To Rattray head - day 4

The weather wasn't quite so nice as last night as we squelched our way up the hill out of Cullen. Our first stop was Portsoy for rowies, from the local bakery, for breakfast down by the harbour. It was windy and wet but onwards we went and took refuge in The Coffee Pot Cafe in Banff. The owner did a fine line in sausage sandwiches (and also blackpudding sandwiches) and took pitty on us as we left giving us some lollipops to keep us going. We battled in to the wind up to Fraserburgh and spent only a few minutes looking round the harbour beofre ploughing on to Rattray Head where we were staying at the ecohostel, which is in the old lighthouse keepers house. Its was lovely, and we had it to ourselves - stoking up the fire and cooking up a lot of pasta. 52miles

Cullen - day 3

Setting off from Inverness we turned East and started our two days across the top. We pottered along next to the water and past Benromach and Glenmoranjie distilleries. We found a super place called the Loft for lunch (braised lamb shank) and as we came to Buckie the sun came out and we had a really good view out across the sea. The last leg was along a coastal path and then an old railway route over the viaduct into Cullen. We were booked into the Cullen Harbour Hostel and as we arrived they offered us some tea - roast pheasant no less! What a way to finish the day, watching the sun go down over the harbour. 68 miles

Inverness again - day 2

We slept like logs! But we up at 7.30 to have breakfast and set off again. Naomi from the hostel promised fewer hills and we bowled along to Golspie, where we had cupcakes in Poppies cafe. Past the Clynlish distillery. Onwards along the coast and past lichen clad trees. There were seals and lots of birds - oyster catchers, red shanks?, little waders, godwits and many more. For lunch we stopped in Tain, just past Glenmoranjie, at the SUnflower cafe, where they had haggis lasagne on the menu! THen in to the hills to Alness and a sneaky hop across the A9 bridge before heading on to the small roads through Culbokie and finally to Inverness. A massive 72 miles but in 10h so much better going than yesterday!

Helmsdale - still day 1

From Inverness we got a wee train up to WIck, passing by snow topped mountains and deer filled moors, even seeing a small heather fire. Quite strange as there was snow on the ground too. At Wick a Spanish woman asked which way to go with her bicycle to John O'Groats - very brave without a map! We pointed her north and set out south - into the wind. The sun was shining and though it was hard work we made good progress. And then the big hills began! The biggest had a 13% gradient and I made it up about halfway before having to push, quickly being over taken by a walker! Then we were rewarded with a full 4miles swooping downhill into Helmsdale and to a lovely little youth hostel in an old gymnasium with super high ceilings. In all 42 miles (including the 7 we did in Brum), arived at 8.20! SO the WIck to Helmsdale strtetch was 37miles in 5 & 1/2h!

Inverness

NSCR Wick to Edinburgh day 1

Last night we set off in the rain to New Street, being conscious of the new bike (Bertie) I locked him to Nick's bike on the train to
Crewe, using my new kryptonite gold standard lock. As we came to get off the lock wouldn't unlock but we lifted the bikes off the train together. The station master lent us a hack saw but we had to pay a visit to the fire station to get Dave, Phil and Chris to cut the lock off with an angle grinder as the key eventually fatigued and broke in the lock and there was no way to get it off, they even tried those pneumatic pliers which were damaged by the lock! Tough lock but not so the key! But we made it and got on the train to Inverness. It was freezing!! As the sun came up we saw a beautiful snow covered landscape and now we're in Inverness for a spot of breakfast before the next train to Wick.

You can now advertise your Blurb books!

Vietnam & Cambodia February 2008

You can now advertise your books with a preview - what do you think?! This is just a selection of pages. USe the arrows or click on a page to turn to the next page.

Birthday treats!

Lovely birthday treats - including a home made carrot cake with vanilla frosting!

Eating out in Brum

Smoked haddock pasta at Red Peppers in the Mailbox - very yummy!



Extremely delicious ramen at Wagamama's with Sally!

Valentine's Day Cookies

We saw some cookies very much like these in Fortnum's when we were out for the Monopoly project a couple of weeks ago, so I thought I'd make some for today!

140 years of the periodic table

Catching up on reading Nature I spotted that it was 140 years since Dmitri Mendeleev came up with the first periodic table back in December. So to celebrate Nick and I have rustled up a simple sponge and decorated with icing for all the elements, though didn't quite have enough space for the lanthanides and actinides. It tastes very yummy!

Walking in the snow

What will they think of next?

Not sure this is a great idea - chocolate probiotic drinks?!!

New Years Eve Dinner - with the Mafia

For New Year's Eve we had Vicki, Seb and Adrian round for dinner in a Mafia style party - all dressed in black and looking very swish! And of course a Mafia inspired menu to go with it!


Homemade minestrone soup

This one was adapted from a soup book I have had for ages but haven't really used - shame on me! Its very yummy and well worth the effort.

1 smoked gammon (~1kg)
1 onion quartered
1 cellery stick roughly chopped
1 tsp black pepper corns
1 bayleaf
4 litres water

1 tbsp olive oil
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely copped
70g tomato puree
2 beef tomatoes, skinned, seeded and finely chopped

pasta made from 1 egg and strong white flour, shapped as orrichette

fresh parsley and parmesan to serve

Roast the gammon and onions in a 200C oven, then trim off the excess fat and boil with the peppercorns, onion and bayleaf for 2 hours, uncovered, topping up with the water as you go, especially as 4 litres proabaly won't fit in one pan. Then remove the meat from the stock, keep the meat and strain the stock through muslin. Put everything in the fridge overnight.


The following day skim off any fat from the stock and shred the meat, removing any chewy looking bits. Fry off the new celery and carrots in the olive oil for a couple of minutes before adding the meat, tomato puree and chopped tomatoes. Then add the stock and simmer for 20min. Add the pasta and simmer for another 30min or until cooked. Serve with parsley, parmesan and seasoning.



Rum marinaded Sirloin with roast potaotes and green beans

This was inspired by a recipe from The Kitchen of Light but we didn't have any vodka, so substituted white rum instead. We took a 1kg peice of beautiful matured sirloin and marinaded in for 3 days in 1tbsp coarse seasalt, 2 tbsp crushed black peppercorns, 3 tbsp chopped parsley, 1 tsp fresh thyme, 3 crushed garlic cloves, 100ml white rum and 70ml olive oil. It was roasted at 200C for about 50min (though 40 would proably have done for a rarer roast) and served with yummy roasted potatoes and crunchy green beans.



Bombino! A melon wrapped in black icing to look like a bomb!

Duck racing in Bottesford

Snowmen

Yesterday we were at Jean and Dick's for the annual Higgs Christmas party, and this is the Christmas cake decorated by Jess, Anna and Lucy.

Glass decorations

Beautiful fused glass decorations

Evolution round up

Well it's been an exciting year doing the evolution project. I have looked at all the ingredients that have been used and made this wordl - as you can see aubergine was the most popular ingredient and made it in to 7 of the 12 recipes, closely followed by garlic in 6 of them! And here's my idea of an evolutionary tree - the distances between the months represent the number of ingredients carried on and the branch lengths represent the number of additional ingredients!

Evolution December - Christmas cookies

For the final recipe in the evolution series I have made a great shift to Christmas cookies using a few of the ingredients from Dougal and Soazig's contribution. The recipe can be found on this earlier blog entry.

Bristol

On Friday we went down to Bristol so that I could make some more fused glass for an up coming Christmas fair. While it was 'cooking' we walked all round the city, up to the Christmas steps and Clifton and the suspension Bridge, finishing off in the Olive Shed for delicious tapas overlooking the river.