Monthly Archives: March 2011

Padstow – a town by Rick Stein…

Posted in Travelling by
Sorry for the immense delay in posting this, I’ve been stupidly busy at work and had no brain power left to direct at anything else hence the fact that the house looked like a tip, I’ve done no sewing and I’ve not posted on here! Rubbish though even with the excuses.
Whilst I had a lovely weekend just gone nothing particularly special happened (I did see Oxford United win which is always nice) so i thought I’d go back to last weekend and our visit to Padstow. It was a short trip along the cost from Watergate Bay and worth the little drive, even if I did make Mr B go down every little road on the way home – ‘just to see what’s down there’. I am lucky that he indulges me!
Padstow is a gorgeous little town with loads of pubs, copious numbers of pasty shops and at least a million places owned by Rick Stein. Whilst it would’ve been lovely to go to his restaurant we went for a lovely pint of cornish cider and a pasty instead, a lot cheaper! They were delicious, even better than expected, I had lamb and mint and Mr B had steak and ale – his had lots more meat than mine though so I did feel a little diddled. There are SO many pasty shops but we went for the ‘Padstow Pasty’ – just going by the logic that it was the busiest – and they didn’t disappoint! The pint in the Shipwrights Inn was also lovely, great view of the harbour as we sat and watched the world go by outside.

Here are a few of the gorgeous views we came across…

A view across the harbour from the pub!
Across the quay to the Rock
A massive, huge seagull!
Across the quay
Just because…

Watergate Bay, Cornwall – A rather gorgeous part of the world!

Posted in Restaurants, Travelling by
We had a lovely weekend just gone as we went off to Cornwall – somewhere I’d never visited before! We stayed at the Beachcombers apartments in Watergate Bay and had a lovely dinner at the Beaucliffe restaurant at Porth Veor Manor (just along the coast, before Newquay)…well it was ok…followed by THE most awesome dinner at Fifteen which overshadowed everything! Being only a short walk from our apartment it was lovely to have some amazing food and a few drinks and then wander back to the apartment, except for the small tumble I took…more on that later!!

Watergate Bay itself is gorgeous and the beach amazing, we were going to attempt swimming but with the wind it was pretty freezing, not suprising for March in the UK! But we had some great walks along the beach, got a little soaked when the sea lured us in then swamped us, a great lunch at The Beach Hut (Moule Marinere = wonderful) and drinks in the bar at The Hotel with amazing views across the Bay…

All in all quite wonderful, I will elaborate on some points when I have a little more time to write but for now some pictures of Watergate Bay…

Losing someone you love…

Posted in Bunnies by
Last night was not a good night in our household…I got home to find Helga looking decidedly under the weather, not as bad as last time but very floppy, refusing to eat and then she couldn’t even stand up :( So I rushed her to the vet and sadly the diagnosis wasn’t good, the fact that it had only been two months since the last time she was critically ill left the vet thinking that it was probably a congenital condition, not the parasite they originally thought, and that these episodes would only increase in occurrence with no prior warning or medication to prevent and a lot of nursing required each time to ensure that she kept eating and her body temperature stayed up. Sadly Mr B and I had to take the horrible decision to put her to sleep, it wasn’t a nice thing to have to do but we didn’t want her to have to go through this over and over again with no real medication to treat her problem.

Poor Betty looked very forlorn last night and this morning, having spent her whole year of life with her sister I can only imagine how horrible it must be for her to no longer have her naughty little partner in crime. We’ll have to see how it goes with Betty and hopefully she’ll keep being her usual sweet self without too much pinning. But for now we all miss Helga terribly and I’ll never forget how incredibly small and weak she was right at the end. Though she was only a year old she was the brightest and most incorrigible rabbit I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting!

The gorgeous Helga

GI Shepherds pie…

Posted in Recipes, Vegetables by
So I had a fridge full of veg that needed eating and a craving for shepherd’s pie…but I’m not allowed potatoes…?!? I fortunately found some sweet potato and the idea of fake shepherd’s pie was born.
GI Shepherds pie
Serves 4
2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
3 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
1 onion, finely chopped
1 tsp garlic puree
250g beef mince
2 turnips, peeled and finely diced
1 beef stock cube
50ml water

1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
2. Put a large saucepan of water on a high heat and when it comes to the boil add the sweet potato and carrots.

3. Heat a small amount of veg oil in a pan and fry the onion until softened. Add the garlic and fry for 2 minutes.
4. Add the beef mince and stir to combine, breaking up the mince.
5. Fry until brown, crumble in the stock cube.
6. Add the water to the pan, stir to combine and heat on a high heat until the liquid is bubbling.
7. Turn down and add the turnip, stir to combine. Simmer for 2 minutes then season well.

8. The sweet potato and carrot should now be cooked, drain and put back into the pan, mash well and season.

9. Put the mince mixture into a pie dish and top with the mash.

10. Put in the oven on a baking tray and bake for 30 minutes until browned on top.
11. I served it with some red cabbage, winter greens and peas which worked perfectly but your choice of vegetable is up to you!