Adventures with oily fish! Bridget's pilchard pie with a twist

To get away from my usual mackeral and sardines I decided to try some new oily fish. Pilchards appealed on price (loads cheaper than other tinned fish) but I was a bit wary and the tin sat in the cupboard for ages until Bridget taught me this recipe. I took the plunge and I haven't looked back. This is a great way to get some oily fish. Quick, easy, cheap and tasty. It even makes great leftovers. Here it was the next day with salad...

It's easy to make. You microwave sweet and white potatoes a la Jamie Oliver with half a lemon. Then mash and stir in the pilchards in tomato sauce. I added a twist with some fried red onion, red pepper and portobello mushroom chunks to vary the textures. Then fork over the top and brown off the top under a hot grill while you steam some veg. Voila!

Sunday brunch - spicy tomato baked egg whites

This was a new one which, despite forgetting two ingredients, worked well! (After I found the garlic clove which I'll remember next time and sugar which I won't add next time - it didn't need it)!
This recipe came from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/. I had it with a green salad and some w/f Genius brown bread. I used egg whites rather than whole eggs which was just as tasty.

I began buying the little BBC Good Food cookbooks as I found quarter to a third of the recipes were suitable and I love cook books with a photo. Then I found I could get many of the same recipes and more online. I checked out the vegan and low-fat recipes for recipes that needed little or no adaptions.
My 'MS diet' is informed by various sources - Judy Graham's 'Managing MS Naturally' and George Jelinek's http://www.overcomingmultiplesclerosis.org/ There is some inconsistency with regards to some foodstuffs (e.g. some say wheat is ok and others say to avoid it). But I visit a kinesiologist every year to check what is right for me and consistently some foods come up as beneficial and others as not beneficial.

One of my winter favourites - red bean stew and herby dumplings

This one is great. It is easy, tasty and makes great leftovers with extra to freeze. Great one on a wintery day.  Got this one from http://www.simpleveganrecipes.co.uk/ a great website with some great recipes. Friends who are not on special diets can eat and enjoy it with you too!

A decidedly MS unfriendly adventure of a birthday cake!

I made this cake for a friend's birthday. It sounds odd but, though I didn't eat any of it, the aromas were so rich and indulgent I felt I had!

What a learning curve - my first black forest gateau.

This cake was a ‘cake and a half’ literally! Started at 2.30pm Friday 18th Feb.

Was supposed to make 3 layers and my first cake didn’t rise enough and cracked like an earthquake epicentre.

So I made a second one.

Still didn’t think big enough to slice into 3 layers, so I used half the first and all the second.

Had a break while I went to the supermarket for extra chocolate.

Once I’d added the cream and cherries it started to look a bit on the big side! And when I came to ‘ice’ it (with chocolate melted into double cream) a little icing had to go a long way!

Finally hung up my apron at 8pm (after 2 rounds of washing up)

It's gonna be serious ‘death by chocolate’ - just hope the birthday girl doesn’t have a coronary!

Carrot and cumin soup and pea pakora

Today I made a couple of new tasty recipes from http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/ . Both easy and quick to make (and cheap as I don't get paid till Monday!)

The pakora make great leftovers. I enjoyed it with salad and a blob of mango chutney.