Cheesy Biscuits

Knitted socks as shoes prototypes

Learning to knit socks.  After knitting black pair for J, I am now trying to learn to knit socks that look like socks in shoes.   This pair is made up of the 2 prototypes.  I can't bear to unpick them so will wear myself.  Still some problems to sort out.

Spicy Cheesy Peanut Butter Biscuits

Felt like something spicy and savoury on a rainy afternoon and couldn't be bothered going to the supermarket so I improvised.    Flour, cheese, peanut butter, butter and spices - black pepper, cayenne, paprika, mustard powder and garlic salt.  Yummy.

Revamped shirts

As well as sewing new jim-jams, I have been revamping John's shirts.  He was going to throw out because they were too baggy and long.  I thought the materials were too nice.  The lovely blue linen one on the right is Donna Karen.  So I turned up the bottoms to make them straight, newer style of wearing outside trousers but still long enough to tuck in for work.   I also worked out how to take off 2 1/2 inches off the chest and sleeve width  from the one on the left.  Now that I know this is possible I can revamp more of his shirts.  Next experiment is to tailor one with some darts.

Chicken Dumplings

Saw it on 'little Paris kitchen' last night but recipe not on site and i didn't pay enough attention so i did my own thing on it.

1. Cut the meat off 2 chicken quarters and put the  left over chicken bones and skin, with a couple of wings, in oven to brown for 20 mins.

2. Put chicken pieces into food processor with  1/2  fried onion, seasoning, lemon juice, mozzarella cheese ball, egg and flour.  Spoon out into little chicken dumplings and rolled in seasoned flour.

3. In big pan add chicken stock/2 cubes, seasoning (pinches of S&P, cayene, paprika, mustard, vinegar, bay leaf, ginger ).  Add the roast chicken pieces/bones/skin from oven with cabbage, celery, 1/2 fried onion and 1 red pepper - all finely sliced/shredded.  Cook for 15 mins.

4. Add chicken dumplings and cook further 30mins.

Have only just realise that this blog is a great dumping (not dumpling) ground for things I don't want to forget - a proper useful diary/cookbook/sketchbook etc.

Art exhibitions I've been to recently

I've been to a few and been meaning to blog about them.  So will now precise:

Freud - Nat Portrait Gallery -   Love the flesh but uneasy feeling about him and women
Hockney Royal Academy - beautiful bright coloured paintings of Yorshire landscapes.  The huge ipad prints really interesing - just got couple of books from library on his digital art.   Look forward to getting ipad one day.
Hirst - Tate Modern - agree with some critics - doesn't need 9 rooms at the Tate.  I liked half of it - the butterflies and flies (I know, they belong in science museum).  Some pretty stuff.   A big butterfly flew onto my bright orange coast and attendant had to remove it before I could leave the room.
David Shrigley - Haywood - only 10mins so will go again.  Some humour in the drawings.  Not sure about the scupltures.  I loved his animations a few years ago.

Tate Britain - all in one afternoon for quick previews.
Patrick Keiller -  'The Robinson Institute'   -friend from NZ wants to see it so i thought i'd check it out - for me with poor attention span and dislike of standing, I didn't stay long enough to read the long texts in detail or watch the 1/2 hour videos which moved very slowly but i think i got the jist.   Not bad but not my thing.  Admire rather than love.
 Picasso and British Art - Tate Britain - only had 10 mins before closing.  Will probably go again.  Seems ok.
Migrations - British art through the theme of migration from 1500 to the present day.  Need more time/less aches and pains to read the labels about the artists.

Still to see:
Hajj - British Museum
Turner - National Gallery

Sunshine Citrus Drizzle Coconut Cake - all 4000 calories of it

My take on lemon drizzle cake.  Added cocount instead of ground almond as in the recipe.  Sauce is lemon, lime and orange juice with icing sugar (and a little cornflour which I added by mistake instead of icing sugar so had to heat it to cook the cornflour then add masses of OJ.  So I now have masses of the sauce.)

Apple buns

Am experimenting with bread dough - different lengths of rising.  Used a little of the dough to do a variation on the German Beer Buns I saw on the cookery program Hairy Biker Bakeation - them travelling round Europe cooking local foods.  Here is recipe for their cabbage and meat filled buns  http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/meat_and_cabbage_buns_80117

My dough wasn't sweet, I just rolled out in rounds put apple and a half teaspoon of lemon curd in middle, bundled up and sprinkled sugar on top.  They taste fine, though might try a sweet dough next time.  Good alternative to pastry as there is no butter.  No pretty yet but will improve.

Am also watching My Little French Kitchen on BBC - very cute - a pretty young English girl, studying cookery in Paris, living in the tiniest flat - she has to put up her bed each day and cooks on a pin head of a kitchen.  Yet she turns her flat into tiny restaurant at night for 2-3 people - brave - cooking French food for the French.  She has some lovely recipes.  You can see why she got the job on the telly.  Does she really not have a boyfriend or two with mansions in paris? - or is she an independent passionate - it's all about the food and my career as a chef or - somewhere in between probably.  She seems very sweet and passionate to me.

http://www.thelittlepariskitchen.com/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01dy7yt

I will be trying more recipes from both these programs though harder to find her recipes on online so i will have to make notes while watching (unless i buy the book!) whereas bikers have them all bbc online. - You can see why I had to enlarge my jimjams.