Well January you have been a long month but a fairly good one. I often think this time of year that once we are done with January spring comes not so long after. The pleasure of having a short month after what feels like the longest in so many ways.
How have I passed the time? I have started a new job, had a week off with lots of good food and a trip to Barcelona, picked up sewing and knitting again and gone for lots of walks followed by lots of tea.
Snacking Plates
Snacking plates have been my go to dinner in January, I often get home quite late from work and don’t fancy eating loads. What is appealing is a snacking plate though, filled with my favourite things: carrots, peppers, cucumber, salami, olives, cheese and hummus with blue corn tortilla chips on the side. Much like last year I have eaten an entire large tin of gordal olives to myself, the perfect snacking pick me up!
My parents have been victim to me multitasking and crunching my way through dinner whilst on the phone to them, how rude of me!
Snack of the week
Snack of the week has to go to another Forest Feast confection: dark chocolate coated sour cherries. The ultimate cold spring desk snack, I ventured out into covent garden which is severely lacking in snack shops. I found myself in boots as a last ditch attempt to find something sweet I could snack on, upstairs they have a snacking section: who knew?
I spied familiar packaging on the shelf and breathed a sigh of relief when I found one of their products I haven’t tried. They are at the pricey snack end but delicious and sometimes you need a luxurious monday afternoon snack.
I’m going to add a drink of the week here too. I have previously mentioned I am partial to sparkling water, I am firmly back in the carbonated drinks phase. A ‘fun’ drink, which to some people is pretty bleak but recently I found the brand Hip Pop in Sainsbury’s and it is fair to say the soda orange is delicious. They got me with the packaging, not sure I agree with using gut health to promote it but they were tasty.
Utter Waffle
This place has been on my list for a long time, I used to wistfully wish for a waffle iron back in my gluten eating days. I never ate waffles often but I liked the idea of having waffles at my disposal. Then I became gluten free and I thought my waffle dreams were over, well reader they are alive!
Just at the edge of Brockwell Park is a place called Utter Waffle where the playlist is good and the food is even better. Deciding which waffle to have was a conundrum. I went for the ‘James, Jules and the Giant Peach’ a sweet savoury hybrid based around a cinnamon sugared waffle and topped with cream cheese frosting, crispy bacon, caramelized peaches and scattered with pistachios. The portion size was perfect, the different textures that had been thought out making the dish a pleasure to eat. Being gluten free you get used to meals that don’t have that crispy texture, finding something that is reminiscent of the pre gluten free diet crispiness is like gold dust.
I would also like to point out how great chocolate sprinkles are on their cappuccino, a taste of chocolate with every sip which is an optimum way of having coffee. Those sprinkles also remind me of the chocolate sprinkles my german best friend used to have on toast when we were little which seemed rather exotic when I was a kid.
Will I get a waffle iron? Not anytime soon but I would definitely go back to Utter Waffle which is conveniently close to one of my local lidos.
Quick tomato soup
On my days off in January I craved soup, soup making is such a therapeutic experience. However sometimes though you just want a quick soup and this is where tomato soup comes in. I was craving a heinz cream of tomato soup until I bristled at the £1.85 price of it and looked at the ingredients. It spurred me on to go home and use the perfectly nice can of tinned tomatoes I already had.
Tomato soup list:
I fried 1 large garlic clove roughly chopped with some olive oil, then added in one tin of chopped tomatoes and half a can of water, pinch of salt, pinch of sugar, pinch of chilli flakes and let it come to a simmer. I then added some fresh tarragon I had (you could use some dried herbs too) and then blitzed it up with a hand blender. Voila!
For a cream of tomato vibe I added a spoon of natural yoghurt to the bowl and gave it a stir. This could potentially serve two people but I love a big bowl of soup.
Good Things from the week:
Finding a light blue beret: hello spring!
Buying Daffodils for the first time this year
Watching Mad Men again
Walking around the park whilst phoning my parents
Sewing using up scraps of fabric
Waffle looks like it was excellentttt