Farmers Markets, BBQ's and gardening! (by Jeff)

Sadly Molly is correct - it's late on a Sunday evening and I'm already missing her. It's going to be a big issue because I'm not going to see her for such a long time - longer than it's been since we last got in contact, and I can't say I like that thought at all!

But still, I digress, so I shall continue to sip my wine and fill you in on the details of our Sunday, which had me more relaxed than our trip to the spa!

When Molly says early, she meant at 8:30am (which isn't normally early) but on a Sunday!? Suffice to say that I'm glad that getting up had a purpose, that's for sure.

And what did we get up early for? Well, none other than a trip to a farmer's market in Winchester, a place I really like as I used to live there many years ago, so know it reasonably well. Added to that, I also really like farmer's markets - as you may have gathered from our blog, we do tend to do a lot of cooking, eating and messing around in the garden (which sounds oh so domesticated!) which means that an open air market filled with good ingredients, good food and plants and things is a perfect match.

But first thing's first - breakfast. We headed to Winchester, parked the car in the multi-storey car park, and headed up the high street to the Starbucks branch where we elected to partake in hazelnut hot chocolate (me) and a small tea (Molly), along with a couple of portions of fruit toast, which is one of Molly's favourites that I have definitely gained a liking for.

After tiding away a nice breakfast, we had a wander around the various stalls and stands selling organic produce of all kinds - lots of meat (everything from beef to venison to wild boar to partridge to pheasant to crabs and beyond!), lots of organic veg and lots of very lovely breads and cheeses! Some of this, of course, both me and Molly bought in abundance - I now have two joints of meat (one beef brisket and one haunch of venison) to slow cook in the coming few days, which no doubt will be absolutely fantastic (your dishes are only as good as their ingredients, after all), a particularly nice local cheese and lots of other bits and pieces too. Oh, and while there, there just happened to be a stand that sold hog roast in bread rolls... which I'm not sure about you, but I find incredibly difficult to pass on.

While hopping between the stalls in the market, there was a shop in Winchester where we nipped into and found a hanging basket case, some seeds and some plant food, as well as some cheap gardening gloves and tools. Given the price of it all, we grabbed a load of it and continued our meandering through the market.

All in all, a very successful time was had at the farmer's market - if you're local to the Hampshire area, I'd strongly suggest having a wander over to a local market near you when the dates are on. You can check them at http://www.hampshirefarmersmarkets.co.uk/.

On the drive back home from the market, the car loaded with goodies, we decided that the weather wasn't looking that sunny - contrary to what the weather forecast said - and so instead of visiting a National Trust (http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk) property which had very recently opened for spring, so figured we'd call in at the garden centre, get the rest of the bits and pieces we'd need to plant up our recent acquisitions then head home, make some lunch and just have a relaxing afternoon.

We got back and immediately lept into the garden and started planting things - the hanging basket is now up and has seeds ready to grow, there's also two new climbing rose plants against the fence and another rose bush in a put between them - my garden is certainly beginning to look like it has been touched with green fingers (Molly's, obviously, as I'm not really that good at growing plants!).

During this time potting up the plants, which included Nasturtium, Lobelias and the aforementioned roses, the weather appeared to take a turn for the better and the sun burnt all the cloud and fog away. Before we knew it, it was a glorious Sunday afternoon, and I suggested that instead of cooking lunch in the kitchen, we might as well do it outside in the garden on the barbeque. Molly agreed and she set about preparing a salad while I got it all up to temperature and oiled up the grill.

And so, cooking on the barbeque we had venison burgers recently acquired from the farmer's market in the morning, as well as some seasoned and marinated pork kebabs that I had purchased from a farm shop on Friday - combined with the salad that Molly made, and some of the specialist breads also from the farmer's market, it made for a delicious - and very filling - lunch indeed, so much so that I'm only really slightly peckish some 11 hours later!

Still, the time was by now moving on, and it would be soon that Molly would have to go home to sort out all her things for work tomorrow... but not before we spent some time in the kitchen baking a large batch of fairy cakes for her work colleagues!

It was absolutely lovely to spend pretty much the entire weekend with Molly... certainly it's something that I don't take for granted even though I'm occasionally very capable of being more than a little insensitive and not making her aware of how I feel about her. She is, as I have always known, a stunningly beautiful and gorgeous woman and I feel so lucky that I've been given a second chance with her.

Okay, okay, I'll stop with the gushy stuff. But suffice to say that I've enjoyed this weekend because of the woman I've spent it with more than the things that we've been doing. It's going to be a tough time while Molly is away!

 

 

-Jeff

The crab at Chieveley

I’m writing this on a sunny Sunday afternoon with a rather heavy heart as I’ve said goodbye to Jeff and won’t be seeing him for a while as I’m going on holiday for a couple of weeks. We had a lovely weekend together and I think he enjoyed the surprise part of it – he’s actually going to be writing a blog about Sunday, so I’m going to focus on Saturday night.

I arrived at Jeff’s house at about 4:00pm and we watched some more cookery shows on TV and chatted – Jeff was already looking gorgeous in an all black shirt and suit – I had brought my clothes with me to change into – Jeff didn’t know where we were going, all I had said is, ‘Dress smartly!’.

Things didn’t actually get off to a very good start – I started putting my makeup on and Jeff started playing a game connected to the internet. After I changed, I walked into the room hoping to get a reaction from Jeff, but he continued playing the game, he did look around briefly and saw me sitting on his sofa, but I didn’t get any compliments or comments about what I was wearing or how I looked. I can be totally honest I admit I have low self esteem and what Jeff thinks (or whatever man I respect, for that matter) of how I look, does matter to me. Therefore when Jeff didn’t say anything, it did hurt a bit – especially as I tried to make a lot of effort.

We had a chat about it, as I did get quite upset – not just because of the above, but also because of the things that happened in 2009-2010 when we split up. Jeff has always been pretty good about talking about that time and I guess if we’re to have any future together, we need to be able to be open and honest with each other.

For once – I actually managed to keep where we were going a secret (as opposed to usually blurting things out) and as I was driving on Saturday night, I didn’t have anything to drink beforehand – however Jeff had a glass of wine from one of the bottles I had bought a few weeks ago. I have to say, I wasn’t impressed, which was a bit of a bugger considering it wasn’t that cheap - £14 a bottle… Ahh well, live and learn!

We left at 7:00pm as we had a reservation for 8:00pm – where were we going? ‘The Crab’ at Chieveley! http://www.crabatchieveley.com/ A rather nice, quite posh seafood restaurant near Newbury. Considering I’m not overly great at driving at night, I thought I did rather well – we did take a couple of wrong turns and then drove past the restaurant and had to do a U-turn, but hey, we got there for 8:00pm so weren’t late.

The place was gorgeous and the staff were brilliant – the only downside was that we had to wait over 30 minutes to be shown to our table which annoyed me slightly, but Jeff was as laid back as ever – we had all 3 courses, the best one being the deserts as we had the ‘deserts for two’ pudding, which consisted of LOADS of different deserts, some of which were absolutely gorgeous, such as the chocolate ice cream – yummy! Considering we had 3 courses each, a couple of soft drinks each and Jeff had 500 ml of wine, the entire bill only came to £60 each, so it was very reasonable, considering…

We got back by 11:00pm and were in bed by midnight – as the clocks went forward this morning, I wanted to make sure we got enough sleep as had to be up early – why? Well.. I’ll wait until Jeff tells you!
- Molly

Meatballs, flowers and peas

So, the big news this week is that Jeff has officially resigned! He’s spent over 6 years in his current job and will finally be able to (hopefully) work with nice people and not very ineffective management. He’ll also be on ‘normal’ 9-5 days, 5 days a week, as opposed to a 4 day-day shift, and a 4-day night shift..  His last day will be in a few weeks, just before we go to visit his parents in Northumberland!

Friday couldn’t come soon enough and as soon as my working day was over I headed over to Jeff’s and found him out in the garden, cleaning his gas BBQ in preparation for the summer. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous this week, hitting highs of 18 degrees (hell, that’s quite hot for the UK at this time of the year) and as well as Jeff looking very attractive as ever, his garden was also looking really nice – his tree, that all the birds sit on, is in full bloom and our sweet peas and tulips seem to be doing incredibly well, as well – I’m terrified that the slugs are going to come and eat the peas, but so far, so good. Also, the cherry tree that Jeff bought last week seems to be doing incredibly well – that is to say, the thing hasn’t died yet which I consider a good thing :-)

I wrote a blog last weekend – less than a week ago, saying that we had bought some more seeds (tomato, pepper and radish) and had planted them in pots, in compost, outside. Well, in less than a week we already have tomato plants! We can see two of them already so I imagine it won’t be long before we see more and will prick them out and stick them in bigger pots in a few weeks and then stick them outside.

We decided after our success with Ina Garten’s chicken chilli recipe, that we’d try another one that we saw on one of her TV shows and tonight we tried her ‘real meatballs and pasta’ recipe – the only changes we made were to use venison mince instead of veal, use wholewheat pasta instead of white and not add any salt (as good a cook as Ina seems to be, we are slightly taken aback at how much salt she uses in things… ).

The entire cooking process really didn’t take much time at all – rather than fry the meatballs in oil, we grilled them, making them more healthy – we still popped them in the tomato sauce and let the cook through for quite a long time, and we still used Parmesan, not just for the taste, but because we thought it would look nice when we took a photograph :-) The verdict? Absolutely bloody lovely, however we thought the sauce was ever-so-slightly bland, so we’re thinking of chopping up some basil and sticking it in the sauce or adding some pepper – we’re still going to be resisting sticking shedloads of salt into our food, but each to their own!

After dinner, Jeff and I decamped to Jeff’s lounge, where we went straight for his Sky plus box and watched more ‘Barefoot Contessa’ so we could try and find a new recipe to cook. I think we have decided to do Ina’s ‘Mustard fish’ which looks quite healthy and will be made healthier by 1) not adding any salt and 2) not adding as much butter – stay tuned for how this one turns out!

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the ‘surprise weekend’, where Jeff has no idea what I have got planned…. As he hasn’t written a blog for a while, he’s promised to update our blog and write about our weekend together, so I am sure it will be a literary masterpiece and well written as always! I’m really excited about this weekend – the main reason is that I find it really hard to keep secrets and so far, Jeff really doesn’t know what he’s going to be doing! (Unlike the Amsterdam holiday we had a few months ago and I managed to blurt it out a couple of weeks before we went, whoops!)

So, roll on the weekend!

- Molly

Day at the Spa and a jaunt to Windsor

I am writing this feeling exceptionally full and very, very content! Even though it’s a Wednesday, I can update this blog with something other than food or cookery as Jeff and I took a day off work and went to the Spa!

Jeff had never been to a Spa before and had to buy swimming trunks especially. Firstly, because he doesn’t really swim so didn’t have any and secondly, even if he did have some, they’d probably be too big for him considering the amount of weight he has lost in the last year. I’ve been a member of a local spa for the past 3 years and get to go 6 times a year – every time I go, I am allowed to bring up to 2 guests, so this time I invited Jeff and he was happy to come along.

We met each other in the car park at 08:00am, checked in, and after changing, I suggested we go straight to the hydrotherapy pool which is basically a medium sized, round swimming pool with loads of jets of water under the surface – think ‘Massive Jacuzzi’ and you’d not be far off. After 20 minutes I suggested we get some breakfast so we went to the Garden café and ordered some tea (just for me – Jeff doesn’t drink that much tea!) and toast. I then suggested we spend some time in the aromatherapy steam room, which I absolutely adore. Throughout the day it became clear that whilst I am much happier in the steam room, Jeff is more happy in the sauna – so I guess we’re not compatible in all areas ;-)

We also spent time in the Jacuzzi, lounged beside a lot of different pools and chilled out on the heated ceramic loungers. I don’t have any photographs as obviously I was wearing a swimming costume and a towelling robe, therefore taking my camera into the spa, would have probably broken the thing! Jeff and I left at 3:30pm, having spent 7.5 hours in there – Jeff annoyingly paid for everything (it was a nice gesture, but I felt a bit ‘money grabbing’ so wanted to pay him back straight away) and wasn’t bothered by the fact it took me a while to get ready, due to the length of my hair and the fact I had to brush and dry it.

I had already suggested to Jeff that after the Spa, we drive to Windsor – somewhere neither of us had been much before. Jeff thought that was a good idea, so we drove to his workplace, which is nearby, left his car there and I drove to Windsor. We got there in good time and headed straight for our favourite coffee haunt – Starbucks! I seem to have got Jeff hooked on the Starbucks Hazelnut Hot Chocolate as that’s what he had, along with a couple of their new ‘mini’ range. I suggested he try the white chocolate and raspberry cake and the salted chocolate and pecan square. Jeff, being as easy going as he is, was happy to try whatever, so let me order them. They were quite nice – I even took a photograph of what you get, when you cut inside the white chocolate cake and put it this way, we didn’t leave any!

After we had got some refreshments, we went on a bit of a walk and found the main Windsor high street. Annoyingly all the shops had started to shut, so we didn’t really have very long to browse. I wanted Jeff’s help to try and find a dress for the summer, but sadly our search was unsuccessful, mainly because I have quite a large chest and most dresses don’t seem to cater for women with large boobs – most seem to be for women who have a D cup maximum and women with a larger chest size seem to look stupid in most dresses – especially the ones who have that ‘boob shaped’ V pattern above the waist.

Having not been able to find any suitable dresses, I suggested to Jeff that we wander to the restaurant ‘The River House’ and have a couple of drinks before dinner. It’s a gorgeous restaurant by the river and having been there a couple of times before and really enjoyed the food, I had suggested that we eat there as at least we were pretty sure we’d enjoy the experience.

Whilst I hadn’t been there for a good few months, I was not disappointed at all – the service was absolutely brilliant, the food was to die for and the whole atmosphere was really romantic and nice. We ordered some bread to share for a starter and it came out, infused with rosemary and had a massive garlic bulb, which had been roasted – You could make your own garlic bread by squishing out the cloves onto the bread and it was utterly lush. Both Jeff and I want to try and recreate this in a few days, to see if we can do such a good job!

The main was also brilliant, Jeff went for the lamb, whereas I went for the vegetarian option – pasta with spinach, gorgonzola and pine nuts. I’m not usually a vegetarian fan, but can honestly say I am very glad I chose it as it was brilliant – certainly not small portions and very, very tasty.

Although both Jeff and I were rather full after the main, we both ordered a pudding, simply because the food was so excellent. Jeff went for a ‘parfait’ and I went for a sticky toffee pudding. Again, both were brilliant and we really, really enjoyed it – probably more so because unlike the last time we were together (and ate out at LEAST once a week) we don’t eat out as much and tend to do more home cooking as it’s more conducive to being healthy and losing weight.

Suffice to say, Jeff and I certainly haven’t lost any weight today, in fact, I would be surprised if we hadn’t put on at least 1-2 lbs, the amount of food we ate today. That being said.. now we go back to being ‘sensible’ and healthy again and, well… fuck it – you can’t be good all the time, you have to enjoy yourself every so often and we very rarely go out to eat nowadays….and we really had a lovely evening.
We’re seeing each other on Friday night, which will be a nice, chilled evening and then it’s the surprise weekend!

- Molly

Gardening, Classical music and wine!

Wow. What an absolutely brilliant weekend! It started off well when Jeff came to my house to have breakfast, well ‘brunch’ I guess if you eat food at about 10:30am? I made him an omelette with sausages that his parents had bought for him when they visited a few weeks ago along with mushrooms, onions and cheese. He seemed to rather like it, so I’d say that was successful. Jeff reacquainted himself with my cat and kept the cat occupied whilst I cooked (which I appreciate as my cat is evil and incredibly attention seeking).

After breakfast we headed off to Jeff’s house so I could dump my car. I hopped into Jeff’s car and we headed off to a local farm shop so we could get something for lunch – on the way, I decided that I needed some more wine for my wine rack (I hate it having gaps) so Jeff and I popped into the absolutely wonderful wine warehouse where they have 40% off ‘bin end’ wine – 40% off is great, but it’s a bit of a moot point when the wine can still be over £100 for a half bottle. We managed to pick out some really nice Riesling and hopped into the car and continued our journey to the farm shop.

We managed to find some lovely chicken breasts for our lunch – sesame chicken salad and stopped in on a supermarket on the way back to get some salad bags and other salad stuff. I suggested to Jeff that we actually spend a few hours going to a National Trust property and he was up for the idea, however when we got back home we actually decided it was probably best just to potter around the house, especially as we were going to London later for ‘Classical Spectacular’. Another thing we bought at the supermarket was more things to grow and some more pots. This time we bought pepper seeds, cheery tomato seeds and radishes. I’m not overly keen on the radish idea, but Jeff said that his parents grew them and apparently they’re very easy to do - .e.g just stick the seeds in the ground and forget about them, so why not?

Back at Jeff’s house we made lunch and watched some more ‘Barefoot Contessa’ which is rapidly becoming one of my favourite programs. Unfortunately Ina Garten didn’t do anything overly healthy this time around, so after watching the program we deleted it and then set to work on potting all the seeds. Once done, I suggested we go to another garden center and get even MORE things to grow and Jeff was up for the idea. What I didn’t realise was, Jeff was so up for the idea we actually came away from the garden center with a cherry tree, a David Austin Rose called ‘Alnwick’ which was particularly poignant as Jeff was born near there and some gladioli. Jeff also bought two massive pots so that both the rose and the cherry tree could grow without needing to be re-potted for a few years.

We got back and set to work straight away potting things up and before long we had to stop, as we needed to get going to London. After changing clothes and the washing of hands, Jeff and I set out to the train station and hot-footed it to Knightsbridge tube station, only hesitating at the Starbucks in Waterloo to grab a couple of slices of fruit bread and some small hazelnut hot chocolates. We made it to the Royal Albert Hall JUST in time – I admit, I was quite stressed as I hate being late to anything. Jeff as always, was laid back and kept telling me to chill out, but as anyone who is a bit of a control freak knows – that’s easier said than done. We took our seats with 5 minutes to spare, and had the most amazing 2.5 hours just sitting there, listening to amazing classical pieces. The conductor, John Rigby, who I had seen before, was as always, mad as a box of frogs but in a good way. His jokes were exceptionally cheesy but I think that’s a good thing as it got the audience involved.

The pieces that the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra played were:
Nessun Dorma
Rule, Britannia
Land of Hope and Glory
1812 Overture
BIZET - Pearl Fishers Duet
HOLST - Mars The Planets
SOUSA - Liberty Bell March
HANDEL - Hallelujah Chorus
GOUNOD - Soldier's Chorus Faust
VERDI - Prelude to Act I La Traviata
STRAUSS - Also Sprach Zarathustra
RAVEL - Bolero
STRAUSS - Radetsky March
DENZA - Funiculi, Funicula
STRAUSS - Blue Danube Waltz
MUSSORGSKY - Great Gate At Kiev
BIZET - Toreador's Song Carmen
SAINT-SAENS - Finale Organ Symphony

I knew most of them, except for the ‘Slave’s Chorus’ by Handel and the Great Gate at Kiev so it was nice to listen to some new classical pieces. The Dudes who sang were utterly amazing – especially Kevin Greenlaw who looked very dashing, dressed up in a Union Jack flag for the ‘Rule Britannia’ encore. However Philip O’Brian, who was the stand in for Wynne Evans was also very, very impressive. The concert finished by having loads of balloons descend from the air and people popping them (which apparently is supposed to signify cannons?) It was a fantastic night and the Royal Albert Hall was packed with a lot of flag waving people.

We managed to get back just after midnight and both of us were totally knackered – so much so, that Jeff actually decided to call in sick as he was supposed to be working on Sunday at 7:00am. I know, not overly great in terms of work ethic – however, Jeff got some good news on Thursday and will be handing in his resignation next week, therefore hopefully he will be a lot less stressed and not working with a bunch of cretins.

We’re off to a Spa on Tuesday – Jeff’s first time, so that should be interesting and then, it’s the ‘mystery weekend’ where Jeff has no idea what we’re doing and I have planned everything…. I won’t reveal anything here as I know Jeff reads the blog, so I guess I’ll have to fill everyone in after the weekend!


-Molly

Chicken Chilli

Wow! What a very cool night and quite frankly, it was well deserved after a very, very long week!

I popped round to Jeff’s after work and he had put the tulips and the sweet peas out so they could get some sun. I remembered to take a photograph so as you can see, they have grown quite a lot in the last 6 weeks! Whilst it seems to be below freezing tonight, hopefully we will put them out during the days and they’ll get enough light to carry on growing and soon we should see some flowers :-)

Another amusing thing is that the birds in Jeff’s garden seem to have gone through nearly BOTH bags of bird seed that he bought 2 months ago – that’s 30Kg of birdseed in 3 months! They are some greedy birds, although I guess it’s a good thing that we’re helping to keep the Robins, Thrushes Sparrows, Blackbirds, Magpies, Wood pigeons, Green finches, Coal tits and Blue tits in food!

So, after the birds were fed, we headed out to the supermarket to get all the ingredients necessary for Iva Garten’s ‘Chicken Chilli’ – the recipe we saw on her television program a couple of days ago. Whilst we did record it on Jeff’s Skyplus box, I managed to find the recipe online, therefore we didn’t need to re-watch the program for yet another time, hurrah! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/chicken-chili-recipe/index.html We roasted the chicken breasts in the oven and chopped up all the vegetables and off we went. I have to say, it was a pretty easy recipe to follow and soon the kitchen was smelling of chicken chilli.

We had bought some nachos, sour cream, cheese and salsa and popped it all on a plate – result! It was absolutely gorgeous and just the right amount of chilli (Jeff can handle much hotter dishes than me, so I was the one who thought it was perfect).

We ate food and then watched some more random TV – tonight was ‘Miami Ink’ which I’m rather enjoying at the moment, especially as I want to get another tattoo this year, however am waiting until I’ve lost a little bit more weight as apparently if you want a tattoo on your thigh, it’s best to wait until you’ve got the shape you want. Soon, though, I hope, I’ll get a peacock feather tattoo! We also watched some more Iva Garten after our success of following her recipe and found a rather nice rosemary and garlic rub for lamb.

I’m writing this at home, with my cat on my lap, having driven back from Jeff’s house – We’re spending the whole of tomorrow together, I’m cooking breakfast for him at my house and then we’re chilling before heading off into London to the classical music concert. Roll on the fun weekend!

-Molly

Sour Sweets, American cookery and foot massages

I was hoping to post this blog update in a happy mood, after all, we have peas! Yes, that’s right, the sweet peas that Jeff and I planted a few weeks ago have sprouted and they’re not about 2 inches tall – this has all happened in the last 5-6 days as when I checked last week, there was nothing to be seen.

So why not the happy mood? As I just found out I failed my ITIL exam by one mark, ONE mark! Talk about being gutted. I don’t usually fail at things so I guess this is a chance to deal with it and try again – Jeff has been very supportive, however I won’t deny I have an overwhelming desire to say ‘I told you so’ as I really did think I failed it. It’s not the end of the world, I know – however it’s never nice to be told you didn’t pass.

It’s a bit of a downer after the lovely night we had last night as well – I popped over to Jeff’s house after work, however he wasn’t back yet as he had been delayed getting some tryres for his car. This wasn’t an issue, so I made sure all the bird feeders were topped up and was quite happy to see that the tree he has out the back, is flowering – I’ll try and take a photograph of it at the weekend, it looks really pretty and I imagine the birds are happy as they have some extra cover for when they hop onto the bird feeders to scoff all the seed!

I also checked on the tulips and the sweet peas and the tulips have grown loads (again, I’ll try and take a photograph at the weekend) I’d say some of the tulips were about 3 inches in length so we obviously bought good ones back from Amsterdam. I can’t wait to see if all the colours were correct and we do actually have some blue and black ones. I suggested to Jeff that we now start leaving them outside during the day as they are currently still in his garage and really need natural light if they’re to grow big and strong!

When Jeff got back we went shopping for bits and bobs as we were cooking something new that night – ‘Lemon cod with basil bean mash’ http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7189/lemon-cod-with-basil-bean-mash I know, ‘What the hell is basil bean mash?’ We had no idea, and trying to find frozen soya beans in the supermarket proved a bit of a pain as well! We (and by that, I mean ‘I’)- also bought some sour sweets as I had a real craving for them. Jeff has a very odd reaction to sour sweets and finds them really hard to eat, which I, of course, find really hilarious. He had one as he was a good sport, but declined any more. If you haven’t had any, I’d urge you to try and find them – they’re really morish!

With the sour sweets and dinner purchased, we headed back home and started cooking – Considering we both thought the basil bean mash would be absolutely vile, we were pleasantly surprised – it was certainly edible, so much so that we didn’t actually use the sweet potato we had bought as ‘backup’. That being said, Jeff thought it was lacking in flavour, so I think if we decide to do it again, we’ll put in more garlic or another flavour to make it more interesting.

Jeff and I then watched some TV – tonight we decided to shy away from our usual repertoire of ‘The Biggest Loser USA’ and ‘Embarrassing bodies’ and actually watch some cooking programs. Oh Dear God – ‘The Barefoot Contessa’ Ina Garten. I’d never even heard of her until last night and we watched a couple of her shows. How much fat is in each recipe? I don’t deny certain things of hers look interesting and she seems a very friendly woman, almost like an American Nigella Lawson, but if you ate all the stuff she cooked, you’d not be able to get through doors unless you turned sideways. That being said, we were lucky enough to catch a show where she did a low fat ‘chicken chilli’ – something you don’t really hear about in England, so Jeff and I recorded her program on his Sky plus and we’re going to try and recreate it on Friday night. Neither of us have ever tried to cook a recipe from the TV before... so it could be ‘interesting’....

After that, I asked Jeff to rub my arms as they were really hurting from the Personal Training session I had in the gym on Monday night. Jeff is a fantastic masseur and whilst he really helps me, I always feel guilty as he’s not really the type who likes being massaged. However, he did agree to let me rub his feet – which was quite funny as I really don’t mind feet in general (I know some people are really squeamish about them) so I managed to get him to let me rub various creams and things into his feet for about 15 minutes whilst pulling stupid faces. He did say it felt nice and I’m hoping it helps – I find most guys don’t tend to care as much about hard skin or nice cuticles as women, although maybe that’s just a false stereotype...

After that, it was time to head off home – this weekend should be really great as we’re heading to London to listen to a classical music concert in the evening. I think our plan is to head to London early afternoon so we can spend a good few hours ‘exploring’ and grab some food.

-Molly

Frustrating Friday night

Since Jeff and I got back in contact, I think Friday night was the first night that we felt a bit deflated and didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Usually we have a plan (and when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘me’ and Jeff tends to just go along with it) of what we’re going to do, however on Friday I had a Doctors appointment so left work early and managed to get to Jeff’s by 5:00pm which was great, but after 30 minutes or so, we didn’t really have any ideas as to what we could get up to for the next few hours – unfortunately the reason I went to the Doctors meant we couldn’t get up to anything ‘fun’ and as it had started getting dark, the options open to us were less.

We watched some random TV, however there’s only so many diet programs and shock documentaries you can watch without getting bored so after watching 15 minutes of ‘Sex: How to do everything’ and getting very pissed off with the inequality of the program (full frontal nudity on the woman… why not the same on the guy? How is that fair?) I suggested to Jeff that we stop watching TV and do something else.

Jeff showed me how to play ‘Battlefield 2’ for a while, which was quite good fun, however I got a bit annoyed that I kept dying, plus it seemed to take quite  along time to respawn so I decided it was time to quit. After that, we decided we would order Waggamamas takeaway, however order it online – something neither of us had done before. Jeff was sceptical that it wouldn’t work, however decided to give it a try (which reminds me, it’s my turn to pay for dinner next!).

I then suggested we sort out Jeff’s cupboards – Yeah, I know, who said romance was dead? Thing is, as Jeff and I are doing loads of cooking recently, it would be good to know what he already had and what we needed to buy as he currently has, like, 4 bags of plain flour and 5 bottles of vanilla essence as they’re all hidden around the place on different shelves. I enjoy tidying / sorting things out, so was happy to help Jeff – one thing that I didn’t count on was feeling a bit ‘weird’ when I took down things that I knew his ex used, or things that I knew Jeff had used to cook with her – obviously that’s noone’s ‘fault’ and I didn’t tell Jeff at the time as he’d probably say I was ‘worrying about nothing’, but I guess it was just another reminder that after we split up, he didn’t stay single for very long at all – Still, one of my own insecurities I need to deal with.

After sorting everything out, throwing away out of date things and sticking two bags of rubbish in the bin, Jeff suggested we make some more cupcakes. So we did! However, we made lots of different types, so along with the normal raisin ones, we made some cranberry and hazelnut cakes, some almond ones with flaked almonds on top, some ginger ones with ground and stem ginger and… a gay cupcake. Yes, that’s right – we made a gay cupcake. ‘How do you make one of those?’ I hear you ask… Well, one of Jeff’s friends has a nickname of ‘Gayboy’ (even though he’s apparently heterosexual) therefore Jeff and his friends take the mick out of him quite regularly. So, we decorated a cupcake in pretty pink and purple glittery food colour and chocolate stars. Jeff said he’d see the funny side to it as it certainly wasn’t meant to be offensive.

We then popped out, got food and stuffed ourselves stupid with the Waggamama’s chilli squid, amai udon and ginger chicken udon (oh yes, and some duck gyoza which Jeff rather likes).

It was then time to head home, so I said goodbye and drove off – Sadly I won’t be seeing Jeff again until Wednesday, when hopefully neither of us will be restless and we’ll have something exciting to report!

-Molly

Just a quick one

One of the first blogs without any photos!

Unfortunately this week I am really busy revising for my ‘ITIL’ exam (Which is this week – argh! Scary!) so Jeff and I can’t really see each other a lot. That being said, last night worked out very well as Jeff was working on a day shift so I went round to his house after work, cooked some easy spaghetti bolognaise and plonked myself at his table for a couple of hours, did some more revision and waited for him to get in. If anyone knows about ‘ITIL’ they’ll know how boring it is and also, how hard it is to find decent past exam papers on the internet. They’re either sites you have to pay money for, or they’re sites which assume you’re stupid and urge you to download a .pdf.vba file – yeah, right...

Jeff came home at 7:45pm and we ate, chatted for a bit and he was kind enough to rub my shoulders before I had to leave and go home. I think we’ll both be glad when the week is over, although Jeff has a LAN party at the weekend which I know he is looking forward to going to.

If anyone is interested in the tulips – they’re doing really well, which is more than can be said for the sweet peas, we can’t see any sprouting at all! However, the tulips are at least 1 inch high and growing daily so fingers crossed we can put them outside soon and they won’t get bitten by frost.

It’s such a lovely day this morning and I can’t wait for us to spend loads of time together over Easter and surprise Jeff with all the things I have planned in a couple of weeks time!

Grabbing a few hours on Saturday night

Although Jeff was working on Saturday, I popped over to his house at 5:30pm so I could pop his slow cooker on and cook the pork shoulder that we bought at Winchester Farmers market a few weeks ago. As per usual, I don’t like the idea of Jeff not having anything nice to eat whilst he’s at work and whilst he is more than capable of buying stuff at work or cooking something himself, I enjoy cooking, so set about making him a healthy ‘toad in the hole’ where I stuck a couple of tablespoons of wholegrain real ale mustard into the batter before cooking it in the oven.

As soon as I arrived I also filled up the 5 bird feeders that Jeff currently has hanging from his bird tree in the garden – The birds are going through a hell of a lot of seed at the moment and Jeff is already on the 2nd 15Kg bad that we bought less than a couple of months ago.

After cooking the Toad in the hole and putting the slow cooker on, I started watching some of the programs that Jeff and I had set to record on his Sky plus box. ‘Bridalplasty’ – seriously, the worst reality TV show I have ever watched in my life…. Ever. If you’ve never seen it, then thank God you’ve not wasted an hour, or more of your life watching incredibly shallow and bitchy women compete over tasks to be ‘top bride’ to win various plastic surgeries. I guess I could kind of understand it if the women on the program are really overweight Mingers, but they’re not! They’re all very slim, very attractive women and for women like that to want to compete for various nose jobs, boob jobs etc – Crikey.. it was certainly an eye opener.

As much as I wanted to sit down for an hour and feel my brain turn to pulp, I started getting restless after about 30 minutes (I guess even I have a limit as to how much rubbish TV I can watch) so I decided to make some fairy cakes – Jeff had all the necessary ingredients in his cupboard so I found a recipe online and made 24 little cakes. A bit of a twist on the normal recipe as I used custard powder as well - http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1864/glamorous-fairy-cakes

Jeff opened the door at about 7:45pm – we had a chat, settled down to watch some more crappy TV (‘Embarrassing bodies’ and ‘Beauty and the Best – the ugly face of prejudice’) and drank a bottle of very nice 2006 Riesling that I bought from a wine warehouse just before Christmas. The pork wasn’t quite ready so we didn’t eat until about 8:30pm, however when we did, it was gorgeous – we had it with red cabbage and carrot and potato mash (I’d slow cooked the pork on a bed of shallots and carrots).

In a couple of weeks, Jeff and I are off to a Spa – we’re both taking a day off work and I’m taking him to the Spa I usually go to which will be quite nice. I’ve also got a very cool ‘surprise’ weekend planned for him on the 26th / 27th March (I’m sure he’ll write a Blog about it) So… stay tuned for Blogs about something other than cooking!

Juicy Lucy, anyone?

It’s been a weird start to the week as both Jeff and I have been really busy, so we haven’t really contacted each other much. Jeff had to text me yesterday to see whether or not I was still staying at his last night! I replied that I was and Jeff was kind enough to go out shopping for all the bits and bobs we needed for cooking as he’s not at work until tomorrow.

I arrived around his house at 5:15pm and Jeff made me a cup of tea (Teapigs tea! We bought this at a farm shop at the weekend and it’s actually very nice) and we had a bit of a catch up and a natter in the kitchen. Currently Jeff is looking for another job and will hopefully be changing soon – this means he’ll no longer be on shifts and will be working a more normal 9-5, Monday-Friday type job. Good in one way as he won’t be working with such cretins (his words) however it does mean he won’t get as much time off, which I know he likes as he enjoys doing stuff to his car and generally chilling. I, on the other hand, was ranting about one of my work colleagues who is a friend and who I also manage (tricky situation, I know – I only started managing them a few months ago, they’ve been my friend for while) this ‘friend / work colleague’ is having some problems with their ex and have been moaning, moaning, moaning about it to me. Whilst I appreciate it’s a horrible situation, you know where you get to the point of saying ‘I JUST DON’T CARE’? Especially when they are so wrapped up in themselves that they don’t bother stopping and asking, ‘So, how are YOU?’ it’s all about them? Poor Jeff listened to my ranting with a bemused look on his face for ages before I decided I had better shut up as I didn’t want to turn into my friend!

We started cooking straight away and switched on Jeff’s slow cooker – we had decided we were going to glaze the smoked gammon joint (the one we bought at the Farmers market on Sunday, after Jeff met my Mum) with honey and stick some water in the bottom with mustard. Why? As it seemed like a good idea. What wasn’t a good idea, and what I didn’t realise until we had cooked it for 3 hours was, you were supposed to leave the string around the meat alone as it’s a ‘cooking aid’ – no one has ever told me this before, so there I was, merrily cutting away the string before plonking it into the slow cooker – the whole blinking thing fell apart so when we took it out, it looked a bit sad! Still, it tasted absolutely gorgeous, We tried to eat as much as possible but I had to admit defeat so Jeff has quite a large chunk of the stuff left at his house, which I am sure he will devour today :-)

We also decided to cook a new pudding – ‘Juicy Lucy’  http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1037/juicy-lucy-pudding which was another recipe off the BBC Good food website. Jeff, being pretty proactive, had already got the frozen berries out and had got the correct blueberry jam (after mistakenly buying a cherry one earlier in the day). We peeled and cored all the pears, stuck the correct amount of sugar in and stuck it in the oven. It actually took longer to make the pears juicy than the time it said on the recipe (we’re finding this a lot – that it takes longer to cook than stated and I don’t think it’s Jeff’s oven as he has a normal fan assisted one) Anyway, after an hour, we poured the fresh breadcrumbs mixed with butter onto the pudding, stuck it back in the oven and 15 minutes later it was ready. We were really impressed as for the first time, it looked EXACTLY like the recipe and it tasted bloody great! The only thing we think we would do differently next time is actually make more breadcrumbs (which we did in Jeff’s new food processor) – however we do appreciate that the pudding will be slightly less low fat than if we stuck strictly to the recipe. Either way – we have decided that this is the pudding we are going to be cooking for Jeff’s parents when we go and visit them at Easter.

Next, we decided we would try the toffee puddings again as they didn’t turn out completely right before – Jeff had bought some caramel sauce and we added this due to the puddings not really tasting very toffee like, last time. Did they work this time? Well, yes and no – we tried one with a very runny consistency and even after an hour the thing wasn’t cooked. However the one we added some baking powder to, and an extra egg white was cooked and it tasted ‘OK’ but just nothing amazing so I think we’re going to call that one a part success in the sense that we didn’t kill ourselves, nor throw up, however I don’t think we’ll be doing that recipe again.

We also checked on our tulips and sweet peas that we had sewn in the pots a few weeks ago. The tulips are doing really, really well and you can see that most of them are coming up nicely and there’s a good 2-3 cm tip out of the soil. Unfortunately we can’t see any movement from the peas, which we are hoping is normal and that in a few weeks when it gets a bit warmer, they’ll start to sprout. We watered them a little bit more and left them to it.

After watching some of our ‘normal’ TV programs (I’m not entirely convinced anyone could call the type of TV we watch, normal) I suggested we go out for a drive as I was feeling a bit restless so at 9:30pm Jeff and I went for a small drive around where he lived which was nice. Then we came back, had a shower and went to bed as I am working today.

I’m next seeing Jeff on Saturday where I think we’ll just have a quiet night as he’s working on Saturday and Sunday so I’ll pop over just before he gets back home and start dinner. I know it might seem like currently our lives / relationship revolves around cooking low fat food and visiting farmers markets, however, hopefully in the summer I’ll be able to post about all the other things we are doing – such as visiting a lot of National Trust properties, going to loads of classical concerts and basically not being stuck in the house due to dark nights and horrible weather!

-Molly