Lemon & Chilli Sea Bass Fillets

Last Saturday, Sunny Suffolk became true to its name, when that golden ball of heat graced us beautifully with its presence for the entire day. With summer fading fast into the distance, there was naturally no alternative but to seize the sunshine while it was here and get the BBQ out.

We’d been lucky enough to pick up a bargain buy at Sainsbury’s that week, when we scooped up 3 sea bass fillets at about a third of the price it usually is. Deciding to make that the base for our meal, we whipped it out of the freezer, and with a quick scan of other ingredients available, we set our alfresco menu for the evening:

Lemon & Chilli Fillet of Sea Bass
With Moroccan Spiced Couscous, Pine Nuts & Char grilled Pepper
Served with tomato salad & a glass of white wine
Prepared by all...

It was a fantastic meal, and I can safely say we all managed to blow our own minds with our food magic. It looked a picture, and I now realise why so many bloggers become addicted to carrying their camera everywhere. Alas – I have no picture of this wonderful dish or of the social alfresco cooking that took place, so please indulge in my descriptions and allow your imagination to create the picture for you.

Ingredients (serves 3)
3 Sea Bass Fillets
1 Lemon
2 pinches of chilli flakes
A dinner plate finely covered with plain flour
Around 150g of couscous
However many pine nuts you fancy
1 healthy tea spoon of “rass el hanout” by “nomads Moroccan spices” (We bought ours at Butterworths in Bury St Edmunds, but on-line they can be found at http://nomades.co.uk/spice_blends.html) If you don’t have this spice mix use one of your favourites – or make one up!
1 orange pepper
Loads of home grown perfectly ripe tomatoes
4 small home grown spring onions
Half a small red chilli
Some cucumber
1 hand full of leaves (rocket, watercress, baby beetroot)
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
3 people!


Indoor Preparation

1. Boil the kettle, pour the couscous into a bowl, stir the teaspoon of spice into the dry couscous.

2. Pour boiling water over the couscous, until there is getting on for an inch of water above the couscous, then cover with foil

3. Pour the pine nuts into a frying pan (no oil). Heat the pan, shaking it every now and again to keep the nuts moving. Continue until nuts a toasted brown. Puts the nuts to one side and gather the remaining ingredients together

4. Take all the ingredients outside (including the covered couscous). Also take a knife and a chopping board.



Alfresco & Social Cooking

1. By the time you have everything outside, the couscous should be cooked (all of the water should be absorbed). Uncover the couscous, and stir it with a fork making it light and fluffy (woops forgot to bring a fork out - nip back in to get it). Add the pine nuts, a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil, plus some salt and pepper – and stir

2. Pour the 2 guests a glass of wine, sit & chat, and get the chopping board out onto your lap. Chop the pepper into 4 pieces and ask one of the others to plop them onto the BBQ (the pepper then becomes their responsibility)

3. Ask the other guest to rub a little olive oil onto the skin side of the sea bass, and then finely coat the skin in plain flour. Then they need to squeeze lemon all over the flesh side of the bass, then sprinkle chilli flakes

4. While the others are taking care of their duties, you start chopping and deseeding the tomatoes, chop some spring onions, chilli and garlic, and some cucumber if you like. Chuck it all in a bowl with some salad leaves. Drizzle over some olive oil – a splash of balsamic vinegar, some salt & pepper – tomato salad – DONE!

6. Once the peppers are soft and partly cooked – have them passed to your chopping board – chop them up – throw them into the couscous – stir – Couscous DONE!

7. All that’s left now is for the sea bass to be BBQ. Have the most BBQ confident guest place them on the BBQ skin side down. They should cook completely through the entire fish without turning, and the skin should be nice and crispy. Sea bass – DONE!

Funky Food

At the beginning of 2007 we (Paul & I) decided to go on a diet. No, I lie! We decided to change the way we eat for good! Up until that point, I wasn’t really much of a cook, and despite efforts in eating a balanced diet, we were both putting on weight. When we read the Food Doctor Diet book, everything made absolute sense and we decided to give it a go. There lay a turning point in our lives.

Through following the Food Doctor Diet Paul lost 3 stone in weight and I lost enough weight to fit comfortably back into those clothes which were getting just a little too tight. No diet had worked so well for either of us before. In fact neither of us had managed to find a diet that worked for us at all until then. You could call it a success! But actually it was a double success. Through the Food Doctor Diet, not only did we learn how to stay slim(ish) on a long-term basis, but we also gained immense knowledge on how to eat a balanced diet. Great! But better still – I’ve unleashed the cook in me, and a vibrant world of cooking and food has landed on my plate.



I believe that preparing a meal is one of the nicest things you could possibly do for yourself. The key to happiness has to be in taking pleasure from the basic human needs. Food is your fuel for everything. The health of your body and your mind depends on what you put in. Food has therefore started to become a bit of a religion in our house, and cooking has become a celebratory ceremony.

We have always enjoyed eating with friends, but as cooking has become such a major part of our lives, we want to share that with our friends too. And so, usually if anyone joins us for food, they can expect to be in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, drinking wine, and preparing the food with us… Tee-hee – at least that way every one shares the responsibility for how it turns out. Certainly takes the pressure of being a host!

Hot and Expensive!

hmmm... When we pull this switch in our flat, the water for the shower heats up. If we leave the switch on, the water gets very very hot, and our electricity bill gets very very high!!!

Usually when I step out of the shower I'm thinking about what I'm going to wear, where I'm going next, or what I'm doing next... The last thing on my mind is that this little dangley cord needs to be pulled. It completely leaves my head as I get on with the day. Until a voice booms from the bathroom....

"Tina! Have you forgotten anything today?"...

In an attempt to remind me when I actually step out of the shower - my other half has kindly placed this little note...

Insect Love

My other half is a gardener, and keen photographer - particularly of nature. When he came home with this beauty of an image, I felt it was definately worthy of a post. In fact I was so taken with it that it inspired a new chapter in my open book - Life is Beautiful!




Apparently, this is actually the copulation stage of the mating sequence of these quite romantic beings. Many species of dragonflies go through a whole courting process, whereby they grasp and clasp at each other, and fly around in tandem to find a suitable resting place before the female invites the male into this heartshape position, known as the wheel position.

For more information about the complex mating process of dragonflies follow this link
http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_dragons/Mating.htm

Things like this make me wonder how many other lovers there are right under our noses, and how many things are happening without us even realising as we go about our hectic daily lives. I might just keep my eye out for more beauties to share....

I'm not a criminal, I'm just scatty!!!

Okay - I admit it, I AM SCATTY! BUT only sometimes and only in certain areas of my life.. My excuse or reasoning is, that I spend all of my focused and organised energy on running my wee business (that's wee as in small - not wee as in that of the toilet kind)..

I often have little scatty happenings in my life, and they are usually in connection with leaving personal objects in various places, or forgetting to do something related to domestic duties...

This week however I had the most embarrassing scatty moment I can remember having for a long time.

It all started really well. I was off to visit a potential client in one area of the outskirts of town, and then I was going to meet someone else at Starbucks in town. Now - I don't usually carry much cash, and often get caught out when I roll up in town only to remember that I don't have any cash for the car park. So, as I needed petrol and I was very much in control of life that day, I planned ahead and thought - okay - "I'll draw £40 cash out of the machine at the garage, put £20.22 petrol in the car, pay cash - and hey presto plenty of change for car parking and coffee".

So there I am in the BP garage. Everything is going to plan, and I hand over my £40 to the cashier. The change is handed to me and as I'm putting it away, I realise that I only have a £5 note and some change... Quick maths in my head - surely I should have £15 and some change?

Look through my purse.. Nope - only a fiver in there
Look through my handbag - Nope - no tenner laying around in there
Look around the floor and the cashier desk - Nope - no tenner there either



"I'm sorry, I think you've only given me change for £30 and I gave you £40." I politely convey to the cashier.

Cashier looks very confused, and mutters something about having to cash the till up to check. She doesn't know how to do this, so she calls for help. Queue is building up behind me.

New cashier says, "I'm sorry, but the till says we're not short of £10, so we must have given you the correct change."

"But, I only have a £5 note in my purse, there's nothing in my bag. Look!"

"Well, the till's right so you must have the right change!" said the cashier with a suspicious look on his face.

"Well, how much did she ring in?" I ask. "If she only rang £30 in then your till will be right, but I swear on my life that I gave her £40".

The cashier asks me which pump I used and how much I spent, and then scans his eyes over the till roll and shakes his head. "She rang in £40! I'm sorry but I can't help you, the till says we're right."

At this point I'm starting to get frustrated and also confused! Where the heck was this mysterious ten pound note?

"Well, I'm sorry" I add as nicely and as sweetly as possible, "but I'm not leaving until I get my £10. As you can see I don't have a ten pound note on me. Your till says that you gave me the correct change, but I obviously don't have it!"

The cashier sighs and tells me to wait there. He disappears out the back. I stand there with a queue behind me which is now almost out of the door and full of impatient people.

While the cashier is gone, I'm still really confused, and look again through my purse, through my bag, on the floor, around the cashier desk, and then my eyes fall down to the fruit pastels - and there it was! My TEN POUND NOTE! Hooray!!! I pick it up and wave it around..

"Here it is! I've found it! It was among the fruit pastels! Just down there!"

"She's found it!" calls the man behind me in the queue.

Then a chain of "She's found it!" links from person to person, until it finally reaches the cashier as he returns to the kiosk.

"I found it! It was down there, in with the fruit pastels!" I smile. "I'm really sorry about that!" I add embarrassingly.

"Yeeess!" he replies, with a knowing look on his face. "Because I also just looked on the CCTV and it shows you receiving the £10 pound!".

"I know, I'm really sorry!" I grovel, "It must have slipped out of my hand!".

"Hmmm!", he replies, with a look of contempt and an expression which quite clearly says - "You can't pull the wool over my eyes, I know you were trying it on!"

I scurry out of the BP garage feeling really ashamed. Yes I admit it - I am on occasion scatty - I am human - BUT THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME A CRIMINAL!!! Does it??