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.

Bundt cakes are usually considered less rock'n'roll than say cigarettes, whiskey or guitar playing skinny and pale T-shirtless long haired men. I used to have a bit of a thing for guitar playing skinny and pale T-shirtless long haired men.  I grew out of it and ended up with an tone-death, sturdy, bald man with a lovely skin colour. Who mostly keeps his T-shirts on.


So this bundt cake is actually not that rock'n'roll either, I just tried to make it sound sexy, but it's just a lovely little cake with a hint of Whiskey.

This is a recipe I got from my mum. I don't know where she originally got it, maybe from a magazine or from the big white tome of a cookbook she's had since the beginning of their now over 50-year marriage.

This is one of the few recipes she tends to bake nowadays. A nasty memory illness is sadly erasing recipes from her head and has shrunk her former vast repertoire to a handful of her best and favourite recipes that she tends to do nowadays. Cinnamon buns or Slaps on the ear / Ear slaps as we call them is one of the other recipes she still regularly does. I don't know if a Finnish woman can really call herself a woman unless she can produce an Ear slap of some sort.

This cake is made special by the whisky in it clearly, but also the texture. It is made entirely with potato flour, so it's really fine and delicate. Apparently it doesn't freeze well. Mum says. I have never tried, but maybe it gets too crumbly. Anyway it's so good you would be out of your mind to freeze it instead of stuffing your face with it immediately.

It is also good for people with coeliac disease who probably have to compromise a lot. But eating this cake is no compromise! (Just obviously don't coat the cake tin with wheat flour. Maybe you can just go with the potato flour, but if your cake doesn't come out of the tin, don't blame me. Or use a silicone mold.)

Whiskey can be substituted with brandy or cognac and you can use 2/3 potato flour and 1/3 plain flour if you like. I don't know what the benefit of that would be, just offering you options.

Jack Daniel's whiskey bundt cake recipe

200g butter
2dl sugar
3 eggs
3.5 dl potato flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp of whisky or cognac (doesn't need to be JD)
Icing sugar for dusting (optional)

Preheat the oven to 175C

Beat the room temperature butter and sugar until soft and light. Beat in the eggs one by one. Mix in the whiskey.

Sift the potato flour and baking powder together in a separate dish. Fold in with the butter mixture.

Butter the cake tin and flour with coarse wheat flour (or something else if you are a coeliac). Bake the cake for about 45 minutes or until when pricked with a skewer or toothpick it comes out clean.

Let the cake cool for 5-10 minutes before removing it from the tin. Let cool completely and dust with icing sugar (optional).

Here's another healthy manproof weeknight dinner. Whenever cooking healthy foods for husband I have to make sure it's also filling. I am quite happy with a bowl of tomato soup, but husband needs something a bit more substantial. Something that can't be classed as girl food, this is particularly important for vegetarian or vegan foods, which in his head are inherently unmanly. Beans are great in this respect because cowboys eat them too.


This bean soup is cheap, healthy, quick, easy, comforting and filling. What else do you want?? Oh, yes. It's also very tasty. For maximum taste you would probably want to cook your own beans and get some flavour into the beans at that stage already. I used canned beans, but will improve my slothful ways and start soaking and cooking my own beans. God knows I have enough bags of dried beans and other legumes of all kinds in the cupboard to take us through an average length war.

I made this soup last night quickly after work before heading out to meet our next feline lodger. My colleague is going away for a couple of weeks at the end of September so I have said we'll look after her cat, Samuel.

Initially I went a bit over the top with garlic. I thought it's not possible to have too much garlic. It is! So I had to add a bit of this and that to dilute down the garlic a little. I chucked in a handful of parsley also in the hope of toning down the garlic. End result tasted good and there was lots of it. Below the amounts I should have used and will next time around.

The soup was ready on the stove for husband for when he got home from work and I went to meet Samuel, who is a very cute little boy. We bonded over some Dreamies tuna snacks and had a little cuddle already. (Treats and cuddles are part of the deal in our all-inclusive luxury cattery.) He will come for a two-night practice stay this weekend to get to know us both better and check the amenities before his 2 week stay next month. That's a long time for a little boy to be away from his mummy.

Rustic Tuscan bean soup recipe (serves 2)

Oil
1 small onion
1/2 leek
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
2 garlic cloves
1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
1 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary (or sage)
1/2 courgette (optional, I only added this because I had some lying around)
400g can of chopped tomatoes
1.5 cups of vegetable stock
Salt
Pepper
300g mixed beans (I had cannellini, kidney and pinto)

Chop the onion, leek, celery and carrot. Heat the oil, add the chopped vegetables and sauté gently for up to 10 minutes until vegetables start to soften. Mince the garlic, chop the herbs, add to the pan and cook for another minute or two.

Add the tomatoes,stock, salt and pepper. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the courgette and simmer for another 5-10 minutes until the vegetables are tender. Add the beans and heat through. Check seasoning and sprinkle some fresh herbs on top. Serve with a thick slice of warm home-baked crusty bread,



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Last week I didn't cook a lot. It was a super busy week at work. Husband was also working late, so there was a skipped dinner and a couple of nights of leftovers during the week, so most of the plan was abandoned.

I did the super healthy salmon patties. They are quick, tasty and fulfilling and will appear on the menu again soon.


Friday I didn't have time to go to fishmongers, so it was supermarket seabass fillets stuffed with cherry tomatoes, basil and spring onions and baked with some broccoli and asparagus on the side. They were lovely and again it was a very healthy meal. I made a side of Zoodles, because it is an important food trend to get amongst. They turned out reasonably ugly because I don't have a spiraller. And they need other kinds of fine tuning as well, so not worth a blog post just yet.

Saturday the weather was lovely so instead of my baked chicken with orzo and rice I barbecued the chicken legs and served with a lemony rice and orzo pilaf with was amazing. Try it or be sorry. Make sure you add lots of herbs though, that's what makes the dish.


And Sunday was our wedding anniversary, so I had booked Gordon Ramsay's Maze for dinner, which was spectacular. We don't often eat out, and when we do it's usually nothing fancy, so this was a real treat. And luckily we had a voucher because the bill came to an eye-watering £200+.

I don't think it's right to spend that amount of money in one meal for two people, it's just excessive and wrong. So if anyone has vouchers and feels wrong about it you can send them to me and I'll dispose of them in an ethical manner.

Our modest meal at Maze

This week we'll continue with husband's belly busting health kick which suffered a bit of a setback in the hands of Gordon Ramsay. So we'll be healthy and restrained all week, but in the weekend I will feed him well, say what you will.

Meal Plan for the week

Monday                Saturday's leftover chicken and rice
Tuesday                Tuscan bean soup
Wednesday           Pan fried trout fillets
Thursday              Chicken, leek and vegetable soup stew or leftover Tuscan Soup
#fishfriday            Grilled grouper          
Saturday               My awesome BBQ moose burgers
Sunday                 Paella Valencia

I am sharing my plan with Mrs M - come and see what else is cooking!

I do realize he is not in the kitchen himself, but you know what I mean.


Sunday was the first anniversary of our big do in Finland. We had been officially married for two weeks, but Saturday 23rd was when we had a church ceremony and reception for family and friends. It wasn't a massive event - I think we were a little over 50 people, but it was very emotional, fun and something we will both remember for the rest of our lives.

Maze by Gordon Ramsay, Grosvenor Square - review

So to celebrate the special day I had booked us a table at Gordon Ramsay's Maze in Grosvenor Square. We don't dine in Michelin star restaurants all that often (= next to never). I got a voucher to Maze as a present (bribe) from a business partner last Christmas, and we just haven't gotten round to using it, so I thought it would be a perfect Anniversary Dinner.

We started with cocktails in the bar, a Bloody Mary for me and Mojito for husband.


We were then taken to our table. The waiter recommended that we order four dishes each. I questioned it because it seemed a lot, but in the end we went with it. Three would have been enough for us though with the little extras that were served for free.

A little complimentary starter of salmon mousse sandwiched in puff pastry

We both chose different things, I went all for fish and seafood and husband chose a mixture of seafood and meat dishes.

Plate of crackers and bean dip to go with our starters

Four course seafood menu

Here is what I had. I started with the sushi selection which was amazing, and quite a lot of food. My favourite was the maki on the right with the pink mousse (lobster?) on top, but it was all fantastic.

Sushi selection of maki and nigiri

Overall the arctic king crab dish was maybe my favourite. It looked amazing and the crab was moist and tasty. Just beautiful.

Persian rice - you've just had your butt kicked, tahdig and all. This Greek style rice and orzo pilaf recipe was a new experiment for me, but I can't wait to do it again. And again. I can't see rice getting much more awesome than this although I may surprise even myself with my obvious talent for rice cookery. But for now this remains my finest hour at the handles of my rice pan.