POST 4, PART II: A FATAL CASE OF MAN FLU

So, my cheese and chive bread rolls... This isn’t so much a ‘recipe’ as a flavour combination – just adapt any bread roll recipe and throw in some cheese and chives. That’s what I did. Oh, and I use a bread machine so have no words of wisdom on how to successfully hand bake something. (Kinda makes you wonder why you’d bother to read this, doesn’t it?!)

I do, however, have some words of wisdom about bread machines... After several years experimenting with mine, I have discovered that the secret to baking decent bread in the damn thing is to just accept it as a glorified dough hook and cook in the oven instead. Seriously – just use the dough/pizza setting and be done with it.

INGREDIENTS

600g strong white bread flour
20g butter, cut into cubes
315ml water, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp skimmed milk powder
1 1/2 tsp dried yeast
1 tsp white pepper
2 to 3 tbsp chives, chopped
100g strong cheddar cheese, grated (plus extra for topping)
1 egg, beaten

1) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

2) Dump everything bar the egg inside your misjudged kitchen purchase and set it to go on the dough/pizza programme for a 750g loaf. Some machines have a seed and nut dispenser, which releases extra ingredients midway through the mix so you could put your cheese and chives in there, but I really don’t think it makes a difference for ‘soft’ ingredients and don’t bother myself. I also tend to keep an eye on the mixing as sometimes it needs a dash more water and a bit of a poke round the sides where the flour gets stuck to help it along. When it’s all incorporated leave it to do its thing.

3) When the programme is complete, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and divide into eight. Gently roll them into balls and arrange on a baking tray. Word to the wise here – invest in some of this magic non-stick baking tray liner from Lakeland. It is a-mazing! I was forever chipping these rolls off the tray because of the cheese-content until I discovered this stuff. Everything just lifts straight off and it’s washable too, so lasts for ages. I resent having to oil baking trays because of the extra calories and fat, so never put enough on to make it truly non-stick, plus I don’t like the taste and texture of using loads of flour or semolina. I command you to buy it!

4) Brush the rolls with the beaten egg and sprinkle with some extra cheese. Pop them in the oven for 20 to 30 minutes. Don’t hold me to oven temperatures and times, by the way – I think it’s always best to monitor and adjust whatever you’re cooking as only you know your oven and its quirks.

5) These rolls are best served fresh and still warm. If you do freeze some, do warm them through first to freshen them up – with the cheese and without all those lovely preservatives and improvers in longer-lasting loaves, the texture can just be a bit dense when they’re cold is all.

Ed feebly finished his soup and roll, admitting – amid much prompting from myself – that he felt a bit better. Bless. He then promptly fell asleep. Confident that I’d cured him, I tended to the duvet and pillows for the umpteenth time (why do we women feel compelled to do that?!) and went to bed contemplating what a fucking awesome wife I would make someone someday...

Only to be woken a few hours later by him coughing. And I mean coughing. And coughing and coughing and coughing... If he had hacked up a shoe it wouldn’t have surprised me. Yes, his snotty nose had escalated into full-blown man flu. And, having fed him cheese and butter (dairy products only make you more mucusy – trust me, I’m a lifelong hay fever sufferer and dairy fan), I only had myself to blame for his deteriorating condition.

I tried my best to nurse him through the next day, really I did. But, sleep deprived and starting to feel pretty ropey myself, the novelty had well and truly worn off. Because, Christ, sick people are so surly and disagreeable, especially those of the male persuasion! I’ve decided that sick people have no business burdening themselves on anybody but their mother. So when I caught man flu – aka the common cold – come Monday, it was she who came to my aid (and cooked me chicken stew and dumplings, incidentally – gotta love my mum!).

Not Ed. No. Having made a full recovery, he’d buggered off back to work. But not before he’d polished off the last of the juice and drugs, the bastard. And did he return that night, as promised, with replacement provisions? Did he heck! Not that I wanted him by my bedside, mopping my brow, mind. But it’s the principal of thing... So you can add being an inconsiderate prick to the crumpled tissues thing. Our relationship never really recovered.

Thanks to superwoman Bex for the illustration!

POST 4, PART I: A FATAL CASE OF MAN FLU

Soup. Meh. I can take it or leave it, me.

I mean, sure, soup has its place, its purpose. And, for me, that’s on the Diet To End All Diets. I boil up vats of the stuff. Something punishingly bland and boring, and just, well... Yuck. Watercress broth à la Liz Hurley or, worse still, cabbage soup... I march triumphantly back from the supermarket, having stripped it all of things green and good, and stoically chop, slice and dice before setting my giant pan of hope to simmer on the hob.

But then there’s that smell, isn’t there? That stench..? Of noxious, no-calorie onions and vegetables and water. And an Oxo Cube. Boiled. That you’re supposed to survive on in order to shed two stone in as many weeks for a friend’s wedding, mouthful by boring mouthful. Two weeks! Two whole weeks – that’s 14 days, folks – of nothing but soup, soup, soup. In theory... Because I maybe manage a bowl or two before my good intentions go as limp as my cabbage. ‘I’ll go running,’ I resolve. ‘Every morning. At 6am. And still eat super healthy stuff. No carbs. Or booze.’

I wore Spanx and a maxi-dress to the last wedding I attended. There is no hope.

Yeah, I’m so done with soup.

Soup is for old people who can’t chew solids. Soup, when foisted upon you at a dinner party or something, is just about bearable when served with a hot, crusty roll and lashings of butter. But even then it’s superfluous to the bread and the spread. In conclusion, I hate soup.

Sick people tend to crave – correction, demand – soup when they’re unwell though. Take Ed... I’d been successfully dating Ed for a few months when he started to develop a serious case of the sniffles down the pub one Friday night. Of course, being all loved-up at the time, I thought his pouty, congested grumblings were adorable and so, taking him home for some tlc, plied him with sympathy and brandy (I’m a great believer, as is granny, that it’s best to drink through these things).

Come Saturday, his sniffles had turned into sneezes. In hindsight, I should have turfed him out at this point – not coz I’m some cold-hearted bitch (well, that too). But because there’s nothing quite like seeing the man you supposedly love all sweaty and sick, surrounded by used tissues, snot streaming from that snooter of his, which he just won’t stop bloody blowing and disgustingly dabbing with yet more tissues that he discards anywhere but the bin, to kill the passion in a relationship.

Seriously. Eeugh! Good on you if you’re a natural nurse. Or one of those weird couples who go to the loo in front of each another (ie, have no shame). If you welcome your man to your hospital bedside to watch – maybe even film – you squeezing something the size of a cantaloupe melon out your vagina, with all that mucus and mess, when you give birth. And you still find each other sexually attractive? Not for me, thanks. I find it difficult enough to accept someone could fancy me, with an arse the size of mine, when I’m feeling my best. Let alone when they’re having to wipe it when I’m ailing or elderly. I’d rather crawl away, somewhere quiet and dark... To die. Alone. Like an old dog.

But Ed? He was like a puppy with a poor sore paw at this stage. So I tucked him under a duvet on my sofa and fed him Nurofen Cold & Flu every four hours. Fetched him orange juice. Stroked his hair. Played nursey. By tea time, he barked for some soup – tomato soup, to be specific – to soothe his poor sore throat and fill him with vitamins to make him all better. I was only too happy to oblige. Funny what love does to you, isn’t it?

But, to paraphrase from Meat Loaf, I would do anything for love, but I won’t make soup, such is my hatred for the slop. So I instead popped to the shops for some good old Covent Garden Plum Tomato & Basil soup. It was then that I discovered my trusty cheese and chive rolls, which I try to keep stocked in my freezer, are the perfect accompaniment to tomato soup.

Next post: recipe and conclusion...

Illustration by Bex Barrow.

POST 2, PART I: HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS IN THE MORNING?

Actually, I’m way too much of a coward to cook eggs for someone I’m attempting to impress. Boiled or fried, I have a knack for cocking up the apparently foolproof tasking of cooking an egg. Scrambled is always over-cooked. Soft-boiled is hardboiled. Fried ditto. Omelettes – see scrambled.

Poached is by far the worst. I’ve tried all the tricks – shallow pan versus deep saucepan of water, a dash of vinegar and/or swirling the liquid around before dropping the egg in. Whatever, I wind up with the white parting company with the yolk, leaving me fishing for a lonely yellow ball amidst the froth of white that I just know I’m gonna burst before I get it on my toast.

What is the secret to successfully poaching an egg?! Answers on a postcard please...

Still, the song seemed kind of apt... But my staple boyfriend breakfast is, in fact, the bacon sandwich. Now, while I believe a bona fide bacon sarnie should be made with perfectly fresh white bread – with that pleasingly crisp crust and preferably still slightly warm from the baker’s oven – if you’re buying the constituent parts the day before (as this is the morning after, remember) you are better off, in my humble opinion, investing in a nice, sliced brown bread. Something malted and seeded. Not just boring wholemeal.

A risky move, you might think – but hear me out...

The unusual choice of brown bread, you see, allows you to conduct a crucial boyfriend test – a little something I like to call The Bacon Sandwich Test. I developed this a few years ago when I was dating someone I can only loosely describe as a ‘man’ a couple of years younger than myself – well, four to be precise. ‘Getting some cash back’ as a mate of mine calls it. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, so I’ll refer to him as ‘Don’. (But as he’s not that innocent, I will tell you that ‘Don’ is only one vowel away from this real name. And since no one is called ‘Den’, ‘Din’ or ‘Dun’, you will doubtless deduce that his name is ‘Dan’. Well done, Sherlock.)

Now, I knew full-well Don, 24, was immature – that was a given. Boys lag a few years behind us girls, so I figured he’d be around the 19- or 20-mark in female years. I had my reservations, but I think I’d recently read a magazine article in the hairdressers – let’s blame Cosmo – about how refreshing and baggage-free younger men are. And I must admit I liked the idea of training someone up to suit my specific requirements. So when he asked me out after what I’d chalked up as yet another ill-advised one-night-stand, I decided to give him a go.

However, I soon started to suspect Don was especially childish. The fact that he didn’t have a bed when we first met was a dead giveaway, in hindsight. Just a broken futon, a duvet with no cover and an old sleeping bag. I really don’t know what I was thinking. Standards, Amy! Standards! There were also the World of Warcraft sessions that lasted late into the night (though not while I was there, I hasten to add). His grotty bathroom that never seemed to be stocked with items such as toilet roll, soap or towels. Oh, and the shower didn’t work either. Not that this bothered him, because personal hygiene is overrated. He was in a band, too. Yawn.

And then there was the food thing. I want to say he ate like a baby, but that’s not quite true. He liked to please me by taking me to fancy-ish restaurants and trying new things, but I suppose, to my mind, he put food together in a totally random and unrefined way. But what bugged me about this was the ballsy way he’d pass off his God-awful creations and combos as delicious and superior, subjecting me during the course of our five-month relationship to some of the worst meals I’ve ever ingested. In short, he believed he was a better cook and foodie than me, the cocky little sod.

This was war.

Cooking is my thing, see. It’s what I quite literally bring to the table. And, in this case, I’d clearly demonstrated to Don, time after time, that I’m a kick-ass cook while he, on the other hand, was not. But rather than roll over and accept defeat, dear obstinate Don kept on cooking for me. I can chart our relationship’s demise through three truly hideous meals he made for me, all of which I’ll share with you some day. But, for now, here’s by far the best/worst...

I turned up to Don’s one week night after work, tired and hungry. I’d been bugging him about what he planned to cook as the last time he’d had the genius idea of making lasagne, from scratch, at 7pm on a Wednesday... Which we didn’t eat until gone 11pm, and even then the pasta was still crunchy. But he was insistent it was a surprise. His treat.

“You can help me get it ready,” he told me on arrival. ‘Geez, thanks’, I thought, wondering why we couldn’t just get a takeaway if that was the case. “I’m making chilli prawns with mango and red onion salsa,” he boasted as I rolled up my sleeves.

Red onion..? For two people with a passing interest in kissing later on..? R-i-g-h-t... Another fine choice, Don. He gathered his ingredients – a packet of pre-cooked prawns and, um, that was about it. “I couldn’t get a mango,” he muttered. “Or a red onion,” he added, passing me an ordinary onion. An ordinary onion? There. Are. No. Words. Any rational person would have abandoned this recipe when they realised the shop was all out of mangos. But not our Don, no. Here was a man happy to chow down on raw – raw!­ – onion rather than admit he was a total halfwit when it came to cooking.

“So you’re planning on serving us pre-cooked prawns with some raw, white onion?” “Yeah.” “Raw onion?” “Yeah. It’s the same. They’re just different colours. They’re the same thing.” “No, they’re really not. You’re seriously telling me you’re going to eat raw onion? Really..? Where’s the chilli?” He presented me with some chilli powder. I scowled. “Maybe we could fry the onion?” he offered.

At which point I stormed to Tesco for a pizza. And that, boys and girls, was the last time Don was allowed to cook for me.

As I have spectacularly failed to get to the bleedin’ point, I will have to tell you how Don fared in the bacon sandwich test in my next post. And I also promise to put up a proper breakfast recipe for my favourite smoothie as my random thoughts on bacon sandwiches really don’t count. Sorry!

Next post: recipe and conclusion...