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 in Bloomsbury, not Holborn) - and is apparently part of the Borough of Camden but couldn't be further from the image I have of Camden, which is basicall the market.

I'm sure that like many places once you scratch below the surface you will find all sorts of things to do. One thing that Holborn does seem to have is a large number of Italian restaurants all in one space and with a few exceptions I don't mean chain restaurants. Just before Christmas I went to one of these with a friend - Isolabella.

She chose the restaurant, from looking through places on Opentable with special offers, and I have to admit I was a bit dubious initially when she suggested Holborn. But I trust my friend's taste in restaurants - we have had some great meals out together including the only tasting menu I've ever tried. And once again, she came up trumps.

The restaurant wasn't particularly busy but service wasn't very fast, which isn't usually a problem as we do like to have a good natter! The menu is extensive with pizza, pasta, meat and fish. I do like to have a lot of choice but sometimes wonder about restaurants that have huge menus if they are able to cook everything to the same high standard  - they have 16 desserts for instance which is a lot to be made fresh every day so I wondered whether they get them from a catering supplier or if they do actually make them on site.

The food that I had though was very good - beef ravioli in a tomato sauce (a good-sized portion) and for dessert, apple tart with vanilla ice cream. I think it would have been a little pricey for what it was at £14.50 for the main (especially given it's pasta in tomato sauce, albeit with minced beef) and £6.50 for the dessert (I've had better apple pies for less) - but with the 50% off discount it was definitely worth doing!

 

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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 ready meal as they have some new ones I want to try

Thursday
Lunch: rest of the homemade soup
Dinner: chicken with garlic and herb sauce for him, lamb grillsteak for me

Friday - my parents are coming to stay and will be here when we get home in the evening
Lunch: out with a work colleague
Dinner: chicken kievs and chips, Mars ice cream bar for dessert

Saturday
Lunch: sausages, bacon, toast, baked beans etc
Dinner: out with my parents and mother-in-law

Sunday
Lunch: eggs benedict
Dinner: pork medallions, with chilli, lemon and crème fraiche from this recipe

This is a blog hop, join in!

An InLinkz Link-up

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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 sticking the dinosaur outline sticker onto a small square or rectangle of pink paper. I edged that with a silver outline edging sticker and did the same with two smaller dinosaur stickers.

Using a thin rectangular card blank I turned it on its side, covered it in textured pink paper and stuck a strip of pink patterned paper down the middle. I then mounted the dinosaur pieces onto this to make it look a bit more interesting.

Finally I added a slogan I'd seen somewhere: have a dino-mite birthday! I typed it on the computer in pink and printed it out on pink paper. It doesn't have enough space around it to look professional so if I made this again I would use a wider card, but I still quite like it.

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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 involved scattering olives and orange slices over the top at the end which I didn't do, so I have left these out of the recipe.

To serve 4, you need:
8 skinless boneless chicken thighs
low fat cooking spray
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1 onion, cut into thin wedges
2 red peppers, de-seeded and sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
75g chorizo sausage, skinned and sliced
50g semi-dried tomatoes (I used sun-dried, drained of oil on kitchen paper)
175g brown basmati rice
1 chicken stock cube, mixed with 225ml water
125ml dry white wine
1 tbsp. tomato puree
1/2 tsp paprika
2 tsp chopped fresh parsley

 

Season the chicken. Use an oven proof dish that can also go on the hob if you have one, and spray with low fat cooking spray. Brown the chicken on both sides - alternatively you can do this in a frying pan. Heat the olive oil in the casserole dish or frying pan and brown the onion and peppers, then after about 5 minutes add the garlic, chorizo and tomatoes.

Preheat the oven to 180C. If you're using a frying pan, at this point transfer the ingredients into the casserole dish. Stir in the rice until it's coated in oil then add the stock, wine, tomato puree and paprika. Put the chicken on top, making sure the rice is still covered by liquid, and put the lid on top.

Bake in the oven for about an hour until the rice has cooked and the liquid absorbed and the chicken is cooked through. Sprinkle with parsley to serve.

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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 - which I associate more with cakes than savoury dishes. I don't think it needs the cornstarch you add at the end though as I found most of the liquid had evaporated in the slow cooker by the time it had finished cooking.

To serve 2, you need:
200g tin pineapple, chopped (juice from the tin reserved)
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
half an onion, peeled and chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger
4 skinless boneless chicken thighs, diced
3 tbsp. soy sauce
3 tbsp. brown sugar
1/2 red pepper, seeds removed and chopped
1/2 green pepper, seeds removed and chopped
1/4 cup water
rice or noodles to serve    

Put the pineapple, carrots, onion, garlic and ginger in the slow cooker. Top with the chicken.

Mix the pineapple juice, soy sauce and sugar and pour over the chicken.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on high for 2-3 hours. For the last 30 minutes add the pineapple and peppers. Serve with rice or noodles.

 

 

 

 

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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 as I'm at a work event so will grab something quick when I get in

Tuesday - I'm working from home
Lunch: toasted ham and cheese sandwich
Dinner: my husband is out at work drinks so I will have sweet and sour chicken which he doesn't like

Wednesday
Lunch: leftover sweet and sour chicken
Dinner: Slimming World sausage casserole with mashed potato for him and a baked sweet potato for me

Thursday
Lunch: slow cooker Thai coconut chicken soup
Dinner: chicken lattice with mashed potato for him, lamb grillsteak with veg for me

Friday
Lunch: slow cooker Thai coconut chicken soup
Dinner: something from the freezer with chips

Saturday
Lunch: bacon sandwich
Dinner: TBA - ran out of time to plan anything

Sunday
Brunch: I'm going to try making this hash brown casserole
Mid-afternoon: going for a pub lunch with the in-laws at 3pm, hence having brunch as it is a weird time for me to eat, so I don't think we will want anything else in the evening but I'm not sure!

This is a blog hop, join in!

An InLinkz Link-up

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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 the ones I used to make this card.

I covered a square white card blank with red backing paper then stuck on a square die cut with scalloped edges that filled almost the entire card. It had a circular hole in the middle, into which I stuck the round topper, raising it off the card with adhesive pads. And that's it - really quick and easy to make but a nice looking card for someone who is more of a traditionalist about Christmas.

I'm sharing this with the Crafty Catz weekly cardmaking challenge and Trimmies craft challenge.

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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 serve 2 you need:

175g white fish like cod or haddock, cut into cubes
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
75ml double cream (the WeightWatchers recipe calls for less than 55% fat double cream)
100g cooked and peeled prawns
1/2 tbsp. mild curry powder
zest of 1/2 a lime
4 x 15g sheets filo pastry
low fat cooking spray (I use Fry Light)

Preheat oven to 180C. Place the cubed fish and prawns in the bottom of an ovenproof dish and mix with the cream, curry powder and lime zest.

Cut each sheet of filo pastry in half to make 8 squares. Spray one side of the pastry with cooking spray and crumble up each piece of pastry and sit it on top of the pie dish until it is covered. Once you have used all the pastry, spray over them all with cooking spray.

Bake in the oven for 25 minutes until golden brown.

 

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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 with the pub even though it is only a few minutes from my office. But after I rung around a couple of other places I had in mind and found they were fully booked, a colleague suggested Grapeshots, and as they had a festive menu and enough space, that was good enough!

The Christmas menu offered two courses for £24.95 or three for £29.95 and we pre-ordered at the pub's request; I had  a nice starter of crayfish, prawn and smoked salmon cocktail, which was served on a plate with a thick slice of tomato as its base.

 

The main course had a generous portion of meat, a lot of gravy, but only a couple of small-ish roast potatoes, and we were brought two small dishes of vegetables to share between 7. There was barely enough for everyone and one of my colleagues asked if there was more coming, only to be told no.

 

 

My dessert of sticky toffee Christmas pudding was nice - the Christmas pudding was a stronger flavour than the toffee in the cake, but the toffee sauce tipped the balance deliciously the other way.

The pub seemed nice - the ladies is tiny with barely enough room to get through the door - and the food was pretty good, if a little expensive.

 

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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 from this recipe or maybe hidden veg from this recipe

Wednesday - I'm off, my husband is at work
Lunch: leftover macaroni cheese
Dinner: maple mustard chicken thighs from this recipe with mashed potato

Thursday
I'm in Edinburgh for work with a very early start, out for both lunch and dinner

Friday -
Lunch: back at work so straight from the airport so will have to buy lunch
Dinner: peppered beef steaks and chips

Saturday
Lunch: quesadillas
Dinner: chicken wings in old bay seasoning (from this site) with chicken breast for him, with potato croquettes

Sunday
Lunch: hotdogs
Dinner: Tex Mex chicken tacos from this recipe

Join in the blog hop!

An InLinkz Link-up

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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 mulligatawny - adapted from a Weightwatchers recipe, really filling and robust

 

2. Slimming World cauliflower cheese soup - like cauliflower cheese? Then you will love this!

 

 

3. French onion soup - a classic. I made this after watching a film called Delicatessen. Using cider in the stock is an extra treat!

 

4. Cauliflower soup - a summertime recipe that works well in winter. Moomin flask optional!

 

 

5. Butternut squash soup - a very simple recipe using only a few ingredients - and what's more it's Slimming World.

 

6. Broccoli courgette and Stilton soup - how to sneak some hidden veg into your food!

 

 

7. Zuppa Toscana - a hearty Italian soup that I adapted to make lower in fat. With the sausages it's easily a meal in itself.

 

8. Spiced pumpkin soup  - another very simple recipe that uses leftover pumpkin from Halloween. Admittedly you probably can't get pumpkin at this time of year but if you have any in the freezer you can make this now, otherwise it might have to wait!

 

 

9. Mixed vegetable soup plus a recipe for homemade chilli and cheese bread. This is the easiest soup you can possibly make!

 

10. Slow cooker ham and potato soup - you can also make this on the hob. A great way to use up leftover ham or gammon from a roast.

 

 

What's your favourite kind of soup?

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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 strong overpowering taste.

So I decided to make this rosemary and bean soup from an old WeightWatchers recipe book called Simply Autumn. I used butterbeans, though you can also use cannellini or borlotti beans. I added a little plain yogurt at the end to thicken the soup but if you don't do this, it would be vegan - great for anyone doing #veganuary.

According to the WeightWatchers recipe book this has 3 points per portion.

To make two portions, here's what I did:

 

You need:
Fry Light (low-fat cooking spray)
2 cloves garlic with the skins left on
400g tin butter beans or cannellini beans
1/2 an onion, peeled and chopped into wedges
1/2 a lemon, cut in half
1 small handful rosemary
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1 pint vegetable stock
2 tbsp. low fat plain yogurt (optional - no longer vegan if you use this)
salt, pepper

Preheat oven to 200C. Spray a roasting tin with Fry Light or similar. Put the garlic, butter beans, onion, lemon, rosemary and oregano into the pan, spray with more Fry Light, toss together and roast in the oven for 20 mins.

Take out of the oven and use a fork or wooden spoon to crush the softened garlic and lemon. Remove the garlic skin and lemon peel and discard.

Scrape everything into a blender and add the stock. Liquidize to make a soup; stir in the yogurt if desired and serve.

I'm sending this to Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes for her veggie soup challenge No Croutons Required.

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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 and once it's roasted with the other ingredients the aniseed flavour is much less pronounced.

I didn't use the cherry tomatoes as I don't like them though I did use the tinned tomatoes in the patatas bravas sauce. I made this on a weekend as it does take quite a while to cook but is pretty easy - you just bung most things into a roasting tin - and it really was delicious.

 

Here's the fish (salmon, cod and prawns) plus potato, chorizo and onion in a foil-lined roasting tin.

It doesn't look much different after it's cooked, does it?!

Here's the patatas bravas - I cheated slightly and used Aunt Bessie's mini roast potatoes but then followed the recipe for the sauce, which worked really nicely.

The finished dish - really tasty!

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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:  tuna risotto for me, pizza for him (home late thanks to the tube strikes)

Tuesday - both at home
Lunch: Weightwatchers rosemary and bean soup for me (going to make last week but didn't), tomato soup for him, with homemade bread
Dinner: lemony crumbed turkey with broccoli bean smash from this recipe for me; chicken pie for him

Wednesday - both at home
Lunch: gammon, leek and potato soup for me, bacon sandwich for him
Dinner: soy roast carrots with quinoa from WeightWatchers Autumn p.46 for me,  chicken chargrills and mashed potato for him
Thursday - I'm at work, my husband is at home
Lunch: Weightwatchers rosemary and bean soup for me, he will have beans on toast
Dinner: I'll be working late due to an event, so my husband will go to his mum's

Friday: both at home
Lunch: cheese on toast
Dinner: spiced cauliflower steak for me that I didn't do last week, chicken lattice with cheese and ham for him

Saturday:
I'm out all day on a course and my husband is out all day at a car show
Dinner: probably back fairly late so something from the freezer with chips

Sunday
Lunch: fishfinger sandwich/ chicken escalope sandwich
Dinner: I have filo pastry to use up so will make these chicken and chorizo briouats to serve with potato wedges.

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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 several sheets of die cut toppers and backing papers of varying sizes.

This card shows a snowy scene with a festive sentiment at the front. I started by choosing a piece of backing paper - this is all one piece, including the stripe two thirds of the way down and the different pattern at the bottom.

I then added the main topper, a silver foil-edged picture of a snowy street, and mounted the small topper with the sentiment overlapping slightly. I cut a piece of border - on another sheet of card provided - into three sections: two to go diagonally over the corners of the card and one to come down from underneath the sentiment. The pieces are all glued flat but this card would also look good if you used adhesive pads to raise some of the elements off the card.

I'm sharing this with Ecletic Ellapu, a blog which is hosting a Christmas card making challenge. There are two themes, one of which is 'anything Christmas'. I'm also sending this to another site called Christmas Card Challenges.

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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 hides a stolen necklace in her bag. Which of course means that he needs to retrieve the necklace later, so Luc offers to help Kate win back her fiancé.

They bond and Kate learns that Luc gambled away his birthright to the family vineyard but dreams of buying his own vineyard some day. I won't spoil what happens as Kate goes after her fiancé and Luc tries to sell the stolen necklace - you will have to watch the film yourself!

I enjoyed the film even though it was a bit predictable and quite dated, but Meg Ryan is always good in a rom-com.

There are plenty of nice foodie references as well; for instance Kate finds her errant fiance eating in a restaurant with his new girlfriend's parents. She tries to hide and sneaks around the restaurant so she can spy on them, and predictably ends up crashing into a dessert trolley and getting a face full of food

Kate and Luc are having breakfast on the train of French bread and cheese and Luc tells her that there are 452 official cheeses in France; she tries some but is sick as she is lactose intolerant (presumably the cheese is worth it!). This means they have to get off the train part way, in what is Luc's home town and they stay at his family home, and this is where Kate learns about his dream to create a vineyard.

 

When I was thinking about recipes to make, I kept thinking of tarte tatin - a lovely French tart that is cooked upside down in a pan using apples or sometimes pears, that I have made a few times and really love. I wanted to make something a bit different but the vineyard idea had put fruit in my head as well.

I was visiting friends for new year's eve and had been asked if I could bring dessert. I made these chocolate brownies with candy cane frosting but wanted to make something that wasn't chocolate, and that my vegan friend could enjoy. (I would have made vegan brownies but was only using ingredients I already had in the house, and didn't have what I need).

I found a recipe on Good to Know for French apple tart and decided to make it vegan by making my own pastry.

What I love about this tart is that you have fluted apple slices on top which look appealing, but underneath a layer of sweet stewed apple. The combination of textures is amazing and it tasted delicious.

This is what I did:

To serve 6, you need:
for the pastry:
125g plain flour
55g vegan (soya) margarine - I used Pure
2-3 tbsp. water
for the filling:
6 eating apples
20g butter
50g caster sugar plus 2 tbsp. for later


First make the pastry, by sifting the flour into a large bowl and using your fingertips rub in the soya margarine to make a breadcrumb texture. Add a couple of tablespoons of cold water and mix by hand until you have a dough consistency. Form the dough into a ball and wrap in clingfilm; put the dough in the fridge while you make the filling.

Cut one of the apples in half and peel four and a half. Cut the peeled apples into small chunks and put in a saucepan with the butter and 4 tbsp. water. Bring to the boil and simmer until the apples have softened; you may need to top up the water as you go. You don't want the mixture to be wet at the end, though you can drain it through a sieve if necessary.

When the apples have softened add the 50g sugar (return the apples to the pan if you have drained them) and heat, stirring, until the sugar has dissolved. Leave the mixture to cool.

Preheat oven to 190C. Roll out the pastry and line a 9-inch fluted tart tin. Line with greaseproof paper and fill with ceramic baking beans or raw rice and bake the empty pie crust in the oven for 10 minutes.

Carefully remove the paper and the baking beans and bake the pie case for another 5 mins until golden brown.

Spread the apple filling over the pastry base then peel the remaining apples.

Remove the core with a corer or knife and slice the apples very thinly all the way around so you can fan them out over the top of the tart as shown.

Sprinkle over the remaining caster sugar and bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until the apples have turned golden brown. Serve warm or cold.

I'm sharing this with Food n Flix as described above.

I'm also sharing this with CookBlogShare, hosted this week by Sneaky Veg.

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