I had a quick scud through my Nibblous favourites this morning for some ideas, and decided on Balsamic Duck with Cep Lentils. We have all the ingredients in – the duck breasts were in the outside freezer. And when I went out to this frost free upright freezer, I was met with a sheet of…
Tag: disaster
must. pay. attention.
I prepped a big pot of goulash last evening, and left it in the oven on very low to cook overnight. This plan is fine, except you wake up tormented by ghoulash dreams, due to the smell wafting up the stairs. When I fetched it out of the oven, I had put not enough salt…
pastry …
Pastry and I … we don’t get on. At all. I can barely manage with bought pastry, and if I try to make it myself it’s a disaster. I’ve tried everything – food processor, mixer, by hand. It all goes grey and shrinks, and is as unappetising as you might imagine. I’ve been hunting for…
dude! where's the cheese?
Bought some nice fresh basil at the weekend. This week is busy, busy, busy with deadlines, and we’re both tired. So we decided to have a simple supper last night – pasta with mozarella, olive oil, and the aforementioned basil. The discussion was had about what sort of pasta – we plumped for standard spaghetti…
victoria sponge redux
Well, I tried it again. I used the right size tins, I checked that the oven was the right temperature with a thermometer, I even softened the butter Just In Case. And still, my cake was more like a biscuit. An uncooked biscuit at that. My sponge making days are over. Gloom.
I've never been much cop at baking
But for some reason, in the past week or so I’ve been making some cakey things. I started with carrot and cinnamon muffins (delicious), then did some espresso flavoured cup cakes (also delicious). Then, fired up with confidence, I decided to make a sponge. A SPONGE. How hard can it be?, I asked myself. I…
outdated
Being tired and hungry, we thought we’d have some porridge this morning, so I found the box with the oats in, and bunged the requisite amounts of them, the milk and the water into a bowl, and placed it in the microwave. And only then noticed that the bag said “best before April 03”. How…
alas, poor spoon
Some years ago, we had a lovely wooden spoon – it had a thin head and a long handle, and when I wanted that spoon, it was exactly the right spoon. One day the handle split; Pete mended it with sticky stuff, but it was never the same, and it broke again – with great…
christmas cake eggstravanza
Originally posted in my LiveJournal 19 dec 2005 So … I weighed out the ground almonds, the whole nuts (whizzed briefly in the food processor), the mixed tropical fruit, the sultanas, the blueberries and cranberries, the dried apricots. I rummaged in the back of the cupboard for Cointreau and Amaretto. I beat 225g of butter…