Lunch, cake and dinner in Suffolk coast

Me and Emma did tour of Suffolk coast on the Sunday 27. We had fantastic day! (Please see my other blog...) First, we had our lunch in Walberswick. It's stony beach. When I was a child, I wasn't really keen on stony beach, now getting older and changing taste, I now really don't mind. In fact, I like it. I just love stones...❀❀❀

This is what we had...

We had some healthy foods as well as naughty foods. I don't normally eat quorn. I hadn't had this quarn thing for ages! Then I thought, " F**k it, I want to be naughty today, am guanna eat this and chocolate!" I bought this yummy chocolate from Snape malting previous weekend. They had some more hand made ones(very expensive!), looked ever so nice, it was tempting.... But all got sugar in! I want some sexy sugarless dark chocolate! I wish more people had made yummy and sexy sugarless milkless dark chocolate! 

Anyway, we enjoyed our lunch. Then after spending a couple of hours pottering there, we were off to Southwold. Well, it was more like cake time. Emma told me she had some nice cakes on the pier before. I couldn't wait. We parked up her van on the green, walked to the pier. When I saw cakes in the cafe, "not bad" I thought. I ordered Date and walnut cake, Emma had carrot cake with our coffee. Well, the cake were both lovely. I don't really like date cake, somehow quite often it's really dry. But this one, really moist and tasted really daty! yum yum. ☺☺☺ So as Emma's carrot cake. It was lovely.

Emma and our cakes. She looks so happy with her cake and coffee! ☺☺☺

See? look lovely don't they? Previous day, me and my friend Simon went to the cafe on the bottom of the Abbeygate street in Bury St Edmunds. I had coffee cake and decaf black americano. The cake was £2.50 a slice. It was f**kin' disappointing. It wasn't big enough for £2.50, moreover, it said "espresso cake" well, didn't taste coffee enough to call the cake "espresso cake". Also, coffee wasn't good either. I remembered Tony said "it's alright, not brilliant". It was exactly that!. Whereas here, in this Southwold cafe, coffee was nice (but not as good as Nero), cake was lovely, I had fab company and views from where we sat. 10 points! ☺☺☺

We walked round a bit then where next? We fancied some chips. So we were off to Aldeburgh... Even my Japanese head connects English beach and chips, English beach makes me want to eat chips! Strange. Maybe, I've been here too long???? Anyway, we were just in time for chip shop. They were closing in 20mins when we got there. I could see people who were working there looked really pissed off. 'Cuz, ques were longer, not shrinking. Anyway we got our dinner, had them on the beach.

We had chips, vegetarian burger and mushy peas! And we enjoyed it too. Last time I had chips was when we were in Greece. That was the best chips, I don't remember last time I had whole portion of English chips..... Again, I knew I was guanna suffer following day, but, again, f**k it, it was our mini naughty holiday. We shared some of our chips with naugty seagulls too. Yum Yum.

My next chips will be.....Greece!

tofu bake and roasted kabocha with black tapanade

On sat evening, my friend Emma popped mine for chat and dinner. It's been nice to hang out with her again. I know she's been going through hard time, it's very privilege to be there for her. she helped me lots when I was going through hard time, good to have friends! We laughed lots, and chat lots.

I cooked tofu and chestnut bake, roasted kabocha squash, black tapanade, and puy lentil salad.

it looked like this.

First, I made tofu bake mix. Put tofu, spices, grated garlic, tamari, salt, pepper and few chestnuts in food processor and blitz. When it become paste, pout into a bowl, mix some cashew nuts and some more crumbled chestnut. Put this mix into lined tin with cling film, bake at 170℃ for 30mins or so. In meantime, slice(wedge) some kabocha pumpkin/squash, line them in a baking tray, season, and sprinkle smoked paprika and shove them in oven. Now, cook some puy lentils according to instruction on the packet with a clove of garlic and whole chili. when it's done, put them in a bowl add some sofritto of carrot, shallots, cerely, chopped chili and grated garlic. mix with lemon juice and zest. Then made black tapanade. Black olives, mint, E.V oil, flat parsley, garlic, ground cumin, coriander and chill in a metal jug and blitz. When all foods in the oven are done, take out, assemble them on a plate. Finish the plate with more E.V oil(extra virgin olive oil).

I don't really have a recipe, I make up as I go quite often, however, I do follow some extent on baking. According to my friend Tony (the chef), it's a pastry chef thing to follow and weight exactly as recipe says....I do make up though...otherwise, I get board!!! Then, sometimes end up baking some disgusting foods.... never mind, experiment! It's fun.

Anyway, we both enjoyed our dinner on Saturday. Should do it more often!

polenta and millet short bread

Today, I baled Polenta and Millet short bread. I fancied some biscuits, but didn't want to have too much butter, sugar and wheat. Why? because, a couple of weekends ago, when I went to see my boyfriend Marcus, I had some pain in my right foot. I found it hard to walk. it was some crunchy thing inside my foot. Marcus gave me reflexology a bit, and helped. And, figured out it came from building up some sugar(and wheat) causing it. Apparently Marcus and Marylin get it too. But it doesn't stop me from eating cakes and biscuits. Of course, during the week I had some muffin, and a piece of cake. Can't help it. Anyway, trying to be good, I made some wheat-free and sugar-free biscuits. They were very crunchy due to polenta contents, quite delicious too. I added a whole orange zest and a half fresh squeezed orange juice as well. Smell of orange was divine when it was in oven baked.

here's recipe;

Polenta and millet shortbread

225g polenta

100g ground millet flakes

100g non hydrogenated margarine

60g non hydrogenated vegetable shortening

1 whole orange zest and half juice

vanilla extract

120g honey(or more if prefer sweeter)

Rub polenta and millet with marg and shortening, add honey, orange juice, vanilla and zest. Make very soft dough. If not enough to make soft dough, add more orange juice.  Line a square tray with baking parchment, flattens well. Bake at 170℃ for 15mins, then turn the oven down to 150℃ to bake further 5-10mins. When edges started to brown, nearly the end. take out from the oven, cut into squares, cool on cooling rack. They are lovely with good black coffee. ☺