Sunny Belfast

I arrived in Belfast this morning after a fabulously sunny and smooth flight. The views out of the plane window were stunning. The Irish sea looked tropical with its shades of marine blues and greens! The Isle of Man an island paradise below us!

This afternoon I went for an explore of the Storemont estate, I waited until the Race for Life women in their pink t-shirts had vacated the park though! I took the woodland trail around the park. I'm afraid the pictures aren't great as I just had my mobile and I couldn't seem to stop shaking it when I took the pictures! But the dappled sunlight, baby blue sky and green leaves had a very calming effect!

I then found a nice young tree to sit under in a daisy meadow and read some more of Sarah Waters The Little Stranger - it's un - put- downable!
Before my walk round Stormont (the parliament building pictured above) I had a 3 course Sunday lunch at the hotel. It was one of those eat as much as you like affairs. It was served up in the ballroom whilst a pianist tinkled out songs from the shows and Elton John numbers! All very dignified for me! I had broccoli soup to start, then gammon steak, roast beef, Yorkshire pud, new potatoes, carrots, parsnips, peas and gravy. I then went to look at the puddings. I should have taken a photo because I have never seen so many deserts in one place! There were at least 3 different gateaus, a pavlova, cheese cake, a summer pudding, some ice cream type vienetta thing, trifle, profiteroles, assorted tarts, jelly and fruit, cheese and biscuits, and fruit salad. I was so overwhelmed by the choice I just went for the jelly and fruit! I should have smuggled a few of the cakes etc up to my room no need for room service tonight!

By popular demand

As requested here is a picture of the peanut butter and hazel nut cookies. The hazel nuts certainly give a bigger flavour to the cookies than using just peanuts.

The recipe is really easy its a standard cookie mix but you use half butter half peanut butter (110 g of each), brown sugar (220g) instead of white, plain flour (150g) with baking powder (half tea spoon), an egg, chopped hazel nuts (75g) and some sesame seeds to sprinkle on the top.

Mix the peanut butter and butter together and then gradually incorporate the sugar and beat well together. Then gradually add the egg and mix thoroughly. Then sift in the flour, baking powder and nuts. Fold into a dough with a metal knife or or spatula. It will be quite a sticky dough. Wrap the dough in clingfilm and leave in the fridge for 30mins.

Heat oven to 180 C and grease some baking trays. The cooled dough should make 20 biscuits. Split into 20 blobs and roll each into a ball. Put each ball on to baking tray about 4cm apart and flatten ball slightly sprinkling sesame seeds on top. Bake for about 15 mins, although in my oven the top shelf of cookies are usually ready in 12 or 13 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

Enjoy!

I love steak!

I was in need of some iron and having just got paid I thought I would treat myself to a specially aged rib eye steak. I had a fried portobello mushroom and red cabbage with it. Delicious.

I also made some more of those peanut butter cookies but I adapted the recipe using brown sugar, hazel nuts and a sprinkling of sesame seeds. They have turned out much better than last time - nice and moist in the middle but with crunchy nuts!

Didn't get up to much at the weekend other than watching sport and reading.

Watched a fantastic documentary about John Donne last night on BBC2 - you can still watch it on iPlayer which I would recommend!

Mixed Bag

I haven't blogged for a few days so this will be a mixed bag of blogging!

First I have to deal with the tennis - French Open is now on and I am enjoying watching it on the BBC red button. I am also enjoying Rafael Nadal's fuschia top and yellow wrist bands. I love a bit of colour on the tennis court except at Wimbledon where only white will do!

Second is this story also from France about a court case involving the Scientologists, who are being accused of fraud. I shall be watching this story with interest.

Nothing to do with France or Scientology but I liked this story about a 2 headed snake born in a pet shop in California. It got my interest when they said that in the wild the heads would fight over food.

Not a food blog - promise!

Well I promise this blog is not going to become just a food blog but I have been doing more cooking. Below are some gingernut biscuits I bakd this afternoon. A little too much treacle in them I think - didn't have any golden syrup - but still nice!
I also made a bacon and butter bean soup - which turned out very well - not as thick as I had thought it would be which was nice particularly for spring or summer.
Otherwise it has been a quiet day. The shop downstairs has been shut all day. Hand written posters on the shop front explain that they are closed in protest to the Sri Lankan government and in honor of the Tamil's. It made me think that my problems are very small.

I also just wanted to mention what fun I had on Saturday night not only watching Eurovision but twittering with all my favourite twitterers! It was a huge Eurovision twitter party and it was fab! Even Jase joined in.

More Baking

Yesterday Jase took the day off to spend some time with me and we went to the British Museum. It's been a long while since I visited the museum properly. Jase and I had fun looking at the Egypt stuff. I always like to look at the mummified cats and crocodile. I was disappointed that Lindlow Man (Pete Bog) was on loan to Manchester so I didn't get to see him again.

We had lunch in the Museum's Court Restaurant which was very nice indeed - I felt like I was eating a Master Chef or Great British Menu meal!

I found the tube journey and even the overland train station pretty stressful which really brought home to me the fact that I am still not feeling completely well. I have looked into getting to work via train and bus rather than tube next week when I go back so as not too get too stressed by Oxford Circus or the tube generally.

Today I did some more baking and made peanut butter cookies - blurry picture below. Later I plan to make some soup.

Mind Mental Health Week

I called my blog the "Happy Salmon" for a few reasons:

• My last name is Salmon
• I really like the song The Happy Salmon by Geordie folk band the Tarras
• I am generally a happy person and seen by others as being happy
• Ironically I have had mental health "problems" for the last 12 years making me far from happy sometimes

At the moment I have been signed off work for 2 weeks by my Dr due to a "stress and anxiety related illness." It is the first time in about 10 years that I have had to have a significant amount of time off work. That's because work generally keeps me going and makes me feel useful and focused. But sometimes I over do things - not just in work but generally and I am glad my GP made me take some time to get "stable" because last week I was not in a good place at all and I am still not feeling great.

So I was very pleased and inspired to see the work Mind are doing around Mind Mental Health Week

Mind are focusing on men's mental health this year with Stephen Fry and Alistair Campbell being some of the famous men supporting this campaign. 75% of suicides are men - I think I need say no more. If I find it difficult to write, or talk about my mental health and I am a rather garrulous woman who has been encouraged all my life to talk about how I feel and to not be afraid to show emotion - I can not imagine how difficult it must be for men to talk about this kind of stuff, when our society enforces the belief that men should be strong and silent.

I am particularly impressed with Alistair Campbell's work in relation to mental health. What ever you think of him in regards to politics he has made an honest, confident and prominent stand on mental health issues. He will be showing his BBC documentary Cracking Up in four parts on his blog this week starting this afternoon. I missed the documentary when it was on BBC so I look forward to watching it on his blog.

Baking!

Over the last week or so I have done a bit of baking. I haven't baked anything in about 15 years since I was a student so I wasn't sure how my efforts would turn out!

My first attempt at baking was a birthday cake foe Jason just over a week ago. I made the sponge the old fashioned way and it took me nearly half an hour to cream the butter and sugar properly! I certainly felt that I had burnt off the calories in the cake by the time I had finished making it.
Jase liked his birthday cake - light chocolate sponge, apricot jam, chocolate fudge icing and mini smarties. A bit over the top but it tasted good!

Today being a bank holiday I thought I'd do some more baking and use the rest of the flour up so I made some scones whilst I watched the snooker! Below are a picture of 4 of the better looking scones.

Here is a picture of the 4 mutant scones I baked.
When I was at school we still did Home Economics where we were taught to cook and sew and stuff like that. Both boys and girls had to learn this stuff. Anyway in Home Economics baking and cooking I always got A+ for taste and a C or D for presentation!!!

The mutant scones tasted lovely!