Hampered by a friend

I have a friend who I love dearly but who, it has to be faced, is a bit of a flake. I've known him ever since I was a teenager – so for an embarrassingly long time – and in all those years, he's committed one social gaffe after another. This social ineptitude doesn't stem from any lack of intelligence – he's one of the brightest people I know – but he just can't seem to 'read' people and therefore has little sense of what is or isn't socially appropriate.

It was only a few months ago that he turned up for a Sunday lunch (for which I had planned, shopped and cooked to feed precisely ten people) with his two teenage sons. All well and good, apart from the fact that he'd neglected to tell me he was bringing them along. As a result, we didn't have enough chairs to seat everyone at the table and, worse yet, there wasn't quite enough food to go round.

In the run up to the post-wedding party, Mark and I had sent out 'save the date' emails in early March, to ensure that the people we most wanted to celebrate with would be free on the evening in question. Then, in late June, just before we sent the invitations out, we emailed everyone to get their correct addresses. Then the invitations went out in July. I even had a long conversation with this old friend of mine (let's call him Bob to preserve the blushes of the not-so-innocent) in mid-July where he explained that he'd nearly forgotten to tell his wife about the invitation, but had remembered in the nick of time.

You could say that we'd given people adequate warning. So I was hugely pissed off when, eight days before the party, I got an email from Bob to say that he hoped I wouldn't mind that his wife couldn't make it. Why? Because she'd got the dates wrong and was going to spend the weekend with a friend of hers in Stockholm instead. So, not a happy bunny.

Injury was then added to insult when, to make amends, a Fortnum's hamper arrived. It was a wedding present from Bob and his wife. Now I love a Fortnum's hamper as much as the next girl (in fact probably more than the next girl), but this one was stuffed full of tea-time stuff like biscuits and jams. Absolutely delicious. But possibly not the best thing to give a dieting bride...

Hitting the comfort zone

As I think I might have mentioned in my last posting, my honeymoon in Sicily was blighted by a bad attack of gastroenteritis. For the first time in living memory, I lost my appetite. No, actually, to tell the truth, the reality was far more cruel – I didn't lose my appetite, but my stomach griped and gripped and complained in all kinds of unpleasant ways if I ate anything for the best (or should that be worst?) part of eight days.

The only thing, over the course of the entire week, that I managed to eat with equanimity was a bean soup, so when I came back I had a go at recreating what I came to think of as the ultimate comfort food. Truth to tell, I couldn't resist embellishing the basic recipe, but this is just the kind of dish I find myself craving when I'm feeling a tad below par – especially as autumn draws on.

Italian bean soup for at least eight

500g dried cannellini beans, soaked overnight with a sprinkling of bicarbonate of soda (this helps prevent the skins from splitting as you cook the beans, or so I've been told)
250g dried chickpeas, also soaked overnight with some bicarb
olive oil
200g pancetta (or thick-cut bacon if you can't find pancetta), cut into lardons
2 medium onions, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
5-6 medium carrots, cut into half-moon slices
5 sticks celery, sliced
300ml chicken stock
2 bay leaves
250ml tomato passata
1/2 savoy cabbage or a good bunch of cavollo nero, sliced
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Cook the cannellini beans and chickpeas (separately) according to the instructions on the packet (I brought the beans to the boil, then drained them, then simmered them in fresh water for about an hour and a half, while the chickpeas only needed simmering for 45 minutes until tender after the initial boiling and draining). Don't forget to skim away any mucky-looking scum that rises to the surface.

Meanwhile, heat a dribble of olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan and fry the lardons until lightly browned. Remove with a slotted spoon, lower the heat and fry the onions gently until soft and translucent.

Add the garlic and stir for a further half a minute or so, then tip in the carrots and celery and cook until just beginning to soften. At this point, add the chicken stock and turn the heat up.

While the chicken stock is coming to the boil, take half the beans and half the chickpeas and process in a blender with a little bit of the cooking water until a thick paste is formed. Stir this into the saucepan – you have to stir fairly thoroughly, preferably with a fork or a stiff whisk, in order to get the lumps of bean puree to break up.

Add the remaining beans, the bay leaves and the passata and cook for a further half hour or so, until all the flavours are melded together. If necessary, add a bit more chicken stock or water to thin the soup out. About ten minutes before serving, stir in the cabbage and season to taste.

Those who aren't dieting might appreciate a dribble of olive oil in their soup bowl, as well as a hunk of crusty bread to dip in the soup.

Every girl's dream...

I've just returned from my honeymoon in Sicily with an extra-special gift – an attack of gastro-enteritis that has laid me low for much of the past week. Really, this is the gift that keeps on giving...

No – I'm not going to go into gory details. I'm sure you've all succumbed to something similar at one stage or another. But the fact that I've been off my food for the best part of a week (not to mention the other, more indelicate effects of the bug) has meant that despite the over-indulgence of the week of the wedding party and the fact that I ate (ahem) a few pastries and ice-creams while I was in Sicily, I haven't put on a gram.

And a quick chat with some of my girlfriends has revealed that, for most women, the upside to having any kind of lurgy is the fact that weight comes off with remarkable ease when you're not well. They do say that clouds have silver linings...

I'm feeling guilty...

No, not about my weight... I'm feeling bad because I haven't had any time in the past ten days or so to make any postings on this blog. You may feel slightly less angry with me if I tell you that, for the past couple of weeks I've had to write a couple of thousand words a day (as an average).

What – weekends as well? I hear you ask. Ah, well, last Saturday was the date of Mark and my post-wedding party, where we got to say our vows in front of many of our friendss, rather than just our mums, who were the only people present the first time round. Sunday? Well, Sunday, as you might expect was a recovery day, then my nose was firmly back to the grindstone from Monday on.

Why am I working so hard? Because Mark and I are off to Sicily on our belated honeymoon tomorrow, and we won't be back until the end of the month (potential burglars should be aware that Laszlo the guard dog will be staying, as will some friends). I promise that when I get back I'll return fired up with enthusiasm, ready to post some fab new recipes, courtesy of some inspirational sunshine. Until then, have a good September.

I owe Gemma an apology

Gemma came and put me through my paces again the other day and, as she walked through the door, I realised I'd made a mistake in my last posting about her. She's not as small as I thought she was – she's about as tall as me, and I'm just short of 5'6". But she is teeny-tiny, and she still looks like a good puff of wind would blow her away...

Out for a duck

I love duck: I love Peking duck, with its crisp skin and melting flesh; I love the pink meat of a medium-rare magret de canard, especially when it's served with a little cake of creamy Dauphinoise potatoes and I love the way my mum cooks roast duck, with its skin rubbed in a mixture of honey and soy sauce. I even love my low-fat duck (left), which I marinated in a dry spice rub for a few hours before cooking it on a scorching-hot griddle and serving it with a couscous-based salad.



Spice-rubbed duck for two

2 duck breasts
2 tsp Chinese five-spice powder
2 tsp Szechuan peppercorns, crushed
a small piece of ginger, peeled and grated

Remove the skin from the duck breasts (sorry about this – yes, I know the skin crisps up wonderfully and tastes delicious, but it's also pretty fatty) and score the flesh several times, both on the top and bottom of each breast.

Mix the spices together and smear all over the meat. Leave to marinate for anywhere between two hours and most of the day.

Smear the griddle with the barest minimum of olive oil and heat until it's smoking, then cook the duck breasts until they're done as you like them. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper as you cook them. Serve with the salad, below.

Couscous salad for two

1/2 small butternut squash, cut into chunks
olive oil
a large double handful of couscous (I used barley couscous but wheat couscous is just fine)
1/2 a red onion, sliced thinly
lots of chopped fresh coriander and mint
up to one small glass of orange juice
juice of a lime

Heat the oven to 200ºC, then roast the squash with a drizzle of olive oil until its cooked through and has caramelised a bit round the edges. The time this will take rather depends on how big your chunks are, but start looking in the oven at around 25 minutes. Place in a bowl and allow to cool.

Follow the instructions on the couscous packet about cooking – this usually involves placing the dry grains in a bowl and pouring boiling water over them, covering with a lid, and allowing the couscous to plump up. Season thoroughly with salt and freshly ground black pepper as couscous can be very bland, and allow to cool.

When both the couscous and the squash are at room temperature, mix in the red onion and the herbs.

Make a simple dressing with a little bit of olive oil, the orange juice and the lime juice and pour over the couscous. Mix thoroughly and serve.

Ow!

This is Gemma (right), who came and gave me my training session last week because James was away in Canada at one of the eight (!) weddings he's going to this year and Phil couldn't make it.

So, Gemma drew the short straw and rocked up here on Friday morning (Laszlo went ballistic as she wheeled her bike into the hall, but she didn't seem to mind and even earned brownie points by saying he was 'lush'). Anyway, she's a teeny-tiny girl – not much over five foot, I'd guess, and she looks like she'd blow away with one good puff of wind.

I can't quite put my finger on why, but training with her felt slightly different from doing a session with one of the guys. It might have something to do with the fact that she's very softly spoken, and her dictats seemed to be phrased as suggestions rather than commands (not that James bullies me – it's just that when he asks for 10 squats or a jog round the park, refusal is very clearly not an option). And, attention seeker that I am, I got off on the fact that Gemma praised everything I did. It was great – I felt like I was some kind of super-athlete rather than a panting, tubby forty-something bird.

But somehow, despite the feeling that this was a low-key session, I ended up aching like a bastard all weekend. I'm sure it wasn't the fast-paced jog that kicked off the session and left me out of breath right from the get-go. It can't have been the boxing – Gemma looked like she'd fall over if I'd punched any harder. The lunges? Well, there were only a few of them, interleavened by some sprints and walks. The press-ups were fairly tough, but I only did two dozen, and two dozen of the triceps dips off the front of the bench. Oh – and then there were the pelvic raises with one leg off the floor – they were hard going, but were they really hard enough to leave me walking bandy-legged as a cowboy in some two-bit Western?

Nope, I can't quite put my finger on why, but somehow an easy session with Gemma turns out to be a bit like spending an hour in boot camp.