The Travelling Nutritionist

Variety in my day

2012-02-21T05:13:00.000-08:00

I do love that my days are filled with such random things to do.
Take this week for instance, not only am I testing recipes for a bread company (which are delicious, and include lots of sticky buns!), I am also writing healthy recipes for a new company called Naturya. Their products include things such as Wheatgrass Powder, Maca Powder, Acai Powder and Hemp Protein Powder, plus lots more you've probably never heard of! But you should, so do go to their website soon where you will find all of my delicious recipes using these great healthy ingredients. The Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms shown here include both the Wheatgrass Powder and Hemp Protein Powder - and taste amazing!
Then on to my other job as photographer and I have been asked for pictures that represent the Diamond Jubilee or The Olympics - in other words, lots of Union Jacks on anything you can think of! Actually it has turned out to be quite a bit of fun - lot of cupcakes (obviously), but I have also tried to be a little more adventurous, and have attempted the Union Jack in fruit! Let me know what you think - and any other ideas that you think would be fun to do (and not too difficult please!).

Sorting out the men....

2012-02-05T09:28:00.000-08:00

It's weekends like this one that really sort out 'the men from the boys' on the rowing front (I've just realised there is no female equivalent to this saying that would really have the same meaning!). In my case, we are an all female squad and did our best at training in pretty chilly conditions, especially as we start at 7.30am. The thing about rowing is that there are only so many layers you can put on, before you are unable to bend in the middle - pretty important! The best bit of all though is coming off the water and into a warm club-house for a satisfying breakfast, when you know that most people have not yet even surfaced - job done.
Of course one of the things about doing exercise in the cold is that you use up even more nutrients and calories than normal, making it doubly important to have a good feed to keep up the strength and to support the immune system from all the circulating bugs at this time of year.
One of my favourite warming foods has to be risotto - not only because I love Italian food, but also because it is easy to throw together, can be flavoured with pretty much anything you have in the store cupboard, and even tastes great as left-overs! And despite some of the recipe books you may have read, it does not have to be stirred continuously - I made all three of these risottos at the same time, and obviously only have two arms!

A Raw Day

2012-01-25T07:17:00.000-08:00

After attending a media event at Saf Restaurant last night, it got me to thinking how easy it is to make great food, without cooking it. I always say that the best food starts with great ingredients, then it's up to you how you use those ingredients to get the best tastes, textures and flavours.
So I have challenged myself to eat great food all day with out cooking any of it - and this does not mean I am surviving on a few lettuce leaves! I am training twice today, once on the river early this morning and again later tonight on the erg and with weights, so I need some good protein and carbs.
Luckily I happen to love raw fish, which is obviously a great source of protein and, armed with a food processor have come up with some great textures and flavours with other ingredients I already had in my fridge. This is my favourite way of cooking - get out the ingredients you like then just start playing! With raw food having a food processor is a must, as this is how you make lots of delicious sauces, pastes, or in this case rice!
As I was only playing I didn't write down quantities of anything, so you just have a rough recipe here of what I did , but the whole point is that you experiment yourself with what you have.
Pesto - firstly I made a pesto with a handful of baby spinach leaves, a few basil leaves, some walnuts, garlic and extra virgin olive oil.
Tuna - marinate in soy sauce, honey and mustard (or wasabi if you have it would be great), then roll in sesame seeds just before slicing to serve.
Parsnip 'rice' - place a peeled and chopped parsnip in the food processor with a handful of pine nuts and pulse until you have 'rice'.
Vegetables - slice a large carrot and courgette with a vegetable peeler then toss the thin slices with rocket leaves and a tiny amount of sesame oil.
Place the vegetables on the plate, top with the parsnip rice then a sliced avocado. Slice the sesame tuna and place on top then drizzle around the pesto, followed by balsamic glaze. Looks amazing and tastes delicious.

So, on to pudding!
Place a couple of figs, 4 prunes, a knob of stem ginger and a little of the stem ginger syrup and a pinch of nutmeg into a small blender and blitz until smooth.
Stir into natural yoghurt, not quite mixing it in, then spoon into a glass, top with chopped pecans and drizzle with honey - heaven in a glass!

Tonight I am hoping to do a raw soup similar to a gazpacho - I have lots of red peppers and celery so they lend themselves to that. My protein may have to come from creamy mozzarella chopped into the soup. I can't wait!

Do you have any great unusual raw recipes? Do share them with me.

Variety in Your Diet

2012-01-13T10:10:00.000-08:00

People always say that it feels easier to eat more healthily in the summer, mainly because it's easier to eat salads and less stodgy foods. But winter foods don't have to be stodgy, and can be just as exciting and varied as summer foods.
Firstly, change your shopping habit - go to different shops to buy your food this week - that way, you will see different foods, rather than shopping on automatic pilot. And if you see foods you are unsure of how to cook, buy them! Then go home, look on the internet to learn about them and cook a new recipe that you've not done before.
There are probably hundreds of ingredients out there that you have never tried, but could find that you really love them, and that they may be good for you!
Home-made soups are an ideal meal through the winter, and they give the chance to get real variety into your diet. Plus, they are cheap and easy to prepare.
Add spices, herbs and all your favourite ingredients, making sure there is some protein somewhere in your meal - this can be done by serving soup topped with a softly poached egg, or dropping in chunks of salmon to cook through at the end.
As an example, the soup here is made from chickpeas (great protein, lowers cholesterol & improves blood sugar levels) and spinach (antioxidant), but I also added turmeric (anti-inflammatory), ginger (anti-inflammary and anti-microbial), garlic (aids digestion, lowers cholesterol) - so you see how easy it is? And making it yourself ensures there are no bad bits going in either.
Time to throw away the tin opener and get your pans out!

And if you are thinking of detoxing at this time of year, think again - take a look at my feature on the subject at www.lovefood.com.

New Year, new idea.....?

2012-01-05T03:51:00.000-08:00

So here we are again, back at January, starting the new year with lots of good intentions, and no doubt a few new resolutions just waiting to be broken? Probably best just not to make them in the first place - too much pressure.

Now is not the best time to think about going on a crash diet, or fasting detox - your body is trying to recover from all that rich food and high living over the festive season, whilst also keeping the immune system in top notch condition to prevent you from catching all those coughs and colds floating around.
The best thing right now is to eat really healthy, nutritionally-rich foods, and try to cut down on those foods that expect your liver to work double time - increase fruit, vegetables, water intake, exercise and good simple foods that the body can recognise and deal with, and avoid pre-prepared foods, stimulants like coffee and alcohol, and anything you think you may be slightly intolerant to (makes you feel bloated or gives your wind).
Great thick home-made vegetable soups are perfect right now - warming and nutritious, especially if you use a variety of ingredients - spices and herbs to add flavour, lentils to add protein (or top with a softly poached egg), a drizzle of extra virgin oil and sprinkling of pumpkin seeds for essential fats.

As you will know if you read my blog regularly, I do believe in being 80% good and 20% naughty, and over the festive period I made a very naughty dessert for friends, that certainly used up my weekly 20% in one serving! I am sharing it with you but be sure to have a few friends to help you to eat it!

Chocolate and Salted Caramel Tart

Serves 6-8

For the pastry -
225g flour
110g butter, cold, diced
75g caster sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp cold water

For the filling -
150g dark muscovado sugar
150g unsalted butter
1 x 397g tin condensed milk
1 1/2 tbsp honey
1 tsp sea salt flakes
100g dark chocolate
40g white chocolate

To make the pastry, place the flour, butter and sugar in a food processor and process until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Add the egg and enough water to bring the dough together.
Roll in cling-film and chill for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas 5. Roll out the dough and line a 20cm flan tin. Chill for 10 minutes.
Blind bake the pastry case for 20-25 minutes, until golden, removing the greaseproof paper and baking beans for the last 5 minutes. Leave to cool.
To make the filling, slowly melt together the sugar, butter, condensed milk and honey and bring to the boil. Continue to cook, letting the mixture bubble, stirring constantly, until it starts to thicken (about 8-10 minutes).
Stir in the salt then pour into the pastry case. Leave to set for 1 hour at room temperature.
Melt both the chocolates. Pour the dark chocolate over the top of the caramel. Using a small spoon decorate the tart with zig-zags of white chocolate.
Chill for 30 minutes before serving.

Christmas Crumble

2011-12-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

It's not as if there isn't enough naughty food to eat at this time of year, but still I love to come up with my own creations. And after making my own stollen and after that, stollen bread and butter pudding, I still had marzipan in the fridge waiting to be used.
There's nothing I like more than challenging myself to a Ready, Steady, Cook challenge - what can I make from what I have in the kitchen. So here it is -

Christmas Crumble
Serves 6-8

125 g coconut oil
125 g wholemeal plain flour
150 g rolled oats
pinch ground cinnamon
125 g dark muscovado sugar
50 g pumpkin seeds
2 oranges
3 apples, cored and sliced
3 pears, cored and sliced
100 g marzipan, diced
3 tbsp mincemeat

Preheat the oven to 200C (400F) Gas Mark 6.
Place the coconut oil, flour, oats, cinnamon, muscovado sugar and pumpkin seeds in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
Grate the zest of the oranges and blend into the crumble.
Place the apples and pears into a large oven-proof dish. Segment the oranges over the dish to catch the juice, then stir in the orange segments with the marzipan and mincemeat.
Spoon over the crumble and bake for 30 minutes, until the crumble is golden.
Delicious served with creamy natural yoghurt.

Christmas Madness!

2011-11-30T06:59:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again when you are invited to so many parties, that a night in seems like a treat instead of the other way around. And the choice of venue is not always one you may have chosen for yourself!
This was the case when I ate at Kitchen Italia in Covent Garden on Friday night. I have always said that it's pretty impossible to spoil Italian food - they just use the best simple ingredients and cook them as simply as possible, right? How wrong could I be. Out of about twenty of us I would bet there were possibly only two or three plates that went back to the kitchen cleared of food (and these would have been the plates belonging to young strapping male rowers who, to be perfectly honest, will eat pretty much whatever you put in front of them!). And on top of that the service was pretty appalling too. Why do people eat in such places, especially in London where you have the choice of thousands of restaurants?
But then on to Monday night, when a friend and I choose to eat at The Glasshouse in Kew. Wow, what a difference - neither of us can understand why this restaurant does not have a michelin star - the food was out of this world (but I do think the decor lets the place down). My starter of smoked eel with beetroot and blinis, and desert of bread and ricotta pudding could not be faulted. And best of all, it's local!

So now we have to start thinking about Christmas gifts, and with my allergy to shops, and really shopping in general, the best option always is to make food gifts. Up to date I've not had any complaints!
So, having just finished a photography shoot where we needed lots of limes, I thought I would test my lime curd recipe - it obviously won't last until it's time to give as a gift, but that means I get to eat this batch then make more again later!

Lime Curd

Makes 2-3 jars (depending on size)

4 med eggs
zest and juice of 4 limes
350 g caster sugar
225 g unsalted butter, diced

Place the eggs in a pan and whisk together.
Add the remaining ingredients and place over a very low heat.
Whisk continuously until the curd starts to thicken - don't try to rush this over too much heat or you will have lime scrambled eggs on your hands.
Pour into sterilised jars and leave to cool before covering.
Keep chilled.

If you want to make lemon or orange curd, stick to the same principle, just be aware that oranges give more juice, so maybe use less of them.

Tea at Harrods

2011-11-23T04:04:00.000-08:00

What a lovely start to the day - breakfast at Harrods! But no ordinary breakfast, this was an invitation to sample what is on offer at the new Tea Room on the second floor, so cakes were available in abundance. I had thought it far too early to be sampling these, but it didn't take long for me to crack.
Harrods' new novel idea is to have a kind if pick-and-mix with the cakes (this is after you have sampled their savories obviously) - you can decide what arrives on your three tiered cake-stand. This is accompanied by the tea of your choice, from a 20 tea list, some of which we tasted this morning, made and poured by Yousef Serroukh, their tea and coffee buyer, who then gave us instruction on how to make the perfect cup of tea -

always use well stored, top-quality loose tea
a small china teapot will allow you to control the infusion of the tea much better than bigger pots -no large than 300ml
be generous with the tea - around 5g for a 300ml teapot
use filtered or bottled water for a better taste
water temperature is crucial - white and yellow teas are best when infused at 40-60C, and black teas are better with near boiling water
time your infusion - 3 minutes is the recommended optimum time

Yousef told us we should treat tea as a ritual, and in my mind this ritual should be accompanied by a big log fire, delicious cakes and close friends.

Back to Baking, and the Blog

2011-11-22T02:32:00.000-08:00

I can't believe a month has gone by since I last managed to fit in time for my lovely blog. I don't like to complain about having too much work, but when it totally takes over your life, it can't be good!
And when it stops me from cooking things I want to cook, that's also very frustrating. Having just completed a book of Italian recipes (all 360 of them), plus twenty recipes for The Dukan Diet, I was just itching to do some real baking at the weekend. And just to ensure I did, I invited my lovely neighbours over for Sunday tea.

This recipe comes from a lovely lady in Devon, Isabel Tomlin who, with her husband, runs Northam House Bed and Breakfast in South Molton, Devon. On our mammoth cycle ride from Lands End to John O' Groats back in May, Northam House was our second night stop. We had no idea what we had let ourselves in for, but after 11 hours of cycling up the steepest hills I have ever seen, we finally reached the B&B and were met by Isabel and given a piece of cake to try to revive us.
Having failed to remember to take a piece with us the following day, my dear friend Liz then emailed to ask for the recipe, and finally it arrived last week! I felt I had to make it to see if it really was as good as I remember, or was it just the 11 hours cycling that had heightened my taste-buds?!
This recipe also reminds me of one we all used to make as chalet maids when I worked the ski season a few years ago - having no scales in those remote alpine chalets, but having to cook a different cake every day, we all used a yoghurt pot to measure everything - it always worked a treat, and to vary it you would just use different flavouring and a different shape tin every day!

Boiled Apple Cake

1 mug sugar
1 mug dried fruit
1 mug water
125 g butter
1 des spn ground cinnamon
1 des spn ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 cooking apple, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
1 mug wholemeal self-raising flour
1 mug self-raising flour
1 egg, beaten

1. Preheat the oven to 190C (375F) Gas Mark 5. Grease and base line an 18 cm loose-bottomed cake tin.
2. Place the sugar, dried fruit, water, butter, spices and apple in a saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted.
3. Stir in the flours and egg, then pour the mixture into the tin and cook for around 1 hour. The cake is ready when a knife inserted comes out clean.

This cake is really delicious and so easy to make and as Isabel told me, will come out different every time!

Needing my greens!

2011-10-24T08:03:00.000-07:00

You'd think that being a nutritionist and sportswoman that my diet would be the healthiest ever, and on the whole it is. But for the past few weeks I've been in the throws of writing an Italian recipe book and, as I believe all recipes should be thoroughly tested, it does mean there's an awful lot of eating to be done.
Today is a prime example - I do try to plan the recipes around my mealtimes, but sometimes there is just too much. For my mid-morning break today I had apple and Parmesan tartlets - delicious, but not my normal piece of fruit and a few nuts snack. Lunch was broccoli orecchietta followed by Zabaglioni. And now I feel like having a siesta! Of course the other problem is that each recipe needs to serve 4, so then there are leftovers, but the next day I have to start all over again. My fridge is bulging at the seams!
Yesterday I felt I had just not had enough of my favourite greens (weirdly I probably could live on broccoli and cabbage!), so decided I had to have a green pick-me-up to boost myself.
You can add pretty much anything you like, but first decide if you want it to be sweet or savoury and then either add a little more fruit and some honey for sweet, or garlic and seasoning for savoury.
These are my favourite ingredients - 1 avocado, 1/2 cucumber, 1 apple, 1 stick of celery, 1 clove of garlic, freshly milled black pepper, sea salt, a small handful of fresh parsley and mint and enough water to give the thickness you want (if you want to make it creamier add a little natural yoghurt). Put everything in a blender (if you have a Vitamix you don't even have to peel or core the apple), and pulse until smooth. Drink immediately and feel your body soak up the goodness!

A Cornish Weekend

2011-10-19T03:11:00.000-07:00

And there was I thinking I was going away for a relaxing weekend. I should have known by the way it started - on the night train from Paddington to Penzance. The great thing about the sleeper train is that you can get on it up to an hour and a quarter before it actually leaves, thus getting more sleeping time in. Unfortunately for me this little plan backfired, as I was then woken at 5am due to works on the line and had to get off to travel on a different, much smaller and bed-less train to St Austell, a bus to Truro and yet another small train finally to Penzance - next time I will check for engineering works before I book!
Once there though the madness didn't stop. Staying with a friend who is a keen sea swimmer throughout the year meant I obviously had to be included. I can honestly say that if it wasn't for the 82 year old man going in ahead of me (and not screeching and complaining) I would never have got in the freezing water. I admit it did make me feel pretty amazing afterwards, but only once I had got the feeling back in all my bits!
After that it was over to Porthleven, to the Porthleven Gig Club where I had been promised an outing in a gig. Luckily for me the sea was calm, but even so the rise and fall of the boat did have me thinking that I was glad I hadn't finished off my swim with a fry-up! What I thought would be relatively easy as a river rower, proved to be more difficult than I had imagined - different hand holds, really long lean back (great for the stomach muscles), and just such a different position to how I normally row. It was a great experience and the girls were really friendly and seemed please to have me on board - what a shame it would be a 14 hour round trip for training sessions!
After that the eating started, Cornish Cream teas obviously had to be sampled, as did the famous Jelberts ice-cream - thick creamy vanilla ice-cream, topped with a huge helping of clotted cream - pure heaven!
So now it's back to training and healthy eating - only 2 weeks to the Norfolk Long Distance Sculls and 6 weeks to The Scullers Head - I can't believe they come around so quickly.
As an internal cleanser I really fancied some fennel yesterday, but unfortunately also had some Gorgonzola cheese in the fridge from the recipes I am writing for an Italian recipe book, so my healthy plan was not as good as it could have been. After lightly frying off slices of fennel in olive oil, I layered them in an ovenproof dish and crumbled the Gorgonzola over the top. After 30 minutes in the oven the cheese had melted into the tender but still slightly crunchy fennel - delicious.

How could I forget it's Chocolate Week?

2011-10-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's Thursday of Chocolate Week and I've not yet had chocolate. This obviously had to be remedied, but not with a boring bar of chocolate.... oh no.

Salame di Cioccolato

200g caster sugar
175g walnut pieces
200g dates, pitted
120g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
165g candied peel, chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
200g dried figs

Place the sugar in a small pan with 2 tbsp water and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Continue to cook until the syrup starts to turn golden.
Place 100g of the walnuts in a pestle and mortar and lightly crush. Place in a large bowl.
Place the dates in a food processor and blitz until broken down.
Add the dates to the walnuts with all the remaining ingredients.
Pour the hot syrup into the bowl and mix together really well.
Divide the mixture into two and roll each halve into a sausage. Wrap each one in greaseproof or wax paper and leave cool.
When set hard slice the salame and serve.

Not letting-go of summer

2011-10-10T07:50:00.000-07:00

We may have had a few chilly days, but it stills feels pretty warm to me, and I'm loving it!
Yesterday a friend and I took part in the Cycling Weekly Sportive, over the gorgeous Surrey Hills - it was a fantastic route, with rain only at the beginning and hills all the way through! But having booked for the 77 miler, we decided early on that the 'Fun' ride was more our style, so after 30 miles we headed off to one of the pubs we had passed earlier for a spot of lunch.
The Dolphin in Betchworth turned out to be a real find - their fish pie was the best I have had in a long time, and was served with great fresh vegetables. We had intended to finish off with bread & butter pudding, but alas were both too full!
Obviously by the time I got home I was hungry again, and was still in summer mood, as by then the sun had well and truly come out. And what I really fancied was a summery dish of peppers - basic good ingredients simply cooked - delicious.

Peperonata

Serves 4

3 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

2 medium onions, peeled and sliced

4 red peppers, deseeded and cut into 1 cm slices

350g ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

small handful basil leaves, torn

· 1. Heat the oil in a medium pan and sauté the onion and garlic for 1 -2 minutes.

· 2. Add the red peppers and cook for a further 10 minutes before stirring in the chopped tomatoes.

· 3. Continue to cook for 20 minutes, until the peppers have softened.

· 4. Stir in the basil and serve, sprinkled with lots of freshly milled black pepper.

Back to Britain

2011-10-04T01:11:00.000-07:00

It seems like I have been away for the whole summer, although according to most people I speak to I really didn't miss the summer at all, and luckily enough for me we seem to be having it now!
One of the things I really do miss when I am travelling is not getting the opportunity to cook, especially if I visit good markets full of great ingredients. I do get inspired, but often the inspiration wears off by the time I have returned to a (normally) cold, wet England.
Before leaving Turkey this time a friend gave me a big bag of fresh walnuts from some of his many trees, so these wonderful nuts were brought home to be used in my first batch of baking.

Walnut and Celery Scones

Makes 6-8

225g self-raising flour
40g butter
1 stick celery, diced
15g walnuts, finely chopped
10g Stilton, crumbled, plus more to serve
150ml milk

Pre-heat the oven to 220C/Gas mark 7.
Place the flour in a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Stir in the celery, walnuts and crumbled stilton, then pour in the milk and mix gently with a palette knife until the mixture comes together.
Turn out onto a floured work surface and gently roll out (or you can just pat it down with your fingers), to a thickness of about 2cm.
Cut into scones with a pastry cutter and place on a baking sheet.
Bake for 12-15 minutes, until they are light golden.
Serve warm, cut open and topped with a slice of Stilton.

A serious start to winter training

2011-09-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

It's when I hear the expression 'the nights are drawing in' that I start to dread the coming months. Knowing that it's going to get darker and colder each day and that despite this, I will still have to get out on the river or in the cold boathouse gym, and train.
With this in mind, I booked myself a flight to Turkey! Back to my much loved house in Foca, to be able to stay warm for just a few days longer.
But I didn't intend putting off training, so asked a friend who lives close if he could lend me a bike (I had borrowed one in the past from him, but couldn't quite remember what it was like).
He is such a good friend that when I turned up at my house on Saturday evening and opened the door, there was my trusty steed waiting in the kitchen! What I had failed to remembered is that it's a small framed mountain bike, with big thick tyres and a lovely basket on the front!! Not quite what I will be using in the Cycling Weekly Surrey Hills sportive in a few weeks time, but hopefully it may make it feel a whole lot easier when I get on a real bike!
Foca also has only one road that runs through it, so there is no choice as far as my daily training goes - and no avoiding all the huge hills that a coastal road inevitably has. Before leaving home I had roughly mapped out a route on the internet and thought I could cover a round trip of about 25 miles. So far I haven't even made it to the first village 23km away! The heat and hills are exhausting. But the views at the top of each hill are absolute heaven - which is obviously why it's taking me so long to get anywhere, as I have to keep stopping to appreciate the amazing place I am in. I'm sure I won't be doing that in the wet and soggy Surrey Hills.

Chocolate Unwrapped

2011-09-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

I am lucky enough to be a member of The Guild of Food Writers, and even luckier to be invited to regular tastings and workshops run by experts in their field from the guild. This week was a great treat - a chocolate tasting run by Sarah Jane Evans, who has recently published 'Chocolate Unwrapped', a book that covers the history of chocolate, how to taste it, how ethical your bar of chocolate is, and so much more, including a listing of some of the tastiest chocolates of the world.
I am a great lover of good, dark chocolate (although that did happen quite late in life, a bit like my passion for olives!), so to have the opportunity to try a number of different chocolates from producers all over the world and, more importantly, to be able to detect the subtle differences, was fascinating.
Sarah explained how the 19 processes that go into making the chocolate, could all vary the flavour and texture of the end result. One of the processes is called conching, a bit like putting your chocolate into a large cement mixer with rollers inside - the idea is to refine and develop the flavour and texture and remove unwanted acidity. Tasting bars that had been conched for different lengths of time was really interesting - the longer the time the smoother and more refined the chocolate (and presumably the more expensive). I actually found myself liking the less conched - a bit of roughness and grittiness is clearly what I like (no comments from close friends please!). Some chocolate bars now state conching time on the wrapper, so do always take a good look at what you buy.
It was also confirmed and agreed by all that using good chocolate for cooking is certainly not a waste - the results are so much better, as they would be with any good quality ingredient against not so good.
So throw away that cheap baking chocolate you have in the cupboard, and treat yourself to something special.

Raspberry and Chocolate Fridge Cake

Serves 10-12

400g dark chocolate
2 tbsp Golden Syrup
310g unsalted butter
75g caster sugar
250g digestive biscuits
300g raspberries

Line a 2 lb loaf tin with cling film.
Place the chocolate, Golden Syrup, butter and sugar in a pan and gently melt over a low heat, stirring from time to time.
Roughly break the digestive biscuits by placing in a plastic bag and bashing with a rolling pin. Don't break them down too much, leave some large chunks.
When the chocolate mixture is totally melted, take off the heat and gently stir in the broken biscuits and raspberries.
Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and smooth the top level.
Place in the fridge for at least 2 hours before turning out and slicing to serve.

World Masters, Poznan

2011-09-13T01:20:00.000-07:00

What a pleasant surprise Poznan turned out to be. I had assumed as a vegetarian that I would really struggle on the food front - heavy dumplings, lots of meat and potatoes and nothing else! But instead I found myself not having time to fit in all the gorgeous looking restaurants that were on offer. A visit to one of the small markets showed the wonderful produce on offer, with lots of locally grown fruits and vegetables, and amazing wild mushrooms also recently picked.
What is so lovely in Poznan is the cafe culture - there are probably more cafes than restaurants, and people will happily stroll from one to the other, having different courses in each.
Cafe Bordo was one of my favourites, with a beautiful garden setting for the balmy evenings (of which we had a few), plus a cosy interior for the cooler nights. The food was light and fresh, with local produce and regional specialities on offer wherever possible. Pickled herrings in camelina oil were delicious - served with crisp lettuce leaves, tart apples, capers and warm homemade bread. Camelina oil is a traditional oil used in Poland and is sometimes known as wild flax - it is high in omega 3 fatty acids, so a healthy addition to the diet, as well as being extremely tasty.

To finish my evening I was often tempted to stroll past (and into!) Cacao Republika - a cafe that included chocolate in most of its' offerings. In my view if you are going to have hot chocolate it has to be thick, rich and full of flavour (one of those sachet that you pour hot water over is just nonsense!), and Cacao Republika delivered this with style, with the addition of cherries marinated in brandy, or a glug of Amaretto - again I ran out of time to try them all, although did manage to fit in a slice of chocolate cake to accompany it!
And if beer is your thing there are a number of local breweries offering good tasting beer. I was trying to take my racing seriously (!), but a number of my team mates did sample a few varieties, including honey beer in Brovaria, a great hotel, restaurant and lively bar, where you could also sample a large variety of vodkas - I will have to return when I finish my rowing career!

Fighting fit again - I hope!

2011-09-05T10:15:00.000-07:00

Wow, you have no idea how good it feels to be able to eat again - and now I am finding it hard to stop! Weeks without even seeing the foods I loved, then another two weeks of being able to look at them but not eat them was torture. So now I am making up for lost time. And on top of that tomorrow I fly out to Poznan, Poland to race in the FISA World Masters Rowing Championships - so I have been needing to build myself up for the last few days (or is that an excuse I just gave myself?!) - no food is safe!

Interestingly, although I work with food all day, people constantly suggest that I must hate having to cook for myself when I get home each night? It intrigues me that they may think I would pick up a ready-meal, or maybe , horror of horrors, a take-away. Why would I do that when I love great food, care what I put into my body and most of all, find cooking the best way to relax at the end of the day? Creating something from simple ingredients that looks and tastes amazing and then having the pleasure of eating it, cannot be beaten in my book.

And nothing could be simpler than placing halves of peaches in an ovenproof dish, sprinkling them with crumbled Amaretti biscuits, honey and dots of butter, then cooking for 15-18 minutes. Serve with a dollop of natural yoghurt of creme fraiche - absolutely yummy.

I always recommend a diet that is 80% good and 20% naughty, so here is the good bit -

Butter Bean and Broccoli Salad

Serves 2

250g sweet potatoes, peeled and diced
4 sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped + 1 tbsp of the oil
pinch chilli flakes
seasoning
100g broccoli, cut into florets and steamed
3 spring onions, trimmed and sliced
1 x 400g butter beans, drained
1 roasted red pepper, cut into strips
sprig thyme, leaves only, chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tsp olive oil

1. Place the sweet potatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, oil and chilli flakes into a roasting tin and cook for 15 minutes at 200C, until the sweet potato is soft.
2. Place the remaining ingredients into a large bowl, pour in the sweet potatoes and all the lovely juices, mix well and serve.

I spoke too soon!

2011-08-31T13:31:00.000-07:00

There I was boasting about the fact that I had remained healthy throughout the whole Zambezi trip, and then I started to feel a little 'odd'. A few days later the 'oddness' had changed to downright illness and my body size was getting smaller due to me not fancying anything to eat at all - and that's when I knew I was just not right!
Another member of the team emailed to say he had been diagnosed with the parasite Giardia lamblia, so I headed off to get tested, and low and behold I had also managed to smuggle some little bugs back with me too.
Giardia lamblia is associated with the consumption of contaminated water and, as we had been drinking The Zambezi it is probably safe to say that that's where we got it from. If you need to see what it looks like just Google it - I wish I hadn't, as now I can imagine all those little bugs running around inside me!
So, with only ten days to go before I fly out to Poznan, Poland for the World Masters Rowing Championships, I needed to do some exercise but couldn't actually get my breath if I exerted myself. Luckily I have just found an area of hills that I have not explored before, so out came the walking boots and a friend and I headed off to the North Downs for a bit of hill walking. What a great walk we had too - hardly anybody around (on a Bank Holiday weekend I suspect they were all packed into the Lake District!), and we found a great pub for lunch in the beautiful village of Shere - The William Bray.

Now the antibiotics have done their job (I hope), I am back to getting real food down me again, and have a craving for natural yoghurt, which is not only great for the probiotics I need to help get my healthy bacteria up to speed, but also can be used in so many things, not only sweet - yesterday I made a delicious dhal with lentils and coconut oil and lots of great spices and topped it with natural yoghurt sprinkled with cumin seed fried onions. Today I was in the mood for creamy sweet citrus, so gently stirred homemade lemon curd into creamy natural yoghurt and served it over strawberries, with lemon zest on top - heavenly.
I don't think it's going to take long to replace the weight I lost!

Please take me back.....!

2011-08-21T10:33:00.000-07:00

What a culture shock, to return from the banks of the Zambezi back to London - it really highlights the differences between our two countries.
But what an amazing trip - to start in Lusaka, drive all the way up to Angola and then paddle just under 1000km down the great Zambezi river to finish just above Victoria Falls.
There were obviously some bits that were not so amazing - not being able to wash for up to five days, or having to get up at 5.30am, pack up sleeping bag, tent and all kit for a 6.30am breakfast, still in the dark and very much in the cold. But the upside was sculling down the middle of a beautiful river, surrounded by wildlife (crocs, hippos, stunning birdlife), knowing that I was seeing something that not many people would ever get the chance to see, including most of the people who live in Zambia.
And meeting those people was such a pleasure - they are the happiest, calmest people I think I have ever met. I was told by a friend who lives there that the Zambians never shout - it wasn't until I returned to London that I realised I had not heard a raised voice for over 3 weeks!
Needless to say I have returned a little lighter than before - we had great food cooked by our support team, but it was hard to fit in time to eat enough to sustain the exercise we were doing. A few of the team came down with stomach issues - we were having to drink the Zambezi as well as row on it, as there is no other water in a lot of places. We used sterilising tabs and also filter bottles, but for some this was not enough. I had recommended Bio-Kult probiotics for everyone before we left, so some of us were better at dealing with the strange bacteria. A couple of us also took Higher Nature Oregano oil capsules which are anti-bacterial, and I think this helped too.
Being vegetarian wasn't really a problem, as meat was not so easy to store anyway, so lots of great veggie dishes were cooked - gem squash stuffed with cheese and sweetcorn, green beans cooked in Coconoil and spices. We were even treated to freshly made bread and, on special occasions, chocolate cake or apple crumble - I was amazed and delight at the inventiveness of Jana our great support girl.

One of the greatest treats was fresh fish, caught by one of our guides - I have never seen anybody catch fish so easily as this guy - he just seemed to know exactly where the fish were, and he reeled them in, one after the other. Local bream was certainly very tasty, but the most impressive to look at was tiger fish, although eating them was tricky as they have lots of bones, and when eating by torchlight this becomes even more of a problem!
Typically conversation around the campfire always turned to what we would eat if we could, with everyone recalling their favourite meal, or dreaming about what their first meal would be on returning home. It was like torture!
And now I am home, what I would really like is to be sitting around a campfire listening to all those great dishes all over again.

A break from blogging

2011-07-23T09:22:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it, tomorrow I fly to Lusaka and will return once I have completed 1000km row down the Zambezi, from Angola to Victoria Falls. I can't believe after all the preparation that it is finally here - and I am SOOOOOO EXCITED!!
I know all my friends think I am mad, but I can't think of a better way to spend a month, than being in the heart of Africa, with nothing but a boat for transport, a fire to cook on and a river to wash in, drink and generally have fun in (ignoring the crocodile and hippo bit of fun!).
You can follow our progress at www.rowzambezi.com, where a map will give you our 'live' position - we have GPS on the boats - so if the technology works we should be easy to spot.
I'm sure I will come back with some interesting recipes you'll all want to try - like what to do with a live goat, or how to cook tiger fish (if Dan does actually catch any!). Until then, keep eating well.

An overhaul before I go!

2011-07-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

Packing and getting organised for a 'normal' trip abroad is bad enough, packing and preparing myself for this wild adventure is daunting - what if I forget the most important bit of kit required i.e. my machete, or even my electrical insulation tape? Yes, both of these things are on my kit list! I have decided to go for the dagger option for fighting off crocs though - I figure my fellow rowers would be in more danger if I carried a machete. And the electrical insulation tape? For taping up blistered hands, or prevention there of.
That is the answer to all of this really - planning for prevention of anything untoward.
And to that end I have spent numerous evenings (and lots of cash) getting jabs, having my teeth checked, making sure my back is in order (osteopath), and generally buying lots of weird medical stuff that I normally wouldn't touch.
I am obviously trying to go for the most natural way of preventing anything, so have also been taking supplements that have been shown to help support the immune system against dodgy bacteria, and this week have been consuming a delicious cranberry smoothie that I am hoping may help along the same lines (cranberry has been shown in studies to decrease some bacterias adhering to the urinary tract lining). So with only 7 days left I feel I have done everything possible to ensure I am ready. It struck me this morning that surely this is how I should treat my body all the time? It feels a little like before you sell your house you renovate it for the next person moving in - I have given my body a complete overhaul, now I just hope the croc doesn't want to take possession!

Cranberry and Strawberry Smoothie

Handful of strawberries*
Handful of frozen cranberries
1/2 mango, peeled
1 tsp honey
200ml oat or soya milk

Place everything into a blender and blend until smooth.

*If you have a good blender like a Vitamix, you can even leave the tops on the strawberries for added fibre.

Time to bulk up!

2011-07-10T10:19:00.000-07:00

With only 14 days left before I fly out to Lusaka and join the other members of the Row Zambezi team, I have to really work hard now at keeping fit and healthy, so I can start the trip at the peak of fitness.
Luckily the team have been helped along with sponsorship from a few supplement companies, so we will all be taking probiotics and multi-vitamins prior to and during the expedition, in the hope that this may give us a good base of nutrition, especially for the days when we are surviving on army rations (which I have been told will cause constipation, so I will also be sneaking a little pot of ground linseeds into my bag, to help me in that situation!).
But what also sprang to mind was that I will certainly be losing weight whilst on the trip (rowing for 4-7 hours a day for 17 days does have some benefits!), so could allow myself a few treats before I go! So as well as taking in my normal healthy day to day nutritional foods, I have been allowing myself a bit of free rein on everything else. Pudding for me (I have a very sweet tooth) would normally be fresh fruit and natural yoghurt, which I do adore, but this week I found a little banoffee pudding to be equally satisfying!
Getting away from my normal diet also gives me more inspiration to try new recipes, and this soup was served to me in a restaurant when I was on a press trip in Germany many years ago and I had always wanted to try to recreate it - I think I've just got it right!
I have also recently acquired a fantastic machine called a Vitamix - an amazingly serious blender that can blend almost anything, and it makes this soup taste extra creamy and light.

Salmon and Horseradish Soup

Serves 4

Prep time: 8 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

1 tbsp olive oil

1 leek, trimmed and sliced

500g potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 ltr fish stock

260g salmon fillets, cut into chunks

1 ½ tbsp creamed horseradish

100g double cream

snipped chives to serve

1. Heat the oil in a large pan and sauté the sliced leeks for 6 minutes.

2. Add the chopped potatoes and stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for 16-18 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.

3. Add half the salmon and cook for a further 2 minutes.

4. Process in a blender or food processor with the creamed horseradish and cream until smooth.

5. Return to the pan, add the remaining chunks of salmon and reheat until the salmon is cooked – about 2-3 minutes.

6. Serve garnished with snipped chives.

A Diverse Day

2011-07-02T05:36:00.000-07:00

I love that my life is so mad, with so many things going on at the same time, sometimes I get very confused as to where I am supposed to be and with whom!
Thursday was a prime example - firstly an invitation to join the Row Zambezi team for lunch at Henley Royal Regatta, hosting His Excellency the High Commissioner of Zambia. As always, I arrived very early, to give myself a chance to wander along the 2 km course and watch some racing (most people don't move from the first Pimms bar they come across, but for me it's all about the rowing!). After my walk I strolled to Leander, one of the most prestigious rowing clubs in the country, and treated myself to brunch (possibly the worst hot chocolate I have ever tasted!) and then reclined in a deckchair to watch more racing.
Lunch was taken at the Mile & 1/8th Restaurant, named due to it's position along the course, and again the food and service was really disappointing - it's not as if they don't do this every year, and at £36 for three courses, it is not exactly cheap.
But what was good fun was talking to His Excellency about the foods we may be able to acquire whilst paddling down the Zambezi. I was concerned that we would not be able to find much fresh food, but he assured me that there are lots of fresh fruits growing along the river and villagers would be happy to sell food to us. One of the highlights is that avocado grow wild there, and taste amazing. Another tip was that there may be 'village chicken' available - this is the Zambian's name for free-range, as the chickens really do run around the village!

Leaving Henley before afternoon tea started was tough (I can never resist cake!), but I was attending a Guild of Food Writers workshop in Central London, which took place in The Scandinavian Kitchen and was to enlighten us on the Scandinavian diet.
Ask most people what the Scandinavians eat and the answer would probably be pickled herring and meat balls, and this is certainly part of their diet, but there are other equally interesting foods on offer. But what I love is that they have a name for traditional, home comfort food - husmanskost, which literally means 'house owner's food'. Smorgasbord is another great staple for breakfast and lunch - open sandwiches, normally on rye bread (which is why they are open, as chewing two layers of rye bread is quite hard work!). And then there is the oder in which foods are eaten (and we were told it would be frowned upon if we strayed from this order!) - fish, meats, cheese and sweets. And pickled herring must be accompanied by schnapps!
There is a study presently being undertaken that is hoping to show that the Scandinavian diet is as healthy as the Mediterranean diet. Much as I love the pickled herring, I would rather be eating them on a sunny Mediterranean beach than the banks of an icy Fjord!

The Turkish way

2011-06-24T00:49:00.000-07:00

I am writing my blog whilst sitting on the patio in the morning sun, having had the first swim of the day around 7.30am, when it is cool and the sea is silky smooth. Returning to England tomorrow is going to be tough!

Last night I had dinner with my Turkish neighbours (so had to go armed with a phrase book!), and was amazed at how much fun you can have with people when you can only exchange a few words – sign language and throwing in the odd bit of French also helped! Previously I had invited them to my house for dinner, and was corrected when I told them the time to arrive – I said 7pm and they told me that they would normally arrive between 7.30 – 8pm! They also asked for salt to put onto their grilled fish and, as I didn’t have a salt-cellar I gave it to them in a little dish. The next day a cruet set was presented as a gift – nothing goes unnoticed!

The order of food is always meze (lots of great tasting dishes such as stuffed peppers, stuffed vine leaves, fresh anchovies, aubergine cooked in a tomato sauce, yoghurt with aubergine and garlic, samphire, chillied yoghurt, plus many more depending on the restaurant or the season), followed by a large chunky salad and freshly cooked fish or seafood.

I spent the morning yesterday in the restaurant of a friend, learning how they cook some of their meze. Fava, a broad bean dip made with dried broad beans, is cooked like a lentil soup them mashed, literally by hand, with huge amounts of chopped dill, before being served, drizzled with olive oil - it's delicious. But the main thing I wanted to learn was how they made their famous Halva, a very sweet hot dish that is served for dessert sprinkled with chopped nuts. Grated pistachio halva is mixed with milk and a little oil which is then poured into a shallow oven-proof dish and grilled – it’s like spooning hot caramel into your mouth – if you don’t have a sweet tooth please be warned!

Behind with Blogging!

2011-06-21T00:58:00.000-07:00

I can't believe where the time goes - so much for keeping this up to date through the summer months. When I am not working (and at the moment it is busier than ever), I want to be outside playing on the river, on a bike or just sitting in the sun and chilling out. So blog-writing gets put to the back of my mind. Then a few friends mention how much they enjoy reading about my adventures, and I feel guilty for not sitting at my computer for a little while longer.

Today I am sitting at my laptop outside a cafe, overlooking the Aegean Sea in the beautiful town of Foca, where I have a little town house. The more I come here, the more I believe I could stay forever - the food is amazing, the sea is warm and silky smooth, and the locals make you feel as if you are one of them instantly.
I normally start my day with a run around the harbour, then into the sea for the first swim of the day before breakfast. On this visit I have friends staying, Katie and Maddie, and Katie is an artist, so every other day we have been having painting lessons - starting with a bowl of cherries on day one, then a still-life in the garden, and finally we hope to stretch to a sea-scape. At the moment we are still trying to figure out where to paint where we will not be over-looked - I am not yet ready to show my very simple artistic attempts to the world!
When we are not painting we have been out on the sea, firstly on an organised boat trip, and then on a private yacht belonging to a friend - so good to escape the world completely and sail away to a deserted bay for a swim.
And the food? Every time I come here I think I will treat it like a spa break - exercise lots and eat really healthy food, as the local restaurants all serve amazing meze and fresh fish cooked really simply. What I forget each time is the Raki that is served with food (an aniseed drink very similar to Ouzo, but is drunk throughout the meal and is quite strong), and the late- night dancing that has to be done!

Operation Hungry Hippo!

2011-05-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

And there was me thinking that the Row Zambezi madness would not start until we left for Zambia at the end of July. How wrong I was!
Operation Hungry Hippo was to be a team building, survival training weekend, and it certainly turned out to be just that. Despite the fact that we were in the most beautiful part of West Sussex, there was no time for relaxing and enjoying the scenery.
The day started with a 'small' run to the camp area, followed obviously by a few exercises and stretches, before setting up camp and being shown the 'facilities' (and very plush they were too!!).
Things we may find useful when out in Zambia included the importance of team work, how to build a good camp, fire-lighting and general first aid. I certainly learnt a few new things, for instance, how easy it is to start a fire with a Pringle! Or a mobile phone!
On top of that there was the more physical stuff, like running up and down hills carrying heavy logs, wading across a river to fetch the previously mentioned log (now I know how a dog feels!), and obviously lots of press-ups for any reason that our PT guy could think of.

The bit I was not so keen on was how to skin and joint a rabbit - the main reason I turned vegetarian was when my father fed me a rabbit I had previously cuddled each day (not realising the concept of a small holding being that you eat everything you produce!). I watched with interest whilst everybody else got very hands-on. I did manage to add a little finesse to the day by finding fresh water mint for a nice cup of mint tea after our meal!
It was interesting to see what they cooked for us (disappointing too that they didn't make us do it, as I was dying to get cooking over an open fire). I am hoping to be a little more adventurous once out in Zambia - we have a long, hard trip ahead of us, and I think moral will need to be kept high with as much good food as we can muster.

Chocolate Heaven

2011-05-24T03:53:00.000-07:00

So, having worked liked a demon for two weeks to cycle the length of the country and get myself toned, slimmer and fitter, I then return to a week of forced chocolate intake! OK, so maybe it wasn't forced exactly, but some people just have no willpower where chocolate is concerned, and when it's some of the best chocolate money can buy my willpower definitely goes out of the window!
The first chocolate obstacle was a day of photography for the front cover of Observer Food Monthly magazine. The feature we were to show covered small food producers and included The London Honey Company and Duffy's chocolate - my sweet tooth went into overdrive! What a fun day, 'playing' with such great ingredients - be sure not the miss the mag when it comes out next month.
Last night I organised for a few friends to join me in a chocolate tasting at the very innovative Artisan du Chocolat in west London - what an experience. If you want to be cured of eating chocolate for a while this is the event to attend - every single one of us reached a point of being unable to taste more chocolate, despite the amazing morsels being offered! Not only did we learn about the varieties of cocoa, chocolate flavours and how Artisan make their chocolates (they conche and refine their own beans), we were also treated to cocktails (bellinis, made with pulp of the cocoa pods, and gin fizz made with matcha white chocolate - these recipes can be found on their website). If that wasn't enough, we were given a 'break' from chocolate eating, which involved us eating a chocolate fondant with salted caramel ice-cream!
I think it may be a while before I reach for the delicious chocolate covered stem ginger I bought just before we left!

LEJOG

2011-05-17T09:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, what an adventure, I can't believe we've made it back in one piece! 967 miles of peddling, with only a couple of wrong turns and one puncture - how lucky were we.
But a bit of advice for those intending to attempt this madness - the prevailing winds from Cornwall to Scotland did not exist.....at all! We pretty much had a head wind for 75% of the trip. And to be honest, finishing in John O Groats is not that great - there is nothing there, not even a pub within free-wheeling distance. So my advice would be start at the top and cycle down - that way you will also avoid all the obvious comments of 'why are you doing it uphill?' - very annoying!

As for food along the way - for the first couple of days we ate constantly. I think our bodies went into shock with all the exercise and we craved everything. Luckily that started to wear off after around 4-5 days and we settled into a more sensible eating plan - good breakfasts (with eggs for much needed protein), then snacking every hour before stopping for a good lunch. And we did find some great places too. One that has to be mentioned is The Wellington, an award winning pub in the village of Wellington in the beautiful Herefordshire countryside - well worth a diversion.
Our snacks consisted of Mule Bars, Trek Bars and other similar healthy bars, but we soon got pretty bored with those every hour, and on reaching Scotland switched to wonderfully sweet Scottish tablet and shortbread!
Once our support vehicle joined us in Oswestry things became much easier on the catering front and with the catering being done by our support man Dave, we could control much more what we ate (i.e. we could cut down on chips!). We were hoping to try a few regional foods along the way, but did struggle to find them - we passed many oyster beds along the Scottish Lochs, but didn't spot a restaurant along the route where we could sample them. Cullen Skink soup at the Kilmartin Hotel was creamy and delicious, but perhaps not the most sensible choice when having to cycle another 30 miles over steep hills into Oban directly after eating it!
My favourite part of the whole trip has to be the stunning Isle of Arran, which is lucky really, as the sea conditions were so bad we got stuck on it for longer than anticipated!
I would definitely recommend the trip to anybody who wants to really see our great country - there is no better way.

We're off!

2011-04-28T00:29:00.000-07:00

Well the training really is over now. I finished off with a couple of laps of Richmond Park with my panniers full of books for added weight! To start with it felt like I was pulling a trailer behind me, but by the time I was on the homeward stretch, I forgot they were there. Let's hope it feels that way when we make our first ascent on the very steep hills of Cornwall!
We've had lots of great support on our JustGiving site, which really helps us want to achieve our goal, knowing that there are people out there keeping tracks on us.
I will try to add a few blogs along the way, so do keep checking in to see how we are getting on. I will also send daily tweets @Enjoynibbling.

Easter Treats

2011-04-25T09:12:00.000-07:00

One week to go before we make the crazy trip, cycling from Lands End to John O'Groats, climbing the highest peaks of Wales, England and Scotland along the way - will my legs (or bottom!) make it?
In preparation I have been eating a little more than normal, thinking that it will be impossible to eat enough to sustain the amount of exercise we are going to be doing on a daily basis - apart from anything else, there will just not be enough time!
Easter being the week before we set off has been perfect, no holding back on the chocolate and hot cross buns. It also meant I had time to escape to Norfolk to train with Jon, who is joining us on the ride - he assured me he could find us some hills to train on - he has no idea that in comparison the 'hills' of Norfolk are just little pimples!
The only problem with making my own hot cross buns is that I make far too many and, despite giving lots away I still have more than I can eat.
Having made bread and butter pudding with Panettone for a Christmas twist, I figured hot cross buns would also work a treat - and I was right.

Hot Cross Pudding

Serves 6-8

4 hot cross buns, halved
25g unsalted buter, softened
100g dried apricots
8 egg yolks
175g caster sugar
400ml double cream
200ml milk
1 vanilla pod, split
sugar to sprinkle

1. Butter the halves of hot cross buns and place them in a buttered oven-proof dish. Sprinkle with the dried apricots.
2. Whisk together the egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl.
3. Pour the cream and milk into a small pan, add the split vanilla pod and bring to a simmer.
4. Pour the cream mixture through a sieve into the eggs and sugar, and whisk well.
5. Pour the custard over the hot cross buns and leave to soak for 20 minutes. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/Gas mark 4.
6. Cook for 20-30 minutes in a roasting tin half filled with water. Sprinkle with sugar when it comes out of the oven before serving.

Row Zambezi boats are launched!

2011-04-19T02:03:00.000-07:00

Wow, what an exciting weekend! The boats for the Row Zambezi trip arrived at Eton Excelsior rowing club on Saturday morning, and they are beautiful! But not only that, they are also gorgeous to scull in - smooth, balanced and really easy to steer. The only draw-back they have is their weight which makes them hard to lift when we have to carry them over the undergrowth to avoid rapids etc. But luckily we have a great man on the case - Dan, who appears to love such a challenge is making carrying straps as we speak!
The weekend was spent rowing them in different combinations of people, with and without a cox, and finding out how to change things, which spares will be needed etc. It was valuable time spent getting to know how everything works and now we just have to train as much as possible in them. It was very strange getting back into my little single scull this morning - it will be hard to keep switching between to two, but hopefully I will get used to it!
As the Team Nutritionist I am also taking on board what the team will need to keep them energised but not bored with the food, so have been experimenting with ways to make our own energy bars (this may be impossible on the trip, but I'm having fun whilst at home!). My first attempt was greeted with positive remarks, so it's looking promising.
Making your own energy bars is great - dried fruit gives the sweetness and also helps to bind the bars or balls. Nuts and seeds are needed for protein so always include those too.

Energy Balls!

120g pecan nuts
120g walnuts
50g ground linseeds
110g dates
40g coconut oil
40g desiccated coconut
grated rind of 2 oranges
juice of 1/2 orange
2 knobs stem ginger and a little syrup
100g dark chocolate, broken into chunks

1. Process the pecans and walnuts in a blender until they are crumbs. Mix in a bowl with the linseeds.
2. Place the remaining ingredients in the food processor and blitz until they start to come together.
3. Add the nut mixture to the food processor and blitz again until the mixture is a stiff dough.
4. Using wet hands, take about 2 tsp of the mixture and roll into a ball. Repeat with the remaining mixture then place in the fridge to chill for 20 minutes.
5. Melt the chocolate in a small bowl over a pan of simmering water. Gently roll the balls in the chocolate, then leave to set on a cooling rack.

A Healthier Alternative to Ice-Cream

2011-04-12T06:23:00.000-07:00

This amazing weather has got me in the mood for ice-cream. But rather than overdose on fat I thought I would help myself a little by using natural yoghurt, instead of rich cream and eggs. Once you have the base of a creamy natural yoghurt, the rest is easy - just add your favourite ingredients!

Be warned though, because there is less fat and less sugar in these recipes the iced yoghurt will freeze very hard if left too long (I ate mine before this happened!) and will need to be left to soften again before eating.

Ideas to help inspire you include; figs and honey (chop the figs, cook in a little orange juice and honey and leave to cool before blending until smooth and stirring into the yoghurt before freezing), chocolate (I made a thick sauce using Willie's 100% with water and a little honey to sweeten. Leave to cool, stir into yoghurt and freeze). Other delicious ideas include stirring in rich marmalade or good home-made lemon curd, or crumbling ginger biscuits and adding with chopped stem ginger.

I could go on, but I have to get outside and eat some more iced yoghurt before the sun disappears!

Travelling gifts

2011-04-05T06:42:00.000-07:00

I have a friend who has a great job of travelling the world to research and write about fruit. I thought my job was pretty good, but I think he just out-ranks me! And I thought when I asked if there was anything he would like me to bring back from Spain that his answer would be 'no', as he no doubt would be visiting there some time soon.
But I was wrong, and I had forgotten his love of wacky things - things like creative tins of food (not the food in them you understand, just the tins themselves!). Hence I found myself wandering around the market looking for circular (he had been quite specific about them not being oval) tins of tuna. I became like a twitcher, hunting out the most beautiful round tin I could find - I hope he will not be disappointed.
Once home I needed a taste of Spain to cheer me in this cold grey climate, so one of the tins had to be opened - sorry Chris!

Tuna with Cannellini Bean and Roasted Red Pepper

Serves 4
3 red peppers, halved and deseeded
200g can tuna in oil

1/2 tsp mustard

1/2 tsp honey

1/2 tsp balsamic vinegar

1 red onion, peeled and finely sliced
60g cherry tomatoes, halved
380g can cannellini beans, drained
sprigs of fresh parsley

1. Place the pepper halves under a hot grill, skin side up, and leave them until they are totally black.
Place them in a bowl and cover with cling film and leave until cool enough to handle. Peel off the charred skin and slice the peppers.
2. Drain the oil from the tuna into a bowl and whisk in the mustard, honey and balsamic vinegar to taste.
3. Using a fork, break up the tuna and place onto a platter. Add the strips of red pepper, drained cannellini beans, red onion and cherry tomatoes.
4. Pour over the dressing and toss very briefly. Scatter over the fresh parsley and serve.

The Great Taste of Pepper

2011-04-01T01:09:00.000-07:00

Another great evening hosted by The Guild of Food Writers - Christine McFadden has recently published a book covering every aspect of pepper you could wish to know and last night she gave us just a hint of what an exciting and diverse ingredient pepper is.
I had never realised how different the various variety of peppers could taste and smell - Christine had us sniffing and tasting white, red, green and black pepper, all of which come from the same plant, and each are so very distinctive.
After the tasting of pepper by itself we were treated to nibbles that included pepper, and these were not restricted to savoury dishes alone, infact I found myself preferring the sweet peppery dishes, much to my amazement!
Home-made soft cheese with the different coloured peppers was followed by Parmesan pepper crisps, then wonderful semi-dried figs that had been halved and dipped in pepper, and creamy peppery shortbread. The final dish Christine cooked in front of us - pineapple that had been studded with long pepper, left over night to marinate, then sauteed in butter and served with it's own gorgeous syrup - heavenly.
Other things I learnt were that most of our pepper is grown in Kerela, India and that those lovely pink peppercorns that look so pretty on dishes, are not pepper at all and should be avoided at all costs! And the reason why you should grind your own pepper and not buy it already ground is that the whole point of grinding it fresh is to ensure you get the aromatics from the oil in the husk of the peppercorn - the heat actually comes from the middle.
There is also the health aspect of using pepper - black pepper has demonstrated antibacterial effects as well as stimulating the taste buds to help improve digestion. The other reason for grinding your own, is that most commercial ground pepper is roasted and is therefore an irritant rather than a stimulant.
Christine is so intent on having good pepper that she even has a mobile pepper mill that fits in her handbag, and travels everywhere with her!
For great pepper and other spices, go to Seasoned Pioneers.

Delights I forgot to mention..............

2011-03-28T11:10:00.000-07:00

Sculling along the river with the scent of orange blossom in your nostrils...
Watching the river turtles sunning themselves on protruding branches in the midday heat.....
Listening to a man practising his flamenco under a bridge where he can hear his own echo....

The Delights and Downsides of Training Camp!

2011-03-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again when our coach takes us all off to Seville for a week of training on the Guadalquivir River. When people say to me 'have a nice holiday', it's hard to make them understand just what a training camp really is. And what sounds like hell to most, sounds like pleasure to us mad rowers. Basically, for one whole week, we don't have to think about anything except when we wake up we get in a boat. When we get out of the boat we go to the canteen to eat. When we finish eating we go back to bed or crash out under a tree in the sunshine. And the routine repeats itself 3 times a day every day for a week. The only thing that upsets the routine is injury or, in most cases, really blistered hands (see last years' entry for photographic evidence, it's not a pretty sight!).
The other delight is obviously getting to train in the sunshine!

Fortunately for me the blisters arrived early in the week, so I used the excuse as a chance to visit one of the pretty food markets of Seville, Mercado calle Feria, which was just a short walk away from the sports centre where we stay,Centro Especializado de Alto Rendimiento, La Cartuja (not the height of luxury!). I intend to visit another one before we leave (may have to fake an injury for the time off!), as Seville is spoilt for choice when it comes to great fresh produce, and it would be a shame to be here and not appreciate some of it, even if it is for viewing only! The food we are given at the centre is hard to describe, although one of the athletes managed quite a good attempt at it today - a great diet of sugar, salt, fat and garlic. The cooks here seem to believe that it doesn't matter how badly you cook something - if you cover it with fat, salt and garlic, it will taste fine.
I think a night out in a tapas bar is required.........it's nice to dream!

Time to up the training

2011-03-20T08:58:00.000-07:00

With only 6 weeks until we embark on Endto3PeaksEnd, I was very aware last week that I need to be training longer and harder. And with Row Zambezi following on just 12 weeks after that, my fitness needs to be pretty good all round. So this morning saw me peddling my heart out towards Windsor, doing a 45 mile round trip, aiming at an average 14 miles per hour. As most days we are hoping to do an average of around 80 miles, it was good to test whether I thought we would be able to get 50 under our belts before lunch! Food is obviously always uppermost in my mind, and planning anything has to take this into account.
Luckily Tim, who I do my cycle training with, is like-minded, so we tend to cycle towards a great cafe (about 25 miles away from home) then, after a cuppa and cake, cycle home a different route. Last week we did the famous Box Hill climb - I was very amused to see all the 'bikers' (as in, those with motor bikes) stay at the bottom of the hill, yet those with only peddle power cycle to the top for their refreshment stop!
This week our pit-stop was Fairoaks Airport, a real find in the middle of no-where, but obviously known to a number of cyclists. We decided the cakes were not up to the standard of Box Hill, but the fried breakfast looked amazing (or maybe it was just that we had just cycled 25 miles and were starving!).
Next week I will be training hard in Seville, Spain, so there will be no cakes at all (not sure I will last the week without sneaking into the centre between training sessions to buy something naughty!).
As the weekend has been so gorgeous weather-wise, I made a summery lunch of Panzanella, and for the first time this year, ate in the garden.

I had this in Italy last year when I was visiting the Italian boy - but his mother made it with soft bread and it was all quite soggy. I prefer to have a little 'bite' to mine, so use wholemeal or granary bread instead.

Panzanella

Serves 4

300g tomatoes

125g wholemeal or granary bread

16 olives, stoned

3 tsp capers

½ red onion, finely sliced

300g red and yellow cherry tomatoes, halved

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil

1. Place the tomatoes in a sieve over a bowl, using the back of a spoon, squash them well to release all the juice into the bowl.

2. Roughly break up the bread and put into the tomato juice and leave to stand for 15 minutes before transferring to a serving dish.

3. Scatter the remaining ingredients over the bread, drizzling over the red wine vinegar and olive oil at the end to serve.

Dreaming of Summer

2011-03-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

At last the mornings and evenings are getting lighter, and for the past few days it has even felt quite warm (although if you are reading this in Scotland you may not agree!).
And the best thing about lighter mornings is that I can get out on the river for longer each day before going to work. Today I was out at 6.30am, and for the second time this week was treated to the sound of a couple of woodpeckers busily pecking away. The herons too are very busy right now, building their nests at the highest point in the spindliest of trees - seems like madness for such large birds! And finally the ducks - they appear to be mating quite well, so in only around 28 days there will be gorgeous little chicks floating around (yes, I did have to check the gestation period of ducks for that info!).
And with all the extra training (now training for cycling Lands End to John O'Groats in May, plus 1000km row down Zambezi river in August), I need to get a few more calories in, and what better way than great home-made cakes.

Lemon and Raspberry Summer Cake

Serves 8-10

225g unsalted butter, softened

225g caster sugar

zest of 3 lemons

4 egg, beaten

200g self-raising flour

1 tsp baking powder

50g ground almonds

juice of 2 lemons

2 tsp caster sugar

250g crème friache

150g raspberries

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas mark 5. Grease and base line a 20cm loose-bottomed tin.

2. Cream together the butter, sugar and lemon rind, until they are light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs, a little at a time.

3. Sift in the flour and baking powder and carefully fold in with the ground almonds and 2 tbsp of the lemon juice.

4. Pour into the prepared tin and cook for 1 hour 15 minutes – checking that a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean to confirm it is cooked.

5. Whilst the cake is cooking place the remaining lemon juice in a small pan with the 2 tsp of caster sugar and heat gently to dissolve the sugar. Leave to cool.

6. When the cake comes out of the oven, pierce the top with a small skewer then drizzle over half the lemon syrup. Leave to cool in the tin.

7. When cool, remove from the tin, slice in half and fill with the crème fraiche and raspberries. Drizzle over the remaining lemon syrup before serving.

Country v City

2011-03-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I travelled back to my home county, Norfolk, to race in the head of the river Yare with my great mixed doubles' partner Anthony. Anthony and I tried to break the record for the Boston Marathon two years ago and, after 3 hours and 57 minutes we missed it by around one and a half minutes - very painful and very frustrating! But since then if there is a chance to race together we do, as we seem to work well as a partnership. The other great thing about racing on the Yare is the gorgeous flat water - last weekend a few of the boys were complaining that it was a bit windy - take a look on the left - that was it!!! Compared to the Tideway where I train, this was nothing.
The following day I spent with friends, mountain biking through Thetford Forest - another wonderful place that is totally unspoilt and not known to a huge number of people, so doesn't tend to get too crowded - but you do need to know your way around, as it is huge. Travelling back to London is always hard after such a great weekend away playing outside - I think I am a country girl at heart!

But then back to work on Monday I experienced Exmouth Market and its' wonderful food stalls - if you need a healthy, delicious lunch this is certainly the place to go, and if you don't want healthy they have got that too - salt beef sandwiches, traditional vegetarian Indian thalis and samosas, a seed salad bar, risotto stall, gourmet burritos, and Moorish food from Moro - the choice is amazing. So suddenly the country didn't seem quite so exciting after all!

The Spirit of Tanzania

2011-03-01T12:47:00.000-08:00

When I started the charity Community Projects Africa over ten years ago I never dreamt that one day I would be giving a speech at our very own photography exhibition, alongside the Tanzanian High Commissioner, at Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf - what an amazing experience. Giving speeches is not something I am a natural at, but this one was very important for the charity and for once I managed to hold it together until the end!
And not only did we have photographs that had been donated by our own fantastic creative volunteers (people who have travelled out to Tanzania to work on our projects), we also had the most stunning images by photographer Alwyn R Coates who takes photographs on behalf of the Born Free Foundation.

On top of that we had the very glamorous Jasmine Harman to act as auctioneer, and a host of great guests that really made the evening a huge success.

Watch this space for the next exciting event!

Definitely time to bake a cake!

2011-02-22T08:45:00.000-08:00

Is there really a time when you shouldn't bake a cake? Not that I can think of.
But today I felt like celebrating, just a little (hence the little cakes!). In my madness a few days ago I signed up to join a crazy expedition to attempt (the very first attempt I may add) to row 1000km of the Zambezi River in Zambia (http://rowzambezi.com). Why crazy I hear you ask, you train all the time so should be a doddle? But what I have not trained for, in my little sculling boat on the Thames, is crocs, hippos and rapids. That's before we even think about elephants, snakes and scorpions.....sounds like a fun trip eh?
Needless to say I have been put in charge of making sure we all remain fit and healthy (I can do nothing about being a croc's lunch) before and throughout the trip, so have been asking a few favours with regards to products and ingredients that I swear by for my own fitness.
Today I have had a great response from both Cherry Active (which will help our sore muscles each day), and Coconoil (which may help us against bugs and also tastes great!), who have both offered to give us their product to take along.
These delicious little cakes contain Coconoil, but I'm not sure we will be carrying bun tins on the Zambezi, so I have to enjoy as many of them as possible before we leave!

Coconut & Peach Fairy Cakes

Makes 12

140g Coconoil
140g caster sugar
3 eggs
100g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
small can peaches in juice, drained
35g unsalted butter
100g cream cheese
80g icing sugar
25g dessicated coconut

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas mark 6. Place 12 paper cases into a bun tin.
2. Grate the Coconoil into a bowl and add the sugar, eggs, flour and baking powder. Mix well with a wooden spoon.
3. Dice one peach and slice the other. Add the diced peach to the cake mixture and mix well.
4. Spoon into the paper cases then bake for 12-13 minutes, until they are just springy to touch.
5. Leave the cakes to cool on a cooling rack.
6. For the icing, beat together the butter, cream cheese, icing sugar and coconut.
7. Top each cake with a little of the creamy icing and a slice of peach.

Technical Issues and Tofu!

2011-02-16T01:24:00.000-08:00

Oh the delights of technology. First the computer decides it will go on a complete go-slow, then the Wi-Fi packs up completely! Huge thanks to Apple in Kingston, who talked me through deleting my whole hard-drive (very scary!), and boo-hiss to Netgear who are no help whatsoever! Having spent an afternoon doing my work from Starbucks, I have finally had enough and decided to change my system to somebody more reliable - is there such a thing I hear you ask?!

Anyway, on to more interesting things...whilst all this mayhem was occurring I was invited to a tofu-making demonstration in a Korean supermarket - Korea Foods. And what was even more surprising is that it was not too far from my where I live. Previously unknown to me, there is a huge Korean community in New Malden, just a 10 minute drive away - much handier than driving into Chinatown for those illusive ingredients I am often asked to buy.

Tofu is made in a similar way to cheese where, after the milk has been made by steaming and pressing the beans, a coagulant is added, the solids and liquid separated, then the solids pressed and lightly cooked in a big block before being cut, cooled and packaged. In all the process only took about 30 minutes from start to finish - amazing.
But what was more amazing was the supermarket itself - I love to shop in a place where there are so many ingredients that I have no idea what they are! Luckily there are lots of very friendly staff on hand to help advise.

Tofu is a great source of protein and calcium and is a great ingredient for vegetarians. Although it is fairly bland on its' own, when cooked with other flavours tofu becomes a very versatile ingredient.

I wrote this recipe for a company that provides me with wonderful coconut oil. If you want to know more about this delicious ingredient, and find more of my recipes, go to their website - www.coconoil.co.uk.

Vegetable and Tofu Stir-fry

Serves 4
Prep/cooking time: 30 minutes

25g Coconoil
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp mustard seeds
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
1 red pepper, deseeded and sliced
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced
2 carrots, peeled and cut into julienne strips
150g broccoli spears
1/4 savoy cabbage, shredded
250g tofu, cut into cubes
dash of soy sauce to serve

Melt the Coconoil in a wok over a medium heat and add the spices. When the mustard seeds start to ‘pop’ add the onion and stir-fry for 4-5 minutes.
Add the remaining vegetables and stir-fry for 10-12 minutes until the vegetables are ‘al dente’ – just beginning to soften.
Add the tofu and a dash of soy and stir-fry for another 4-5 minutes until the tofu is hot.
Serve immediately.

Pop-Up Afternoon Tea

2011-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

What an amazing weekend - full-on food for 48 hours! Firstly it was Colin my Scottish neighbours' 50th on Saturday, so it had to be a Burns Night celebration, with haggis, clapshot (neeps and tatties together), and a recipe that came from Colin's family that consisted of cabbage with oatmeal. We followed with one of my favourite desserts, cranachan - oats toasted with honey, double cream whisked with whisky, and fresh raspberries, all gently stirred together and drizzled with a little more honey.
Sunday was the culmination of lots of hard work, by lots of great friends, and it was a huge success - a Pop-Up Afternoon Tea at Mortlake Boathouse on the Thames. I have never seen so much bunting and so much cake! Sloe Gin Fruit & Nut Cake (recipe in an earlier blog), Florentines, Lemon Drizzle Cake, spiced Bread Pudding, Peach Cup Cakes, Lemon & Mascarpone Victoria Sponge. fruit scones with clotted cream........and much, much more.
Everybody was so generous too - the beautiful tablecloths and bunting were supplied by Sarah Frost, flowers by Flourish & Green, and delicious clotted cream by Robert Wiseman Dairies.
The sun was shining, the tea was flowing, and the guests were happily munching - it was perfect.
If you are thinking of having a celebration and would a Vintage Afternoon Tea, get in touch - I have the best Tea Team!

Marmalade Days

2011-01-24T07:34:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, after all the years I have been cooking, this is the first time I have attempted to make marmalade! It always seemed a bit pointless when you could buy such great marmalade. But then, every year my friends would all start to discuss the merits of different ways of making it - do you cut the oranges before you cook them or after, is caster sugar as good as granulated, do you keep it pure, or add limes or even grapefruit? And even before the Seville oranges were available there was talk on the radio as to when they may arrive - a bit like the Beaujolia run - who can get them here first!
So, as a complete novice I felt I should follow the direction of somebody else, and started searching through my hundreds of cookery books to find who had written what I thought may be the tastiest recipe. But as always in this instance, I started to go 'off-piste', dreaming up my own ideas (the problem with being a recipe writer is that you never want to follow a recipe written by somebody else!).
And not content with that, I also decided half-way through the process to try two versions! Both are equally delicious.

Joy's Marmalade!
This makes both types - straight marmalade and ginger marmalade.

2kg Seville oranges
5 litres water
approx 3kg sugar
6 knobs stem ginger, diced

1. Slice the oranges as thickly as you like them, remove the pips and pithy bit from the middle of the orange then place the slices in very large pan. cover with water and simmer for 2 hours (until the orange rind is tender).
2. Ladle the mixture into two non-metallic bowls and leave to cool, covered, overnight.
3. Ladle the mixture into two separate large pans, adding a ladle of sugar for every ladle of fruit and liquid. In one of the pans add the diced stem ginger.
4. Bring to the boil and simmer again for around 1 hour, or until it has reached setting point. To test for this spoon a little onto a plate and leave it for one minute. If it wrinkles when you push it gently with your finger it is ready.
5. Pour into sterilised jars and cover with wax paper until cool.

Hugh's Fish Fight

2011-01-15T14:38:00.000-08:00

I think it would be impossible not to have noticed the fuss about fish that has been going on in the media this week. But if you have been too busy doing other things, get on the internet this minute and watch Hugh's Fish Fight that has been screened every night this week on Channel 4.
If you didn't feel passionate about our fish stocks before, hopefully this will make you think a lot more seriously about it.
And to give you more inspiration to cook fish that is not endangered, here is a great recipe for mackerel that is also super healthy. Rich in omega-3 essential fats, mackerel is not only healthy but also extremely tasty and hugely inexpensive - two large fillets from my local fishmonger, Sandys in Twickenham, cost a mere £3.50.

Mackerel with Horseradish, Fennel and Beetroot.

Serves 2

1 tbsp olive oil
1 large fennel bulb, halved and thinly sliced, tops reserved
1/2 small Savoy cabbage, shredded
2-3 tsp creamed horseradish
2 cooked beetroot, diced
2 mackerel fillets

1. Heat the oil in a pan and saute the sliced fennel for 3-4 minutes. Stir in the cabbage, then reduce the heat, cover the pan and let the vegetables sweat for 5-6 minutes.
2. Finely chop the fennel tops and mix with the diced beetroot.
3. Stir the creamed horseradish into the vegetables then cover again and leave to cook while you grill the fish.
4. Place the mackerel skin side up under a hot grill and cook for 5-6 minutes, then turn and cook the other side for another 4-5 minutes - do not over cook it.
5. Divide the horseradish vegetables between two plates, top with the mackerel then spoon over the diced beetroot. Squeeze over some lemon juice, a sprinkling of olive oil and a grinding of black pepper and enjoy!

A great start............

2011-01-07T10:01:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year again - all the newspapers, magazines, TV and radio programmes are full of talk about diets - can they not think up something original for once? And how sensible do they think it really is to start dieting and cutting out complete food groups, when everyone is suffering with coughs and colds due to their immune systems being shot to pieces after a stressful Christmas?!
So, needless to say, I will not be dieting! But what I may be doing is thinking about how I can help my body to remain healthy throughout the cold months of winter, whilst not relying on comfort foods that may add on the pounds!
As far as detoxing is concerned, our bodies are doing this constantly, every waking hour and, impressively, even when we are sleeping! So rather than cutting out huge amounts of food, just cut out those things that cause the liver to be over-worked (alcohol, caffeine and processed foods), and feed it lots of nutrients that may help it to support it to work better (sulphur-rich foods such as eggs and onions, the brassicas - cabbage, sprouts and broccoli, and good sources of protein - eggs, fish).
Drinking lots of water also helps to flush out toxins, and generally try to incorporate as much fresh, organic food into your diet as possible.

Cabbage Soup

Serves 4

1 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, peeled and sliced
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
1 stick celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1/2 cabbage, shredded
1.5 litres vegetable stock
freshly milled black pepper
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
1 tbsp flaked almonds

1. Heat the olive oil in a medium pan and saute the onion, carrot and celery for 2-3 minutes.
2. Add the garlic and cook for another minute before stirring in the shredded cabbage.
3. Pour in the stock, season, bring to a simmer and cook for 12-15 minutes.
4. Toast the seeds and flaked almonds and sprinkle over the soup to serve.

This is also great served topped with a poached egg.

An Egyptian Christmas

2010-12-31T06:55:00.000-08:00

Each year the build-up to Christmas is such an exciting time, with lots of parties, getting together with friends you haven't seen all year, and the excuse to go out and try new restaurants that normally you don't think you have time for.
This year was no exception, although the one restaurant I tried that I will not be re-visiting was Jamie's Italian in Westfield shopping centre. It was as I had anticipated - a chain restaurant with very average food. I have never understood the concept of eating in a restaurant that has a celebrity chef's name on it, unless of course you know he is cooking there at the time, and in this case I doubt he has ever even set foot in the place!
And, as with past years, as the great event of Christmas got ever nearer, I started hating all the consumerism that comes with it and just wanted to be away from it all. So that's exactly what I did - I headed off to Egypt to sail down The Nile.
I had hoped that being away from all the festivities may also help me to be a little healthier than most at this time, but unfortunately with three meals a day being served buffet-style there was no chance of any weight loss, or indeed even maintaining the same weight!

It was interesting the reaction I got from practically everyone I spoke to when I mentioned where I was going - beware of getting the Egyptian equivalent of Deli Belly! It was also interesting to hear of so many people falling ill over Christmas back in the UK.
When your body is under stress (Christmas cards, presents, shopping, parties, relatives visiting, office parties etc., etc.), your immune system fails to work as it should, as it is busy making stress hormones to keep you going. Then comes Christmas, and you relax, but the immune system hasn't got back on track yet and the first little bug you come into contact with knocks you down. And if you are in a foreign country there are likely to be more little bugs your immune system does not recognise that may cause problems.

To ensure you can party through the whole festive season, or travel to remote places without falling ill, help keep your immune system healthy by eating a diet rich in good protein, high in antioxidants and B vitamins and by taking a probiotic supplement in anticipation!

Needless to say I have returned in good health, and amazingly all my clothes still fit.

The training never stops!

2010-12-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

I am constantly asked, when is the off-season for rowing? For some unknown reason whoever started this mad sport decided that an off-season was not required! So the summers are spent racing short distances (1000-2000 metres), whereas the winter gives you time to explore your surroundings a little more, with distances of around 5km to contend with, normally on bendy rivers that require a little more concentration.
Which means that I don't get a chance to lay in bed whilst the beautiful snow flakes are falling outside - I am out there enjoying its' full glory!
Obviously training in such harsh conditions does require a little more energy, and that's where the good bit comes in - I can eat a little more than normal without having to worry about it! So, purely in the interest of keeping my energy levels up (and the fact that I have lots of homemade sloe gin to use up), I have come up with a great cake recipe (which is also dairy free in case you are that way inclined!).

Sloe Gin Fruit & Nut Cake

225g pecan nuts
340g dates, stoned
155g glace cherries
75g mixed peel
50g dried apricots
155g glace pineapple
4 tbsp sloe gin
200g light muscovado sugar
140g wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs, beaten
large pinch grated nutmeg
More sloe gin for soaking

1. Preheat the oven to 160C/Gas mark 3. Grease and line a 23 cm tin with greaseproof paper.
2. Place the pecan nuts and dried fruit in a large bowl then pour over 3 tbsp of the sloe gin.
3. Add the remaining ingredients and mix together really well.
4. Spoon into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 1 1/2 hours (or when a knife inserted into the centre comes out clean).
5. Remove from the oven, pour over the remaining 1 tbsp of sloe gin, then leave to cool a little before removing the paper and cooling completely.
6. Wrap in greaseproof paper and foil. Each day for 3-4 days pour over another tbsp of sloe gin.

If you haven't made your own Christmas Cake and the shops have now sold out this would make a great substitute.

Edible Christmas Gift Ideas

2010-12-09T03:01:00.000-08:00

It's getting to the time now, when I start to realise that I have no idea what to give friends as a small gift for Christmas. I hate shopping at the best of times, and fighting my way through the rushing crowds of London is definitely not my idea of a fun day out, especially when it's so cold too.
So, what better way to spend the cold days than to be at home making wonderful food stuffs for friends instead. This was all a bit of a revelation to me as, having been cooking for a living for years, I had never really got into the whole preserves thing, until now! I've also found that people are so delighted to receive something that you have taken lots of time and care over, and obviously if you know what they love you can tailor the gift totally to their taste.
There are also so many options - jams, pickles, herb vinegars or oils, fruit liqueurs, chocolate truffles (always a favourite!) or even great cakes (one of which I will give a recipe for in the next blog).
The recipe here is for a Panforte di Siena, and for once I have used a recipe developed by somebody else - when it comes to all things Italian I figured Antonio Carluccio would know better than me!

Panforte di Siena
(Taken from 'Italia" by Antonio Carluccio, published by Quadrille Publishing Antonio Carluccio's Italia)

240g figs or pitted dates
50g honey
100g soft brown sugar
1/2 tsp each of ground cinnamon, cardamom, cloves,
nutmeg and black pepper
250g candied fruit, such as cherries, lemon and orange rind
50g blanched almonds
50g pine nuts
50g shelled hazelnuts, toasted
3-4 tbsp plain flour, sifted
50ml Vin Santo
icing sugar to dust

Heat the oven to 150C/Gas mark 2. Line a shallow 25cm round cake tin, or 20cm square tin, with rice paper.
Mince the figs or dates and put them in a pan with enough water just to cover. Add the honey, brown sugar and all the spices. Cook gently for about 10 minutes, then tip into a bowl. The mixture should be sticky but not wet.
Add the candied fruit and nuts and mix well, then add the flour and Vin Santo and mix to a sticky mass. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and bake in the oven for 30-40 minutes.
Take out of the oven and leave to cool in the tin. sprinkle generously with icing sugar and serve cut into wedges.

If you like this you will also love his Salame di Noci - Chocolate and Walnut Salami with Candied Fruits (also in 'Italia').

The latest Fashion......in wellies and cake.

2010-12-03T14:46:00.000-08:00

At last, enough snow to give me a reason to walk into Richmond with my rather sporty new wellies from Hunter! Who would have thought, not so many years ago, that even this simple, durable footwear would one day become fashionable - it took me quite a while to decide between the practical yet pretty Royal Horticultural Society design (seen here), and the rather less practical but obviously more 'street smart' Jimmy Choos! Being a practical girl it had to be the RHS, if only to remind me that once in a while I should wear them for what they are intended!
The other fantastic thing about being snowed in, is the excuse to bake cakes. Not that I really ever need an excuse, but it's great to walk to the neighbours with something cheering when the weather is so grey, and cake normally fits the bill with most (homemade hot toddy tends to go down quite well too, especially on the really cold days!).
And as with fashionable wellies, it appears that cakes go through fashion phases too. For the last few years it has been cup cakes wherever you look, but now it looks like there is a leaning towards the Whoopie Pie! It has to be a fun cake, if only because of it's name, but luckily they also taste pretty good. I tried to make a healthy option by using butternut, but to be perfectly honest, Whoopie Pies don't really lend themselves to being healthy, and at the moment we are all using up so many calories keeping warm I don't think it will matter too much!

Butternut and Passion Fruit Whoopie Pies

110g butter, at room temperature
200g dark muscovado sugar
3 eggs, beaten
250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
large pinch ground cloves
250g cooked and mashed butternut
150g cream cheese
1 passion fruit, juice only
200-225g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas mark 4. Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper.
Cream together the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy. Add the beaten eggs, a little at a time to prevent the mixture from curdling.
Sift in the flour, baking powder, Bicarb and spices, then fold in gently before folding in the butternut puree.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture on the baking sheets, making sure to leave enough space for them to spread. Cook for 10-12 minutes, until they feel 'springy' to the touch. Cool on a cooling rack.
Cream together the cream cheese, passion fruit juice and icing sugar to make the filling. Spread a little onto one pie, then top with another.

It's official....winter is here!

2010-11-26T03:28:00.000-08:00

Just when I was really looking forward to racing down the Thames in the Scullers Head, the weather turns, and now all I can think of is how I am going to prevent my extremities from getting frostbite and falling off!
So this morning I ventured out to test the water (and temperature) to see just how bad it may be, and to assess how many layers I will need to wear before I am prevented from being able to move my body to enable me to scull. Lucky for me I had decided to do this as, only five minutes up river the footplate in my boat (this holds the shoes in place) snapped in half! Had I been racing flat out at the time I most certainly would have been swimming - not a great thought in these conditions. So for once, my forward planning has paid off.
The other forward planning required is obviously what I need to eat before a race. I have been taking this pretty seriously all week, tapering down on the training and now concentrating on getting some carbohydrates in for the 25 minutes of racing (oh, if only I could make it a lot shorter!).
As the race starts at 11.30.am the best breakfast for me is a warming bowl of porridge, with lots of added extras to top up my protein and antioxidant intake too.

Racing Porridge
It is possible to make porridge in the microwave, but you miss out on all the creaminess that comes from the stirring when you make it on the hob.

Serves 2

100g rolled oats
500ml water
200ml soya milk
2 tbsp natural yoghurt
75g fresh berries (blueberries, blackberries, raspberries)
4 Brazil nuts, roughly chopped
4 tsp Manuka honey
pinch of ground cinnamon

Place the oats, water and milk in a pan and slowly bring to the boil, stirring continuously.
Simmer for a couple of minutes, then pour into two warmed bowls.
Top with a dollop of yoghurt, some fresh berries, a drizzle of honey, chopped Brazil nuts, and finally a sprinkling of ground cinnamon.
Eat immediately!

The Great Scottish Diet!

2010-11-20T14:15:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I was lucky enough to have to visit Scotland, just for the day. As founder of the charity Community Projects Africa, I was invited to visit a couple of schools in Scotland for whom we had organised a teacher exchange with teachers from Tanzania.
Three teachers from a balmy East African village arrived in Scotland on the coldest day we have had since last winter - luckily there were lots of offers of fleeces and hats! They spent a week teaching in a village school, whilst in the evening they were shown what is on offer in the form of entertainment, with their favourite thing being watching football!
They were also offered typical Scottish foods - tablet, shortbread, Snowballs, plus lots more. When I visited I was also treated to these things plus Taylors ice-cream, and the added bonus of a fish supper. Hard to imagine that we live on the same huge island but that our tastes are so different - the highlight of the fish and chip supper was something I cannot believe even exists - Pizza Crunch - battered and deep-fried pizza! Needless to say, I did not sample it!
When I asked the Tanzanian teachers what they thought of our food they commented that we eat far too much sugar.
My Scottish neighbour is a great baker and I often ask him to bake things for me - this week it was these beautiful shortbread biscuits, known as Empire Biscuits, which, as you would expect are hugely sweet, but very delicious.

An Allotment Lunch

2010-11-13T06:55:00.000-08:00

The other great thing about travelling home to Norfolk is a visit to my Dad, and his wonderful allotment. Even better is that his house is adjacent to two fields of allotments and, as all the growers tend to grow more than they can eat, I get the pick of the bunch!
This time it was all the lovely root vegetables - butternut (check-out his unusual looking butternut, which tastes amazing) beetroot, parsnips, swede and carrots, and to accompany them, the crispest red onions (they make the supermarket ones seem soggy in comparison).
So what to do with all this root veg? Well, as an athlete trying to pack in lots of carbohydrates, these vegetables are a very good source. Forget loading up on pasta and bread which, if you are slightly intolerant to wheat (which an ever increasing number of people are, with symptoms of bloating, flatulence and energy dips in the afternoon following sandwiches for lunch!), these will also provide other important nutrients such as vital vitamins and minerals too. And if you want to give your liver a kick, try juicing raw beetroot with some apples and fresh ginger - a real liver pick-me-up.

But I went for the simplest meal ever - peel and chop all your veg (making sure to keep them all the same size so they cook evenly), sprinkle with olive oil, cumin seeds (or your favourite spice) and seasoning, and toss them around in a roasting tin to coat with the oil. Roast in the oven at around 200C for about 35-30 minutes, until they are tender and hopefully slightly charred at the edges where they are starting to caramelise.
Take them out of the oven and stir in a couple of handfuls of fresh spinach and a drained can of butter beans. The heat from the vegetables will gradually wilt the spinach. Serve them hot topped with a poached egg or steamed fish for added protein - delicious!

2010-11-07T05:55:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I headed back home to Norfolk, facing the dreaded drive up the, yet to be made into a duel carriageway, A11. It brought back memories of all the years I commuted between Norfolk and London, leaving each place at ridiculous times of the night to avoid traffic!

But once there I was in heaven! On Saturday I raced in the Norfolk Long Distance Sculls - 4600m along the beautiful Yare river, from Bramerton Green to Whittlingham Green - it was the most beautiful day, the water was as flat as a pancake and my sculling partner Anthony steered the most amazing course as always.
So after all my athletic efforts on Saturday I really needed to replenish my body with food, and this was done in grand style on Sunday, by a visit to The Pigs at Edgefield. There you can try some really unusual combinations of tasty food. For starters, instead of Spanish Tapas, Norfolk Iffits are served, so you order a few as a starter or even better, lots to share. I was tempted by Smoked Norfolk Dapple - a delicious Eccles cake served with local Dapple cheese. Everything is locally scoured and you can even buy produce there too. But our main reason for being there was the Sunday Pudding Club, where you can eat as much as you like for £5.95! The only rule is that you always clean your plate before re-filling it - this was not a problem! The only problem was that they finished serving at 3pm and we had arrived just after 2pm, so not much time! Possibly in retrospect that was a good thing.
Whilst chomping our way through yet another delicious pudding my friend Janie asked it I thought it was possible to make bread and butter pudding with lemon curd in it (one of our favourite things). I do so love this sort of challenge - the chance to make and eat something I know will be amazing! See for yourself.

Panettone and Lemon Curd (Bread & Butter) Pudding
Serves 4-6
2g unsalted butter
275g lemon curd
250g Panettone, sliced
3 fresh apricots, stones removed and diced
350ml milk
75ml double cream
2 eggs
25g caster sugar
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Lightly butter a shallow oven proof dish.
2. Spread two-thirds of the lemon curd over the base of the dish, then top with the slices of panettone and diced fresh apricots, then spoon the remaining lemon curd roughly over the top.
3. Place the milk and cream in a small pan and bring to a simmer. Meanwhile whisk together the eggs and all but 2 tsp of the sugar.
4. Pour the warm milk and cream into the egg mixture, whisking continuously. Pour the mixture over the panettone and leave to stand for 30 minutes.
5. Sprinkle the top with the remaining sugar and bake for 30-35 minutes, until golden and bubbling.

Joy's 20-minutes Meals!

2010-10-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

Just when I think nobody is reading what I write each week, a friend from Australia complains that I haven't written anything for ages! That is enough incentive for me to get the thinking cap on!
Actually that is the reason for my absence - the thinking cap has been bogged down in the depths of a dissertation for my degree that finally comes to an end in precisely 68 days - not that I'm counting you understand!
The subject I have chosen for the 7000 exciting words is the effect that hydration has on athletic performance. So, for all you would-be athletes out there you need to know that it does have an effect and yes, you do need to drink even more than the average sedentary person - at least 2 litres, possibly up to 3-4 litres depending on how much you are training. It is a well-known fact that most athletes start their training dehydrated, and a mere 2% dehydration will effect your performance, so get drinking!

There comes a certain time of day when my head really cannot face any more studying, and lately that has been around the time that Jamie's 30-minute Meals is showing on TV, so I sit myself in front of that to see if I can get any ideas for my own recipes. And every evening I get wound up, not only by the fact that his 30 minutes does not include getting out all your kitchen equipment (that can take a good 5 minutes!), but also that the programme is cut in certain places when something takes too long! Why not just call it 45-minute meals then everyone would be happy?!
Anyway, I decided I would do a 20-minute lunch today - beat that Jamie! And mine is healthy too.

Gazpacho with Avocado and Softly Boiled Egg
This is such a simple recipe and really you can add the ingredients you like, in whatever amounts you like - just taste it as you go. Normally I would use fresh tomatoes but didn't have any, so used tomato juice instead - it really is that easy.
It's a great antioxidant-rich recipe, full of fibre and vitamins, but don't forget to add some protein - top with an egg or even some cooked, flaked salmon would be great.

Serves 2

2 red peppers, deseeded and roughly chopped
1/2 red onion, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cucumber, roughly chopped
handful basil leaves
handful parsley leaves
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tbsp sherry or Balsamic vinegar
100mls olive oil
200-300mls tomato juice
seasoning to taste
1 avocado, peeled and chopped
2 eggs, softly boiled

Place all the vegetables and herbs in the food processor and process until finely chopped.
Add the liquids and seasoning to taste and process again briefly.
Serve chilled, topped with chopped avocado and egg.

Lazy Sunday mornings...............

2010-10-05T02:01:00.000-07:00

The day finally dawned - as wet and soggy as it was the last time I attempted this crazy triathlon, The Rowers Revenge - 4km rowing (on an erg), 25km cycling and 7km run. But this year the course was shortened slightly as Marlow bridge was closed to pedestrians and the river tow path was so muddy it wasn't really safe to run on, so we only had to complete 5km run on tarmac, which nobody complained about!
First challenge of the day - would the bike fit in the back of a mini? I really should have checked this out before I realise. Luckily, it just squeezed in.

After that my main concern was who I had to beat. I had previously quickly scanned the previous years' results and figured there was a chance of winning my category (if I didn't fall off the bike, or blow up on the erg to start with). On arrival I checked out the competition and spotted a very lean, seriously kitted out, obviously a triathlete, woman of my age - this was my competition! I figured if she was a 'normal' triathlete she would be a swimmer and not a rower, so my original timing goal on the erg had to be revised - I had to up my game and make sure I beat her on this, and then just stay ahead for the next hour and a half cycling and running - sounds simple really!
The first bit went according to plan, I was the first to jump (OK, crawl) off the erg and head out to the bikes. Not my strongest part of the race mainly due to inexperience and general nervousness going down steep hills on such a tiny bit of machinery, I gave it my all - for the first time ever I didn't even break going downhill. Every time I saw somebody in front of me I made it my mission to get past them, and this I did pretty much the whole way around. Alas, after around 12km I heard a bike coming up behind me and despite all my efforts was overtaken by my competition. I was not deterred however and kept up the pace until the end and had to be content with second place.
Those people that say that it's just the taking part that counts really don't get it. I felt very satisfied having completed the course but would have felt so much more satisfied had I won!

Turkish delight!

2010-09-24T00:51:00.000-07:00

I needed a week of relaxation, so have travelled back to my house in Foca, near Izmir in Turkey. It is a simple little fishing town, with a seafront full of little restaurants and lots of tiny backstreets with unexpected treasures tucked away. One of the main reasons I love Foca is that it is not so easy to get to, so only the Turkish people use it as their summer retreat, and not often will you hear another English voice - perfect!
Little did I know when I booked my flights that I would be arriving in the midst of Foca Festival - a celebration of the town and its' people. This included the biggest barbecue I have ever seen, cooking fresh fish which was then put into huge chunks of bread and given to everybody free of charge. This was followed by the fishermen racing their boats in the harbour and then a net mending competition - it was amazing to watch, the concentration on their faces showed what skill they really have.

After this was Turkish folk dancing, not only by the experts, but the crowd were also expected to join in, and did so with great enthusiasm!
Later at night they held a concert in the town square, with music and singing by well-known musicians. The grand finale was a firework display over the bay - amazing. Unfortunately I missed the concert, although I had every intention of attending. Instead my Turkish neighbours invited me to a celebration dinner - their son had just returned home after 5 months conscription to the Turkish army (every day of which he hated he later told me). But we were not without our own concert as the son Murat plays classical guitar and his friend who had arrived with him was an opera singer. I felt I had landed in a completely different world - it was amazing. I am not sure how I will be able to host a dinner party as impressive in return!

Since then my days have been filled with swimming in the beautiful sea, eating out late at night, and wandering around the backstreets of the town with my camera - my days are pretty busy, as you can see!

I had been told to look for one certain shop whilst on my wanderings, and this has turned out to be such a great find - Meltem craft shop is run by a lovely Turkish lady and her English husband. The shop is full of local crafts and Meltem's wonderful home-made jams and chutneys, with such unusual flavours as crunchy pumpkin and molasses, crunchy apple, or even carrot jam. Next year they are intending to open a coffee house and private dining, which I will certainly be visiting.
Each time I come here I learn new things about the people and their culture, and each time it makes me want to come back and learn and experience more.
Last night I was invited to another dinner party, this one just as delicious as the last. Each meal starts with a mezza, which goes on for quite a long time and has to be accompanied by Raki! Lots of little dishes of amazing flavours - fava, houmous, bean salad, green salad, stuffed peppers, cheese pastries, anchovies....the list goes on. And then, just when you think you are full, the main dish arrives! Sometimes it will be meat, either kebabs or meatballs, but last night for me they cooked local fish, it was so tasty. And the great thing about Foca is the cats - when you want to clear your plate of fish-heads you just throw them over your shoulder!

Peddle power and Thames Clean-up

2010-09-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

So, the World Masters is over for another year, and now it's on to the next event - a triathlon. But not your normal run-of-the-mill triathlon - I am a slow 'breast-stroke, head in the air' swimmer, so swimming in open water with hundreds of other swimmers splashing and wacking me over the head is not an option! Luckily for me the Marlow Rowers Revenge was started a few years ago, giving us rowers a chance to compete in a fun event that we may just have a chance of winning.

But for the non-rowers amongst you, don't worry, the rowing bit is done on dry land - on rowing machines (otherwise known as ergs). 4000metre row, 23.40km bike ride (in the Chiltern Hills) and 7.15km run.
So this weekend saw me puffing up and over the Surrey Hills, sporting my SPDs for the very first time - and yes, it was scary - I was in a state of panic at the sight of any junction, car, or even horse that may turn in front of me! But I made it....twenty miles and no cuts or bruises, just one flat tyre (which was easily fixed by my co-rider Tim - sometimes being a girl is just perfect!).
I'm also back training on the Thames, but over the last couple of days have a feeling that I may have picked up something from the river water, so am feeling a little 'tender'. It happens a lot and most people are unaware of what is pumped into our lovely river. Fortunately there are a number of organisations that try to help in cleaning up the river and it's banks. If you fancy joining in do take a look at Thames21 who organise clean ups - every little bit helps.

FISA World Masters, St Catharines Ontario, Canada

2010-09-08T14:59:00.000-07:00

Every fourth year FISA holds the World Masters outside Europe, so this year we travelled across the pond to Canada, to meet up with approximately 2,600 other rowers and scullers, a huge number of whom are ex-olympians or ex-world champions, so the standard is pretty high.

One of the difficulties with travelling so far is that you can't take your own boat, so organising boat hire as well as hotels, car hire, and obviously what we were going to wear, was all pretty stressful leading up to the event.

For me the other thing that becomes an issue is food. What to eat before and after races is always easy to plan at home but being in another country means there is less control, and this was certainly an issue in Canada, where the portion sizes are enormous, everything has a huge amount of salt and sugar, and most things come with chips (apart from these delightful chocolate apple things on sticks, which were just obscene!). Breakfast in the hotel consisted of 'brown food' - bread, waffles, coffee, peanut butter and cornflakes - nothing that had been alive for a long, long time. So trips to the supermarket to buy fresh fruit, muesli, snack bars and dried fruit and nuts was high on the agenda on day two!

After racing all day going out for dinner is not so much about a great experience but more about getting food in quickly, in large amounts, so most nights we were fine. When racing was finally over (and this happened sooner than it should have done due to Hurricane Earl!) it was time for me to take control of dinner plans, to make sure we got some great food. How lucky were we that one of the best restaurants in the area was only a short drive from our hotel - Treadwell, a restaurant that specialises in 'farm to table' food, with all the ingredients being grown or bred locally, or in the case of the perch and pickerel, coming straight out of the Lake Erie! The food was amazing and the service just perfect.

One thing Ontario is famed for (apart from a little waterfall that everyone raves about!), is the vineyards. Although we don't seem to get much of the wine in the UK (something to do with the export laws in Canada apparently), they do make a few good wines, one of which is Icewine - a honeyed, desert wine that is produced from grapes that are frozen on the vine (the temperature has to drop to below 10-13 degrees Celcius), and then picked by hand, sometimes at night.

Hillebrand Winery make one of the best I have tasted (it is not cheap!), and we found the best way to sample it was over lunch in their fantastic restaurant. If you want to learn about wine making however, do not take their tour - we taught the guide more than he taught us!

One week to go......

2010-08-22T13:30:00.000-07:00

With only one week left before we fly to Canada for the Fisa Rowing World Masters, training has taken priority over everything else (and my healthy diet has gone out of the window as I am in need of lots of calories right now!). Training at least once and mostly twice a day does take its' toll and with work being super busy too, I will be relieved when we get to Ontario and can just focus on racing.
So, despite my trying to offer healthy options for our apple harvest, today I decided to treat myself to something a little more indulgent!

Tart Tatin
This may not be the healthiest apple recipe but it is certainly one of the tastiest. And despite how impressive it looks, it is very simple to make.

50g unsalted butter, diced

100g light muscovado sugar

3-4 eating apples, peeled and cored and thickly sliced

225g puff pastry

Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6.

Place the butter and sugar in a medium sized ovenproof frying pan and heat slowly to dissolve the sugar. Raise the heat and let the mixture bubble and caramelise for a few minutes.

Take the pan off the heat and place the slices of apple in the pan, making a spiral around the outside then working in towards the middle.

Place the pan back on the heat and cook for another 8-10 minutes while you roll out the pastry.

Roll the pastry to a circle that is just slightly bigger than your pan. Take the pan off the heat and place the pastry on top of the apple, tucking the edges inside the pan.

Cook in the oven for 15-18 minutes until golden then remove from the oven and leave to rest for 10 minutes.

Turn out using a plate placed over the pan, then turn them both over together.

Harvest Time?

2010-08-14T14:45:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of spring this year, my neighbours Colin and Audrey and I decided we would like to have our own, shared allotment. We got very excited at the prospect of spending sunny Sunday afternoons digging up wonderfully fresh crunchy carrots and picking succulent fruits from the many bushes we would plant. And then our dreams were shattered......by an eight year waiting list for local allotments! I am patient, but even I can't wait that long for a good meal!
So we had to resort to our very small gardens - Colin and Audrey were far more focused on the task than I, and experienced the delights of fresh salad leaves, the aforementioned carrots and lots more besides. I, on the other hand, am still waiting for my tomatoes to turn from emerald green to ruby red!
However, also in our street is Ness, who has a apple tree that is positively straining to hold itself up under the weight of all the apples - and she doesn't cook - what a result!

Colin suggested we should see how many recipes we could make with Ness's apples (don't worry, I will not make you suffer all of them!). Colin instantly went for the rich, indulgent Apple and Olive Oil Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting from Ottolenghi's first book Ottolenghi: The Cookbook. As I am trying to avoid both wheat and dairy, my recipes have tended to be a little healthier, but obviously equally delicious!

Summer (wheat and dairy free) Crumble

900g cooking apples, peeled and chopped

2 oranges, segmented

125g strawberries, chopped

1 tbsp honey

100g oats

few fresh mint leaves

25g walnuts

25g cashew nuts

15g hazelnuts

55g light brown sugar

50g coconut oil

Preheat the oven to 180°C/360°F/Gas mark 5.

Place the apples, orange segments and strawberries in a baking dish and spoon over the honey.

Blitz the remaining ingredients in a food processor until you have a crumble mixture.

Spoon over the fruit and bake for 35-45 minutes until golden.

Ginger Baked Apples

4 cooking apples, cored

3 knobs of stem ginger, diced

2 tbsp of stem ginger syrup

140g Cherry Active dried cherries

45g walnuts

1 tbsp freshly chopped mint leaves

2 tbsp honey

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4.

Place the cored apples into an ovenproof dish.

Mix together the ginger, dried cherries, walnuts and mint then stuff the mixture into the holes of the cored apples, sprinkling the remainder around the apples.

Pour the stem ginger syrup and the honey over the apples then cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes, or until tender.

Another Italian Break

2010-08-08T04:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was invited to visit one if the most beautiful areas in Italy - San Gimignano in Tuscany. Stunning countryside, really friendly people, and obviously most importantly for me, amazing food.

Not only we were spoilt by staying in a converted farmhouse just a (very!) steep stroll down from the gorgeous town of San Gimimgnano, with an enormous kitchen that was once the cow shed (it still had the original eating troughs all along one side of the very large kitchen), but the gardener of the property insisted I visit his allotment for fresh produce - I was in heaven. From that moment on, nobody else was allowed in the kitchen! Interestingly everybody was very happy with that arrangement, and couldn't believe that even on holiday I wanted to cook. What I can't believe is why people don't cook - if you want great food it is the only way (unless you want to eat out at restaurants every night, but even that surely would get boring?!). My bounty included courgettes topped with brightly coloured flowers, celery, beautiful multicoloured large tomatoes, basil, radicchio, cucumber and red rose for each of the signoras! Our own garden was full of apple and plum tress that were dripping with fruit, so plum crumble was also on the menu more than once.

There is one thing that I could not make at home as well as the locals, and that was the local ice-cream at Gelateria dell'olmo - the best I have ever tasted. Even the dairy-free was so creamy and luscious you would be hard pushed to know the difference (I sampled quite a few........for research purposes obviously!). I figured my run up the hill and around the town walls every morning allowed me a few tastes of local produce - by the end of the week I realised running around twice may only just about cover it!!

Getting back into the saddle...

2010-07-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the big overnight cycle ride and despite really wanting to do it, for once I listened to my body and realised that just over two weeks from surgery is probably not the best time to cycle for nine to ten hours with no sleep. I am constantly telling athletes that they should not train if they are not at the peak of health, and this was a prime example of that!
Luckily there are always other options that are less stressful to the healing process - a quick burst of dragon-boat racing last Sunday (each race only lasted 1 minute, so not too much strain on the body, and with a fairly novice crew I knew my stamina would not be put under too much pressure!). It was a great event, organised by Dragon Boat Events, with 48 crews taking part and although it was for charity clearly we were all out to win it!
My other form of gentle cross-training has been to head out to the Chilterns and hike up and down the hills, which I find is not only great for the legs but also for the mind - escaping London is a great way to de-stress. Luckily it's not a busy place for walkers, despite it being so close to London, not many people realise what a great area it is, with rolling hills, great little country pubs and hundreds of miles of well-marked footpaths.

Tempting your Taste-buds

2010-07-18T12:01:00.000-07:00

I am constantly asked if, after a hard day of cooking for photography shoots, I cook myself dinner when I get home. My answer is always the same - I want to eat good, tasty food, so that naturally involves cooking great ingredients from scratch, which thankfully I find extremely relaxing anyway.
But something else that struck me this week is how important making food look good actually is, not only for a photograph. Your digestion starts by food being broken down in your mouth by chewing, and by the enzymes in your saliva. So getting your salivary juices flowing is very important, and this will not happen if you quickly open the fridge, put the box in the microwave then shovel the food in your mouth whilst standing leaning against the kitchen door.
There has to be a build up to the event, and cooking can do this. But also how you present the food may help. Often on shoots we get caterers to provide lunch, and nine times out of ten they provide paper plates and plastic cutlery.....instantly I am put off eating the food. Transfer that food to a beautiful serving dish or plate, and it is transformed....it's a bit like respecting the food by serving it on something special.
This was brought home to me even more this week when we were shooting on location in a house that was full of French antiques, including crockery and kitchenware (the photograph on the left was taken in the kitchen). Serving food on the crockery felt like I was making a piece of art!
And the other delight of a photography shoot - an abundance of food! This time beautiful red peppers, which are one of my favourite things to eat. Such a simple ingredient and so easy to turn them into something delicious - halve the peppers and take out the seeds and stalk, lay in a roasting tin, sprinkle with sliced garlic, chopped parsley, seasoning and olive oil and cook for about 20-30 minutes until softened. Delicious served with grilled fish or a salad and nearly as quick as placing the box in the microwave!!
For more beautiful French antiques, go to www.josephineryanantiques.co.uk - the owner of the stunning house we were shooting in.

An extremely quick recovery!

2010-07-09T13:55:00.000-07:00

Well, if some of you are wondering why I haven't been on my travels, or up-dated my blog recently, it's because I had a few days away in sunny.............Hammersmith Hospital! A little lump that I had known about for a few years, suddenly started to grow a little bigger than I liked, so it had to go. Unfortunately it was in my neck, so I am now sporting a rather dashing 8cm scar across my throat - very attractive.
But what was so interesting is how quickly I have recovered - everybody is amazed (me included) and obviously I put it all down to a healthy diet and lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, I am not a saint living on broth and water, never leaving the safety of my home.....far from it (ask anybody that knows me!). BUT, I do believe in feeding my body everything it needs to support the lifestyle that I do want to live and, as I am constantly telling the athletes that I advise - you can't expect your body to perform if you don't give it what it needs!
So, now it's summer at last and I am feeding myself with lots of healthy herbs - the garden is full of them (if you don't have a garden they will grow perfectly well in a window box!). Not only do herbs add great flavours to dishes, they also have health giving qualities, so incorporating them into your daily diet is a great idea.
The recipe I have cooked up today includes parsley (diuretic), oregano (anti-microbial), mint (soothing for the digestion), garlic (anti-microbial) and lemon balm (calming) - all of that in one dish!

Quinoa and Feta Salad
Serves 4-6

450g sweet potato, peeled and chopped into bite-size pieces
seasoning
2 tbsp olive oil
120g brown basmati rice
150g quinoa
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 tsp cumin seeds
juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp chopped parsley
1 tbsp chopped mint
1 tbsp chopped oregano
1/2 tbsp chopped lemon balm
175g feta cheese, crumbled
2 tbsp flaked almonds

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/ Gas mark 6.
2. Place the sweet potato into a roasting tin and season well before sprinkling with 1 tbsp of the olive oil. Roast for 15-18 minutes, until tender.
3. Cook the Basmati rice and quinoa according to the pack instructions then drain and place in a large bowl.
4. Heat the remaining olive oil and over a gently heat cook the garlic and cumin seeds, just enough to give a good aroma. Take off the heat and squeeze in the lime juice and stir in the herbs.
5. Spoon the herb mixture into the bowl with the rice and quinoa, then add the sweet potato with any oil from the roasting pan.
6. Finally, add the crumbled feta and flaked almonds and gently stir to mix well together.
7. This salad is great served warm or cold.

Happy Eating! Jx

Summer Madness

2010-06-26T02:52:00.000-07:00

It's that crazy time of year again when all the summer sports are competing with each other for our attention - the social calendar is in full swing! And on top of that we now have World Cup fever in the middle of all of it too. I'm finding it very difficult to decide what to focus on right now, and work is way down on the list!
But on Friday afternoon there was no question where I wanted to be - Henley Qualifiers. For the uninitiated these are time trials that are held on the Henley Royal Regatta course, to decide who goes through to race at Henley Royal Regatta the following week.
There is no dress code (having to wear a skirt or dress that covers your knees!), expensive Pimms, or exclusive member's enclosures to worry about, this is purely about rowing and everybody there is either racing, or supporting somebody else that is, and the atmosphere of anticipation is great.

I was supporting a number of girls from my club, Mortlake Anglian and Alpha as well as some great, slightly older, girls I row with who were also attempting to get through! As the stroke girl Hilary said "If we get through I will possibly be the oldest, lightest and smallest competitor ever to row at Henley Royal - she is 51! Unfortunately they were pipped at the post, but did put on a great performance. Oh well, there's always next year!

Increased need for ice-cream!

2010-06-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

So now I've increased my training I obviously need to increase my intake of antioxidants to counteract the damage I am doing to my body.
Antioxidants are alright on their own (berries, peppers etc.), but why not have a treat at the same time?! It is summer after all!

Cherry Active Ice-Cream

100g Cherry Active dried cherries
50ml Cherry Active Concentrate
300ml double cream
300ml milk
6 egg yolks
175g caster sugar

1. Leave CA cherries to soak in the concentrate while you make the ice-cream.
2. Mix together the milk and cream in a pan then bring to the boil.
3. While they are heating whisk together the egg yolks and sugar until they are pale and light.
4. Pour in the cream, whisking all the time, then transfer back to the pan and cook for another five minutes, stirring constantly. Pour into a bowl and leave to cool.
5. Place in an ice-cream maker and churn until nearly set. Gently stir in the soaked cherries and concentrate. then freeze.

My New Toy!

2010-06-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

Early mornings at this time of the year are just the best - there is nothing to beat being on the river, paddling under all the bridges whist on top of them the traffic is building up and people are getting frustrated at being delayed. And meanwhile I'm just gently floating on by....
But now another challenge has been set and I've had to treat myself to a new toy to enable me to take part (well, that's my excuse! On July 24th a crowd of us are taking part in the Dunwich Dynamo! Described as "A turn-up-and-go, challenging, slightly-scary, free-entry, overnight- on-tarmac, just under 120 mile bicycle ride to the lovely lonely Suffolk sea at Dunwich". As usual the friends that are not taking part have told us we are crazy......... and they are possibly right (I will confirm this, if and when I ever return)!
But in preparation I realised my trusty, and rusty, old mountain bike was not going to be fit enough for the job and a road bike was what was needed - I had always wanted one, and now here was my perfect excuse.
So, I picked the brains of my mate Charlie who is experienced in these things and he came up with the perfect bike for me, which I duly then ordered from Evans. On Friday the call came through that the bike had arrived and was awaiting my inspection. So off I went to try out my new wheels. Interesting taking a bike for a test ride when you have no idea what it should feel like. Even more interesting when you get about a mile away from the shop and realise you have no idea how to change gear! So there I was in Syon Park flagging down any cyclist who I thought looked like he might know a thing to two about bikes (as it turned out I realised this was pretty good way of pulling a fit bloke - must mention it to Liz!). So I was off, at speed, and happy with my choice. Only other decision was whether to have SPDs fitted - they're the clippy things that stop you getting your feet out quickly, just before you fall over. Thought I should go for it big time and really look the part, so told them to fit those too and I would pick it up on Monday.
Not quite so confident today - called them early this morning to suggest maybe normal peddles whilst I get used to the bike (I shall probably be falling off enough without the clippy things). While I was waiting for my bike a young guy was being given instructions on his new purchase - a £2500 full suspension mountain bike. While this was going on a little old man was waiting to be served, watching in bewilderment. Finally it was his turn to be served and he asked to see their range of bicycle clips for his trousers! Isn't life so full of extremes.
On leaving the shop I decided I would head straight for Richmond Park (where all the serious cyclists do their time-trials) and have myself some fun. What I actually did was scare myself quite considerably - hills that seem perfectly fine in a car suddenly seemed like a skiing black run, with no snow-ploughing allowed! And although I knew how to change gear I didn't really understand when!
So, having scared myself one final time on the last hill going down to the river to head home, I bump into my neighbour Tim, a keen cyclist with Twickenham Cycling Club. He is so impressed with the new bike he insists we take it around Richmond Park for a spin - telling him I've just done that does not put him off. So finally I get to ride it with an instructor at my side, and at last I feel like I might be on the way to knowing how to ride a bike! Which is lucky really, with only about 7 weeks training to go!

Walking The Ridgeway

2010-05-31T14:33:00.001-07:00

It is a while since I've done a long walk, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy exploring England by foot. It is the only way to really get to see all the hidden away special places that are so easily missed.

A few years ago I was invited on a walk by a friend who was meeting up with her old university friends. We were to walk the Coleridge way in the Quantock Hills and the walk was partly a reunion, so turned out to be a bit of a party. I assumed this was a one-off, but the following year when the walk moved to

North Devon, the partying continued. So now I try to join them every year - it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase 'a walking party'!

This year we walked the northern end of The Ridgeway, about the last 25 miles of it, starting just outside of West Wickham and joining the path by Princes Risborough. The only unfortunate side to this day was the constant rain, but luckily most of the walk is wooded so prevented us from getting totally soaked through. It also gave a good excuse for the 'party' of walkers to stop and take regular breaks, with quick nips of tequila to keep their spirits up!

Navigation also became a bit of a game, with Simone, one of the walkers, trying out her new toy - a GPS, against Tim, our organiser, with map. I was totally against the whole idea of the GPS, being a lover of maps, but when at one point we appeared to be lost in a very large wood, the GPS saved the day, and possibly a few miles walked in the wrong direction, by pointing us in the correct direction.

The other important part of great walks is of course great food along the way. Lunch on the first day was at the Red Lion in Great Hampden, a cosy traditional little pub, with very friendly owners who even took pity on the soggy looking dogs and let them sneak inside to dry out for a

while. Great sandwiches were served, with rare roast beef or tasty Cheddar and pickle. But it has to be said that the bread and butter pudding was possibly the worst I have ever tasted - layers of 'pappy' white bread with either lard or margarine used to glue it together, with the odd sultana showing it's face. This was served with a jug of custard to pour over the top. This was not bread and butter pudding - what a disappointment.

Saturday night in Wendover was also interesting - another Red Lion, but this one is an old coaching Inn in the centre of town, and buzzing on a Saturday night (there is possibly nowhere else to go?). Food as you would expect - disappointing.

Sunday turned out to be sunny which was a great relief to all - the thought of being damp for another eight hours of walking was not a good prospect.

The Ridgeway lived up to be everything I had hope for, with changing scenery, quaint churches, stunning country houses (including a view of Chequers), and the perfect amount of small hills to climb.

Our final lunch at The Greyhound in Wiggington was also pretty good, and gave us energy for the final push to Ivinghoe Beacon, with the most amazing views for miles.

Best Rowing Coach on the Thames?

2010-05-20T07:22:00.001-07:00

Getting back to training after a weekend end away certainly feels better when the sun is shining, the water is beautifully flat, the first baby goslings are bobbing around and.................our coach cooked us all breakfast!

And not just any old breakfast either - sausages, bacon, scrambled eggs, black pudding, grilled tomatoes and, after a special request from me - smoked salmon!!! How amazing is he?! No wonder our membership is growing (just a shame most of the girls are training to race as lightweights!).

Interesting too so see what others brought to the table - home-made rye bread from one, Nutella from another (has she not been listening to a word I say??!!) and obviously from me it had to be something to add a touch of health to the proceedings - a shot of Cherry Active drink to top

up their antioxidant levels after a hard workout!

Cheers George, you're a star!

When in Rome.......

2010-05-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

Another trip to the beautiful city, but this time it was slightly different and much more like home - it rained constantly for four days - thunder, lightening and the most water I have seen running down cobbled streets in a long time!

But less like home was the great food available, as always in Italy. I arrived on Friday and was told that we would be having dinner that night with friends at around 10pm, with 'Happy Hour' aperitifs starting at around 9pm - a little later than we would normally start at home, but when in Rome...

After a large dinner another surprise - would I like to go for cornetti? Having just learnt in my Italian class that cornetti was croissant I was a little confused but agreed anyway as it seemed the thing to do. So, at around 12.30am we drive for around twenty minutes to the Africa District to a little cafe that is positively bulging with people eating croissants!! They are coming straight out of the oven and served hot, filled with custard or topped with icing sugar, some with chocolate and others filled with cheese. Even though my stomach was fighting against the idea, I could not resist - they were divine. And obviously the whole point is that you buy some for breakfast so the next morning began with a treat too!

After that the weekend was a whirl of driving to different areas outside of Rome, starting with attending Mama's birthday party in Bracciano where more great food was served, including panzanella, a wonderful country summer bread and tomato salad which includes the simplest of ingredients but as is typically Italian, those ingredients are the best that can be found; country style bread with a great crust, fresh tomatoes, garlic, basil leaves, virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar and olives.

The recipe is simple - just soak the bread in a little cold water then mix with all the remaining ingredients, season and mix well. Do not attempt this with pappy supermarket bread and unripe tomatoes - you will be missing the point!

Driving around Italy is amazing - not more than forty-five minutes out of Rome are some of the most beautiful villages, some built on cliff-tops, others surrounded by olive groves, or the another alternative is to head for the beach. Either way wherever you stop you are likely to find great food, even in the smallest towns and villages where there is one lonesome cafe - a plate of pasta with a rocket and Parmesan salad, or a beautifully thin pizza topped with tomato sauce and artichokes - I found it impossible to have a bad meal!

A Taste of Honey

2010-05-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't normally attend work related things at the weekend, but the chance to learn about and taste gorgeous honey was too tempting to resist! So after a quick training session on the river, I scurried down along the Thames in the pouring rain, to Petersham Nurseries.

Now this is a place I would not normally rush too either, despite it being a beautiful location and despite the fact that the food is pretty good. My main problem with it is the outrageous prices, mainly I assume because it is the wonderful

borough of Richmond (who now have a millionaire MP which just says it all!), so they feel justified in charging rather over-flated prices to sit and have lunch in a greenhouse!

Anyway, back to the purpose of my visit, which was to attend a Guild of Food Writers talk, which are always very informative, and this one was certainly no exception.

We started with a brief talk by Skye Gyngell, who is the chef at Petersham, and who is very passionate about combining natural flavours of foods together, which she did brilliantly in serving a plate of cheeses matched with subtle cheeses - Creamy St Tola goats cheese with rhodedendron honey, and toma (Piedmont) cheese with herb honey - the combinations were divine. To finish we were served vanilla ice cream with chestnut honey and turron....despite it being a cold and rainy day I couldn't resist eating the bowl clean!

After that we were given a great talk by Hattie Ellis, who appears to have spend a large amount of her life travelling the world to learn about honey and bees. It certainly was not time wasted as she made everything sound such fun and so interesting. I have always wanted to keep bees and she made it seem such an easy thing to do, especially as she mentioned that local bee keepers may even be happy to 'borrow' your garden for one of their hives - thus giving you the pleasure of sharing them and sampling their honey, but none of the work!! And a great chance to learn more about it before you take the plunge and get your own colony. One great thing I did learn was that bees are banned in New York, in that you are not allowed to keep them there. But....there is an overground underground of bee keepers who keep them on their roof! Only in America!

My stroll back home after all that sweetness was made even sweeter by the discovery of Greedies on the river. Greedies is a cafe in Isleworth that is frequented by myself and a large number of rowers who need a good breakfast or brunch after a heavy morning's training. Over the years we had explored a number of local workman's caffs, where you can get a good fry-up and sit and recover from the mornings exercise in a nice surrounding. We were never quite satisfied until I came upon Greedies. They do one of the best breakfasts in West London - and not only a World Cup fry-up either. If you want something a little more up-market there is eggs benedict or smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, along with lots of other goodies. For a Sunday brunch with the morning papers it takes a lot of beating.

Bank Holidays were made for this.

2010-05-09T13:38:00.000-07:00

What a life-safer my friend Guinevere is.....whenever I need to get away from it all and chill out for a few days, she insists I get myself down to Wales, to stay in her beautiful little converted chapel in Llangennith on the Gower Penninsula.

Forget all that flying abroad stuff (especially when there is volcanic ash floating around!), Wales can be absolutely stunning and luckily for myself and a couple of girlfriends, this weekend was exceptional. The sun shone for the whole weekend, so the surfers were out in force (giving us a little eye-candy for amusement), and we spent our days walking the beach, or over the hills, with pub lunches and the odd Welsh cake here and there! Unfortunately the local pub The Kings Head was very disappointing on the food front, with a very big menu, including lots of curries and the usual pub grub type food, but not very well done. Which meant we had to extend our search a little further, ruining our plan of spending the whole weekend not using a car.

Luckily after a trip to the local flea market on Monday morning we drove past the King Arthur Hotel, which was a different standard and served great food. Again there were lots of curries (is curry eating some old Welsh tradition that I've not heard of?), but these were much more imaginative and certainly more tasty - I had chickpea and vegetable Thai curry which was great and only let down by the addition of microwaveable rice!

But if cakes is what you like (and I do), then homemade Welsh cakes are a must. There is debate about whether you eat them with butter or jam, or just plain (I go for the plain option), either way they are one of the easiest cakes to make especially as they don't even require an oven. I have memories of making them for my father when he was living abroad and had no oven but was craving homemade cakes - I cooked them in a wok!

This recipe uses a griddle pan, but if a wok is all you have then get cooking anyway!

225g self-raising flour

110g butter

85g caster sugar

75g mixed dried fruit

1 egg

a little milk

1. Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Stir in the sugar and mixed dried fruit then pour in the egg and mix to a dough, using a little milk if needed.

3. Turn out onto a floured surface and roll the dough to a thickness of about 8-9mm. cut rounds with a biscuit cutter.

4. Heat a griddle and wipe with a little oil. Cook the cakes over a low heat until golden on both sides and cooked through the middle. Serve warm or cold.

Forced extended break!

2010-04-20T01:00:00.000-07:00

I can't believe we are still here - we should have left on Saturday, it's now Tuesday and there is no sign of us moving anywhere. On Saturday we flew from Izmir to Istanbul to try to get a flight, there were none. We looked at taking the train via Bucharest, Budapest, Vienna, Munich and Paris, it was full for the next three days and anyway we were told it was not safe. So then there was the idea of flying to Rome (via Athens), to take a train or bus..............two minutes later Rome closed. Plan D was a bus to Munich, taking 48 hours, costing £230 and no sure sign of getting out of Munich. We spent a night in Istanbul, in a hotel that was not safe to leave at night. Dinner was a toasted cheese sandwich in our room. Breakfast was served in polystyrene trays on table mats of three-day old newspaper - very classy!

So finally we gave up and decided to fly back to Izmir and take a taxi back to the house in Foca.

At least we can sleep in our own beds and wait until the madness stops.

An easy routine.......

2010-04-16T08:03:00.000-07:00

The only downside of having a property in another country, that you only visit occasionally, is that you spend the first couple of days cleaning and repairing and making it feel like home again. In our case it was two days of weed clearing - the garden looked like a meadow, when in reality it should be crazy paving (whoever invented that dreadful phrase and concept was certainly crazy). So, yesterday morning I cycled down to the local garden centre and tried to explain, in my non-existent Turkish, to a very sweet man, with non-existent English, that I needed weed killer. The killer bit was easy, katil. But when it came to weeds ise yaramaz ot, ayrik otu, I was a little stumped! Despite this, after 15 minutes of gesticulating, I had a coke bottle with some dubious looking liquid in it, that we had agreed needed to be topped up with water, 1:5. And after all this debate, he refused to let me pay for it! That is what I love about this place, everybody wants to help and there is no ulterior motive, ever. A couple of hours spent in the internet cafe trying to download lectures I have missed, came free with Turkish apple tea and a bunch of geraniums! Sometimes being female is just the best!

So, a routine is very soon settled into. I am woken by the local military base....my alarm can be anything from the morning drill being called (perfect for getting me out of bed!), a boogle, a round of rifles or a full brass band! The base is only about 500 meters from the house

and if the wind is blowing the wrong way it sounds like we have thirty soldiers in our back garden. A thirty minute run to the headland is followed by a swim in the sea (bit of a shock this time as we are here earlier than normal and it's pretty cold!). After a quick shower, a breakfast of muesli, fresh local strawberries and local natural yoghurt. Unlike the Greek yoghurt we get at home, this Turkish yoghurt is thick and creamy, but also very smooth. It also has a crust on top like that of a home-made rice pudding - almost chewy, and absolutely delicious. If I was cast on a dessert island and only allowed one meal it would be this yoghurt and honey....forever!

After that the day consists of laying on the patio, strolling into town to do odd jobs or buy more food, and walking the two minutes to the sea for another swim - it's hell!

The other thing that has to be mentioned is the cats. They are everywhere. And I mean everywhere - there are hundreds, all colours, and sort of semi wild - they will let you feed them but are unlikely to let you touch them. We have adopted a couple at the house in the short time we have been here and already they feel comfortable enough to sleep on our chairs, but not for us to get too close.

Tonight is our last night so we are going out to dinner. We will go to the same place we ate in on our first night, despite saying we would try different ones.......the problem is they are so nice and constantly give us more than we order or ask for, so it seems rude not to give them out custom. Obviously this is why they do it but what the heck!

Another week, another country.......

2010-04-14T11:01:00.000-07:00

Back to my beloved Foca, to the house where my mother lived and has now become a retreat for my sister and I when we need to escape the real world.

We've only been here two days and already I walk slower, sleep more and eat more healthily than ever...........I think I am finally winding down. It's pretty hard not to.

Foca is a beautiful tiny fishing village on the west coast of Turkey, 70km north of Izmir. Totally unspoilt, there are no English people, no buildings above three storeys allowed to be built and best of all, great food to be had.

Our first night was a treat....we wandered along the seafront to one of the restaurants (although very small, Foca has an abundance of great restaurants to choose from). We ate freshly made houmous with dill (I would never have thought this combination would work, but it did), a salad full of local leaves (nettles, thick, strong rocket and lots of leaves I didn't recognise), plus a shrimp casserole - freshly caught prawns cooked with garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms and olive oil and topped with local cheese. It was delicious. We were both too full for dessert but then were told there was a surprise to come! A terracotta dish of halva.......not the way we would normally eat it though.........it was halva, cooked with milk and olive oil, served hot sprinkled with chopped hazelnuts, and was amazing (you do need to have a sweet tooth for this, as with all Turkish dessert and cakes).

After that there was more free wine and finally to top it all, a nearby table of men presented us with some of their red snapper that had been cooked in salt and then set alight as a birthday celebration dish - what an evening!

Tuesday morning is market day - another chance to eat great food as all the traders insist on you trying everything. And of course, we are a complete novelty, not being locals, so they have great fun making us eat things they suspect we won't like. But we return to the house laden with fresh cheese, local honey, herbs, local olives and olive oil and the best bit, thick creamy local yoghurt - I am in heaven.

The pain is finally over!

2010-04-07T12:30:00.000-07:00

OK, so it wasn't quite that bad, but it certainly isn't a walk in the park either. By the end of day six we were all feeling pretty knackered and some girls couldn't even lift their forks to their mouths without being in pain from their blistered hands - the things we do for fun. Anybody that tells you that it's just the taking part that counts needs to come on a Mortlake training camp!

Centro Especializado de Alto Rendimiento, La Cartuja did finally feel like home though, once we got into our daily routines of sculling, eating, sleeping, sculling, eating, sunbathing, sleeping, sculling, eating, nightcap (hot chocolate - definitely no alcohol!) and in bed by about 9.30!

Half-way through the week I gave the girls a bit of a talk about nutrition. It's really hard to tell people that they have to eat a rainbow (lots of colourful fruit and vegetables), when that evening all the food was yellow - pasta, sweetcorn, fish in turmeric, yellow tomatoes and pineapple! The lack of vegetables was legendary, with every single one of them out of a can or the freezer, and all cooked to within an inch of their lives. My first job on hitting British soil was a visit to Waitrose for a hundredweight of broccoli, to be LIGHTLY steamed and included

in every meal over the next week!

Now we have to try and put into practice everything learnt, whilst navigating the fast flowing, windy Thames.....it won't feel quite the same.

Day Two at Training Camp

2010-03-31T05:08:00.000-07:00

Well it's day two and already I'm feeling the effects of training 3 times a day - hands covered in blisters, legs aching and managing to sleep for far more hours than I would normally (I even had an afternoon nap yesterday - unheard of for me!).

We are training on the Guadalquivir River, which is very big and has the most amazing number of fantastic bridges crossing over it. And the best bit - the sun is shining and it's warm!!

It's so much easier to train in this environment - surrounded by at least thirty female lightweight rowing athletes, plus hundreds of other water-sport athletes. One of the water-sports is a funny kneeling, paddling thing that seems to be done by lots of very fit men! I will try to capture one on film to show later - it looks very precarious yet they move pretty quickly.

The food has certainly improved from what I remember, the problem now is that you have to stop them piling huge portions on your plate. Because it's a training centre they clearly think we need to eat lots, and especially lots of carbs. Breakfast consists of bread or croissants or a cereal that takes enough chewing to take you up to lunch-time!

Lunch and dinner always start with a huge plate of pasta (with varying sauces), some very over-cooked fish, tinned or frozen veg and a salad that includes iceburg lettuce (basically water!). I'm going for as much variety as possible to try to cover every nutrient, and an emergency visit to the supermarket has ensured a more edible muesli for breakfast.

Today's training session was a 12km paddle before breakfast, 3 x 1000 metre sprints before lunch and before dinner I am thinking of going for a run, to save my sore hands!

So for those of you that always think I am on holiday - think again!

THE Boat Race

2010-03-27T10:10:00.000-07:00

For all of those 14 million of you out there that watch the Boat Race, could I just point out - you got the wrong day! Why watch just two boats trundling down the Thames, with the only bit of excitement being when they hit their blades (oars to you novices), or even better, sink! When, a week prior to that (today infact), you could watch 400 boats doing the same thing (but obviously with far more chance of them hitting blades or each other!!). I have just cycled down to the river to watch and it's such an amazing thing to see - 400 boats, 3600 people racing, and lots of shouting from every bridge along the way - such a great atmosphere.

So on Monday I am off to Seville for training camp - and this really is what it says on the tin - training camp. No sight-seeing, no late night tapas bars, no bull-fighting (well a couple of the

girls normally fall out at some stage!), and hopefully I will return fitter, stronger and a little lighter - it has to be said that the food in the Sports Centre where we stay is not the best, so losing weight may just happen naturally, let's hope so.

Spring has finally Sprung!

2010-03-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

At last - it took it's time, but today, for the first time, it actually felt like winter was behind us - I could walk into Richmond without seven layers of clothes, a scarf and gloves......and not get frost-bite if I stood still longer than 17 seconds!

I feel as if I have come out of hibernation - and I love it - let summer begin! But to clinch it all, to really confirm to me that winter was over, was the magical sound of.............the musical ice-cream van coming down my street! I'm not sure at what time of the year he would normally start but I am very impressed with his optimism - it wasn't THAT hot today.

Typically I was writing summer recipes at the same time, so I thought I would finally get some into the blog. The feature I am writing is about Bil lingsgate (see my earlier blog for more information about the great London fish market), so lots of healthy fish recipes. but the one I have included is for crab and avocado salad as crab to me brings back such lovely memories of summers at Cromer beach as a child, with Dad insisting we buy the biggest crab we could find for our crab and cucumber sandwiches! Unfortunately I can't whizz up to Cromer each time I want crab, but luckily I live pretty close to Sandy's Fishmonger in Twickenham, so am spoilt for choice when it comes to great fish or game.

Crab and Avocado Salad

Serves 4

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tsp cumin seeds

4 spring onions

juice of 1 lemon

2 little gems, trimmed and leaves separated

2 avocados, stoned, peeled and sliced

the meat of 2 dressed crabs

Heat the oil very gently and cook the cumin seeds for a few minutes before adding the spring onions.
When you can smell the aroma of the cumin and onions, turn off the heat and add the lemon juice. Swirl around to help the juice and oil mix together.
Place the little gem leaves onto four plates then top with sliced avocado and finally the crab.
Pour over the dressing and serve immediately.

The perfect day..............

2010-03-15T12:41:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I just feel my job couldn't be any better. Yesterday for example, was spent on a trip into London to buy cheese for a feature I am writing on British cheese. So I obviously started at Neals Yard in Covent Garden, famed for it's stock of British cheeses and staff who know everything you would ever need to know about the cheeses and the people that make them. It's not just shopping, it's an education. I was served by Callum, who, it has to be said, knows his stuff. He walked me through the cheeses I wanted, telling me a potted history of the makers and those that had gone before them, and while this is going on I obviously have to taste them all. I could happily just stand in the shop and breath in the smell, but getting to taste anything you like is such a treat, and inevitably ends up with you buying far more than you had anticipated, which I did!

After that it was on to the Commonwealth Club for lunch, to discuss the virtues of avocados

with a friend John who runs a PR company. I can't believe that there needs to be PR to sell avocados - how come everybody thinks they're not good for you, when they clearly are - full of vitamins and great fats - yes, great fats, not the bad ones! Include them in your diet now please!

semi-marathon de Paris - success!

2010-03-10T06:30:00.000-08:00

Wow, what an achievement - I have run and survived the semi-marathon de Paris (the Paris half- marathon to you non-French speakers!), and not only that, but in under 2 hours and still managed to walk up and down the steps of the Sacre Coeur the next day - neither of which I thought would be possible!

The organisers admitted it was possibly one of the coldest years this event has taken place and with 27,000 people registered it was bound to be a busy event.

From start to finish I was surrounded by others pounding the pavements of Paris, and this was

exactly what I had been dreading - bumping into each other, tripping over when trying to get past and just generally not being able to run in a straight line - and this without a drink! And to top it all off, at the end of the 21km, when the finish line was insight there was a bottleneck - we all had to stop 20 metres from the finish line and it took 15 minutes to get over it - lots of 'boo..ing' was to be heard. I even thought of forgoing my medal rather than waiting in the cold.

Obviously a celebratory lunch was had - in a great restaurant not far from the 2km marker - L'Apprenti. What I love about this place is that from the outside it looked nothing at all, but when you stepped inside, it enveloped you with warmth and comfort. The food was typically French with amazing sauces and flavours and the atmosphere absolutely perfect for a relaxing afternoon of eating!

Unfortunately as often happens after doing lots of exercise, my body didn't want too much food (at this point it was too busy trying to recover!), so I had to top it up again later with a plate of French cheese and salad at La Fontaine de Mars - another great French restaurant not far from the Tour Eiffel. Cheese and salad was not on their menu but as with all French restaurants, and very unlike English ones, they are happy to serve you what you want, and normally do it very well!

The final countdown.........

2010-03-01T09:01:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it, only one week to go to the dreaded 13 mile, half-marathon slog around Paris - I can't imagine I will be feeling like calling it Gay Paris for a while after that!

Luckily a few friends are joining me so this weekend we decided on a training weekend in Kent, thanks to Tom who was house-sitting in a rather large house! Liz who had organised the Paris trip is now unfortunately injured so can't take part, but as all good friends do, she came along to help us with the training schedule by buying lots of bubbly on the way!

So Saturday was a chilling-out day, with a stroll around the area, in preparation for the last long run on Sunday - 10 miles. Of course what I hadn't thought about was the Kent terrain - the longest, steepest hills you've ever seen!

Tom did us proud with a huge lasagne for dinner on Saturday night - carbo-loading for the runners and fat-loading for the non-runners!

Sunday morning I was woken at 5am by torrential rain and high winds, just as the forecasters had predicted (why are they only right when you don't want them to be?), but we had to go ahead regardless as I needed to know if I could actually run as far as I had to!

So we made a vague plan and drew a map on a scrap of paper that I kept in my pants incase of getting lost - Tom was going to be miles ahead of me, and Jules and Andrew were going a different way, so all would be no use if I got lost! Luckily I didn't, but did go up a few dead-ends which then brought my total mileage up to around 12 miles and had me running practically through rivers for 2 1/4 hours! My only thought was that Paris has to be easier (and hopefully a lot flatter) than that!

Luckily we are all of the same mind and decided we deserved a post exercise treat of more carbs, so headed off to The Pilot at Dungeness for the biggest ever plate of fish and chips.....and a small side-order of mushy peas!!

The day was rounded off by a stroll on the beach, but even that couldn't be simple - there had to be a bet - they say everybody has their price, and Polly's was a quick dip in the freezing sea for...

..... a figure that I am unable to disclose. Suffice it to say she certainly earned it!!

The training schedule falls apart!

2010-02-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

The week in SA continued in the same vein, with food and wine being consumed at an alarming rate! My training schedule was not doing well - I had to do two 4.5 mile runs plus cross-training on the days I wasn't running. I'm not sure strolling around an apple orchard or sauntering amongst the grapevines carrying a camera could really be classed as cross-training? If you think travelling to a warm country will be good for training think again - the great thing about being in Britain at this time of year is that you have to go out running to stay warm!

And how could I possibly not eat the amazing food that was put infront of me? Even the typical South African braai (that is normally a complete meat-fest), was impossible to resist, with large flat mushrooms stuffed with cheese, chargrilled nectarines with feta cheese, and a wonderful home-made cheesecake that our host Johan insisted we ate the South African way, with a little red wine poured over the top - it was unusual, but delicious.

But the whole purpose of this trip was to learn about great South African fruit, so we did spend time wandering the vast apple, pear and plum orchards, and learnt about the varieties that are sent over to us in the UK. Interestingly the research showed that a lot of people don't buy South African fruit because they think it is grown artificially. Having visited at least three farms I can assure you there is nothing artificial about the glorious orchards that spread out for miles, with the fruit ripening naturally under the intense African sun.

We did manage to fit in a quick visit to Aquila Private Game Reserve near Touws River, with time for a safari to see the wildlife of Africa - they have giraffe, zebra, elephants, rhino, leapoard, cheetah and lions - and you will get to see them all - the reserve is not that large and there are fences to ensure they don't leave! The highlight of the safari was the stop for fizzy wine as the sun went down - we couldn't escape the alcohol even there!

On our final day we visited Langa Township, something I would highly recommend if you visit Cape Town. It's hard to say how it made me feel so I will leave it up to you to visit and judge for yourself. After this the plan was to drive up the West Coast Road towards Langebaan for a ten course lunch at Die Strandloper Seafood Restaurant. This was the final straw and we all voted against it! There really is only so much food that can be eaten, and for me, with no exercise taking place, my body was starting to rebel! The thought of returning to cold, grey England was a depressing one, but if I am to make the Paris half-marathon I need to get myself back in shape pretty quickly - only two weeks to go!

A fruity South African experience

2010-02-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

Life is always full of such extremes, and this certainly is one of those - from the freezing sand dunes of the Kent coast I have travelled to the Western Cape in South Africa, and it is HOT!

I have been invited by South African fruit growers, to find out why their fruit is good and to help promote it back home in the UK. but not only do they want to promote their fruit, they are also very keen to show us how proud they are of their beautiful country, and they have every reason to be - it is stunning.

We arrived this morning, slightly tired after an all-night flight, but were revived by lunch at The Mount Nelson Hotel, the most iconic luxury hotel in Cape Town. It is famed for it's afternoon tea, but after the huge buffet lunch we were served there was no room left, plus we had lots more to fit into the day.

A quick trip to the top of Table Mountain by cable car and then we are driven out to Stellenbosch, one of the Western Cape's wineland areas, set at the head of the Eerste River Valley. Not only do they make great wine here, but the area also contains finely preserved examples of the Cape-Dutch style of architecture. We are lucky enough to be staying in the Lanzerac Hotel, a distinguished Cape-Dutch house on a 300-year old country estate over-looking lush vineyards and the Helderburg Mountains.

So on to dinner, and again I find there is no shortage of food! This week is going to be tough if I intend to keep up my training schedule for the Paris half-marathon in only 3 weeks - I am not just carbo-loading here, I will be over-loading pretty much every nutrient available to man if today is anything to go by! We eat at Moyo, an African Themed restaurant on the Spier Wine Estate and the buffet is vast! Even our group of nine carnivores, two vegetarians and one serious nut allergy sufferer did not struggle to over-eat.

Summer picnics in Kent

2010-02-11T12:18:00.000-08:00

Most of you will know that when I'm not talking about healthy food, I'm styling it for photography for magazines and newspapers. And if you think the life of a food stylist is glamorous, think again!

The last two days were spent in the beautiful Kent countryside, we had rented a beach house to shoot a summer catalogue of kitchen and house-ware with the idea of showing picnic baskets in sand dunes, and tea parties in the garden.

Great plan........................until it snowed.............and

snowed.......and snowed! How to make summer in one foot of snow??!! Pretty impossible but luckily the house was very pretty inside so we got some great shots and you would never know the difference - I challenge you to find the shots!