Fishcakes

My sister and her boyfriend tried to make a chocolate cake for my Granny at the weekend. They mixed in the unsalted butter, dark chocolate, egg yolks, icing sugar and whisked peaks of egg to make a silky batter. So I heard. They then poured it into a greased tin (well two actually- one for Granny and a mini one for them to eat whilst they watched tv), put it into the oven for thirty minutes and waited until it was cooked. It's done when it's slightly cracked on the top and if you slide a knife in you can see it's a bit gooey in the middle.

Leaving Granny's to cool (on a rack? I doubt they have one), they scooped up the mini pud and two spoons to go and nestle down with their new favourite programme 'Misfits'. Ro recommends it to me as the best thing she's ever seen, but since she last said that about 'Kung Fu Panda' I'm not sure I trust her taste.*

Imagine their poor little screwed up faces of disgust when their beautiful chocolate cake tasted of FISH! They claim that the batter tasted a dream pre oven so they couldn't think what had gone wrong.

Only later did Bainsey recall that they had last used that particular cake tin for cooking fish and probably (definitely) hadn't washed it out.

Don't spend too much time reading that last sentence. It won't make sense to most cooks.

Seeing as I enjoyed that story so much Ro fed me another.. A few weekends previous they'd made apple pie together. And do you know, it tasted of cheese when there wasn't any cheese in the pastry. They couldn't figure that culinary mystery out but I think what had happened was that they'd killed all their tastebuds with bacardi breezers the night before.

* Actually I would like to see Misfits but I'm afraid my life is just too full of Six Feet Under right now to slide into something new.

A SMASHing meal

I'm going to give you a little history lesson today.

Once upon a time... the vegelez options were notoriously poor. On one such occasion Dani Bristol went to Canada (I think) where the assembled company were served sausage and smash for dinner. She of course couldn't let that sausage pass her pure organic lips so had to suffer through the vegetarian option of just smash!

Thankfully times have changed and not only do we get real potato mash these days but

there are some very nice vegelez alternatives.

I went round the other day and was treated to a steaming bowl of fake

sausages (very nice), mash potato and thick onion gravy. Just what my shivering body craved.

For pudding we got another winter warmer of crumble with hot custard. Then Dani and

I kicked Sparkles out the room and snuggled up in bed to knit tea cosies and watch Despies. That sort of night should be

prescribed instead of winter fuel allowance!

What a banger of a night!

Really double dipped bonfire night with another sparkler at Dave's last Friday. Although it was more of a tease as we were too slow and were greeted at the entrance to the park by hoards of people leaving. To set our spirits back alight we decided to take our thermos' of mulled wine and wait for Dashy to arrive whilst sitting on a dumpster in a nearby underground car park. I desperately hoped that one of the Mum's and Dad's would pick me up and take me home but they left us too it.

Once Dashy had collected us we toddled back to Dave's for vegetable soup and a sausage reception. Ever so nice. Inspired by Dave I made myself potato soup today. Get my potato fix quicker in liquid form. Like injecting heroin, for carbs.

After the soup we gobbled up hot dogs with ketchup and mustard. Although I don't have the latter as it makes me cough.

Firecrotch

Dave and I were somehow tempted into visiting Bob on bonfire weekend to see just how Croyden does it! They don't do transport that's for sure. One bike accident, several bruises, a missed train connection, a half an hour wait, and a tram track later we flung ourself over the doormat.

The hungry travellers gratefully received a feast of butternut squash, chickpea, and mash potato bake. She'd also added chorizo just for fun. Which it was. David Haddrell and I

had a bit of a fight over who got the left over mash potato but I won as I swiped it when he wasn't looking. Maybe all that sitting on trains has dulled his reactions. I'm used to fighting over food with obese psychotics so I'm quite sparky these days.

Pudding was homemade chocolate brownies with vanilla ice cream. We were ever so treated. Thanks Boob.

Then we went out to play with sparklers in the garden. Dave threw his and I merrily followed suit until I realised I'd thrown one of mine into a bush. Croyden is such a bad influence!

I spy pie season

I'm so hungover I can barely type but I have to water my blog drought so here are some pictures of pies.

The first is a chicken pie from when I wined and dined Bobbeh. I used leftover chicken from a roast. I softened up a bed of leeks and mushrooms in butter and tucked them into the pastry dish, laid the chicken on, poured in a thick creamy white sauce and buttoned down the hatches with the pastry lid. It was ever so dreamy. Seeped everywhere. I like that effect. The other day I made my first poached egg. It was so perfect that when I bit into the english muffin the egg inside dripped all down my hand.

The second Alex made for Chaz for her October birthday. We like labelling our pies with the

recipient's name. He used butternut squash, pumpkin seeds, condensed milk and some other stuff.

Harvest FEASTival

Considering I'd gathered so many conkers the other day I thought I'd better gather up my people and celebrate our bounty. We bounded into Autumn with a feast of warming foods. As I was on a sleep in come down I could begin prep at 3pm by making the dough for my tarte tatin and chilling it for two hours. I also thinly sliced six apples and left them swimming in a bowl of lemon juice and water so they didn't brown. I then went to soak myself in the bath with my new box set until it was time to properly get stuck in.

By the time Alex came home to make his thick onion gravy I was already covered in flour and egg making the batter for my toad in the hole. I think he wished he hadn't come home when I accidentally dropped the sausages into sizzling oil from a height and splashed him. Luckily the freckles on his hands camouflage the burn marks! When the sausages were golden I poured the batter in and slipped some sprigs of rosemary in for good measure.

That rose out of the oven to cheers of delight from our guests, accompanied by thick onion gravy, oozing baked beans, cheesy mash and a nod to spinach.
We all had a lovely time apart from when they hid from me between courses. Fine! I'll just eat all the tarte tatin myself.

The best bit was after my client saw my leftovers lunch the following day she requested I teach her the whole meal so I had the whole thing again for dinner. Ahh. Ever so heart warming.

Anish some more

Went to Hyde park on Monday with Bobeh to see the Anish Kapoor sculptures and have a picnic.
We ate spinach and pea frittata, chocolate cake, raisins, and a nibble of pork pie no longer lying around Bob's fridge. We watched ourselves in Anish's great round mirror whilst eating. Did you know that beautiful people look in the mirror more often than ugly people? Obviously true that lunch.

After some playing in trees we scooped up all the conkers we could find. Later on when I was at dinner in Pizza Express and they all fell out of my bag onto the floor I regretted it, but at the time it was loads of fun.

Oh we also went to the red cafe and had tea and a macaroon. I'm in this photo but you can't see me as I'm dressed all in red.

xxx