Booze and Cake

Last night's wine tasting was Bordeaux under £20. Frenchy cabs, April! A couple of unexpected stunners; I particularly liked two - one with 30% malbec in the blend (pretty unusual) and one with 2% carmenere. For the most part though, they were too thin and bitter for my taste, and although I am assured that in 10 years or so, some would be delicious, I like my wine to be good right now thank you very much.

You might have noticed I have little patience. :-)

Also didn't manage to do so badly with food - one small piece of bread, some aubergine dip, one small pumpkin pasty, and 6 black olives at the tasting; slice of rye toast and some cottage cheese and some red grapes when we got home. I couldn't be bothered to cook, and my nutrition was already acceptable-to-good.

This just has to be the cold weather.... today I have a yen for something carby and cakey; heavy on seeds and nuts and sultanas and good things. Raisin-Rye bread from Borough Market, mmmm. (I won't be indulging it).

So I decided to look up the megamuffin recipe. I googled it, and the first hit (from calorierestriction.org) was spot on. Now, why did I think it was so difficult? Why do I remember postings about endive and mango and green slime and chaos in the kitchen? I think with a bit of online ordering I should be able to manage them. And then, when I find I am having a low calorie day and can't face the idea of piles more broccoli, I can grab one from the freezer and problem sorted. If they taste good, that is. I wonder what adding cocoa would do to the recipe... I will wait until payday, because some of the ingredient, esp the flaxmeal (which I presume translates to ground flax?), are quite pricey online.

But I love the idea on Aaron's blog of making some kind of mega-cereal from the dry ingredients. That's definitely something to play around with on CoM. I had oatmeal this morning: it was cold, I needed hot food, and I forgot to bring blueberries with me. I ate my brazil and almonds with it, but it would be nice to know there are more "nutritionals" there. And plus, if I made a Sara cereal, I could package it up and bring it to London and that would be London breakfasts sorted. If I could fit it into my calorie day, of course.

I am also toying with the idea of getting another electronic scale to keep at P's. He could do with one...

I clearly have too little work to do. I want to go home and cook and experiment now!

I have also hit upon a working lunch for a London day that is reasonably easy to get hold of and - from a quick look at CoM - nutritious,if oddball. One 240g package raw broccoli, one 250g package of organic mushrooms, 170g salsa, approx 100g yoghurt. Bless M&S. Not sure I will be able to move for the rest of the afternoon now though... and I still have 5 mushrooms lined up on my desk staring at me. :-)