Breaking My Fast

As these days the Dear Leader and I undertake a 600 calorie fast every Monday we actually do break a more meaningful fast than normal on a Tuesday morning. Strangely we neither of us wake up ravenous, nor horribly early, on the morning after the slight deprivation before. In fact what we have on the Tuesday is only a variation on the Monday fast breakfast (and yes, it is fast to do as well) of a boiled egg and a bowl of fruit.


Lest this all begin to be too too virtuous, I am looking forward to a short holiday in Scotland in not many weeks' time, where I hazard a guess there may not be bowls of fruit available on the hotel breakfast menu. With luck there will be black pudding, and I am certain sure bacon and sausages will feature, things reserved now for high days and holidays. For the sake of my - love that euphemism - digestive transit - I hope they will have given in to brown bread as an option.


That bowl of fruit is a major pleasure, but given my constant wish to have diversity in our diet it is something of a challenge too. It's April, so imported strawberries make the grade occasionally now, along with blueberries. Citrus is a must for some sharpness (but as per my previous post, not as sharp in the case of grapefruit as was once the case), kiwi for the beautiful green and the eye-beneficial compounds signaled by that colour, and plums for some crunch and their purple or yellow skins. Pomegranate seeds (the trick is to bash the back of the halved fruit over a bowl with a heavy wooden spoon) strewn over the lot once or twice a week bring a touch of Aladdin - it takes little imagination to see them as drifts of rubies in a bandit's treasure chest. But back to my less camp self now.


The rather limited fruit range offered by my local supermarkets is bolstered by visits to the excellent Asian shop we use more or less weekly. Today I bought dragon fruit, golden plums, guavas and a bright yellow-skinned mango (along with a load of non-fruit items). The white with black dots of the dragon fruit, cut in elegant dice, and even the light-green-beige of the guavas, will add to the richness of the breakfast palette. It is not too long too until we will have our own rhubarb, gooseberries, greengages, mirabelles, pears, apples, quince, blackcurrants and even with luck apricots to add to the mix.


I will enjoy the contrast of hotel bacon and eggs for a few days (they can keep any hash browns on offer, I'm yet to encounter one anywhere that's not oily and badly cooked), but at the same time will miss the burst of colour (and flavour) that breakfast at home brings.

A Deer Friend

We are not on, but occasionally do, the 5 - 2 regime, reducing our calorie intake on two days in a week to just 600.

I first tried this in 2014 I think, having watched a programme (by the ever excellent Michael Mosley) that recommended it more for its anti-cancer etc properties than for any help it gives in reducing weight, though that has been of value too. That time I gave it a go when the Dear Leader and SC were away diving in Egypt. Foolishly I did the two days together, and on one of them decided it was a good idea to use up my calorie allowance in one giant bowl of coleslaw, munched through the day. A box set of party political broadcasts would bring more pleasure.

Since that time I've learned how to make the 600 calories more enjoyable and more filling, or capable of fooling our systems into believing we are fullish. Last night I made SC and myself (the Dear Leader away in the Galapagos Islands ostensibly diving, though probably scouting out another secret submarine base for her evil empire) a dinner that included a small sirloin steak of venison. It had to be cooked far longer than we would beef (nearing 10 minutes), but with a seared surface and a bit of pinkness left in the middle, and having been given five minutes resting time, it was delicious - and as the packaging claims each 100g steak is just 106 calories it allowed us to have various steamed veg (asparagus in particular being low calorie and gustatorily rewarding), and a starter of samphire (again, loads of flavour for stuff all calories) with chili, garlic and brown shrimps and a squeeze of lemon, with a banana for pud, and still fall within the 300 calories we had left for the meal.

That is, I have to admit, the first time I have ever cooked venison and really enjoyed it. Stews various have been ok, but never memorably good or even any sort of a match for beef. The seared steak was meaty and slightly gamey and very tasty however, and having something to chew and savour for a few minutes made the glum fact of our reduced intake fade into the background.

What I would love to try as regards deer meat is their kidneys, of which I have read great things. As an offal lover (perhaps that's why the Dear Leader is more than one ocean away) lamb kidneys are near the top of my ultimate breakfast wish list, and venison kidney is supposed to be superior to them. Having failed to source them from butchers previously my new plan is to win the lottery, buy a Scottish shooting estate, get a rifle licence, learn to shoot, stalk and kill a stag, let a minion do the gralloch, and then while the kidneys are still warm pop them in a buttered pan and have them minutes later on toast. If only every ambition were so simple.

Time, Coffee, Breakfast, and Mr Kurtz

Reflecting on why our breakfasts are currently more enjoyable than ever before in our 99 years of marriage, the conclusion  is that we now have time, or at least we more frequently have time, to spend over said meal. Sternest Critic is off at university so we no longer have the school bus rush. I have worked from home since 2007, and since last summer the Dear Leader has two or more days a week when world domination is plotted here rather than at one of her secret bases.

I do not believe that either food or drink can be truly savoured unless there is time available to focus on them. A cup of coffee gulped en route to the office will not give the same pleasure as the same cup sipped calmly at the table. It's not a matter of focussing intently from first sip to last, but the greater opportunity to take a moment and notice. Stop and smell the flowers, or the coffee, as it were.

This brings me to the horror of grazing, and the (exaggeratedly) reported death of the family meal. As an admitted hedonist I would take some persuading to swap my time at the table (morning, noon or evening) for time spent on another activity. An extra hour spent texting friends, retweeting what some pointless celebrity('s PR hack) has written about toenails, or playing games on my phone would none of them tempt me to change.

If you graze then it's just re-fuelling. Quality is sacrificed for convenience. Reheated rubbish that can be carried without spillage will be preferred to anything that needs a slow simmer and has sloppy juices.

I am standing for the Green Party in my local ward this May. When I rise to absolute power, as seems inevitable (the Dear Leader busy developing a mind-altering ray even now), grazers will be sent to re-education camps in the foothills of the Norfolk mountains to face a stern regime of meals featuring dishes lifted from the finest pages of de Pomiane, David, and (Jane) Grigson. They will be forced to sit for a minimum of half an hour over each meal, with no TV, music, or access to personal electronic devices. Anyone failing to engage in delightful conversation during the evening sitting will be required to spend another 15 minutes over cheese*. The horror, the horror. Conrad was deliberately ambiguous with those death-bed words, but I wonder if what Kurtz was imagining was people on the go eating as breakfast those strange squashed-egg and sausage patty efforts foisted on the world by McDonald's. I may be wrong of course.


* Those putting butter on their cheese biscuits will naturally be shot for the good of the gene pool. I'm no extremist, but tolerance has its limits. Anyone asking for cheese with bits of mango, or cranberries, or ginger in it will be treated far more harshly.

Lord Emsworth and I

Breakfasting is rather an art I feel. It's of course a cliche that the first meal of the day is the most important, setting one up nutritionally and spiritually for the next 14 or 15 hours. Over the last week or so I've enjoyed very contrasting ways to break my fast. During our recent stay at my father's house it was variations on the grilled platter - sausages, bacon, black pudding, toast, eggs etc -  that saw my weight rise and energy fall. I love all of those items, but perhaps once a week (or more sensibly once a fortnight) suffices to have them all together.

By way of contrast I feel full of beans (though they are not on the menu) after our habitual start to the day of strong (real) coffee, a homemade smoothie, and toast and marmelade or poached egg. Lord Emsworth, from what one can gather from the Blandings novels fared best on Dover sole, not something I've ever eaten before noon. We have in common, however, that something light and carefully chosen does make one feel at ease with the world. And of course we are both sound on pigs.

There is no 'right' breakfast in terms of a set menu. I've eaten curry in India and congee in Indonesia, pastry or rolls and coffee in the USA and France, steak in South Africa, black bread and blacker tea in the USSR, and felt good after all of them because the food satisfied not just my thirst and hunger but also a feeling of belonging and of well-being. How the kids I sometimes see eating crisps and drinking Red Bull on the way to school must feel I can only imagine. Not, sadly, important enough for their parents to have provided something more beneficial.

A lot of schools now are offering breakfasts to pupils, and it's not just the under-privileged who maybe need this - I know of a kid at a fee-paying establishment where it's not lack of money but parental laziness that sees him reportedly start his day more often than not on an empty stomach. That is sad in at least two ways - for his educational performance, but also for the missed moment of family bonding, of contentment and care that a simple breakfast can give.

It's a missed moment of culinary art too. Preparing the perfect poached egg is simple but rewarding - water barely simmering, a splash of vinegar because fresh eggs (as they should be, and with our own chickens are here) tend to disintegrate without it, eggs carefully broken and slipped into the water (I don't see the point of the cheffy whirlpool thing), drained and en-toasted when the yolks are runny and the whites soft but formed - it's a skilful ritual worth the effort.

Smooth and Delicious

There is not enough written about breakfast. Look at the food sections in your Sunday papers and the foods discussed are almost invariably at home in lunches and suppers - especially on-trend (vile vile phrase, individuality is precious) suppers (darling everybody in London is going mad for Herzogovian these days). Given we all trot out the cliche about breakfast being the most important meal of the day, that seems somewhat odd.

I have a small collection of books about breakfasts, none of recent vintage however, so their ideas tend towards the heavier and the more complicated. Of late we, by way of contrast, as part of our sickeningly successful health regime (for which read pre-hols weight-loss regime), have gone pretty simple - wholemeal toast with some protein and/or preserves, coffee, and either a fruit yogurt plus a fruit platter, or the last two combined in a smoothie.

When did the smoothie hit these shores? Not milkshakes with a bit of fruit, but the full-on smoothie (a delightful misnomer given any interesting ones have bits aplenty in them). My wife, not normally allowed in the kitchen, made a wonderful new variant the other day without any milk, the flesh of a sizeable slice of watermelon providing the liquid. The rest was a load of grapes and one peach yogurt. The result was runnier than normal, but down-in-one delicious.

On the GI front that would be a bit frowned on, as strangely watermelon is high GI, and blending fruit breaks down the fibre so moves everything up the scale regardless of where it starts. But the toast and protein balance it out, and anyway I wouldn't care as it tasted great and provided at least one of our 103 each a day. These things are complicated though: watermelon per an article noticed the other day helps speed fat through ones system (though not with the occasional distressing effects of certain tablets if the stories are true). I'd rather eat watermelon than take tablets. Especially if it tastes as good as that smoothie did. And anyway, I'd rather watch Ipswich than use tablets like that.

Food and Exams

SC has his first A level exam (of sorts, it's a physics practical) today. As a concerned parent (far more nervous than he appears to be) I want to help in every way possible. Though his school is older, he doesn't go to one of those privileged establishments where rumour has it a certain amount of clandestine assistance is given to candidates, thus help here in large part means giving him a good breakfast.

So what is a good exam breakfast? Thinking it through I failed to come up with anything terribly revolutionary, but then most nutritional thought in the end seems to come down to common sense. He will benefit from slow release carbs, to give energy through a good part of the day, so a couple of slices of wholemeal bread (he isn't keen on toast). Protein with that to slow the digestion of the starch into sugar, spreading the energy longer (the exam late in the school day), so some low fat ham with his bread (and scrape of butter). Such protein is supposed to be good for concentration too. I sneaked some fish into yesterday's mezze for a similar reason, and because as a true believer in Wodehouse I hope that what Bertie felt made Jeeves so brainy will work on SC.

Fresh fruit and veg seems to help our moods, the vitamins perhaps giving us a boost, so a fruit platter - orange, apple, peach, blueberries - shared between us, and some cloudy apple juice to wash everything down. To finish a zero fat vanilla yoghurt not for any real scientific reason, but because it tastes like ice cream and makes one happy (longer term of course it's good for his bones, but the danger of osteoporosis is a few decades off for him yet).

In the end however balanced such a start may be, when the papers are opened it's down to other factors. But when the course of someone's life can vary because of just a single mark tipping them up or down a grade, you want to give them every chance.

Better Bread Better for Us

The healthy eating programme has pushed me into even more bread making than usual, partly as the wholemeal offerings at the supermarkets are less than tasty, partly as it saves me going back for another loaf and ending up spending £20 on other stuff.

Yesterday's rolls were so good that even SC complimented them. They were not in truth wholemeal, as my 100 per cent wholemeal attempts have yielded somewhat dense results. Tasty but dense. Think any number of celebrities.

Reading about healthy eating has convinced me we need to eat more seeds, so armed with flaxseeds from Holland and B and sunflower seeds from Booth's I mixed dough per the following recipe:

1 cup s/s milk
0.25 cup lukewarm water
1 beaten egg
1 tbsp avocado oil
1 tbsp walnut oil
0.5 tsp salt
1.5tbsp sugar
0.25 cup seeds (mainly linseed)
0.75 cup wholemeal flour with seeds
1 cup wholemeal spelt flour
2 cups unbleached white flour
7g dried yeast sachet

Mixed and raised in the bread-maker, then knocked back, formed into rolls and left on a floured baking sheet in a warm place to rise for two hours they more than doubled in size before being put in a cold oven turned on to 200C and left to bake for about 25 minutes.

The results are soft crumbed, really tasty (in spite of the reduced salt), and satisfyingly bitty with seeds throughout. A perfect breakfast roll with coffee.

Using flaxseed reminded me of something from my childhood. The grandfather of my best mate of those days, at whose house in the depths of Norfolk I was sometimes invited to stay, used to take a teaspoonful of linseed oil (aka flaxseed oil) every evening. I can remember thinking this odd, and mentioning it to my parents who said something rather deprecatory about old country remedies. We now know linseeds are packed with antioxidants and Omega-3. Not for the first time we find that such remedies had real benefits. But I won't be following my Gran's advice and putting a clove of garlic in my sock the next time I get a cold.

Bread, Toast and the Meaning of Life

Fed up with the poor quality of bread available here I've experimented with recipes of late to make my own, resulting in one that's tasty, has yet to fail, and looks rather lovely. The one thing lacking is a crispy crust.

Bread-making is an area where bucket-cookery won't work, so I have a precise recipe:



1.25 cups water
2 tbsps olive oil or walnut oil
a beaten egg added to the water
1.25 tsp salt
2.25 tbsps sugar
2.25 tbsps milk powder
4 cups strong white flour
7g sachet of fast acting yeast

I use a bread-maker on its dough setting to mix and rise the bread, then knock it back and kneed it briefly. That quantity makes two good-sized loaves, the top slashed in three or four places with a thin-bladed knife to make a pretty surface and a different texture when the cuts expand.

The loaves on a flat griddle are left to rise in a warm cupboard for at least two hours, then put in a cold oven and the oven turned on to 200C. They're cooked in about 25 - 30 minutes, then left on a cooling rack (fresh out of the oven, smelling wonderful, it's a tempter, but until the crumb has formed they are not right).

As far as austerity is concerned it's not a bad deal either, our eggs free, or sort of, from our chickens, and if I use Sainsbury's white bread flour at £1 for 1.5kg I reckon I get six of those loaves from one bag. Add 14p for a yeast sachet and pennies for the rest and a life-enhancing and delicious loaf costs, even with the energy needed, less than 50p. As regards those energy costs, I'm careful to make the bread before or with something else, so they're not extravagant.

But it's really not the cost that is paramount, but having bread that looks good, smells good, tastes good. Bread is such a fundamental thing to so much good eating. Soup with nice bread becomes a meal, for example. And toast at breakfast should be a basic human right.

The egg in this recipe gives the crumb a faint yellow tinge that becomes more obvious when the bread is toasted (and it toasts superbly). On Sunday morning drinking good coffee, eating toast and jam after bacon and egg, all was right with the world. Ours anyway.

One Day a Year - and Quite a Few Others

It's not exactly a national scandal that pancakes now seem to be ghettoised to their own Tuesday and nothing else. But it is bloody silly.

I love them. Cheap, tasty, light or substantial, sweet or savoury, American or crepes (will someone tell me how to do accents?), innumerable fillings opening up gastronomic potential. What's not to love?

We had the thin French-ish ones as a makeshift pud last night. I regularly do the fluffy American version taught me by a US-based friend for breakfast.

When I said to my son they were something I had to teach him before he flies the nest he joked about buying ready-made mix. Apparently hanging 17-year-olds upside-down from an upper floor is frowned on by the authorities.

You hear blokes boasting about being able to do their 'signature dish,' quite often a green Thai curry. As intelligent as saying you have got your time for sex down below a minute. Rather than learn one fancy dish to be repeated for friends ad nauseam, between times re-heating ready meals, it seems far more intelligent to learn a few core dishes. Pancakes - certainly the thin ones - should be one of those.

I don't bother to measure the ingredients these days, blending an egg, flour and milk (with a big pinch of salt, sometimes a tsp or two of sugar, and a slick of melted butter) with an electric mixer until the consistency of single cream. It's best left in the bowl for 30 minutes or more (I am not sure of the science, but it works) before frying in a non-stick pan greased with butter.

It made me wonder what are the other 'core' dishes or similar? A stew I guess. A simple soup. A curry (green Thai or otherwise). Salad dressing. Roast chicken. A tomato-based sauce for pasta. Chops various (technique same but degree of cooking different depending on meat). Work a few variations for each and you won't have to live on ready-meals. And gentlemen should never boast about sex - though I have my time up to over a minute. Cue old Woody Allen joke for fans of his earlier films.

Stevie Wonder

Many chance occurrences can change the way we eat - dishes discovered on our travels, health fads, finding intriguing new ingredients. We had a strange one this weekend.

One of our two chickens (the third suddenly turned up its toes several months back), named Steve as a homage to her youthful tendency to do a runner (think The Great Escape), after not having tried to make a break for it since November disappeared completely after we left her foraging for worms for a few minutes. We have foxes over the brook at the bottom of our garden, so after ages searching we figured one way or another she was a goner. With no signs at lunchtime on Sunday we went and bought two replacements. At four, checking on the newbies, Ruth found Steve happily pecking at the lawn.

So now we have four, and are averaging three and a bit eggs per day. Poached egg for breakfast is always a winner, but not every day. Thus I am thinking about ways to use the surplus creatively: I made onion bread (half a pack of dried onion per big loaf) two days in a row, using an egg to enrich the dough, the results very tasty and with a lovely pale yellow crumb. We may end up as we have previously giving some away, if only to avoid cholesterol poisoning. But I'm loath to do so - the eggs are so much better than any supermarket organic version, and offer so many fine dishes.

Best of all these is the simple omelette. Simple if you get it right, which for me means using great eggs (no problem there then), nice unsalted butter in which to fry them, and if adding any flavourings erring on the side of caution as regards quantity. The cheese, for example - Parmesan always a favourite - is there to enhance the flavour not dominate.

It was, as I have said before, reading An Omelette and a Glass of Wine by Elizabeth David that was a turning point in my culinary life. My life. The eponymous essay is a joy to read still, and full of good sense - keep things simple, use good ingredients, and find great matches like those two. With a green salad and some decent bread a six egg omelette (and a glass of wine) is a perfect midweek supper in the warmer months. At Sainsbury's half-a-dozen large free range eggs cost £1.75. Add a few pence for butter, £0.50 for half a cos lettuce, a few more pennies for oil and vinegar, and £0.80p for a small loaf of crusty bread, and supper for three would be about £3.25. Now here comes the even smugger than normal bit - if you have your own hens, make bread, and grow lettuce, the cost for the same meal would be about 75p. Worth thinking about. Especially as it leaves more to spend on buying a half decent wine to top it all off.

Feast, Cost and Value

I try to shop wisely, which is not necessarily to say cheaply. If cheap means tasteless, or past its best, or downright nasty, it's a waste of money. Last week I bought a 3kg ham for £12.50, quite an outlay but an absolute bargain:

Sunday lunch - the ham simmered with vegetables and herbs, plenty of thick slices in leek and cheese sauce.
Monday to Wednesday - an equally thick slice or two at breakfast for my son, who likes nothing better.
Monday lunch - ham in my sandwich.
Monday evening - some of the stock and about 250g of cubed meat used in a main course minestrone.
Tuesday lunch - a slice for my lunch with some cheese and pickles.
Tuesday evening - turkey salmi made with more of the stock enriched with Parmesan.

There is still enough for a sandwich this lunchtime and some end bits and scraps that will be added to a salad of some sort, or maybe saved to go on one of our Thursday pizzas, and more than enough stock for another soup.

The initial cooking took 160 minutes, actually more as I brought the ham to the simmer slowly and skimmed off the scum, so it was an investment in time. But the flavours that seeped into the meat made it easy to face so many times; such stock is a boon for any cook; and subsequent uses meant just minutes of prep, if that.

I saw an ad for KFC the other night. Family Feast (TM!) - 10 bits of sad chicken, various 'sides' that largely seemed to consist of the vaguely named 'fries' (are they potato or corn starch?), plus a few beans and some cobettes (what a vile word), and a bottle of fizzy drink. It cost significantly more than that ham.

One Flame Pudding II - Something in Toast

Having finished Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book I have moved on to Gervase Markham, more or less contemporary with her. Early in the book Panperdy (Pain Perdu) features, which prompted me to cook a version of that treat for breakfast today - French toast in other words.

For such a simple dish it has many sides. It is something we know was popular in late medieval times if not earlier, the cinnamon and sugar used in it almost ubiquitous then, for the well-to-do at least. The way some Americans eat it, accompanying a meat element like bacon, is reminiscent of such days too. It is for the economical cook a way of using bread heading towards staleness, though as this morning I used four eggs (albeit two were tiny ones from our newest hen) it is stretching things to call it an austerity dish. And it is both a breakfast classic and a quickly made pudding as the case arises.

The secrets for me of decent French toast, and everyone has their own version, are: stretch the eggs with a splash of milk, which helps the beaten mix soak better into the bread; sugar and cinnamon (and a tiny pinch of salt) to be added with that mix and the first two sprinkled on the surface again after cooking; cut white bread into quite thin slices; allow at least five minutes for the bread to soak up the eggy stuff, turning it so both sides are coated; use unsalted butter and not too much for the frying; and a low-ish heat for the cooking. I don't toast the bread as some do, so my version is probably more accurately called eggy bread.

With a small glug of sweet sherry (sweet Vermouth, Marsala or Madeira would probably work too) added to the fluid this becomes the beautifully-named Poor Knights of Windsor, a pretty pudding that looks best if the bread is cut into fingers - soldiers perhaps the apposite term.

Like most cooking the worst thing to do is rush it - unless the egg mix has reached the centre of the bread it isn't right.

The Markham book is one of the excellent Penguin Great Food series, an extract from the original volume The English Huswife.

Bargain Brekky

It's so true that breakfast is the most important meal of the day: it has to keep us going for the whole morning and sets the mood of the day. Muesli would depress me for hours. A favourite that costs very little and everyone loves is the American raised pancake, base for a hundred toppings. I use a mixture of white and wholemeal self-raising flours to sneak a bit of extra fibre in.

For enough to make eight or nice pancakes put about 100g of self-raising flour in a mixing bowl. Add an egg, a heaped tsp of baking powder, 1/2 a tsp of salt, 6 tsps of granulated sugar, a 3/4" cube of butter melted quickly in the microwave, and if you have it several tbsps to half a large carton of plain yoghourt - I use cheapo Sainsbury's Basic, it is tasty and only 55p a carton so why buy something that looks posher for twice the price when seemingly only the packaging is different? Add a little milk then use a hand mixer to blend it all nicely, adding more milk until you have a very thick double cream texture to the batter. It needs no rest. Cook on a flat griddle or thickly based frying pan. They need turning when big bubbles appear on the surface. Keep finished ones warm in the oven until ready to serve.

Maple syrup and butter are neither austerity products nor that healthy, but they are the most luxurious topping. Alternatives are fruit yoghourt, one little carton will do three or more, slices of banana, a freshly squeezed orange and sprinkle of sugar, or apple slices fried in butter. Shop-bought chocolate sauce is another possibility, or just melt a few squares of good chocolate in the microwave - don't overdo it or you end up with a crystalised mess.

If you have too much batter it keeps overnight in the fridge, but the pancakes tend to be a little flatter though still good. Without toppings I reckon its about 60p at most to make enough for three or four people, a nice warming, cheering filler-upper.