The Stew Catastrophe!

LAST WEEK I made a wonderful stew with lamb and noodles {not noodles ~ DUMPLINGS; Knödel!} (I translated this post from German) and delicious spices. The ingredients were: 1kg (2.2lbs) neck of lamb; 2 large red onions; half a bulb (about 5 cloves) fresh garlic; a double handful mushrooms; a double handful okra/gumbo/ladies' fingers; 2 huge carrots; one tin black beans; one can chopped tomatoes.

The herbs and spices were:
Half teespoon ginger
Half teespoon garam masala
Half teespoon each: Tescos Value, Chinese and Jamaican (Mr Brown's) currypowder
2 tablespoons Lea & Perrins Worcester Sauce
About a third of a teaspoon Chinese five spice seasoning
About three teaspoons "chicken seasoning" (salt, 30% paprika, celery... etc)
Home-dried mint leaves
Mixed herbs
Half teaspoon Colmans English Mustard

I cooked it slowly for at least three hours, after which time the lamb was so tender it was literally falling off the bone. It did taste slightly burnt, which I blamed on the new pan...

The next day I reheated it to add my dumplings. Catastrophe! It came back all burnt! Like a liquid barbecue. Ugh. I could only eat the meat (I quite like incinerated meat). But carbonized vegetables are not to my taste.

It wasn't like everything went black or anything like that. Just this horrible burnt flavour pervaded everything. Not nice. And such a shame as otherwise the spicing, the dumplings... everything was perfect.

Where did I go wrong? Was my new pan too thin? Did I reheat too rapidly?

Or did a goblin sneak into my kitchen when I was too busy losing my old broadband down the loo and mess everything up..??!?


PS- You don't think excessive stirring (well, only once every 20 mins - is that excessive??)... you don't think that might have messed it up, do you...??

Vegetarian Vomit

ME MUM had high tea but I was starving so I had vegetable lasagne. I don't usually go for vegetarian options these days but used to when I was younger. I have found in general that vegetarian cooking is of a higher standard that non-veggie ~ and with a less-inspiring ingredients-list, let's face it, it has to be!

The lasagna was OK. I'm no expert on cooking but if I'd made that myself I'd have labelled the flavour "empty" and poured far more tomatoes and seasoning into it. I don't know whether this place was having boiler trouble but oh my days! It was Vesuvian in there!! Conkers of sweat dripping off patrons and increasingly bedraggled waiting staff alike. (OK slight exaggeration but I was feeling increasingly queasy.)

Then when I got outside I was sick EVERYWHERE... thankfully Mumzy and I had gone separate ways by then.

These are the Siberian hamsters I was talking about yesterday. I had two about six years ago, but one died after about three months ~ and I suspect through old age. The other ESCAPED and never came back ~ the only one of seven hamsters I have ever lost that way.

If you look closely at the weary swine here, you might just be able to see the furry soles to his feet.

On a lighter note the vomiting had gone by just three outbursts (next to but sadly unable to aim IN the tiny opening on London's bomb-proof rubbish-bins)... And by this morning my appetite had come back with great avengance. I trotted down to Sainsbury's where I got a huge selection of own brand falvoured whip-ip-up desserts. Chocolate and strawberry are just 8p each. Butterscotch is always the best and costs 30p against Angel Delight (the market leader)'s 38p. I shake it up in a special disused coffee jar. My top tip to avoid lumps is add powder a bit at a time...

And I can't believe this, but having start-stopped "learning" Japanese several times (for learning, read glancing idly over books and dictionaries, thinking, "I wonder how you say such-&-such" and brainlessly transcribing roman-lettered Japanese sentences into proper script, which is a by no means straightforward occupation... I actually seem to be getting somewhere!

When I was irritatedly waiting for a bus the other day I went through the list of Japanese animals I know in my mind and it's more than ten. Including the words for bee, wasp and hornet. That's not bad for a beginner.

The rate I'm going I might be semi-fluent by 2026!

Here is a really good Japanese "cultural link" www.japandemic.com (it's not academic at all)...

Huge Food Shopping Expedition

I JUST BOUGHT A WEEK's dindins from my favourite shop, Iceland ~ where you can get all the components of a roastbeef dinner frozen ready to slam in the oven and take out ready with crispy battered diddly potatoes, gravy and all the trimmings, including cauliflower-and-broccoli cheese and Yorshire puddings within 40 minutes. Wonderful!

Provided you're no better than an average cook, the Iceland stuff actually comes out better than most people's from-scratch. It's the standard you'd expect from a pub lunch ~ right down to the thin-sliced roast beef that no-one ever serves at home (how'd you cut it that thin?)

Don't worry y'all I'm not back on the crack. I did have the urge to score more "just a £10 'rock'" this morning... but the memory of my head being full of so much noise put me off sufficiently... And crack is highly habituational, like druggie chocolate and I was glad to be rid of it (apart from just three occasions this year). It took nearly two years from properly trying to actually give it up, so I'm not undoing that in a hurry... Anyway I was so exhausted I didn't really get up till past midday. I do like the person I was with yesterday (he has a good heart). He can be "slightly" stressful, that's all... (ahem!)

And apart from that all is fine and I've an Italian stonebaked garlick chicken pizza ready to be slammed in the oven ~ yumm yummmmeeee!

Illustrated: Kerry "cokenose" Katona (former "face" of Iceland stores ~ sacked for being filmed snorting a line in her own bathroom); cheesy potato slices (I got these for the first time today ~ haven't tried 'em yet ~ these are what I consider trimmings to my RBD); cauliflower cheese ~ I go for the cauliflower and broccoli variety but couldn't find a pic of the pack; they do lovely chocolate caramel slices like this "2 slices extra free" at £1 a pack; cauliflower-broccoli cheese as it's meant to look (ie when I haven't burnt it!); and last but not least the whole shebang put together; prefilled black pepper grater ~ used to be £5 in Sainsbury's! I got mine for £1 from Iceland...

Fire Chaos

NO FIRE ~ but a great deal of chaos.

I slammed in a pair of Morrison's own quarter pounder beefburgers in the middle shelf under high heat fan oven-grill combi with drip-tray to catch the slimy expectorations.

Within three minutes so much smoke was seeping from the sides of the door you'd think my own secret Bonfire Night was smouldering away in there. A minute later, predictably, the smoke alarm went off, but I was ready underneath with a broomhandle to poke it quiet.

This technique was successful for a while, but five minutes and a couple more pokes later so much smoke was pouring into the room that the alarm in the hall went off to earsplitting, lights flashing, bellringing psychotronic hullabaloo. Basically my "fire" had set the house's compulsory Health & Safety state-of-the-art alarm system into the biggest techno-tizz I've ever experienced.

I nearly fell down the stairs trying to get the control box to quell this unearthly commotion. Even then it took two minutes of random key-stabbing till I eventually hit on the right sequence of key-turning and button-pressing to restore peace and sanity.

Thankfully all my housemates seemed to be out ~ or hiding behind their doors.

I barely had time for ten seconds' leaning against the front door panting with exhaustion and to clamber up the stairs to try and air the intractable grey fumes via my tiny casement windows. The oven was off and extractor hood on full blast already. And a woman blaring in Japanese about her trip to London. I always try to combine cookery with education when possible.

But I'd barely a second to notice any of this when the main alarm was off again ~ like a sonic drill to both ears. I charged downstairs. Key-turn. Press press press. The red light signifying a blaze in "zone two" vanished. Peace again.

I had barely got upstairs when the alarm went off yet again. By this time I was panicking that the neighbours ~ or worse the alarm box itself ~ would send the emergency services piling round.

Back upstairs I wiped by glasses, convinced the fog I witnessed everywhere was down to burger-greasy lenses. But no amount of spectacle-buffing would clear it.

The terrible racket went off again and again and again. By the fifth time I knew the silencing procedure by heart. But the control box was mains-powered with battery backup. There was no way of just switching the whole thing off until the smoke cleared. And with my tiny windows (the big ones painted shut long ago ~ thanks landlord) this was going to take a long, long time. I was on the verge of despair.

The cause of all the trouble, so it transpired, was a red-glowing water-filter-shaped gizmo I hadn't even noticed before on the ceiling by my door ~ quite separate from and independent of the poke-outable smoke detector in the next room. No amount of determined broom action would silence this baby.

Eventually with a prayer to God our ridiculously over-zealous alarm system did chill out and shut up for good but not before my nerves were totally frazzled.

No smoke without fire?!?
Not on your nellie!

All that and my burgers were still only half cooked through ~ I had to finish them off in a frying pan!

AND HOW WAS YOUR WEEKEND..??!!?!

Porkshire Trotettes Recipe and a Disney Dog

I REALLY WANT A DISNEY DOG LIKE "PEANUT" FROM THE KINGSMILL ADVERT:

Can you believe NOBODY has put Peanut the dog on Youtube? You have to click here, and you can see him in all his Disney cuteness ... scrabbling at the window because his cruel owers have blamed sandwich theft upon him ... poor swine ...

But if you're too lazy to click, here's a doggie just like Peanut the Kingsmill dog being tormented by a nasty biscuit-eating child:



HERE'S THE RECIPE FOR MY YORKSHIRE TROTETTES:

Trotettes are simple: get Iceland's own precooked Yorkshire puddings (the type with batter already risen).

Cook beef/lamb, cauliflower/broccoli cheese, vegetables, gravy.

Slam in Yorkshire puddings for last 5 mins.



FROM GERMANY'S BILDZEITUNG:

Hornissen attackieren Schulklasse

Haßloch ~ Eine Schulklasse unternahm in Hassloch (Rheinland-Pfalz) einen Ausflug, ging in einen Wald. Plötzlich fiel dort ein Schwarm aufgeregter Hornissen über die Kinder her ~ offenbar waren sie dem Bau zu nahe gekommen. Drei Schüler, die Lehrerin (30) und ein Jogger (51) wurden durch Stiche verletzt, mußten ins Krankenhaus. Der Förster schaffte den Hornissenbau vom Waldweg fort.

German tabloid style is a little different from the English, so I cleared it up as best I could without straying too far from a literal translation:

HORNETS ATTACK SCHOOLCHILDREN

Hassloch ~ a school class went on a woodland walk in Hassloch (Rheinland-Pfalz). Suddenly a swarm of angry hornets attacked the children, who had obviously strayed too near the insects' nest. Three pupils, the teacher (30) and a passing jogger (51) have been treated in hospital for stings. Forest management removed the nest.

From Bild.de: Horror-Wespen-Report

More from Bild: Wespen-Invasion: Gefahr für Millionen

ä Ä ö Ö ü Ü ß ... How to type German umlauts ...

Nonindustrial Beef (and Lamb) ...

OK, having been inspired by Iceland's "industrial" version, I finally got inspired to do my own roast beef dinner at the weekend. I say "roast": it was pie-steak cooked in covered pan on hob. Basically beef hotpot with only mushrooms and onions. The dumplings I put in last thickened the juices into gravy very nicely. To season I used about 1 teaspoon Chinese curry powder; 1 teaspoon Jamaican jerk seasoning; 4 teaspoons paprika; 1 teaspoon thyme; 1 teaspoon honey-mustard (which is annoyingly nearly empty as I ate nearly an entire jar one night when I was bored ...). Seal in beef cubes by frying. Add boiling water. Chop up and chuck on two very large mushrooms (priced the same as cheapie button ones for some reason by Morrisons express checkout) plus half a giant onion. Add all seasoning at once. Boil for about 20 mins. Reduce heat to minimum. Cover pan. Let simmer for another two hours. Then the beef, which was "edible" in 20 mins but with the texture of old shoes, has turned into an olde English feast. Serve with Iceland industrial cauliflower and broccoli cheese, peas, beans and potato croquettes. Yummy.

I bought about an "lb" (or 450g) of lamb necks ~ some poor dear furry's been slaughtered and I'm buying cross-sections of the poor swine's neck!! Except if it literally was a swine I wouldn't touch it in a million years. Pork is utterly unclean.

Anyway, I fried this up in a wok to seal in, chucked in a pan of boiling water to which I added about half the same spices as yesterday but far more herbs: 1 tsp standard mixed herbs and about five sprigs of fresh mint, stripped off the stalk with a sharp knife and roughly chopped. I also threw in about 1 teaspoon of brown sauce (which is like tomato ketchup with Lea & Perrins ~ full of tamarinds) and 1 teaspoon honey-mustard. In the wok I meanwhile fried up two handsful of baby button mushrooms (got 'em from a different shop where they were cheaper) and the other half of that giant Spanish onion.

Then I took two enormous bags of clothes to the launderette, where they would only fit in the £3.60 machine and cost £1.20 to get even half dry. They're now finishing off on my luxury Ikea hanger...

... anyway I got back after midday and my kitchen smelled like Nanny's used to (and she was just like Mrs Bridges off Upstairs Downstairs ~ and she had been "in service" as a girl ...) on Sunday afternoons... I've not had nowt to eat yet, but on tasting, the water the lamb was cooking in was very nice indeed ...

Another Upstairs Downstairs link

Did you know in the early 1970s Upstairs Downstairs was said to be the Queen's favourite television programme, and Mrs Bridges (my Nan) her favourite character ...

Cajun Chicken & A Real Ink Pen

I MISSED MORRISONS' special deal roast chicken legs yesterday lunchtime so I bought two raw drumsticks from the butchers by the MSG-chipshop (they have some secret recipe thing going on and I suspect MSG in the frying oil is surely it). These drumsticks were so enormous they looked like they'd come from a turkey. If not a swan. Anyway, rather than bang them in the oven 200C for 40 mins plain, I did a home-rapid-marinade consisting of Schwarz Cajun Seasoning in Value rapeseed oil Rapeseed's normally 10p a litre cheaper than sunflower or soya, is homegrown and lower in baddie-fats than either of the other two. Anyway I was quite liberal with the spicing and slavered on at least a flat teaspoonload on the two megalegs. These went in for the appointed time, after which I turned off the oven and let them cook inside as it cooled. Imagine my disappointment when, a full hour later, I knifed one open only to find a suspiciously pink interior. Unwilling to touch chicken that's even slightly underdone (and it would have been slightly undercooked if at all) I sliced the chicken off the bones, spread it out on the plate and oven-cooked for a further quarter hour.

This time, if anything, it was over done! But the cajun spicing and the skin came out amazingly crackly and gorgeous.

I will have to try this recipe again. for next time I have another lot of spices hardcore marinating in my cupboard (or should I slam it in the fridge?)

I was thinking of mixing this amazing cajun seasoning ~ which is quite similar to tikka masala, if you know that ~ in with flour to do home-made KFC. Can you do KFC in the oven? I don't really want to deep-fry because of the fire risk.

***

Sorry about yesterday's post. I was so down and tired and empty nothing came to mind. bar what I'd seen on the previous night's Big Brother...

***

I FOUND a fountain pen on the street outside a public toilet. A real live fountain pen! Yes: it was running around on its little legs, then stopped, peered up at me with sad eyes and implored, "Please help me find my owner. Pretty please!"

And it is quite pretty and girlie. Covered in rainbow stripes and stars. But it's made by Parker and they're the best (after the Swiss brand Lamy). Lamy nibs write as smoothly as if broken in 10 years ago ~ right from the day of purchase.

When I was younger (and pretentious enough) I wrote in real ink all the time. I was thinking, maybe I ought to take up that habit again. It might inspire me to pen a mighty work of Great Literature..(!)... (Or something)...

***

AMY WINEHOUSE has been found not guilty of common assault after she gave a black eye to a "burlesque dancer" (stripper) who "shoved a camera" in her face without even asking...

***


And how was your day?

***

Illustrations: top ~ my chicken legs came out just like this. And I roasted them in a thing that looked exactly the same... Yellow pen by Lamy. Best fountain pens in the world. Amy Winehouse... looked far more sober than this at court today...

Konditorei!

Vienna ~ where I'm thinking of fleeing to ~ is world-famous for its Konditorei; its quality cakes:

Schokoladenkuchen (chocolate cake)



Käsekuchen (cheesecake)



Schwarzwalderkirschtorte (Black Forest Gâteau) ...














... and erstaunliche Kuchen ~ cakes of sheer genius! ...





... yum yum YUMMM!!

Shooting Up In A Phone Box

HOW VULGAR! But that's what I did. It took me TWO HOURS to get from suburbia to this certain dealer's "urbia". TWO HOURS of faffing around for a post office open enough to get MY OWN MONEY OUT. Faffing for the right bus and a route where someone had not been murdered leading to yards and yards of it cordoned off (like yesterday). Then finally about twenty minutes into my pacing about in an "obviously not waiting for the bus" way at this innercity stop da man turns up. He didn't seem to notice I palmed him off with short money. Then I was so agitated at missing the first bus home and then useless ones to places like John O'Groats and other areas I do not live I thought "oh bugger it", went into the public urinal-cum-phone box (without Big Ben views), poured out a bit of my cyder-and-Lucozade drink and made that into a yummy hit of gear that I jammed into my leg whilst having an imaginary conversation. I don't think anybody noticed and I don't know whether it was unfamiliar surroundings or what, but the drugs were rather good ...

Anyway I'm back by my old house and procrastinating packing the very last. This is because I'm weary and weighed down with cooked chicken thighs and mushrooms and spring onions. My Mumzy bought me intellectual noodle nests (highly intellectual: bilingual instructions in Sumerian and Akkadian with Pi to 10,000 places...) and easy Chinese meals are calling.

My hamsters have got over the horror of being placed in the middle of a table for all to see, if only there were a collection of people to peer in and view them. Spherical had taken to glaring at me balefully then vanishing down a Trotters' Tube, her giant furry backside rumbling behind her ...

Dealers Dealers Dealers (Rant) & Peas Pobble Piri Piri

SCROLL DOWN TO THE BOWL OF STEW FOR PIRI PIRIS.
DRUGS BIT COMES FIRST:
SO IT IS quarter to eight pm on Sunday. NOBODY has any heroin. Those that do cannot get it together to sort out cars. I got so wound up I bashed away at every phone number I had (bar one or two). I have quite a lot of numbers representing 10 different businesses. And not one of these people can get it together to either be somewhere when I come or deliver!

The most businesslike tale of drug dealing I ever heard comes allegedly from New York City. Of course New York has been a homeland of hard drugs longer than practically anywhere else in the Western World. Heroin didn't come to London till the 1960s ~ up till then Paris was the major hub of European narcotics distribution ~ not Amsterdam, as today.

Anyway this was the story. You went up to a certain apartment building where you encountered an empty bucket dangling by a long long string. Into this bucket you put your money and yanked it (I expect ~ so the folks on the other end knew they had a customer) then up up up the bucket would go, presently to come down again bearing the exact quantity of heroin paid for.

I can just imagine what the neighbours might have said "Did you see that bucket going up every day full of money?"

"No! But did you see that one going down full of drugs?"

IT'S MONDAY AFTERNOON and by now I'm feeling better. I didn't even put down yesterdays morosity to Unsacred Sundays ...

Today I got paid and as well before visiting my dealer I went to the butchers and Morrisons (formerly Safeways) the supermarket. I had assumed the halal one on the corner would be cheapest for diced meat. Wrong! Today I got beef cubes, £3 worth at £2.10 a LB. With it I made a very pleasant peas pobble piri piri stew with dumplings; (serves 2) here's how:

There are three ways of making a stew in my opinion. Three textures. When I told a certain friend I was "learning to make stew" I got back the reply: "Anyone can do that," and maybe they can, but mine are a million miles from dead bits of lamb floating in leek-and-potato gruel. I learned to cook vegetarian before I ever handled meat, so mine's properly spiced. I don't bother adding potatoes as I far prefer bready-carby dumplings. Yumm...

Texture is really important in cookery. Industrial manufacturers of prepackaged food call it "mouth feel". In a stew with baby potatoes a nice point of contrast can be established by the addition of tinned water chestnuts and halved button mushrooms along with tiny dumplings. All four have a similar white appearance but ever so different "mouth feel" ...

A standard beef or lamb stew would be all cubed, ideally with the meat cubes slightly larger and more prominent than the veg.
Or you can do one with meat cubes contrasting against a background mush. This is really nice if you want lots of dumplings
The third way if peas-n-pulse pobble-bobble. A really nice consistency as below:

BEEF & PEAS POBBLE PIRI PIRI HOTPOT
Serves 2-3

Fry:
~300g cubed beef. I cut the cubes myself into 8 or 10 bits the size of board games dice
~1 large onion, diced
~1 tsp garlic paste
~5 or 6 closed cap mushrooms cut into 6es

I fried in a wok; transferred to med/large saucepan for part 2:

After about ten minutes boil by adding
~1/2 can chopped tomatoes
~about 1/6th of a 500g jar Ragu original. I always used to assume the ultra-tomatoey flavour of Ragu and the like came from dodgy industrial process, until I realized each jar contains something like "150g tomatoes per 100g" ie to make yourself you'd need to bake several cans of chopped tomatoes in an open casserole dish for several hours. And you still wouldn't save any money at min. 35p a tin tomatoes and £1 a jar Ragu so I buy it predone. But if you're against this I understand your opposition. It makes a far nicer tomato additive though than plain old tomato paste. Now add:
~half a tin Dunns River mixed beans/peas: red kidney, black eye, gungo
~1-1.5 tsp mixed MILD curry powders, jerk and cajun seasonings: turmeric, mustard, fenugreek, chili, cumin, cayenne, ginger, allspice, cardamom, pimento, cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, cloves, oregano, sage, thyme, marjoram, bay...
~2-3 tsp paprika
~1 tsp mixed herbs: parsley, sage, marjoram, thyme, oregano, basil
~0.5 tsp extra thyme
~0.5 tsp honey mustard
~1 tsp tomato ketchup

~1 tiny carrot, diced and fiercely boiled with water added in last hour (coz I 4got to put it in far earlier!)

Cook in a covered pan, stirring occasionally. Add fresh boiling water as/when necessary. Verge towards too much water rather than not enough. Dumplings need it. Uncover pan and boil off any excess after dumplings done.

Dumplings: 2 parts selfraising flour to 1 part vegetable suet. Add pepper to taste.
Ensure a good 2 inches hubblebubbling water clear for dumplings to form in lovely baroque bready crags

In last 15 minutes add 2 handsful or about 2/3 coffee mug full of frozen peas and ensure they boil up nicely. The peas add a lovely flavour.

The extra flour from the dumplings usually thickens what surplus juice remains, but if your stew's still too watery, boil off any excess by removing the lid. Stir well to prevent subterranean sticking...

PS: My robos really like frozen veg straight from the freezer. Of my Hamsta MCs, Trotter Donkey seized on a frozen pea just now and scuttled off gleefully like an ecstatic furry hippo ...

FILM: Cockatiel Jailbreak ~ The Squarkshank Redemption
I got this from the blog Cute Overload that I follow...



IN THE NEWS:
MAN WOBBLING COCONUTS TO MARKET IN INDIA...

Dumplings!

I AM CAUGHT BETWEEN DUMPLINGS AND UNREALITY. Well that and chili con carne with pharts ... In answer to your questions: Bashful Trotter Donkey bites me with expressions of gleeful intent. My fault for giving them a taste for roast chicken bones as babies. Now my fingers make excellent robo-chew-bones for the trotters ...

Re psychiatrists and the "they don't care whether you're raving mad" quotation from Maple Syrup, my never-listen Drug Worker, that appointment's separate from the "let's point and probe and dig around to isolate your legion insanities" appointment the Operative threatens daily to have made...

This is about all I have to say for tonight. Presently I'm perfecting chili con carne dumplings and must reveal these need a good two inches clear of bubbling water in order to form properly, breadily ~ and not as mere glutinous balls of glob. OK then!! Back tomorrow, Folks!!

Domesticated Condiments

THE CHILI CON CARNE WAS OK, except for the windy diarrhoea I gave myself by undercooking (slightly) the red kidney beans. This despite following all instructions to the letter and obeying minimum boil time limits...

So I was thurping and trumpeting away all night, then I woke up in a shower of pure lights of unbeing (so to speak) and decided to clean my house all anew. It is now shining like the operating theatre on ET's intergalactic spacecraft.

Oh and as for condiments: I'd run out by this morning. No black pepper even. So irritatedly I whizzed round the supermarket, having to ask the old grannies who worked there (at least the ones who looked like they spoke English) where's black pepper? where's vinegar? mayo? Atora (dumpling suet)? etc etc and a shower of other items that make plain food more bearable. Then shelled out about £3.80 on nothing.

I had to go to a drugs clinic appointment. I don't know why, but I hate these more and more every time. Next visit is to the Chief Head Shrinker and I'm trembling in trepidation. Maple Syrup my worker reassured me it's ten minutes of blabber and he's not interested whether or not I'm barking mad.

As I "intimated" previously I'm terrified of being labelled bipolar, having had something like a nervous breakdown every single time I've made even a halfhearted effort at detoxing. One of these lovely, fun times seemingly met the DSM IV criteria (as used by American Headshrinkers) for a mixed mania-depression episode. No wonder I felt so lovely throughout that experience.

Trotter Donkey says hi to everybody. She bit me and ran off yesterday then MC Carrot Nose glared at me from under the porch of the chewed-out Cadbury's Chocolate Fingers emporium in which they sleep... Their water bottle ran out a couple of days ago and I couldn't find tape to restick it. Which meant having to hold up said bottle as robos emerged like furry hippos to gluckle away at said bottle two-at-once, which always looks entertaining. When "Baby" Itchy was alive they used to drink three at once in a Furry Trinity, which looked ever so sweet... Only this time they totally ignored said watery condiment until I bothered to call them and then two gremlinous racoon faces appeared. They stared and stared up at me as I continued to talk rubbish. Which I found dead flattering. Then Bashful bit me and scurried off ...

Chili Con Carne

I FOUND an (undamaged) packet of red kidney beans on the street. Obviously it had fallen out of some Guardian-reading, round glasses-wearing bicycle-riding Labour voter's shopping (not that I'm prone to stereotyping) and I decided to make the most of it. So these unattractive, hard pulses have been languishing on my shelf for nearly a month. And just when I felt like eating them (because the cupboard was otherwise bare: I'd even run out of tea, milk and sugar) I found you had to soak the blighters overnight before consuming. Dur! I do remember this from uni days when my socialist friends collected weird things in teacups on the fridge, but always thought then, as I do now, why not just buy 'em tinned~??!?

So having turfed said beans into one mug, which they rapidly outswelled, then into two mugs I was greatly "appointed" to find a full-on recipe for chili con carne on the packet's side. I spent £12 on two burgeoning bags of shopping at Morrisons this morning, forcing myself to stock up on the less convenient (ie not ready in 2 minutes fresh stuffed pasta type stuff I'm prone to) comestibles like brown pasta twirls (I cannot handle spaghetti after a bad experience) and brown rice. Isn't brown supposed to be better? It's certainly going to make everyone think I'm anti death penalty (which I'm not: I think rapists, murderers and paedophiles should be put out of their misery).

For my carne I bought the slightly pinker minced (ground) beef at £2 for 800g. I always thought supermarkets were dearer for meat ~ they always used to charge double for pie steak (when they bothered to stock it) and lamb chops. Grew up a bit lamb chopped out and so nowadays go for any other cut. Neck was cheap and nice ~ but then again the supermarkets never stocked it cubed, which I, coming from Blunt Knife Land found greatly inconvenient.

I can't even parrot out this recipe I'm about to travesty, though I can say it requires something like tinned tomatoes or Ragu base (got both), garlic (tubed far out-conveniences fresh bulbs, which dry out and stink out my fridge before I ever remember to use them...) and mushrooms and onions and broccoli, all of which my refrigerator's soon to be replete with.

Isn't my life fascinating! Gotta go before all the frozen crap I bought thaws out ~ cheery-bye!

PS here's a baby robo with a baby ruby-eyed "normal" (Syrian) hamster. The robbie baby isn't that much smaller than full-grown, but the Syrian will grow to four times that size

Piri Piri Explosion!

I NEVER GOT A CHANCE TO DUMPLINGIZE the last stew because I ate the entire lot while it was mulling overnight (y'know to let spices settle in). Anyway I've done a repeat performance today only without baby potatoes, which you don't need, carbs-wise when you're intending to saturate the pan with humungous puffing dumplings. They're so nice you end up eating more and more dumplings and barely bothering with the stew (well I do).

Anyway here's my recipe as performed this morning:

Serves one because I gobbled up so much of the ingredients last time. And speaking of ingredients they are:

About 1/3 lb cubed beef. I always cut the butcher's cubes into thirds when I get home. It makes the chunkiness go further.
1 medium onion, chopped
2 large spring onions, chopped right up till the leaves start getting too manky for human consumption. Dice through the onionier white sections
About 5 large field mushrooms, alternately quartered and sliced
Small selection of frozen carrots, broccoli, cauliflour selection
Cooking oil
Spices: curry powders, jerk seasoning, cajun seasoning, paprika. If you don't have such an exotic mix you can use just paprika and chili. Go easy on the chili though

Oil saucepan, put on med-hi heat, add beef cubes and fry till "sealed in" (ie grey all over), then add onion, fry a further 2 mins now reduce heat a bit, add mushrooms, fry a further 2 mins. Get all your piri piri spices and add in the following proportion: one spoon mixed total of curry/jerk/cajun spices to one spoon paprika. If using just paprika and chili then make the balance at least 90-10 with 90 on paprika's side.
Now chuck in chopped spring onion, fry up a bit.
I had to transfer to a larger pan a third way through the following and had to add more oil.
Once you've got these ingredients sizzling merrily add about a coffee mug full of freshly boiled water then add the frozen veg and put a lid on the pan. I always verge towards too much water as too little will get horrible burnt bits at the bottom. You can always boil off any excess simply by returning heat to max and removing lid for a few mins.
Cook for at least an hour and a half on as low a heat as you can muster.
In last half hour add frozen peas if desired.
Make up dumpling mix (self-raising flour, Atora vegetable suet and water with a tad salt and pepper). Check there's at least an inch of water depth. Chuck in 10 or so pingpong ball sized dumplings. (They swell massively).
My top tip: every time I do this I fret that I've delivered a spices overdose. And I never have yet. Although massively too much paprika is too much and frankly unnecessary.

Now I have to rush and get back to much bubbling piri piris.
Piri piri means some sort of African chili. I use the expression rather loosely, as you might have guessed.

I got the obsession from a certain Domino's Pizza advert:



OT Quartet: Hold That Sucker Down
This was once voted the bestest dance track of all time: