I'M BACK! (again!) - Life, work and weight loss.....

Well, it's certainly been a while! I was determined after the last blog to make sure that I did it more often........
...... Then the summer holidays arrived! Not only have we been ridiculously busy at times and worked stupidly long hours, we have also had Harrison with us for the last 11 weeks! It's very difficult to find time to blog when your 7 year old son wants constant attention. It was lovely to spend so much time with him actually, even though at times it got a little stressful when we were busy for long periods. To his credit, he has been a complete angel, (most of the time!)

Right, so down to business.... As I have just mentioned, work has been incredibly busy at times over the last few weeks. It's not just the cooking, it's all the preparation and extra hours etc. This week has slowed down a little, and to be honest apart from it not being great financially, it is a relief not to be 100% full on. Having a day off today, so not sure what next week will bring......., we shall see.

I have some very exciting news regarding next year! Well, exciting for me anyway. We will be taking on a catering business with an excellent reputation and bookings already in place. It's the type of stuff that I love doing, so well chuffed with that. I will update you all with more info as he time nears. So yes, we will be taking on EVEN MORE work next summer! We will run it in conjunction with Saffy's, so there'll be even less time to blog next year! Onwards and upwards........

I have started a new eating regime. It's not a 'diet', you know I don't agree with them, it's a regime. Basically the science behind it is that you eat for 8 hours in the day and don't eat for the other 16. It sounds a little weird at first, but I like the fact that it's not a diet, therefore I am not depriving myself of anything and it also suits my lifestyle as I don't usually eat in the morning anyway. So I am currently eating between 11.30am and 7.30pm. I have only been doing it for a couple of days,  but I'm finding it pretty easy to do so far. If you are interested in trying it, just type '8 hour diet' in to Google and have a read. All the information I've read is very positive and there are no health risks involved. I will update you with my progress.....

Food wise, here are a few piccies of some of the grub I've been making over the last few weeks......

Pork chop with succotash (think I spelt it correctly!)

 Home made burgers

 Asparagus with Serrano ham, Parmesan and lemon mayo

Used up some old potatoes and flour and made gnocchi....

Then I got confident and stuffed them!

 Stripped some lamb off a shank, made some cous cous and..........

Our goats cheese salad....

 Laura made a Cointreau, raspberry and almond gateaux

 Sunday starter... Melon with Serrano ham

 Old school knickerbocker glory!

 Made a Serrano and parsley butter......

 Then stuffed it under this big boys breasts! Yum yum!

So, that's about it for now. I will enjoy the rest of my day off and relax....

Got some live music at the bar on Friday with the amazingly talented Matt Mason, so looking forward to that. Got to do a BBQ that night as well so hopefully will have some pictures.

Thanks for reading and I hope to be back soon!

Hasta la pasta

Jimbo

I'M BACK! - Finally got some time for a good old blog!

So, as the title says.... I'm back! All my previous promises of more frequent blogs have fallen by the wayside! Now there's a word...... 'Wayside'..... When do we EVER use that word apart from in the phrase 'fallen by the wayside'? I have now spent the last 10 minutes trying to use the word in everyday speak and I'm having great fun. Let's try and bring back the word 'wayside'! Okay, enough of my childish whims, lets get down to business....

Things have picked up business wise, as we near the holiday season, and especially so in the last couple of weeks. It has given us a little taster of what is to come in July, August, September and beyond! Sunday lunch has picked up as well, which is strange, as it normally dies down at this time of year because of the heat. We've also seen a lot more old faces from the old place, not just for Sunday lunch, but during the week as well. Very heartening!

We've been running some offers recently, some just simple 'meal deals', and some a little more exciting. Not sure if it's the offers, the time of year, or both, but we're definitely busier. We've also put on a food eating challenge. It consists of a GIANT burger, chips and coleslaw and has to be eaten in 30 minutes. Anyone completing the challenge, eats for free. So far,no one has succeeded! Here's a picture to give you an idea...

We've also brought back the 'All you can eat' steak, ribs & chicken deal on Saturday nights, which after only 2 weeks is proving popular. There are some greedy pigs out there!

Whilst there is a mention of greedy pigs, I must confess to not having lost any further weight,  but have not gained either. My head is only half in the right place at the moment, so although I am doing a lot of good work on the dietary side of things, I am also doing a lot of bad! I made some really nice spicy chick pea burgers last week (here's a piccy)....

and ate them with some minted yoghurt, home made flat bread thingys and salad. They were really tasty. I wonder why I don't make more effort to create healthy, low calorie food, because it's just as tasty as 'unhealthy' food. The answer is simple....time. I'm now starting to understand that a main factor in the world obesity problem is time. I genuinely believe that if we all had more time, (and the desire), to make healthy meals, the obesity rates would tumble. I know people will argue and say that eating healthily is expensive etc, but that's rubbish. Yes, of course you can spend a lot of money buying 'healthy' ingredients, but you can also buy very cheaply. For example, I made 16 chickpea burgers with 2 jars of chickpeas priced at 49c each. Okay, I added some spring onion, coriander and spices,  but these are not expensive ingredients. Yes, we can go and buy fresh tuna or salmon, but we can also buy inexpensive fish that's just as good for you. Enough of my ranting! Bottom line is, I am not currently losing weight! Time is a wonderful thing.........if you have it!

Made a starter on Sunday of asparagus, Parmesan and balsamic. I was a little apprehensive about trying it as I am not yet too sure of who likes what here yet, but it seemed to work as we sold out! Mind you, there were some of our old restaurant customers in, so that helps explain it.

I do miss creating interesting food as our current menu is much more 'Wetherspoons' than 'Ramsays', so it's nice to put something on the menu that took a little thought and love.

We've just had Harrisons birthday bash at the house. It's not his official birthday until July 27th, but if you arrange a party over here in the summer holidays, no one turns up, so we had it on Monday. I thought a simple BBQ for the kids would make sense, as they all like burgers etc and it's easy to do, and as we had some friends coming over later in the evening, I could just chuck some more coal on and cook some more! So, I cooked a little childrens food........

and something for the adults.....

All went well.

Sadly, we are moving house again! Our landlord has decided that he wants to move back in, so we have to move out! I think it's time to start investigating the possibilities of buying over here. I like the non commitment of renting at the moment while we are still in a recession, but I hate the constant upheaval. We have found a lovely house just up the road and it is perfect for our requirements, so it'll be worth the move. Our problem is we have such little time to do, or get anything sorted....... I assume that it will be a last minute rush to get everything done, but once in, I can stop stressing and enjoy it!

So, if I have the time over the next few days, I will promise to make an effort to blog, but don't hold your breath!

Take care all, thanks as always for reading, and I'll be back soon.

Not so Slimbo Jimbo!

Hasta la Pasta!

Days 391-412 Weight loss back on and life in general.....

Hi Peeps. Hope you're all well. I have a couple of opportunities to blog recently, but haven't actually sat down and typed, but here I am at work, I've finished watching Jeremy Kyle, made a couple of brekkies and it would appear I have some time, so here goes!

Work is ticking along nicely. It's not been ridiculously busy, but it could be worse! It's been busier in the evenings than during the day, but slowly but surely we're getting a few in earlier. After our first few weeks of very busy Sundays, it seems to have died down a little. Not sure if it's the snob factor kicking in, or people just not liking the fact that there's football on the tellies, but it's definitely died down a little. Still, it's about the whole week and not just one day. I am slowly getting out of the old restaurant mindset and getting into the new Saffy's mindset. In the old days, we would get maybe 25-30 bookings on a Sunday and a few that walked in on the day, whereas here, sometimes we only have 4-6 bookings, but the majority of people turn up on the day. I need to stop panicking when we don't have many bookings! It makes the weekly meat order a bit of a lottery, but hey, it's all part of running a kitchen.

Managed a night out on Monday with some very good friends, alas my worst food fears were confirmed! I wont name the restaurant, because it would be unfair, but I had suspicions before booking that the pictures on their website were not theirs, and unfortunately I was right. It's annoying because it was left to me to organise where we went, and after researching for days, I found it. Or at least I thought I had! I had even gone on a local community Facebook page to try and get some feedback, and I only read positive things! Did none of these people not realise that you couldn't order ANY of the food in the pictures, a sit wasn't theirs. I think it is a total con. How can a restaurant submit photos to their website of food that isnt theirs? Even the background in the pictures was of different restaurants. Maybe they count on the fact that once they have got you in once you will come back. However, I think 10.50€ for a very average burger with 5 chunky chips is not going to get me to go back there. Don't get me wrong, the setting was nice, the waitress was pleasant and they had made an effort with the presentation of the food, and the food was okay, but I was VERY disappointed with the lack of choice. To cap it off, they had a specials board with a couple of nice sounding dishes on, but when I asked about them, I  was told they weren't on and they had forgotten to rub them off the board! WHY CAN I NEVER FIND A DECENT RESTAURANT? All that aside, I had a cracking night out, so thanks to Laura, Heidi, Mel, Martyn and Paul and I look forward to the next outing in June!

I am well and truly back on the food wagon and yesterday started a proper regime again. I'm fed up not losing any weight and the only one who's going to do anything about it is me! So, Slimbo is back! Finally!

Made some chickpea burgers last night, (recipe going in the book!), and served them with some home made coleslaw and a feta and beetroot salad. Full of flavour, a bit of heat, low calorie and inexpensive.....Perfect..

I also made an asparagus and leek soup. I used some spring onions in it as well and whereas usually, I would just use asparagus and onion to make the soup with a little chicken stock, the addition of leek and spring onion really made a difference. Really tasty, healthy and hardly and calories!

I've started a little herb garden in our little courtyard at work and it's coming along nicely. At the moment I'm growing basil, Greek basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, parsley, coriander and I'm trying to 'regrow' some celery

My first coriander shoot has sprouted!

and my celery seems to be regrowing!

Completely changing the subject, here is a picture of Sunday's belly pork. I came across it while uploading the above photos and just wanted to share it with you. If you're not a foody, you wont understand this, but doesn't it just make you want to cook?......

So, hopefully now that I am back on my diet, I should have lots of piccies and ideas for you to peruse over the next few days.

It's good to be back peeps, thanks for reading and I'll be back with you soon

Take care

Slimbo!!!

Days 389 & 390 - Open mushroom ravioli

Another couple of quiet days at work, but at least it gave me a chance to spring clean the kitchen a bit and have a little creative moment or two! Oh, and watch quite a lot of the World Snooker Championships! Being quiet isn't such a bad thing sometimes!

I decided that if we were quiet tonight, I would make a pasta dish I had been thinking about for a while. It's easy to make, cheap as chips to put together and if you use shop bough fresh lasagne sheets, it only takes 10 minutes from start to finish. Here it is.....

Really easy to make. Some mushrooms, thyme and  walnut dressing. Won't give too much away cos this is going int he book, but great flavour and you've gotta try it!

Right, off to watch Masterchef and have a glass of wine!

Speak soon

Jimbo

Days 365 - 388 - No more weight loss (or gain).....

I'm back again! So much for me trying to blog every other day! I think it's a mixture of not having so many hours in the day anymore to find time to sit and type, added to the fact that the food I am cooking is pretty basic stuff and so I'm not taking the same amount of photos that I used to. Who's gonna get turned on by a picture of a steak, (apart from me)....

I haven't been particularly creative at work recently as there is not much call for my sort of grub here, but I have decided to use the quiet moments at work to try out some dishes. I've sorted out a couple more recipes for the book, but now I cant find my 'Microsoft Office' CD to load on my netbook, so still finding things frustrating for the mo. I'll get snapping again soon and upload them here.

After a couple of pretty busy weeks, it's gone a little quiet for the last two, but we soldier on. In fact, last week was the worst week we've had since we started here. Hopefully, it;s the lull before the storm.... We did have 1 highlight this week though, which was a table of 33 booked for breakfast on Sunday morning. Of all the mornings to have a large party booked in for brekky, Sunday has to be the worst! It didn't make it easier when instead of turning up at 11am as booked, they turned up at 11.40, only 50 minutes before our Sunday lunch service begins. I suppose that unless you have experience in running a restaurant, you wouldn't understand the ramifications (sorry about the poncy word). Suffice to say that if you can imagine that Sunday mornings are pretty hectic on a 'normal' day, think about the logistics of cooking 33 breakfasts and then washing up 33 plates and all the cutlery, then wrapping the cutlery in serviettes in 50 minutes, while trying to be ready for Lunch. It wasn't fun!

Been doing a little exercise recently and will be stepping it up over the next few days, but no more weight loss.......yet.......

I'm off for now as I have some asparagus soup simmering away and it needs blitzing!

Speak to you all soon with some pictures and recipes

See ya
Jimbo

Day 365!- My weight loss after 1 year. It's been 1 year today!! Can't believe it!!

My God, where has the time gone. I started this blog, and my new eating regime exactly 1 year ago. I seriously can't believe it's gone so quickly.

For those of you who have been following me, firstly, I'd like to say a huge thank you for your interest and support. I think that by the end of this evening I will have 12000 views. It doesn't take much to work out that equates to approximately 1000 views per month, so again, a very big thank you to you all. Secondly, I must offer my apologies to those of you who were following my weigh loss journey. I have gone off the radar a little since the end of last year. I can give loads of excuses, but it all boils down to one thing..... I'm just really finding it hard to dedicate the time and energy into the whole blogging, recipe posting, eating thing at the moment. There are some contributory factors though. If this time last year you had told me that we would have moved house and closed our restaurant and started a new venture, I would have laughed at you. The change in our life has been huge. We now get even less time to ourselves than before and so on the odd occasion I get time to sit down and type, there are times that I just can't be bothered. That may seem like a limp excuse, even bordering on lazy, but it's the truth. The one thing I have always been on this journey is truthful and I will continue to do so.

On to positive things and the future...

I have had my yearly weigh in. Although not at my old stomping ground, 'The Beauty Box', as it is very difficult to get over there now since we moved location. We have only moved about a mile up the road, but the whole logistical thing has changed and it's not easy to commit to it every week. So, I purchased some scales and got my fat arse on them! If you are expecting a huge loss, then I am about to disappoint you. When I began my weight loss regime, I weighed  rather embarrassingly heavy 20 stone and 6 pounds. At this mornings weigh in I weighed 17 stone 6 pounds. So a total loss of 3 stone in the last year. It's nowhere near where I wanted to be at this point, but I can't be too disheartened. This year has flown by so quickly that if at this point in a years time I had lost another 3 stone, I would have reached my goal. I am pleased that although I haven't lost any weigh really since September, for the first time ever, I haven't put all my weight back on. I'm so pleased that it kind of proves my theory that 'diets' only work while you are on them. If I had been on a diet and not followed it properly since September, I guarantee you that I would be an awful lot heavier than I am now. Because I am sticking to my eating habits in principal, (I haven't been 100% rigid), I have not put any weight on. Due to my complete lack of exercise for the last 3 months, neither have I lost any!

Now that the pool is up to 19/20C, I really have no excuse not to start swimming again. It's still a little cold, but very doable! We have also managed to sell some of the catering equipment that we had stored up in the gym area of the garden, so tomorrow I will be sorting out my multigym for action. The padded cycling shorts will make a timely reappearance, and the cross trainer is primed!

I am sincerely going to make a conscious effort to restart my whole program again as I believe that the fact that I am not following the regime has something to do with the fact that my blogs have dropped off and my food pics have become less and less. I need to immerse myself back into the swing of it. I think one leads to the other and so on etc...

I also aim to get my book firmly underway again. I have been conjuring up some new recipes and my hunger to get it finished is back......

Enough of that. On to everyday life.

Work is chugging along nicely. Bit by bit we are building our little empire at Saffy's and seeing more and more old faces along the way. We still haven't found the magic formula just yet, but we're working on it. The food seems to be going down well and I'm starting to get used to life without my oven!

We have a new addition to the family. His mane is 'Rolo'! He's chocolate brown and was the last one in the litter, so that explains the name! After the loss of our gorgeous dog, Maisie, 3 weeks ago, we didn't think we were going to have another dog for a while. Then this little fella came along.......

Okay, that's it for now. I am genuinely gonna try and get back into the habit of blogging every day or two and getting my fat arse back on the exercise trail. Watch this space.

Nite all. Take care. Sleep well and thanks for reading

Jimbo xx

 

Days 323-338

Has it really been two weeks since I last blogged? Shame on me. Time just seems to fly by these days. Things happen and I think to myself, ' I must blog about that tonight', then I forget, get home late, and fall into the trap of the television and on line poker. I keep telling myself that I need to blog daily again and post new recipes and ideas etc, but although a circumstance and not an excuse, we are working so many hours now that sometimes it's hard to find the motivation. In fact, I've been putting this off for most of the evening now!

Tomorrow is a new beginning again for me. I am going to make a conscious effort to lose some more weight again, do more exercise and get back some discipline in my life. No, not bondage or anything like that!, just a more disciplined day with regards to consciously thinking about what I'm doing, eating, exercise etc. The pool temperature is creeping up towards 20C, so I'm gagging to get back in for my daily swim. We've also managed to sell some of our old catering stuff that was stopping the gym from being used, so I can start on that as well. It's just finding the time really.

Food wise its been going ok at work, although this week it didn't pick up until Saturday. Boy did it pick up though. Had a crazy day! It didn't stop from about 11 in the morning until 9.30 that evening. Sunday was not the busiest for Sunday lunch, but was busy in general, so not too bad a day. It's a shame because last Sunday was really busy. It also is a bit mind blowing that one week it's full on, and the next it's the complete opposite. It's also very difficult to know how much meat and veg etc to order for Sunday. When you have loads of bookings, its easy. When you have few bookings, it's pure guess work! We're still finding our feet at Saffy's and slowly but surely some of our old customers are returning, so still a work in progress, but one that I'm sure will go from strength to strength. Due to popular demand, I have been doing pate as one of the Sunday starters. It started with just a plain  chicken liver pate, then became a chicken liver and cranberry pate in week 2 and this week I came up with a bacon, wild mushroom, cream and chicken liver pate. You know I was just never going to serve up the same pate every week! Not sure what to do this week, so if you have any pate suggestions, feel free to let me know! I'll even mention you in my next blog!

A bit of sad news recently. Our gorgeous Labrador, Maisie, had to be put to sleep last week after we found out she had a huge tumour on her liver which had given her hepatitis and peritonitis. She was nearly 13. It's really weird now coming home and not seeing her waiting at the gate with her tail wagging :0(
Still, on a lighter note, at least I wont tread in any shit when I come home from work in the dark!Miss you Maisie, sleep well xx

xx

xx

Thanks for reading, and I'll be back soon!

Jimbo