Thank you Mike for giving me crabs

Sorry, I couldn't resist the infantile humour. This weekend our friend Mike gave us a big bucket of blue crabs. Thanks Mike! We boiled, cleaned and ate some of them right away, which I recommend is what you SHOULD do with them. But with the rest, I put myself through the agony of cooking them, scooping out all the meat and using it to make Thai crab noodles. They were delicious but if you're lazy and want to make this recipe I suggest you buy canned crab meat and get four hours of your life back. If someone gives you fresh crabs just boil the little buggers and suck the meat out.

Ingredients:

10 blue crabs, lots of patience and about four hours

OR

2 cans of white crab meat

1 pack of rice noodles (glass noodles are best but any other thin-ish rice noodles will do)

3 sticks celery

1 large bunch coriander

1 big red chilli

For the dressing:

3 tbspns lime juice

3 tbspns fish sauce

2 tbspns brown sugar

pinch of ground cumin

2 tbspns sesame oil

Now if you're like me and decided to take the laborious route and make it with fresh crab you first need to get the crab meat:

1. Boil a large pan of salted water and say goodbye to your tasty looking wriggling friends

2. Chuck all the live crabs into the water being careful to pick them up from behind to avoid getting pinched - those claws are brutal!

3. Boil them for about 8 minutes then plunge them into iced water to help release the flesh inside from the shell

4. Clean the crabs by washing the outsides then put a sturdy knife into the back just under the top of the shell and lever it off. Take out the grey gills at the sides and rinse out the yellowy insides until the white flesh is clean (be warned, your sink will get full of some pretty gruesome contents!)

5. Using whatever implements you can, scoop the flesh out of the claws and the body (easier to do if you snap off the claws then snap the body in half to get to the meat)

Those of you smart enough to use canned crab meat can start the recipe here:

6. Drain any excess liquid off the crab meat and cook your noodles according to the instructions. Rinse the noodles under the tap until they are cold and drain them well. You should even use some kitchen paper to absorb any remaining  water otherwise you will end up with very sloppy noodles with watered down flavour to your dressing.

7. Finely chop the celery, coriander and chilli and combine in a large bowl with the crab and noodles

8. Shake all your dressing ingredients together until the sugar has fully dissolved and pour over the salad. 

If you're not starving hungry (as you may be if you've stood over a sink full of crabs all afternoon) leave the salad in the fridge for a few hours for the flavours to mature.

You don't often see fat Japanese people.

So, I'm going on our belated honeymoon in four weeks time to Belize. I'm very excited about it because it's one of the best diving destinations in the world and the places we're staying are tiny resorts with very few people and dinner seems to consist of whatever they've pulled out of the sea that day. Can't think of a better way to spend ten days. And I'm hoping I'll come back with some interesting culinary influences to play with too. But I digress, the reason I mention the honeymoon is not to be smug, but instead to explain that I am currently living in the hell of needing to be in a bikini in four weeks with the weighing scales telling me I've gained about 10 pounds since the wedding. Couple that with a diving holiday where I need to squeeze myself into skin-tight neoprene twice a day every day and I am straight into panic diet mode. So, my thighs are burning from the run I went on yesterday and I'm weighing myself compulsively as though one day the scales will just turn around and say "oh, ok, I'll give you a break - here you go, you actually weigh ten pounds LESS and will look like Ursula Andres in a week's time".  Since that isn't going to happen, sadly I need to do it the old fashioned way - calories in needs to be considerably less than calories out. I love food too much to ever go for typical diet foods, especially the artifical ones (fat free chocolate? What's the point?!) so I have a few staples I go to that I know taste good, are healthy and don't take forever to make and this is one of them.

I love Japanese food and it's really healthy so this Japanese rice bowl dish is a winner with me. I always make too much so I can take the leftovers to work for lunch the next day because this is equally delicious cold as it is warm. My camera lens is buggered at the moment so no photos but I'm sure you'll cope.

Serves 4
Ingredients:
2 cups of Sushi rice
4 tbspns Sushi vinegar
2 tbspns black sesame seeds
1 head of Broccolli
1 pack of crabsticks, chopped (or a large handful of prawns, or 2 smoked peppered mackerel fillets, chopped)
Japanese rice seasoning (usually comes in jars of various flavours to sprinkle on dishes - optional)

1. Rinse the sushi rice thoroughly in a colander until the water runs clear then put it in a non-stick pan with three cups of cold water
2. Chop the broccolli into bite-sized florets and put it in a steamer that will fit over the rice pan
3. Bring the rice pan to the boil then turn down to a simmer, cover with the steamer full of broccolli and simmer for 10 minutes.
4. The rice should have fluffed up, all the water should have cooked off and a slightly crispy skin should be forming on the bottom of the pan. If this is the case then turn off the heat, stir in the sushi vinegar and lay a folded tea towel over the pan with the lid on top for five to ten minutes.
5. put all the other ingredients into a large bowl and mix them together, then when the rice has finished standing, stir this in as well.

Bingo - healthy, quick and delicious.

Over indulgence is the way forwards...

...or the way towards a larger pair of jeans and certain depression when you catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror in underwear. Either way I'm going to share one last horribly calorific treat with you before I commence a regime of lettuce and self-flagellation. And these little delights are designed for parties so perhaps you can get a crowd round for a nice salad and some group-torture on the Wii Fit and then serve these for dessert? Marvellous.

Individual Tiramisu

Makes 12

Ingredients:

1 pack of chocolate cups (if you can't find these you could probably just serve them in mini tin foil muffin cups but you would want to grate chcolate into each layer if you did that)

3 tbspns cream cheese

8 tbspns double cream

1 tbspn icing sugar

A handful of Ameretti biscuits

1 tspn of instant coffee in three tablespoons of boiling water OR 1 espresso

3 tbspns of Cointreau or Grand Marnier

Grated chocolate to serve (optional)

Instructions:

1. Beat the cream cheese, icing sugar and cream together until it forms stiff peaks.

2. Crumble up the Amarettis into small pieces

3. Allow the coffee mixture/ espresso to cool then combine with the Cointreau/ Grand Marnier

4. Layer the ingredients into the cups as follows: Amarettis: liqueur & coffee mix: cream mix: Amarettis: liqueur & coffee mix: cream mix

5. Top with Amarettis or grated chocolate and serve to be eaten whole

And I promise to share something healthy next.