Don't you just love Shrove Tuesday. It's the epic excuse to get away with not eating a 'sensible' tea and instead enjoy the pleasure of scoffing your face with the loveable dough like substance.
As i have mentioned before in previous blogs, my love of pancakes is probably borderline weird. There is always a hassle of making the mixture eggs, flour & milk making sure the consistency is just enough to be stringy and not a huge fail upon pouring it into the pan and watching it take the crumbling/broken effect before your very eyes. However, i find once the texture is mixed correctly the procedure becomes slightly addictive and the process cannot be stopped. Before you know it you've eaten your weight in the damn things.
When you are sat there at work describing the excitement that the another celebration has come around again, the discussion always turns to toppings. So which one are you ?
Are you the American dream - Maple syrup with crispy pancetta.
The hippy naturalist - All the fruits, lets have some berries with some Greek yoghurt.
The naughty but nice - Some chopped banana's with a dollop of ice cream with some chopped nuts and drizzled in either chocolate sauce or Nutella.
Or the traditionalist - Lemon juice and sugar, speaks for itself really.
I happen to be all of the above ! But it's definitely food for thought.
Following Shrove Tuesday came Valentines day. Another celebrated holiday no doubt invented by the card companies. I happen to like valentines day because it comes hand in hand with my fiance's birthday.
The reason i enjoy this celebration each year is because there are always meals out in nice restaurants.
For us this year it was the delightful Loch Fyne restaurant in Woburn. I favour this fantastic chain of restaurants since we first went to one about 5 years ago. We started with style and went to the restaurant on Loch Fyne. A quirky little place by the side of the road. We asked for a table and we were given an hour to wait. We did, and looked round a rather strange garden centre also on the side of the road. That day we enjoyed smoked kippers and a seafood platter of crab, langoustines, shell fish and grilled fish. This fish was so fresh i wouldn't be surprised if that's where the hour wait came from - i bet they went and caught it on the loch. It was so delicious and also the day i first tried oysters (loved them).
This week wasn't quite so far out and as mentioned we went over to the beautiful village of Woburn. We decided to have our favourable olives as an appetizer, followed by Thai Fishcakes with Sweet Chilli Jam for Luke and Moules Marinières Pan-fried Scottish rope-grown mussels, cream, white wine and shallot sauce and a crusty bloomer for me. With a role reversal for the main Luke went for the mussles and i decided on the Taglioline Provençale with King prawns and squid. This was finally followed a sweet creme brulee. Perfect.
Everything was simple delicious and mussles really do qualify as a top 10 food heaven. I always question the beloved creme brulee 3/4's of the way through when i think of how sweet it really is. Saying that nine times out of 10 i will still choose it. The Taglioline Provencale was a slight disappointment though, i must emphasise only slight! The squid and king prawns were cooked beautifully but that tomato sauce was slightly missing it's zha zha zu and i always feel a bit down hearted when i have to reach for the seasoning.
Another birthday tradition came on Friday evening with SUSHI ! Our plan was to have this Thursday night but after such a large meal this didn't happen and a slice of Tesco's half and half cake sufficed.
So on Friday we made our loveable smoked salmon and crab stick sushi. The rice was slightly overcooked but with the soy sauce and followed by green tea it's a fabulous meal. Followed slightly later by cherry sour cocktails.
What are these i hear you say? Try this out cherry brandy, Disaronno, a juice from one lemon and a spoonful of sugar. Shake it all up and pour over some crushed ice, and there is your weekend sorted. ENJOY!
http://www.lochfyne-restaurants.com/restaurants/woburn
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