Logbook

Spare ribs.

Take the marination recipe for the chicken that has evolved from what you learned in Form 1 (used by alpha_angel to great effect for her mince pies). Added pineapple juice, a couple slices of pineapple and chinese 5 spice I think. Skipped the cornflour. Haven't paid attention to the actual quantities in a while.
Take one chunk of mutton flap sliced into pieces. Possibly don't let it get freezer burned the way we were starting to before deciding that it really needed using.

Combine in a pottery dish you would be happy baking a casserole in. Add water to cover. Cover and bake for several hours until the meat falls off the bones and you want to devour it. Serve with rice and appropriate vege.

Or do what we did, which is get it on as soon as get home from work (~6pm), have something else for dinner, cook til ~10pm, biff in the fridge for the next day, remove as much of the fat from the congealed surface as possible, then reheat in the oven, while cooking the rice for dinner.

There was a bit less fat that way... Not a dish for more than once or twice a year though I think.

But for rich, fall off the bones goodness...mmmmmmmmmmmm

Any one recommend a good recipe for hare?

Wondering about this (jugged hare), but the blood was not kept.
This (Peppered Hare) sounds good but Z doesn't want to have to de-bone the bugger.
Or maybe this (braised hare).

Or just biff on a bed of rosemary, cover in bacon, add garlic cloves and a dash or red or white wine, cover and back for a couple hours?

Mmmm
Fresh baked bowl of cheese straws*...

* 1 c flour, 1 c grated butter, 1 cup grated (tasty) cheese, ~2 t baking powder, dash smoked garlic salt and dash of caijun seasoning (would have been mustard powder but appear not to have any)**. Crumble the lot together and add water to make dough. Squish flat, slice and bake in hot oven for ~10 min. Put in a bowl, sprinkle on salt and devour. Wonder if you should set some aside for other people or for later... And then decide that if there are some left, someone else _might_ be able to have some***. Not certain if that is more healthy than popcorn drowned in butter with salt, though I don't put a cup of butter on a bowl of popcorn.

** Recipe taken from the one in Rally Cook book I, published by the New Zealand Every Boy's and Girl's rallies. The odd useful things left behind by previous inhabitants of flats. I tend to ignore the Scripture quotes on the occasional pages.

*** There probably will be at least half the bowl left over...

The hazards of surfing recipes and and having cooking stuff on tv in the background.

So, Fri evening. Gaming with the usual suspects (well, they gamed and I lurked in a corner and read Charles Stross)

Sat: Various people around to work on tabards and shields for the battle against(or for, depending on choc fish rates) the ALFs and Salient. Much sewing, gluing and spraypainting. Missed Earthhour itself with much needed fish and chips, blobbing and a scenic tour of Johnsonville and Newlands. But things sorted themselves out in the rain and we spent the remainder of the evening nattering with people and exchanging domesday scenarios with the best of them.

Sun: Swimming in the morning, lunch, finished book*, then nap in the afternoon. Woke around 5pm... Since then it has been dinner, next book, and banana muffin making. Substituted oil for marge, so will be interesting to see how they turn out. And meanwhile, Z is getting on with some calligraphy.

Had all sorts of plans for shopping etc today (groceries, spices and a frying pan etc), but they sort of got napped through. Oh well.

Time to try a muffin. Virtual muffins to all those who want one and can't grab one. I'll leave you with the smell of freshly baked banana muffins wafting out of your hard drive...

* Halting State by Charles Stross. Not quite as good as the Laundryverse ones but better than the Clan ones.

** Day Watch. Quite different to the movie so far but still a good read.

Edit: banana muffins work :) Now need a muffin tray of own so can stop borrowing alpha_angel's good one...

So, based on the recipe (link via BoingBoing), is it worth it/economic to try making vanilla extract? What are vanilla bean prices like locally?

Getting close to dinner and getting distracted with thoughts of yum char and dim sim. But sigh, have the left over orange chicken* from the past few nights to use up. Then brainwave and started googling steamed bun recipes - yum char and using up leftovers. Looks like will start with this recipe with the leftover filling. There may be reports later if the dough or the dirty dish stack doesn't eat me.

This of course doesn't help the slightly immediately hungry feeling due to yeast rising times (some snack time) but should be an interesting experiment.

*I have a recipe for orange chicken around somewhere but it hasn't been seen for a while. This consisted of marinating diced chicken thigh in soy, sweet chilli sauce, ginger and garlic, coating in corn flour and stir frying (with onion) before adding the juice from 2 enormous oranges to create an orange gluggy mess that didn't taste bad. Which is I remember correctly bears no resemblence to the original recipe bar the use of chicken and orange juice.

And on the subject of cooking, wouldn't mind trying to replicate the Byron Bay brand sticky date and ginger cookies. Suspect a soft ginger cookie recipe (possibly like this) with added dates (and possibly rolled oats from the ones I say at the cafe last night). Will skip the extra crystalized ginger and walnuts.

Edit: 8:40pm and the first 2 are out of the steamer and worked. White and fluffy. Filling isn't so great but since started with a mediocre filling that isn't suprising. Will have to try again with better filling. Also need a larger steamer as can do 2 a a time in the current one and there are 24 in total... Apparently they freeze well though.

Don't leave Z in charge of cooking dinner when there is a TV program he wants to rip appart (Robin Hood). Burnt steak may result - he is ahead of me in actually managing to set off the smoke detector, though the result was still edible and there was no glowing red charcoal.

Hair is now red. This time we didn't use the spare water in the bathtub to rinse ie no swamp. Don't look too closely at the shower though.

Why does PMS increase my tendancy to bake/cook? Nice lemon curd though*. Didn't feel like swearing over lemon merengue with only a hand whisk. Lemon tarts tomorrow I think.

* Added lemon zest as well and melted the butter before combining with the sugar and mixed the eggs thoroughly before combining and heating. Made a large cup worth - not certain how well it will keep or how long it will last. Nice on toast though.

Take standard omlette mix. Take favourite little cast iron frying pan and get it really nice and hot. Make omlette. When 3/4 to fully cooked, pile on cooked bacon, grated cheese and a spoonful or two of taco sauce*. Fold in half (can be messy), extract out of pan (the other messy bit) and consume. Two was plenty.

* Red or green pepper too if I had had some. Suspect mushrooms too if your tastes are that way inclined.

Undertunic is "cut" out - love how linen rips. Found linen thread and beeswax, time to get started.

Ok, this recipe for Chewy Oatmeal Spice Cookies is quite nice. Dairy free and lemon rind substituted for the orange rind. Couldn't be arsed separating the eggs so there are 2 whole eggs instead of the egg whites called for. Also used rye flour instead of white - sounds quite hippyish really, but we need to use it up.