Chocolate and Beyond

The Chocolate Trading Company

I love the chocolate treasures that can be found within the Chocolate Trading Company's website.

It's a real treat just exploring their site, and a feast for the eyes even if you don't buy. I especially like the recipes (I've written about one here) that have been included to inspire, though when it comes to eating chocolate, I rarely need inspiring to do so!

Have a browse around, I've added the Chocolate Trading Company to my Chocolate Shop links at the side of my site.

Celeriac chips

In my bid to try out new and interesting, instead of sticking to my old fare of 'one-pot student grub' style recipes, I bought a celeriac sometime ago. Well let me tell you, I have never looked back (do I need a life?).

If you don't know what it is, check out the fabulous description on BBC website, which says it is "a large, knobbly root vegetable, the base of the stem of certain types of celery". It also adds that it tastes similar to celery, which I don't buy. But hey ho, a difference of opinion is allowed.

Anyhow, I cut the whole thing into 'chunky chips' after peeling off the thick skin (like you would with a swede) and then put a tablespoon or two of olive oil in a roasting tin, with plenty of chilli pepper and black pepper, coated the celeriac chips in the oil mixture then shoved it in the oven for about 40 minutes.

Web resources on intuitive eating

Though the frustration that comes from dieting and its failure to be the solution to long-term weight-loss increases, references and resources on the web linked to intuitive eating are still not that great. But, those resources that do exist are valuable (though it is actually we bloggers that seem to dominate in the Google searches!).

Here is my list of those that seem particularly useful:

Diet Survivors Meditations: Fabulous blog site from Linda Moran, author of How to Survive Your Diet, where Linda provides daily meditations to keep you motivated or mindful on your quest to be an intuitive eater.

Intuitive Eating: This is the site of the authors of Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works, a comprehensive site which includes a list of their principles as well as research on the subject.

Spicy hot chocolate from Whittard!

Yum yum! I got sent a tub of Whittard's new Aztec Chilli Hot Chocolate that I've been meaning to write about for a while, after consuming most of it over Christmas, and I have to say, it is very dee-lish!

I've tried chilli-flavoured chocolate before but never in drink form. This is a particularly pleasant concoction that tingles on the tongue and in the throat nicely, and has just about the right degree of bitter-sweet (less bitter, not too sweet, and I get a bit sick with overly-sweet).

Fish-pie for breakfast and now more cooking

I had some left-over home-made fish pie for breakfast this morning (oh yum, I hear you say!). I'd made it all myself last night, with halibut, salmon and prawns.

I have to add, the fish I got cheap because it was Asda 'Whoops' (reduced because it was at its sell-by date, though I'm not quite sure of why they call it 'Whoops': Whoops, we made a huge mistake in our stock ordering? Whoops, if you don't eat this now it's going to be rancid in the morning? Whoops, we're losing money here?).

Anyhow, along with some fried leeks, a bit of red pepper and some mashed new potatoes, then a thick layer of cheese on top as the 'pie crust', I cooked up a delicious and nutritious homely meal for my son and I (though he wasn't as enthralled; "It's too colourful" he said) and didn't I feel smug?

Short-term weight loss isn't the hard bit

So, after all the hooha regarding the low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet, scientists now appear to favour it as the most effective way to lose weight. Whether intuitive eaters do is another matter, but according to Aberdeen’s Rowett Research Institute, this way of eating is "most effective at reducing hunger and promoting weight loss, at least in the short term."

At least they make the point of 'in the short-term'. The study has just been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and, whilst I totally agree that it is definitely the most effective diet for weight loss (having done Atkins and obviously having followed a general anti-candida diet which is low in simple carbohydrates), it is the kind of diet that really has to be kept up to 'keep up the good work'. If slip back to eating carbs, then the weight just piles back on.

A late new year greeting

Three weeks into the new year and I'm saying happy 2008 to you all.

I have been very tardy at keeping Chocolate and Beyond updated, I'm ashamed to admit. But, with my internet being down for two weeks over the festive period, and a holiday to Fuerteventura thrown in for the first week of 2008, I've not had that much access to the web.

Anyhow, here I am and back. Feeling rather heavy at the moment (Christmas grub and plentiful holiday fare) but surprisingly not that down about it. What I've learned over the last year and more is that once I get 'back to normal', my weight naturally adjusts. It's just hard to bear that in mind while my jeans are feeling tight