Filling the Pit

Your legs feel hollow and you find yourself fighting to maintain a smile. No, it is not your best friend announcing that she is pregnant - and the simultaneous feelings of joy for her and devastation that it is not you - it is the offer of a take away! Yes, you are knackered and yearning the Singapore noodles, but you have embarked on the serious fertility regime so you really should work out what to do with half a swede and the sad looking carrots that are all that are left from this week's organic veg box .

The answer seems to be in the food, so you plan an organic, wholefood diet, avoiding additives, preservatives and chemicals and your cupboards are bulging with B vitamins zinc and folic acid. I love one comment that says "Realise, too, that a diet rich in healthy carbohydrates is important to maintain energy for couples trying to conceive". Yes, never forget the bedroom athletics.

As we slim down and get fit for conception it occurred to me the big difference in the different phases of fertility - the jump between your period being met with relief and with doom. As a single woman about town if you eat it is at the lovely organic gastro pub and your diet is fuelled with fruit (power fruit juices a.k.a vodka and orange) and you are beautifully trim from the stiletto dash and that ill advised all night clubbing session before you were due to work overtime on Saturday. As for sex - well if you are inspired by your fertility cycle than your new mate, this may not be the man for you. No wonder you seem more fertile at this inopportune time. When you have settled down you are living with a man so have nights in and, just to please him, you have cake and biscuits in the cupboard; you stop being a sex goddess and slowly look homely (or worse cuddly). Help! Fertility diet is needed even if it is just to get into those gorgeous jeans.


I love my veg box, it is a mental puzzle towards the end of the week. A curry or a soup can finish off must combinations, but every once in a while a fridge clear out can be a triumph. My broad bean burgers were the success of this season:

Broad Bean Burgers
Steam broad beans then slip them out of their outer membrane (if they are young don;t worry). Meanwhile saute a finely chopped onion, after a few minutes add some chopped mushrooms.
Roughly mash the broad beans in a mixing, then add the mushroom mix (but don't wash up the yet). Add a little crumbled feta and an egg. Mix all in together.

Form into small burger shapes and return to the frying pan and cook on a medium heat until the egg is cooked through.

You can serve in a flour tortilla or wrap with grated carrot and a little sweet chili sauce.
Serve with a kiss and enjoy!
Sit back, feel smug the veg box is empty ahead of tomorrow's delivery.