Pumpkin Soup and Chicken Caesar Salad

Saturday night's dinner was a bit of a mash together. Nobody wanted anything heavy and the warm day meant nobody really wanted anything hot either. Looking around the kitchen, I decided on making a big pot of pumpkin soup and a chicken caesar salad.

Now remember when I said I don't use actual recipes.... below is all a guesstimate as to quantities used!

I will confess, I love Butternut pumpkin. Rarely will I buy any other variety. I cut up about 1.2kg of Butternut in to approx. 3cm cubes and roasted at 200 degrees for 20-30 minutes until the flesh becomes soft but not baked hard.

One leek sliced finely with a couple of tablespoons of butter in a medium heat saucepan to allow the leeks to soften but not colour. Add two medium potatoes (peeled and diced to 1cm cubes) and 1L salt reduced chicken stock (you can use vegetable if you like.) Add the baked pumpkin and two tablespoons of honey, and bring to a rapid simmer. Leave simmering until you can see the potato pieces starting to crumble in the stock and the pumpkin starts to mush up. Remove from heat, put lid on saucepan and allow to stew in its own warmth for about 15 minutes. Blend to a puree (I find I have to do this in two batches in my blender.)

You can add cream if you wish at this stage, or just a good dollop of sour cream (or cooking Philadelphia) when serving. The dishes in the image are served with chives from the garden.

Caesar salad has never been a favourite of mine. I think perhaps I consumed a dish once with a vile rendition of sauce on it and it put me off the thought of eating Caesar salad for quite some time. But I noticed we had a rather large Cos lettuce in the fridge, and knowing this household, the lettuce would normally go off before it's even looked at.

I decided to make my own version of Caesar sauce - one whole egg, two tablespoons of white balsamic vinegar, two tablespoons of Dijon mustard and four anchovy fillets with some of the oil from the jar all whizzed up in the micro blender. When the mix comes together, add a grind of salt and pepper and slowly drizzle in about a 1/4 cup of good quality light olive oil. Remember, all quantities give and take depending upon how it tastes and works for you!

The salad was simply a stack of chunky Cos lettuce, toasted slices of Turkish bread, shaved parmesan cheese, crispy pieces of bacon, soft boiled eggs, quick cooked slices of chicken breast, anchovy slices and the sauce.

Disfrute de su comida (or something, in Spanish!)

Gym progress

Most people join a gym to lose weight or bulk up. I, apparently, achieve neither of these at the gym. Several years ago I pushed my physical limits with a 13-times per week exercise routine combining general cardio, weight training, RPM classes and pole training, and after an initial "nothing happens" stage for three months I started to lose weight. This resulted in a total of 13kg shed.

This time, I've been back at the gym for over six months, and whilst my routine isn't as regimented, I would have still hoped to see some changes, somewhere other than my bank balance.

I will add the point that my heart medications were changed just before Christmas and the new pills resulted in me being able to go like the clappers on the cardio equipment, with a heart rate of 190bpm, and not feel dizzy, lethargic, muscle cramps etc. It was like the meds induced some kind of bionic strength!

So my average routine now is a good 40-60 minutes of cardio on the elliptical trainer, upright bike and treadmill (my 'running' is limited to 90 second bursts followed by 2 minutes of dying!). This is four or five times a week and a solid weight training session with my PT.

We've faced the fact that I don't lose weight, and I don't really bulk up muscle either, so the weight training has just become a weekly challenge to see what weights I can achieve for arms and legs. Whilst this is indicative of increasing strength and muscle tone, it's hardly reflective in any physical appearance.

So, the major weekly challenge is my leg press ability. I remember when we first started out, the idea of being able to leg press 150kg (100kg of biscuits and 53kg for the press plate) was impressive to my trainer. Little did she know how much strength I had in me. And I confess, I had no idea either! After that first session I did a little bit of research about "how much should I be able to leg press?" Most of the male oriented body building sites suggested a capability to press 2.25 times your body weight. So working with this factor, and adding a little extra,  I went back to my trainer the next week and said I had a goal of 240kg. Well that was blown totally out of the water. Within 3 weeks I was up to 343kg on my fourth set, completing 12 reps without fatigue.

Then I had two weeks off with gland infections and being stuck on medication. I figured it wasn't worth pushing my body when my immune system was depressed and obviously my body was unwell.

I went back the third week and the theory was to just take it easy to get me back in to the weights..... yeah, NO! Screw that easy part!! I pushed past that previous 343kg record and to a new high of 373kg by my fourth set with 12 reps.

This week I changed from solid strength to some volume training (in light of the fact that last weeks 373kg didn't leave me with any soreness in my legs at all!). 173kg was all I managed on a 60 second set of powering up and a slow release down to a count of 4 followed by an instant power up again. Trust me, I'm feeling it this week!

Next week we aim for 400kg+. I'm suspecting I'll be able to get to 450kg as my fourth set with a minimum of 6-8 reps on that final weight before I fatigue. That will be an achievement and one to surely kick most guy's asses with!

THEN we try for my 1RM - the greatest weight I can press in a single push... any guesses where that weight will be?

Arkadia English Breakfast Tea Latte

A couple of years ago I became aware of the brand Arkadia for their range of instant chai latte and hot chocolate powders. I've since noticed that several beverage outlets use their Chai Spice product for both chai tea and latte. The benefit to the Arkadia products is that you can simply use hot water or hot milk - and this goes for any of their tea/latte or chocolate mixes.

One of my favourite products is the Matcha Green Tea. It's quite a unique product for anyone who hasn't experienced the more traditional Matcha teas of Japan, and can be rather daunting to anyone unaccustomed to a bright green milk drink!

Through a promotional opportunity on the Arkadia email list I was sent a sample of their latest product in development, English Breakfast Tea Latte.

The instructions for the sachet were to add 170ml of pre-boiling water to the powder. This made for a sufficient quantity of tea.

The aromatics gave a definite English Breakfast tea aroma and the latte component made for a traditional milky froth on top of the drink. But I have to say the flavour was a little strong for a latte drink, and yet still a little milky to be a tea drink. As a tea drinker I wouldn't be inclined to purchase this variety because I prefer a very flat traditional tea taste. I can see where Arkadia are headed with their market and hope it brings about some new developments with their beverages but I think I'll be sticking to their Chai.


You can connect with Arkadia on their Facebook page or Twitter.

Please note, I have not been asked to promote the company or their products. In fact I asked on their Facebook page if I could mention the development of the English Breakfast Tea Latte on this blog but I didn't get a response.

(and I still don't know why Blogger isn't inserting my images as per their saved rotation!)

White Wings Lemon Meringue Pie

I confess that my biggest cravings are always for a piece of Lemon Meringue Pie. But, unfortunately it always seems to be a craving which remains unsatisfied no matter how simple or extravagant the attempted fix is.

So when I saw the White Wings Lemon Meringue Pie packaging on the supermarket shelf, I thought "why not?"

The required ingredients for the mix were far fewer than I had expected: One egg (separated), water. That's it. The mixture comes in three parts: the base, the lemon filling, the meringue topping.

The 2 and half tablespoons of water added to the base mixture seems very sparse, and the dough is quite tough to work with. In hindsight, I think I would prefer to make my own shortcrust base if I were to make the pie again. Nevertheless, there was enough base to adequately fill the Pyrex dish. The base was refrigerated.

The lemon mixture, with egg yolk and water, was quick to bind and gave a strong aroma of lemon essence. It would be a nice modification to add some lime juice and zest as recommended on the packaging. The filling was baked for only 30 minutes at 170 degrees (my oven is rather hot and quick.)

As the filled pie was removed from the oven to cool, the meringue mixture was combined with the egg white and water as required. The meringue came together very quickly and formed nice solid peaks. There was more than sufficient mix to completely cover the pie with a nice central dome.

Since the oven was still exceptionally hot, the meringue took on colour within around 7 minutes and baked through very evenly.

Taste result: a very nice lemon meringue pie for eating on the day of baking and the subsequent day. However, the base would not allow for keeping any longer than that - it began to taste plastic like and was quite tough.

 

p.s. I have no idea why Blogger isn't uploading my photos in saved rotation - I apologise for the requirement to tilt your head!