SmarterFitter

Wednesday

Sep012010

Marscapone and roasted red pepper sandwich

Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 5:55AM

I recently acquired a tub of marscapone cheese, a necessary ingredient of this zucchini and parmesan tart I wanted to make. But the recipe left me with a lot of leftover marscapone that I wasn't sure what to do with.

Then I had a marscapone revelation: A few weeks ago, my dad and I shared a few dishes at Demuth's Restaurant in Bath, one of which was a "summer salad crostini", described as "lightly toasted thoughtful bread with mascarpone and regato cheese, ribbons of courgette, fennel and cherry tomato, finished with basil and mint".

So I decided to make my own "summer salad" open-faced sandwich with no knead bread, marscapone, grana padano, cherry tomatoes, roasted red pepper, basil, mint and rocket. It was really nice! Good enough to eat for lunch two days in row, and very quick to prepare.

Marscapone is a lot like cream cheese - only more fancy sounding and way tastier. In fact, it's a triple-cream cheese (leave it to the Italians) made from crème fraîche, denatured with tartaric acid. It is a main ingredient of tiramisu and is sometimes used instead of butter or Parmesan cheese to thicken and enrich risotto.

Marscapone is very mild on its own and, for sandwiches, best mixed with something a bit stronger (like grana padano or other hard italian cheese). What makes the sandwich is the fresh herbs. In fact, you could probably get rid of the cheese altogether and use something like hummus and this would be just as good - but don't leave out the fresh herbs!

It turns out, marscapone is also very nice with strawberries. This experiment with marscapone, strawberries, basil and mint was delicious:

Everything goes down a treat with a nice salad. I'm digging the lemon and olive oil lately, but this salad was made even nicer with some fresh basil, parsley and oregano (plus lots of crunchy romaine, cucumber, sweet cherry tomatoes, spring onion, salt, pepper, and the clincher: creamy avocado).

Marscapone and roasted red pepper sandwich

1 thin slice of nice bread that toasts well
a couple spoonfuls of marscapone
a bit of grated grana padano or other hard cheese
1 roasted red pepper, thinly sliced
2 cherry tomatoes, sliced
a few leaves of basil and mint, thinly sliced
a handful of rocket
salt and pepper

Toast the bread until it's nice and crispy then leave it to cool.

Smear the marscapone on the bread and sprinkle with the grana padano.

Top with sliced cherry tomatoes and red peppers. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and fresh herbs.

Pile on the rocket. Eat. Enjoy.

Serves 1.

Monica |

The slow road to Thames Head

Monday, August 30, 2010 at 7:06AM

Yesterday we decided to walk to the source of the River Thames, something we've been meaning to do ever since we moved to Orchard Cottage, but haven't quite got around to due to the lamest of logistical reasons. Thames Head is only about 6 or so miles away from the cottage, but it's not like there's a taxi cab rank at the other end to drive us home (heaven forbid we simply walk back!). But finally, our good friend Rory came to visit with a rental car and the genius idea of dropping it off at the end of the walk.

And so we set off for a three-ish hour jaunt along our little slice of the Thames Path, wondering what geyser of a spring would be waiting for us at the source.

The Thames Path is nice - flat, well-marked, and with lots of pretty countryside and greenery along the way. But Tim and I agreed that the highlight of the walk wasn't the walk itself, but a chat we had along the way with a local who was out for a walk with his dog.

The guy was about 80 and walked (very well) with a cane. As we crossed his path we said hello, but every time we tried to scuttle ahead he kept stopping us to point out something about the nearby dairy farm or the canal up the road. We finally conceded and slowed down to have a longer chat with him.

He said he was a retired farmer living near Kemble. We explained that we used to live in London but moved to the area about a year ago.

"The one thing you'll have a really hard time with when talking to a town person like me is learning to slow down," he said.

"Go at the country pace."

He made his point even clearer by stopping every few yards so that we had to chat (gasp) standing still.

Later, Rory, Tim and I talked about our "keys in hand" tendency to look forward to the end of something (like a long walk) before we've barely begun (with our keys in hand, ready to unlock the door and be back home). Is this the city's influence? Why do we always feel like there's somewhere we have to be? Or are we just lazy? Deep down would we prefer to be at home?

I don't think we're lazy. We do stuff like walk to Thames Head because we like to. But we do have something to learn about being in the moment when we're doing these things. When we catch up to someone on a walk, it's an opportunity to meet someone new, not an obstacle we necessarily need to rush on by. I'm not saying I want to stop by everyone I meet on my journeys and hear their life story, but I do know that the conversation with that country dude was probably the best part of the walk - it certainly gave me the most to think about.

About a mile later, we made it to Thames Head, which wasn't the gushing geyser we were hoping for. In fact, it looked more like a gravesite than a river source.

Not even a trickle of water from this meagre spring. I later learned that this spring is only seasonal, and oft debated:

The usually quoted source is at Thames Head, about a mile north of the village of Kemble and near the town of Cirencester, in the Cotswolds. Seven Springs near Cheltenham, where the river Churn rises, is also sometimes quoted as the Thames' source, as this location is furthest from the mouth, and adds some 14 miles (22 km) to the length.

We weren't quite up for another 14 miles, so we decided to head on home for a roast dinner. Maybe next time... when we're feeling more country.

Monica |

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The Great Outdoors

Tuesday

Aug242010

Me and dad in England and Ireland

Tuesday, August 24, 2010 at 6:58AM

I'm back from a longish trip around my little corner of the universe with dad, celebrating his retirement with a trip overseas to visit his daughter. How lucky am I?

Last time dad came to England, I was living in London which made for a mostly urban visit. This time around, we spent most of the trip driving and walking around the English and Irish countryside, with a few village and town stops in between. For example, here is my dad in Lacock, a ridiculous English village better known as a movie set than an actual living community because it's so damn "quaint". In fact, being there felt a bit like being in a post nuclear holocaust where the only beings left were posh Cotswoldian zombies. Here's my dad pretending to be one of them:

The weird thing is, people do seem to live in Lacock. But can you imagine growing up in what is essentially Disney World for hardcore fans of Pride and Prejudice? That can't be normal.

I also took my dad to see some of my own favourite spots in England: the farm, Stonehenge, Avebury, Bath and Demuths Restaurant. We had a particularly good time at the remains of the Roman Amphitheatre in Cirencester, pretending to be Romans in the most pathetic gladiator fight of all time.

For the most part, his trip was a great excuse to see some things I've always wanted to see, especially Ireland. Neither of us had been to Ireland before, so we did what most tourists seem to do: rent a car, drive around, see lots of ruins, drink lots of Guinness, and sleep at B&Bs along the way.

We couldn't have asked for better weather - it barely rained a drop the whole trip. I expected Ireland to be shrouded in gray, but instead it bursted with greens and blues and only seemed black when I was staring into a pint glass.

But for all of its greenery, one of my favorite bits of Ireland was the stony Burren, punctuated by its karstic limestone pavement, sporadically topped by cool neolithic tombs.

We were there for five days, but we only managed to see a small slice of Ireland between Dublin and Connamara. But maybe it's for the best that we left places like Cork, Killarney, and Donegal a mystery: it gives us an excuse to go back. And I really hope we do. Trips like these make me homesick. I wonder, am I doing the right thing by living here in the UK, while the rest of my family are in Chicago? Or am I missing out, missing opportunities to get to know my family better?

And then I think, if I lived at home, would we ever bother to take the time to go on trips like these? I don't know. I hope that by living in the UK, the time I DO spend with my family is of a higher quality than it would be if I were back home. Plus it gives us both an excuse to travel, see new places, and pretend we're Irish monks meditating on a rocky spur.

I should add, my dad is half Irish, and I'm 25% Irish, so going to Ireland was sort of like a family pilgrimage. Sort of. Apparently, the family is from Limerick, but the Irish people we met didn't have many good things to say about Limerick, so we decided to pass it by. In fact, it was hard to feel any sense of heritage in a land so covered with tourists. But that's how it is with these sorts of places. Take it or leave it. Or get off the tourist path, hike into the hills and pretend you're there all by yourself - that's what I hope to do next time.

For sake of completeness, here's a laundry list of the highlights from the two weeks my dad was here:

Aug 5: Dad arrives at London Heathrow. Drive-bys of Stonehenge and Avebury en route to the cottage.
Aug 6: Day trip to Bath. Evening walk around the farm.
Aug 7: Pub lunch at The Bell in Sapperton, packing and planning for Ireland
Aug 8: Ireland - Dublin
Aug 9: Ireland - Dublin
Aug 10: Ireland - Fantastic drive through Glendalough, the Wicklow Mountains, then west to Tipperary
Aug 11: Ireland - Bunratty Castle, the windy Cliffs of Moher, The Burren, and Lisvardoona, the matchmaking capital of Ireland (also full of Germans)
Aug 12: Ireland - Galway, Connamara and the most scenic B&B location EVER
Aug 13: Ireland - Connamara ponies, flight back to England, pub dinner at the Wheatsheaf in Oaksey
Aug 14: Drinking and eating with my neighbors until 3am
Aug 15: Sunday roast at the Organic Farm Shop, walk around Cirencester
Aug 16: Bradford on Avon, Shaw village Lacock, and roast dinner by Tim
Aug 17: Farewell to dad

Click here to view the entire photoset on Flickr.

Monica |

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Travel

Tuesday

Jul272010

Eater's Digest: Life after tacos

Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 9:17PM

When one of my many entrepreneurial endeavours finally makes me rich, I may finally have plenty of time to write painfully detailed posts about my daily meals. But until then, I'll have to settle for occasional updates. So I bring you a new series I call Eater's Digest, highlights from favourite meals that I've recently, well, digested (you can see the unabridged photo gallery in my Flickr Food Diary photoset).

The hallmark of recent days have been flour tortillas, made possible by this recipe on the Homesick Texan, a wonderful blog that I always turn to whenever I feel nostalgic for Austin. These tortillas are just like the ones I remember buying from the HEB - soft, bubbly, and with the slightest scent of pancake.

The impetus for making flour tortillas was a sudden hankering for breakfast tacos. We had these for lunch (breakfast for lunch is the best) on Monday with sauteed onion, pepper and potato, plus homemade salsa and avocado. (Got to love working from home.)

In case you're wondering why my half-eaten taco is black, what can I say? I like my tortilla a little charred. That goes for dinner, too. Tonight, I needed to eat fajita tacos. I don't know why, I just did. With all the fixins: pico, guacamole, black beans, shredded iceberg lettuce. Somewhere, there were even fajitas in the mix: sauteed onion, peppers, zucchini and mushroom. Love.

In addition to tortillas, other recent experiments include fresh goats curd, which was surprisingly easy following this recipe: how to make cheese at home easily. In a nutshell: boil milk, add lemon juice, let it curdle, then strain the curd from the liquid whey through a muslin cloth. The result is a lot like ricotta - do I sense lasagna in my future?

Of course, woman cannot live on tacos and cheese curd alone. I've been embarking on an effort to "get strong" over the last few months and have recently added protein shakes to my repertoire. I do it with a certain amount of resistance because I don't really like to drink my calories. And furthermore, I like to eat food, not supplements. And yet, since hitting the weights, I've been kind of alarmed at how long it takes me to recover. So I'm trying the protein as an experiment. If this is the way to a pull-up, so be it. I mean, what if I have to scramble up the side of a cliff someday? It could happen. I need that pull-up!

Turns out, smoothies are a good way to use up the leftover whey from making goats curd. A combination I like is protein powder, frozen mango, frozen melon, and that glorious whey, whizzed to a silky smooth puree in the Vitamix.

Other meals have been a bit more ordinary, at least for us, anyway. This shorabat addas (red lentil soup) is one of our favorite quick and easy lunches.

What's a vegetarian without her occasional dose of tofu stir fry?

And finally, a bit of good news: I've been commissioned as a restaurant reviewer for Food Magazine and went out last week on my first assignment to Ronnie's Restaurant in Thornbury. Shocker: they had TWO veggie mains on the menu, one of which was this delightful Moroccan-spiced nut roast.

As the weeks go on, I'm looking forward to seeing more food from my own garden land on my plate. The tortilla binge has me devouring my cilantro plant, and waiting impatiently for the jalapenos to come in. I'm determined to get my Tex Mex fix, even if I have to grow all the ingredients myself.

Monica |

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Food Diary

Monday

Jul262010

Walking in the Cotswolds

Monday, July 26, 2010 at 9:00PM

Shortly after we moved to Orchard Cottage, I bought Tim and I the Pathfinder Guide's book of Cotswolds Walks. The intention was to get out every weekend for a long walk in the hills. Well, we moved here over a year ago and it was only three weeks ago that we actually got out on one of these walks. And now it feels like we're full steam ahead.

Three weeks ago we did a 5 1/2 mile loop around Buckholt Wood and Cooper's Hill, site of the infamous cheese-rolling competition. Two weeks ago we did a relaxing 6-mile circuit around crazy-beautiful Bibury. Finally, last weekend found us a little north of Cirencester on a 9-mile loop through Chedworth and Worthington.

The book claimed that the three focal points of the walk were the two villages and the Chedworth Roman Villa, "the finest of a number of villas in the Cotswolds". That may be true, but when we got there, we were put off by the "cafe" that was really just a tea-dispensing machine, not to mention the cheesy Roman centurion re-enactor and the £6.50 entrance fee. The Roman Villa will have to wait for another day.

As for the villages of Chedworth and Withington, they were indeed ridiculous in their prettiness. You could practically smell the wealth bleeding from the Cotswold stone. And even though it was barely 9am, I was still tempted to pop into both of their perfect English pubs for a pint. But I managed to stay on track (mostly because the pubs were still closed).

I've discovered that there are different types of walkers in this world: some like villages, others like beaches, others like rolling vistas, and others live for the lunch break in the middle. Me, I like trees. And the forests we covered on this walk were the highlight of the day.

The coniferous trees in Withington Woods somehow reminded me of my bike ride through Wisconsin.

Meanwhile, the mixed woodland in Chedworth Woods was like something out of a fairytale.

So three weekends in a row of walking and I'm looking forward to the next. It reminds me: I have a hiking pack I haven't used yet and the summer is fading fast. I sense some camping in my future. Wild camping - yet another reason why I love living in this country. That and big giant snails:

Monica |

5 Comments |

tagged

Fitness,

The Great Outdoors