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ratafia ice-cream

Last night I served up sweetmeat cake, which is an egg-based tart with candied peel and chopped roasted hazelnuts in it. The recipe isfrom Jane Grigson’s English Food. To go with it I made ratafia ice cream – whipped cream mixed with crushed ratafia biscuits and some cointreau, and frozen. I meant to use Archers rather than cointreau, but didn’t have enough. The ice cream was nice, but rather too strongly flavoured for the tart. I might make it again and serve it with something else, though.

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Maradona has a gastric bypass

One of the greatest sportsmen of all time, and look at him now. It’s hard not to think of Michael Jackson, the other superstar currently in the news. And to a slightly less spectacular degree, Gazza and George Best. Will we be watching Rooney self-destruct in a few years time? Or one of the Ronaldos? Or Beckham? I guess there are plenty who don’t – for every Maradona, Best or Gazza there’s a Pele, Charlton or Lineker – but it’s a grim precedent even so.

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full of the joys of spring

Wel, the weather may be rotten, but it’s hard to be completely gloomy when the people of Carlisle are doing so much to cheer me up (there’s a picture of the Stone here). And hurrah for the Melton Mowbray pork pie.

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what to do with a slab of German smoked ham?

Found it in the freezer. Too big to snack on or easily use in sandwiches once it’s defrosted, but very strongly-flavoured and salty for cooking. Hmmm.

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well done Wales

It’s nice to see Wales playing really good rugby. They’re so central to the mythology of the game, but in the time I’ve been watching it – a decade and a bit – they’ve been almost invariably crap. I mean, obviously I don’t want them to keep beating England, but seeing them beat a good French side in Paris was great.

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crusty shepherd

I embarked on shepherd’s pie yesterday only to find I had no potatoes. So I topped it with bread.

An onion, two sticks of celery, a left-over bit of fennel, a red pepper and a carrot chopped and cooked together in a frying pan until starting to brown slightly.

A kilo of minced lamb, browned a bit.

Put the veg, the meat, plenty of garlic and rosemary, and some beef stock in a pan and simmer for an hour or so.

Put the sauce in a shallow oven-proof dish, then top with slices of bread (I used multi-grain) spread with French mustard, mustard-side down. Put in the oven, 180C until bubbling and looking brown and crunchy on top. Yummy.