Weekly Blog (weeks 8, 9 and 10)

*TARDY BLOG POST KLAXON*

I've missed a couple of blog posts which is largely down to the fact that I took a holiday - nothing fancy; I went home to spend 10 days being hugged to the bosom of my family which I really needed.

I did a lot of cooking when I went home.  I love cooking but it's just not so much fun in my flat because my kitchen is tiny and not very functional.  Over the week I was at home I made a couple of things from Yotam Ottolenghi's Jerusalem, including poached chicken with freekeh and buttered flaked almonds:
 

This was so delicious.  I bought the freekeh quite a while ago from Persepolis in Peckham but this was the first time that I'd used it.  It's a greenish coloured grain that has a texture similar to bulgur wheat but it's really smoky in flavour - so good.  You can also buy it online from Sous Chef. 

I also made Ottolenghi's lamb koftes with a tahini sauce:

That greasy looking stuff is the ghee which is optional - don't bother.  It adds nothing at all. 

We ate a lot of comfort food because it was so cold - shepherd's pie, chicken and mushroom potato topped pie and sausage casserole.  My mum and I went out for dinner in York to the Dean Court Hotel's restaurant, DCH.  It's a slightly strange restaurant in that it's often lacking a bit in atmosphere but the food is really good.  My scallops with herb risotto and pea puree were lovely and so pretty:

Since I've been back in London (after a brief diversion through Norfolk and Essex), I've just gone off the boil.  I'm finding life a little bit tough at the moment with one thing and another; I'm feeling constantly tired and worn out and my diet has slipped down my list of priorities.  All my good habits have (temporarily) vanished - I haven't been eating breakfast and I haven't brought my lunch into work since I came back last Tuesday so I have resorted to rather unpleasant plasticky sandwiches from Pret and I haven't really been cooking.  I've been eating a lot of toast.

 

I've also had a couple of great meals out, the first at The Clove Club, which is one of the best meals I've had in months.  Such pretty food, amazing, simple ingredients and clever, clever cooking.  I know that a lot of people have been left a little cold by The Clove Club but I can't wait to go back.  Here's a little collage of some of the things we had, clockwise from top left: radishes with gochuchang mayonnaise and black sesame, leeks, smoked mussels and spinach puree, blood orange, sheep's milk mousse and wild fennel granita and rib of beef (aged for 9 weeks!!), ramson and potato.  OHMYGOD - that rib of beef was the best I've ever tasted.  So meaty and the fat was like butter.  Incredible.
 

 

The following day I was feeling a little hungover and was very susceptible when @DanDoherty_ tweeted that he was trying out a new waffle stack at Duck & Waffle.  After very little persuasion by Shed that we should go, Dan kindly saved a table for us and we dropped by for an early dinner.  The new waffle stack, which I stupidly forgot to take a photo of, is technically a breakfast menu item but he'd kept one back for us - potato waffles, crispy bacon, cheese, fried duck egg and truffle mayonnaise...proper hangover food.  We ordered lots of other stuff including the all-day breakfast (brioche, home-made nutella, bacon, foie gras and a fried quails egg - rich but GOOD) the octopus salad (both pictured below, the octopus looks a little scary) plus some nduja bread, crispy pig ears and we were gifted some amazing pollock balls in a lobster cream sauce.  We left feeling painfully full but feeling happy and deeply unhealthy - we didn't consume a single vegetable. 

 

 

I love Duck & Waffle.  Incredibly tasty, slightly dirty food with an amazing view of London.

 

And so here I am, 3 weeks later and 3lbs heavier.  I actually think that's pretty good going considering my terrible behaviour.  This week I will try to get back into my good habits of eating breakfast and bringing in my own lunch.  I also have a diet related excursion planned...but I'm going to keep the details of that close to my chest for now.