Phew we've been busy dashing here and there, staying up much too late and then getting up at the crack of dawn. Eating too many take-aways (again) and then trying to compensate with wholesome home cooked food. AlI good but tiring, and I blame the camera, not the take-aways for adding the extra pounds...Oh and my icelandic lopi sweater, it genuinly does make me look like a teddy bear (and, I had another big woolly sweater on underneath.) It may be cosy for egg collecting but It's not the outfit that I would choose to be photographed in...
I baked the first cake in our new oven with local eggs collected from friendly neighbours...I couldn't put off making this one...It was Hannah's graduation cake. Thankfully it turned out perfectly so no excuse for making more. She asked for Mary Berry's marble cake which is a nice easy foolproof one.
We spent a chilly day-off, with her in Bristol, walking by the river, crossing Brunel's suspension bridge, admiring the amazing local architecture, rooting around interesting little shops here and unsuccessfully trying to spot Banksys. Back to hers for blankets and hot chocolate. Waited for boyfriend to get back from uni and then very late drive to London, arriving in the wee small hours to wake very early for her graduation...(I'll share more later) Fun with friends and family actually managing to catch up with one of my sisters here. We had coffee and amazing cake here and awesome soup and olive bread somewhere else but too I was too busy talking to notice where and my memory stick was full...
...good days...
and in my kitchen:
- Mary Berry's Chocolate and Vanilla Marble cake...very easy to make. The basic recipe is an all-in-one batter. That you then divide into two halves, adding chocolate to one half, leaving the other plain vanilla. You then alternatively pour some of the vanilla batter followed by some of the chocolate into a prepared baking pan until it's all used up. Once baked you decorate with an easy chocolate icing and finally drizzle with melted white chocolate. You can see that cake icing is not exactly my forte. I was more than a little heavy handed with the white chocolate...But it did taste amazing. Shame there's non left...
- These spare ribs with a few adaptations. I successfully substituted the soy sauce with teriyaki sauce (because I hadn't got any soy left) and honey with maple syrup. Ahmad who I would consider to be a spare rib connoisseur, having consumed a great number in his life, declared these to be the best ones he had ever tasted. He even asked if I could make the sauce to have with fish the following day...If you knew how little Ahmad actually likes fish you would understand just how highly he rated it...I didn't try it...just made it, but sounds like it might be worth trying.
- Lemon and garlic roasted potatoes with mackerel and spring greens. I've been making a lot of these cheating roasted potatoes with chicken or fish recently. Rather than the slow process of peeling, halving, par-boiling, draining and then roasting; I buying small waxy salad variety. Wash them well and placed in a roasting tin leaving the skins in tact. Cutting up any larger ones into thick slices so that they are approximately equal size to the smaller whole ones. I add one or two lemons cutting them into eighths plus lots of cloves of garlic left in their papery skins, and a small red onion or two similarly divided. I then drizzle them with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and any herbs I have at hand. Fresh basil or thyme are lovely. I may pop in some other vegetables and chicken portions or fish either from the beginning of the roasting time or towards the end depending on the size of the portion. (I normally put the chicken portions in at the same time as the potatoes and the fish after half an hour. I have the oven on a high heat for a few minutes just to get the meat sizzling and then turn down to a moderate heat for the remaining half or three quarters of an hour.) In less than an hour you have a one-dish-supper. The resulting little mouthfuls of potato have roasted outsides but are soft and unctuous inside. The olive oil, lemon, garlic and herbs make a yummy sauce that you can pour off and serve with it, or just spoon over when dishing up. The chicken or fish are moist but have that lovely golden skins. This is a great quick supper than needs very little preparation and even less washing up! Don't forget to check that all the juices are running clear before serving if cooking chicken.
- Cooking in unison...Turkey meatballs with a chunky sweet pepper (capsicum) sauce and spaghetti and chard (me) and Fiery Chilli Mince Beef (ahmad)
...wonder if I've got time to make another cake tonight...it's definitely the jumper and not me...
