I’ve been listening to these two albums recently:
Lucky Uke is a collection of rock classics played on ukeleles. The Bad Shepherds do punk classics adapted to the folk style. The latter is fronted by Ade Edmondson, one of my childhood heroes due to the genius that is Bottom. He hasn’t got a bad voice actually.
If I listen to the radio, it’s generally Radio 4. But I’ve been listening to Radio 2, due to it being left on for my in-laws’ budgie, and I’ve liked some of it. So I had it on in the car on Wednesday night and I listened to Mike Harding’s show. I loved it! I wouldn’t have expected that I’d like folk, roots and acoustic but apparently I do. I listened to some of The Radcliffe and Maconie Show afterwards which I also enjoyed. It was good to hear Noddy Holder on the radio, if only to hear a Wolves accent on the wireless. Decent music too.
Went to see Chris Addison at The Junction last night. We sat right at the front, which was maybe a bit close as you had to look up at him and he was really tall. He was sharp and very fast. I was impressed enough by him that I’ll be seeking out The Thick of It. He’s just a few years older than I am so I identified with a lot of what he said. He looks so young though for nearly 39! He made plenty of jokes poking fun at the middle class, in which he counts himself, which I rather enjoyed. The main message I took from his act – and I quite like comedy with a message as long as it’s not too preachy – is that we do moan too much; there’s never been a better time to be alive.
Amazing story:
I like watching Nigella on TV. I’m aware that she’s unbearably posh and her smiles are too forced and too many but there’s still something about the show that does make me more inclined to go and cook something. It could be the fantasy of having a kitchen like hers that keeps me tuning in. Last night’s episode contained some very odd recipe choices. Like Grasshopper Pie. Just looking at the recipe makes me feel a bit queasy. Then there was Spaghetti with Marmite, which as both a Marmite and pasta fan am sure is great but it’s not really what I want to my TV chefs to do. I want them to inspire me and teach me new things. I don’t want to hear about something that I’ve probably already seen in this:
I really like Richard Herring. This episode moved me to request that Mr W sport a Hitler moustache. He declined.
Mr W is partial to dessert so tonight I indulged him. We had some sweet wine left which is horrible for drinking
so I used it to poach some peeled, quartered and cored pears, along with butter, sugar, ground cinnamon and a dash of lemon juice. The pear was then removed from the liquid which was left simmering to thicken.
The sweet pastry was taken from a chocolate tart recipe that I used in July. Back then I battled with rolling out the pastry for hours because it tore so easily. Tonight I cheated; I rolled out small pieces of pastry and simply patched them together in the orange silicon pie dish. It worked much better than I expected, though I did overcook the pastry slightly during blind baking. After the pastry case had cooled the poached pear segments were arranged in the case and the concentrated winey syrup poured over:
On cutting into slices the liquid escaped a little but no matter. I served each slice with a generous mound of whipped double cream:
22 Apr 2012
Poached some pears and found that 200g caster sugar for 4 pears is enough.
3 Mar 2013
I made the original recipe chocolate tart a few months ago and found that, when blind baking, some of the pastry came away on the naked baking parchment. This time I buttered the baking parchment but it still happened. I’ve just watched a Rick Stein programme where he says you should use a GREASEPROOF sheet after scrunching it up so it goes all the way to the edges.
I still can’t lift the pastry after rolling without breaking it. Mary Berry has a method that she uses when making tarte au citron but you need a loose-bottomed flan dish for that. Maybe I should roll the pastry out directly onto the scrunched up greaseproof paper?
Watched the first episode tonight. It’s like Queer As Folk but with women and not as funny. There are even Vince and Stuart equivalent characters: Cat and Frankie. It was quite cool though. I can see the similarities with This Life. I’ll keep watching to see what happens.
Did a bit of cooking tonight. First I made a 400g bread blob using the split tin recipe in the Bread book:
I couldn’t be bothered to use a mould or tin. Sometimes it’s nice to let it all hang out.
Then, in accordance with Mr W’s request for curry, I made a lamb rogan josh:
Well, it was a ‘curry in a hurry’ version rather than the version I like to make from Veena Chopra’s book.
Tonight I used what is basically my mum’s all purpose meat curry recipe, except that I didn’t marinade the lamb overnight in the fridge but just for an hour at room temperature. I left out the aubergine and instead added ground almonds and (free range) chicken stock for consistency and flavour respectively. My mum’s recipe doesn’t contain sliced green peppers either but even a faux rogan josh must have them.
…from karate. Obtained by trying to block one of Dom’s kicks with my gloved hand but instead made contact with my arm. Owweee! But yay, I am getting used to being hit rather than being a little girl about it (as one of my friends might say).
