Violet Creams

When we were in Alpes d'Huez I came across a bottle of Violet Creme Liqueur and thought immediately of Mum's love of Violet creams. So I thought I'd have a go at making some. I used a really nice 70% dark chocolate, which was probably a bit strong for the delicate violet flavour, so next time I'll have to go for a lighter filling, but tasty nonetheless.

100g 70% chocolate
40ml milk
2teaspoons violet liqueur
100g chocolate for coating
crystallized violet petals

Melt the chocolate and heat the milk to nearly boiling, then mix together and stir in the liqueur. I put the mixture into small domed molds and set in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then melted the chocolate for coating and dipped each one in leaving on a rack to set. Then topped with crystallized violet petals. This makes about 16 chocolates.

Evolution February - roast vegetable wraps with pesto and cream cheese

The February evolution comes from Muireann:

"Well evolve the recipe I have - although sadly without pictures due to the dementia which seeme to afflict me as I chomped through it. Two days ago I whipped up some roast vegetable wraps with pesto and cream cheese for dinner. The main vegetable I chose was an aubergine. My other half had done some Moroccan stew on Monday with aubergine in it but I decided it might be cheating if I didn't make something myself. The ingredients are:

1 Onion
Garlic - as much as you can handle
1 Aubergine
1 Pepper - any colour
2 Carrots
1 Courgette
Olive oil
Chilli flavoured oil
Salt
Pepper
Dried basil
Wholemeal wraps
Cream cheese pesto

Now it was meant to be vegetables and humous wraps but I forgot to soak the chickpeas and had none in a tin - hence you will see how the cream cheese and pesto got substituted. So I guess I even evolved my own recipe.

Chop up all the veg and place in a baking tin with the garlic crushed. Sprinkle over with the oils and salt, pepper and basil. Cook for 30-40mins at gas mark 6. Mix veg a couple of times.
When done heat up the tortilla wraps, spread pesto and cream cheese over them. Place veg on the wraps and roll up.
Eat and enjoy."

Tod Man Pla

This was a new recipe that I hadn't tried from a cook book I have had for about 10years - Rick Stein's Fruits of the Sea. Exceedingly easy and very tasty!

225g white fish (skinless and boneless)
1tsp fish sauce
1tsp Thai red curry paste
zest of half a lime
1tsp chopped coriander
1 egg
pinch of sugar
pinch of salt
6 french beans thinly sliced
oil

Blitz together everything but the beans and oil, to a smooth paste. Stir in the beans and then shape into 8 small patties. Fry in the oil until golden brown, it'll only take a minute on each side. Serve with rice and a sweet dipping sauce made from dissolving 100g caster sugar in 50ml white wine viengar and 20ml water, stir in 2tsp fish sauce and finely chopped cucumber, carrot, onion and chilli to taste.

Rather than braving the snow on Whistler this moring I sauntered down to the railway station, taking a shortcut across the end of the canal. It was looking so atmospheric I just had to stop for a quick photo!

ebi yakitori

We've been trying our hands at making recipes from the Wagamama cookbook - these prawn and veg skewers were really yummy! And really easy - just thread prawns, peppers, courgettes, tomatoes, spring onions and mushrooms onto skewers. Brush with ebi kuzu kiri sauce (2tsp sugar, 2tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp oyster sauce and the juice of three limes) and then grill for 5min until cooked. For the noodles we used soba noodles and once they were cooked stir fried them with spring onions, garlic and a smidge of sugar.

Darwin

As I mentioned the department are having Darwin talks - and every time someone starts they show their University's image of Darwin. Just as I was wondering if we had one, Buzz (Uni newspaper) dropped on my desk with a picture of Darwin in it. Of course, he looms above the Great Hall along with several other scientists of note - actually I didn't check, they might not all be scientists! Pottering along, I thought how am I going to tell who's who all that way up but they were handily labelled in gold paint and weren't so far up in the end! I think he's looking rather compassionate here - Watt and Faraday looked decidedly grumpy!

Evolution January - Baked Provencal vegetables

To kick off the Evolution project I had a good hunt through my cookery books and after contemplating several recipes I settled on this one from the Oven book from Albert Hein that Sarah and Juul gave me for Christmas. I think that it gives plenty of scope for future participants and was exceedingly tasty. In the kitchen last night were Laura, Nick and me! Laura and Nick did a fine job of washing and slicing the vegies whilst I translated the recipe (from Dutch). The recipe said it was good with rice so near the end of cooking we boiled some up and they were right - exceedingly tasty!! So who's next? We need a volunteer for February's evolution spot!

Baked Provencal vegetables

2 fat aubergines
2 courgettes
8 tomatoes
1teaspoon Provencal herbs
3 tablespoons olive oil
250g marscapone cheese
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven at 200°C

Begin by washing all the vegies and then slice them length ways to give long strips half a centimeter wide. Salt the courgettes and aubergines and leave for 10min to loose a little water, before patting them dry. Next line them up ('om en om') so that they are overlapping in a large dish - alternating between the different ones. Sprinkle with the herbs, splash over the olive oil and season with pepper. Cover in foil and bake in the oven for 35min. Meanwhile mix up the marscapone with a little salt and pepper. Then take the dish out of the oven, remove the foil and dot with the marscapone. Put back in the oven for 15min, without the foil and then serve!

Evolution

This year is the year of Darwin - all over the place are celebrations for his bicentenary. Here at the university we have a series of lectures mapping out how his therories of evolution have impacted on research. I was pondering various things with Kira in the coffee room - always a good place for a mad idea to fly - and wondered if we could try a little evoltuion ourselves. The idea was to start with a recipe and over the year let it evolve in our kitchens. The starting ingredients each time being what was used at the end of the month before, letting each cook decide what they are going to do and what they are going to change. So may be we'd go from french onion soup to an onion tart to a tart tatin......what ever the particular monthly volunteer fancied - taking the starting point and evolving it in some way. I could round up the changes here....so any takers? Contact me laughingsnail AT hotmail DOT co DOT uk.

King Cake

Yesterday I decided that I would make a king cake - a gallette de rois and so after work I called in at the supermarket for some supplies. As I went through the checkout the lass on the till asked if I was making a cake and so I explained what I was doing. She replied that she was from Goa and that they too celebrated with an almondy king cake! What a small world this multicultural city is! Back at home I creamed together sugar (125g), ground almonds (125g) and butter (125g) before adding 3 eggs and a tablespoon of quince vodka. I rolled out two large circles of puff pastry and spooned on the almond mixture on one before topping with the other, sealing the edges with egg wash. I brushed the top with egg wash too and left it to rest before baking for 30min (180°C). I mustn't have sealed it very well as soon I could smell it cooking and looking in the oven I discovered almond filling making a break for freedom! Nevermind it still tastes pretty good! I have brought it to work where it is being demolished by my co-workers - I left out the 'king' as I recon that someone would just eat it without realising the significance!

See more about King Cakes with Zorra at Kochtopf!

Up to a point.....

I saw this in the Times on Saturday - absolutely priceless...of course it was supposed to be advertising Boot of The Beast in his tale in Ishmaelia.... the wonderful Scoop by Evelyn Waugh!

Cupcakes

Opening night

I have been patiently waiting for my pitcher plant to open - its taken two weeks of shooting on the time lapse to capture it and the movie last just 60hours in the end, which I suppose is actually quite a long time for the lid to pop open! The images are taken 30minutes apart and the music is Solito de Charango from Cesar Palacios.

Norwich Union Classic

An afternoon of beautiful cars! In the sunshine, waiting for Adrian and Nick to arrive in the Merc at Silverstone, listening to a little live jazz and photographing some beauties!

Cycling to Bronkhorst

Zutphen Kermis

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!

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?

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!

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.

Hamlet at the Courtyard Theatre

Last night I joined Naomi, Matthew and Debbie for a jaunt to Stratford. With the main theatre under renovation what I knew as the Other Place has been consumed by the Courtyard Theatre into a magnificent venue that put me in mind of the Globe. The stage was embedded in the audience, a layer of black shiny tiles with a mirrored back drop. By out heads (we were in the gods) there were six chandeliers waiting to be lower into the play. The opening scene was cleverly done, the auditorium was in pitch black and the guards on the roof tops of Elsinore castle shone their torches onto the shiny floor to illuminate their own faces and the ghostly king in the reflected light. The king Patrick Stewart - he also played the living king Claudius) had a coat that billowed smoke, which gave a very good effect. In the first few scenes with the non-mad Hamlet David Tennant was hardly recognizable but as he ruffled up his hair and became more lively in his actions he became more like the Doctor, we even had twiddling of knives and recorders a la sonic screwdriver! Horatio (Peter de Jersey) sported leather elbow patches and complimented Hamlet well, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Sam Alexander and Tom Davey) were suitably stuck up, whereas Laertes (Edward Bennet, who looks remarkably like Prince William) fenced like a champion! Gertrude (Penny Downie) and Ophelia (Mariah Gale) gave dazzling performances but bumbling Polonius (Oliver Ford Davies) had us in stitches many a time. The atmosphere was perfect and had us speechless by the end.