Bangers and Mash

We're low on both milk and bread this morning so I'm cut off from both normal routes to breakfast and decide to go straight for black coffee instead. Suitably fueled it's off into the day's chores - both online and out there in the real world!

Chores done and for late lunch about 4.30 pm we have what for us is a rare-ish treat, that great English classic Bangers and Mash. Ursula likes hers with the excellent onion gravy she makes so well but I'm not fond of gravy on fried food and have a fried egg instead. Brown Sauce on the Bangers and Tomato Ketchup for the Mash. Lovely, or should I say, Luvverly!


Bangers and Mash

For afters I have a small curious cake; it looks like a croissant but is more cakey in texture and with what the bakery considered a lovely chocolate filling in the centre.

About 8.30 I tuck away a slice of Spanish tortilla and a strange little chocolate blancmange dessert that is too sweet and not chocolatey enough and then, a little before midnight, I have a Mackerel and Potato Salad sandwich on some delicious new brown bread with sesame seeds we found today in Nerja followed by some, okay six, Swedish Orange Thins which are a crisp thin round biscuit that tastes well, orangey and more-ish.

Weetabix, Chili and Cheshire Cheese

Feeling peckish this morning so I pop two Weetabix into a bowl and half drown them in fresh milk before sprinkling a restrained level teaspoon of sugar over them and wolfing them down, pretty much as I have done all my life. Weetabix and Cheshire Cheese were absolutely the two most important foods in my childhood and kept me going when nothing else would do.

Later on, sometime after 4 in the afternoon, a slice of Spanish Tortilla with a couple of hunks of Chapata bread is washed down with a mug of tea and two biscuits.

About 8.30 pm a cereal bowl size of Chili and another of salad make for an early supper and are followed by a single chocolate chip cookie. Much later, a little after 1 am it's time to finish off the last of the Cheshire Cheese in a sandwich with some potato salad and then a strawberry yoghurt.
Burp!

By co-incidence I have eaten both the main staples of my childhood diet but it will be a while before that happens again because the only Cheshire available around here is vile.

A Perfect Day, Almost

No breakfast today as I'm still desperate to lose weight after last weekend's weigh-in disappointment.

This morning I cooked a big old pot of Chili Con Carne by special request of the most awesome Ursula but before getting on that tip again, I finish off the last of the Ensaladilla Rusa at about 2.30 this afternoon. It just fits perfectly into a regulation Tapas dish and with a single slice of unbuttered white bread to mop up the juices makes a great, light lunch.


Chili Con Carne bubbling in the pot.

In mid afternoon, with a cup of tea I eat two sandwich biscuits and then nothing until 1 am Wednesday morning when I have a small Cheshire Cheese with Potato Salad sandwich on white campo bread and a Peach Yoghurt.

And a chocolate chip cookie.

And three crackers and a slice of Gouda.

And a Granny Smith apple.

Coffee Curry Cheese

Determined to try and lose weight this week after the awful weigh-in results yesterday there's nothing but black coffee for breakfast.

Later, about 2.30 pm, Ursula and I finish off the last of the chicken and vegetable curry and it's still tasting fabulous. For afters there's a single chocolate chip cookie with a cup of tea.

Supper is nothing more complex than a Cheshire Cheese and Potato Salad on buttered white bread followed by two chocolate sandwich biscuits and that's All I Ate Today.

Chicken Curry and Granny Smith

About 7.30 pm, I put some of yesterday's delicious Chicken Curry and Indian Spiced Vegetables with a little Basmati rice into a cereal bowl and re-heat it in the microwave. Add a Roti Nan on the side and a delicious home made Indian Chicken snack is wolfed down eagerly.

About 9.30 pm there's a single Chocolate Chip Cookie and then, a little after midnight, a Granny Smith apple, and that's All I Ate Today.

Overweight but Still Makin' Bacon

Even though I'm mad about my gross new weight (see this if you want to know why), I can't let such a thing get in the way of a great tradition so it's into the kitchen to use the excellent new square and ridged frying pan we just bought to make our traditional Sunday morning Egg and Bacon sandwich.

It's a little different to most weeks as we have managed to get some Danish Back Bacon, which may be as common as muck in the UK but here in Spain it takes rather a lot of effort to get anything other than the standard, and delicious, Streaky Bacon which is the commonly available product in Spain.



Incidentally, it never ceases to amaze me that in a country where they have managed to find a use for almost every part of the mighty pig, they still can't produce any great pate or bacon...

Today's breakfast is three rashers of Back Bacon with one Fried Egg served on some deliciously fresh and crusty country white bread and is absolutely fantastic! Dare To Be Fat! Fat's where it's at!! as Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band once sang!!!

Sunday 25th September 2005, The Weigh-in

Now the price is paid for several weeks of ill-discipline with regard to the diet. Several weeks of relatively big meals have undone months of good work as my weight has ballooned to a massive 78 kgs. Boy am I frustrated...

Thai Indian Curry Fusion Recipe

All I ate today was three Weetabix with fresh milk, one teaspoon of sugar and a lot of cinnamon for breakfast, then, in mid-afternoon, a tapas dish of ensaladilla rusa with two slices of Spanish chapata bread and about an hour later a Granny Smith apple.

Supper is simply fantastic so here we go with another Recipe by Ursula. Pieces of chicken cooked in creme fraiche with tandoori spice mix, ground almonds, minced coriander paste, mild curry powder, garlic, onion and mushrooms served with some frozen mixed vegetables cooked in Indian curry seasoning, tomatoes, onion, potato, coconut milk and more minced coriander paste.

I have a cereal bowl sized serving of this incredible feast over some basmati rice with one and a half poppadoms and half an Indian chapati on the side. I just wish I'd eaten more, especially the chicken, which is fantastic, but hey, there's always tomorrow!

About an hour later, we each have one of these fantastic looking little cakes.



Unfortunately, like the majority of cakes we find in Spain, the appearance is better than the reality. This one is made of a too light and airy machine made sponge cake with a thin smear of a custardy filling in the middle and the whole thing is long on sugar and short on taste. If I wasn't on a diet I'd make one of my famous Ultimate Chocolate Fudge Cakes!

Good Boy, Bad Boy

All I ate today is three Weetabix with fresh milk, one teaspoon of sugar and tonnes of cinnamon for breakfast, a Cheshire Cheese with black pepper on brown bread sandwich for lunch, three cinnamon flavoured biscuits for tea and, much later, yes, it's the return of the Tapasa Diet!

Tadaaaa! After several weeks of more or less birthday related partying and attendant overeating, a little touch of self-discipline has been restored and I eat a delicious Tapas dish full of Ensaladilla Rusa and the end crust of a brown loaf.

To counter balance all that good dietary work, I then go off the rails and in the space of less than ninety minutes eat five small plain chocolate biscuits, two chocolate chip cookies and then another five small plain chocolate biscuits. Oh the shame!

Day Full of Munchies

All I ate today was three small slices of buttered brown toast, two with pate and one plain, for breakfast, the re-heated leftovers of that Hungarian Goulash we had a few weeks back around teatime, five small chocolate biscuits and one ginger biscuit with a mug of tea around 10 pm, and, around 1 am, two Weetabix with fresh milk, a teaspoonful of sugar and a huge dusting of Cinnamon followed by three more small chocolate biscuits.

Granny Smith, Lancashire Cheese and Tuna

All I ate today was a Granny Smith apple for lunch, five water biscuits (a type of cracker) with the last of the Lancashire Cheese (it's very hard to get over here in Spain) for tea and, much later on, a one small slice of brown bread sandwich with Tuna and another with Pate (Spanish pate, not a patch on the good stuff from Belgium) plus four biscuits and a small Magdalena cake.

Salmon in Garlic and Ginger Recipe

It's time to crack the whip on the diet front and reduce the amount of food I'm eating to a more beneficial level. Let's hope these wise words can be put into practice over the coming days and weeks...

I don't allow myself to have any breakfast, partly cos I'm feeling full after several days of comparative over-eating and partly cos I'm looking forward to an excellent late lunch/early supper of fresh Salmon.

One of the many (dangerous) pleasures of living in Spain is that the food is so much cheaper and, mostly, of equal quality to the food we were used to back in London. That means that things that were obscenely expensive in England are much more affordable here and can be eaten more often. Salmon, and other fresh fish, was rarely eaten before our arrival in Andalucia but now it is a much more frequent visitor to my hopefully somewhat shrunken stomach!

Ursula has created today a new recipe for Salmon, cooking it in a sauce of Olive Oil, Crushed Garlic, Minced Coriander Paste and fresh Ginger, which was all blended with a little water, salt and pepper before cooking and as you can see, the end result is fabulous.


Salmon in Garlic and Ginger Sauce

Served with some BBQ Chips and Mixed Salad, this has to be one of my favourite ever meals, so hats off to the chef for all the imagination and hard work.

For the rest of the day, I just manage to limit myself to a Strawberry Yoghurt, three biscuits (yes, ok, I do have a chocolate/biscuit problem, so what? LOL!) and a Granny Smith apple.

Weetabix and The Art of Polishing Off

As our visitors return to the coast by train, I have an early breakfast of just two Weetabix with fresh milk, a level spoon of sugar and lashings of cinnamon.

As you might expect after such a long string of visitors, there are loads of bits of left over food to be eaten and today we polish off two of them.

Lunch is the remains of that totally fantastic Indian Curry that Ursula made last Friday and still tastes just as good.

Later on, as a late supper, we have the last of the Chili Con Carne I wrote about on Saturday. One of the many great things about Chile is that its flavour actually improves with age, rather like a good wine. I often use Chile as one of the core dishes in my ever-changing if poorly observed Taps Diet and it keeps for ages and always tastes so good.

Eggs Bacon Brunch

Despite the diet and weight setback, life and traditions go on. A late breakfast of Eggs, Bacon and Toast is enjoyed out in the sunshine on the patio with our visitors and is just totally delicious. Awesome!

Sunday 18th September 2005, The Weigh-in

As usual, the great Sunday morning rituals are maintained; this morning's weigh-in comes as a bit of a shock as I haven't lost any weight at all this week. The uncaring scales come in at an unmoved and unmoving 76.2 kilos and just wouldn't budge as I weighed myself three times over!

Bah!

Chili Con Carne Recipes But Not Mine

We have friends visiting up from the coast (the Torremolinos posse are in town) as my birthday celebrations just don't seem to want to stop; it's been a rolling party for over a fortnight now!

Nevertheless, breakfast was limited to 2 Weetabix with fresh milk and a level spoon of sugar, which I thought showed a certain amount of discipline!

Yesterday, I took time out to cook one of my personal specialities, Chili Con Carne. I'm sure almost everybody knows how to cook this or one of its many variants. A quick Google on "Chili recipes" turns up 3,650,000 results so there is certainly plenty of choice out there, including 1,610,000 vegetarian Chili recipes for the flesh challenged!

My personal recipe is the result of many years trial and, mostly, error but has now evolved into a closely guarded family secret which I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you! Suffice to say, my Chili has grown into a rich and delicious dish which tastes wonderful with some plain boiled rice as a simple backdrop to the complex flavour.

So, this evening I shattered the Tapas Diet rules again and ate a whole dinner plate full of Chili, Rice and Salad and several drinks to wash it down and it was good!

Tandoori Chicken and Vegetable Curry Recipe

All I ate today was 3 slices of buttered toast for breakfast and then nothing at all until about 7.30 in the evening when Ursula and I had a total blowout of Indian food.


Tandoori Chicken Curry with Vegetable Curry, Plain Boiled Rice, Chapatis and Poppadoms.

Here's the recipe: Fry some pieces of chicken, which have been marinated in a Tandoori Spice mix for about 2 hours, with onions, garlic, Indian Spice mix and two teaspoons of mild curry powder. Then, add creme fraiche, minced coriander paste and a tablespoon of ground almonds and let cook. Mmmm, smells great doesn't it?

For the vegetables, use some frozen mixed vegetables of your choice from the supermarket, add onions, cooked and cubed potatoes, three teaspoons of mild curry powder, two chopped cloves of garlic, two teaspoons of minced coriander paste, a vegetable stock cube, half a can of coconut milk and two tablespoons of creme fraiche and that's it.

Add some plain boiled rice, a couple of chapatis and poppadoms and you have a meal that's quick, tasty and healthy. Oh yes, it tastes absolutely fabulous!

A little later, I washed it down with a lovely mug of tea and three Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Steak in Garlic and Pepper Sauce Recipe

The day after my great birthday celebrations (a good time was had by all) and I'm feeling a little frail and hungry, but wanting to keep up the good work. I swear it seems like I've eaten so little recently, I must be losing more weight, right?

All I ate today was 3 toasted, buttered Crumpets for breakfast, 2 Weetabix with fresh milk and a level teaspoon of sugar for lunch and, much later, around 7.30 pm, a total blowout!


Steak in Garlic and Pepper Sauce with Salad and BBQ Chips

A massive hunk of steak, I swear it was almost 4 cm thick, with fresh salad and BBQ chips is washed down with one of my favourite beers, the smooth, crisp Mexican Corona (known as Coronita here in Spain).

The steak was cooked in an original sauce created by Ursula with Creme Fraiche, Garlic, Black Pepper and Onions. It is simply fabulous. I am stuffed to the gills and feeling great. Thank you world. And especially thanks to the awesome Ursula!

Birthdays Wolves and Tuna

As it happens, today is my birthday but all I ate today is three slices of toasted brown bread topped with French Brie cheese for breakfast, a single Chocolate Trufa in mid-afternoon and, after a night visit to the Lobo Park to see and howl with the wolves, a late night munchie of a Tuna and Potato Salad on brown sandwich.

Good Diet Day

All I ate today is 3 Weetabix with fresh milk, a level teaspoon of sugar and a liberal sprinkling of Cinnamon for breakfast and a small Lancashire Cheese on brown bread sandwich about 5 pm.

Much later, about 1130 pm I had one small Chocolate Trufa, as they are called in Spain.

Chocolate Croissant Lancashire Cheese

All I ate today is a Chocolate Croissant for breakfast,


a Lancashire Cheese on brown sandwich for lunch, a slice of Spanish Tortilla, shop bought but still good, with salad and a bread roll for supper, a little snack of a Mini BabyBel cheese with a cream cracker and a small Chocolate Cake.

Eggs Bacon Caerphilly Tuna Chocolate

After the excitement of the weigh-in, it's down to the serious business of the traditional Sunday morning breakfast of an egg and bacon sarnie.

The rest of the day's food intake is a Caerphilly Cheese and Potato Salad sandwich for lunch, followed much later by one dry cream cracker, a Lemon yoghurt, a Tuna on Brown sandwich and 5 squares of dark fondant chocolate. And that's all I ate today.

Sunday 11th September 2005, the Weigh-in

And this week's weigh-in here at All I Ate Today is about to come in and, yes, here it is, the vast bloated lump that started dieting by accident a little over a year ago today weighs 76.2 kgs.

I don't know how but I've lost a whole kilo in weight in just one week. Wow!

Chicken in Honey and Mushroom Sauce

A few small slices of toast with thin slices of Cheddar for breakfast are followed by a small meal of Chicken in Mushroom and Honey Sauce with Salad and one baked potato with a little garlic mayo for Supper. Mmm, delicious.

Toast Cheddar Granny Smith

Not much interest in food this morning, so all I ate today was three slices of brown toast with sliced Cheddar Cheese for breakfast and, much, much later, around Midnight, a Granny Smith apple.

Bad Indian

And another busy day, preparing for visitors, so a hearty re-fuelling is called for and I plumped for three Weetabix with fresh milk, a teaspoon of sugar and piles of cinnamon.

Then nothing until 9.30 pm when we all decide to get a takeaway from the new, and first, Indian restaurant to open in Mollina. It's called Koh-I-Noor 2, which probably isn't including the original diamond of the same name!

It's a little disappointing when we get there, just a typical looking Spanish bar or restaurant and the majority of the staff appear to be Spanish. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem of course, but we're talking Indian cuisine here, and that usually is a bit of s stretch for Spanish chefs.

Oh yes, here's the Indian staff now, very welcoming but, oh dear, they don't seem to understand our Spanish. I hate being the first one to crack and switch back to English so I persist and the guy eventually starts to understand us and we order.




Some 30 minutes (!) later, our food turns up and off we go back to the Cortijo. It's obviously great not to have to go all the way in to Antequera to get a curry and we're looking forward to this. It was all a big disappointment however, poorly cooked and in my case, the Chicken Biriani had only a little chicken and loads of gluggy rice, more like a paella than a proper dry Indian style. Bah!

A bit later, to cleanse my palate a little, I had two chocolate chip cookies.

Chicken Biriani with Madras Sauce

Real Men Do Eat Quiche

A busy day keeps me occupied and so I don't have time to think about food. All of a sudden it's 7 pm and I graze on two unbuttered cream crackers and a chunk of Caerphilly cheese.


Quiche with Salad and Potatoes

Later on, a light supper of Quiche, Boiled Potatoes and Salad followed an hour or so later by a small but delicious sticky chocolate cake rounds the day's diet off quite nicely.

Tuna in Red Pepper Mushroom Tomato Sauce

After arriving out in the country an early snack consists of two Jacobs crackers and a chunk of Caerphilly Cheese, courtesy of the aforementioned Mick Hobbs. I'd forgotten all about Caerphilly, but it is indeed another great British cheese.

Later, we have Tuna with a Red Pepper, Mushroom and Tomato sauce, Fusile pasta, massively Garlicky bread and Parmesan and it's great.

Later, a cup of tea washes down two chocolate chip cookies and two squares of plain chocolate.

Not A Lot

A hearty breakfast this morning as there's a lot to do, including a complete bug out from here to the country with our good friend, musician extraordinaire and now radio show producer, the one and only Mick Hobbs.

So it's four slices of toasted brown bread with Brussels Pate washed down with lashings of hot black coffee. Smashing!

Spanish Tortilla

All I ate today is some Spanish Tortilla with a couple of small chunks of Chapata bread in mid-evening and, just now, a Granny Smith apple.

I just never felt like eating today for some reason, maybe fear of getting heavier again?

Grazing

For lunch, a Cheddar Cheese and Potato Salad on Brown sandwich.

Later on, in the evening, a little munchie attack is repelled with 4 slices of toast, one plain, two with Pate and the last with some Olde English style marmalade. Followed by another of those small Chocolate cakes...

And later yet, about quarter to eleven, two Weetabix followed by 4 small chocolate biscuits...

Can You Smell The Bacon?

You can't let a thing like a diet get in the way of a good tradition is one of my many variants on the theme of "Never let your beliefs stop you doing the right thing", which is my way of forgiving my frequent failure to hold the diet line - or any other rule!

So I don't feel a scrap of guilt as, straight after the weigh-in, it's off to the kitchen to prepare the traditional Sunday Morning Egg and Bacon Sandwich. And very fine it was too, this week's bacon was rind on so I trimmed it all off and cooked it on a real high heat - this kind of thin sliced bacon has to be crispy - and we had it on brown bread for a slight change. Can't you almost smell it? Yummy!

Sunday 4th September 2005, The Weigh-in

I was totally expecting to be heavier this week, seem to have eaten a lot in the last seven days, so am completely delighted to be able to report that this morning's weigh-in came in at an entirely unmassive 77.2 kgs !!!

Ta-Daaaa!

That's a whole 400 grams less than last week which is almost a pound, right? I definitely need to try a bit harder this coming week; the omens are good because, in addition to at least three days travelling, which normally puts me off eating, my good friend Mick is coming over from London.

Mick is a man of many talents, including musician, radio star and decorator, but is also quite fiercely vegetarian, occasionally vegan, kind of dude so our meals will probably change a fair bit to accommodate his regime.

I've decided to post the following really quite disgusting image of myself,

Fat's where it's at!

the big bad sexy fat part, lol, that, along with several other revolting parts of me, simply needs to disappear during this new, reduced intake lifestyle. Wouldn't it be awful if the fat stayed and my muscles wasted away instead? Aarrgh!

I wanted to post this photo to remind myself that, despite things going quite well since starting this blog, there's still a long, long way to go on the road from obesity to a healthy and attractive weight. My medium term goal, in maybe a year or two if I'm lucky, is to get down to 70 kilos or 11 stones. Mind you, there will probably be quite a celebration when/if I make 75 !

I've been dieting for about a year now, so give thanks you didn't see me then, when I weighed in around the 85 kilo mark.

If you're on a diet, don't forget that it's much better to change the way you eat than to change what you eat. It can be really depressing if, in an effort to lose weight, you follow some diet that completely changes everything you eat!

If you simply eat less, you can still eat all your favourite foods, which makes dieting a whole lot easier. That way, you only have to think about reduced quantity, not learn a whole new food life. And yes, I know I'm not sticking strictly to the Tapas Diet right now but hey, it is Summer!

Emmental and Chocolate

No breakfast for me today, just really not feeling hungry after what seems like a lot of food this week. Later on, after another 100 km drive, a snack-lunch of Emmental Cheese on Brown and two chocolate chip cookies.

And this evening, early on, two small Chocolate cakes and, later on, an apple.

Tuna Steak and Prawns in Garlic Sauce Recipe

Breakfast is a small bowl of Shreddies with fresh milk and a level spoon of sugar which helps me to get through a difficult and busy day out in the country.

Lunch is a Cheddar Cheese on Brown sandwich with 3 small chocolate biscuits as dessert.



Tuna Steak and Prawns in Garlic and Black Pepper with BBQ Chips and Salad


For supper there is some delicious fresh Tuna with Prawns, Garlic and Black Pepper fried in Olive Oil and a knob of Butter. Served with mounds of fresh Salad, some BBQ Chips and a glass of fresh Orange Juice, it is absolutely delicious. To follow are another 3 biccies and one of those Chocolate covered Coconut things.

Bangers Mash Chocolate

Another busy day leaves little time for this but all I ate today was this: 4 small slices of brown toast with Brussels Pate, an Emmental and Potato Salad sandwich, Bangers and Mash


Bangers and Mash with Ketchup


(mmm, yummy!), 4, no, 5 chocolate biscuits and a chocolate & coconut sweet. Oh that chocolate!