Katie's Zombie cake

Just a plain sponge with lime curd inside - but I went a bit wild with the decorating! Happy Birthday Katie!

Friday night at the jazz

Early Friday evening
Picking up a muffin and hot choc
On the way to the jazz
The glow of the evening light fills the eyes
Pink fluffy clouds linger in the sky
Orange lights flicker on across the square
The unexpected notes
Untangle the week in my mind
The euphoria of Friday night seeps deeper

Cake Festival

We're having a wee cake fest at work today - many people have brought in home made cakes - Kim brought orange chocolate muffins and Ania brought Polish cheesecake, I whipped up a little ginger bread:

Sift into a bowl 250g self raising flour, 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, a few gratings of nutmeg and a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda. In a saucepan melt together 200g black treacle, 2 tablespoons syrup from a jar of stem ginger, 125g butter, 125g dark muscavado sugar, zest of an orange, 110g raisins and three pieces of stem ginger that have been chopped. Once everything has melted then bring it to simmering point. In another bowl mix together two eggs and 250ml milk. Finally beat the sugar mixture into the flour and then mix in the milk mixture until everything is combined well. Pour into a greaseproof lined loaf tin and cook in a pre-heated 170°C oven and cook for 35-40min until a skewer comes out clean. Exceedingly good fresh with vanilla ice-cream or a few days later when it has matured.

The little one in the picture was left over mixture that wouldn't fit in my loaf tin and was baked for as long as the loaf alongside it.

KT Tunstall

WOW!!! What a fantastic concert!!!!!!!

The Guillemots at the new Town Hall

Yesterday was a rather fabulous day - not only did I get to hear the charismatic Jeremy Niven talking about energy trade off in neurons but I also got to go and see the Guillemots live in the newly refurbished Town Hall in Birmingham. Fyfe Dangerfield had written a new piece for the CBSO, which we heard in the first half - all fantastic contemporary type stuff with amazing technical string movements, the cello solo was really quite something. The only thing that was disappointing was that the programes were £5 which I felt weas a bit steep so I wasn't entirely sure of what was going on. Then in the second half the rest of the band came on stage and we were treated to a fantastic set - the finally of Sao Paolo with Fyfe legging it up to play on the organ was just spectacular! My head is still ringing to the sound..... thrown across the water.......I love you through sparks and shining dragons.....

Incaholic cheesecakes

I had a crazy idea whilst having dinner with Anna and Anthony a wee while ago - how about combining cheesecake with beer. We discussed the merits of various brews and decided that Guinness was a must but also something fruity. Anthony suggested heather beer from Scotland but as I haven't been north for a few months I didn't manage to get hold of any. However on my recent trip to Zutphen I picked up some very fruit Rose beer and Sarah and Juul donated a bottle of coriandery Kronenberg blanc. All I needed was a suitable recipe to administer beer to and I was away. Looking through my cookbooks I found Nigella's passionfruit cheesecake - a baked cheesecake that had a substantial volume of liquid added to the mix. So this was the one. Having whisked up the cheesy mix I then separated it in to three and added a little beer, a little taste and then a bit more. Finally into the oven, fingers crossed that they would cook and end up like cheesecakes and not as scrambled eggs. And they did and they taste pretty good too, currently I have the lab tasting them - so far the only comment has been beery!


At the beer adding stage.




The final product!



Beery cheesecakes (with a little help from Nigella)
For the biscuit base
200g digestive biscuits
75g butter

For the filling
600g cream cheese
125g caster sugar
3 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
200ml double cream
juice of 1/2 lemon


First blitz the biscuits to breadcrumbs and add the butter and whizz again. To make little ones add a dessertspoon of this mix to each mould of a silicone muffin and press down. Put the muffin mould into a baking dish that you can fill with water.


Preheat the oven to 170°C. To make the filling beat the cream cheese in a bowl until smooth then add the sugar and beat in. Add the eggs and yolks mixing them in one at a time. Stir in the cream and lemon juice. Then split the mixture into three. Add 100ml of beer to each - three different beers for a taste challenge. Stir in gently, there will be lots of fizzing. When completely mixed leave to stand for 10min. Put the kettle on. Carefully spoon the mixture over the biscuit base. Pour the water from the recently boiled kettle into the baking dish under the muffin mould. Carefully transfer it all to the oven and bake for 1hour. Carefully take it out of the oven and remove the mould to a cooling rack. Leave to cool and then refrigerate overnight. Unmould by running a palette knife (nothing sharp!) around the individual cheesecakes and then pushing the mould up from the bottom. Enjoy!

Weekend away

Dougal came across sans crutches for another fabulous weekend in London. Starting off with a spot of shopping in Covent Garden and then heading to Le Pain Quotidien for tea before going to see The Emperor Jones at the National Theatre. I was really surprised (though shouldn't be) that there was Friday night jazz there too! Paterson Joseph was fantastic as Brutus Jones and the set was brilliant - especially in the boat scene, it was like the whole theatre was in the swell. The music was fab too - lots of wild drumming! Its on until the end of the month so still plenty of time if you fancy going to see it. More shopping on Saturday and then a walk at Wisley on Sunday to see the Surrey sculpture club exhibition - brilliant but it was the last day so until next year.

Congratulations!

My excitement had been building all week, many people were about to descend upon our little street in Kings Norton for Sarah and Juuls's big day! After torrential rain on Friday I eagerly pull back the curtains on Saturday and saw sunshine! Fantastic! Our first port of call in the morning was to Bank to finish off setting up the tables and then a quiet stroll over to the register office with a few phtotos along the way. Then time seemed to accelerate through the ceremony, Cecile (Juul's cousin) played her clarinet beautifully, Jet read a wonderful poem. Sandwiched between two massive wedding parties we had a few photos in the garden, but more outside the Ikon. Lunch at Bank with a few elegant speaches completed our stay in town and then back for a wee party in the 'party garage' and garden! Wonderful!

The Chocolate Festival

The fantastic chocolate festival in Zutphen was on Sunday! We could hardly believe the numbers of people in town for this - there were demonstrations on how to make chocolates, chocolate sculptures and plenty of things to taste!

Zutphen

Beautiful Zutphen in the autumn sunshine!

Free Jam.....

....well nearly anyway! Having gathered all my fruit I just had to decide what to make with them all. I have a book called Fruits of the Hedgerow by Charlotte Popescu and I leafed through this and decided first of all to make some damson jam and hedgerow jelly. I also made some sloe gin (in a 1litre kilner jar put 225g sloes that have been pricked with a fork, 125g sugar and 70cl of gin, seal and leave in a dark place for 3months) but this will only be ready later in the year.

Damson Jam

1kg damsons

450ml water

1.35kg granulated sugar

juice of a lemon

Wash your jam jars and lids and place the jars into a 100°C oven. Wash the damsons and then put them in a large heavy based saucepan. Add the water and bring to simmering and simmer for 30 min. Leave to cool and then try and find all the stones. You could leave then in and remove them once the jam has reached setting temperature as the will float up to the top at this point but I find it easier to remove them now. Then add the sugar and lemon juice and bring to the boil. Stirring occasionally to stop the fruit sticking and burning on the bottom of the pan boil until it reaches setting point. To test this have a plate in the fridge. Put a little of the boiling jam on to this and then place back into the fridge for a few minutes. If its set or if it forms a crust then the jam is ready for bottling. Turn off the heat and allow the jam to collapse back into the pan, skim off and scum (its just the protein that's in the fruit nothing to be alarmed about) and ladle into the hot jars. Seal whilst hot and then leave to cool.

Hedgerow jelly

450g haws (the fruit from the hawthorn tree)

450g crab apples

450g elderberries

a handful of rosehips

water

granulated sugar

juice of a lemon

Remove all the stalks from the fruit and rinse to remove any bugs of dried bits of flower petal from the fruit. Put all the fruit in a sauce pan and cover with water. Bring to simmering and simmer until all the fruit is soft, crushing the fruit on the side of the pan. Then strain through a muslin cloth into a bowl, overnight. Discard the pulp and measure the juice. Put the liquid in a pan with 450g sugar for every 600ml juice. (I had about 900ml juice and so needed about 700g sugar) Add the lemon juice and bring the mixture to the boil, dissolving all the sugar. Boil rapidly until setting point is reached (see above) and then bottle in prepared jars (also detailed above).

Bountiful Birmingham

This is my 'haul' from the canalside yesteday when I went a-picking! Nearly 5kg fruit and a few hazelnuts. I found a whole field of sloes so there will be sloe gin and lots of jam. Watch this space!

Fabulous vegetarian and vegan food

Liz and Ethan intited a whole crowd of us along to the Warehouse Cafe on Allison Street on Saturday lunch time for a celebration with vegetarian and vegan food. The cafe is upstairs from the Friends of the Earth Shop so it was a little like going up to a friend's sitting room clambering up the stairs in the old victorian terrace house. And the place was hopping - we took the centre of the restaurant on several tables and generally enjoyed ourselves whileeverything was cooked up! The policy is to bring your own wine which we did, and cava and beers! The food was fabulous - for me an aubergine and chickpea fritter stack on a bed of couscous with youghurt dressing followed by a vegan cheesecake with strawberries. Fantastic, it was nearly 6 by the time we dragged ourselves away.

Time lapse at Stallheim

Here are a couple of videos of the time lapse piccies we took first overnight and then over breakfast out of out bedroom window at the Stalheim with Dougal's very cool bit of kit!

A gastronomic tour of Norway

Our gastronomic tour of Norway started in Stavanger at Gladmat the 'happy food' festival. The weather wasn't as kind as last year but the food was definitely up to scratch! The scallops were divine (I think this word will get rather over used - everything was of the heavens!) and we particularly enjoyed the dates wrapped in bacon too. A highlight was the 'hummer' (Norwegian for lobster)!

From Stavanger we drove north to Dr Holm's hotel in Geilo....and I can't find the photos from there......where we ate in the brasserie, I remember beautiful tasty food but with remarkably cold vegies, very peculiar.



After a couple of days we travelled up to Dovrefjell and stayed at Kongsvold fjellstue. This fabulous little place was very homely, beautiful simple rooms and amazing food. Mr Nyhus personally attend his guests and we all ate from a set menu each night. The first evening we had muskox terrine with onion compote, pan fried trout with potato mashed with spring onion, asparagus and green beans, followed by pannacotta and raspberry sorbet served on crisp sweet stewed green rhubarb and very old balsamic vinegar.




At breakfast I was a little adventurous and tried some very old crumbly exceedingly salty cheese - euhhhhh! The second evening we had a dish I never order - ox tail soup with maderia in it and to drink, which was magnificent, then halibut with flagelott and green lentils and finally a passionfruit cheesecake. Our wine was a Puilly-fummee sauvignon blanc positively bursting with bananas.




On our final evening we had a speciality of the region almond potatoes which were made into a thick cream soup, then reindeer with celeriac mash, almond potato cake and green greens, followed by chocolate brownie with heavenly blood orange sorbet, my favourite rhubarb again and caramelised pineapple. WOW!!!

We moved further south to the Fossheim hotel, where we had their set menu the first night - an amuse bouche of smoked halibut on turnip puree and with a green olive dressing, salmon roasted in walnut oil with broad beans and a blue mussel cream sauce, deer with mushrooms and wortleberry poached pear, and for dessert a strawberry soup with a raspberry sorbet. This was all exceedingly delicious but sadly the set menu stayed the same for the remaining two nights we were there so one night we had the buffet and the next we had excellent pizza (yes veering off the gastronomic route a little) just over the road.

Our final port of call was the Stalheim hotel, where the first night we were the only ones in the second dining room - complete with magnificent view down the valley as the first dining room was full!!! We all had starters and mains but then nearly exploded as we could have shared probably one between the four of us! I had curried chicken on a pancake to start and then pan fried salmon on spinach and pesto spaghetti for main, fabulous stuff.....but ever so slightly too much!

On our second evening at the Stalheim we had learnt to start small, so I had the steak with 'potato cookies' and roasted vegies and then the chocolate mousse with red fruits. Succulent and creamy! Fantastic food!

Just in case we were peckish between all this amazing food we also managed to squeeze in a few pastries and waffles - my personal favourite were the mandelstangs - must find a recipe!

And now with a couple of weddings to attend in the next month I need to loose a few pounds, kilogrammes, may be I should just leave an arm or leg at home..........

Jazz and Jewellery

Don't forget to pop by to the Craft Fair in the Jewellery Quarter this weekend!!! I'll be up by the Big Peg with my felt! Thus slightly dodgy photo shows the flier.

A taste of Birmingham

Naomi and I headed over to Cannon Hill Park to visit the Taste of Birmingham exhibition - many of the brilliant restaurants in Birmingham were showing off their skills. The system was a little weird but we bought a number of crowns (vouchers) that we swapped for taster plates of food - Beef Wellington from Jonathon's, duck suasage from the restaurant in the Hyatt, lemon possett from Opus and Black Forest trifle from Bank! All exceedingly yummy but the favourite was the Black Forest trifle!!

Bunting!

Do you remember the little wooly hats I made for innocent and their supergran campaign? Well now they're looking for bunting donations to smash the world record for the longest piece of bunting!

This is the river Rea - I cycle past it every morning and when we had all the rain it became a raging torrent (left hand side) from its normal quiet self (on the right). Its been yo-yoing back and forthe ever since!

The new Glasshouse at Wisley and the Festival of Speed

What a fabulous weekend - we went to the Festival of Speed at Goodwood - lots of beautiful old and new cars. And only one shower - though it was very heavy with giant hailstones! I even got to go up the hillclimb on a bike - well on a computer simulation anyway! And then to the new Glasshouse at RHS Wisley - fabulous!