Meal Planning Monday 2015 - Week 2

I only put on half a pound in the week over Christmas which I'm really pleased with, but I do want to get my weight loss back on track so I'm going to follow the recommended 7-day plan in the latest Slimming World magazine.

Monday
Breakfast: cereal
Lunch: Mediterranean chicken couscous
Dinner: the SW menu suggests tuna and rocket pasta but I have leftover Lancashire hotpot from yesterday (also a SW recipe) so will have that instead.
The recommended snack for today is homemade leek and potato soup, which to me is a meal rather than a snack but also I'm not going to have time to make soup! So I will stick to protein-rich snacks and fruit.

Tuesday
Breakfast: porridge
Lunch: prawn noodle salad
Dinner: the SW menu has keema curry pie which I will do but I'm pretty sure my boyfriend won't like it so he can have chicken in breadcrumbs and mash instead
The recommended free snack today is sweet potato chips which I'm not going to have time to make so again will stick to other free things

Wednesday
Breakfast: SW menu has egg and bacon on toast. I usually have breakfast at work where we don't have a toaster; we do have a microwave though so I often do poached eggs with smoked salmon.
Lunch: Scandinavian salmon. This is a recipe for salmon on a bed of watercress; I think I would need something else with it and I'm not keen on vegetables done in the microwave so will take some noodles to have with it.
Dinner: SW menu has veggie moussaka which I definitely wouldn't eat; I was going to do gammon steak instead with chips for my boyfriend and lots of veg for me, but actually we've just decided to go out for dinner on Weds as it's been forever since we had anything resembling a 'date night'!
The SW free snack today is wafer thin ham and pickled gherkins; I love to eat ham straight from the packet and love pickled onions so tried gherkins for the first time recently and quite liked them.

Thursday
Breakfast: SW menu has a Hi-Fi bar, yogurt and banana. So I will have a yogurt for breakfast and a low calorie cereal bar and some fruit later.
Lunch: pizza omelette. I don't like omelette. Instead I will wrap up a tortilla with some tomato puree, ham and a little bit of cheese.
Dinner: Hot dog jackets with homemade slaw. I don't think I will bother with the homemade slaw but this is a dinner my boyfriend will like.
The recommended syn-free snack is a can of vegetable chilli from Asda which again to me is a meal but is also something I don't like.

Friday
Breakfast: banana French toast. It's unlikely I will have time to make French toast at home and will have smoked salmon left from Weds so will have poached eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast again.
Lunch: smoked haddock kedgeree
Dinner: Firecracker chicken stir-fry for me, burger and chips for him
Syn-free snack is turkey rashers with cottage cheese; I might stick to wafer thin ham with Laughing Cow cheese

Saturday -
Breakfast: Quorn sausage and beans. I don't like beans so might have a Quorn sausage sandwich.
Lunch: Chicken waldorf jackets. Basically a waldorf salad with chicken in a jacket potato which sounds really nice though I don't like grapes so it won't quite be a waldorf salad! My boyfriend is out at a car show during the day today.
Dinner: Moroccan meatball tagine with golden couscous and coriander. I don't think my boyfriend will eat couscous so he can have the meatballs with something else or if he is back late may want something different for dinner.
Snack for today is veg sticks in a dip made from natural yogurt with fresh chives and mint

Sunday:
breakfast:  bubble and squeak, which sounds horrible
lunch: houmous sandwich with homemade houmous on bread with salad. Depending on what time we get up we might not have breakfast and my boyfriend will probably want a bacon sandwich so I could have houmous if I have time to make it, or a Quorn sausage sandwich again.
Dinner: braised beef stew with Yorkshire puddings.
suggested free snack sounds like a homemade ratatouille which I wouldn't like so I will have something else.

If my boyfriend wants dessert this week there is chocolate mousse in the fridge; he has also still got quite a lot of chocolate he got for Christmas!

Bridget Jones' Blue Soup Dinner Party

I love Bridget Jones. When she first exploded onto the scene – by which I mean the novel by Helen Fielding, as I’d never read the forerunner Independent column – she was a breath of fresh air. The diary style of the novel was unusual for its time (though the epistolary novel has been around since at least 1748 with Samuel Richardson’s famous ‘Clarissa’, fact-fans and literature geeks like me) and not the cliché it is now, but it was Bridget herself who was ground-breaking. Here was a heroine who was flawed, funny and fond of giant pants. She made singledom both depressing and hilarious, and made ‘smug marrieds’ into a catchphrase that I still hear today. I was in a relationship when the film came out, so while I wasn’t quite a smug married, I could read Bridget’s adventures without worrying that I too would die alone and be eaten by cats (one of Bridget’s fears). But when I suddenly became single at 30, Bridget was more of a role model – if this ‘overweight’ (though actually a perfectly standard size), chain-smoking, career in a mess woman could find true love with Mr Darcy, who likes her just as she is, then so could I.

 

Evelyne at Cheap Ethnic Eatz has chosen Bridget Jones’ Diary for Food ‘n’ Flix this month which did bring a smile to my face. I’m not going to describe the plot of the film any more than I have above, because you have almost certainly already seen it, and if you haven’t, you must DO SO NOW.

 

The idea of Food ‘n’ Flix is to cook a dish inspired by the film; it can either be a meal featured in the film or something inspired by the characters, setting etc. But as soon as I saw the movie choice this month there was really only one thing I could possibly make: blue soup. I’m sure you all remember that scene, where Bridget is trying hard to throw herself a birthday dinner party and cook an elaborate menu, which goes horribly wrong. But can you actually remember what she was trying to make?

 

Her planned menu is:

Veloute of Celery

Char-grilled Tuna on Veloute of Cherry Tomatoes Coulis with Confit of Garlic and Fondant Potatoes.

Confit of Oranges. Grand Marnier Creme Anglaise.

 

And as she says in the book, “Will be marvellous. Will become known as brilliant but apparently effortless cook.

People will flock to my dinner parties, enthusing "Oh it's marvellous to be going to Bridget's for dinner, one gets Michelin star-style food in a bohemian setting."”

What Bridget actually ends up serving is blue soup, omelette, and marmalade.

As it’s harder to quote the film here is the relevant passage from the book.

                   *****************************************************

7pm Hurrah! Just got home. Right. Soup will be absolutely fine. Will simply cook and puree vegetables as instructed and then - to give concentration of flavour - rinse blue jelly off chicken carcasses and boil them up with cream in the soup.

8.30pm Aargh aargh, just took lid off casserole to remove carcasses. Soup is bright blue. And have not even started veloute of cherry tomatoes. And fondant potatoes should have been ready 10 minutes ago and are rock hard.

9pm Love the lovely friends. Were more than sporting about the blue soup, Jude and Tom even making lengthy argument for less colour prejudice in the world of food. Why after all - just because one cannot readily think of a blue vegetable - should one object to blue soup?

Aargh aargh. Just looked in fridge and tuna is not there. What has become of tuna? What? what?

9.30pm Thank God. Magda come in kitchen and helped me make big omelette and mashed up half-done fondant potatoes and fried them in the frying pan in manner of hash browns. Tom put the recipe book on the table so we can all look at the pictures of what char-grilled tuna would have been like. At least confit will be good. Looks fantastic. Magda said not to bother with Grand Marnier creme anglaise but merely drink Grand Marnier.

10pm V sad. Looked expectantly round table as everyone took first mouthful of confit. There was an embarrassed silence.

"What's this, hon?" said Tom eventually. "Is it marmalade?" Horror-struck, took mouthful myself. It was, as he said, marmalade. Realise after all effort and expense have served my guests:

Blue soup.

Omelette.

Marmalade.

Am disastrous failure. As Tom remarked, "Michelin-style cookery? Kwik- Fit, more like."

                   ***************************************************

 So my intention was to make Bridget's planned dinner party menu for me and my boyfriend on new year's eve, but to do it properly. Unfortunately, it went wrong - though in different ways to Bridget's - so it was a complete disaster! It would have been funny but my boyfriend's family pet rabbit was unexpectedly put to sleep by the vet that day so we were all miserable and it was the icing on the cake of a terrible day!

Some of the food turned out OK and since this is my entry for this month's Food 'n' Flix I thought I'd still share with you what I did and what went wrong.

First up: Veloute of Celery aka Blue Soup.

I'm not really sure what the difference is between a veloute and a smooth soup so I made a simple celery soup recipe. I sweated some onion and celery in butter, and brought it to a simmer in a pan of vegetable stock.

Season, puree in a blender... and if desired, add blue food colouring so it looks something like this!

For the main course: Char-grilled Tuna on Veloute of Cherry Tomatoes Coulis with Confit of Garlic and Fondant Potatoes

I'd been thinking about doing steak for new year's eve before I decided to cook Bridget's menu and my boyfriend doesn't eat tuna so I was going to do that for me and steak for him, then somehow forgot that she did tuna and cooked steak for both of us!

I found a Martha Stewart recipe for roasted cherry tomato sauce which was easy to make. I had a packet of cherry tomatoes which I put into a roasting tin and drizzled over some oil, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, thyme and salt and roasted in the oven for about an hour.

Martha Stewart serves them as they come and they do look very attractive - I forgot of course that for Bridget Jones the menu is a coulis, so I should have put it in the blender. This is the sauce after being blended, which I did with the rest to put in the freezer:

 Confit of Garlic

I found this recipe on FoodandStyle.com. All you really do is heat some cloves of garlic in a saucepan, covering them with oil, over a low temperature for about an hour. After that you will have cloves of garlic that are slightly crispy or browned on the outside but beautifully soft on the inside - if you press one, the garlic inside squeezes out - and also some garlic-infused oil which you can use for another recipe.

 Fondant Potatoes

This is where things really started to go wrong. In the book, Bridget complains hers are still rock solid; mine turned to mush. Unfortunately I was so disappointed I forgot to take a photo. The recipe I used was from BBC Food.

I peeled and fried the potatoes then poured in the stock and garlic. I tried to cook them until tender but they went very quickly from being not quite cooked to being far too soft and falling apart. Also, I used a whole stock cube with the 75ml water which I think was too much for this amount of liquid as the potatoes had a strongly overpowering taste of stock which wasn't very nice. I've had fondant potatoes in restaurants so knew what they were supposed to be like, and mine were nothing like that. I decided the stock flavour was so overpowering that I threw the potatoes away and put some chips in the oven!

So instead of tuna steak, veloute of cherry tomatoes coulis, confit of garlic and fondant potatoes, we had beef steak, roasted cherry tomatoes, confit of garlic and chips. And very nice it was too!

Confit of Oranges. Grand Marnier Creme Anglaise.

Bridget's confit of oranges turns out to be marmalade, and I don't think she attempts to make the crème anglaise in the end. I'm pretty sure crème anglaise is just custard and I had an open carton of custard in the fridge so thought I would allow myself one cheat and use that instead.

For the confit of oranges the recipe I used was from Snapguide. It was easy to follow though I reduced the quantities; I didn't think it was setting enough though so I turned the heat up and boiled it for longer. I then left it to cool and when it returned to the pan, it was solid - I couldn't even get a spoon into it! The only thing for it was to reheat it a little so it would soften, and then put it into serving dishes, which I did but the consistency had changed - it was a little like sugar that has dissolved then set into crystals again. And when I did get it into serving dishes, it was rock solid again within minutes - I wouldn't recommend over-boiling it! So whereas Bridget had marmalade, I had solid orange-flavoured sugar... we gave up and had a bar of chocolate for dessert instead.

So like I said it would have been funny if it hadn't been for the rabbit being put down that day - but I can still sort of see the funny side that Bridget had a total disaster with this dinner and so did I!



 

iPhone photography class - taking better food and restaurant pictures with your iPhone

A few months ago I went to an event hosted by the Ladies in Blogging group on how to take better photos with your iPhone.

The session was run by professional photographer James Madelin and the venue kindly provided by
Gillrays restaurant near the London Eye.

I learnt a lot and really enjoyed looking at James' photos. The information was pitched so it was good for beginners but even people who were quite good at taking photos with their phones (or thought they were) learnt quite a bit. The tips below apply to all smartphones- here is just a flavour of the things I learnt.

Did you know you can actually set the exposure of your phone? You just point it at the subject and touch the screen in the centre of the photo (i.e. the thing you want to be at the correct exposure so the food on a plate in a restaurant for instance) and it will set the exposure. This is how you stop photos of food taken in restaurants from looking too dark but also without having to blind people and draw attention to yourself by using the flash - I wish I knew this years ago!

Another key tip for taking photos of your food in restaurants - that left me going 'doh!' - is that as you will most likely be dining with someone else, get them to turn on the flashlight on their phone and use it to illuminate what you are photographing. It makes for a much better photo than using the flash on your own camera phone.

James also told us about HDR - high dynamic range, and said to make sure this is turned on. Mine seems to default to the off position after every photo. HDR takes three photos within very quick succession and exposes them differently; it then puts all three together so you get detail in both the light and the dark places in the photos. This is a really useful function and again one that I didn't even know existed, let alone used before!

The 'selfie camera' that lets you take a photo of yourself is only about a third the quality of the main camera facing outwards so you are better off turning the phone around and using that camera to take pictures of yourself.

You can use the volume button to take a photo so you can hold the phone like a camera; this is also useful when the angle of the photo means it is hard to press the round 'soft key' at the bottom of the screen.

If you have headphones plugged in to your phone you can also use the volume button on the headphone cable as a shutter release cable.

James stressed the importance of backing up and said that to him, until a photo is in three places it may as well not exist.

Five quick tips from James:
1. get high (with your camera). Don't take every photo at eye level.
2. get down (low) - get your camera into unusual places.
3. get close. As bloggers, you are members of the media so if you are at an event and want to take a photo but there are people in the way or a barrier (unless it is for your own safety), ask if you can get closer.
4. get clean - try to avoid distractions in the background of your photos. Train yourself to notice what else is in the frame of your picture.
5. get tricks - editing is important and there is plenty of free software you can use to improve photos.

Thanks to James and to Ladies in Blogging for hosting the event! It cost £15 for a ticket which included a glass of wine; given the amount I learnt I thought this was very good value.

Turkey Mince and Potato Wedge Hash

I created this recipe to use up some leftover cooked potato wedges which I didn't want to throw away. I also had some turkey mince in the fridge which needed using up so I decided to make the mince into meatballs. At the last minute I wasn't sure if that would be enough so I cut up a few sausages and threw them into the frying pan as well, along with some onion.

I then added some passata from a carton as well as salt and pepper and a pinch of chilli flakes.

I then added the cooked potato wedges to heat through, and sprinkled some grated cheese on top.

Serve with some salad or green veg.

This was really tasty and a good way to use up leftovers. I think you could also use leftover turkey from your Christmas dinner!

New Year's Resolutions 2015

It's been a pretty good year for my blog - I've been to some events and met some great people, been sent a few nice things to review and I'm up to over 742,000 hits on my blog and ranked 228 in the Foodies 100. My most popular blog post to date is my pigs in mud cake, which has now had over 40,000 hits - nearly twice as many as my second most popular post, this strawberry and cream fraisier. I wonder what my most popular posts will be in 2015?

Last January I set out a list of new year’s resolutions – and promptly forgot about them. Before Christmas I thought it would be nice to write a new year resolution blog post to publish today, and idly wondered if I’d had the same idea last year. Turns out I did, and I wrote quite a long post, and haven’t looked at it since! So clearly one resolution this year is going to be to actually keep on top of my resolutions…. But before I set out my list of blog-related goals for 2015 I will look back at what I wanted to achieve in 2014 and whether I actually did.

- Redesign my blog. I spent a bit of time doing this and thanks to my boyfriend buying me my own domain name as a birthday present I migrated my blog across but still use the blogger template. It needs a lot more work.

- Improve my ranking in the Foodies 100. I was almost in the top 100, at 108, when they changed the way the metrics were calculated, and at the same time I changed my web address I fell several hundred positions.

I was back at 228 at the last count but that is still some way off my best position. But I’ve realised that I just don’t have the time to faff around on Kred and Klout and now that Instagram is part of the metrics, I’m not sure I can be bothered any more. Working full time in an office where I can’t access social media – or even use my mobile in the office – means that I can keep up with Facebook and Twitter but that’s about it.

- Figure out and start using the likes of Kred, Klout etc - I probably need to do this to achieve the above resolution, though so far it's been hard to find the time.

See above – I’m not going to worry about this any more.

- Reach 400,000 blog hits. I was at 290,000 at the end of last year after two years of blogging so decided 400,000 was a good target to aim for by the end of this year. But I've actually got to more than 735,000!

- Make better use of Facebook to promote my blog and start using Google Plus. I think I do OK with using Twitter to promote blog posts but I could definitely be better at replying to tweets.

I could still be better at using Facebook to promote my blog; to be honest I usually just forget. I’m not sure that many people are really using Google Plus or that it would make much difference to my blog.

- Work out how to get on more company/PR mailing lists for product reviews and so on.

I’m doing OK on this front but increasing my number of Twitter follows would help as I was recently turned down for a project and told it was purely down to my number of Twitter followers.

- On which note, make more of an effort to reply to comments on my blog.

I do the best that I can in the limited time available but I don’t think people necessarily expect replies to their comments – if I leave a comment on a blog I don’t go back to that post to see if there has been a reply unless I have specifically asked a question. Or would you all prefer that I replied?

- Take a cooking or cake decorating class - I'd already signed up to an 8-week evening class in royal icing and piping, starting in January, and before the end of the year I wanted to do something else as well.

Unfortunately the royal icing and piping class was cancelled and the college forgot to tell me – I only found out by ringing up the day before to find out what I needed to bring! I then signed up for a wedding cake course at the same college in January this year - and exactly the same thing happened again! I am getting a bit fed up with them really. I have found another college offering the same course but it's not as convenient to get to, which is a shame. I took some amazing classes in 2014, chief of which was my Christmas present last year. In April I spent a full day with Tom and Henry Herbert, aka the Fabulous Baker Brothers, which was wonderful.

- Sort out my cake decorating cupboard that has gotten into a complete mess again!

Well, in 2014 I actually moved house, so I have more space – but haven’t finished unpacking properly so my cake decorating and baking cupboards are still a mess!

In 2014, I wanted to eat at:

- Hawksmoor
You can read my glowing review here

- Lady Dinah's Cat Emporium - which is hopefully opening soon! I've got a voucher for afternoon tea for two already as I contributed to the crowdfunding scheme to help the place open - I am a little bit feline-obsessed!

Did this one as well - review here.

- Bubbledogs - I wanted to go here in 2013 but never managed it
I still didn't manage it in 2014! I did intend to but when I got there it was full with a queue outside. I don't really like restaurants where you can't book (Bubbledogs accepts reservations for groups of six or more) and decided it wasn't worth the wait.

- The Lazy Cow in Salisbury (my home town)
Still haven't been here - when my parents eat out they prefer pubs, and when I go to Salisbury it's to visit them so we don't eat out in restaurants otherwise.

- Bubba Gump's, if and when it finally opens in the UK (there was meant to be one opening in London in November but it has all gone quiet)
The restaurant finally opened in December, about a year later than expected, so I am hoping to go in early 2015!

- Anywhere in Cambridge - I've wanted to take my boyfriend there for a long weekend for a while and so far we haven't found the time. He's never visited Cambridge, and it's where I went to university and where a lot of my friends still live, so it means a lot to me.
We were so busy in 2014 and spent so many weekends looking at houses, packing, moving, unpacking and redecorating, we couldn't find time for a weekend away. I think this might go back on the list for 2015!

In 2014, I wanted to cook:

- Salmon in a dishwasher - apparently it's a good method of cooking fish, and other things!
Never got round to this, as my boyfriend doesn't eat salmon and it never seemed worth doing just for myself as I think you need a fairly large piece of salmon to do it. But I am planning to make it soon!

- Bread: I've never made bread (apart from the bread sticks I made at Christmas) other than using my breadmaker so want to try out some proper Paul Hollywood recipes
I learnt how to properly make bread on my Fabulous Baker Brothers course and have had a go a few times since then, including when I made this classic white loaf.

- Heath bar pie
These mini Heath bar pies were delicious!

- something to use up a lot of the ingredients that are nearing their use-by date, including candy I brought back from America
I made various things but my boyfriend's mum went to America again and bought me back another haul!

- something to try out some pieces of baking and cake decorating equipment I have bought but never used, like the Wilton heart-shaped tasty fill pan
I used it to make an engagement cake for a colleague which was a big success.

- Giant cupcake - I've tried a couple of times but it's never turned out that well so I really want to get to grips with it this year.
I think I've got the hang of it now, check out this giant raspberry cupcake.

- Something using the Lakeland R-evolution Cuisine kit I got for my birthday and haven't used yet
I used it last year and thought it was interesting but I had mixed views on the results!

- a proper cream pie like the one I had in Wyoming
I haven't tried to do this yet but have no idea what type of recipe I would need!

- a really good approximation of a Cheesecake Factory cheesecake; the recipes I've tried before haven't quite tasted right.
I've made quite a few cheesecakes over the past year which I was really pleased with but this epic five-layer chocolate cheesecake was just amazing.

- Something from my Artusi cookbook even though it is in German so will take me longer to figure out
I still haven't gotten around to using it.

- Homemade mozzarella sticks, as my boyfriend loves the ones you get in TGI Friday's
I forgot I wanted to make these!

- Try out a couple of the Great British Bake Off technical challenges that I haven't already made - perhaps angel food cake or doughnuts.
I have made a few things that were GBBO technical challenges but I've still never made either of these.

- More "food from fiction" - often when I read a novel I am transported by the description of food and there are some books in which food and meals play a large part. I am occasionally inspired to make something based on the book but haven't done so for several months so I want to get back into it, as I have several books in mind! I do regularly take part in Food n Flix, which has a similar idea of making food based on a movie, but the films are chosen by someone each month and I want to make some of my own ideas.
I've made a lot of these as you can see!

- I want to try out some meals with 'hidden veg' as my boyfriend and I are very fussy eaters, but there are plenty of recipes I could try - like a pasta sauce - where I can add things we wouldn't normally eat and hopefully not notice! I think I will also need to make some more freeze-ahead meals too.
I've made a few recipes with hidden veg which you can see here.

So overall I've done a lot of the things I've resolved to but there are also quite a few things I've not managed to do, in some cases because I forgot!

 

On to my new year’s resolutions for 2015:

 

-          Improve the overall look of my blog, including tabs to take you quickly to different types of recipes and improving the layout

-          Spend more time meal planning rather than just grabbing for ideas and old favourites on a Sunday night

-          Remember to take business cards when I go to events

-          Find a way of increasing my Twitter followers – I’ve been turned down for some PR opportunities purely for not having enough Twitter followers. One way of doing this might be to connect with large brands as I’ve found I’ve picked up followers that way – e.g. when I replied to a tweet from PETA about vegan food and then gained some followers.

-          Invite people round to dinner more often. The main problem is that all my family and friends live too far away, but I have a couple of friends who aren’t too far who I have never invited over for dinner, and most of my boyfriend’s friends and family are local. Now we have a lovely house, big kitchen and brand new dining table there is no excuse!

-          Lose some weight… food blogging and baking and weight loss were never going to go hand in hand, and I always point out that just because I post some calorific recipes doesn’t mean I consume them all, but I do need to try harder to fight the flab.

-          Cook at least one thing from every recipe book I’ve got and if I can’t do that, it’s probably a sign I should give that particular book to the charity shop

-          Organise my baking cupboards – when we moved I was in a hurry to unpack so everything got shoved into cupboards and now I can never find anything

-          Try harder to get some prizes for you lovely people who enter Alphabakes

-          Write at least one cookery book review a month (including books I’ve already got) – I started doing this and put it to one side

-          Spend more time visiting other blogs and commenting on them
- Donate a few of the recipe books I never use to the charity shop to make space for the four new ones (all big hardbacks) I got for Christmas. I find it quite hard to get rid of cookery books!
- Master the art of airbrushing on cakes, or at least give it a good go - I got a kit for Christmas from my boyfriend which I'm really looking forward to trying out
- Practice my macro photography - I also got a macro lens from my boyfriend for Christmas. The tutor on the food photography course I did in 2014 advised using a long lens and zooming in, but my boyfriend said he did a lot of research and everything he read said I should be using a macro lens for food photography! 

 

Restaurants I want to go to
 

 - Goodmans - meant to be a very good quality steak restaurant
- Bubba Gump's now it has opened in London
- Kensington Roof Gardens - not strictly a restaurant - it is a restaurant and bar and also a park of sorts that is on top of a building on Kensington High Street but has real flamingos! My boyfriend went once for a work event and ever since then I've been hinting that he should take me (though it has been a couple of years now so I guess he hasn't taken the hint!)
- A Mexican restaurant as I'm trying to persuade my boyfriend to go to Mexico (again I have been trying for a couple of years) but I'm not sure he's ever eaten Mexico food which is probably one reason for his reluctance
- Chilton Firehouse - a major celeb hangout. Someone I know said a few months ago that they could get me a table but so far they have yet to come through!
- Cereal Killer Café - a Shoreditch café that has just opened which only serves breakfast cereals, but has loads of variations including cereals you can only get in America. It's very hipster and has been the subject of many articles wondering why we need a restaurant that only serves cereal, but it's near my office and I think it would be fun to go there!

 

Things I want to cook
 

-          A showstopper cake for at least one of my parents’ 60^th birthdays this year (I say one because my sister may want to make the cake for the other)
- The wedding cake for a dear friend - she wants to do a cupcake tower and make the cupcakes herself and wants me to make a cake to go on top. At this point I have no idea what to make!
- A Marvel character-themed cake for my boyfriend's birthday
- Salmon in the dishwasher - I said this last year!
- Some more hidden veg recipes - I also said this last year!
- Something from Bake It Like You Mean It, which my boyfriend got me for Christmas - most of the recipes look very complicated!
- I'd also like to make one thing from every cookery book I have but I have over 100 books now so I don't think that is going to happen! I might start working my way through them in alphabetical order though...

I think that's enough for now - what are your new year's resolutions?