Welsh Cawl

It has been a week or so since my last blog. Sorry about that, but the half-term week has been spent on a very wet and windy campsite in Pembrokeshire, no mobile connection, definitely no internet, and to add insult to injury, no showers. However, if you are going to camp, you may as well do it properly and get "away from it all". Pembrokeshire is a very beautiful place, even in the rain....

My running has taken a nose-dive over the past week also. I had had romantic plans of doing my 12 mile training run along the Pembrokeshire coastal path in my new Salomon shoes, but I could not face returning to a damp tent, soaked through the the skin, tired and windswept with no hot bath in which to recover and my shoes still have not arrived because they are completely out of stock of my size. A hardy walk with the kids, finishing in the cosy local pub for a bowl of Cawl was much more enticing. Cawl is a delicious traditional welsh soup/stew, made with best end of lamb or shin of beef , leeks and other root vegetables, guaranteed to warm the cockles after being out in the wild welsh weather. I think it is the sort of dish for which every welsh housewife has her secret recipe, but I have just found a fun blog recipe for cawl with recipes from a local welsh WI cawl supper meeting- see distractedhousewife.blogspot.com/2008/03/dydd... for some ideas. If I had done my run, I think this soup would have been a perfect recovery dish...

We have also had plenty of fresh mackerel, which I reckon to be one of the most healthy fish around, packed with omega-3 fatty acids for a healthy heart, brain, skin, eyes, the list goes on and on. It is just so delicious eaten plain, straight from the grill or barbecue. We ate some like this one pleasant evening when we didn't have to resort to the pub, with chunks of fresh bread and some salad. Then I bought some more when we got home (from my fish man Barry) which we ate with lemon and parsley, jersey new potatoes and broccoli. It is most certainly the kids favorite fish of the month. It is cheap and very good brain food as well to help them with their end of year exams!