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Who are your romantic heroes and heroines? Audrey Hepburn, one of mine, ate one chocolate a day. One! I am emulating her for romantic February. I give a little thought as to when in the day I will heve it, and where, and on which little dish. I savour it. 
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..I am in a lovely country hotel with a good restaurant. Fig chestnut and stilton tart with a glass of good wine, by a blazing log fire.  And a spa experience. While outside, it is frosty and starry and there have been a few flakes of snow... .  With flowers, of course.  Ever the romantic! A splurge on freshness to wean me off rich food, sweet cakes and biscuits (a very first world problem I know). I am so lucky to have such beautiful and nourishing food.  And flowers! The smell of those little narcissus....intoxicating. Here is a salad you might like to try if you too are planning to eat healthy for the rest of January. One onion thinly sliced, one orange segmented, one lettuce, 2-3 tblsps oil, 2-3 tblsps vinegar, salt and pepper. I can eat any amount of this! It made a nice accompaniment to the last of the brie, onion and cranberry tarts from the freezer.  You've been lovely.   Twelfth Night dinner -wild venison and chestnuts in red wine, followed by home made ice cream with cherries in kirsch. I am so glad I did all that cooking early in December. Once all the leftovers are eaten up it's back to plain fare.. A bruschetta breakfast I like to have on a Sunday morning.. Rub a slice of bread on both sides with a garlic clove, cut out a circle from the bread. Fry in a generous amount of good olive oil (careful not to burn it like me!), turn and drop in an egg. Sprinkle with plenty of rock salt and enjoy with a cup of strong tea. I get this nice Polish bread from the supermarket.     Fruit loaf for the freezer. Instead of sultanas I used mixed dried fruit with peel for a slightly more festive version. I am enjoying this. Next, venison in red wine.  ..for holiday season visitors. I lined three containers with double layers of cling film as I won't be serving 8 - 10 people at once.  I used bought meringues, popped them intto a bag  and enjoyed bashing them with a rolling pin!  I nixed the neringue with the whipped cream adding strong coffee and raspberry liqueur. I plan to serve it with raspberries, pomegrante seeds and a spoonful of the liqueur.  Drizzled some of the strong coffee on top, folded over the clingfilm and put on the lids. Three desserts now in the freezer.  (There is a link to Sarah Raven's original recipe on Saturday's post.) ..is defrosting the freezer. It takes forever! But I found the last of the bramble and apple puddings and had it for lunch. Such comfort when the sky is dark and the rain is lashing down. What is your favourite comfort food in November?  I fear I am having my very own energy crisis as I still feel a bit feak and weeble (as my daughter once said) after my horrid cough and cold. Several beautiful apples a day might help. They are gorgeous!  ..gatherings and sharings..      I have almost a kilo of sloes in the freezer to make sloe gin when I am recovered! I have not made it before. Have you? ..are quince and brambles. Am thinking puddings.     Thankfully soething mostof us rarely experience.
It was a long journey home from York. Three buses, two trains and a ferry and all connections worked out well until the last one. I had to wait an hour for the last bus. I don't eat much when travelling and all I had had was an egg and a biscuit, so I was truly hungry by the time I got home. I had eaten out in York at the wonderful Betty's and I had lovely meals made for me by friends, but I have to say that the quickly made Heinz baked beans on buttery toast with a cup of strong tea was the best tasting and most enjoyed meal I have had for ages! Every mouthful utterly utterly delicious! ..is one of FlyLady's best ideas (It's a Wednesday). I kept buying healthy food and not eating it, then I feltt so terribly guilty for wasting food when some people have none, that I kept putting off clearing out the fridge! Eventually, one Wednesday, I just faced it. Some went in the compost, some in the bin, some glass jars went in the recycling, some leftovers in the freezer and some in the juicer.   Some went on a my plate for an interesting lunch. Then it was time to go shopping.  What will you do next anti-procrastination day? Do share! ..and putting on weight! This beautiful clematis was an inexpensive supermarket buy, in a very small pot and I read that it is a good idea to grow them on in a bigger pot until they have a stronger root system before planting them out in the garden. It is doing well so far in the greenhouse.  The underside is lovely too.  The weather is awful, so I am still enjoying Wimbledon. So far with my tennis I have had scones and jam, strawberries and cream, white wine and gin and tonics. How many more days has the tournament to go? You can always tell a blogger - they photograph their food before they eat it! It's a wonderful and relaxing treat to have such food put down in frnt of you. Leisurely breakfasts and healthy lunches..  Salads and juices with 7, 8, 9 ingredients.    A restaurant on the beach as the sun set - torches lit the beach after dark and we waded into the still warm sea.     Desserts included the best affogato ever! All making me rethink my cooking at home.. ..when you just have to grit your teeth and spend some money. The old chairs lasted 20 years and will now be recycled, as will the cushions which were so faded you wouldn't know they once had a pattern on them. They were sparking no joy whatsoever!   Breakfast outside on a sunny, if cold, spring morning is sparking joy! The tulips, Purissima, start out greenish, turn creamy then white. They are also one of the very few which repeat in my garden.
Have you had any meals outside yet?  100 g each of butter, caster sugar, ground almonds and SR flour. Beat togeher butter and sugar then work in almonds and flour. With damp hands roll into 20 or so walnut sized pieces. Bake 180C for 10 minutes. Sandwich together with Nutella. Make on a wet and windy afternoon. Serve with good coffee and pretend you are in Italy. ..that when plans go awry, my thoughts turn immediately to chocolate?  I ate all of them... A big bag of apples and a box of clementines.  The extravagance I really want is a trip to Paris to see this exhibition, but it's not looking likely.... ..about November. We have had a very wet, windy and grey spell of weather and I am having to look hard to find things about Novembeer to be cheerful about! The first sweet clementines with leaves on are irresistible, in their lovely natural basket. They say we will have sunshine on Sunday. Can I wait that longg?  .... If at first you don't succeed...have some cake. It's often worked in the past, but oddly , I seem to have gone off cake! Which could in fact be useful as I am still trying to lose those pandemic pounds....  Charlie Mackesey's description of mole stuffing himself with cake in The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and the Horse always makes me laugh out loud. A ten minute bus ride to the next village along the shore today to meet a friend at a new cafe which has opened next to the village hall and the phone booth gallery, and across the road from the pier (the ticket office is available for holidays...) and a good view of the Waverley. Perfect.    I can recommend raspberry with white chocolate topped with fresh mint. This cute little building on the shore, not five minutes walk from my house, has just opened as an ice cream shack. Sooo tempting! And for a village without a shop it is a big event.     What would your blissful breakfast look like? Can you make it happen this weekend? Kylie Flavell, pragmatic dreamer, makes her dreams come true. You can too..  |
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