Food Food Food!

It has been so long since I last blogged, that I actually have to look back at all of my pictures in order to deduce what it is that I have been up to. Well then, here we go.

Well, since I have significantly reduced the stress in my life and finally managed to choose happiness, I have been able to return to the land of eating food. Alright, that might be a little extreme of an introduction, let's say I've gotten a bit more creative with my creating of food. Regardless, food is fun -and alliterative - so let's start there!

Ever since I was a kid and the family used to cook supper together (they call it tea here, which can be terribly misleading), I have quite enjoyed fajitas. In order to keep myself from eating, literally the same pasta dish every single night, I began making fajitas during the winter months this year. Now, I found when I made tacos back in the fall that I didn't quite like the flavour of the packeted mixes here, so it became necessary (not to mention cheaper) to make fajitas from scratch.

Now, me being all keen and eager to share my exciting and tasty food with the world started posting these things on facebook. "Made fajitas from scratch for dinner tonight, aren't I clever!" Or something to that effect. Well it turns out that unless you raise, kill and pluck your own chickens, as well as drain their blood and butcher them then you aren't making the fajitas from scratch. So in order to continue boasting about my amazingness I had to start doing just that. So I set up a little chicken coop in the corner of my flat and started raising chickens.

No, in all seriousness, I instead made my own tortillas. They are fairly easy to make and taste fairly decent (although not like the store-bought ones). We'll talk about the homemade salsa later, don't worry.
So we're talking tortillas right now. I am a big fan of the internet when it comes to cooking. My friends around here are always telling me that it looks or sounds good, and then promptly ask either how I know how to make it, if I made it up, or where to find the recipe. Well, eight times out of ten it comes from the internet. I google things a lot. It is one of the fantastic things about living in the world of smartphones -there is now so much just at your fingertips. Gone are the days that you have to call every person you know trying to find out how long to cook your rice for. Gone are the days that you have to call the next door neighbour because your mother isn't home to pick up the phone when it rings to tell you the temperature at which to roast a chicken. And gone are the days where you guess and end up poisoning yourself by accident. Ok that last one hasn't happened yet, and hopefully never will. Anyway, I made tortillas from scratch. It is surprising simple, even if you don't have a tortilla press or a rolling pin. All you need is the ingredients, a pan and an empty (or full) wine bottle.

Please note that the only reason I bring up wine is because I don't currently possess a rolling pin and a chef friend said 'hey use a wine bottle.' Find the recipe I used here: http://www.food.com/recipe/flour-tortilla-recipe-204109
Side nore: I substituted olive oil for veggie oil since I didn't have any. I think that might be what accounts for the more yellowed colour of the tortillas. I think that may have also slightly impacted the taste, but they were still alright.

So I can now boast about having made my own tortillas. I haven't done it since simply because it's not the fastest of processes and buying them is more convenient, however I currently have more time on my hands so who knows what the next few weeks might involve.

Moving along the Mexica theme, I have also now tried my hand at salsa. This was an improvised and unplanned venture. We thought there was salsa hiding about in the fridge and it turns out that we were mistakened. In this case it certainly worked out in the favour of my (and other's) taste buds as well as our insides (no preservatives in homemade salsa!). I improvised a little bit since I don't recall having any coriander at that time, but here is a recipe that looks vaguely familiar:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/rawsalsa_81423

The salsa was super easy to make. I made it before making the fajitas and then popped it into the fridge for a little bit to meld. I think I used chilli powder instead of fresh chillies (again a supply thing). 

Here is the meal all put together and waiting to be devoured. I'd recommend leaving the salsa to sit in the fridge for at least 20 minutes before serving. It makes it just perfect!

Moving along in the food adventures we come to steak and ale pie. Now one cannot move to Yorkshire without hearing about this lovely food, and one simply cannot boast about enjoying food and cooking in Yorkshire without at least attempting to make a steak and ale pie. Please note it is possible, especially if one if vegetarian, however I am writing for effect here people. Right, steak and ale pie. Made with black sheep -hold it, Black Sheep ale. Black Sheep is a North Yorkshire ale (for more info go here: http://www.blacksheepbrewery.com/ ) that I do not like, however it is delicious in pie. I cheated a little with the pie as it was a Friday evening after a long week and I was hungry. I also had help preparing it. Turns out that this is a pretty easy recipe it just takes a bit of time. Here's your basic recipe: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/8482/black-sheep-pie.aspx
I used store bought crust to go on top. It was great. It tasted just amazing. The crust was light and fluffy. The meat was tender and delicious and the sauce was mouthwatering. It was a great meal to make and share with friends.

 Hmm, it looks like we might have added a bit of extra veg to the dish I do like carrots. And as you can see below, we served it up with mashed potatoes and some gravy. Although to the perfectly honest, the extra gravy wasn't necessary.

Now for a random adventure I had late one evening. I decided one Saturday night that I was bored and would attempt to make my own caramel. It's just sugar right...and a few other ingredients, but how hard could it be?

 Well, really I had no idea what I was doing. So once again google got involved, and my friend Jan.

 So you melt the sugar in the pot; you can add a little bit of water to help it if you want.

 Slowly and carefully let it cook, but not too far. What you might start to ask yourself around this stage is....how exactly do you know if it's gone to far?  You can't exactly try it to find out if it tastes right. Add cream and stir.

 Taste test...I happened to have some strawberries that I thought I would dip.

 It tasted a little burnt...

 So I added more cream in hopes that it might make it taste a little better. It helped...some.

 All in all, this attempt failed a little. I definitely burnt the caramel. As you can see I was a little sad about this.

And now is the time to talk Easter Dinner. Living alone and with most of the cool people out of town traveling, I was left alone to my own devices for Easter Dinner. I found a cheap piece of stewing beef and some potatoes and veg and decided to try out some creative cooking. This is a pretty simple recipe. I stewed the beef in Jameson, chicken stock (I didn't have beef) and the veggies. I popped it all in the oven for a while. I can't remember how long, or really at what temperature since it was all guess work. I think I added extra stock at one point as well.

 In the end I was very pleased with the results. This last picture was taken before I actually tasted anything in there, but I have to say that the dish was absolutely amazing. I really enjoyed it. The only thing that could have made it better would have been having another person around to feed it too. I ate this meal for three days (one meal a day) and enjoyed it each time. It was so good if I do say so myself. Too bad I didn't have someone else to tell me how good it was too.

For those who know me well, it is no secret that I like food. It is also no secret that I like to take pictures of the food that I make and think is really good tasting. I will of course spare you the several pictures of my random pasta combinations and my soups and stuff. Instead I will leave you with one quick beautiful picture of some baking I did a little while ago.

Now this little gem I cooked up not too long after I returned from Edinburgh. This is a banana cupcake with strawberries and cream. Quite delicious and quite fattening. I enjoyed every minute of it.

There are many other dishes that I could dig up pictures of and natter on about, however I think this entry is starting to get quite lengthy and perhaps boring. So, if you are still reading -well done! And thanks! Quick last word: something I learnt since returning to the land of the eating is that it is easy to over indulge. I easily became carried away: enjoying the cooking and the eating and the flavours and tastes, the sneaky 'I'll just have one more spoonful' and the wonderful feeling of being full that I quickly forgot about proper portion sizes. Well when reasonable portions go out the window, so does the clothing that you had to buy when you lost so much weight that all your other clothes looked ridiculous on you. So I have had to relearn what a proper portion is. To be perfectly honest, I don't think me or anyone I've shared a meal with in years has been eating correct portions. I've started to do it just recently and it's shocking to eat proper portions when you're not used to it. At first you feel like you're cheating yourself out of half a meal and then once you're done eating you feel like you're still hungry simply because you're not eating the massive amount that you're used to.

The good things about eating the correct portions: your food lasts longer, you're healthier, it's easier to be active and you can then have those reasonably portioned between meal snacks. It takes some getting used to, but it's worth it. Pair it with regular exercise and paying attention to what goes into your food and you can still have fun with cooking and enjoy eating. So remember fellow lovers of food: have fun, enjoy it, but keep the portions reasonable.