Music, and ink, and pounds, and pots and pots of love...

I've just had my favourite band name tattooed onto my side. Why? Well...

I think it was 1989 (I know I was 15, so it might have been 1990…), my pal’s big brother was going to Glasgow to a gig.  For reasons I can’t even remember we were deemed worthy of going with him and his mate. My pre-parenthood life is all very hazy so I’m not sure who supported who, but the bands we saw were Texas and GUN.  I dunno where we even were, Glasgow somewhere!

Texas were pretty cool, I still have a soft spot for them. But GUN were just right up my street.  Their first album hadn't long been released and once I had it bought, it was played LOTS! I still count Taking on the World as one of the most perfect albums I own, it still makes me just as happy when I play it now, 27 years later. Actually, I think I probably appreciate it even more now.

I have no idea how many times in the 1990s I saw GUN (and Texas!) live, but lots!  I do remember the first time I chatted to any of them – it was 1994 at the very first T in the park at Strathclyde Country Park.  I went with my pal Caroline, we worked together in RBS.  We had a very funny chat with Mark Rankin, their original singer, (there were a few pints of Tennents involved…) and Peter Cunnah from D:Ream about the use of punctuation in their band name. Again, hazy but it’s in there somewhere!

They released lots more cracking material, I went to some phenomenal gigs.  I was a teenager – I had posters up in my bedroom J  In 1997 (no longer a teen, but still obsessed!), Radio Forth had a weekend long competition running. Each show they would play a GUN track and you had to phone in when you heard it.  The prize each time was the GUN back catalogue on CD, plus entry in to the draw for the big prize – a weekend in Lisbon, Portugal where the guys were playing a festival.

I sat in front of the radio all weekend.  I remember my mum and dad going up to see the grandparents Dundee and to visit my old auntie in Kirriemuir, but I refused to leave the house as I was so desperate to win the big prize!  I actually ended up winning 3 x back catalogues of CDs AND the trip to Portugal!  Happy days!!!

It was a great weekend, I took my friend Lynne and we had a ball with all the people from other areas in the UK who had won.  It’s a bit hazy yet again, there was a lot of booze! But we got to hang out with the guys backstage and there are lots of cool photos from the weekend. 

But not long after that they announced they were splitting up – gutted!  I had a lovely letter from the girl from A&M records who had been with us in Lisbon, inviting us to the last show but I wasn’t able to make it L

Round about the same time, I was 24 so either late 1997 or early 1998, my brothers and I had all discussed getting a tattoo as they were both moving away.  We never did get this arranged, but I had the idea of a tattoo in my head so decided to get one anyway. I toyed with various ideas, one being a GUN one.  But as they had split I decided to go with something else, a small spiral thingy on my ankle.

>>FF to 2008 – they’re back! Well, Jools and Dante from the original line-up are back - and with Toby Jepson on vocals! I quite liked Little Angels when Toby was with them so was keen to hear the new sound. They played a cracking gig at the Carling Academy in Dec 2008, that was a really cool night! By now, though, I had a 5 year old little munchkin on my hands and as much as I would have loved to have gone to see them more, it just wasn’t feasible.  Cash and childcare were limited. And then Toby left the band in 2010, I wondered if that was the end again but no, Dante moved from bass and took over vocals.  Happy days again!

Since then it has been like watching them start all over again, with all the highs and lows that that brings.  I know I get sick of seeing comments like “it’s shit without Mark Rankin on vocals” on YouTube videos etc., so I’ll assume it’s a bit tiresome for them too! 

The first time I saw them with Dante on vocals was at Electric Circus in Edinburgh in 2012 when they released a new album – Break the Silence. It was SO good seeing them again! Stuck around briefly after the gig to say hi but I had to run off for the last train back to sunny Fife.

Over the past few years I’ve been able to get to a lot more gigs again.  My little 5 year old munchkin is now a strapping big 13 year old who could probably look after me better than I can look after him! They even played PJ Molloys in Dunfermline a few years back! Wah! My favourite band in my favourite pub, 5 minutes from my house – awesome!!

The guys have just finished a UK tour, I saw them in Dundee, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen and had a nice wee night out with them.  

Every time I see them live these days they seem better and better each time.  I’ve seen them 5 times this year and even from seeing them in May to seeing them in October, they have upped their game so much.  I’m so proud! Especially of Jools and Dante for just keeping pushing on.  They really have had to come back and start again but my god they’re writing the book on how to do that!

Since that gig in Edinburgh in 2012 I’ve been toying with the idea of getting a GUN tattoo again.  Over the past couple of years, somehow, I don’t know how other than Slimming World just really suits me – I’ve lost so far 8.5 stone in weight and finally have the confidence to bounce around at the front of the crowd without being bothered about jiggling my wobbly bits! I was looking for a non-food based reward for myself for when I get to my target weight, and the tattoo idea did a wee ninja stealth crawl to the front of my mind – I like to think it’s been in hibernation for the past 20 years, just waiting for the right time.

That's me on the far left (obviously, given that the rest of them are men...) after their 2012 Dunfermline gig:

And this is me almost half the size, after their soundcheck in Aberdeen last month:

I’m now only a couple of pounds from target, and here it is!  

20 years in the making, 27 years of being a Gunette, now fully branded! I love it, love the lads, love the tunes, love my fellow Gunette/Gunner family, love that the guys make us crazy fans feel like we’re all the 6^th member of the band.  It has been suggested that I should claim that the tattoo is a permanent ticket to all future gigs, ha ha!!  I just might work on that one!

Big love, always,

Jill xxx

Saturday night's alright for biting...

Apologies for another cringe worthy title (sorry, not sorry... :) )

The past couple of days I have been suffering from 'slimmer's memory', it's a real thing! ;)
I forget that I've had biscuits, crisps, extra little bits creep in to my meals, and then there are the 'f**k it' moments.  When I remember all the things I've already eaten, know i've gone over my Slimming World syns, but think 'f**k it' and eat more anyway. Might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb, eh?

Then on Friday night, after a really busy week being back at work after 4 weeks holiday (yes, I know, I AM lucky!) I took myself off to bed early, I think I was asleep by about 10pm-ish and slept til 9am, lovely! And I had a pile of Facebook notifications, loads of them, very odd! However, lovely Clair my current Slimming World consultant had invited lots of people to like the page for this blog, and my numbers had doubled overnight!  How nice, it even prompted me to make my breakfast of wheat biscuits and berries look pretty and take a picture of it to post rather than just throwing it down my neck.  It also really helped to refocus my efforts and stop sabotaging myself this week. So hello! Welcome, and thank you so much for being here, I truly appreciate it!

I had already taken the time to plan my meals for the coming week, so I was almost back on track, but my snacks were the problem.  So today I have been much better. I made a big pot of chicken, leek and rice soup and have been snacking on it throughout the day.  I'm also making a bigger effort to drink more water as I often forget to at the weekends.  But it's Saturday and I know I will need nibbles for the evening ahead.  I'm a grazer in the evenings.

So I've made some hummus and dippy veggies (or crudites for the less heathen like amongst you!), sweet potato skins scooped out and mixed with bacon and spring onion, topped with melted cheese (my Healthy Extra A allowance), and then a mix of fat free greek yogurt and some chopped chives (this was just the result of messing about with what was in the fridge - try it!), and a wee packet of chocolate buttons for 4 syns. There was also a bowl of pickled onions and beetroot but I scoffed them. I'm going to have a cheeky wee Jack Daniels and diet coke too (4.5 syns for 35ml), it IS the weekend :)

That wee lot should keep me going all evening!!

Oh and just to prove that I really do eat a huge amount of food, this was tea from 2 hours ago:

Lamb leg steaks with visible fat removed, marinated all day in fat free yogurt and harissa paste (a tiny 0.5 syns per level tspn!), couscous loaded with red onion, green chillis, tomatoes, lime juice, and fresh mint, coriander and flat leaf parsley. A favourite tea that I had forgotten about til I saw a jar of harissa in Asda last week.

Hope these give you some ideas if you are following Slimming World, but to be honest it's just tasty grub for anyone.

Big love,
Jill xxx

Dear Slimming World group...

...I love you. I actually really love you. All of you. All of the people who have been in groups I've gone to in the past, all of the people in my current group. Consultants, members, just everyone, I love you all!

No, I'm not drunk, honest! 

Last week was shit. You cant polish a turd, as they say! I won't go into why much, but as a single mum to a hormonal teenager, sometimes it all gets a little much to cope with alone.  It was just one of those weeks. Every time one of us spoke World War III broke out. Then the dog joined in by creating this display of dog food and plain flour on the kitchen floor...

That was the straw that broke the camel's back.  Once the tears started there was no stopping them, sometimes you just need a good blub! 

It had been bubbling up all week and every day I went over my max amount of slimming world syns. Not by much, but regularly. But amidst my floods of tears on Friday night, I thought about stuffing my face with junk food, then told myself that would only make me feel worse. 'Haud the bus!', I thought, WHAT???

I've been an emotional eater for most of my adult life, if I'm happy I celebrate with food. If I'm sad I console myself with food. If I'm feeling really low I really go to town: pizza, cake, biscuits - whole packets at a time, cheese cheese and more cheese, nachos, chocolate, crisps...anything. I've often thought it's a kind if self harm, like I want to hurt myself, but i do it with junk food.

So to have the clarity of thought at that point to not bother even starting was massive for me.  Yes, I had been overdoing snacks a little all week but at my lowest point I didn't decide to do my impression of a Tasmanian Devil in the bakery aisle of Asda.  And that realisation made me cry some more, but happy tears!

And my boy came home later in a great mood. We had a good chat about us both trying harder, and it's been so much better this week.  And if the past week cost me a 1.5lb gain on the scales then I think that's a bargain.

But seriously, thank you to everyone who has ever propped me up in group, people I've never met on the group Facebook page, anyone who has given me ideas for recipes, shared their good times and bad times, to my past consultants Nikki and Debbie, and my current consultant Dawn, for keeping me motivated enough to stick to a plan for long enough that my old habits have changed without me even noticing.

 I might be a bit misty eyed again just now, wonder if I could cry 1.5lbs of tears out tonight... (I'm kidding!!) 

Big love,

Jill xxx

Preparation, preparation, preparation!

At the risk of sounding like Uncle Tony in his speech here (we're not really related, just have the same surname, honest!), this post is as much a kick up the arse for me as for anyone else struggling to stay on track with their weight loss journey (AGH! I used the J word, again!!!).

Here's what we've been up to recently: a couple of weeks ago, my boy and I had a week's all inclusive holiday in Tenerife. It was so lovely, we just completely chilled out for the week.  Before we went, I had grand plans of not going mad with alcohol, sticking to grilled meats and fish with salad, not having dessert all the time, daily walks... Yeah, well that didn't quite happen!  To be fair on myself, I didn't have a lot of alcohol during the day bar a couple of days where I treated myself to a couple of Pina Coladas and beers by the pool.  But I hardly moved my legs for the week, apart from going from the pool to the restaurant.  I did stick to grilled meats and fish with the fresh salad for most meals, but also developed a dependency on dessert with every meal!  Even breakfast would end with a coffee and a pastry, oops!  But I was on holiday, it was lovely.  I went to my Slimming World group when I got back and over the 2 weeks from when I was last weighed I had gained 5lbs.  Not that bad really, but imagine if I had really gone to town with fried foods, burgers, chips, beer, cocktails, etc etc. It's so easy to undo all the good work.

The week after we arrived home I had a really horrible cold that I'm still trying to shake off.  As much as I tried to eat healthily, I just wanted toast and butter, and tea and biscuits.  So another week of not being great with what I was eating and it was beginning to be the norm again.  Yesterday I started to feel a bit better.  It was a lovely sunny day so I got my backside in gear, planned our meals for the week, made a shopping list, and went to buy what I needed.

This has to be the best bit of advice I could give to anyone trying to lose weight, whether it's on Slimming World or any other plan.  Prepare!!!  A good plan gives you the chance to make sure you have a variety of food throughout the week, it can make sure you use up your leftovers so you don't waste food.  Budget is a big factor when i am shopping, money is tight so i need to make things go as far as possible.  Yesterday I made a batch of bolognese sauce (will make a good 6 portions), a batch of chilli bulked out with black eyed beans, peppers and mushrooms (should do a good 6 portions too), a pot of veg and lentil soup, and a Chilli Papas chicken balti bulked out with a tin of chickpea dahl and peppers (about 4-5 portions). My freezer is packed :)

Here's my bag of food for bringing to work today: (my awesome bag was given to me by my lovey cousin, Nicola, it's by MooMoo Bags!)

Breakfast is a portion of baked oats that I made last night, I'll heat it up in the microwave at work and I have a tub of fat free cherry yogurt and some blueberries to have with it. (recipe here) I only used about 50g of blueberries, rather than raspberries in the baked oats.  I also substituted the 3 tbsp of sweetener as that seems an awful lot and I tend to react badly to a lot if artificial sweetener. Instead I used a teeny squirt of a vanilla sweetener that I put in my coffee, worked just fine.

For a snack I segmented a grapefruit, just because I really like grapefruit in the morning.

Lunch was a portion of leftover pasta bolognese from last night's dinner, plus a tub of salad leaves and cherry tomatoes.  I almost just heated them up and ate from the tubs but instead I put them on a plate and had my 1/3 plate of 'speed' foods as recommended by Slimming World.  Doing this, I didn't eat the whole portion of pasta as I couldn't fit it all on the plate, but I was satisfied with what I had - I ended up nibbling on the rest later in the day but that was better than nicking a Krispy Kreme donut from the office next door!  I also had a couple of teaspoons of grated parmesan to put on my pasta, dead tasty and filling lunch!

For a snack in the afternoon, I had a banana and also took an Alpen Light cereal bar for having with my afternoon coffee.  Jaffa cake flavour, nice! Although not as nice as the Slimming World chocolate orange Hi-fi bars :)

Dinner tonight will be home made chilli with some boiled rice and salad.  Here's how my day looks in a Slimming World sense:

Breakfast:
baked oats recipe - Healthy B choice (oats)
baked blueberries - 1 Syn
yogurt/blueberries - free

Grapefruit - free

Lunch:
pasta bolognese - free
salad/balsamic vinegar - free
1 level tbsp parmesan - 1 syn

Snacks:
Banana - free
Alpen light bar - 3 syns

Dinner:
Chilli - free
rice - free
salad/balsamic - free
2 tbsp salsa - 0.5 syns
2 tbsp half fat creme fraiche - 2 syns
30g mature cheddar - Healthy A choice

Supper is going to be a ham omelette.  I find if I have eggs at suppertime it fills me up so I don't pick at rubbish the rest of the night.  That's the theory anyway, evenings are my downfall.  I have some studying to do tonight though so hopefully that will keep me busy enough that I don't start picking.  If I do, I've got grapes and apples in the house, I'll try VERY hard to stick to them!

But I think I'll be ok, I feel very re-motivated this week.  I even started my Christmas shopping and I really couldn't be bothered even thinking about it last week.

Hope you all have a great week!
(Oh, here, have a picture of a dolphin that swam by our boat in Tenerife on a day trip.  Just because it's beautiful!)

Big love,
Jill xx

No chocolates, please - I'm winning

Again, not really a blog post about home cooking, sorry Pots of Love!  I'll bore you all over the next few weeks with some of the things I've been rustling up recently though.

This time I wanted to do a quick post about a new phenomenon to me - Weight Loss Sabotage!  I don't think any of the recent events have been intended as malicious, but that doesn't make them any less confusing, or hurtful.

I've lost weight in the past, a couple of stone, then get a bit cocky when people start noticing, and eat a pizza, 4 jars of Nutella, a bottle of wine, bag of Maltesers etc etc....every weekend...until...BOOM! 2 stone back on, plus a bit more.  So to have lost significantly more than that over the past few years (see my blog post here) is a pretty big achievement, as my friends and family all know.

I still have a way to go, I'm a good 2 - 2.5 stone over what would be considered a healthy weight for my height and age so that's my ultimate aim now.  It's quite exciting, I don't remember the last time I was only overweight and not obese!! But overweight i am.  I know BMI charts aren't the most reliable indicator of this, but since I'm not a muscle stacked weight lifter or anything, it'll do as a fair guide.

But I couldn't tell you how many times in the past few weeks people have said "you're not going to lose any more weight though, are you?", and variations of that, I've also had "you need to stop, you've got a lollypop head".

Well intentioned they may be, but I think they made me feel worse than any veiled dig at me being fat in the past to the point where I struggled for days to keep myself on track and not just have a huge self pitying blow out of salami pizzas, cake, chocolate and wine.

I might dress to cover up my wobbly flabby bits, but they are definitely there.  They don't bother me, I know they will shrink soon enough. Every pound closer to that target I get is a pound less my heart is having to work harder to carry around.  I'll never have a toned taught body, I have too much loose skin for that, but this isn't about how I look, it's about making my insides healthier.

I can't help where I lose weight from first.  I seem to have shrunk quite quickly across my shoulders. I put weight on my boobs first and lose it from there last though.  Honestly, 7 stone lighter and I've only gone down a couple of bra sizes, it's mad - but that's how my body works.  So as much as i know that to say anyone with 34JJ boobs might have a head that appears large in comparison to their body is a bit ridiculous, it still hurt.  If looking at my freakishly gigantic head (because that's what I've made it in my mind now) offends you - well, tough shit really.  If you have a friend/colleague/family member who is on a weight loss (sorry for using the 'j' word) journey, they really don't need to hear shit like that, no matter how much you think it's helpful.  If you can't say anything positive, just button it, really!

I'm a 41 year old grown woman. I know my height, I know my weight, I know what I look like naked.  Only 1 other adult recently knows what I look like naked and it's none of the people who have made comments to me.

I also had a birthday recently.  I could have opened a sweet shop with the amount of boxes of chocolates I was given.  Thank you if you gave me any, it's always nice to receive a gift - thank you also from the local food bank as that's where they went.  Apart from 1 box.  That was eaten (the WHOLE box) over 2 nights.  Because I have no OFF switch with chocolates.  I devoured 1 box (2 layers!) and then realised I couldn't keep the rest in my house so I donated them all to a food bank.  So please, please, again if you know someone who has worked really hard to lose weight, don't stick temptation under their nose. Get them a lovely fruit basket, flowers, a gift voucher, smellies... Put a bit of thought into it, it will be so hugely appreciated, I bet.

Like I say, I don't believe any of the recent events were meant with any malice, but just because I, or anyone else, laughs things off in front of you, it doesn't mean they haven't hurt.

Big love, be kind to one another.
JB xx

Blow your trumpet!!

First things first...2 years since my last blog post?! Life has been busy!

However, something happened today and I felt the need to bore as many people as possible with it :)

A bit of background: In May 2011 I decided to change the future for me and my son, Alister.  I abseiled off the Forth Rail Bridge in aid of Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland, saw photos of myself, and was so horrified at how big I looked that I weighed myself for the first time in a long time. The number on the scales terrified me: 19stone 8lbs. I was less than half a stone away from 20 stone, how did that even happen without me noticing? 

Seriously, if you need some motivation to lose weight, get your arse in a safety harness, it's a real eye opener!!

My immediate thought was that I was essentially killing myself. Having lost my dad far too young, I couldn't willingly make that a possibility for my son. None of us can stop bad things happening, but we CAN stop making them more likely if we want to.

Over the next few years I lost about 3 stone through using the MyFitnessPal app to log all my food and exercise. I would go through spells of losing weight easily, then during holiday periods I would fall off the wagon and put a bit back on again. But at September 2014 I was at 17 stone 2lbs and had taken up running, using the C25K app (I'd definitely recommend this if you fancy giving running a go). I was also following the Fat Girl's Guide to Running (with Julie Creffield) on Facebook. I signed up to Julie's first monthly fitness challenge which included daily and weekly fitness and nutrition challenges. At the end of September I was thrilled to have lost 10lbs!! 

In the meantime, an old friend of mine, Nikki Williamson, had trained as a Slimming World consultant and was going to be starting her classes in October. I'd gone to groups in the past (Rosemary Conley, Scottish Slimmers...) but was in the "I'm not paying someone to weigh me" camp. But as it was Nikki, I decided I would go to support her in her new venture. I even believed that I wasn't going for me for a bit :) 

So I hopped on the scales on the first night and the 16stone 6lbs that showed on the screen wasn't a surprise. I set myself an interim target of 13stone and it felt like a mammoth, unreachable number right then.  

Apologies, this has become a bit of self therapy, but hang in there, I will get to the thing that happened today!!

To cut a long story a bit shorter, on 16th June this year I reached that first target and set a new one of 11stone. 3stone 6lbs lost in 9 months, happy days! Slimming World just seems to fit in to my life easily, and I finally admitted that a group support network is exactly what I need. We have a walking group set up now on a Wednesday too, which is lovely!  I've now lost 3stone 11lbs, and managed to not put weight on over my summer holiday period, a massive result for me. Shopping is weird, I can't remember when I last shopped for size 12 or 14 clothes, but it's nice trying stuff on. I absolutely can't remember when I last weight 12 stone anything, but I do now!  I even won the Woman of the Year award in our Slimming World group. Me! Ha ha!! This is the same girl as in the first photo up there ^^

Anyway, today I went to Aldi. I have lots on this weekend and was planning to get a Tesco delivery but rejigged some stuff and went to Aldi today. It's about a 5km round trip walk for me and I needed lots. Now school and work are back to normal I'm determined to get back in the habit of planning the meals for the week and shopping for that.  So I took Alister's big rucksack and another couple of bags and off I went with my list.

I put all the heavy stuff in the rucksack and carried the lighter stuff in bags. So in the rucksack I had bags of veg, frozen peas, frozen prawns, tins, masses of fruit, 6 litres of milk, bacon, mince, eggs...it absolutely weighed a tonne. I had to stop a couple of times on the walk home to take a rest but then plodded on. As I was walking I tried to guess how much the rucksack of stuff weighed. My estimate was about 4 stone. As I've lost 4.5 stone since last September I thought it would be interesting to weigh the bag when I got home to see how close it was.

2stone 2lbs. That was it. Nowhere even near 4 stone.  This huge, rammed full bag weighed less than half the amount that I've lost in the past 11 months.  A third of what I've lost since I was at my heaviest.  I don't feel much different to how I did back then. I'm not smarter, or happier, or prettier, or funnier, or more caring, or less loving.  I'm just smaller and weigh less.  And healthier. The weight loss has been gradual so I don't really notice anything different. But I've said to a few people recently that if I was given a 7 stone bag to carry around with me I'd sure know about it! And I'm completely blown away by this thing today. Even half the weight of that rucksack is heavy! I know so many people in our group who have lost a stone or 2 stone and aren't blowing their own trumpets about it - GET BLOWING!!!!

Fill a bag with stuff, weigh it, get it to the weight you have lost, and I bet you completely underestimate the enormity of what you have done! Go on! Do it today!! Then give yourself an almighty pat on the back, and a big hug!! 

Chillis!

I LOVE CHILLIS!!  They really are amazing; such a huge range of different flavours and heats.  I know very little about them other than there are loads of varieties and diferent chillis work better for different recipes.


And living in Scotland it's not like there's a chilli farm round every corner!  However, the good news is that here in the Kingdom of Fife we've had the lovely ladies at Chillilicious around for quite a while now, they make lots of lovely chilli based goodies (I get twitchy if I don't have a pot of their chilli piccalilli in the fridge) as well as chilli inspired fused glass in their workshop in Ceres.  Read about their yummy goodies in my old post here.

But now for the GREAT news!!!  My little corner of the Kingdom is now home to a new up and coming chilli farm! YES! Right here in Dunfermline, Alan Stenhouse is working hard to bring us Spice of Fife!  It looks like it's going to be a great thing for the area if you like using chillis, he's got greenhouses packed with beautiful, flourishing chilli plants and lots of different varieties.  Have a look at the Facebook page for some great photos of the plants developing.  The recent warm weather has created a little tropical paradise (well, if you're a chilli plant!).  And he knows his stuff, if you're not sure which variety of chilli will work best for whatever you are making, ask him! 

You can find him on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/SpiceOfFife
on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/SpiceOfFife
and at the website here:http://spiceoffife.co.uk/

If you are planning to go to The Great Scottish Brave Harvest Chilli Festival 2013 at Scone Palace on 21st and 22nd September (yes, a chilli festival in Scotland!!), Alan will be there with lots of chilli goodies.  I've been lucky enough to try his strawberry based hot sauce, Chilli Berry Punch, as well as his Chilli Sookers - hard boiled sweets in a variety of heats to suit every chilli lovers taste buds!

We all loved the hot sauce, the strawberry base is really unusual but works so well with the chilli heat. We've had it with slow cooked Mexican beef, on cheese sandwiches, I even mixed some up with some cider vinegar to make a salad dressing! And the sweets were fab, really different and sweet and hot all at the same time, lovely!!

As well as these products, there's also strawberry, black pepper and chilli jam (delicious!), chutney, chilli oils (using Scottish rapeseed, and since I'm always banging on about how great this oil is that makes me VERY happy!), and chilli toffee.  They can even make little pots of jam and chutney as wedding favours for your big day; almost makes me want to find a husband.  Almost... Nah!

There's lots of other yummy stuff in the pipeline too, including chilli cheese, chilli chocolate and chilli ice cream which I'm particularly intrigued by!

But even more exciting than all of the chilli products is the fact that Spice of Fife are developing a chilli club in the area.  Membership will be restricted to 100 members in 2014 and for a one-off payment of £27.50 you will receive the following:-

• A Personalised Gift Card for 2014 Membership
• Selection of Chilli Seeds to grow your own
• 3 Chilli Plants (April/May)
• Bottle of Chilli Liquid Feed to help plants grow
• Bottle of Spice of Fife Chilli Oil
• Jar of Spice of Fife Chilli Jam
• Bottle of Spice of Fife Chilli Hot Sauce
• 10% discount on any product purchases made in 2014
• Free Delivery to KY11 / KY12 postcodes

Now, I have tried to grow chillis before and I did actually manage, but then went on holiday and the plants got fried at the window. Oops. I really am not green fingered! But for those of you who manage to keep things alive (I have succeeded at keeping a boy and a dog alive, that's my limit!) and love chillis this is a great thing. You can also buy individual plants from Spice of Fife at the moment, get in touch with them to see what is available.  You might just pick up a variety that you wouldn't be able to buy in a local garden centre. 

All very exciting!

All of this has reminded me that I have a little pot of strawberry, black pepper and chilli jam in the fridge. I'm thinking a wee cup of tea and some toast and jam could be the order of the day... :)

Salads!

I would love to say I haven't written for a while because I'm such an incredibly busy and important person (oh go on, it's a little bit true, in MY world!), but mainly it's because I'm lazy!

I go through phases of feeling the need to write and then once it's out of my system it can be a while before it sweeps over me again.

Today, I just felt like having a wee chat about salad dressings. As one does!

Supermarkets are choc-a-bloc with every kind of salad dressing you can think of: creamy ones, low fat ones, spicy, citrus, herby, fruity... there's just hundreds of the damn things - and the price of some of them, ooft!!!  But my favourite is a good glug of rapeseed oil, a squeeze of lemon juice, some cider vinegar (about 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar as a guide), a blob of dijon mustard, some salt and pepper then give it a whisk together or put it in a container with a lid and just give it a good shake.  Tastes better than the bottled stuff and if you have the stuff in the house anyway it costs pennies to make.

Have a play around with it to see what you like: try different oils, even flavoured oils.  I like rapeseed as, aside from just preferring the flavour, it's homegrown and it has around half the saturated fat of olive oil.  There's loads of vinegars, red or white wine vinegar and balsamic vinegar make great dressings too.  Maybe switch to wholegrain mustard, add a teaspoon of honey, pop in some garlic or ginger... the possibilities are endless!

I just finished a bottle of my lovely lemony mustardy one so I don't have any decent photos but here's our lunch from my birthday last week, I wanted a plate full of my favourite things!  We had quesadillas filled with buffalo mozarella, chorizo and taleggio cheese, plus a salad of baby leaves, watercress, spinach, rocket, figs, olives, feta cheese, baby plum tomatoes, grated carrot, and lemony mustardy dressing - a bit of a mish mash on a plate but perfect!!  Salad has come a long way from the lettuce, tomato and cucumber with a blob of salad cream (although I do LOVE salad cream!!), put whatever you love into it.  You get really good jars of veg in oil in pretty much any supermarket now: roasted peppers, artichokes, mixed mushrooms - all sorts. Give them a go, bung a few in with a bag of mixed leaves, put a bit of home made dressing on, just enough to coast the leaves but not drown them, and see what you like.

Other things you might like in your salads are grains - quinoa, couscous, bulgar wheat etc are so readily available these days, and although fairly plain in taste they do take on the flavour of other things well.  I love cous cous with red onion, coriander, fresh chilli, lime juice and a bit of salt and pepper in it - pretty much fresh salsa mixed with cous cous.  But that's lovely mixed in with salad leaves too.

Salad doesn't have to be dull, even with something in it a bit more calorific like a bit of feta and a bit of oil based dressing you can still pack it full of vitamins, antioxidants and all sorts of good stuff.  And just because cheeses and oils are higher in calories and fat, remember that there are good fats out there!

Hope you are all having a wonderful summer, we certainly are!

Crisp... crunch... CHIPS! (round 1)

Hi, I'm Alister, I'm 9 years old and I'm Jill's son.  I would like to do a post about... CHIPS!

I've been going around Dunfermline trying chips from lots of places.  Not only on this post am I going to talk about chips, I'll also tell you about my lunch today at The Inn at Carnock, near Dunfermline.

But first... CHIPS!! About 2 weeks ago I went to Grill48 but we forgot to take pictures but we will go back!     The chips were lovely and golden with a lovely flavour.  They were so crisp on the outside that you could hear them crack as you bit them, and the middle was lovely and fluffy.  The steak ciabatta that I had with them was gorgeous.

Moving on to chip sample number 2!  At The Inn at Carnock, they looked amazing but the flavour wasn't as nice as the chips at Grill48. They were crunchy, but not crunchy enough.

So Grill48 wins Round 1.

My lunch today at The Inn at Carnock was a minute steak baguette with red onion marmalade.  Even though I'm a kid I ordered from the adult menu but was still surprised when 2 baguettes appeared!

I didn't really mind because the bread tasted so good!  The bread was nice and fresh, it was very soft, it was very crisp on the outside (maybe a bit too crispy for me) and had a lovely doughy flavour.

The red onion marmalade was too sweet for my liking (and my mum's!) but I did enjoy my lunch.

I'm going to try lots more chips to see if anyone can beat Grill48.

To be continued...

A little ray of lemony sunshine

School holidays can be...ummm...challenging! I am lucky enough to work term time so although I get lots of time off in the summer, it means my boy and I are with each other 24/7.  And so it's only natural that now and again we need to spend a little time in separate rooms!

So one day last week we had a nice morning but by lunchtime he was getting a little cheeky and I was getting a little short tempered. So he spent the afternoon chilling out watching TV and I spent it in the kitchen trying a couple of recipes I had on my to-cook list.

My last blog post dealt with the bran scones from that day, but I wanted something a bit special and light and zingy to counteract the dark, grey, wet, miserable summer days we were being dealt.  My younger brother (BAFTA award winning, no less!)  is filming a new TV show with chef Peter Sidwell at the moment and so I had a nose around the interweb for some of Peter's recipes.  Peter is the chef at Rheged in Penrith.  If you've never been to Rheged, do make time to pay it a visit if you're in the area, it's a great place... http://www.rheged.com/

There's a nice little bio of Peter on the website, along with one of his recipes which hit the nail on the head as far as I was concerned - Lemon Meringue Posset. A quintessentially British dessert with a twist, lemon curd on the bottom and crunched up meringue on top, lovely!  It got me thinking that I would like to do a regular feature where I take a recipe from a respected chef and make it at home.  A lot of people are scared to try, I'm a bit more haphazard and up for having a go!  So, hopefully, this might encourage someone to have a pop at something that seems tricky at first.

This is the recipe ----> http://www.rheged.com/files/Lemon%20Meringue%20Posset.pdf

And this is the end result:

If you do have a go, the measurements for the cream and the creme fraiche are a bit confusing as one says 300ml = 1/2 pint and one says 300ml = 1/4 pint.  Use 300ml of both and ignore the pint measurements.  For the curd, you need 6 egg yolks.  I used the egg whites to make my own meringues to go on top, they really are easy to make.  When you are separating egg whites/yolks break each egg into a little bowl just in case one of the yolks splits and you end up contaminating all of your lovely clean egg whites. Then add them one by one to a larger bowl.

I have always used Delia's measurements/timings for meringues and they have always been great.  For each egg white you will need 2oz of caster sugar. I like using golden caster sugar as I think it has a more natural taste, and it gives the meringues a lovely golden colour.  In a clean, grease free bowl whisk the egg whites on a medium speed until they start to firm up, then increase the speed and beat them until you get firm peaks.  At this point, add the sugar a bit at a time and whisk on a fast speed until you get firm peaks again that will be lovely and glossy.  Either split the mix into small blobs on a lined baking tray, or make one large meringue.  I made half the recipe for the posset dessert so only made 3 egg white meringue and there was LOADS. Pop it in a preheated oven at gas mark 2 or equivalent, then turn it down to gas mark 1 as soon as they are in the oven.  When the meringues are baked, turn off the oven and leave them in until the oven is completely cooled, this will dry the meringues out and give them a nice crisp shell.

Before:

After, with a lovely golden colour:

Easy peasy, honest!!

The recipe also calls for home made lemon curd which seems daunting but really is fairly simple to make.  Just follow the recipe and, most importantly, once you add the eggs to the bowl keep the mixture moving with a hand whisk so the eggs don't scramble.  I ended up making a double batch of the lemon curd the following day as it's so delicious, I'll never buy shop bought again! It was absolutely gorgeous on the warm home made bran scones that I made the same day.

The dessert really was one of the nicest I've ever tasted.  The very fussy 'wife' even gave it a 10/10!  Time consuming to make, but well worth the effort to make everything from scratch.  It just wouldn't have been as nice with shop bought lemon curd and meringues.  Go on, give it a go, bring a little bit of lemony summer sunshine into your day!

Tea and sympathy...

Actually, tea and shortbread, but I'm feeling a little bit sorry for myself.  I never really get ill, and if I get a cold I just get on with life and ignore it.  But this week I have been floored by Supercold! I've had no voice, streaming eyes and nose, headache, aching limbs, can't keep my eyes open...generally feeling absolutely dreadful.  It's now Thursday afternoon and I've been in my bed or on the sofa pretty much since Monday afternoon. Rubbish.

And the weather is awful, which makes me feel even worse. Mainly because I have no biscuits in the house and there's no way I'm going out to buy some!!  And let's face it, when you feel rotten and it's pouring rain outside, you NEED tea and biscuits!

So I had a rummage around the kitchen and came up with 1 slightly soft chocolate Digestive (whoo hoo!!), plus some flour, sugar and butter which screamed "MAKE US INTO SHORTBREAD!!!" at me.  Who am I to refuse the demands of 3 simple ingredients when they seem so desperate. (yes, I may have overdone the ibuprofen and lemsips today...)

I dug out my old Great Auntie Jean's book of Plain Cookery Recipes from The Edinburgh School of Cookery and Domestic Economy.  I don't think Auntie Jean actually attended the school, she probably bought or was given the book:

I love reading old books like this! There were also a few recipes cut out of 1950s newspapers tucked in the back for various sweets, jams and marmalades - lovely!  However, their shortbread recipe called for rice flour which I didn't have today so I ended up using an old recipe I have scribbled down that uses 175g butter (at room temperature), 250g plain flour and 75g caster sugar.  I only had 170g butter in the fridge but I'm not much of a stickler for exact measures anyway so just bashed on.

Auntie Jean was the sister of my Gran Blair - Agnes Irvine Blair.  My son has the same middle name as her.  She always appreciated that I had an interest in our family history and in passing things down through generations so she gave me her old cook books amongst other things dear to her,  I still miss the chats we had in front of her old fireplace in Dundee :(

One of my fondest memories of my gran is making shortbread highlanders with her on rainy afternoons whilst the boys were at the football.  So in her memory, that's what I made today.  If you come round for a cuppa and I offer you one, don't worry, I DID wash my germ ridden hands first!

It's such an easy recipe.  Heat the oven to about gas mark 3 or equivalent, so a fairly cool bake. I cream the butter and sugar together then sift in the flour.  Then just get your hands in and combine it all. Use a little drop of milk or water if it's a little bit dry.  I also added a teaspoon of vanilla extract.  Roll the mix into a long sausage about 2" in diameter.  Then put some demerara sugar into a baking tray and coat the whole roll in the sugar, making sure it's pressed in and that the ends are covered too. Pop it into the fridge for about 30-40 mins til it firms up.  Cut it into 1/2" thick rounds, place on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes, or 5 mins longer if you like them darker.  Cool on a wire rack then get the kettle on and make a cuppa!

Even with a runny nose and achey body, who wouldn't feel just a little bit better after a cup of tea and a crisp, buttery shorty highlander?! Thanks to my Gran Blair for the memories xxxxx

A cheeky little tart

Who doesn't love a tart!? Or a pie? There's something lovely and comforting about crisp, warm, buttery pastry and you can fill it with all of your favourite things. Scrumptious!

A while back I decided that I had avoided making pastry for far too long.  I have a nice easy to use silicon tart case and I was determined to overcome my fear of pastry making and put it to use.  Pastry is one of those things that lots of people assume is going to be very tricky and time consuming, so they don't bother doing it. I was one of those people!  However, after trawling the interweb for a while one weekend, I realised that it probably isn't as challenging as I first thought.

I quite fancied making a mainly vegetable based tart and came across this blog post: http://food52.com/recipes/10062_potato_tart_with_gruyere_bacon_and_rosemary#

The recipe uses a butter pastry and I would definitely use it again, it was beautiful.  The key is to keep everything very cold.  I used my shiny new food processor that my brother and his wife bought me for Christmas and this made it super easy.  I weighed out the butter I needed about half an hour before I planned to make the pastry.  I chopped it up into little cubes, put it in a dish, and put it back into the fridge to re-chill it.  I also put a glass of iced water in the fridge so the water I was using would be really cold too.  When I came to make the pastry, I added the flour, sugar and salt into the food processor and gave it a quick whizz.  Then i added the chilled cubes of butter and pulsed the processor blades until the mixture formed crumbs.  I then added the chilled water and blitzed til the pastry mix started to come together in a ball.  Once it's in a ball, wrap it in cling film and chill for about an hour before rolling it out.  Don't work the pastry too much, just roll it then use it and you will get a lovely buttery, short pastry.

Now, the filling.  Honestly, what is not to love about potato, cheese and bacon encased in butter pastry??? Heaven!?  But I thought potato and pastry might be a bit carb heavy together for my personal taste, so although I used the pastry recipe, I tweaked the filling a little.  I opted for sliced sweet potato (counts towards your 5 a day, unlike starchy white potatoes), sliced leeks fried in a little butter with some chopped chives, fried off pancetta lardons, and a mixture of mature Scottish cheddar and Gruyere cheeses.

I lined the tart case with the rolled out pastry and layered all the filling ingredients inside, with a bit of black pepper.  It was a bit hit and miss knowing how long to cook it for.  The recipe called for 45 mins at gas mark 5.  I ended up with it in for just over an hour.  I got a bit impatient waiting for the sweet potatoes to become tender so I ended up drizzling a little olive oil over the top towards the end, hoping it might increase the temperature in the filling a little.  However, this resulted in the tart having a bit of a soggy bottom.    I plan to make it again but will try either roasting the sweet potato slices for a while before layering them in the tart, or possibly par-cooking the sweet potatoes as well as blind baking the tart case first.

Soggy bottom or not, the end result was lovely and the sides of the tart were beautifully crisp and buttery:

Yes, as usual our bellies needed to be filled so badly that I forgot to take a photo of the entire tart before we devoured it!!  But at least this way you can see the layers, and my soggy bottom ;)

So, go on, give pastry a go - and let me know how you get on!!

Keep it local!

I'm supposed to be cleaning the house just now. The living room is spotless (well, by my very low standards!) and ready for us putting the Christmas tree up when Ally gets home from school today though.  I'm this [    ] close to feeling festive, the tree might just do it!  And I have a pack of ready made puff pastry in the freezer and a jar of mincemeat in the cupboard so there may even be super speedy mince pies on the go later too.

However, as I was dusting the window sill and hoovering the rug, my mind drifted off to thinking about local foodie companies. Some I already use, others are on my 'to cook' list.  One of my favourites is Chillipapas (http://www.chillipapas.com/), a company based right here in Dunfermline who make a range of curry spice mixes. As a busy mum I always have a stash of their mixes in the cupboard as they are so quick and easy.  You can just bung everything in a pot with the spices and leave it to cook.

I also know there is a company called Foodles Mixes (http://www.foodlesmixes.co.uk/) just up the road in Markinch.  I haven't tried their mixes but they are right at the top of the 'to cook' list!

I'm planning to dedicate a blog post to each of them in the very near future but in the meantime if there are any Fife based companies you think I should know about then shout about it right here! I'm a big supporter of The Fife Diet (http://www.fifediet.co.uk/) which aims to get people eating local produce but I think supporting local companies like these should also be a part of this.  Maybe if any of them read this they can get together!

Ok, I HAVE to go and clean Alister's room. I may not make it out alive...eek...

Jill xx