Yes, wintriness is a word! I was shocked too... A few people have asked recently what happened to Titch so having a little more time on my hands at present I decided to resurrect this miniscule cooking lady. So here follows a round up of the last few months of life in a sort of highlight form. A tour of the more memorable moments if you will...
In a fit of summer dizziness I decided to cook a meal for some friends from my church back home. This was all going well and was to be an unplanned birthday dinner for the lovely Barbara. I knocked out some pastry for the first time in months and took advantage of the short-lived greengage season and made a Greengage and vanilla custard tart. This, to follow a stuffed roast leg of lamb served with cabbage, mash and gravy. Classic. Thank God that I had done most of the prep for it earlier that day because in a lapse of concentration, enthralled by the mumblings of the Test Match Special commentary I managed to miss the cabbage I was shredding completely and cleanly remove the tip of my left thumb, 30 minutes before the lovely Barbara and David were due to arrive. A few hasty calls made, I ended up in A&E and having been cauterised and bandaged, returned home to finish dinner with the help of the lovely Barbara. Tart and thumb now side by side pictured below. Sorry for the squeamish of you, skip down - skip down!
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| Sad thumb :( |
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| Greengage and Vanilla Tart :) |
The next development to report is that I have slowly come around to the idea of regular coffee drinking. Much to the consternation of true coffee devotees I will drink almost any kind. Instant or avant-garde third-wave coffee, and to be honest I still don't really know what an aeropress is... but I do appreciate the chilled out coffee house tracks, uber cool wooden tables and pretty patterns in the creme of the latest brew. See exhibit A.
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| I'm exhibit A... |
More contemporary than the aforementioned happenings is the onset of Autumn - sorry guys nothing to do with me... But now there is excuse to bake and roast incessantly and indulge in stodgy carb-filled dinners. Indeed squash season arrived and with it the challenge to incorporate these wonderful, sweet peculiarities into as many meals as possible. My foolhardy flatmate of five years celebrates the coming of fall with near constant pumpkin or squash-based conversation, inventing ways of never being more than a few hours from her next dose. I'm sure her blood transforms into an oxygenated orangey flow the second the clocks go back. Of late our best creation to this end has been a butternut squash lasagne with layers of 'payday fresh egg pasta' as a treat, and of course obscene quantities of cheese.
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| Ooo er. |
Such is the time of year that cosy nights, draped in woollen garments and candlelight are inevitable. And of course a crackling fire, this year courtesy of YouTube.
