OMG, I LOVE these things!!!! I used ot eat these nearly every day in Japan, always had some in my freezer. They're essentially a little rice cake/ mochi filled with ice cream and they are lovely. I was bopping about York after my interview (I don't want to talk about it) and found a tiny little oriental supermarket, mostly Japanese stuff too and lo, in the freezer there were the yukimi daifuku!!! I never thought I'd be able to find them outside of Japan. Now if only I could find Pino too I'd have all of my Japanese ice cream needs seen to. Oh and if Mr Donut could launch over here that'd be swell coz I've been craving an angel cream for an age!
Oh yeah, the other thing, we harvested our mushroom crop today! I bought dad mushroom plugs last christmas and today we ate the delicious results. Mushroom Bruschetta and pictures of our monster oyster mushrooms over at Annainthekitchen.
- Location:bed
- Mood:
happy
When we're in Italy staying with Emily she brings up brioche for breakfast and they are divine! They're shaped like a croissant but they're made of a delicious sweet bready dough and often have jam inside. I think they're particular to the Como region. I have been desperately searching for a recipe to make these lovely things for months and I could only seem to turn up two recipes that even seem to come close. Well, strike one off the list, it's very nice but it is so not what I was after!
The dough was HELLISH to work with. I dug out mum's kenwood to do the mixing for me as it was so wet and even then I had to add tonnes of flour to even begin to roll it out. This dough was a right diva. Absolute nightmare! Took me a good 4 hours to get, well it'll do for breakfast tomorrow... and the day after that... and the day after that for that matter (didn't think the recipe was going to give that much as it did, when I wrote it down I got the conversions wrong and then once I'd started had to scramble to get it right). Anyway, the hunt for a brioche recipe continues. If I spoke Italian I'd probably be away, alas I don't. But I'm totally getting Emily to ask the local bakery for their recipe. Hopefully they'll give it to me on the basis that I'm in another sodding country and can't nab market share!
- Location:bed
- Mood:
annoyed
After weeks of searching for the perfect madeleine tin I gave up and bought the almost perfect madeleine tin. As a result I have made madeleines twice in the last two days. I bloody love madeleines! Essentially it's a sponge but it's so light and airy in little easy bite sized scallop shapes. I may be in love! Recipe and pics over at Annainthekitchen as always.
Another discovery was that I am allergic to hyacinth bulbs. Seriously allergic. I'm allergic to a lot of things but usually it takes a while before I notice symptoms. This evening I was putting the bulbs in the bulb vases to force them and within 5 minutes I felt like my face and neck were being bitten all over by ants. It was awful, spiky, prickly, itchy, nasty! I was trying to claw off my face within a minute of it starting. I gulped down an antihistamine and the second I was able I raced upstairs to wash my face, hands and neck and slather on antihistamine cream but it took a while for the redness to fade. Luckily it wasn't more serious than that but it was the most unpleasant feeling. I thought the way my hands swell up and itch when I'm exposed to some plastics was bad but this was torture!
- Location:bed
- Mood:
bouncy
Right, I've a job interview tomorrow at noon, any positive thoughts you can spare for me are always welcome! Legal Secretary job, could be interesting but it's a job and this is the first interview I've had in months!
The pics and recipes for my Halloween Feast are up over at Annainthekitchen, I'm rather proud of this one!
In news that is utterly irrelevant to anyone other than me the shower in my bathroom was finally fixed today, the new one is AMAZING, powerful and really hot, love it!
Now bed before I stay up reading fic until 4am and cock up the interview before I've even got there!
- Location:bed
- Mood:
determined
When we came out of the cinema we popped into Tesco to grab some dinner and saw them stuffing the contents of the reduced counter in sacks to go into the compressor. I managed to rescue some mince and some mushrooms but it was just scandalous the amount of food being thrown away! At least 3 large sacks of stuff were there. If the freezer weren't full I'd have been grabbing loads of stuff but unfortunately I just don't have the space nor do I have time to cook anything as the next few days are organised! It just really pissed me off.
- Location:bed
- Mood:
shocked
I thought I'd lost the cat earlier as Oscar was nowhere to be found. We looked EVERYWHERE, in every little nook or cranny in the house, we shook biscuits, we called for her, we did everything. The only conclusion was that she'd got out. Oscar has never been outside, she's afraid of the sky, she wants to know why there's no ceiling! So we started running about outside calling. I was falling apart as I thought I'd have to tell mum I'd lost her kitten. I went back inside to give one last sweep, we were up to moving whole pieces of furniture and opening locked cupboards by this point. I thought I'd have one last try with wet food rather than dry... and out she sauntered... the useless sodding cat was RIGHT THERE THE WHOLE TIME!!!! She'd been hiding under the sodding duvet!!! I could cheerfully have killed her right then. She was very nearly a hat! (And, yeah, she's called Oscar, there was a mix up! I call her Doodles.)
The dog has abandonned me now that he has all of his people back so I'm without my shadow. This whole week I have never been alone in a room except when showering and even then he was lying outside the bathroom door across the threshold! I kinda miss him already. It will be interesting to see if he goes to bed with mum and dad or me.
I hit the farmers' market in Ripon this morning. I got a whole bunch of squash for an autumnal display and a celeriac. I've never had celeriac but I thought I'd give it a go. I also got dad a chilli plant so he can eat his own chillies, which he likes. As far as markets go it was obviously smaller than the usual market but it had 3 different meat producers, only one for veg but a separate one for herbs/plants, where I got the chilli. I also got Elephant Garlic to plant up. We'll see how that works out!
I also picked up more butternut squash for soup, which Robyn did not then eat and I also made fresh plaited bread rolls, which, again, went uneaten! I did manage to force a blueberry muffin down her throat, which is a little consolation. I also managed to make a very passable roast, the chicken was lovely, really moist good quality bird. I made far too much in veg though, but last time I made far too little, c'est la vie!
Now I'm going to sleep for a week, someone else can walk the damned dog!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
lethargic
The recipe makes 24. I've eaten 6 and will be happy if the next time I look in the fridge there are no more cream puffs. Normally this might happen as dad snacks. However, I'm home alone so unless the cats manage to break into the fridge and develop a fondness for pastry overnight I am going to be disappointed. They're not even all that great as the chocolate I put on top is too heavy for me and the cream lost a lot of it's oomph. At least the pastry was ok, for a first attempt anyway! (I'm a perfectionist so I will be working on these a fair bit I think!)
eat them I've got a bit fed up. The problem is I love the act of cooking and I love people eating my food but I'm not so into eating it myself. There's no emotional perk to eating your own cake on your own. I like the praise I get from other people, it makes me feel good and what's wrong with that? *sigh* anyone want a cake? I'll bake to order!
- Location:bed
- Mood:
sick
I have just eaten the world's strongest garlic clove. There was only the one clove in my dinner but my god! All I can taste is garlic and that's an hour later and after brushing my teeth. Just KAPOW!!! It is very very disturbing. Almost like the taste is a separate entity inhabiting the same space as my mouth. I only wanted a little bit of a garlicy flavour to pep up the sauce but nope, I get revenge of the garlic instead!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
confused
ARGH!!!!! I could strangle my mother right now.
She has been going on and on about how the household budget is getting out of control and how we've got to pull our horns in and make some economies etc etc. She has also been going on and on about how stressed she is and how she doesn't have enough time to do anything ever. So I said I would take over cooking dinner so she didn't have to worry about it and would have more time in the evenings to do things.
Last night I planned a week's menu and wrote a shopping list for her. I even priced it up. The menu was beautifully crafted. For example eating out of the freezer, which is epic, getting 4 meals out of one chicken and getting a massive bulk pack of mushrooms so they could be used throughout the week and not go slimey. I thought about this menu damn it!!!! I told her that if she wanted to make any changes then I could work them in if she told me.
She just got back from the supermarket and basically did exactly what she was supposedly trying to avoid. Not only has she got the stuff for the menu but she got loads of other bits and pieces that were on offer. She has also decided to change Saturday's meal to Squid. Saturday's meal was going to provide the basics for Sunday, Monday and Tuesday as well!!!!! Basically my whole menu is bollocksed and we will end up with leftovers going to waste and things not used and half of the damned shopping will go straight in the freezer and fill up all of the space dad had made and I really could kill her right now!!!!!!! ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!
Why do I bloody bother???
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
pissed off
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
busy
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chic_geek_girlhas been moved I am now Anna In The Kitchen over at WordPress. It's a whole new blogging world, with fun things like statistics and pingbacks and other things I just don't understand!!! I need and 'LJ Cut' button. I'm sure there's a way to do it but damned if I can figure it out!!! But yeah, it's shiny and new. Not as shiny as I would like it to become as I made that header in Paint. I have no graphics knowledge so if any kind flist members do have any knowledge any help would be appreciated. Paint, you guys!!!
So that's what I've been doing the past few days. If I haven't been blogging about food I've been making food to blog about or shopping for food to make to blog about. Made a marathon Japanese dinner tonight, I tried out making nikuman for the first time, so worth repeating!!! Pizzaman next, yum!!!
Tomorrow I am off to Manchester to keep mum company while Robyn does some drama thing. They've been selected to take their exam piece to a showcase at The Green Room so much preparation is going on. God knows what, but I'm off to Primark!!!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
creative
I am thinking of moving
chic_geek_girl somewhere else and changing the name. chic_geek_girl was originally me messing about with clothes when I was living in Leeds. Then I left Leeds and Pickhill just doesn't care about clothes (jeans, tshirt and a warterproof are my standard dog walking wear these days) so it became my food blog. Now as much as I love LJ it's a hassle switching between blogs when I want to post stuff and it just doesn't seem to have a great food blog presence. I'd love to be able to get some kind of feedback on my recipes and belong to more of a community so a change in location may well help with that.
My problem is the name. I've never been great at naming things, I often struggle to name my goldfish!!! Buffologist has always been my staple but I want this to be separate from this me. It's time for something new. So if anyone has a suggestion I am open to it!!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
pensive
So I'm all scratched up and then the dog decided to escape and bolt acoss the road, I managed to skin my knee and my hand trying to recapture him. I am not a happy bunny. I didn't even manage to get the damned dog back, mum did!!!
Speaking of mum she's in a hell of a mood as per bloody usual so I'm getting absolutely no smypathy. It's one of those day where no matter how you try to help you're doing it wrong and she will yell at you for it. However, if you don't help the she's "the only one who ever does anything around here" and the rest of us are useless layabouts. Joy.
I'm hiding out in the garden 'keeping the dog company' and nursing my wounds. I'm going to have to just slather the right hand side of my body in sudocreme tonight and hope! For now I am off to get as much read as possible before the internet fails on us after dinner as it has done every bloody night this week.
- Location:garden table
- Mood:
listless
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
hungry
Scotch Egg Pasties (boiled egg, sausage meat, pastry - should taste just as good but with half the calories coz its baked)
Bacon Wrapped Ricotta Stuffing
Smoked Mackerel Pate
Cheese Straws (finally figured out how to make them perfectly!)
Lemon Crunch Cupcakes (invented on the spot, go me!)
I think that that's pretty good going. I got to watch, well mostly listen to, a truly appaling Steven Segal movie too. It was TERRIBLE! I enjoyed it a lot. I also watched River with whatshisface and his dog, I like that show a lot too. And then I accidentally started to watch a movie about the Japanese invasion of the Phillipines... that was rather horrific actually. It's one of those areas of history where I really wish I didn't know a much as I do. But I turned it off before I got too upset and finished making cakes so all is good.
I also managed to organise our preserves cupboard today, we have 17 different kinds of stuff in jars. Come the apocalypse we are gonna be fine for quite a while! We made blackberry and apple jam to add to our strawberry and apricot from last week. It's a good year for jams here, normally we only make 2 kinds a year. As such I went brambling again today, looks to be an excellent year for them, I just have to keep inventing recipes to eat them in!!
Hopefully we should have a good picnic tomorrow, cannot wait to see Sam!! Most of the stuff I cooked was for that. The rest is for mum's lunches this week. I'm trying to get out of a bento rut but right now it is time I took myself off to bed as I have bread to make in the morning.
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
relaxed
chic_geek_girl as that is where I have been posting all of my recipes lately. If I cook something that is where I'm putting it, I think that there are some fab recipes there and I hope that they look as good as they taste but I could do with some feed back and also I want other people tobe able to cook them!I take cooking for granted as I love it so I don't know how well they read or if I've said something is easy and someone else reads it and thinks it's nigh on impossible. So please do check it out and let me know what you think, you might just find some nice new recipes and I think everything is pretty easy but as I've said I could be wrong.
If you think it's lacking tell me what you'd like to see and I'll do it or fix it. Even if it's the easiest way to chop an onion (there's a controversial issue I tell you!!!) I will do a post on it. What I'd really really love was if some of you who I know don't cook could use these recipes to start you off as it's really really rewarding. Um, yeah, enough waffle here, so please do check out
chic_geek_girl and see what you think, thanks!!!Just a few pics to tempt you:
- Location:sofa in the conservatory
- Mood:
sleepy
I'm very much enjoying the bread making though. Kneading is very theraputic as is having bread that you've made from scratch to eat every day. I'm also enjoying experimenting a bit, even though today's attempt at tiger bread was a disaster. I failed to make tiger bread and I also seeed to have an allergic reaction to the sesame oil as my lips swelled up and went all poofy. Wasn't too serious though. Tonight I was short 20g of flour so I used some malted wholegrain stuff we had to make up the difference, it totally changed the colour of the dough so we'll see how it effects the bread tomorrow. Off to bed no, these 15 hour days are taking abit of getting used to!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
tired
I also invented a very pleasing chicken thing. I had bread crumbs left over from the first bread I made so I decided to make chicken cordon bleu... only the cheese had gone off and I didn't want to open an entire pack of ham for the sake of a few slices. So I had a look at what was in the fridge and decided that red pesto and mozzerella would make a good stuffing... only it turned out there wasn't any red pesto. So I took the green pesto (yuk) and mixed it up with some tomato puree, voila, red pesto!!! The chicken was delightful also.
Dessert was delishious too but I only made the chocolate sauce for that:
Yeah, basically I spend my days walking the dog (we went for a walk with another dog today, very exciting), cooking and eating. That's it. But I'm getting quite good at the cooking.
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
full
We've got weevils in the cupboard!!!! I'd be laughing but it's kinda gross.
I went to make Japanese rice yesterday and found that an open bag had these little black bugs in it with little pointy snouts. They were all dead but they were there. I made the rice form a sealed bag and just threw away the spoiled bag but I'm going to have to clean out that cupboard now in case there are live ones still in there. What an arse. It's the cupboard we keep all of the flour and rice in and a lot of those bags are open. I hate waste but I'm going to have to chuck a lot of stuff tomorrow, I don't care what dad says about extra protein!!! I'm also going to be bying sealable jars to keep everything in coz if they're there once they'll be there again.
But, hey, weevil infestation, hee!!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
discontent
( Bread outsides. )
This one's fantastic!!! The last one was rather doughy and dense inside (the 'crumb' look at me learning the lingo!!) This one is light and fluffy but just doughy enough to give the perfect, to my mind, texture. And it's not at all yeasty, I don't like yeastyness. I am just in bread heaven!! As you can see from the outside picture it's not, perhaps, the prettiest loaf, there was an issue with stickiness, but my goodness it tastes great!!!
Home made bread with home made pate. I feel so wholesome!! That elderflower could have been homemade too but I'm drinking the commercial Starbucks stuff so I can use the bottles for my own... mine's better anyway!!
- Location:day bed
- Mood:
accomplished
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