The best laid plans

It’s always the same in December – despite best intentions you get invited to drinks, or have lunches out, or need to eat through a hangover – and suddenly plans for eating healthily are wrecked.

Last week went very well – eating healthily and lightly to look after Andrew’s tummy meant a week of fish. That also meant a 2lbs weight loss, despite drinks on Thursday night and a dinner out on Friday night. I love it when a plan comes together.

On Saturday my friends came over, and I did an Italian feast. My first ever attempt at focaccia went so well, even though I wasn’t convinced until the second it was sliced. I used Paul Hollywood’s recipe, which seemed to be much too watery when I was making it. I did vaguely remember something from Great British Bake Off about how the dough was supposed to be liquid, but didn’t believe it would be successful. Well, it was fabulous – Paul would have been very impressed!

With the bread I made a tomato and mozarella salad (easy, but you just need to make sure you roast the tomatoes first with some garlic, seasoning and oil to bring out their flavour. As I was catering for a bunch of fussy friends – one pescatarian, one gravy-hater – I made prawn and chilli pasta – prawns sauteed with chilli and garlic, chopped tomatoes and basil. Also nice to bulk out with crab meat as well (I use tinned if it is just for the two of us). Pudding was dear Nigella’s nutella cheesecake.

This week the plans have not come together! It started well with roast chicken, roast potatoes and boiled leeks for dinner on Sunday – I let the leftovers (including stuffing and gravy) cool to make a perfect pie filling, which I cooked on Monday night.

As Andrew was working late on Monday I cooked dinner just for myself, and as I had pesto and pine nuts left over from the weekend’s Italian feast I decided to make a pesto sauce (no parmesan so used cheddar) which I had with spinach pasta. It was fabulous – a handful of  basil sprinkling of pine nuts, handful of grated cheddar, a quarter clove of garlic and olive oil blitzed together and stirred into cooked, drained pasta. I served it with a salad for a healthy but very substantial meal.

Andrew was ill tonight so I just had some pie and veg, and we’ll eat the rest of the pie tomorrow, and then fish for the rest of the week to rescue it! I am in Paris next week so want to make some of Nigella’s christmas rocky road for my friends there, so I have ordered loads of chocolate from Ocado for this weekend. I have a feeling I won’t be able to resist licking the bowl.