5 things I eat as an adult that I wouldn’t touch as a child

As I sat eating my fish, chips and mushy peas on Friday night, I had a flashback to being about 6 years old and sitting in the school dinner hall while a boy from my class flashed a luminescent green grin full of mushy peas. I’m not sure if that was the point at which I decided I didn’t like them, but it sticks in my head as the reason, for many many years, I always told people that I didn’t eat mushy peas. Everything about them seemed wrong to me – the colour (why were they so bright?!), the texture (so sloppy) and just the very concept.

Mushy peas

Fast forward to probably as recently as last year, and the husband assured me that I was missing out. So, one night, I had a taste and he was right! I really liked the flavour. The texture, which I had been so against, was the perfect accompaniment for fish and chips and, was it just me or did they look less nuclear green too?

What changed? Was it my tastebuds? My perception? My greedy approach to life and fear of missing out?!

Here are some more things I wouldn’t eat as a kid, but have big love for now.

Parsnips

Probably my most favourite meal in the whole wide world is my Mom’s beef stew and dumplings, with boiled potatoes, lashings of Worcestershire sauce and fresh white bread for mopping up the gravy (mouth actually watering). When I was little, my Dad used to like parsnips in it. I hated parsnips. They were too perfumed and spoilt my favourite dinner. Taking the parsnips out of my bowl of food wasn’t good enough, I could still taste them! And heaven forbid they appear on a roast dinner!

Parsnips

These days I’m all for parsnips. My Mom doesn’t put them in stew, but that’s because other family members don’t like them. I’d wolf them down! Roast parsnips are an integral part of a roast dinner, and I’ve been known to make and eat parsnip mash in the past too (it’s nice on top of a shepherd’s pie). Beautiful.

Tomatoes

Even getting a tomato seed on my hand used to freak me out, and they always tasted so bitter and wrong. I would only have tinned tomato juice on my English breakfast, not any of the tinned tomatoes.

Tomatoes

Now tomato is an integral part of a good salad (especially sweet cherry tomatoes), delicious when it’s the tinned variety and a welcome addition to a juicy burger.

Gherkins

Going to McDonalds always involved opening the burger, removing the top bun and fishing out the gherkins to be thrown away. It could be a messy business in a cheeseburger or Big Mac, feeling about in the sauce for the offending critters.

Sliced gherkins

I think the turning point must have been when I’d forgotten to take it off one time and wasn’t offended by it. Now I love pickles on a burger, and my go to Subway sandwich always has a generous handful on top.

Black pudding

I used to watch my Nan cooking black pudding for my Grandad’s greasy fry up breakfast and wonder why on earth anyone would want to eat it. It’s pigs blood and fat, for goodness sake! Then, at a wedding a few years back, the starter included of small pieces of black pudding, which I ate to be polite and found out I really liked.

Black pudding

It can be over powering, so best in small quantities, but is a REALLY good accompaniment as a burger topping, and also works well when dry fried on a none greasy full English breakfast.

How about you? Have your tastebuds changed over the years? Are there things you eat now that you hated when you were younger, or the reverse? Let me know in the comments!

Thanks, as always, for reading. x

Eating away temptation

I’m not the kind of person who has much willpower.

Or, mostly, any willpower. I cave incredibly easily in the face of temptation. It’s not one of my better traits.

I can resist everything except temptation

So, while I stated that I was ready to be eating lighter meals in my previous post, it seems I’m not ready to give up the junk just yet. Purely because it’s there.

Plus it seems so ungrateful to waste it! Some of the tasty treats still lingering around were part of our annual goody bag from my Mother in Law, and you can’t throw away gifts now can you?

Therefore the best course of actions seems to be to dispose of them in other ways. Remove temptation. Eat them. Well, if it’s good enough for Oscar Wilde…

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it

Which is why I ate most of a toblerone on Monday night. A large one. And why I ate a whole bag of Wispa bites last night (not all in one go, if that makes things any better?)

It’s also how I discovered that Original flavour Pringles smothered in Whole Earth crunchy peanut butter is delish.

Somebody stop me!

On the plus side it’s mostly all gone now. Phew!

Unless I start on the husband’s Ferrero Rocher…

Is anyone else struggling to shake off the holiday gluttony?

Thanks, as always, for reading! x

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels…

…er, except it does.

About 3 years ago, in preparation for my holiday to LA, I decided I wanted to lose weight. So for about 3 months I did the SlimFast diet, I cut out drinking in the week, I upped my exercise. And I used that phrase in my head when temptation hit me; imagining myself swanning around LA being a skinny mini and happier than ever.

I did lose weight. But it was probably disproportionate to the effort I put in. Some days I was exercising twice a day. I was having a liquid breakfast and lunch. And in 3 months I only shifted about a stone.

The truth is I just don’t lose weight that easily.

On the plus side I don’t put it on that easily either. With the amount I eat and drink I should be a lot porkier.

Case in point, you may remember a couple of weeks back I talked about exercising. Well I rejoined the gym, and have been doing cardio and weights, and the scales said I’d put two pounds on! (I know I shouldn’t be governed by the scales, but it’s engrained in all women, no?)

Now I haven’t been to the gym for a week, and I had takeaway on Friday, burger at the festival on Saturday, roast dinner at the pub on Sunday, Thai food on Monday, carbs on Tuesday and curry on Wednesday, all washed down with copious amounts of wine and vodka, and those two pounds have disappeared.

WTF?

Does this tell me that eating out is good for me? (if there were a God that would be true!) Is my own home cooked healthy food making me gain weight? (I can see that going down well as a reason I don’t cook anymore!)

It’s definitely more difficult to lose weight as you get older (for most people). It’s also harder to lose weight when you have a foodie partner in crime and very little willpower.

But the main reason it’s difficult to lose weight is that food is fantastic. I mean, really really good. Like, daydreamworthy good. I bet you could think of something, right now, that would make your mouth water. In my case I can think of many things.

Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels

And life’s too short to deprive yourself.

So I will keep up the exercise and try to cut down on wine.

But that half a stone I wanted to lose before Italy? I might just have to take it with me after all…