Here's a rant I made earlier.

Why in heavens name do some people insist on telling you everything they did to the food you are eating!  If I sit down to a meal I want to chat and perhaps comment on its deliciousness, discuss it maybe for a moment or two, but then move on to the next subject. But my husband won't let go of his captive audience and bores us all to tears with his trip to the kitchen.  You only have to give him an inch and there he is telling us about how he chopped the coriander and made an effort to dice the red onion particularly small.  Please Stop! His food is good, we all love eating it but don’t take the enjoyment away from us, by prattling on.  The kids of course think he’s funny and it’s funny that I get so cross.  But I suppose the plain truth is, is that I am jealous.  How dare he produce good food in my kitchen especially when he only cooks once in a blue moon.  Typical man.

My New Gadget

Today I got a metal potato ricer which, just in case your wondering, is the best thing since sliced bread!  I am loving it.  Now I too can have silken potatoes and no longer will the mash that I envy so much be only the domain of others. 

Of course given it is only my first time using it, (not that you'd think it should be difficult) I managed to under cook my potatoes and so have ended up with slightly grainy mash.  Perhaps some more butter/milk/cream will sort it.  But not to worry, I'll get it right next time.

An Empty Fridge

I have just been reading Trish Deseine's blog 'Feeding my World' and she was talking about getting your kids used to seeing an empty fridge, unfortunately mine are only all too used to it.  And the reason is this, I plan ahead with weekly meal plans.  As organised as it might seem, the fridge only looks full for so long and not as long as you might think.  I do my best not to buy too much quick gratification food stuffs.  Firstly because they are expensive and secondly because they never last long - hence quick gratification.  Although the kids tend to kibosh me regularly with demands for crisps, I try to ignore their pleas but even I know what simple pleasure a packet of crisps can give you!  

As always with me its onwards and upwards and so I am trying to teach myself to be a better cook.  I can't afford an intensive year long course as much as I would love it.  I have an awful lot of cookbooks on a variety of topics and my thinking is, if I have to make thing's from scratch then my understanding will be greater and hopefully my food will taste better.  Thanks to Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking my chicken stock is knockout and a brilliant base for my soups and sauces.  Last weekend I got 5 chicken carcass's from the butcher for 50p, so there really is no excuse.  I don't add any salt into the stock base as advised by Darina, enough will get added in later.  A good vegi option is Kerstin Rodgers vegetable stock from her Supper Club cook book.  She adds in garlic cloves which I think raises the stock up a level.

 Homemade chicken stock

Too Chicken?

Happy New Year to one and all.  I haven't been in the mood to write for a while, Christmas had me cream crackered what with driving to Ireland to collect my mother, stopping off at my friends house in Kildare for a catch up drink which never ends that well for my head but I always enjoy.  Then driving back to London again.  Obviously not all in the same day but still, its tiring.

Yesterday I got a call from a chap up the road who was going shooting and wondered if I would like a bird once the day was over.  Even though I agree that it is wrong to kill a bird for sport and then not eat it, I did have difficulty with the fact that I would have to pluck the thing and I think that that was a bridge too far for me.  On this years Masterchef they had to pluck a pigeon prior to trussing it and how badly some of them did it was just upsetting!  I wouldn't want to do a disservice to the creature.  By the end of the conversation it was agreed that if the butcher took a few from him I would pay to have it plucked and the innards taken out.  So as it turns out I am too chicken to pluck a bird!

Scandilicious Krumkaker

An afternoon of making and baking - now what to make?  Scandilicious has a recipe for Norwegian Kurmkaker (cornets)  I think. I had a look to see what a cornet iron looked like, for some reason thinking it would look something like a clothes iron but longer.  It doesn't.  Rather it is an electric round press, more like a Tortilla Press.

I have been holding off making these cornets, as I couldn't be bothered to make the template.  I wrongly assumed it would take more time than the 2 minutes it actually did.  They turned out really well and taste really good although it did take me a couple of goes to get the shape going.  Now I can impress the Norwegian lot - well the kids mainly - when I see them again in the new year.

 Template and batter discs prior to cooking.

Disc's prior to rolling - if you don't do it when hot they crack as they roll.

 Finished cornets with homemade blackberry icecream, not too bad for a first go.

The Lighthouse Bakery

What a trip.  I got lost twice and it took me over an hour more than I had anticipated to get there.  Got myself into such a state I was actually screaming in the car at my own stupidity - I haven't done that before!  When I did finally arrive they had only just finished their talk about breads and the practical bit was starting.

We were taught by the lovely Liz.  She had a good way with people and had everyone at their ease very quickly getting everyone smiling and chatting.  All the starters had been made that morning, at about 2am or something ridiculous, and were ready for us to use in our wonderful bread creations.  I learnt how to get a tight form for my dough and actually its the dough I should spray to get a nice crust on my bread hence, I am not going to bother spraying the inside of the oven again.

Lunch was a great mushroom risotto with our first batch of bread rolls and salad for lunch.
We left with enough bread to feed an army.  I think we came away with 6 types of bread each, a cottage loaf, wholemeal loaf, epis, baguette, caraway loaf and some other loaf which I can't remember the name of.
I do feel like I bought the shop out, but I had only bought what I felt I needed and no more, a (very heavy) baking stone, a lame (a handled razor blade to slash the dough), a lined proving basket and couches.  It was great fun and I feel like my bread will be improved, so now all I have to do is put it all into practice. 

 A selection of loaves

Liz with our cottage loaves

Once I got home and showed off my breads to the fam.  The girl ate the epis, a baguette which has been snipped and twisted prior to baking to look like a shaft of wheat.  With the baguette I made a quick sandwich for myself and the hubby with fried off cured ham, tomatoes, onions, thinly sliced red pepper and drizzled with olive oil not forgetting the seasoning.  I toasted the slices of bread on the griddle & rubbed on some garlic clove.  To give it some heat I smeared on some of my homemade hot chilli jam - not too much, its hot stuff. And wha-la a very delicious end of day fix.  Although, not quite enough to fill the hubby, who then proceeded to have some of the wholemeal bread with smoked salmon as a chaser.  Needless to say lots of bread left over and to the freezer it shall go.

Carb on Carb

Just a quickie - yesterday I was so hungry that I knew just eating Spaghetti Bolongnaise wouldn't fill me.  It had to be made into a sandwich.  Nothing fancy just plain bread and butter, but boy was it delicious and filling.

I had already eaten the first before I took a breath to take a picture.

Yum, yum, in my tum!!