It's Margarita Time.............

We're having a mexican themed evening at my brother in law's house tonight. This prompted me to volunteer to make Margarita Ice Cream, which I'd seen Nigella do on Nigella Express, and thought it looked good. On reading the recipe in her book, I noticed that it was a "no-churn" version of an ice cream recipe in Forever Summer. I've never made ice cream (churned or not) and having read both recipes, decided that I would splash out on an ice cream maker and have a go at the real thing.

I bought this Magimix, because:
a) it was the least expensive I could find and
b) it got pretty good reviews at Amazon and Argos

I'd always thought that one day I'd buy an expensive (£200+) ice cream maker, as I thought that the "freeze the bowl" versions weren't so good. Time to give it a try.

Making the custard for the ice cream was ok, Nigella gives very clear advice about that, and I do confess I had to plunge the pan in to the sink full of cold water once, to stop the custard splitting!
I made this at about 9am, and left it in the fridge to properly chill for the rest of the day. The bowl for the ice cream maker had been in the freezer overnight. The instruction book was full of warnings about the consequences of the bowl /custard not being properly chilled. No room for error here, this is being served up tonight!

Setting the ice cream maker up was a bit tricky - for some reason, the paddle would only churn when the lid was not on top of the bowl. I'm not sure why. I managed to keep it going by just placing the lid on the bowl, and not properly clipping it on. I'll try again, and if it still doesn't work, may take it back for replacement.

After that, all you do is pour in the custard, and wait 20 minutes. Well, I waited 30 because I wanted to be sure that the mix was as well churned as it could be. It was pretty soft, but after a night in the deep freeze in a plastic tub, it has set a treat. And tastes wonderful! More like Key Lime Pie than Margarita, but that'll do for me. The leftover Tequila and Cointreau will be put to good use in proper Margaritas this evening. We're also having nachos, enchiladas and tacos. And my sister in law has made a Key Lime Pie to accompany the ice cream.

I've also made a version of Nigella's choc chip chilli for tonight. But have just realised that I forgot to put the chocolate in! Doh! It will need warming up so I'll add it later........
Nigella's recipe uses chorizo sausage, but I skipped that, and to get the smokiness into it I used smoked paprika, and some of the Chipotle Chilli powder that I bought back from Florida. And a squirt of Heinz BBQ sauce!

There was custard mix left over, as the Glacier will only take just over a pint of liquid, so I had a go at baking it in some pre-bought M&S small pastry cases. My idea was to have like a lemon tart type of thing, but with lime. Didn't REALLY work. Both the custard and the tart base burnt on half of them, and those that survived were a bit messy looking, and the lime custard:pastry ratio was wrong. Most of them ended up in the bin.

And finally, I had to find some use for the leftover egg whites, and the raspberries/limoncello syrup from the other day. Mini-pavlova, anyone?

Trying something new.

I love pannacotta, so I had a go at making it for the first time this week. I had a load of leftover cream in the fridge from Christmas and I used a Jamie Oliver recipe, as I just happened to be flicking through his Happy Days book looking for a chilli recipe, and stumbled upon the pannacotta recipe. (Hmmm, I'm not quite sure why I was in the back of the book looking at desserts when I was supposed to be looking for Chilli ideas.)

Anyway, it turned out to be a lot easier than I'd imagined. Just a bit of heating, mixing and pouring, really. The recipe uses 2 vanilla pods and serves 4 people... I think in future I'd just use one pod, as there were loads of seeds (not that I mind, I love them, but one would have been more than enough). Also, I missed out the step of whipping some of the cream with the icing sugar as I'd already heated the lot up together by the time I noticed it! End result did not seem to suffer, though. This was really good. I didn't have rhubarb, and as the pannacotta was infused with lemon zest, which gave it a slight tang, I decided to make up some Limoncello syrup (boiled Limoncello, lemon juice and icing sugar for a few minutes then left to cool) and serve it with that and some raspberries.

Next time, I want to try a quite complicated coffee pannacotta with fleur de sel caramel recipe that I found recently...............

http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fruit-recipes/pannacotta-with-roasted-rhubarb

The quest for perfect mash....

I love mashed potato. Absolutely love it. To the point where I get quite upset if it is not done properly. We had two quite contrary experiences in Florida recently - one where I served the best mashed potato I've ever had in a restaurant, and the second where I was bitterly disappointed that the chef sent out lumpy mash. And this in what was supposedly Florida's highest rated restaurant - and one of the best in America. How hard is it to get your mash right?

Well, up until recently I'd relied on well boiled spuds, and a good potato masher plus a load of hard work to get mine right. And, they were pretty good. But I'd long wanted a potato ricer, and finally got round to buying one this year. I was impressed with the difference it made (and the mess I managed to make with it).

Back to those Florida restaurants. Cafe Lurcat in Naples sent out the most perfect mash - listed on the menu as potato puree. It was silky smooth and highly seasoned with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Perfect. Beach Bistro on Anna Maria Island sent out what they called a "side of chefs mashed". It had squash or something like that in it - plus the lumps I mentioned earlier. And was luke warm. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to mash, I'm not really into all those "flavoured" mashes, although I have been known to eat a bowl of it with tomato ketchup splodged on top on rare occasions. I prefer to let the sauces with my food add any extra flavour. In the mash itself I only ever add: butter (or olive oil), cream (or milk), nutmeg, salt and pepper. Usually white pepper.

After the Lurcat mash, I was pondering on what was the extra something that made it better than mine. Especially now that I have a ricer - my mash should be perfect! Then it stuck me that they were calling it puree... so that was the difference. I mentioned to Roy that they must have passed it through a sieve to get it so smooth. Little did he know that a few weeks later, he'd be acting as my commis chef and doing likewise.

So that's what I tried tonight. I made up the mash as usual and then passed it to Roy with a sieve, bowl and silicone spatula. 20 minutes or so later, he'd passed the lot through the sieve and I warmed it up in a pan (having seen this done on tv cooking shows). It was excellent. Although I'm not sure I'd bother with the sieve-ing part every time I make it. That's it in the photograph. Served with pork chop in mushroom sauce and brussel sprouts. Delicious.

Chilli Jam and Chutney

I wanted to make Nigella's Chilli Jam last Christmas but ran out of time. Having bought the sugar jam and the cider vinegar, all I needed were some chillis and red peppers, and I was ready to go. I've been collecting empty glass jars all year in anticipation...........

I also had the ingredients to make Nigella's Christmas Chutney (apples & cranberries).

But first, chilli jam:
150gms/5oz long fresh red chillies de seeded and cut into four pieces each.
150gms/5oz sweet red peppers cored de seeded and cut into chunks
1kg/2.2lbs Jam sugar
600mls cider vinegar

6x250 ml/40z sterilized sealable jars with vinegar proof lids (or, if you're like me - a variety of empty jam/chutney jars of mixed sizes)

Put the cut up chillies into the food processsor and pulse until finely chopped. Add the chunks of sweet pepper and pulse again.
Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar in a wide, medium-sized pan over a low heat without stirring. (apparently this keeps the jelly clear)

Scrape the pepper mixture out of the bowl and add to the pan. Bring to the boil and leave it at a rollicking boil for 10 minutes. Now, from reading other blogs, I discovered that some people have boiled for longer. In total, I think I boiled my mix for about 30 minutes and it still set very soft. I tried testing with a cold saucer (a la Delia) and seemed to get some kind of set, so I got fed up boiling it and took it off the heat. Also, halfway through cooking, I managed to turn my attention to other things and the pan overboiled. Made a HUGE mess on my hob.

Take the pan off the heat and allow to cool. The liquid will become more syrupy, then from syrup to viscous and from viscous to jelly like as it cools. This is the theory - mine just stayed soft. It's more like a chilli sauce than a chilli jam - although it does taste great. I wonder if this is because I made a double batch in one pan? Maybe I should have boiled even longer.........

After about 40 minutes, or once the red flecks are more or less evenly distributed in the jelly (as the liquid firms up, the bits of chilli and pepper start being suspended in it rather than floating in it), ladle it into your jars. If you want to stir it gently at this stage it will do no harm. Then seal tightly. Now I didn't stir at this point, and the chilli/pepper flakes all stayed at the top of the jam jars!

Make the jam up to one month before using or giving.
Store in a cool dark place for up to a year.
Once opened store in the fridge and use within a month

My favourite ways to eat this are:
- on brie cheese (or any bland, soft cheese) with crackers
- with lentils, sausages and feta cheese, and a side serving of rocket.

Christmas Chutney:
1 pound 8 1/2 ounces (750 grams) Granny Smith apples, peeled and cored
9 ounces (250 ounces) dried cranberries
1 onion, finely chopped
12 fluid ounces (350 ml) apple cider vinegar
7 ounces (200 grams) of sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
2 teaspoons of salt

Slice the apples into halves. Slice the halves lengthways into smaller pieces, roughly 1/4-inch width. Place the apple pieces and finely chopped onion into a saucepan with all the other ingredients. Heat the mixture until it is simmering quickly. Cook the mixture for 45 minutes, or until the chutney has thickened slightly and the fruit has become soft.

Spoon the mixture into sterilized jars and screw the lids onto the jars tightly. Allow to cool before storing in a cool, dark place. This is so easy, and tastes great with cheddar, or any other hard cheese. I only made 3 jars of this - one for us, one for my in-laws and the lucky recipient of jar 3 was Fred, our lovely neighbour next door.

Recipes from Nigella Christmas-Nigella Lawson

I still haven't sorted his bench out....

It is coming up to two years since Dad died. I promised him a bench, looking out to somewhere nice, and I still haven't sorted it out. I've made some half hearted attempts to find out how one goes about organising these things, but there isn't much info out there.

A month or so ago, I had another google and I think that you just buy the bench and memorial plaque and then check with the local authority that it is ok to place it somewhere. There are some rules about how it must be fixed. So I think the start point is to choose a place, get permission and go ahead.

So I was just reading back on the blog of Dad's last days.... bit stupid really as I got myself a bit upset. Anyway I realised that I forgot to mention how, on the Wednesday that he died, Mum came in to his room at about 6am and he looked at her and mouthed "Good Morning". That was pretty much the last time he communicated with anybody.

Mum is in hospital at the moment. She fell and cracked a bone in her pelvis whilst crossing the road last Wednesday. For somebody whose mobility is already limited by her osteoarthritis, this is the last thing she needs. She's now in a rehab unit learning to walk and transfer from bed to chair and back. Not good. But she's battling on and I hope that she gets full mobility and independence back. Knowing mum, she'll be worried that she doesn't. Oh, and she HATES the hospital food.

Sri Lanka Blog

http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Jan-and-Roy/

Our trip to Sri Lanka is posted on travelblog.......

Sri Lanka Blog

http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Jan-and-Roy/

Our trip to Sri Lanka is posted on travelblog.......

Back to the '80's

Quick update - we decided not to do Yala park. Didn't want to take the chance on not having insurance cover.... having had to use insurance in the past!

Check out Duran Duran's Save a Prayer video. Not only is it a damn good song, but the video was filmed on Sri Lanka. See that big rock? I'll be walking up there a week tomorrow. Yup, all 700 steps. Wish me luck.............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCD4rtcOgHE

Post cognitive dissonance

As ever, immediately after booking a trip, I've become fraught with anxiety about whether I've put the perfect itinerary together. Have I made ALL the right decisions?

Here's the dilemma this time:
We were offered a two night stay in Yala National Park, camping - albeit in a "luxury" tent.
http://www.srilankaecotourism.com/camping_Leopard_Safari_in_Yala.htm
At first we were all for it, and then I got some advice on Tripadvisor from a guy who told me that the Foreign Office have advised against all travel to Yala. This in itself did not put me off - I think there were isolated incidents on the eastern fringe of the (huge) park some years ago - however, while that advice is on the FO website, we will not be covered by our travel insurance if we go in to the Park.

British travel companies have taken Yala out of their brochures for now, but Red Dot continue to offer the camping trip as an option. I asked Ayanthi at Red Dot to take this section of the trip out and put us an extra two nights on the beach.

Now I am tormented - was this the right decision? Yes - absolutely in terms of following advice and keeping insurance cover. No - not if we want to chance to stay in a beautiful setting and see leopard. We've never seen leopard in our safaris in Africa.

Now, IF I can convince Roy to lose two nights of the beach stay, then we could always ask Ayanthi to put Yala back in. Just mentioned it to him but he doesn't seem fussed.... hmmmm... not even the lure of leopard has him this time. Strangely, when we were first looking at the trip he wanted to leave Yala in, it was me who was being cautious........

At last! March trip is booked....

Zanzibar and Ceylon were two places that conjured up exotic and exciting images whenever I read or heard about them as a child. I never actually believed that one day I'd see either of them - the furthest I travelled as a kid was inside the UK.

Zanzibar was one of our honeymoon destinations and we loved every second of it.
We knew that we wanted to visit Sri Lanka and this year seemed like the perfect time to do so - outside of the euro zone, not US dollars - in light of our weakening pound, we've had our eyes on Asia or South Africa for our travels in 2009. We've planned to travel in March and November. I've been procrastinating over our March trip for months now. Once I started to research Sri Lanka it became apparent that this was a big island and with a lot to see and do. It seemed unrealistic to try to "do it all" in one trip and that's where the real research kicked in - where to go, where to stay, who to travel with... etc. etc. There are SEVEN Unesco World Heritage sites in Sri Lanka! I've planned that we'll get to see 5 (maybe 6) of them.

We finally decided on Red Dot Tours, a UK owned Colombo based agent. I also had quotes from Kuoni, but I have to say that the travel consultant there could not have seemed less interested about our trip if he tried! Prices were about the same for the itinerary we eventually decided on. Kuoni were trying to flog me a "standard" tour which on the face of it looked fine and was certainly great value. But when I phoned to ask about a private tour and particular hotels I was met with a grudging acceptance that yes, they could tailor make our trip. The guy tried to fob me off with "We don't do that hotel" for a couple of my choices, but when I pushed back on this he finally managed to come up with a new quote. Maybe I pushed him over the edge yesterday when asking for my tenth (and final) price for our tweaked itinerary. I just wanted to sense check the price that Red Dot had given....

So, here is the outline of our trip:

We fly Emirates out of Manchester on Friday 13th (yes, I know!) March. We arrive in Colombo at 8.30am the following day and will be picked up by our driver/guide and taken to:
http://www.reddottours.com/Accommodation/Hotel/hotel.php?code=CulturalTriangle-VilUyana

After four nights here we travel to Kandy, to stay overnight at:
http://www.thekandyhouse.com/

And then we move on to the Hill Country, to stay for three nights in:
http://www.teatrails.com/
This one looks special - it is our extravagance for the trip!

On to the coast, we're staying in two beach hotels - the first on the South Coast, for five nights:
http://www.thefortress.lk/

And then two nights further up the West Coast, and getting us a bit nearer to the airport (2 hours drive!):
http://www.samanvilla.com/

And then we fly home on 29th March. Arriving back at 7pm.....

The research to find the hotels was extensive! Tripadvisor, Fodors, Red Dot's website (which is very good), and various travel blogs that I stumbled across. Oh and the Rough Guide to Sri Lanka book.

https://www.reddottours.com

We've an outline for the things that we want to see - some of them are built in to the itinerary that Red Dot have put together. But next I need to finish my research and have a plan for the other things we can do whilst in Sri Lanka. If it were up to Roy we'd just go and take it all as it comes and decide what to do once there, but in my opinion, that isn't the best way to take a trip.....

If only....

If only I'd known that Your Greatest Guide to Calories, 1990 edition, was now worth £10!

If only I'd kept all my old diet books.

If only I had time to faff around trying to sell old crap on ebay.

I was googling around today for a calorie counter book - I can't believe that after a lifetime of trying to control my weight I actually do not possess one of these! I thought that my old favourite - Greatest Guide to Calories - might still be in publication (although I failed to find one in Tesco yesterday) and when I googled found only "antique" versions of it for sale on ebay and elsewhere. Interestingly the 2006 version is only worth £1.99.

So I'm currently considering the latest versions of calorie books and deciding which one to order. Why? I'll tell that story some other time. I have to laugh when I look at the various guides from years gone by - they started out life as Calorie Counters, then Fat started to become important and they began to include this info, too. Now it's Calories, Fat and Carbs. Tells a good story of diet history. Today's version is, by the way, called the Calories, Carb and Fat Bible. I have to laugh at the Bible bit.... dieting is the new religion??? Well maybe not so new, I guess...

I'm a walking case story of diet history. It all started back in the 70's when I left school. My first day at work, the department Manager, Tony Greenhalgh, took me to one side for a chat. Amongst the general "welcome to Royal Insurance" blurble, he mentioned that I was a nice slim young girl and that I'd probably been involved in sports at school. He was right, I'd played netball for the school and generally didn't mind getting stuck in to all the PE sessions we did. Hockey being my least favourite (a winter sport) and Netball and Athletics being the ones I really liked. He commented that making the transition from active schoolgirl to sitting at a desk all day was quite a big one and he recommended that I join a sports group at work. We had a staff sports facility (and bar) and in his opinion, it would be good to get involved in things like that. Otherwise, I might start to put weight on. He'd seen it happen before. I remember mentally rolling my eyes at this - Tony Greenhalgh was a big fat, ever so slightly sleazy looking guy in his 40's. What would he know about it?

So, I dismissed his advice and the nearest I ever got to the staff sports hall in the 15 years I worked at Royal was the bar. Now that I did like!

Slowly but surely I started to gain weight. By the time that I was 18 I was starting to feel fat, although I'm sure I wasn't really. So I looked at the diets in the Vogue Body & Beauty Book (also on sale from ebay for about a fiver) and the Cosmopolitan Health and Beauty Guide. I'd orginally bought these books because I was interested in make up and hair and skincare and stuff, but they had very interesting diet sections.

My diet of choice was the Helena Rubinstein "crash off 10lbs in one week" diet. Originally devised by Madame Rubinstein in 1938. The menu was more or less similar each day and was:
Breakfast - half a grapefruit and black coffee
Lunch - 1 egg, 1 slice melba toast, 1 orange
Dinner - grilled steak, lettuce, tomato, half a grapefruit

Occasionally, dinner would be eggs instead of steak.

I still have my copy of the book - pencilled in next to the daily menus, you can see my scribbles where I've "cheated". Stick of chewing gum, mushrooms and onion with the steak, ryvita instead of melba toast (which was quite a hard to find exotic food stuff back in those days in the UK!). Oh and I also had some Fresca (diet drinks had launched in the mid-70's) and a splodge of salad cream one day.

I can't remember the results I got after that week, but I can remember how bloody hungry I was all the time and how I got sick of steak. And it was the beginning of my descent into diet hell and a lifelong battle with my weight. How wise Tony Greenhalgh turned out to be - I should have just joined that staff sports club instead.

If only......

Another year over, a new one just begun.....

Quick update on Christmas. Well, we had a nice time. Nice as in nice, not as in boring.


My roast beef Christmas lunch went very well. At the very last minute I found a meat thermometer for sale in Sainsburys so was feeling pretty confident of success with my first ever attempt at roasting a joint of meat. However, in retrospect, I feel that what I should have purchased is an oven thermometer! That damn oven of mine is SO hot! At about 45 minutes before the recommended cooking time for "medium" beef, I stuck the thermometer in to see how it was doing. "That looks done" Roy announced as he passed through the kitchen for another bottle of wine. I shushed him and told him to wait to see what the thermometer said. I was quite alarmed to see the temperature reading going up and up and up.... yes, it was done. Well done - not medium. Luckily I was able to whip it out of the oven then, while it was done but perfectly moist and not over cooked. I'll know better next time. Before and after pics are here...







Spuds with semolina? Yeah they were good. But I think they'd have been good in any case - no real need for the semolina, I don't think. That said, given that I have a huge tub of semolina (Had to buy a 3kg bag last summer just to get one tablespoon out for a crabcake recipe!) then I might as well find ways of using it up.....


New Years Eve was ok. We stayed in, ate party food and drank lots of fizz at Gary and Renee's place. Emma and Jan were there too. Roy and I left shortly after 1am - we phoned a cab thinking it would be ages before it turned up and it arrived within 10 minutes!


So here I am sitting here pondering the year ahead and feeling quite overwhelmed at the things I need to do (or want to do) and haven't yet started on. Which, of course, is the perfect excuse to procrastinate on them and not get on with it.


We're going out somewhere tomorrow. Don't know where. But just out.