Restaurant Review: Isolabella, Holborn, London

Holborn is an area that I don't know very well - I used to go to a choir rehearsal in a church not far away, and occasionally got something to eat at Subway on the way, but it's not somewhere I ever really go out - or an area you ever really see in restaurant guides. It's sort of half way between the City and the West End (though don't quote me on exact distances), is the nearest tube to the British Museum (though for me the British Museum is...

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Meal Planning Monday 2017 - Week 5

My parents are visiting this weekend and I'm taking them to Ripley's Believe It Or Not - as the weather is meant to be bad and it's indoor, and I think they would like it. What's your favourite thing to do in London when it's wet or cold? Monday Lunch: sandwich Dinner: spaghetti Bolognese with Quorn mince for me, beef for him Tuesday - I'm working from home Lunch: leftover spaghetti bolognese Dinner: Slow Cooker lemon chilli chicken Wednesday Lunch: baked potato soup from this recipe Dinner: My husband is out, I will have a Weight Watchers...

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Dino-Mite Dinosaur Birthday Card

I made this card for an 8-year old girl who is mad about dinosaurs at the moment. Ages ago I bought a pack of silver dinosaur outline stickers for another birthday card and have found it hard to use them up - as they are small silver stickers, sometimes solid and sometimes outlines, they don't work on a lot of backgrounds but putting them on a plain card doesn't look very good either. I decided to do the best I could with them, and started by...

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WeightWatchers Chicken Basque

This a great one-pot meal which can feed a whole family. It's actually a WeightWatchers recipe as it's fairly low in fat if you use skinless boneless chicken breasts or thighs - I used thighs for this recipe so it's good value as well. If you left the chorizo out it would be lower in fat but wouldn't taste as good! According to the recipe which I found in an old WeightWatchers magazine, this has 9 and a half points per person. It...

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Slow Cooker Sweet and Sour Chicken

It's Chinese New Year and the Year of the Rooster is about to begin so what better meal to cook for your family or friends than sweet and sour chicken? The great thing about this recipe is that because you make it in a slow cooker, it's really easy. Put it on and forget about it until you are ready to eat - at least if you use microwave pouches of rice like I do, you really don't need to do a lot! The recipe comes from the Betty Crocker website...

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Meal Planning Monday 2017 - Week 4

This week's train strikes have been called off and apparently normal service will resume on Tuesday - which would be the first time in about four months that my normal train to work is running! So it means I won't be working from home as much this week, though I have still agreed one day working from home while I have coursework to do for a professional qualification, so I can use the time when I would normally be commuting to study. Monday Lunch: going to try an Itsu chicken noodle cup from Ocado with extra chicken added Dinner: working late...

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Traditional Poinsettia Decoupage Christmas Card

Poinsettia is a winter-flowering plant, associated with Christmas perhaps because of its red petals. Apparently the star-shaped leaves are thought to be a symbol of the star of Bethlehem that the three wise men followed, with their colour symbolising the blood of Christ. The plant is commonly seen on Christmas cards, like this one that I made. The kit came free with Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine, with die cuts in different designs including...

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WeightWatchers Curried Fish Pie

Fish pie is a comforting family staple and is usually topped with mashed potato or puff pastry. The former is carb-heavy and the latter high in fat, so using filo pastry is a much lighter option. I adapted a recipe in an old WeightWatchers magazine to make this, which tasted really good and made a nice change from the usual kind of fish pie. The WeightWatchers recipe had 6.5 syns per serving and I don't think my changes will have affected that. To...

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Restaurant review: Grapeshots, Artillery Passage, London

My work Christmas meal for the past two years has been a curry so this year I lobbied hard for a proper Christmas dinner- and luckily enough of my colleagues agreed. We'd left it relatively last minute to book - at least, we were booking several weeks in advance, for a weekday in mid-December, but places still get booked up really fast! Not that Grapeshots wasn't my first choice, but.... well, it wasn't my first choice. I wasn't actually familiar...

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Meal Planning Monday 2017 - Week 3

Another week where I am not in the office very much! This time I have taken three days annual leave to do some coursework then will be in Edinburgh for a day with a very early start, and flying back early the next day and going straight into work that day. Join in the blog hop below. Monday - I'm off, my husband is at work Lunch: jacket potato Dinner: Stir-fried cauliflower and cashews for me, chicken lattice and mash for him Tuesday - I'm off, my husband is at work Lunch: tuna risotto Dinner: slow cooker macaroni cheese with sausages...

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10 Reasons to be Addicted to Soup - Winter Soup Recipes

  This time of year there can sometimes be nothing better than a steaming bowl of soup - especially if it's one you've made yourself. Whether you're using up leftover veg or trying to persuade yourself to eat more veg (it's much easier blended, trust me!) or you on a diet and looking for a low fat recipe, there is so much you can do. Here are ten of my favourite soup recipes. Check out number 7, it's something a bit different! 1. Chicken...

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WeightWatchers Rosemary and Butterbean Soup

I've been trying to avoid bread and at the very least not taking sandwiches into work for lunch, which at this time of year means soups instead. I am a pretty fussy eater (for those who hadn't figured that out yet!) and often skip over recipes because they have ingredients I don't like. But, I figured, when you are blending everything together in a soup, you don't really know you are eating it, right? Especially if it isn't an ingredient with a...

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Spanish Roasted Fish with Patatas Bravas

I love fish, but usually find white fish - even cod - too plain and uninteresting. This recipe from Tesco, in one of their recent free magazines, is a great way to enjoy cod with some new flavours, and with the potatoes it makes a really substantial meal - and one that is really easy to cook. You can find the recipe on the Tesco website. Don't be afraid of using fennel even if like me you don't really like it - it works really well in this dish...

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Meal Planning Monday 2017 - Week 2

There's another train strike this week - so I am working from home for three days and my husband has booked the entire week off, since he couldn't take any time off over Christmas he has several days from 2016 to use up. Much as I'm fed up with the trains, I'm lucky in that I can do my work from home and it will be nice to not have to commute for a few days! Monday - I'm at work, my husband is at home Lunch: me: gammon, leek and potato soup using leftover gammon from weekend. My husband has requested fresh bread to make a sandwich. Dinner: ...

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Snowscene Houses Foil Christmas Card

Yes, I know it's January... but some people like to get a head start on making their Christmas cards! This is one I actually made in November, but as I mentioned before, I only managed to make a few Christmas cards so I decided to save them til next Christmas when hopefully I will have made more. This one uses a set and a design that came with one of the card making magazines I subscribed to for a few months at the end of last year. It came with...

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Vegan French Apple Tart

This month's Food 'n' Flix challenge is French Kiss - the 1995 movie starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline. The film was chosen by Food 'n' Flix creator Heather at All Roads Lead to the Kitchen - you can see her announcement post here, and you can take part any time this month. The premise of the film is that Kate (Meg Ryan) is flying to France alone, to confront her cheating fiancé; she is seated on the plane next to Luc (Kevin Kline), a thief who...

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