Seabass with quick tomato salsa

Thanks to Jamie Oliver’s interview in Tuesday’s Evening Standard I’ve learnt the secret to frying fish and getting a crispy skin…just leave it. Almost too simple and what I thought I did anyway.

So I put a pan on a high heat with a little oil and placed the seabass fillets in skin side down. Then, I left it and didn’t move the fish until it came away from the pan itself (like when a cake comes away from the sides of a tin when it’s cooked). This took a lot longer than I expected, I’d usually fry fish for a couple if minutes on each side but for crispy skin it needed a good ten minutes. So in food, as in life, good things come to those who wait.

To go with the fish, and considering what I had in the cupboard, I made a quick tomato salsa:
– fry a small onion (or shallot), a couple of cloves of minced garlic and half a chopped fresh red chilli on a low heat until soft
– add chopped tomatoes – I had a punnet of mixed ones and used them all – turn the heat in the pan to low
– add 1 teaspoon of sugar, 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar (red would be good too) and plenty of chopped fresh coriander
– cook for 5 to 10 minutes and it’s done

This salsa is also really good to make as a side dish for bbqs (lovely in a burger).

Back to baking

I’ve had a bit of a blogging gap, sometimes other things in life like the day job just get in the way but this weekend I turned the oven on and got back to baking – starting with these rhubarb and strawberry tarts.

I’ll admit I cheated using ready made (and ready rolled) shortcrust pastry.

I always worry about rhubarb being bitter so I started sweetening it in the morning by chopping it into a bowl with the strawberries, a tablespoon of sugar and a split vanilla pod.

Once I’d put my cut out tart bases into a greased and floured cupcake tray with my brother who was visiting from Sweden we put half a teaspoon of strawberry jam in each and spooned as much rhubarb and strawberry mix on top as would fit.

As the oven was on while John was filling the tarts I tried the recently posted recipe by Frugal Feeding for gluten free coffee blondies. (I’d never actually heard of a blondie before so not sure if they’d usually have fluted in them?)

Mixture made, both went into the oven on 180 for 20 minutes.

Did the bikini diet work?

Two weeks later is my body bikini beautiful? I haven’t noticed much of a difference, which is pretty disappointing. This may be because I didn’t really stick to the diet on weekends, food is too big a part of my social life, also I did not follow the exercise regime to the letter, although I did as much as I could which was generally 5 days out of 7.
It’s probably that 2 weeks is never going to be enough time and you need 4-6 weeks of any regime to see some proper results.

On the plus side, I’ve learnt a few things from the day menus which I’ll be incorporating into everyday food choices:
– whole grain, not white, bread/pasta/rice (this is a switch I’m happy to make, I love brown bread )
– no potatoes (or as little as possible)
– have a mid morning and mid afternoon snack
– going forward every ceaser salad will be made with the low fat yoghurt dressing
– with the best will in the world, you cannot make carbonara with Greek yoghurt

I’ve also got a new favourite breakfast:

1 weetabix with 2 tbps (low fat) Greek yoghurt, half a punnet of strawberries and a drizzle of honey – healthy and yummy!

Maybe I’m just meant to be a little squishy around the edges…time to embrace one piece swimsuits?

Seabass with salsa verde

Seabass (or spnott if you’re reading this in Malta) is one of my favourite fish – it has a such a delicate flavour and is so tasty cooked only with a little seasoning. Today I fried the fish for 2-3 minutes on each side, or until it becomes flaky.

Served with a very summery salsa verde, which is basically lots of chopped fresh herbs – with 2/3 parsley and whatever else you’ve got for the other 1/3, we had coriander and mint. Chop an anchovy along with it and some capers (although we didn’t have any capers today) and mix in with olive oil, seasoning and a squeeze of lemon juice for a lovely fresh tasting salsa.

Acanteen – Chelmsford

This is my delicious brunch this morning from acanteen in Chelmsford. This our absolute favourite place to come for a Sunday treat and if I’m going to break my bikini diet what better to do it with the their portobello mushrooms on wilted spinach and toast with a poached egg and hollandaise sauce.

Ok it’s a bit of a lie, I broke the diet yesterday evening when I had a burger and potato salad at out friend’s birthday BBQ – whoops!

Surprisingly good Ceaser salad

When I saw this on my menu I thought not more greek yoghurt, it’s the alternative for anything creamy according to Women’s Fitness.

My lunch is a mixture of salad leaves an grilled turkey with a ceaser dressing made from 2 tbsp low fat Greek yoghurt, 3 anchovies chopped as small as possible and a squeeze of lemon. The result is actually pretty yummy – the anchovies give the dressing a nice saltiness and the lemon juice really lifts the flavours.

Healthy carbonara

The bikini blitz continues…the past 3 days I’ve managed to stick to it with almost no swaps, except Pret’s tomato soup for lunch yesterday (which I love) instead of bacon and lentil.

Yesterday’s dinner was this healthy carbonara – made with fried bacon, mushrooms and onion, whole meal spaghetti, 1 tbsp Greek yoghurt and parmesan cheese. I would usually use creme fraiche in this so was very skeptical about the yoghurt, but trying to keep an open mind I gave it a go.

The verdict? It was surprisingly OK, although not lovely and creamy- it had a very slight acidity from the yoghurt. I’m not sure I’ll be in a hurry to have carbonara this way again.

Sweet bread pudding with blackberries

I saw Kate over at Finger, Fork and Knife post these delightful deserts and my mouth started watering, I’ve been wanting to cook them ever since and this weekend finally got round to it.

I’m pleased to report that the recipe is easy enough to follow and these are the tastiest bread puddings I’ve ever made. As ever I was missing a couple of ingredients so substituted an orange for the mandarin, honey for maple syrup and sadly couldn’t find any rose water. My husband would’ve liked them a little sweeter, so next time I’ll put more sugar in his, and they were the first bread puddings I’ve made with successful crunch on top.

Good morning pancakes

This weekend was a bit of a disaster for the bikini diet.. I actually did everything right on Friday until the girls night out on Friday night which started with drinks at my friend Andrea’s – obviously alcohol is not on the diet and not a compromise that I’m willing to make. (Also due to a week of mainly healthy eating it didn’t take long to go to my head). On the plus side, apart from going to the gym on Friday morning I was on the dance floor for a good couple of hours – extra exercise, right?

Saturday morning I wasn’t ready for Brit mil fit at 9.30 but thankfully according to my diet plan I should be eating pancakes – perfect!

Made with 60g white flour, 60g whole meal flour and 2 eggs and served with blueberries, strawberries, lemon and honey. (serves 2)

I spent pretty much the rest of saturday eating white bread and apart from walking to the shop and back did no exercise. We had some friends over for dinner in the evening – in my book you can’t invite people round and eat diet food – so I made some fancy focaccia, stuffed chicken breasts and what I thought was a gorgeous dessert which I’ll post soon…

Steamed cod parcel

Here’s my dinner tonight – cod cooked in a grease proof paper parcel with carrots, spinach, a clove of garlic, half a lemon (sliced), chilli flakes and seasoning – all cooked in the oven for 20 minutes.

Delightfully, this is the dinner I was meant to have for my bikini blitz.

After 2 days of writing every single thing I ate I’m already a little bored of it, I guess anyone reading it all might be too, so I’ll just go back to putting nice food up.

With the diet I’ve more or less stuck to it the last couple of days, except I’m not keen on the idea of quorn bolognese which I was meant to have last night so had salmon with salad. Also, there’s no microwave in my current office so was limited to what Eat and Pret were serving – pea and lentil soup was substituted for lentil and coconut curry.

And for today…

Apart from instant miso soup (couldn’t find any and who really wants to drink that?) and the baby bel I’ve done alright today too.

Exercise – went to British Military Fitness yesterday as usual and today was a rest day.