I hardly ever eat fast food these days, but a few weeks into a diet and what do I start craving? Burgers and chips. *sigh*  My brain is a funny place at times.  So when I spotted a recipe for burger and chips in Irresistible, the new quarterly food magazine from Weight Watchers UK, I was very keen to try it out and hopefully avoid any insane late-night to Burger King.

I’ve got to say, there’s nothing new in this recipe—it’s all in the portion sizes, you know—but it makes a splendid (and delicious) base recipe for whatever variations your own imagination can come up with.  I laced last night’s burger with plenty of garlic, oregano, parsley and a pinch of chilli flakes for an Italian feel, further cemented by serving it with a balsamic tomato salad.  Next time I’m thinking of Mexican-style burger with cumin, jalapeños and fresh coriander, topped off with some searingly hot tomato salsa.  Yum.

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Wraps have revolutionised lunchtime chez Ang.

I used to be locked into a standard dieter’s lunch of houmous served with strips of pitta bread and carrot sticks, and felt quite hard done by if I’m honest.  (I know it’s weird, but I always struggle with lunch, especially if I’m dieting.  Any other meal is relentlessly creative, but lunch is a big old mental blackspot for me.)  But now, my imagination has been sparked and I’m now packing all sorts of goodies into wraps.  The Leon sweet potato falafel wraps have become a bit of a family favourite—especially good with some thick slices of gherkin or cornichon—and I’m quite fond of making a Mexican chicken wrap with some really hot salsa.

However, my darling du jour is this sexy roasted butternut squash and dolcelatte wrap.

Believe it or not, this delicious wrap is not only diet-friendly… it’s good for you.  I’m no nutritionist, but olive oil is full of monosaturated fat and heart-healthy and the butternut squash is bursting with betacarotene goodness, antioxidants and fibre.  The dolcelatte is less of a nutritionist’s dream, but is still a valuable source of calcium and the small serving size keeps the calories and evil saturated fat to an acceptable level.  And as they say… everything in moderation.  But enough of the health credentials of this wrap, how does it taste?

Bloody gorgeous, thanks for asking.  The sweetness of the roasted squash is balanced beautifully by the rich saltiness of the cheese and the salad gives great texture and freshness. I added a few little drops of balsamic glaze which enhanced the sweet-salty tastes, and let me indulge my old dipping habits.  This is a fabulous lunch that feels far too voluptuously extravagant to ever be diet fare.  But it is, and I love it.

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I recently received a Triple Award from Jeanne over at Cook Sister!  Thank-you so much, Jeanne!

The rules for recipients are:

• Include the award logo in your blog or post.
• Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
• Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
• Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
• Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

I’m passing this award on to:

• Sophie of Mostly Eating
• Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella
• Erin of The Endive Chronicles
• Debbie of Words to Eat By
• Bron of Bron Marshall
• Lisa of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives
• Jules of Stone Soup
• Hannah of Bittersweet
• Maria of The Goddess’s Kitchen
• Kieran of Ice Cream Ireland

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Apparently this is the most snow Bristol has seen in 18 years.  I’d love to say that I’m a hardy Scot who has  been striding briskly through the snow and putting everyone else to shame, but… it’s horrible out there.  I have done the sensible thing and stayed firmly indoors.  Yes, Scotland… I’ve gone soft.  Sorry!  Reports from my resident hunter/gatherer, Dave, say that the driveway is barely passable, but he managed to make it across the road to the shop and back without falling over or even windmilling wildly.

Lucas is loving the snow, though.  He went out onto the decking in the back garden yesterday with Dave and made his first snowman.  We’ve dubbed it the Gourmet Snowman as I was out of carrots and had to hurriedly substitute a dried apricot.  For eyes… natural glacé cherries.  Doesn’t he look cheery?  They also made a snowpig as Lucas is more than a little addicted to Peppa Pig.  Oink!

Lucas and Daddy with the Snowman and Snowpig

As is traditional on a snowy day, Lucas had a big mug of hot chocolate once he’d come indoors and been unwrapped.  Another first for him, I think.  He was all excited as he thought that he was getting hot coffee like Daddy, but rapidly discovered that hot chocolate was far superior to coffee.  By the time he reached the bottom of the mug he was looking at me as if I was a god who walked among men.  Which, naturally I am.

Apart from drinking luscious hot chocolate, my cold weather strategy is very simple.  I’ve taken to eating porridge for breakfast as I find it tremendously filling and having a hot breakfast keeps me feeling toasty warm for hours afterwards.  It’s as good as a hot water bottle, but you know… tastier.

Porridge may sound boring, but it doesn’t have to be!  You can ring the changes with different spices, sweeteners, fruit—try cooking it in apple juice with raisins and some chopped apples—seeds and even vegetables.  I’m quite keen on trying a “carrot cake” porridge with carrots, raisins and walnuts.  Yummy!

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As much as I love cheesecake—and that’s a lot—I hate that it typically is loaded with saturated fat and an excess of calories.  So, whenever it is possible, I start trying to pare it back to something approaching healthiness.  Mainly, it has to be said, so that I can eat more of it,  Did I mention that I’m greedy?

The latest cheesecake to go under the knife, so to speak, is Nigella Lawson’s Gleaming Maple Cheesecake from Nigella Christmas.

I had planned to bake this cheesecake as a dessert for New Year’s Day, but the flu put paid to that.  So, once I was better and feeling more enthusiastic about spending time in my kitchen again, I set to work adapting the original recipe…

To lighten things up, I’ve used extra-low fat cream cheese and substituted egg whites for most of the whole eggs called for.  I did keep one whole egg to ensure that the cheesecake set properly and to help keep the texture silky smooth.  The crust is, admittedly, a bit of a departure from Nigella’s recipe: I’ve used my standard cheesecake crust which is a mixture of Grape Nut cereal and amaretti biscuits.  It still has a slightly nutty taste and the flavour works perfectly with the rest of the cheesecake. And really… who cares that much about the crust?  We’re here for the cheesecake.  All my fiddling brought the cheesecake down from 13 Weight Watchers (UK) points per slice down to just 4.  Quite a difference, eh?

But… does it taste good?

Yes!!   I’m really pleased with this cheesecake.  You absolutely can’t tell that it’s a low-fat version and baking in the water-bath as stipulated by Nigella has kept it amazingly creamy all the way through.  The smoky-sweet maple flavour shines through and balances the creaminess of the cheese, yet isn’t sickly sweet.

Treat yourself to an extra drizzle of maple syrup on each slice… it tips it over into absolute luxury without breaking the calorie bank!

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Ahhh… January.  I can just about make out the pounding of feet as everyone rushes to the gym or to slimming groups to atone for festive excesses or to Finally Get Thin.  I’m no exception, hence the brief silence while I’ve been wrestling with salad leaves and trying to work out how to factor baking treats into my new and improved diet.

To ensure that enthusiasm and motivation levels remain high, I’ve been trying out new recipes rather than just relying on old favourites.  And so, the latest addition to my healthy culinary arsenal are these fantastic sweet potato falafel wraps which are (a) good for you and (b) absolutely divine.  So divine that I’ve been raving about them ever since I made them!

Sweet potato falafels may sound a bit odd, and well… un-falafely, but they’re a really delicious alternative to the traditional fat-laden falafel.  Using gram (chickpea) flour to bind the mixture provides just the right amount of chickpea flavour to make your tastebuds say aaaah, yes, this is a falafel and the sweet potato ensures that the falafels stay moist after baking.  Genius, really.

The author of this genius is Allegra McEvedy, ex of the River Cafe and Robert Di Niro’s Tribeca Grill and current of Leon.  If you’ve never heard of Leon—hardly surprising if you’re not a Londoner—then let me enlighten you.  It’s a London-based chain of fast food restaurants which focus on healthy, yet yummy, food.  Simple as that.  But wait!  Before you wrinkle your nose… the food is big, bold and packed with flavour rather than being cardboard diet-fare.

I must admit that I’ve never eaten at Leon, but fully intend to the next time I’m in London.  I have, however, been cooking up a storm from the Leon cookbook ever since excerpted recipes appeared in the Guardian and they’ve all been fantastic.  It’s also a bloody good read—Allegra writes in a very warm and chummy way, so you feel as though you’re having a good old gossip about food with a friend as you read through it.  I should also mention that Leon is a book of two halves: an illustrated guide to ingredients with food-pairing tips as well as a recipe book.

But back to the falafels!  I stuffed a portion into a wrap along with plenty of Gem lettuce and some surprisingly sweet baby tomatoes, a generous spoonful of aïoli and a drizzle of sweet chilli sauce.  With an extra bowl of salad on the side—I couldn’t get as much into the wrap as I wanted—it made for a superb lunch which was heartily approved by the whole family.
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What else could I possibly follow roast partridge with?  It had to be pears.  In this case, baked pears with honey, marsala and bay from My Favourite Ingredients by Skye Gyngell.  I am loving this book so much; everything I’ve made has turned out beautifully and it’s just such an inspiring read.

This is a beautifully simple autumn dessert, requiring only the tiniest bit of effort on the part of the cook.  And honestly, chucking a few well-chosen ingredients in a dish barely constitutes effort in my book.  I did go the extra mile (or two) and picked up a jar of gorgeously amber honey from our local farm shop.  I was thrilled to discover that it was their own honey and relieved that the hives are nowhere near the shop itself.  I didn’t even know they had their own bees.  It’s quite a mild honey—compared to chestnut or eucalyptus—but still flavourful.

While at the farm shop I took the opportunity to check out the new plant and herb nursery that had opened behind it.  My attempt at rooting rosemary cuttings has failed to elicit even the tiniest root, even after two months, so I decided to just buy myself a rosemary plant.  Safely strapped into the passenger seat it drove around with me for the rest of the day before being repotted into a shiny new pot at home.

I picked up some almost-ripe comice pears at the supermarket—the farm shop had none—figuring that a little longer in the oven should still give me sweet, meltingly tender fruit.  The pears were all wrapped-up and ready to go in the oven long before it finished preheating!  Like I said, a very simple recipe!

Fifty minutes later and the pears were caramelised and sitting in a bath of golden-brown syrup, heady with the scent of vanilla and marsala.  As they cooled I basted them with the syrup, hoping for a toffee apple effect that sadly didn’t materialise, but I do think it helped keep everything succulent.

I served the pears with a generous spoonful of thick, thick, crime fraiche which played well against the sweetness of the pears and syrup.  It’s a cliché, I know, but it really did cut through the sweet stickiness of the syrup to make a beautifully balanced dessert.  Ice cream would kill this, I think.  I loved the smokiness that the marsala left behind in the syrup and there was also a subtle spicing from the bay as well as the nutmeg.  Maybe infusing bay into the creme fraiche would lift this dish even further?

This was the perfect ending to our autumnal feast and I’m pretty sure that I’ll be baking plenty more pears in the future.

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Sometimes you just know when comfort food is going to be required. A couple of weeks ago, England had their last chance to qualify for the European Championships–lest there be confusion, I’m talking about football (or soccer)–and I knew that it was going to be a tense game to say the least.

Before you go thinking that I’ve suddenly turned into a football fan. Fear not, I haven’t. I quite like Chelsea–much to my father-in-law’s despair–and I have a healthy appreciation for various sets of well-honed legs, but that’s as far as it goes. On this occasion, I was thinking purely of Dave’s potential need for comfort food.

Cottage pie has never been my thing. Whenever I’ve had it, the mince has been watery and completely lacking flavour, reminding me unpleasantly of the mince and tatties I grew up on. Sorry mum! However, Dave loves it and as I love Dave–awwww–I wanted to make him something that he’d truly enjoy.

The nice thing about cottage pie is that it doesn’t mind if you throw it together in 15 minutes–if you’re fast with a knife, that is–or if you slave over it all day long. In this case, I suppose I did spend all day on it, albeit in very small bursts of active time.

These days, I try to fit as much prep work as possible into Lucas’ nap times so that I can pull dinner together fast once he’s in bed. So, by the time lunch rolled around, I had the meat filling done, in the dish, and chilling down in the fridge. And by mid-afternoon, the potatoes were peeled and sitting in a pan of water and the leek was sliced.

Once the game started, I made the mash, spooned it around the edges of the dish and then splodged spoonfuls over the centre. A quick run-over with a palate knife and it was done without any of the filling being ripped out of place or mingling with the mash. It’s possible that I might be a bit anal about this, but if I’m going to the trouble to make something with layers, then I want defined layers. By the way, the tip of putting hot mash onto chilled filling comes courtesy of Gary Rhodes. I saw him do it years ago on New British Classics (I think) and it obviously stuck.

When I plated up the football wasn’t going so well. Dave dug his fork mournfully into the mash and gave a small smile of approval at the crunch I’d managed to get on the topping. His smile got wider when he tasted a proper mouthful. Apparently it was good cottage pie, if a little posh. At this point another goal went in, and not on the English side, so I decided to concentrate solely on my own plate.

Crispy golden mashed potato gave way to a green-speckled mash underneath and then… the beef. The sage gave the sauce tremendous punch, and the mushrooms soaked up so much flavour from the tomato puree and garlic. I was very pleased with my decision to thicken the sauce; it didn’t spill out all over the plate and actually coated the meat nicely.

Unfortunately, England did lose, but at least we had a very good dinner as partial compensation.

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Lately, I’ve taken to menu planning as a means of (a) reducing food wastage and (b) ensuring that I keep up my enthusiasm and love of cooking. It’s working on both counts, I must admit, and I get a real kick out of filling up the fridge at the beginning of the week and slowly working my way through all the goodies until the shelves are bare once more. It can feel a little restrictive, so I’ve decided to let my occasional urges for spontaneity manifest in the form of impromptu cake baking.

Initially I was thinking that I’d make some sort of spiced butternut squash cake, as we have half a squash waiting patiently to be turned into something fabulous, but somehow I stumbled across a delicious-sounding recipe by Gina DePalma for an apple polenta cake, and that was that. (The butternut squash will most likely become a delicious pasta sauce, if you were at at all curious. ‘m sure that it is both thrilled and honoured at the very idea.)

There’s a huge buzz in the blogosphere about Gina DePalma at the moment. If you don’t know who she is, then don’t cower and cringe with shame; I didn’t know until earlier today, so I’ve already done all the cringing that’ll be necessary.

Gina, is Mario Batali’s Executive Pastry Chef at Babbo in New York. I’m only familiar with Batalli from Iron Chef America–he doesn’t get a whole lot of airtime in the United Kingdom unfortunately–but he’s always impressed me with his creativity, even when pushed outside his comfort zone by the “secret ingredient.” It looks like the rest of his staff are equally as creative and as in love with Italian food as he is.

Earlier this month, Gina published her first book Dolce Italiano which has been received with rave reviews from practically everyone who’s read a copy. And this week, five Italy-based food bloggers announced a contest to win a copy and as a bonus, they’ll be previewing ten recipes from the book! Now that’s my kind of contest.

This cake was incredibly straightforward to put together once I’d worked out all my conversions. As our house is a shrine to Weight Watchers–10 pounds down this month! Although, I have to attribute a few of those to an acute bout of viral gastroenteritis at the beginning of the month–I typically halve cake recipes and then set about lowering the fat content.

I may have mentioned this before, but a handy trick when de-fatting recipes for cakes and desserts is to use three-quarters half-fat butter to the weight of regular butter that the recipe calls for. Half-fat butter contains a high percentage of water to bulk it out, and if you do a straight substitution then the batter (or whatever) will be far too wet and you won’t get the texture you’re looking for in the finished product.

We couldn’t wait for the cake to cool fully–it smelt too damn good!–so I cut a couple of slices and we ate in contemplative silence. The texture was fluffy, but not too crumbly; gently spiced; and a lovely lingering fresh flavour of apple permeates the whole thing. As with all cakes containing polenta, the top crust was lovely and crunchy and gave the cake some great texture as a whole. (I’m really not kidding about the apple lingering on the palate–almost an hour later and I still have a lovely fresh taste at the back of my mouth. Fantastic!)

I suspect that the flavour of the cake would change quite markedly depending on what sort of honey you use. I used Eucalyptus as I can’t get enough of its wonderful toffee flavour but at some point I’d love to try some Tuscan chestnut honey.

Dave ate his slice of cake with some low-fat custard and pronounced it to be fabulous. I’d imagine that it would also be great with some maple whipped cream. Apples and maple syrup always make for a happy palate.

Based on this experience and all the positive experiences other food bloggers have had with Dolce Italiano, I’ve added it to my Amazon wishlist and all I need to do now is wait for Christmas and see if I find it under the tree!

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Do you know what I miss most while dieting? Cheese? Nope. Chocolate? Nope; you can still make amazing low-fat chocolate desserts while dieting.

What I really, really miss is pastry. Pies, tarts, pasties, and quiche. Oh, how I miss my Quiche Lorraine and its delicious short, buttery pastry. And fruit tarts! Whether they’re filled with pastry cream and topped with glazed berries, or free-form with fruit bubbling volcanically over pleats of pastry, all tarts are simply wonderful.

Unfortunately, buttery goodness comes at a price. In this instance, shortcrust pastry clocks in at a massive 14.5 Weight Watchers points for a quarter of a standard pack. When you consider that the lowest daily points allowance for a Weight Watchers member (in the UK) is 18, you begin to get an idea of how tragic the pastry situation is.

So, what’s a girl to do?

Hit the kitchen and attempt a reduced-fat pastry, of course!Armed with a food processor, flour, half-fat butter and fat-free natural yoghurt–my thinking being that the acidity of yoghurt would make the pastry more tender thus compensating somewhat for the lack of saturated fat–I set forth upon my quest. My first observation is that half-fat butter contains far more water than standard butter, so I really should have reduced the amount I used. The pastry was a tad too wet for my liking, however after a rest in the fridge it firmed up and rolled out well.

I’d love to report 100% success, but I made a rookie mistake and set the oven to too low a temperature so blind baking didn’t go terribly well. As you can see in the photograph, (a) I didn’t get the pastry rolled out thin enough which set it up nicely for being chewy in places rather than crisp and short and (b) it’s still a bit raw in the middle which I blame on me chilling it in the freezer rather than the fridge prior to baking. I think I employed a few too many pastry tricks at once.

The few bits on the crust where it was cooked through properly–and decently thin–were really quite good. I definitely think that there’s potential for an acceptable reduced-fat pastry, but it’s going to involve a lot of experimentation before I’ll be happy to publish a recipe.

I suppose I should talk about the tart filling now, huh?

Well, back in the spring I stashed away about a kilogramme of rhubarb in the freezer and I’ve been slowly working my way through it, trying my best to make it last until all the delicious, pink forced rhubarb starts appearing again.

While rooting through the freezer, I spied the bag and that was that. Instant rhubarb fever! By happy coincidence I had a rhubarb-lemon tart on my To-Do list from Raymond Blanc’s Cooking for Friends, so I simply lightened the filling recipe slightly by swapping double cream for a cream substitute.

The rhubarb was definitely the star in this tart. The lemon was more of a perfume, with just the merest little hit of lemon flavour which served to greatly enhance the rhubarb. I loved how soft the cream custard was, even after quite a long spell in the oven. The top of the tart managed to acquire a bit of a bruleee taste during baking. This added complexity to the overall flavour and lifted it from ordinary to something slightly more special.

So… imperfect pastry, but a perfect filling. One out of two isn’t bad, right?

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When I’m hungry, I’m hungry and the ravenous beast that is my stomach must be appeased. This deliciously meaty–yet healthy–pasta dish really did the trick for us last night.

Pasta with olive oil, garlic and broccoli is a classic combination and while chorizo is decidedly untraditional, it works extremely well. I suppose you could chop some mortadellainto chunks and fry that off, but I always have chorizo lying around.

With a little chopping and weighing in advance this dish will come together very quickly–I threw this together in about 15 minutes while Dave was putting Lucas to bed. I took the lazy route and resorted to using frozen broccoli which came in rather large florets; based on how the dish ate, I’d really recommend cutting the broccoli into small florets. Not only does it make the dish easier to eat, you’ll also get a more even distribution of flavours..

The crispy chorizo made an excellent contrast to the tender broccoli, which soaked up oodles of meaty, spicy and garlicky juices. All in all, very satisfying.

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