Well hasn’t it been a long time since I was here and for that I can only appologise. Just after the last post I started university and have been kept rather busy and the hours I am on campus have been quite detrimental to healthy lifestyles and as such has taken a bit of time to get round to resolving.

Well first off the weight loss for Mrs Cuddly meant she was at target even if their scales were weighing over 1kg out. It may not sound like a lot but when you’re talking about the difference between getting something you want and not it’s quite a pain in the posterior, especially when it can take three weeks to lose that weight. Anyway after finally reaching a BMI on their scales of less than 29.9 we were informed that some previous test results are not in the file and as such we need to go through them again. Quite the blow when you’re not expecting it. We’ll address this when we go back in December.

being back at school and being away from the possibility of coming home for lunch like I used to has meant I’ve actually consumed a lot of bread and the processed kind too which has meant a big weight gain over a few weeks. That and the heartache of the hospital also meant some take out. You can’t help but want crap when so much hits you at the same time. However as with everything common sense takes back control and the want for healthier tastier food comes back with vengeance.

I have been playing around with some more sticky Chinese *insert meat here*. I abandoned the original recipe and have resorted to shallow (very shallow) frying the meat after it’s had a light dusting of cornflour (I think it may also be referred to as corn starch? The stuff used to thicken stuff). This gives a nice coating to the meat when fried. I say meat because I’ve tried it with beef and chicken and whilst the beef was definitely much nicer it happily worked on the chicken too. I don’t have any pictures to show you but off the top of my head it’s;

  • 1tbsp cornflour
  • small pack of meat cut to ribbons or small chunks
  • drizzle of veg oil (any oil will probably do for frying)
  • A glug of orange juice (about 100ml? I just throw a glug in)
  • 1tbsp sweet chilli
  • 1tbsp honey
  • 1tsp chinese 5 spice
  • 2tbsp tomato puree (can use ketchup but it’s sweet enough)
  • 1tbsp soy sauce
  • Optional chilli flakes
  • Optional splash of water to loosen
  1. Simply coat the meat and then shallow fry to give it some colour and mostly cook through.
  2. place into bowl with kitchen roll to absorb excess oil
  3. Place everything into a wok (frying pan or what ever) and mix together and warm up then pour in the meat again and stir in.
  4. medium heat is fine and it may take a few minutes but the sauce will thicken and then become really thick and only coat the meat. If you’d like not so strong water it down with a little.
  5. Serve with your choice of rice, noodles, veg or just chips.

I think it’ll also work quite well as a rib marinade but I haven’t played about with that yet.

Also whilst we’ve been off busy in the real world Mrs cuddly has been trying to help me out with my carry out issues in uni and has been trying to make some snack foods that will be much healthier than eating bread every day. Her first food item was scotch eggs and they were nice warm fresh from the oven. She hasn’t told me of the ingredients but It was home minced pork (all fat removed then minced), hard boiled eggs and some breadcrumbs. Now whilst tasty they were quite dry and this could have been caused by a number of issues. First off cooking in the oven rather than frying, using fat free pork mince and completely hard boiling the egg before creating the scotch egg. Next time she has said she will add something like a bbq sauce to the pork to try and add moisture into it and also carefully soft boiling an egg might help prevent the egg from over cooking in the oven. We will have to wait and see but here is a picture of the first attempt

Scotch eggs

A couple of days ago I had a bit of a hankering for some hash browns but I have really wanted to learn to make them myself, then whilst looking around I remembered potato rosti’s that I used to love. They are basically the same as hash browns but the only real difference I could find is traditionally one is made with a floury potato whilst the other is more a waxy potato.

Potato Rosti

  • 1.5kg potatoes
  • 5-6 rashers bacon
  • 1 onion

I nipped to the shop to grab some maris piper potatos and smoky bacon (isn’t everything made better simply by adding bacon?)

  1. Preheat oven to Gas mark 5 /  375F / 190C (ish)
  2. Make the potatoes a similar size by cutting the larger ones in half and then throwing them in a pan of salted water and bringing it to the boil until you can just get a skewer through. You don’t want to completely cook them as it will make grating them quite difficult.
  3. Dice onion
  4. When achieved drain and cover with cold water to stop cooking process and allow you to grate them when cool
  5. When potatoes are cool enough to handle grate them up. (We have a Tefal fresh express and it coped quite amicably grating the potato with the red/large grater) and left the skins on we like skins so it’s your choice.
  6. Mix potato, onion and bacon in a bowl thoroughly.
  7. Grease up some small oven proof dishes. I used small spring form cake tin things for ease.
  8. Should take about 1h 30m but I advise flipping over to get even cooking and browing after an hour.

I made ours quite thick and with little seasoning as I over estimated the effect of bacon in the mix so I would advice adding salt and pepper for seasoning.

Finally cheats but healthier sausage rolls. I’m sure everyone knows how to make them but these were tasty and a slight variation people may not consider. After waking up quite late this morning it turns out Mrs cuddly had been in the kitchen feeling quite inspired to try to make sausage rolls.

Sausage rolls

She used

  • A roll of Jus-Roll lighter puff pastry (rolled it out to make it go further)
  • 3 low fat Cumberland sausage and cut in half to create 6 (We use Tesco Healthy Living)
  • Laughing cow blue cheese triangle
  • Chilli flakes

I’m sure you can work out how it goes down but;

  1. preheat oven to gas mark 7 / 425F / 220C
  2. Partially cook the sausage to ensure thorough cooking
  3. Roll puff pastry (or don’t as we didn’t have a full sheet to begin with)
  4. Spread cheese over the pasty in strips
  5. Place sausage on cheese
  6. Cut pastry and roll around and ensure a good seal
  7. Brush milk or beaten egg over the top
  8. Place on baking tray and cook for about 20 mins

Sorry about any lack of serious instructions but they are all from memory and just to give you a general idea of what went into making them and guides for cooking