So, I am pregnant. I’ve been for 17 weeks now.
Because of this I decided to open a new blog. Mum in London, about all things parenting, pregnancy, London and general life musings, as well as cooking. This is why from now on all content that would have usually gone to The Cooking Experiment is moving to Mum in London.
See you over there!
That’s why I decided to enjoy both and go to the Chocolate Festival in London’s Southbank Centre.
Easter-themed chocolate goodies.
The promise of free samples made me decide to leave the safety of mt bed and a laptop with broad-band to venture into one of the most touristic areas in London on a Saturday afternoon.
It took me a while to find the festival. I expected it to be either inside or at the front. However, it was hidden at the back of the Royal Festival Hall.
Chocolate Festival at Southbank Centre
In the wise words of Michael Kors I have to say that I was underwhelmed. The festival involved some 30 stands of chocolatiers, about 5 selling chocolate drinks and coffees and a small tent where cooking classes were taking place with famous chefs.
I was expecting a real chocolate festival, this was more of a fair. I did get to try some great chocolate in different flavours, such as lemon, chilli and margarita. But I missed some education. Nowhere was the chocolate-making process explained or showcased. The only cocoa beans around were from a stand selling them.
Cocoa beans at the Chocolate Festival in Southbank Centre
Image via Wikipedia
Having finally realized with my husband that we are indeed going to have a baby in our hands in some 6 months time, we freaked.
So now we have entered a new time of food budgeting. Gone are the days of running to the Chinese restaurant for Singapore rice for him and caramel shortbread from Starbucks for me. It’s all about meal planning and saving money (that £799 pushchair is not gonna pay for itself).
So, in a sharing spirit, here are the meals for this week. Hope someone finds them enjoyable and useful!
Japanese day, inspired by my daily lunch at work and the fact that I want my husband to warm up to Japanese cuisine
Italian day 1, a classic
Italian day 2, because a pregnant lady needs spinach
Filipino day, I don’t know what a pancit is, but it looks interesting
Mexican day
Chinese day
British day, because my husband is obsessed with corned beef and I want to get rid of the thing
Image via Wikipedia
As happens with many blogs, I left this one slowly drift into nothingness by not posting at all.
Truth is, I still love food and cooking. However, my main focus has shifted and so will this blog’s focus.
From now on, more than recipes it will be more about world cuisines and nutrition.
World cuisines I’ve always been interested in. I believe that to truly learn about a culture you have to learn about their food and eating habits. Also, the fact that I recently married a Ghaniaan and we are struggling to make his palate and my Argentinian-Spanish-Norwegian-British cooking work out and not declare an international war over whether we are having cured ham or yam over dinner have helped in raising my interest.
Nutrition is another one of those topics that have always held my attention, and now after dealing with bulimia and struggling with food, I feel nutrition is a topic I should learn more about.
The blog just happens because being a teacher just makes me want to share everything I know.
If you thought this was going to be one of those blogs that sadly and slowly dies because their owner gives up on them, you’re wrong!
As the title says, I am still alive and kicking and somewhat cooking. Sadly, I am not cooking as much as I used to, not because I lost my love for it, but because I was diagnosed with mild depression. So my cooking for a few months was pretty much limited to popping something in the microwave, and most times I just couldn’t be bothered and simply opened a bag of chocolates.
But, I am now getting back on track, so expect a lot more posts coming soon.
Also, if anyone’s interested, I am posting daily over at Tag Food, as you may have guessed I am cookingexperiment there.
More on the line of projects, I am writing two books (e-books to be exact), one on Argentinian tea and coffee treats and one on herbs. I don’t yet have a release date, but it shouldn’t be too long.
Not that this is even remotely food related, but Spring is back! I’m so happy. I’m not so much one for the Winter months.
I was surprised by the insane amount of bees doing the rounds. It is still a bit chilly, but at least it’s not snowing any more.
Spring at the Kent countryside. The river is the Medway, and the grey buildings at the back are my current home town of Rochester.
Lately I’ve been reading a lot about weight loss, diets and nutrition. I’m interested in nutrition, and I’ve been on a weight loss program for almost 1 year.
I was surprised at all the crazy diets you can find around. Are we really so desperate about achieving a perfect body that we will endanger our lives on the way? There’s a diet that involves eating tapeworms, and another one in which you have to eat cotton balls, or even doing a 4 day cycle of 200-400-600-800 calories a day. Not to talk about the famous cabbage soup diet and grapefruit diet.
I really think people are going insane!
I’ve been losing weight the healthy way. Having veggies and fruits, and cutting on bad fats and sugar. It is hard, especially since I have a thyroid problem and water makes me go fat. And I did already eat all the vegetables and fruit a human body can take. My main problem are raisins, almonds and chocolate. It’s hard to not overeat any of those, especially during those days of the month.
However, I do manage to keep a low-calorie balanced diet. I eat healthy, I’m not (usually) hungry, I eat everything I like in moderation, and I’m losing weight. And, boy, does it feel good to fit in those jeans again!
Luckily enough there are still websites where you can find good and healthy weight loss advice. The Mayo Clinic and SparkPeople are right at the top. Good trustworthy information. Best of all, the price: 100% free.
Okras in all its bright green photogenic glory.
The end of the holiday season saw me with a few more pounds than usual and tighter jeans. I know I am not alone with this weight gain. Just take a look around and see all the ads for slimming product and clubs, gym promotional fees and diet specials on television.
Considering that I thought I’d post a quick, low-calorie, quick and interesting stir-fry.
I found some cheap okras at the supermarket. Having never tried this vegetable before, I went looking for recipes. Apparently one of the most common ones is shrimp and okra gumbo (inspirational recipes number 1 and number 2). The main goal was to try okra, and even though I love gumbo, sometimes individual flavours can get lost. I decided to borrow the idea, and turn it into an easy stir-fry.
I have to say I’m quite surprised at how slimy okras are. They have a nice intriguing taste, quite similar to courgette in fact. However, I have yet to be convinced by it, all that sliminess puts me off. I did find a recipe for roasted okras that seems to take care of that.
Sliced okra. Quite a handsome little vegetable.
I didn’t season a lot because I love the taste of both courgette and shrimp, and I felt a small amount of soy sauce was more than enough.
Shrimp, okra and zucchini/courgette stir-fry.
Makes 2 servings. About 125 calories per serving.
Ingredients:
Steps:
Just a simple a warm salad, better with some rice or noodles.
Shrimp, okra and courgette/zucchini stir-fry.
Sorry for not having posted anything in almost 3 weeks, my excuse is that I spent Christmas and New Year with my parents in Spain. One week at their house in Madrid and one week in Andalusia.
Being the one who was visiting, my parents were going to cook for me. However, sometime around the second day of my visit I was not-so-subtly told ‘I took out everything we have, see what you can cook for lunch‘ (actually it was more ‘ya saqué todo lo que tengo, fijate a ver que podés cocinar’). After that I was named the official cook for the holidays.
That day I ended up preparing a shrimp and courgette stir-try loosely following the mussel stir-fry recipe (omitting the sesame seeds, changing carrots for courgette, and the mussel meat for shrimps).
Black spaghetti with tomato sauce and poussin.
Probably the most interesting thing we tried was black spaghetti. Coloured with squid ink, they smell extremely squid-y as you cook them, but the flavour is quite subtle and perfectly matches tomato sauce. Something different, interesting, and definitely repeatable.
We prepared them with poussin and tomato sauce, much like a bolognese, only replacing the meat source.
Something so black doesn’t really look edible, and I have to confess the first bite did take some courage, but it was worth it.
For the panettone I hunted the net for a nice recipe. I had to change some things, just because I feel as if I were cheating if I follow a recipe to a T. So the sugar became saccharine, the plain yoghurt became soya peach yoghurt, and the raisins became crystallized kiwi. The goal was to go make it Christmas-themed with the red of the currants and the green of the kiwi.
Sadly the full size panettone and the 8 muffin-sized ones I prepared got eaten before I managed to take a photo of them. Which only goes to show you just how good the original recipe is.
On other random food-related events, my dad happened to find some kind of aromatic plant on the side of the road. We are 90% sure it is sage. It smells like sage, it looks like sage, it tastes like sage, and it was growing in a place where sage is likely to grow, but I am not a botanist so I can’t be sure.
In the end, we used a little bit of it to flavour chicken along with Worcestershire sauce.
These days we spend most of our day rushing from one place to the other, and don’t really have 2 hours to prepare food.
Most often than not, I do actually have time to prepare lunch. I usually only work for about an hour very early in the morning and evenings, so from about 9 till 2.30 I’m home.
The problem comes when I get back at night. It’s not uncommon to be walking through the threshold at 10 and having to wake up the following morning at 7.30.
This makes quick to prepare dinners a must. And I’m always on the lookout for quick, easy, balanced, tasty, and (if possible) cheap food. Yes, I want it all!
It’s surprising though, how many ‘quick lunches’ tend to be sandwiches, wraps or salads. I love all three, but I need some variety! And truth be told I don’t really feel like having a sandwich for dinner during winter.
This one is not a real recipe but more of a guideline.
Mussel stir-fry
Mussel stir-fry
The whole thing takes about 15 mins (prep and cooking).
Ingredients:
Guidelines:
Tips:
Eat and enjoy!
Porridge - my new daily breakfast
Porridge.
If you asked a few weeks ago my first answer would have been uuggghhhh!
Yet, being a member of the community of UK residents has made me expand my culinary experiences.
Swede (rutabaga, for all Americans out-there) is an example. I had never in my life seen the thing. But I thought ‘what the hell, I’ll give it a go’. And I love it. These days I will usually have swede instead of potatoes in my pantry.
Another one is mushy peas, and baked beans, or even black pudding (though, I loved that already, so it doesn’t really count).
My newest (let’s call it obsession) obsession is porridge. I’ve been reading about how healthy oats are, and how they are useful for people on a diet. I already had some oats from oat biscuit experiment number 1 and number 2, so I figured some further oat experimentation was in place.
I have to confess I actually had to look for porridge recipes. Sad, I know. I felt I was cheating, like looking for a fried egg recipe. But, I’d never eaten porridge before.
My version goes: 35-40 gr of porridge, 150 ml soya milk, 50 ml water, 3 chopped dried apricots, 2 fruit halves (usually half an apple, or half a banana, or half a pear, or 1 kiwi), 1 tsp sweetener, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, and 1 pinch of ground nutmeg. 5 min in the microwave, and healthy warm filling breakfast done!
