Slimming World inspired Minestrone

Well, I have been keeping up with cooking healthy for the family since I am inspired by Slimming World which my daughters are doing for diet! In fact in the matter of one week my husband already lost almost 1.5kg (apps. 3 pounds) and since we are not eating ready meals, our weekly food shopping bill has gone down too! What a bonus.

Anyway, I have just made minestrone soup for the first time in my life and I think I have done a very good job of it - it's really tasty and I did not realise how easy it is to make this.  So, I got to share this recipe with you.

Slimming World inspired home made Minestrone Soup

I have used:
2 x small onions, finely chopped
2 x cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed
1.2 x carrots, diced
3 x celery sticks, diced
1 x 400g can of chopped tomato
1 x Knorr vegetable stock pod (dissolved in 800 ml hot water)
1 x can of cannelloni beans, drained
50g x small pasta (any shape)
1 x bay leaf
1 tsp x dried oregano
Handful of flat parsley, chopped
4 - 5 basil leaves
salt and pepper
low calorie cooking spray

1. Spray the bottom of a large saucepan with low calorie cooking spray and put the pan on a hob with a medium heat.
2. Once the spray oil turns translucent, fry garlic and onions for a few minutes but be careful not to burn them.
3. Add chopped carrots and celery into the pan to fry further few minutes.
4. Add tomato, vegetable stock, bay leaf and dried oregano, bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Check and skim the surface of the soup every now and again with ladle during simmering.
5. Add cannelloni beans and pasta and cook further 10 minutes.
6. Chop flat parsley and basil leaves and add to the soup with salt and pepper to taste, and serve.

Up to this process it is Syn-free.  (Syn is, according to Slimming World, food that would jeopardise weight loss if not controlled.).

I then had the soup with a wholemeal bread and little bit of grated parmesan cheese. It was really yummy!  I am going to take some to work for lunch tomorrow too!

Happy dieting and that's all forks!

Tamie's 5 minutes meal

If you are looking for Jamie Oliver's Jamie's 15 Minutes Meal, you are mistaken. This is Tamie's 5 Minutes Meal, ha ha ha. This really means minimum effort required and no measuring cups and spoons, perfect for a lazy cook like me!

My daughters Emily and Maria are on Slimming World (http://www.slimmingworld.com) diet. Personally I don't think they need to be on diet at all but that's what they want to do so I shall support them by cooking healthier at home.  I am not strictly following the rules but I am kind of intrieged and interested so I have been using low calorie frying oil spray to cook and trying to make sauces from scratch instead of emptying jars of sauces.  Never know I may also lose some weight ???

Anyway this recipe is quick, easy and very healthy salmon recipe and also our family favourite!

Salmon and vegetables cooked in a bag

You need:
1 x a fillet of salmon
1 x potato
1/2 x courgette
Some broccoli
some cherry tomatoes
chilli
slice of lemon
parchment paper

1. Cut parchment paper big enough to be able to hold salmon and vegetables and place on a microwavable dinner dish.
2. Wash all vegetables.
3. Slice potato very thinly and place slices on the paper, spreading out as if you are making beds of sliced potatoes. Repeat the same with courgette.
4. Put salmon fillet on top of the bed of potato and courgette slices.
5. Put the broccoli and cherry tomatoes around the salmon fillet.
6. Sprinkle some chopped chilli
7. Place a slice of lemon on top of the salmon
8. Fold the parchment paper to create a bag
9. Put the dish into microwave and cook for 3 - 4 minutes, depending on wattage. (Our microwave is 900W so it cooks in 3 to 3.5 minutes.)  Stand for 1 minute and Voila! 
10. You can squeeze lemon juice over the salmon or soy sauce to taste if you like.

Hope you try this and find out how easy it is. Let's get healthy and slimming!

That's all forks!

Nippon Kitchen in Glasgow

Last November, we went to Nippon Kitchen (91 West George Street, Glasgow G2 1PB), fairly new Japanese restaurant in Glasgow, for Emily's birthday lunch. It's a bit pricey but there are good selections in menu. In fact there are so many to choose and we wanted to try from the menu that we took ages to decide what to order!

Emily, my husband and I ordered Bento box sets, which came with miso soup and rolled up sushi.

Seafood maki (roll-up) sushi as part of seafood Bento Box set.
Accompanied with pickled (pink) ginger and wasabi (green).

My Ebi-katsu (fried king prawns) Bento Box.
With grilled teriyaki salmon, vegetable gyoza, rice and radish pickles.

This is Emily's Vegetable Tempura Bento Box.
With edamame beans, vegetable gyoza and rice.

Maria ordered Chicken-katsu Japanese-style Curry with Rice that smelt really yummy.

Oh, for starters we also ordered potato croquettes, agedashi-dofu (Fried Tofu with sauce) and Inari sushi (sushi rice wrapped with tasty fried tofu bags), which are all our favourite.

Potato croquettes and agedashi-dofu

From top to clock-wise: Inari-sushi (brown sushi) in the back,
miso soup and maki sushi.

Miso soup had tofu, spring onion and lots of wakame seaweeds.

I know, I know, I should be able to make all these at home (because of my background) but I just don't as they are time consuming to make and also we don't deep fry foods at home so I can't make agedashi-dofu (fried tofu in tasty Japanese soy based sauce).

Anyway, although they are not cheap, overall we really enjoyed our meals. We went there over the weekend so there was no set lunch deal available, in fact I don't know if they do any lunch deals during the week. I hope they do and we would definitely go back there again.
Oh, I did the toilet check and it was a nice modern toilet facility with Dyson hand-dryer and was in pristine condition so they passed!

I have been watching some Japanese TV cooking programmes on NHK World and am now contemplating to make more Japanese dishes at home as they are heathy but also all chefs are so slim!  I am also thinking of doing Nabemono - cooking lots of vegetables and whatever meat or fish/seafood you wish in a big pot with boiling dashi stock, then dip cooked ingredients into a soy sauce and eat them. Think fondue but Japanese style without cheese to get a picture!

I have noticed that there are now quite a few Japanese restaurants in Glasgow. Well that's a great progress! What I need now is a proper Japanese supermarket so that I can buy everything I need to make Japanese food more often. Till then, I just need to make some regular trips to Chinese supermarkets to stock up some Japanese stuff or order on-line from London, or we just nip into Nippon Kitchen for another doze of Japanese!

Gochiso-sama!

That's all forks!

Family Christmas

Merry Christmas, Everyone. Hope you are having a lovely and relaxing time during this holiday period and have had a wonderful Christmas dinner!

For this Christmas, the older daughter, Emily, and her fiancé Craig, have hosted 2013 Christmas Dinner for everyone for the first time at their new home.  It was a real family affair - there were Emily and Craig, the hosts, Craig's mum and dad, Christine and Tom, and Craig's grandpa David. There were Emily and Maria's dad, Frankie and his partner Eileen and then us, my husband Peter, myself and Maria, the younger daughter.  Unfortunately Maria's boyfriend Dale could not join as he broke his foot and not mobile and Craig's sister Gillian was working, poor souls... working on Christmas Day however helping people for good cause!  Oh, and we must not forget Emily and Craig's cat Bailey who was getting separate cat's version turkey for Christmas dinner!

So, back to the real deal, the Food! Emily is a Civil Engineer and is currently in a project team that is working on a very big and well-known project here, so as one may expect, she has executed everything in a military precision, in line with her own project management of Christmas Dinner plan. The resulting footage was the meat-eaters' culinary delight of traditional Christmas dinner with everything on a plate.

I must say that although I do not eat meat, what was on her plate looked really delicious.

For my husband and me who are non-meaters, Emily served us lobster thermidor with a little help from dear M&S.  It was delicious.

There were so much food for Christmas at Cremily's.  The menu for the day was as follows:

Prawn Cocktail

Chicken Liver Pate

Sushi Platter

*****

Frank's Home Made Lentil & Vegetable Soup

*****

Turkey Breast with stuffing & Roast Ham

Lobster Thermidor

*****

Side Dishes

Roasted Potatoes

Potato Croquettes

Roasted Parsnips with Honey & Mustard Glaze

Julienne of Carrots

Brussels Sprouts

Pigs in Blanket 

Yorkshire Pudding

*****

Apple Crumble Cheese Cake

Christmas Cracker Chocolate Mouse

Cheese Platter and Crackers

So, for starters, some people had pate (sorry, I forgot to take photo!) and some had prawn cocktails.

I made Sushi Platter earlier in the morning for Emily as appetisers so that people could nibble too.  I know it was rather random and eclectic, but hey, why not "East meets West"?

Emily's dad Frankie made a pot of Lentil and Vegetable soup, which was very tasty. He normally makes this using ham hock however as my husband and I don't eat meat, he made the soup using vegetable sock cubes. 

After the main course, we were so full we could not eat desserts right away. I also realised that we missed the Queen's speech but no one seemed to have minded. Some of us then played the board game, Articulate. This game is a bit similar to Taboo. We know it's only a game but it was so funny to see people being so animated, getting so panicked or being under pressure whilst the clock ticking, trying to come up with answers and ended up saying wrong thing (which I am not going to repeat here). Emily told me that I was so hyper that at one point I was shouting in mixture of English and Japanese! I did not realise that at all!  

I enjoyed that game and wanted to play again but unfortunately we had to go home when the game finished. It was almost 9pm and we had to rush home to feed our cat Yuki who would be starving and wondering where we were.

The next day, my husband and I were invited back to Emily & Craig for afternoon tea, well actually I invited ourselves to theirs, ha ha ha, to eat the dessert we missed the previous night and pick up wine glasses we forgot.  We had Christmas cracker shape chocolate mouse, which was not too sweet and light but very delicious. I really enjoyed this one!

Emily was eating cheese platter so I also tried some of the cheese with crackers - pickled onion flavour and smoked cheese.  She bought these a week ago at Christmas market in Glasgow. I liked the pickled onion's one, which can be quite addictive!  Just looking at the photo makes me want to eat it again!

Pickled onion cheese (front) and smoked cheese (yellow one in the back),
both by Snowdonia Cheese Company.

Emily and Craig's Christmas Dinner was a huge success!  Being an engineer, Emily had to have a plan. She did a lot of prep work a night before and earlier in the morning and in the afternoon, she switched on her oven and followed her plan. You must give her credit as she was on schedule in line with her plan below, without much of sweat from any pressure from cooking for everyone other than the heat from the oven.

She said that the dinner starts at 3.30pm. Yap, the starters were served at 3.30pm and she put parsnips into the oven!  She reheated Frankie's soup at 3.45pm, which was served at 3.50pm.

We must remember also that behind the great project management there is delegation and great team work going on.  Craig was busy doing dishes between the courses (as they don't have dish washer so he had to wash plates and cutleries and dried them straight away for the next courses!), so well done to Craig-san too!.

Emily was really looking forward to the Christmas and she decorated their living room with lovely Christmas tree.

Well, we all enjoyed the dinner, the company and the evening with lots of fun (especially Articulate game and what people uttered as answers to the questions under pressure would be something we would keep talking about as funny memories in many many years!).

I wonder if Emily and Craig would host another dinner next year. I would not mind salmon next year, hint hint...

Merry Christmas to you all and that's all forks!

Upstairs and Downstairs - Cafe Rogano in Glasgow

So, after having pigged ourselves at upstairs of Rogano Restaurant this summer, we returned to downstairs, Cafe Rogano in late September as daughters got us online voucher deal to dine that included a bottle of wine.

Although it is meant to be more informal, I kind of like the relaxing but calm atmosphere of the downstair restaurant with some coziness.

So, for starters, we ordered Chilli Squid with line and coriander mayonnaise, and Fish Cake with Cucumber pickles to share between us.  I love squid and am very particular about how squid could be prepared, especially if fried; they must be cooked but still soft to bite and be able to taste the sweetness of them AND never ever be tough like chewing rubber! (OMG, I still can't forget my horrible experience of fried calamari I had at that restaurant in Lisbon. I am not a food expert or critique but that fried squid was a food crime - see my earlier blog about Lisbon). Anyhow, of course, being a seafood specialist, Cafe Rogano executed our start chilli squid perfectly.  Fish cakes were also lovely and I also liked refreshing cucumber pickles that came as garnish.

For main course, I had grilled sea bass with salmon fishcake, saffron mussel broth and pickled vegetable. It was really delicious. The salmon fish cake was really big though - almost the size of a baseball or a bath bomb from Lush.

My husband had fish of the day, but I am very very sorry, the name of the fish he had ordered totally escaped me! Could that have been Gurnard? The dish came with fried polenta cakes. My husband said he enjoyed them all and finished so they must have been very good.

We did not have desserts as we were really full, so we ordered coffee to finish off our meals.

Another satisfying meal at Rogano. Thank you, girls for the dinner!

That's all forks!

Upstairs and Downstairs - Rogano Restaurant in Glasgow

I know it's a good few months ago but I thought I just talk about Rogano (http://www.roganoglasgow.com), one of Glasgow's culinary institutions. It has Rogano Restaurant, formal dinning on the ground floor, and Cafe Rogano, informal dining downstairs. The restaurant was refitted in the same Art Deco style of the great Cunard line 'Queen Mary' in 1935

We went the main restaurant Rogano on the ground floor this summer for our wedding anniversary. I like their lemon sole meuniere so I already made up my mind that this was what I was going to have.

Our dinner started with two amuse-bouche - first, scallop mouse canapé with caviar, followed by seafood bisque (unfortunately my memory totally escaped me if it was scallop or lobster bisque...).

We then had Rogano Fish Soup with rouille and parmesan croutons for starter.

Rouille is, according to internet, a sauce made of olive oil with breadcrumbs, garlic, saffron and chilli peppers and is served as a garnish with fish soup. So I float a crouton with rouille and sprinkled shaved parmesan on my fish soup. The soup was lovely but also very very rich and I could only have half of the bowl. I remember having thought of what the calorie of this soup might be and wished that I had something different for starter to try, after having seafood bisque for amuse-bouche earlier.

Still, I had never had rouille before so it was an quite interesting experience, and we did really enjoy the soup.

For main course, my husband had Lobster Termidor with shoestring fries and I had my favourite Lemon Sole meuniere. We also ordered panaches of vegetables.

I must admit that I did not expect to see so much Lemon Sole Meuniere on my plate - it could easily feed two people. I could not eat everything and this is being a posh restaurant, I did not even have an audacity to ask for a doggy bag so I had to give up half way through the dish.  Oh, by the way, I was wondering what 'panache' of vegetable means. This simply means mixed vegetable. Anyway, vegetables were perfectly prepared, and especially baby carrots were really tasty.

It always amazes me how much one can eat at one setting. Everyone around us at other tables seemed to have no problem at all to consume everything presented to them on plates one course after another. And here we were already full half way through the main course....

Yet there is always some space for dessert, surprise, surprise!  I had Creme Brûlée with ginger shortbread and my husband had a trio of rhubarb desserts - a sampler of rhubarb creme brûlée, rhubarb crumble and a rhubarb crackle parfait.  They were really delicious.

Having finished our desserts, I looked around the restaurant. It was Friday evening, very busy with bustling atmosphere. There were families with children, there were couples, there were business people, there were groups of friends dining out etc.  I always remembered Rogano being opulent and elegant but this time I felt like it being a posh family restaurant. I am not saying it's bad, just felt odd as that's now how I have always felt, not that we dine here often. The same decor, the same menu for many years but somehow the restaurant feels different. Is this a sign of my old age, maybe....

We then ordered coffees. The restaurant was so busy the waiting staff must have forgotten to bring them to our table. We waited for well more than 30 minutes before our coffees arrived. Not that we were in a hurry. We were chilled so not a problem.  Coffees came with petit fours, which were really tasty.  We asked for a bill. The waiting staff told us that coffees were on the house for having kept us waiting for so long, which was a lovely gesture.

We really enjoyed our meal. Would we go back again?  Probably yes but not for a long time as it is an expensive restaurant (although you could go for a set menu rather than a la carte menu) and would need to wait till next time I feel like having another courses of Rogano's famous Fish Soup and Lemon Sole Meuniere again!

Well that's what we thought until our daughters got us a voucher for Cafe Rogano for present, so we went back again but to downstairs this time. To be continued....

Pukka at Ashoka

My husband and I went to local Ashoka Brasserie restaurant recently. It was one Monday lunchtime, looking for somewhere different to try. Ashoka is doing midweek two course lunch menu for £5.95 (it's even better if weekends as it's £4.95!).

We were seated at a nice cosy booth. The menu has very good selection, catering non-meaters like ourselves without any problem (http://ashokabrasserie.com/v1/wp-content/uploads/midweekLunch.jpg).

We both ordered Vegetable Pakora for starter. Pakoras were freshly made and very tasty.

For main course, I ordered Prawn Spicy Tikka Masala. The menu informed us that the sauce is a true Brasserie favourite, a mouth-watering blend with a rich exotic marinade and hot spices cooked with peppers, onions and fresh coriander. My husband ordered Prawn Bhoona, a rich flavoursome condensed sauce with ginger, garlic and tomatoes. These were served with rice for me and naan bread for him which we shared. Well, the dishes were really mouth-watering and flavoursome indeed.
Portion was quite good but we could barely finish all. And it was only £5.95 for all these! It was definitely V4M! What a pukka at Ashoka!

I shall look for more V4M lunchtime deal and let you know.

That's all forks!