest of the dough onto the floured work surface. Add a handful (1 dl or so) of mixed seeds, pumpkin, linseed, sesame, poppy etc. Knead the dough gently until the seeds are incorporated. Divide the dough into 6 balls and place on a baking sheet. Press some seeds on top of each roll and leave to prove for about 20-30 minutes or until they have risen nicely. Bake for 8-10 minutes until they are lovely and golden on top.

Last week was my French week and I loved it. I didn't stick to all of it, I missed the tuna nicoise salad, because the supermarket didn't have fresh tuna on the day and I skipped the French onion soup, because there were leftovers to be had. But I did some pretty lovely French meals. The one I enjoyed cooking and eating the most was the Bouillabaisse and I can't wait to do it again. Coq au Vin was lovely and I got some bread baking done as well in the form of a Provencal olive and rosemary fougasse.

Bouillabaisse - French fish soup

Coq au Vin - French red wine chicken stew

Fougasse

Saturday we celebrated step-son's 18th birthday. I could have freaked out about the fact that I have a grown-up step child, but seeing that I could easily and quite legally be a grandmother, great-grandmother if it was the Tudor times, I chose to remain philosophical and bake a cake.

Three layered angelfood cake with vanilla cream and fresh berries

And yesterday we finished our French week with a ratatouille and pissaladiere, a Provencal anchovy and olive pizza type tart. The winner of the week's last French meal was surprisingly the humble ratatouille, it was gorgeous.

Ratatouille

Pissaladiere

Week's food bill came to £84 not taking into account the Saturday's meal out. Merde.

This week I'll focus on healthy and light meals with lots of vegetables and heart-healthy fish. I am trying to put off wintery comfort foods as long as I can, although I am really missing ragus, stews, slow cooked lamb and the like and the weather is getting definitely autumnal. But knowing that there are way too many winter months ahead to stew my way through I want to stretch the more summery menu as long as possible.

I lost the fight to ponchos and pashminas though. I love them, but have tried to not start wearing them too soon, but caved in last week. I scandalously even had a pair of boots on one day.

So this is what our early autumn meal plan looks like:

#meatfreemonday            Classic Italian Minestrone soup, home-made wholemeal seeded rolls
Tuesday                           Baked falafel and home-made wholemeal pitta bread
Wednesday                      Sardine with sweet potato, new potato and peas
Thursday                          Leftovers of the above
#fishfriday                        Lemon, trout and squid spelt pasta
Saturday                           Riso al Forno alla Siciliana, lemon and herb roast chicken
Sunday                             Mum's Finnish salmon soup

Hooking up with Mrs M and the Organizing junkie and all the other lovely meal planners and junkies (organizing junkies)!

The last meal of our French week was an adult and sophisticated (kids had been taken to their train) candlelit Sunday dinner of Ratatouille and Pissaladiere.

Everyone I suppose knows Ratatouille made famous by a French rodent with a love of cooking. The lesser known of my dishes Pissaladiere, which has nothing to do with men's toilets, is a tart topped with onions, anchovies and olives. It is a sort of a Provencal version of pizza I suppose. Provence neighbours Italy, so no wonder they share similar ideas and tastes.

Olives should be black - otherwise a very authentic effort!

I thought I would love the pissaladiere and almost didn't bother with the ratatouille. I thought basically it's just a mush of soggy and watery vegetables in tomato sauce. I think had too many bad versions during my veggie days. But I thought there must be something to it, because it's so famous. Maybe done by someone with obvious and abundant talent like Remy or myself it would be a great dish. And I was right, it was awesome.

I was disappointed with the Pissaladiere though. I think it probably would have needed a generous helping of cheese on top and maybe the base should be thinner. Oops, sounds like pizza.

Ratatouille recipe (serves 2)

Oil
1 yellow onion
1 clove of garlic
1 red pepper
2 tbsp fresh chopped parsley
1 tbsp fresh chopped thyme
1 tbsp fresh chopped basil
3 tomatoes
1/2 vegetable stock cube / stock pot
salt and pepper
1 small aubergine
1 small courgette
Pinch of saffron (optional but definitely recommended)

Heat oil in a pan. Chop the onion and cut the red pepper into 1.5 cm squares. Add to pan a cook on low to medium heat for 5 minutes. Mince the garlic and add to the pan. Continue to fry until the vegetables start to soften. Add the chopped fresh herbs and the chopped tomatoes. Cover the pan and let simmer until tomatoes have softened and given out their liquid.

Cube the aubergine and courgette into about 1.5 cm cubes Add to pan. Crush the saffron fronds in pestle and mortar and add. Season with salt and pepper.

Simmer covered on low heat for about half an hour. If there is too much liquid remove the cover towards the end and let the excess evaporate. It should be thick not soupy. Check seasoning. Garnish with fresh basil and serve with crusty fresh bread.

The #fishfriday meal of my French week was supposed to be a warm Salad Nicoise with pan-fried fresh tuna, steamed potatoes and haricot verts served with home-made Fougasse. But the stupid supermarket once again thwarted my plans, they had no fresh tuna. I get really annoyed when this happens. You plan something reasonably simple and then they don't have the ingredients. It's not like I was looking for Scorpion fish which also by the way they never have.

I do realise many people in the world struggle with more hardship. But still, not fair.

Canned tuna was a no, because it just wasn't the kind of salad I wanted to make, so I changed the main completely and did lovely roast new potatoes with baked salmon which was not particularly French, and haricot verts with butter and walnuts.

I decided to still do the fougasse, I love these types of breads where you can stick anything in like cheese, herbs, red onion or olives. I'm sure you could chop some saucisson in there if that was your thing!


I'm sure the bright reader already made the connection to Focaccia. If you didn't, don't feel bad, I'm sure you have other qualities. But yes this is the French cousin of the Italian Focaccia. Other relatives include Pogacsa in Hungary and the slightly loose moraled Hogaza in Spain. They all share an old Roman ancestor called Panis Focacius. No relation to Panis Angelicus.

I decided to go with olives and fresh rosemary for my fougasse. The thing about this bread in addition to the toppings is the shape. Mine is not a perfect example,  it's definitely a bit on the fat side. Do an image search in Google and you will see. Apparently it's supposed to resemble the ear of wheat whatever some of the images might make you think. It should be a bit triangular with a long cut in the middle and then usually three shorter diagonal cuts on either side.

Some seem to make it quite thin, almost pizza like, mine was more a loaf. Also you can either mix your add-ons in the dough or put them on top of the shaped loaf. Or maybe even do a bit of both.

I did just one loaf but if you want to do more, maybe try different toppings in each, the recipe is easy to double.

Olive and rosemary fougasse recipe

250g strong bread flour
3.5g dry yeast (half a sachet)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 3/4 dl lukewarm water
1 tbsp olive oil

Toppings / fillings to your liking, e.g
2 tablespoons of fresh chopped rosemary
large handful of sliced olives

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl. Mix olive oil and water. Make a well in the middle and pour in the water. Mix with a wooden spoon until well incorporated (or you can do it by hand). Sprinkle flour on the work top and tip the dough on top. Start forming a ball and kneading. Knead for about 5-10 minutes according to your patience. For me 5 will have to do.

Drizzle a clean bowl with some olive oil. Put the dough ball in the bowl and turn so it's coated with oil. Cover with clean kitchen towel and leave to prove for an hour or until it's about doubled in size and springs back when pressed.

Pre-heat your oven to 225C.

Tip the dough on a floured work top. If you want your fillings kneaded in add them now to the dough and knead lightly until incorporated. Shape your dough into a fougasse shape and make the cuts (and now add yout toppings if you want them on top rather than kneaded in).

Leave to prove for 20-30 minutes or until it looks like it ready to bake. You can brush with oil or milk and sprinkle with sea salt, but you can also just stick it in the oven as is.

Bake  for about 15 minutes or until crispy crusted and golden.

There is an obvious van joke in there! But I will let it go although I see them a lot on the M4.

Instead I will tell you about my friend who mentioned she'd just been to Marseille on a work trip. I told her (I'm a bit excited about my French food week), that Marseille is where Bouillabaisse is from!!! My friend who is not very much into food or cooking asked "Who's Bouillabaisse?"

So there, that's French cuisine neatly back in it's corner.

Anyway I am loving my French week, and I love Bouillabaisse. Another classic French recipe that I have wanted to try for a long time and therefore added on my French meal plan is Coq au Vin. Anything with half a bottle of red wine in it can't be bad.


It's surprisingly easy and fuss free to make. Unless you use a whole unplucked cockerel I suppose. Luckily Morrisons didn't have any of those, so I opted for some organic drumsticks and thighs. It fills the house with a beautiful red winey and meaty smell. And of course tastes fantastic. I made it the previous evening and let it sit in the fridge overnight and it was pretty awesome when I heated it for dinner the next day. Or you could marinade the chicken pieces in wine overnight. You don't have to do either, but like the wine it mainly consists of it improves with time.

I substituted the bacon with smoked turkey rashers, because we don't really eat pork. Be sure not to fry them too long or they will become really dry and hard and really quite nasty. How do I know this? Call it my infallible cookery instinct.

Husband thought all the extra bits were unnecessary frou-frou (button onions, button mushrooms and maybe particularly the weird hard pieces of turkey bacon) but approved of the chicken.

Coq au Vin recipe (serves 2)

75g turkey bacon
1 yellow onion
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
2 garlic cloves
12 button onions
100g button mushrooms
500g of chicken pieces with bones in
1 tbsp of plain flour
2 tbsp cognac
1/2 bottle of French red wine
1 cup of chicken stock
a few sprigs of thyme
2 bay  leaves

Chop the turkey rashers. Heat some oil in a large pan or Dutch oven on medium heat. Fry the turkey rashers quickly. Remove to a plate.

Season the chicken pieces with salt and pepper. Add to the pan and fry until nicely browned. Remove to a plate.

Turn the heat down. Chop the onion, carrot, celery and peel the button onions, add to the Dutch oven and fry on low heat until softened, Mince the garlic and add to pan. Continue frying for a few minutes.

Fry the mushrooms in a separate pan with some salt and pepper until brown.

Add chicken and turkey back to the dutch oven. Add the flour and cook for a minute. Add the mushrooms and cognac scraping the bottom of the pan. Add the wine, stock and herbs. Cover and simmer for 50 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on the size of your chicken pieces. You want them to be melt in the mouth soft but you don't want them to fall apart in the pan.

Once your chicken is done you are likely to be left with a little bit too much liquid. To reduce, remove your chicken pieces onto a plate. Increase the heat to medium-high and cook until the sauce has reduced enough to coat the back of a spoon. Return the chicken to the pot and make sure it's hot through. Check and adjust seasoning.

Garnish with fresh herbs and serve with roast, boiled or mashed potatoes or plain rice.

Last week went quite well to plan. I changed Sunday's meal though, not only because I realised that the authentic Paella Valenciana is made with rabbit and snails and I didn't particularly fancy either, but also because a friend was coming over for dinner and I wasn't sure how she'd feel about mussels and squid which I would have put in the paella instead of rabbit and snails, so I decided to make my foolproof duck legs Provençal These little babies never let me down. I served them with my puy lentil and camargue red rice side, garlic rosemary bread, duck fat roast potatoes and green salad. Dessert was several cups of cardamom tea and my mother's special Jack Daniel's whiskey bundt cake.


Money-wise I'm not sure if this meal planning thing is working that well. I didn't track my spending before, so maybe I was spending completely outrageous amounts. But last week I managed to get through £87 pounds on just the food, not including wine. I think it's quite a lot for two reasonably normal sized people. I bought a really nice emperor fish and a red grouper for #fishfriday as a friend came over for dinner and to drop her cat for a sleepover with us. The two fish came to £20 pounds, so that explains part of the cost. But still. Anyway the fish was lovely, this time I oven baked it and served with my awesome Greek rice, a Santorini salad, parmesan asparagus and roast vegetables.

An easy weeknight Tuscan Bean Soup

This week will be my French week. I was inspired by an old email my friend unearthed about a wine tour we did to Burgundy with a friend of hers, a Norwegian guy of a particularly unhumorous, stiff and overbearing constitution. Let's call him Canute. I could call him other names, but nothing appropriate before watershed. So the trip wasn't an all-round success. Partly because of Canute's epic lack of social skills and partly because of our immature response to it. He was completely unable to communicate with us as adults bellowing orders and refusing to listen to anything we said. The situation wasn't improved by us then behaving ever more immaturely as the result of his patronising. Vicious cycle if ever there was one!

Example: I was doing the map reading (my friend was sulking in the back seat, because Canute had already driven her crazy) and he was driving. He then complained about the way I was giving instructions. If you ask me, the problem was not my instructions, but the fact he either would not listen at them or it would take him two miles to compute an instruction which would mean that we'd miss every turning. I don't remember the exact wording of his complaint, but it can't have been good because I threw him in the head with the map.

Seriously, about 5 minutes into our road trip he told us off for eating potato crisps too loudly in the car. I can't believe I didn't punch him.

Apparently Canute was called "Prime Minister" by his friends as a kid. He told us himself. I think he thought it was meant as a compliment. It wasn't. It was meant as a "You're a giant self-righteous pain in the ass". We completely cracked up at someone being called prime minister at the age of six. Looking bemused and not seeing what was funny he corrected us "I was eight". As if that would make it ok. That cracked us up even more.

Anyway in honour of poor Canute, who I'm sure didn't enjoy being trailed by two constantly inebriated, rebellious, giggling blondes, I decided to do a French menu for the week. I have wanted to do this for some time now. The challenge is that I don't want to cause irreparable cardio-vascular damage and the meals can't take forever to cook. I do have a full time job so can't faff around in the kitchen all day every day. Also we don't eat pork or sausages (apart from the occasional sneaky chorizo) so that shrinks the choice considerably leaving out the Lyonnaise and Alsatian cuisines for instance completely, because everything including desserts has either sausages or pork or both in them like the famous Lyonnaise crème brûlée au saucissons et lardons. No, not really.

This will be the French menu for the week:

Lundi                      Bouillabaisse
Mardi                      Sunday's leftover duck and lentils
Mercredi                 Coq au vin (without the bacon)
Jeudi                       Soupe à l'oignon - French onion soupe
Samedi                   Eating out for step son's 18th birthday - probs not French as he's choosing
Dimanche               Ratatouille, pissaladiere

So I already made the bouillabaisse. And it was délicieuse, no bones about it, hah!


I am sharing my plan at Mrs M's and Organising junkie. Come and check out all the plans for food inspiration!

I have wanted to make Bouillabaisse for a long time. This beautiful French fish soup or stew is a dish that I had never eaten or cooked but I've always known that I would love, so it was an automatic choice for my French food week. My sister, a great cook, has been going on about what amazing bouillabaisse she makes, so last night I finally got around to making it. Husband loved it and since it's a really healthy meal and my version of it is not too time consuming, I will be making it soon again.


I have been reading loads of recipes, articles and blog posts about this great dish. I watched a video of Martha Stewart cooking it with a chef buddy of hers. They went on forever rubbing fishbones with tomato paste, roasting stuff, marinating seafood and flambeing things with pernod. I left them to it and summarized the main points of the different recipes to a much simpler process that you don't need all day for. If you're into rubbing fishbones go for it, I'm sure it's fun and fulfilling.

I bought my fish filleted and didn't have any fishbones in the house and unlike my sister I don't keep salmon heads in my freezer. I also didn't have pernod and probably wouldn't have used it after my fennel seed disaster, but even with my shortcuts this turned out a dish I would have proudly served to anyone. Maybe even Martha and her Pernod bottle wielding friend, although they seemed a bit scary with their "I only eat this soup once every three years when I go to this particular restaurant in Antibes", but then they haven't been to this particular eatery in Ealing. "Va va voom" they might exclaim sitting around my IKEA table, "Are you sure you didn't rub the fishbones?" and forget all about that poncey restaurant in Antibes.

The other thing not to get hung up on is the fish. Originally the Provence fishermen or probably their wives made it with the leftover of the day's haul that didn't get sold. Many recipes quote some weird, ugly looking rockfish and scary sounding things like spider crabs, but if you don't have access to or stomach for that kind of seafood a much more familiar selection will do. Just have a mixture of a couple of different types of fish, I would opt for white fish although I did see salmon in some recipes, and some other seafood. I had sea bass, cod, squid, prawns and mussels, all easily found in pretty much any supermarket. It's great to have something with shells on for the dramatic look.


I was going to bake some fresh crusty bread to go with this, but instead I decided to watch a rerun of the TV series Rebecca from the nineties - nothing like a little Gothic drama on a rainy Bank Holiday Monday - so had to resort to those shop-bought half baked ciabatta rolls. Still nice, hot and fresh from the oven.

Bouillabaisse (serves 2)

Half a large leek or a whole small one
Half a yellow onion
Half a fennel bulb
1 carrot
1 celery stick
2 cloves of garlic
3 tomatoes
Zest of an orange
1 heaped tsp of saffron fronds, crushed
Large handful of fresh parsley
A few sprigs of Provencal herbs (e.g thyme, marjoram, oregano)
A small glass of white wine (optional)
750 ml fish stock (the better quality the stock the better the soup)
salt and pepper

Small fillet of cod
Fillet of sea bass
Tube of squid
12-15 king prawns
12-15  mussels
Small red onion
salt
pepper
olive oil
lemon

Cube the fish removing bones and skin and cut the squid to rings, devein the prawns, Add fish, prawns and squid in a bowl, sprinkle with salt, pepper, olive oil and dash of lemon juice. Chop the red onion finely and add to bowl. Mix well and leave to marinade in the fridge while you get on with the broth. Clean the mussels.

Chop all the vegetables. Heat oil in a deep pan. Add leek, onion, fennel, carrot and celery with a sprinkling of salt. Saute on low to medium heat for about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and continue for another 2 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes, saffron and the chopped herbs, grate in the zest of an orange. At this stage you can add some white wine if you like and let it evaporate a bit. Then add the fish stock. If you happen to have any fishbones or heads chuck them in the pan. Simmer covered for about one hour.


Blend everything with a hand blender or in a blender. (Apparently including the fish bones if you are using. If you have put in a massive fish head I would remove it at this point.) Drain the liquid into a pan through a sieve. Press the veg pulp against the sieve with a ladle to get most of the liquid out.

Check seasoning, add a squirt of lemon if you like. Depending on how much your liquid has reduced you may want to add a little bit of water.

Bring the broth back to boil, add in your fish and seafood according to how long they need to cook. For my selection of fish add the bass, cod and mussels, simmer for 3 minutes, add the prawns and squid and after 2 minutes (or when prawns are done depending on size) take off heat, remove and discard any unopened mussels and serve immediately.