Claire's Cake Bake & Other Foodiness

You may, or may not have seen this new programme starting last Wednesday on Ch4. I would review it as 4 pretty girls, with apparently average sizes doing a cooking show in the style of Gok Wan

The main premise of the programme is to how to lose weight sensibly by limiting calorie intake but by eating your usual foods rather than making yourself think you are on a diet of ryvita and cottage cheese (yuk!). So being your typical female I watched them cook low fat versions of a roast dinner, chocolate champagne truffles (yes, really!) and some other bits and bobs.

I am slightly dubious of the outcome – a lady who followed their plans for 6 weeks + some more exercise who lost 9lbs but also TWO dress sizes?

Anyhows, I’ve caught the bug after pigging out for the last few weeks & I’ve joined the online version for £9.50 a month – initially for one month only as I want to see what all the fuss is about.

So far, the websites not telling me too much that is new (i.e. cut back 500 cals a day to lose approx. 1lb a week) but it does allow you to diary your foods every day & it works out how many calories you have consumed. Their database has most foods in it so you don’t need to keep & read every food wrapper and you can make your own recipes up & it will work out the calories for you. My fiorentina pizza is approx. 800 cals which for a large filling pizza isn’t too bad when you compare it with a processed shop bought one.

I’m going to try & keep it up for the first month & see how I get on. I’ll report back soon!!

This post is a bit late!

Was a lovely one. We went away for a few days this weekend for a bit of r&r.

Hotel – QHotels – We’d never heard of them until I came across what appeared to be a cracking deal on a website I simply fell upon – activehotels.com (I would recommend this website, it gave us a much better deal than expedia would have). Back to the hotel, it was fab, gorgeous, comfy, friendly. I haven’t a bad word to say about them at all. Room was very spacious, very modern, bed was very comfy & the bed linen lovely & soft. The bathroom was also spacious – a bath with shower over and a stand alone shower. It gets a full 5 stars from me.

Nottingham – it was surprisingly large and very nice. We spent most of Saturday morning wandering around and came across a shop called Chocolate Utopia (they do mail orders!) where we sat in with a coffee and mocha and sampled some of their delightful chocolates. Mmmm. We came away with a milk chocolate bar & small dark chocolate bar for us and a dark chocolate bar for a gift. Including the chocolates & coffees I think we spent about £8 in there – much better value for money than Hotel Chocolat (which is where we were going to buy the gift) & just as delicious.

The first night we ate at the hotel which was tatsy. We had taken up a bottle of champagne as it was our official ‘getting together’ anniversary. Very nice.

On the second evening we went to the Hard Rock Cafe! Not our usual dining experience but we’d never been to one and finding myself with the chance to sample some of Joe Perrys Mango-Peach Tango hot sauce, how could I resist?

The grub was your usual American fare & being a fussy meat eater I nearly always choose the veggie options – I did however, have to have the Chicken Quesadilla to sample Joe Perrys sauce.

The dish consisted of chicken & pineapple (of which I’m not a big fan) – but I have to say I actually quite enjoyed it. For the main the only veggie option was a burger. It was huge, even by my mammoth portions and I never seen so much cheese!

Again it was tasty but I actually think I enjoyed the Quesadilla slightly better. Washed down with two glasses of wine I was a happy but very full bunny.

Coming back home on the Sunday we took the scenic route via Bakewell & picked up some of their traditional puddings. Mmmmmm.

Here’s some other pics from our weekend…

Robin Hood

The Ducks enjoying the warm sunshine in Bakewell