Fast brekkie, soupy lunch, divine dinner - works for me!

Today, being Tuesday ... hang on, it's Wednesday.  Well, for circumstances we won't go into here (dull, dull) we didn't get to go shopping until today.  So I found myself outside Asda with a growly tummy of doom and succumbed to a Mcdonald's double bacon & egg Mcmuffin and a cup of tea.  I resolved to make up for it at lunchtime.  LOL  No three course lunch for me, today.

When lunchtime came around, it was a quick scan of the soup cupboard and recourse to good old Heinz soups - Lentil and Bacon, in fact.  Add a few Finn Crisp crispbreads with a smidgeon of goat butter on each (they make fantastic dipping ammunition and carry far less calories than a piece of bread) and a couple of plums for afters and there's lunch sorted.  457 calories for the lot, which was equivalent to the Mcdonalds brekkie - so it could have been worse.

I had one of my favourites on the menu plan for our evening meal - the Sicilian Pork Ragu with chocolate (go to http://jennyeatwellsrhubarbginger.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/sicilian-pork-ragu-with-chocolate-co.html to find the recipe).  Mmmmn, oh how I adore that dish.  It is so simple to make, so long as you give it time to marry up the flavours and reduce to the correct flavour intensity.  You really can't hurry this one.  The chocolate is just one square stirred in towards the end and although it doesn't make a huge difference to the flavour, it does richen both the colour and the texture along with making a subtle difference to the flavour.

We tried out Asda's fresh egg spinach fettucine for the first time with the Ragu and it was epic.  Really, really good.  I recommend both to you!

For dessert, we had the rare occurrence of a "proper" almost home made dessert which was a real throwback to the seventies.  On Valentine's day, I had received a beautiful box of plums, peaches and nectarines from South African fruit.  I ripened them up in the fruit bowl, then put them in the fridge to await their fate.  Easily assembled, the flan involved a sponge flan case with sweetened vanilla mascarpone smoothed inside, then the sliced fruit (peaches and nectarines) laid on top and secured by lemon jelly.  Fan-flipping-tastic.

It's probably best not to think about the calories for the flan were (404 for a quarter, ouch!) - but the calories for the Ragu were very acceptable at 686, especially considering the amount of red wine that is involved in its cooking.

It was certainly a good day where food was concerned!