So it seems people don’t quite believe I’m alive. Or at least they have to come and see me in person to check.
Not sure if they think Dan is somehow faking my existence or if I’ve become a member of the undead. The second is genuinely more plausible as Dan is extraordinarily bad at lying.
First to arrive was the Sproglet. She turned up on the Friday night after a long day in the Big Smoke so we fed her an extraordinary quantity of pork fat.
Dan picked Lombo di Maiale alla Spiede (Pork and Rosemary Kebabs) from the Italian section of Around the World in 120 Recipes. Mostly, I think, because the kebabs use big sticks of rosemary instead of skewers, and our rosemary plant(s) is more than up to that challenge.
Mostly it is bits of pork tenderloin and rosemary-infused-lard-soaked-ciabatta alternately threaded onto rosemary twigs and then chucked in the oven.
We served it with rice with a little sundried tomato paste mixed in. Both were okay. The best bit was (unsurprisingly) the ciabatta soaked in salty herby fat and then roasted.
Dessert was provided by the Sproglet. I’d requested she bring a certain type of fancy french patisserie from a certain London based company (they only deliver to Zone 1. I checked. And even that is not cheap). This was at the urging of an old school friend who raves about them.
So, in a brief deviation from our usual rule of only showing our own food, we present Canelles by Babelle.
They are delicious. Caramel custard chewiness. Now I must try and make them…
The following day we were joined by H, who is another member of the metropolitan elite.
We decided to use up the left over Master Stock and serve the usually very dependable Beef Croquettes. Obviously we made them the day before, so Dan got to bring them out the kitchen with apparent effortlessness.
You may note the extra word of “usually” in that description. For reasons we still don’t understand the pot boiled dry whilst cooking the beef. This did not occur the previous two times we did this dish. Plus it was cooking in the large Le Creuset with the lid on. Usually we struggle with the seal on this lid being too good!
Anyway, we recovered it with boiling water and time, but the sauce was slightly more bitter than usual.
It was also lovely to introduce two anti-coleslaw ladies to freshly made, mayo free coleslaw. They raved about it quite a bit much to our amusement. We do similar things for lunches so frequently it genuinely hadn’t occurred to us it would be novel.
Dinner was a bit more down-to-earth. We made Tartiflette, a delicious Swiss combination of potato, cheese and smoked pig.
It is an excellent exercise in self-control. You definitely should eat it for at least 10 minutes after it comes out of the oven. Not for any flavour development reasons, but because it will melt your face like the Arc of the Covenant.
H made an excellent GIF of it. And it is terrifying.
Continuing on the theme of dangerous foods, we served Anna Jones’ Brown Sugar Tart. This is a vegan cross between a treacle tart and a pecan tie. It is all kinds of tasty, plus it actually gave us something to do with the coconut oil in the back of the fridge.
The crust, soaked with the caramel/treacle filling and baked in an oven, becomes a tooth breaking nightmare. Tasty, but could be used to stove a man’s head in.
The next day we had leftovers for lunch. The tartiflette did not have any left overs.
Once everyone had returned to their respective homes, we made ourselves a store cupboard staple (ish) dinner.
First we made Gnocchi. This is actually surprisingly easy. It’s just mashed potato mixed with egg and flour to make a dough. 500g of potatoes usually needs half as much flour and one egg. We made the dough into four ropes and cut those into gnocchi sized pieces. Then boil until they float.
Gnocchi done.
Except we took in another level and fried them in butter until crispy. Seriously, don’t judge us. If you want weight loss recipes come back in January when we will inevitably doing some kind of health kick.
Then we added sun-fried tomatoes and olives heated it a little, before tearing a ball of mozzarella over it and putting it under the grill. Once nicely melty we drizzled it with a little basil infused olive oil. We had originally intended to use fresh basil, but a couple of frosts had, quite literally, killed off that idea.
Catch Up
Very quick baking orientated one here. Since we were still dealing with a courgette glut at the time Dan made a Courgette, Walnut & Cinnamon Layer Cake from Hummingbird Bakery.
He loved it. Which is good, because I was pretty unmoved by it all. I felt the flavours weren’t particularly great and there was too much frosting. However, I have complained about the frosting with every Hummingbird cake we’ve made so the problem may be me.
In retaliation to his butter/sugar monstrosity I also made cake. A Coconut and Passion Fruit tray-bake with a nice pastry base and a super zingy custardy top.
It is a recipe massively aided by having passion fruit on £1 a bowl on the market and having a Daniel to make your pastry.
To start get your oven up to 180ºC, and grease and line a 30cmx20cmx4cm tin. We used a roasting tin.
Then make the pastry by beating 125g of butter with 110g caster sugar until it is creamy. Beat in an egg and a tsp of vanilla extract, then stir in 225g of plain flour, half a tsp of baking powder and a pinch salt. Press the resulting sticky dough into the base of the tin and bake about 15 minutes, until golden.
To make the topping, whisk 4 eggs and 225g of caster sugar together until pale. Then mix in 100g desiccated coconut, 50g plain flour, 375g single cream, 160ml coconut milk, the pulp of 8 passion fruit, and the juice and zest of one lemon.
Blob that on top of the pastry base and bake for a further 40 minutes. Cool in the tin then cut into however many squares seems reasonable.
thegreedyguineapig 