No cooking today... or for a while

No cooking today, and probably not for a while.

I'm living at home, my mum cooks... the freezer is full of pizza and frozen chips if I get hungry.

Why bother?

Also I've managed to get a bit ill and have lost my appetite somewhat. :(

Although I did have some very tasty peppers-stuffed-with-rice-and-pumpkin with cottage cheese on the side, something Miss Pie and I whipped up. It felt very healthy. :)

I've also been drinking coffee.... lots of beautiful coffee.....mmmmmm................

In the meantime I'll put a few new things up on the sister blog, which I feel is lacking somewhat.

I've tagged everything up properly so you can use it like an online cookbook.

Exciting times!

Take me to where the good food is!

In the dark, dark, dark, dark...

Dinner party in Flat Two. Rhy cooks the chilli the night before, misses the near-disaster of mistaking cayenne pepper for paprika. Rhy has not labeled the spices in her rack as she feels she will learn more from smelling and tasting the herbs to get a feel for how they are- rather than just following a recipe when it instructs one to add this, that or the other. Rhy discovered a new life tip; do not ever ever ever get cayenne pepper up your nose. The recipe for the chili.

Rhy decided it would be an excellent idea to make black-bean-chili lasagna. Josh felt this was a good opportunity to use his pasta machine, they make pasta. Anoj looked on in wonderment.

While assembling the lasagna -with creme fraiche in place of béchamel sauce, and smoked cheese instead of parmesan- Josh and Rhy suddenly realise that they have actually undertaken quite a large culinary experiment- they have never cooked pasta before, nor have they attempted to fuse italian food with mexican in this manner. An expedition for sure. However, ten people were due to eat and the show must go on. A salad was also prepared to accompany the meal, Orange and Avocado Salad.

Thankfully it tasted pretty fucking good, agreed all the diners that evening.

A desert had been arranged -rasberry sorbet with almond biscuits. However, during the the interval of courses all guests felt their energies would be better spent if they re-arranged the kitchen slightly, brought in George's decks and had a party.

And that is exactly what they did.

Here are some belated photographs of Jake's birthday;-

In the Devonshire Cat;

The cake;

This post will unfortunately end on a sad note. Fudge, my much-loved and frequently-escaping hamster passed away this week. He liked eating peas and humus on toast. We rescued him from underneath floorboards, found him inside walls... we ripped out skirting boards and almost drilled a hole in my bedroom wall when he escaped. He made some of the most extravagant escapes I've ever seen, using shoes and hats, coat-sleeves, plumbing to his advantage, once he even got out from his hamster ball... on the same day he managed to climb out of his hamster house and get stuck- I had to cut him out. I'm impressed he got into his house and reached a point overnight where he got too big to climb back out.

He was a lot happier when my parents devoted an enormous portion of our living room to a permanent play-pen for him.

I'm really going to miss you Mr. Fudge. :'( :'( xxx

Skagliatelle

First things first, I figured if I had a follow box on the right people might be able to actually follow my blog?

Smartsmartsmart one Rhyannan! You'll be tying your shoelaces by next week.

I will also make it look less template-y once I stop having SOMUCHFUCKINGREADINGTODO.

AND ALSO I cooked Tagliatelle with courgette, cream and herbs and it was scrumptious. One to cook again for sure.

This weekend I shall:

Be cooking for nine people. We are having another end-of-term dinner party, although this is more of a its-a-halfway-through-the-term-and-we-off-but-will-be-back-in-three-weeks-but-fuck-it-lets-eat-and-drink-wine-anyway party. :)

I believe Mr Rack will be aiding the cause and creating sheets of lasagna from scratch, Jake was pretty keen to get involved with the deserts and I will be making a chili as we're going to have black-bean-chili lasagna for mains. Served with an avocado and orange salad.

Still thinking about desert... thinking a lot about deserts.

Whatever happens, it is going to be good.

There's a Party in my Mouth and Everyone is Invited...

...except you.

I have a bit of a love affair with ginger. Although not the prettiest looking object in the world it is an incredibly versatile spice. I really love the smell and the warming fiery taste of ginger. Taste aside, ginger has many medicinal properties too- it aids digestion and helps to quell nausea, it stimulates your circulation, helps remove toxins from your body and contains essential oils to make your skin look nice. It comes as no surprise then, to learn that ginger is allegedly an aphrodisiac, and in South-East Asia ginger is used to "gain the affection of a woman."

Nifty eh? (But then again- who wouldn't want a man with lovely skin?)

This week I baked a Dark Chocolate and Ginger Cake for Jake's birthday.

I can say in all honesty that I feel I have once more outdone myself. This cake was supreme, it was fiery and rich and moist and it tasted exactly how I imagined it in my head, it had the perfect icing-to-cake ratio (VERY important when it comes to cake!) and I think I probably had an orgasm in my mouth when I ate it.

We presented it to him with a honorary birthday spliff in place of candles, had some tea, had some cake, had a smoke. It was yet another of our "Life is good" moments for sure.

We then continued the celebrations at The Devonshire Cat- a pub that offers an impressive wide range of imported beers. They have a beer menu, they serve specific beers in specific glasses in order to show off their flavour best- as beer should be. The Belgian beers are becoming a favourite of mine, admittedly I am very new to the world of beers. In Belgium, they make the glasses for the beers and then produce the beers to go with the glass- thats how important it is to get the right beer in the right glass. I tried out a Ara Bier which was very good, it had a very strong and distinctive flavour. It does make me want to go to Belgium and become a fat prick sitting on my arse eating their good food, drinking their good beer and admiring how pretty everything is- the film 'In Bruges' really makes me want to go to Bruges but I'd like to think that people will not be so careless as to cascade themselves down high churches while I'm eating my lunch.

The celebrations of Jake's birthday spilt over into the weekend, several of us hopped it down to London to see Luke Vibert. (who was very, very good, my ears are still ringing)

While in London I took the chance to visit the repute Caffé Vergnano and tried out the coffee. They had a beautiful and very unusual espresso machine, although they sprinkled "1882" on the cappuccinos which looked tacky and a bit piss. I always think chocolate sprinkled on top of coffee ruins the look unless its put on the espresso prior to the pouring of the milk. But hey! I'm a bit of a snob. While on the topic of coffee I would like to congratulate Trevor from my beloved 'The Plan' café, as he came fourth in the UK Barista Championships this year. He is officially one of the BEST people to make your coffee in Britain. I suggest you try it.

Back to ginger: coffee and ginger? Could probably work very well with the right blend. :)

If you're into ginger and getting drunk I also suggest you try Crabbie's Ginger Beer, either on its own or with the supreme Ginger Tam's Whiskey. Ginger Tam's is really something, its halfway between a mead and a whiskey in taste with a kick of ginger (mmmmmm) to finish. Good straight, or with ginger beer and lime. Saying that, most whisky is good with ginger beer and lime.

In other news I have, of late: come to the conclusion that often the only remedy for being stoned is to get more stoned, had a very entertaining mission to the massive Tesco with Josh, had a very entertaining night in London and returned to Sheffield by noon the next day- 8am coaches for the win, been affiliated with an amusing but close-shave incident involving a Greek Orthodox Church incense burner/a shitload of frankincense setting off a fire alarm, gone to the hairdressers for a 'trim' and hacked all my hair off, knitted a pair of gloves, crocheted some juggling balls, cooked a curry...

...AND have managed to keep on top of reading huge piles of wank otherwise known as 'Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama'.

I am officially amazing.

Returning to normality... kind of.

After a slight lag in my cooking experiments I am, at long last, back on form.

I've been pretty broke recently- I still have no job and I am too disorganised to have called up the company who owe me £500 or open up a student account so I can have an overdraft. Last night, I had a very old raw carrot for dinner. :(

Please take this moment to observe a photograph of Jono in Beanies;

However, I successfully got my act together a little bit, and have procured enough money to allow me to buy food for this week.

I'm going a little East, on the menu we have;-

Cream of Jerusalem Artichoke soup.

-Something simple as I have been dying to experiment with Jerusalem artichokes for a while now. They're in season so now is the time to do it. -Huzzah! Figured keeping it simple would help me get a better idea of the taste of Jerusalem artichokes.

Curried Sweet Potato with chili, lime and coconut.

-Yum yum yum yum yum yum. I think yellow split peas will be most excellent if I cook them into some dahl to go on the side. Coconut and coriander rice is also something I'll try to serve it with. I find rice very hard to cook without a rice cooker, there is definitely a knack to it if you want it light and fluffy.

Red Thai Curry

-I have some Thai curry paste I made myself in the freezer, Thai curry needs coconut milk which I will have left over from the Sweet potato curry, so all is well.

Pumpkin, Tomato and Gruyere Bake

-Not at all eastern. But probably delicious.

Think this sounds expensive? I paid no more than £15 for my food for the week today.

Thank GOD for Beanies.

Also, Jake and I are going to cook plum and raspberry crumble tonight, with custard. :)

I've missed eating good food so much! :D