The Princess & The Pea

Hello again! Have you all recovered form your weekends and the Monday blues? Did you get up to anything fun? We had a brilliant weekend!

First up, we had our fairytale new mattress of joy delivered on Friday. Our old mattress from the UK had collapsed on Hubby's side so he had taken to sleeping in the spare bed, but I found the spare mattress too hard so I was still sleeping in the old bed :-( I wont lie, part of me did enjoy the few nights I had with a whole bed to myself, but we were very happy when the new mattress arrived! And oh! What a mattress?!



We got a Sealy Posturepedic pillow top mattress and it is the comfiest bed I have ever slept in in  my entire life! On the downside though, it is twice as deep as our old mattress which makes it look quite ridiculous on our wee bed, and none of the sheets fit properly, but I don't care!! I loves it!!! :-)



On Friday night we had a long overdue catch up with Vera & Leo and their beautiful baby daughter. This was the first of my planned dinner parties of the year and I spent ages trying to decide what to make. I settled on a couple of things that I had tried before - asparagus wrapped in prosciutto and phyllo pastry for an appetiser, followed by grilled chicken with a mushroom and wild rice pilaf and roast veggies. This was the second time I had tried the pilaf and it was much improved! I totally forgot to get pics of these for you, but I will definitely be making them again so you'll just have to wait for next time!

The highlight of the meal was the dessert. Ive never really made desserts before - back in the UK they always came from Marks & Spencer - and was a bit intimidated by most of the recipes I was finding, until I came across Jamie Oliver's cheat pavlova. It looked fairly simple and rather impressive so I gave it a go and was very glad that I did!!

Other culinary highlights of the weekend included my new favourite brunch - a fry up of potatoes, asparagus, mushrooms, red bell peppers and topped off with a poached egg - yum! We even threw in some crisped up leftover prosciutto - double yum!!

Saturday dinner ended up being a surprisingly delicious Asian edamame and shrimps noodles. I say "surprisingly" as our food processor failed to puree the ginger down properly so it was all lumpy, and I forgot to reserve some of the noodle water so the dish was a little drier than it should have been, but I really enjoyed it and it will be making future appearances on our menu!



Saturday night found us back at the Grapevine wine bar in Willow Glen, but unfortunately there was a band playing and they were the worst band I have ever heard!! They proceeded to murder many classic rock songs at obscenely loud volumes to the point where it was more comfortable to sit outside wrapped up in coats and gloves than to suffer the noise inside! The wine, snacks, and service was as wonderful as ever, though, and we still had a fantastic, if chilly, night!

Well, that sums up our weekend. Hubby is off work this week so hopefully I'll have some adventures to share with you, culinary or otherwise. The main thing on the agenda for today, though, is to get some new bloody sheets ....!!!! Laters x

World's worst vegetarian .....

OK, so I haven't claimed to be a vegetarian since I was 16 (all my friends were doing it - what was I supposed to do?!?!) but aside from a few delicious exceptions over Christmas I have been successfully and happily avoiding meat for a couple of months now.

The little bit of beef in my Korean meal on Wednesday night was a tasty wee treat. Last night was pure meat porn! :-)

I had been planning another veggie curry when we got invited to Henry's Hi Life, our local barbecue restaurant, with friends - one of whom I hadn't seen since before Christmas and I really wanted to catch up. Barbecue is the one kind of restaurant that will never offer a vegetarian option!! They did have salmon on the menu, but if you've been following my posts this week you'll know that that just is not going to happen!

*sigh* Half rack of baby back ribs it is, then .....

Oh, but they were juicy and delicious and wonderful .... and not remotely healthy or cholesterol friendly at all, particularly when served with the mountain of garlic bread we went through too.



There was no way I could finish the plate, but I still managed to eat far too much and was in a bit of pain for the rest of the night! It was sooooo worth it, though! :-)

I am now officially off meat for the rest of the month, although just looking at that photo has me wishing I'd brought my leftovers home for lunch! We have friends coming round for dinner tonight so I am off to rummage through my books for something healthy to make that I can tweak so I can have it meat free! Or maybe something with shrimp. Hmmmmmm ..........

Not convinced ...

Every Wednesday night Hubby and I go out for dinner. We started doing it for practical reasons when Hubby was the main chef (ie only chef) and didnt want to cook when he got in late on a Wednesday. Much has changed since that first time he said "sod it, lets go to the pub for dinner", but our Wednesday date night has endured and been a favourite part of our week for nearly 10 years!

We have a limited choice of restaurants in our immediate area, and would usually prefer not to take the car, so more often than not we end up at an Italian place round the corner. This week we decided to branch out a little so I met Hubby at his office and we went to explore some of the places around there.

Hubby likes Korean food, and aside from a trip to a Korean barbecue place (which was delicious) I haven't really tried it. He took me to a place called Jang Su Jang which he had heard was good.

My first look at the menu told I was in trouble! Though I am a lot better than I used to be, I am still quite a fussy eater. You're talking to the girl whose biggest eating out decision when I was growing up was which fish and chip shop in our village to go to!!

I was definitely out of my comfort zone and nothing really appealed to me. Hubby suggested I might like the Bibimbap - a dish of rice, beef and vegetables with an egg on top. It sounded like the most Andrea-friendly thing on the menu, and even though I am trying to avoid meat, I went for it.


I didn't like it .....


The dish was quite bland, and the accompanying broth wasn't much better. I ended up having to put loads of the chili sauce on, but I didn't really like the flavour of the sauce so I was just generally disappointed. The beef, though, was delicious and the only part of the meal I actually enjoyed.







Hubby was very happy with his noodley soup :-)







So, I guess we wont be going back there again! I would like to try another Korean restaurant with Hubby sometime as I wouldn't want to write off a whole cuisine based on one experience - and would welcome any suggestions of good places to try from people in our area.

Well, on that note I am off to finish scaling the Ironing Pile of Doom. Wish me luck .......

Good news or bad news?

Good morning!! What news do you have today? Ive been making good progress on my organisation goals and managed to get all the upstairs crap cleared up, and conquered a good chunk of the Ironing Pile of Doom so I did not have to iron Hubby's work shirt first thing this morning - hurrah!! (Friends usually mock me for doing his ironing, but it really seems like the least I can do ...!)

Ive also been breaking my general healthy eating goal down into more specific targets and one of those is to eat more fish. *groan* I'm not a huge seafood fan. When I was a kid we used to have fish every Tuesday, and without fail every Tuesday morning my dad would ask me if I wanted the good news or the bad news? "The good news is I love you, the bad news is it's fish for dinner" Oh, how I laughed .....!

I'm not as bad as I used to be, but I do believe there is a special circle of hell reserved for salmon. It's just so ....... meh!! But apparently it is very good for cholesterol, and the fact that Hubby has started eating a lot of it is probably one of the reasons his cholesterol is so much better than mine now. So, one of my diet goals is to eat fish twice a week, and make one of those meals with salmon *groan*

I started by making salmon with toasted Israeli couscous last night and it truly lived up to my expectations - it was crap!

Lets ignore the fact that it was overcooked (I'm sharing joint blame with Hubby for that - sorry babe!) The recipe sounded really tasty - I mean, how could anything with pistachios not be delicious?!?! Well, apparently this is how!




I did really like the Israeli couscous, although this was actually the Trader Joe's Harvest Grains Blend with baby garbanzo beans, orzo and red quinoa through it, and I am looking forward to having that again. I suppose I like the theory of the salmon with the couscous, I just need to give it some ... y'know ... flavour!!!

On Hubby's request, I am stopping using my food magazines for inspiration as there have been more crap-fests than successes of late.



Instead I shall be using my Christmas pressie books and delving into the pristine collection of cookery books that I have been collecting over the years and barely touched!! I got many of these books when I couldn't even boil an egg and they were quite intimidating, so hopefully I'll have more luck now!



In other random news, I have made myself a Happy Jar :-) "A what?!" you say? A Happy Jar!




I read about it last month, and normally this kind of thing would have me rolling my eyes and reaching for a sick bucket, but I actually really like this idea. Basically, whenever something fun/good/memorable happens you write it down and put it in the jar, then at the end of the year you open it up and relive all the happy memories. Nice, huh?

I guess I need a little help decorating the jar, though - perhaps one of my arty friends could help with that? Katy ...? Cameron ...?




So far I only have the first cork popped on new year's eve in it, but I'm confident I can fill it by the end of the year, and not just with corks!! Mind you, that would be fun too ..... :-)

Mixed results .....

So this week I have been getting back in to my healthy veggie cooking after Christmas's scoff-fest. My Christmas gift from my in laws was two vegetarian cookbooks that I had had my eye on for a while - Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, and Verdura, Vegetables Italian Style by Viana La Place - and I was keen to get  started on their yummy recipes.

Last night, as promised, was my first attempt at gnocchi with a Sorrento style tomato and mozzarella sauce from Verdura.



 The gnocchi was a lot of fun to make, but the texture of the finished product was a little off and I am not sure why. Maybe I over- or under-under kneaded the dough? Perhaps the water wasn't at the right temperature? Should I have left them to dry a little longer before cooking them?




More research is required, I think, and a trip to a decent Italian restaurant so I can properly savour the real deal and see what to aspire to!!




My sauce, on the other hand, was delicious!! Just the right amount of creamy yet still healthy - yay! I was a little disappointed that the sauce seemed to separate on the plate - Hubby reckons it was because of the mozzarella - something else to research, I suppose! It didn't spoil the taste, though, and all in all I give this dish 5/10 with definite potential.



On Sunday night Hubby and I delved into our Madhur Jaffrey books (her Ultimate Curry Bible has been Hubby's go-to book for years) and created an awesome curry feast! I made Punjabi style Cauliflower and Potatoes (or Aloo Gobi, to give it it's proper name) with a yoghurt herb dip and home made chapatis. Hubby decided at the last minute that we should have something beany and saucy to go with, so he threw together a quick, yet utterly delicious, red bean curry.

The red bean curry probably needed a little longer for the flavours to settle and mix properly, but dear God, it was one of the yummiest curries I have ever had, and definitely something I will be having a go at in the future!!

My offerings were equally delicious! Now, if I had read the recipe for the Aloo Gobi properly I would not have filed it under healthy as the potatoes are basically shallow fried into chips (or fries, depending on which side of the pond you are reading this ...) I don't think I did this bit properly as even after extended cooking time some of the potatoes were a little undercooked, but still edible. I will definitely be boiling them next time as I don't see how frying them improves the final dish.

Anyway, once they were combined with the stir fried cauliflower and mix of ginger, turmeric, cayenne, cumin & coriander they were delicious!!

The chapatis were simple and fun to make, but they were a little crispy and brittle. I know my pan wasn't hot enough to start so this could be the reason, but I think also I could have kneaded the dough a bit better - I kind of cheated and used my Kitchenaid and i think there wasn't enough dough for it to work with properly. I am looking forward to having another go though, as they would be a great addition to our dinner table.

I'm going to give this meal 7/10 and I know I can get this up to a 9 or a 10 with some practise.

You can expect to hear about lots more meals from these books as I work my way through them, but I won't be able to share the recipes like I can when I when I find them on the internet - aside from being too lazy to type them out for you I'm fairly sure the authors wouldn't be too happy about me posting their recipes online!!

Well, I had best get started on my tasks for the day. I'm focusing on my organisation goal today and re-organising upstairs - in preparation for new year's eve I cleared up all the crap lying around downstairs and it is now all lying around upstairs - whoops!! If you don't hear from me by tomorrow I may be trapped under a pile of shoes in my closet ..... x

Hap hap happy new year!!! :-)

Happy new year, peoples!! I hope you all had a wonderful festive season! How did you bring in the new year? We toyed with the idea of going up to San Francisco again this year, but decided to stay home and have friends round instead - and I'm so glad we did as we had one of the best new year's eves ever!

The plan was simple - dress up like we were going to a really posh party, then eat, drink and be merry!

The girlies were all looking fabulous!








And the boys were looking terribly dapper! Hubby was particularly happy for an excuse to get his kilt out!






And I was happy for an excuse to get my posh dishes out and set the table up all fancy! I really don't do that as often as I should (what's the point in having a nice dinner set if you don't bloody use it?!?!) and have decided that this year I will be making more of an effort, but more about resolutions later ....

Heather brought some delicious crostini with avocado and bacon bits, and Cameron made his legendary jambalaya (which I was delighted to enjoy again for my lunch for the next couple of days!) I made a lemon tart but sadly it was a bit shit :-( It was really really bitter compared to the last time I made it, but most people ate up and claimed they enjoyed it. Thank you for lying!!

Heather was also in charge of champagne cocktails and much bubbly was consumed :-)

Midnight definitely did not find us setting off fireworks, singing Auld Lang Syne and generally being a public nuisance in the park at the end of the street. It was another group of piss heads - honestly  ...!! 

The drinking and nonsense continued back at the house, and we called it a night at a very civilized 2am.

A huge thank you to Katy, Cameron, Heather, Jared & Erin for joining us for the celebrations - you all helped make it a very memorable night!! :-)

And now to those pesky new year's resolutions .... I hate calling them resolutions! Lets call them my goals for the coming year :-) They're actually mostly the same as last year's, with a few updates and a couple of new ones.

1) Topping the list again is diet and exercise! From a health point of view, Hubby and I still have some work to do on our cholesterol so this will be a priority this year. Cutting back on the vino will also be up there! 

From a vanity point of view, I managed to lose about 15lbs last year and I am almost back to my happy size - hurrah!! I still have another 10-15lbs to go, and a lot of toning up, so hopefully this year I can crack it. No, wait, positive mental attitude, young lady!! This IS the year I will get to my goal!!

2) Up next is my cooking. Ive made a lot of progress this year and have really enjoyed making new stuff. I shall continue adding to my repertoire and try and make some more complex dishes. I will also be paying a lot more attention to presentation - my offerings may taste great, but they almost always look like they've been made a retarded monkey! 

We will also be aiming to have a lot of dinner parties this year to give me an excuse to challenge myself, and also to get my aforementioned fancy dishes out :-)

3) My guitar and sewing machine are still gathering dust, unfortunately, and I will try and do something about that. We will probably be moving house in April so I will try and find a guitar teacher in whatever area we end up in and get serious about learning as it really is something I have always wanted to do! The sewing machine will probably continue to gather dust ....

4) My blog entries are still a bit sporadic, and the silences are usually just because I'm lazy or I've got so much to say that I don't know where to start! I do really enjoy writing the blog, so perhaps I will set aside an hour a day to just sit and see if I have anything worth telling you about?

5) A new entry for this year is to be less anti-social. This may seem strange to some of you who may know me as the life and soul of the party (or perhaps the crazy bitch who wont shut up?) but aside from a select few people, I generally prefer to spend my time by myself - and the more and more time I spend by myself the less and less I want to socialise. Don't get me wrong, I love my quality me time and I have certainly not run out of ways to entertain myself!! But I do need to make more of an effort to catch up with my awesome friends more often - yet another excellent reason to start having those dinner parties!! :-)

6) The final goal is to be more organised. This is a bit of a general one as it covers many areas. I always seem to be running around at the last minute trying to get things done. If we go on vacation I'm always up til 2am packing. Too often I'm ironing a shirt at 7.30am because there's nothing hanging up in the closet. I throw too much food out that has gone bad because I forgot it was in the fridge or lacked the imagination to make it into something interesting. I could list another twenty things right now that drive me mad which could easily be avoided if I was just a little more organised, but I wont bore you - I will just do better!!

Well, I think that's enough to be getting on with for this year! If you have made your own resolutions or goals then I wish you all the best in making them happen! I'm off to follow up on goal #2 as I am making gnocchi for the first time tonight, and hopefully #4 tomorrow when I tell you how it went. I might even throw in a quick #6 and iron Hubby's shirt for the morning ........

Laters ..... x