Hello! It’s been a while – a little over three years – since I last wrote in this blog. I don’t know why I stopped writing but I guess as the phrase goes, life just got in the way. I’m not going to promise regular updates because I would like keep this a casual thing rather than add another layer of stress to my life.
One thing that has changed since I last posted is my waist line. It’s gotten significantly larger. I’ve put on about three stone in the last few years and can count on the fingers of one hand the amount of times I’ve gotten on my skate board.
And that really has been the inspiration to re-start this blog. I realised that the old adage is true – you are what you eat. Lunch times have been full of crisps, sugary drinks and a variety of either pasty’s or Sandwiches. Couple that with no visits to the gym or skatepark and you’ve got porky fella on your hands.
I’ve started a new category for recipes called Healthy AF and this is going to be where I share with you all the recipies I’ve come up with for lunches and dinners along with any musings along the way.
I’ve been learning about various Asian cooking techniques that I’ve been using to create some healthy (AF) lunches and dinners for my missus and I. I’ve found that batch cooking lunches for the week ahead is the key but I’m going to go more into that subject in a future post.
I will also be talking about my skating exploits – I’ve recently fitted my beautiful Longboard with some surf skate trucks so I have to re-learn how to ride! I’m also visiting the gym on a semi-regular basis, so expect some posts about that side of things.
As always I welcome comments and suggestions as I’m pretty much making this up as I go along so any ideas would be great fully received!
My other half asked for beef stroganoff for dinner last night but I have a confession to make, I’m nearly 50 and have never eaten a Beef Stroganoff let alone cooked one so I had no frame of reference as what one should be like. However I do like a challenge so thought I’d give it a go. What’s the worst that could happen?
So I went on-line for a recipe and just searched “beef stroganoff recipe” and one from the The BBC good food website came up. So far so good. Saw that the recipe was from Tom Kerridge – a chef I had heard off so I thought that it had two big green ticks against in my opinion , I printed the ingredients off and took myself to the shop to buy the bits.
Lets fast forward a bit and it’s dinner time. The dish looks like the photos on the website and I’ve pretty much followed the directions to the letter. I’m feeling pretty chuffed with myself!
However, this is where the good feeling ended. Apparently what I served was nothing like a beef stroganoff. According to She Who Must Be Obeyed Tomato has no place in a stroganoff, let alone gherkins! I thought the dish was “ok” but I wouldn’t cook it again.
“My names Paul and I’m a faddy man”. There. I said it. (in fact if you read this post about progression I talk about some of my past ideas) but in this post I’m going to talk about the array of subscription services which are available and tempting for a faddy fella like myself.
Remember hipsters? The guys with tattoos, big beards that dressed like lumberjacks? The ironic t-shirts and a love of the 90’s. Film cameras, Walkmans and VHS were all briefly brought kicking and screaming back into vogue for a while. By the way, I’m writing this a little tongue in cheek as I have a big beard, am wearing a checked shirt, have a collection of film cameras and somewhere I have a walkman in a draw but that’s beside the point. A by-product of the hipster monument was a bigger interest in food, coffee and craft beers. Given the theme of this blog, again my tongue is firmly in my cheek.
For a while I was HUGELY into coffee, I even had a “cool” coffee story which looking back on it really wasn’t that cool at all. I used to blend different types of coffee beans to try and create a interesting blend. This is where I was first introduced to subscription services. I discovered a company called Pact Coffee. (by the way this isn’t a sponsored post and these aren’t affiliate links or anything). You get to select what type of coffee you like, how you brew – cafetière, stove top etc – and for about £8 they send you a bag once a month until you tell them to stop. I did this for a while and stopped when the coffee fad passed me by. Now I’m a lot more laid back about coffee and I’m content to pick up a bag of whatever when I’m shopping. I’m fairly sure that the coffee fad will come around again at some point and when it does I’ll probably set up a new plan. No doubt there will be a blog post about it when I do.
Beer. I do like beer. I especially like craft beers and IPA-types so I was really happy when I saw an advert from a company called Beer52. (this is one of those invite links If you sign up through this I get some free beer and you get 50% off and some free beer). Beer 52 had a offer where you just pay for postage (around £5) and you get a case of 8 different beers sent to you. So for a fiver I thought I’d give it a go. My case arrived and it contained 8 beers – 2 bottles and 6 cans, A couple of bags of snacks and magazine to read. The beers range from German larger to Porter style beers. The other half and I sampled some last night and we were both impressed. I’m going to be honest here and the £27 a month fee for this seems a bit steep, works out at about £3.30 a can but you get some snacks and a magazine with the added bonus of not having to go to the shop so I think I’m going to keep this subscription going for a bit. But the thing about this kind of service is that you don’t do them to save money – I could get 8 beers for a lot cheaper than £27 if I went to a super market – but its the fun of discovering new tastes. I would usually just buy a few of the same beer but this way I get to experience new flavours, discover potential unknown favourite’s and possibly even uncover a new faddy rabbit hole to dive into. Porter- type beers I’m looking at you.
I spend a lot of time trying new things. My history is littered with many discarded hobbies, ideas and flights of fancy. All of them were EVERYTHING at the time. I’d put a lot of effort into them and then one day I just wouldn’t do it anymore. I don’t know why I’m like this but I’ve come to expect it from myself now.
In the past (and this isn’t an exhaustive list!) but I’ve been into martial arts, Painting, Playing guitar, surfing, Growing Bonsai trees… I got to a half decent level with some of these hobbies but nothing stellar. For example, I played in a few rock bands, competed in a few martial arts tournaments and missus has hung one of my paintings on the wall but nothing really you could write home about. Some of these are still kicking around and lurk at the back of my mind just waiting to be picked up again – most notably surfing – but the rest are nothing but tales to tell now.
I think I like being a beginner. It’s exciting! It’s all new and there are things to discover If I muck something up, it really doesn’t matter because I’m a beginner! No-one is expecting great results from me so I’m free to play and experiment. I spend hours watching videos on YouTube and in discussions in Facebook groups. I read websites and practice, practice, practice.
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” –Shunryu Suzuki
I used to teach photography (that was a hobby that grew into something beautiful) I used to give this corny and much overused piece of advice a lot “Try, Fail, Try again, Fail better”. And to be honest, this was really at the core of how I approach new things.
Skateboarding is a relatively new challenge for me. Whilst I’ve been riding my longboard for around a decade now, the skateboard (and tricks) are a new thing. There’s a zen phrase “Empty the cup” and it basically says that if you go into something already thinking that you know everything (your cup is full) you can’t learn anything new (no space left in your cup). So with skateboarding I had to empty my cup of all the longboard knowledge. Obviously somethings really helped, I already had some kind of balance, I was used to pushing a board around and the sensation was similar but that’s where it ended. I had to adopt a full on beginners mind.
I set myself challenges every time I work. Ideally, I approach everything as though it’s the first time – with a beginner’s mind and an amateur’s love. — Willem Dafoe
This meant going back to the very basics. First step was getting used to rolling around the skatepark on a much smaller board. Just pushing off, cruising, turning and stopping. Learning what the wheels can negotiate and what they can’t. It’s not a lot if you’re wondering, the smallest stone can stop you in your tracks and I’ve found myself doing a Superman impression on a few occasions.
The next thing I attempted were tic tacs, not the small minty sweets, but a maneuverer where you lift the nose of the board off the ground by pushing down on the tail and shifting your weight so you move the board to the left and right. A very basic thing, and something that people who have skated for years probably don’t even think about doing , but it’s still something to learn and I couldn’t have learnt this without taking the time to get comfortable on the board first.
It was a small step forward, almost an unnoticeable one but a step forward nevertheless. If we now fast forward a bit I’m learning how to ride mini ramps and I’m learning how to do kick turns on the ramps. I’ve got the hang of going face first on to the turn (confusingly called going backside) and I’m now learning how to go the other way (front side). I’m really struggling with it, it just feels so unnatural going backward down a ramp on a skateboard and that mental block has really hindered me. So I thought back to when I was learning backside kick turns and how I approached it. Did I go full-on into doing 180 degree kick turns? No, I started small. I was just riding up the ramp and doing a wide turn and going back down again and all this was done very low on the bank. So why did I think I could just do the frontside without any issues and get all frustrated when I couldn’t? My cup had filled up again. It had filled with all the other stuff that wasn’t relevant to what I was doing.
I basically had a word with myself, emptied my cup and started really small. Really low on the ramp and only doing small turns and this is where I am now. The mental block about going backwards down the ramp has disappeared and I can consistently do little turns on the ramp. It’s another small step, another little piece of progression, that will now allow me too just work on the technique and improve.
It felt great doing these tiny little turns, I felt really proud of myself that I’d taken another little step forward. I still can’t do 180 front side kick turns but I am failing better each time.
Being a total geek who loves playing with cameras, it seemed only natural to start a Youtube channel! At the moment there is the massive amount of 4 videos on it – all detailing my skateboarding journey but I’m going to be adding some cooking videos on there as well. Have a look if you’re a glutton for punishment 😉
A lot of the things I cook involve using garlic and onions before I learnt how to do peel it was a real pain to do! I was going to write a whole post about it but these videos do a much better job of it!
Skating has become a big thing in my life – it’s really helpful that my other half Wendy is very supportive of it! I’ve been riding a longboard for around 10 years now, mostly just for getting around and cruising but recently I’ve taken to hitting some hills on it. For the past six months or so I’ve been teaching myself how to skateboard.
What’s the difference between the two? Well a longboard is a much bigger board, generally wider with bigger wheels. It’s designed for urban streets to easily ride over cracks in the pavement, stones, twigs etc. They’re best for cruising around on – sort of like surfing on the streets.
Skateboards are generally smaller with much smaller wheels. They’re not designed for long distances on streets, not great at cruising around on but are for doing tricks on – whether that’s using obstacles found in urban areas or skateparks.
Now that is a very generalised description and of course there are sub-variants of the two and you can have cruiser set-ups for skateboards and trick set ups for longboards but I think you get the idea.
At my local skatepark
I was discussing in a Facebook group that I’m in the other day about how I feel about the differences between the two and I was reminded of doing martial arts. For me the longboard is like the stretches, the form work (Kata in karate) and the post-session meditation whereas the skateboarding is like the sparring, the punching and kicking drills and the tournaments. Two sides of the same coin and both as valid as each other. I am finding myself more drawn to the skateboarding side of things these days – I’m enjoying the challenge if the skatepark. I’m loving the fact that I can now do some very basic tricks (some of the time!). For the first time I’m attempting to skate on quarter pipes, ride ramps and generally experience a mix of fear and exhilaration that I’ve rarely had in life.
Longboarding is a very different experience for me, I generally skate early in the morning before the roads get filled with traffic. I have my music playing and I just go where the road takes me. It’s very relaxing for me – even though it’s still quite tiring – almost a mindful time.Not saying that it doesn’t have it’s moments though! I’ve still had to take my lumps and had my fair amount of road rash in my time but it’s the exception to the rule. It’s the opposite at the skatepark on my skateboard , I hit the concrete every single session without fail.
You might ask why I do it? I know that I’m going to hurt myself sometimes, I even joke sometimes when I limp in through the door that I found new ways to hurt myself. It’s tiring. I feel a bit daft wearing the pads and helmet sometimes and it’s a bit of drag hauling myself out of bed in the mornings.
But it’s freeing. All of life’s other worries disappear when I kick off – on whatever board I’m on. The sense of accomplishment and joy I feel when I do a proper 180 kick turn on a ramp or when I finally make THAT corner without having to bail is almost unparalleled.
That’s why I skate. That’s why I’ll keep skating until I can’t skate no more.
I love kebabs. There, I’ve said it. Because of this high up on my list of “take always to make at home” are a home donner type kebab and a decent chicken kebab.
As usual, the criteria has to be healthy and tasty – by virtue of the fact that I’m not paying for a take away the it would be more wallet friendly.
This presents some challenges as you can imagine but I hope that I’m getting there! I do have a donner recipe but I’ll blog about that later. This is a work in progress, so if you have any tips or ideas, I’d love to hear them!
As always, this feeds 5. This one takes a fair amount of time to prep and it’s best if you marinade the chicken so it’s a good idea to plan in advance as the cooking bit doesn’t take long at all.
(the garlic granules should have been with the chicken ingredients) Half a cucumber. Some mint. Tub of fat free natural yogurt. Pinch of salt
For the salad
3 bell peppers 2 Carrots Half white cabbage 2 small red onions 3 sticks of celery Handful of coriander Lemon juice Pinch of salt
Let’s get the chicken marinading.
First cut up the chicken fillets into small cubes roughly the same size and put in a large bowl. Add all the dry spices (the paprika, cumin,cinamon,garlic,oregano,salt and pepper) to the bowl, get your hands in there and mix it all together till the chicken is nicely coated. Cover this and put it in the fridge for a few hours.
Chicken mixed with the spices.
Tzatziki time
Wash your hands after handling the raw chicken, wipe your board down or use a different one. Slice your cucumber lengthways in half and use a teaspoon to scoop out the seeds.
Seedless cucumber
Chop up the cucumber and put in a bowl. Pick a few leaves of the mint (I used about 10) Finely chop that up and put that in the bowl as well. Add a pinch of salt, then cover with the yogurt. Cover and put in the fridge until needed later.
The Big Ole salad
This is one of the occasions I use a piece of kitchen equipment that isn’t a knife! You absolutely still can make this without a food processor – you can just chop everything up with a knife – but the food processor just makes things a whole lot easier. There’s a blade attachment that really finely shreds vegetables and it makes for nice salads and making coleslaw for example.
Basically I peeled the carrots, De-seeded the bell peppers and cut in three pieces, peeled the onions and cut in half, Cut the cabbage in half and then one of those halves in half so it would fit in the machine and put them all in the food processor one at a time. I had to do this in two batches because I had to empty the bowl . The last thing to go in was the coriander. A big pinch of salt, big squirt of lemon juice and it’s done!
A few hours later……
….and its time to cook. Pre heat your grill and also put a large frying pan on a medium heat and add a splash of oil (I used coconut oil but you can use whatever you like). Put your pita breads in the grill until they start to puff up – this just makes it easier to cut them open.
Cook the chicken in the pan in batches until its cooked and with a little char – that char really helps with the Kebab-yness of the dish – until it looks like this:
The cooked chicken
It’s just a matter of plating it up now. A good handful of the salad, a couple of spoonfuls of the tzatziki and a wholemeal pita filled with the delicious chicken and you’re good to go!
For dinner tonight we wanted something “with beef and past” but something that wasn’t a spag bol. Ages ago I attempted a ragu with the aim of making it a deep, rich dish. Unfortunately I went completely overboard, reduced down a whole bottle of red wine in the sauce and it was nearly inedible so I had a little re-think and came up with the following. This one was really nice but we both felt that it needed some more vegetables so next time I’ll probably add in some mange tout or similar.
Prep time 10 minutes Cooking time 30 minutes Serves 5
Ingredients 700g lean diced beef Two small red onions (or one large one) 4 cloves of Garlic 4 TBSP plain flour Dried Origano Dried Rosmary Pasata Salt, Pepper. (not pictured) Worchester sauce (not pictured) Lidl Vegetable stock cube
First add the flour, 1 tbsp of salt, 20 grinds of pepper, 1 tbsp dried origano and one 1 tbsp dried rosemary in a large bowl and give it a good mix together.
Put the diced beef into the flour mix and either using your hands or spoon , mix it all together until each piece of beef is nicely coated.
Now thinly slice the red onion and then peel, crush and finely chop the garlic and set all aside. Put a large pan on a medium heat and add a little vegetable oil. When the oil is hot, add the beef to the pan. It’s best to do this in batches to avoid overloading the pan. This will help to get a good colour to your beef as the meat will fry rather than boil. When the beef is nicely browned all over, remove it from the pan and put on a plate. Fry the next batch, adding a little more oil if needed and again remove when browned. After all the beef has been browned (not cooked through), keep the pan on the heat and add 5 tsp of worchester sauce to Degas the pan. Again you may need to add a little more oil here.
Add the onions and garlic and fry until softened, being careful not to burn the garlic. When the onions have started to turn translucent put the beef back in to the pan. Pour on the pasata and let it cook for a couple of minutes whilst stirring Top up the pan with boiling water and add the vegetable stock cube. bring to a gentle simmer and let reduce down by about a third. This is a good time to put your wholewheat pasta on as it takes about 15-20 minutes to cook your sauce should be ready when the pasta is done.
Just after the water and stock cube have been added.After been simmered for about 20 minutes.
All that’s left to do now after you’ve cooked and drained your pasta is put it in a bowl and eat!
The other half and I love Chinese food and a big part of my home cooking journey is trying to cook dishes that can replace the dreaded take away. This recipe is one I adapted from a sticky pork recipe I saw on YouTube.
Sticky Soy chicken
Feeds 5
1kg boneless chicken thighs
Light soy sauce
Dark soy sauce
Brown sugar
Salt
Pepper
Red chilli
5 cloves of garlic
About an inch of ginger root
1 red onion
1 green pepper
1 red pepper
1 bunch of spring onions
Lime juice
Noodles
Prep time 20 mins
Optional marinating time 3 hours.
Cooking time 20 mins
Prep:
De-skin and finely chop the garlic. Peel the ginger and finely chop. Dice up the chilli pepper – with or without the seeds, it depends on how spicy you like it! Put the chilli, garlic and ginger into a large bowl.
Pour a good “glug” of the dark soy and light soy into the bowl as well along with a decent pinch of salt and pepper. Give everything a mix and set aside.
Cut the chicken thighs into evenly sized cubes and add to the bowl. Give everything a good mix – I tend to use my hands to mix it all together but feel free to use a spoon – just make sure that all the chicken is nicely coated with the mixture. Cover the bowl and pop it into your fridge to marinate for a few hours – you could use it straight away but leaving it will give you a better result.
3 hours later…..
Chop up the peppers into chunks.
Peel the onion and cut into strips. Set these aside, we’ll use them later. Also chop up the spring onions but keep them separate as they will go in at the as minute.
Cook the noodles.I use the dried ones from lidl and they only take 4 minutes to cook. I put the noodle “bricks” into a large bowl, boil a kettle and cover the noodles with the boiling water. I give them a bit of a poke with a wooden spoon to break them up a bit and just leave them to soften. Four minutes later, the noodles are cooked and I pour them into a sieve and run under the cold tap to stop them cooking further. Leave them to drain.
Whle the noodles are cooking, lets make the sauce. In a small bowl put in a good sized glug of dark soy, light soy, lime juice (I use the bottled stuff because it keeps longer), pinch of salt and pepper and also about 3 tablespoons of the brown sugar. The sugar is what will help give the chicken the lovely sticky, glistening finish.
Get your chicken out of the fridge then put a large wok on a high heat and get it smoking hot. A large frying pan with high sides would work as well. When the wok is smoking hot, add a little vegetable oil and add the chicken to the wok. It’s best to do this in batches so as not to overload the pan. Keep the pan moving, the cooking should be fast and frenetic! Stir or toss the pan to keep things moving.
The problem with doing it all at once is that the chicken starts to boil rather than fry.
When each batch is cooked remove from the wok and put in a bowl(test by taking the biggest chunk out and cutting it in half. If it’s pink or red, it’s not cooked yet). Do this until all the chicken is cooked.
Your wok should still be really hot but there will probably be some bits and pieces stuck to it, maybe a little bit burnt. With the pan still on the heat, pour in a little vinegar (I used malt because that’s what I had in the cupboard) and swirl it around the wok. This is called De-glazing and it will clean up the wok and also bring to life all the flavours there!
Now it’s time to add in the onions and peppers to the wok. Try and keep them moving either by stirring or tossing the pan.
After a couple of minutes when the peppers and onions have softened, put all off the chicken back in the wok. Keep it moving! Get everything nicely mixed together and pour over the sauce we made earlier. Let the sauce reduce down a little and add our spring onions.
When everything is nicely hot and glistening pour it all out into a bowl.
Get the cooked noodles and put them in the wok. Move them around until they’ve re-heated and have picked up some of the sauce from the chicken.
All that’s left now to do is plate up! I’m not very fancy when it comes to plating so all I did was to put five bowls out and put five lots of the noodles in each bowl. Then simply put the chicken on top!
This one worked really nicely and is one I’ll definitely be cooking again!
