Sunday, August 31, 2008

Moseley Folk Festival


The weather was perfect just long enough for us to hear all the singers and bands at the Moseley Folk Festival - Morceeba definitely topped it for me, though our picnic or steamed salmon, pasta with pine nuts and basil oil, green beans in vinaigrette, tomatoes and mozzarella in balsamic vinegar and strawberries were pretty good too. Not to mention the face painting!

Monday, August 25, 2008

NSCR Hull to Newark

The next leg on the NSCR (north sea cycle route) took me and Nick from Hull to Market Rasen, where we camped and then on to Newark via the very beautiful Lincoln. The weather was perfect, Nick had done lots of training and we bowled along! The highlight was definitely coming over the Humber Bridge, even if we did get covered in spider silk, though its closely followed by hurtling 35mph down the Lincolnshire wolds after pootling up them at 5mph! Lincoln was filled with people on tandems - very strange, it must have been a special weekend for it! Next I head for Norfolk.......but when?

Friday, August 22, 2008

Lab Olympics


The boys and girls of the 5th floor of Biosciences raced in the 100m, 400m, 800m and 1mile! All one after the other! They derserved their 'gold' medals!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Raspberry recipes from the Sunday Times


Nick, an avid reader on the Times and raspberry fiend, found the following two recipes in the Sunday Times in the last few weeks. Eyeing up my ice cream maker the request was to make some sorbet and when he found the cheese cake recipe (albeit changed from blackberries to raspberries) we had a whole desert!
Raspberry and Mint Sorbet
250g caster sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
15 large mint leaves and 15 small mint leaves, chopped
500g raspberries
juice of 2 lemons
Make a sugar syrup by placing the sugar, vanilla and large mint leaves in a bowl with 25oml boiling water. Leave to stand for 10min. Then blitz the raspberries with the lemon juice and add 400ml sugar syrup. Seive out the pips. Chill the juice and then churn in an ice cream maker, adding the small mint leaves at the end before putting into the freezer.
Raspberry cheesecake
80g hazelnuts
140g digestive biscuits
1tsp cinnamon
4cloves, finely ground
3tbsp sugar
80g butter melted
600g full fat cream cheese
150g sugar
2tbsp plain flour
1tsp vanilla extract
zest of 1 orange
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 medium eggs
250g raspberries
180ml sour cream
Heat the oven to 160°C. Blitz the hazelnuts until finely ground and then add the digestive biscuits and blitz until they are crumbs. Mix in the sugar and spices and finally stir in the melted butter. Press into the base of a loose bottomed cake tin with high sides. Bake for 10min, remove from the oven and turn up the oven to 240°C. Beat together the cream cheese and sugar (or find someone with strong arms to do it for you), then add the flour, vanilla, orange zest and lemon juice. Mix until smooth. Beat in the eggs and the sour cream. Pour on top of the biscuit base and stud with the raspberries, pushing them into the mix. Bake in the oven for 10min, then turn down the heat to 110°C and cook for a further 25min. Then leave to cool in the oven. We found that transferring it to the fridge and eating the next day made it even more tasty! Serve with the sorbet for extra raspberriness.
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