Fancy

Every now and then you have to class it up a bit and go fancy...it also helps when you’re going fancy if your boss is footing the bill.
 
My boss recently resigned, which beyond sucks but I’m happy for him because he’s going to something better suited to him. With his departure looming we went out for a sort of farewell lunch just the two of us and decided to go a bit fancy and headed over to Salt Yard.
 
Salt Yard
54 Goodge St
London
W1T 4NA 
 
There has been a recent influx of tapas and small plates restaurants opening in London, even a fair few of the pubs offer it now because it seems to be the ‘In’ thing. As I am not a big eater and I like to try loads of different things this is perfect for me.
 
Despite the array of tapas restaurants, there are those gems that stand out from the crowd and one of them is Salt Yard. The regularly changing menu and specials will never disappoint as the skill in the kitchen and the amazing attention to detail makes every dish that comes out a thing of beauty that tastes just as good. The menu is small but I’d rather a small menu where everything is amazing!
 
We had the
Jamon Iberico de Bellota, Castro y Gonzalez, Guijuelo
 

This is a sweet and nutty classic Jamón Ibérico aged for 5 years. Jamón Ibérico is a cured ham produced in spain from the black Iberian pig which are mainly fed on acorns. Due to this the ham has a really lovely nutty flavour. It was seriously good.

Courgette Flowers stuffed with Goat's Cheese and drizzled with Honey

 

It’s hard to say what my favourite dish was but this has to be a contender. 
The courgette flowers are stuffed with creamy goats cheese and then deep fried in a light and crisp tempura style batter and finally drizzled with honey. I could seriously eat these all day they were so good. All the flavours just worked so well together, the combo of the sweet honey with the tangey goats cheese mmmmmmmm

Smoked Eel Croquetas, Horseradish, Beetroot Purée

 

 
I am not a massive fan of Eel but these were amazing. It was a slight but distinct taste of eel that didn’t over power the dish. The texture and flavour was just perfect for the bite size corquetas.

 

Slow Cooked Octopus, Ratte Potatoes, Lemon, Chilli and Capers

 

 

This was one of my favourites. The octopus melted in your mouth and mixing it with the aioli, chilli, potatoes and capers was a flavour sensation.

Truffled Macaroni Cheese

 

 

I once had a grilled cheese sandwich with truffle oil in Monaco and it was to die for so I suggested we get this dish and it didn’t disappoint. The first mouth full properly shocked my taste buds. It is super rich and creamy with that lovely distinct intoxicating truffle flavour. It was lovely.

 

Patatas Fritas with Bravas Sauce and Alioli

 

 

These were good, but they are basically just chips but good ones. They were good mixed with the Macaroni cheese to dull the super richness a bit.

I was full to the brim by the end of all these dishes so we unfortunately had to forego dessert but the ones we saw come out of the kitchen looked amazing. In fact every dish that went past us gave me major food envy.

 

Again I am no a big drinker and I'm particularly bad with wine but they do have a collection of carefully selected Spanish and Italian wines which the staff are well versed on and happy to help you choose what best suits the dishes you’ve ordered.

 

This has to be my favourite dining experience of the year so far. Everything from the staff, to the place, to amazing quality and taste of food and the really good company just made it tops.

 

You must, must, must go try this one. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

 

Starting it off right

I am sure you have all heard the saying:

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

You’re probably all sick of hearing it to but it is right folks.

Despite its importance it is the most regularly skipped meal of the day. To me this is just bonkers people because it has to be one of the easiest meals to prepare for!

I will admit there was a time when I would skip it or in fact eat some pretty shocking things for breakfast like cookies or cake or pastries…pastries once in a while isn’t bad…but every day like I was doing, is not a good thing.

Due to health issues back in 2010 I had to learn the importance of a healthy breakfast. Emphasis on the healthy part!

If you really think about it, it make sense that breakfast is so important because you have basically been fasting overnight. Say you finished dinner at 2100 and then head to bed roughly 2230. You get up 0700 and don’t end up eating your breakfast till 0800. That means you have not eaten for 11 hours. Would you ever go 11 hours without food during the day…I doubt it! Say you skip breakfast and don’t have lunch till 1300, we are now talking 16 hours people! That’s just crazy talk!

Breakfast not only breaks the fast you’ve been having overnight (hence the name break-fast) but also gives you the boost to start your day right. A healthy breakfast provides essential nutrition, better cognitive function and even helps with weight control.

So now we all know the importance of breakfast let’s talk about how simple it can be.

First note – STAY AWAY FROM THE BREAKFAST BISCUIT
The humble breakfast biscuits is advertised as sustained energy but folks in this context sustained energy just means SUGAR. 
If you eat one pack which is four biscuits you are consuming roughly 3 teaspoons of sugar with a little bit of fibre and protein to round it out. This is actually the same amount of sugar as eating 4 Oreos!
Therefore the so called convenient, healthy, nutritious breakfast biscuit is not the key to your healthy breakfast.

Now to some good, easy, healthier options that I have all the time. Remembering I am lazy, these have to be easy enough for you *smiles*

I am pretty time poor in the morning during the week, so most of these can be prepared in less than 5 mins (or the night before) and eaten at your desk.

Natural Greek yogurt with honey and strawberries

Natural Greek Yogurt topped with Granola and peach

Granola with banana and almond milk

Granola with banana, strawberries and almond milk

Porridge with banana and strawberries

Porridge with honey and a Petits yogurt with a nectarine

Peanut butter on Warburton’s brown sandwich thins (basically a thinner version of bread) with banana and apple

Of course there is always room for a treat breakfast as long as it’s not all the time. Say,
Nutella on Warburton’s brown sandwich thins with nectarine

There’s even room for the odd breakfast take away. Can’t go passed an egg, sausage, hash brown and tomato sauce Bap. Sometimes it just has to be done.

On a weekend I also like to get a bit more creative

Scrambled eggs with tomato, spinach and cheese with Warburton’s brown sandwich thins with a little bit of butter

The other weekend my amazing cousin Kirsty also made me an English muffin with cheese bacon and a poached egg and it was amazing.

I haven’t tried it myself before as the thought of cooking a poached eggs scares me off but it was soooo good I might have to overcome that fear and give it a try.

So there is a whole bunch of options ranging from easy to a little more tricky. You now have no reason to skip breakfast people!

photo taken from https://nourishinstyle.wordpress.com/tag/recipe/

So start eating breakfast from tomorrow, if you don’t already folks. From personal experience having a healthy breakfast will set up your metabolism and you are more likely to make healthy choices throughout the whole day!
  

 

Chiswick pub eats Part 4

By now you are probably thinking, how many pubs are there in Chiswick! The answer…a hell of a lot *smiles*

Next stop, The Lamb.

The Lamb is another one of Chiswick pubs which is on the high road and is full of character, seasonal pub food, craft beer and that old time charm.

We headed over to the Lamb recently for Mitchell’s Birthday and it was an experience. The service was lacking compared to the other pubs in Chiswick. They only had one poor girl on the bar who was serving drinks and taking the food orders and serving the tables! This was at 1300 on Tuesday, prime lunch time so this seemed pretty odd. She eventually got some help about 40 minutes after we arrived but for that 40 minutes she was pretty run off her feet with some annoyed patrons who had been waiting a fairly long time.

The food was a little hit and miss as well. Some dishes were really good, some were average and some pretty disappointing.

A few of the guys got the burgers and the patty in the burger left a lot to be desired but the other ingredients (salads, sauces, cheese, buns) made it ok. A bit of a let down as the burgers in the other pubs have been pretty great. There was a few salads which were ok and they had a good vegetarian option for my colleague Christian, Quinoa, couscous & black lentils with radish, asparagus, heritage carrots & omega seeds.

The starters did get good reviews. Between the team we had the Five chargrilled smoked chicken wings, ginger ale ketchup Pan-fried chorizo with sourdough bread, the handmade scotch egg with HP sauce and Whitebait, tartar sauce & lemon.

I had the Salt & pepper squid, spicy mayonnaise as my starter. It was really good. A nice light batter and the sauce had a little kick which was nice.

For my main I had the Southern-fried chicken with fries, summer slaw & house pickle dip which was also another lucky pick as it was one of the nicer main meals that came out.  I liked the presentation in the wire tray and the chicken itself was really tasty. The coleslaw was way over dressed though and a little sickly so I left that.

On top of that I got the sweet potato fries because I have a weird obsession with them and thankfully they were really good. I would have been thoroughly disappointed if they were bad. In fact I would go back to the Lamb just for drinks and the sweet potato fries.

Overall my food experience was pretty good but for some of my colleagues not so much. The service was pretty bad for everyone but the pub itself is a nice one. We sat in the beer garden and it was a sunny day which made it lovely out there.

It’s a bit sad the service took about from the experience but maybe we just caught them on a bad day where they had some staff of sick or something so I won’t hold it against them and will definitely head back.

Go and check it out if you’re keen

The Lamb
9 Barley Mow Passage
London
W4 4PH

My only advice stay away from the burgers because you can get a lot better from the other pubs and if they looked understaffed maybe head to one of the other pubs which are all less than 10 minutes away.

Food prep Sunday

I am not paleo or celiac or gluten intolerant or any of that stuff but one thing I am is…LAZY.

My diet in the past hasn’t been great which ends up making me feel rubbish and the main reasons for that is because I am time poor and quite frankly lazy.
 
I do actually enjoy cooking but if I’ve got home from work between 2000 – 2100 the last thing I want to do is start cooking...which also means cleaning. I end up getting a healthier take away option (meaning expensive) on the way home, eating instant noodles, toast or a quick pasta dish or if I am really bad...just skip dinner altogether. I did for a while even get addicted to the M&S and Sainsbury ready meals.

In Australia we had the frozen meals but it was pretty widely know these weren’t good for you and that they should NOT be a regular occurrence but when I moved to the UK and there was this new 'fresh' ready meal, I got hooked. They looked and seemed pretty healthy, they were tasty and it was so easy. A few minutes in the microwave and the food was ready and eaten in less than half an hour with no clean up! What could be better?

Then I started to realise, when something is too good to be true it probably is. I started doing the research.
Saturated fats, additives, sugars, crazy amounts of salt, lack of natural vitamins and minerals.
From this you can gather that I straight away stopped and a ready meal is as rare for me nower days as getting a fast food take away.

However giving up the ready meal brought back that age old issue of being time poor during the week and then eating badly, expensively or not at all. Skipping meals became far too often which in the end just made me run down, tired and pretty irritable all the time.

I mentioned before about paleo, celiac, gluten intolerance etc. because people with these types of diets/concerns are often really good with what they eat and making sure they do the right things. One of the ways they do this is a Sunday food prep session. My thinking…why not give it a go and see if it’s going to help me keep myself from binging on junk and skipping meals and of course being a foodie, still keep me satisfied taste wise.

I started yesterday with my first Sunday prep session.

I decided to make a big batch of garlic prawn wild rice with carrot and spinach for dinners, mini cheese, tomato, spinach, carrot and bacon quiches (12) for lunches and then Caribbean spiced chicken for either lunches or dinners, with spinach salads or green beans.
Breakfast would be cereal or porridge and some fruit.
Snacks would be grapes, carrot sticks, homemade guacamole, popcorn, baby bell cheese and fruit again.

Grocery shopping:
Chicken
Prawns
Bacon
Wild rice
Garlic
Onion
Eggs
Mature cheddar cheese
Baby bell individual cheeses
Butter
Coconut oil
Spinach
Green beans
Tomatoes
Carrots
Avocado
Grapes
Nectarines
Apples
Lime
Pre-packaged popcorn
Porridge packs
Fruit n Fibre cereal

The guacamole recipe is in my blog post Getting back to good

The garlic prawn wild rice with carrot and spinach is pretty easy.

• Prepare and cook the garlic prawns.
• Finely grate two carrots and chop up two cups of steamed spinach.
• Prepare the wild rice (brown rice if you prefer)
• Then basically mix it all together.

Not very hard at all but it’s pretty tasty and I find it filling.

The chicken is just fillets of chicken, cut in to steak sizes and spiced and fried. Again really easy but tasty. I fry in coconut oil because I prefer the taste and have been told its healthier for you.

The mini quiches need a bit more prep. You can customize yours by adding which ever ingredients you want. I chose cheese, tomatoes, spinach, carrot and bacon.

You need a muffin pan and 6 free range medium eggs beaten and seasoned with a pinch of salt and pepper and then your mix ins.

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and generously grease the bottoms and sides of your muffin pan with butter to ensure a stick-free removal once the quiches are done baking.
2. Make sure your eggs are beaten and you’ve added the salt and pepper.
3. Chop up or grate all your fillings.
4. Add you fillings to the egg mix.
5. Fill the tins with the mix. The quiches will puff up when you bake them, so make sure to leave just a tiny bit of space at the top of each.
6. Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until you can poke the centers with a knife and it comes out clean.

 

 

Super easy and super tasty both cold and hot. I have just had them for lunch with a few of the other bits and it was tasty and filling. 

Hopefully the rest of the week is as good of a success as today has been so far.

If I can keep this up surely getting back to fit and healthy is going to easy right? *smiles*

Easy

It isn’t a secret that I am a big fan of American food. If I could I would definitely go and work out there for a few years just to be surrounded by the food. I’d probably end up a few sizes bigger than I am right now (because I have no self control when it comes to food) so maybe it’s a blessing in disguise I can’t get a green card *smiles*

In recent years it seem the UK in general has joined me in American food appreciation with famous chains Five guys, Shake shack, Bubba Gumps Shrimp Co., Cinnabon and Dunkin Donut all showing up in recent years.

Another recent addition has been Big Easy Bar.B.Q & Lobstershack.

 

I headed over there with my girlfriends a month back and to be honest I wasn’t hugely impressed. I had heard really good things about it so was expecting a lot and was left disappointed.

I went to the one in Covent Gardens and this place is huge. With an upstairs and downstairs they easily have more  than 200 hungry mouths to feed every night, which could explain a few of the issues. I have been told to go and try the one on Kings Road which I believe maybe the original so I won’t slam them completely...just yet.

When I went, I went with 8 girls and we got a huge variety of food, from the shrimp to the lobster, the smoked BBQ chicken, ribs and pulled pork. Other than the shrimp which got pretty rave reviews everything else was ok, not bad in any sense but not mind blowing either.

A friend and I shared the Taste-O-Rama! which is Pit-Smoked Bar.B.Q Chicken, Dry-Rubbed St Louis Pork Ribs and Carolina Pulled Pork, we did ask to add the Texas Brisket….but they forgot *sigh* It also comes with house made BBQ sauce, pit smoked beans and slaw. On top of that we shared a serve of the popcorn shrimp and a fresh baked honey cornbread muffin.

 

The best part was the shrimp by far which I wasn’t expecting. The ribs were probably the most disappointing as they didn’t have a lot of flavour and although it looks like there is a lot of meat, there really wasn’t. The chicken was good but nothing special. The pulled pork was the saviour of the dish. It was really tender and tasted good but there wasn't much of it. The sides were fine and the cornbread was interesting considering I'd never had it before. Overall it was good but not great.

Most of the other girls had the lobster. I didn’t get any rave reviews about it but also no negative comments.

I did have a freshly squeezed watermelon juice from the teetotallers selection and that was pretty good….but I guess its hard to mess up fruit juice.

 

Determined for this place to not be a bust, I went again with my cousin and his partner. We went to the Covent Gardens one again (probably a mistake) and although the experience was better it still didn’t make me want to put Big Easy on my regulars list.

This time we got their specialty sandwiches
 I got the Bar.B.Q Brisket Sandwich  - Premium Beef Slow-Smoked lightly slathered with BBQ Sauce, Piled High and topped with Sweet Pickle

Chris got the Bar.B.Q Pulled Pork Sandwich - Smoked Low and Slow, Hand Pulled and Piled High. Mixed with House Bar.B.Q Sauce, topped with house slaw.

and Ivan got the Big Easy Smokehouse Burger - Fresh-ground Chuck with Bar.B.Q Sauce,
Smoked Cheddar and Fried Onions, with Fries, ‘Slaw and House Pickles.

We also got a mac n cheese to share

Again it was good and tasty but nothing amazing and nothing I would particularly want to eat again. The only one thing that was a stand out was the dessert. We shared a pecan pie and was really good. I wonder if it was made on site or ordered in...

I have decided I will take my friends advice and give this place one last try but I will head to the one on Kings Road and see if this one, being the original can make me change my mind. I think I will go with lobster or shrimp next time. Ill blog about it when I've been and let you know the outcome, but in the mean time let me know your impressions in the comments.

There are three locations for you to check out

Covent Garden
12 Maiden Lane, London, WC2E 7NA
(my opinion – avoid this location)

Kings Road
332-334 Kings Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 5UR

And lastly there is one coming soon to Canary Wharf.

Fingers crossed its better for you than it has been for me.
 

Chiswick pub eats Part 3

The Pilot is our next stop on my ‘eat my way around the Chiswick pubs’ tour *cheeky smiles*

The Pilot is about a five minute walk from Gunnersbury station and is another great pub in the area. The staff are really friendly and again they serve seasonal food and have great cask ales and continental lagers.

The menu is similar to the JB or the Bollo, being pub favourites and also a few more adventurous options. Another cool thing about the pilot is that they have your tradition English bar snacks: pork scratching’s, scotch eggs etc. which a fair few of the pubs claiming to be old English pubs don’t.

I went to the Pilot recently for one of my friends birthday lunches but I have been there a fair few times before, including two work Christmas parties. They have a great private hire area called the garden room at the end of the beer garden that gives total privacy but still makes you feel like you’re getting the pub/party atmosphere. The food at both parties, one a sit down dinner and one a buffet style was really good quality and very tasty.

At the recent trip for Andy’s birthday, most people ordered of the al e cart menu or got the BBQ. That is another cool thing the pilot does in summer. They have a BBQ menu which is three piece of meat from the BBQ (which the cook in the beef garden) and as much salad as you can eat for £11. That’s a pretty good deal for the Chiswick area!

I wasn’t particularly in the mood for BBQ the day of Andy’s birthday so instead I opted for a goat’s cheese pesto pasta with baby spinach.

You could tell the pasta had been freshly made and although it looks like a bit of a small serving it was very filling and really tasty (if you like goats cheese of course). The pesto had a really nice distinct taste as well. All round a great meal where all the different ingredients worked so well together.

A good friend of mine also opted for a veggie option and got the grilled halloumi, asparagus, pumpkin and olive salad which I got to try a bit of and was also really tasty.

Just goes to show you don’t always need meat to make a tasty filling meal!
I can hear the guys from my work whole heartedly disagreeing with this statement *smiles* and I will admit I have also tried the pie of the week and the homemade fish goujon bap in the past and they were also both really tasty.

Like the Bollo, it’s again the scratch made and fresh seasonal components that make these pub meals a step above your normal pub eats.

For another great pub meal go and check it out

The Pilot
56 Wellesley Rd
Chiswick
London
W4 4BZ

Getting back to good

I have just returned from an amazing trip in Berlin. It is a great city, with great people and amazing food...blog posts to come on that but I have been pretty bad lately. A lot of junk food and snacking and my health is definitely paying the price for it…especially my face, which is looking pretty spotty…no one likes a pizza face!

So back to snacking less, drinking a lot more water and getting that healthy eating back on track. I have a break from travelling for a while so the time for the lifestyle change is now.

Snacking less is one thing, not snacking at all is not possible in my world. With that in mind its time to get back to healthier snacks.

I started to buy nut mixes but there was something about them I  just didn’t like. They either tasted old or they had something in them I would pick out or leave. They aren't particularly cheap so that seemed a bit of a waste of money. So I decided to make my own mix.

It is cranberries, mango, hazelnuts, cashews and almonds. Its soooooo tasty and good for snacking and grazing on all day.

Another new healthy treat Ive added is homemade guacamole. Its healthy, its easy to make and another snack that is tasty and filling. I do have it with chips but I’m trying to be better by making it Lentil chips.

Guacamole

Ingredients

2 avocados

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 ripe tomato, chopped

1 lime, juiced

salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Peel and mash avocados in a medium serving bowl. Stir in onion, garlic, tomato, lime juice, salt and pepper. Season with remaining lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. Chill for half an hour to blend flavours.

 

My last new favorite snack is lightly salted ProperCorn popcorn.

A lot of people have been telling me lately that popcorn isn’t really as good as they make it out to be. So I’ve done a bit of research.

Calorie content. 88 kcals per bag

Fat content. 14.5g/100g of fat.

Sugar content. 0.5g of sugar per 100g.

Fiber content. High fiber as it contains 11.8g of fiber per 100g.

That doesn’t sounds to bad to me, could be improved by being air dried, which would reduce the fat content but overall it’s a much better alternative to crisps so ProperCorn popcorn is becoming one of my favourites.

Fingers crossed with cutting down on the cakes, chocolate, crisps and soft drink I can get my health back to a good place.

Ill be posting some of my healthier meal options in the next few weeks to. Hopefully it might give you guys some ideas to.