Chocolate chip cookies

Nigella is trying to finish me off today, she’s reaching out through her book and telling me to eat bad food (bad in a totally calorific way of course, not taste). I’ve been still trying to find my phone (with no success), so I gave up and skulked off to the kitchen to make some comfort cookies and boy are these cookies comforting and filling, just eating one makes you feel like your eyes are going to roll into the back of your head from food overdose. These are, basically, very nice and as Nigella writes in her book, chocolate chip cookies are so hard to get right and she’s got it right this time*.

* Well almost – I think there’s a mistake in the amount of chocolate chips listed in the recipe, she’s listed way too much, I used a single 100g tub and that was more than enough. Also recipe says it makes 14, I managed 8 and I was measuring out the dough, as instructed, with one of those American 1/4 cup things  (actually a Nigella branded measuring cup, I’m  not obsessed or anything, but . . .)

Risotto Bolognese

I am happy to report that today’s Nigella recipe was a lot more successful; her Risotto Bolognese recipe from Kitchen was absolutely delicious, very thick, comforting, filling, totally rib sticking and utterly not diet food. The recipe can be found here, I wish I’d made more if it (I’d divided the recipe in half to feed the four of us – i.e. three adult sized portions), as it would have been nice to have had a stash of left overs in the fridge. Nigella suggests making risotto cakes out of the left overs, now that would have been delicious to. As it was though, I was slightly suspicious of this recipe, it involved making the meat sauce, cooking it at a low temperature in an oven for an hour, before transferring your casserole pan (or in my case my large metal handled saucepan, as I thought my casserole pan would have been too big and the sauce may have dried out) back onto the hob to add the uncooked risotto rice and then performing the constant stirring and stock adding of a normal risotto. I make risottos quite a lot and I’m so used to adding the rice first to just the base of carrots, onion and celery, maybe some pancetta to and then adding the flavourings, not, as in the case of this recipe, the other way round, with the adding of the rice to the flavourings. Like I said, I was a bit suspicious as to whether the rice would cook properly, but it did, although this is really a risotto where you have to watch and stir for every single one of the wrist straining twenty minutes (it is a very thick sauce), normally when I make risotto I sometimes cheat a little and add too much stock so I can leave the stove for a few minutes to load the dishwasher or something.

But you know what was even nicer about this recipe? Once again Nigella has hit the spot by creating a dish that every single one of my family ate and no complaining about it either, Boy Lacer even said yum! Girl Lacer was seen licking the plate! Nigella I forgive you for that Thai chicken soup that didn’t quite hit the mark.

Nigella’s Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

This looked really nice when Nigella made this on TV (recipe here) but in reality, well maybe I’m being super picky because it was nice and incredibly quick to make even with quite a long list of ingredients (which didn’t really require anything much harder than just spooning or squeezing into the bubbling pan of stock), it is not as nice as something Thai from someone like Nigel Slater or even (*whispers* as I’m not a big fan of the following cook) Delia Smith, sorry Nigella.

Happy Birthday Girl Lacer!

Girl Lacer turned 7 today, which means I’m a mummy of a 7 year old (sorry, feeling old there for a moment). She’s a lucky thing because her birthday always (at least so far) falls over the half term holiday, so she had a nice lazy day and didn’t even get out of her pyjamas. The big birthday trip out was on Sunday when we went to Legoland for the annual birthday related trip to see the fireworks, where I would share some photos with you, as the fireworks were pretty spectacular, except I can’t, as I lost my camera on the way home Do not trust me with expensive electrical gadgets basically, which shows some lovely daughterly love from Girl Lacer, as she got a new camera from her grandad for her birthday and she says I can borrow it whenever I like it, which is very lucky as I won’t be able to afford a new camera until after Christmas and as I still can’t find my iPhone . . .

Girl Lacer got a good haul of birthday presents, she’s upped her previously small collection of Barbies, got a Sylvanian bunny car, a camera like I said from my incredibly generous dad, a classic joke book I remember from my own childhood, an anti-colouring book which she spent all day doing inbetween having a Dora the Explorer marathon and (and this is what it feels like I’ve been doing nothing but for the last few days) a quilt from me.

The quilt is an adaptation of the Tulip Field Quilt from Jane Brocket’s The Gentle Art of Quilt Making (which in the book is a double bed sized quilt consisting of two columns of stripes and is in a slightly more grown up colour way). The colours were chosen by Girl Lacer but I was restricted a bit by the fabric choice in Kingston (I had planned on going shopping for this in central London but this was round the time Boy Lacer was off sick from school a bit, so I had to stick local). The fabric is a mixture between Amy Butler, Tanya Whelan, Liberty and some unknown manufacturer for the purple border. The quilt top was fairly easy to put together, it was making the quilt sandwich that was the tricky bit due to lack of space (heaven knows what I’d do if I were quilting a double) and consequently the backing isn’t particularly smooth in places. But even so it is incredibly soft and comfortable, I’d love to quilt all winter if it meant doing a craft that cosy.

Still the binding went on a lot better this time, although it took till half way round the quilt till I twigged the proper way to stitch it on and then it went on a lot quicker! Over all I’m quite impressed with it, not bad as my second attempt to making a quilt.

For her birthday cake this year Girl Lacer wanted a Victoria sponge, she didn’t name it as a Victoria sponge but I knew immediately what it was from the way she described it and I knew instantly that I might as well go and buy one as I’m rubbish at making them, they never rise for me (I think due to having to mix by hand and having a rubbish oven). So this year was a (very small) shop bought cake slathered in shop bought icing and decorated with sprinkles and lolly pops.

But of course there were the traditional birthday age biscuits (Nigella’s butter cut-out biscuits from Domestic Goddess, I never ice them these days, I’m a bit rubbish at icing to and I think it detracts from the lovely buttery taste of the biscuits as well).

A big thank you to Girl Lacer who if it weren’t for her letting me borrow her new camera I would be blogging with no photos for quite some time.

Let me ‘infect’ you

Ok, to prove how desperate I am to win an iPad, I’m currently trying out a competition run by SMLates, which is a series of late events at the Science Museum. Next week they have a Science of Bioterrorism event and as part of it they are currently running a game where you get to ‘infect’ people and the top 20% most infective people get to go into a draw to win an iPad. I have already, unsurprisingly, infected Mr. Lacer but I would love to infect some more, not just because I’m desperate for said iPad but because the biology nerd in me find the potential for the stats for the game fascinating, as you get to see what your contagious rate is and how many direct infections, secondary infections, third degree infections and fourth degree and beyond infections, you cause.

So go on, *cough, cough* and *splutter, splutter*, I’m very contagious (click here and sign up to play!).

Fun with raspberries

I hadn’t been up to the allotment since last week, I’d been busy playing housewife (aka trying to find my phone) and well I needed time for my hand to heal to. But my dad was down here very briefly yesterday, so we popped up for a quick look up at the plot and my dad noticed that some of my raspberries that I thought weren’t ripening were actually yellow raspberries and I hadn’t even known yellow raspberries existed. I don’t think they’re in the shops because apparently they don’t last long after you’ve picked, although that may be because they’re all eaten because they are absolutely delicious! I also have some normal raspberries and they tasted very bland in comparison.

So after I dropped the kids off at school today, I popped back down there to do some work (raking away some weeds that had cropped up on the turned over soil plus turning over yet more soil elsewhere – luckily my hand seems to be not disintegrating into a disgusting mess this time) and to pick some raspberries. Not all of the raspberries are ripe yet and I’m not sure with it being so late in the year if they will but we’ll see and we’ll appreciate the ones that have ripened.

Yellow raspberries (not all ripened yet)

Red raspberries, I'm not sure but I think I have two possibly three varieties of reds, I have some fruiting now which I think may be two separate varieties plus some not fruiting which I'm assuming are summer fruiters.

Sentinel. A very dopey (but alive) bee, I didn't want to disturb him specially as him and his friends had done such a good job pollinating my bushes.

Slightly meagre pickings but my kids will love these for tea tonight!

Chinatown salad

Am I loving making salads for lunch at the moment because I am the only one in the house and therefore not feeling guilty about making something no one else will eat or am I loving making salads at the moment as I’m getting a peculiar kick out of taking macros of salad vegetables and at lunch the light is better ? Hmmmm.

Anyway, I am loving working my way through some of the many salads in my many cookbooks at the moment and feeling a bit virtuous for it (it sure beats the marmite sandwich and crisps I used to eat with Boy Lacer). Today’s lunch was Chinatown salad from Nigella’s Kitchen (yep, in case you hadn’t guessed I am still menu planning from that book). I had to miss out a few ingredients; no spring onions as they were a bit manky and I had a sudden attack of nerves about eating raw beansprouts, I know you can but you have to be careful don’t you? I think I’d be happier eating raw beanspouts I’d sprouted myself. Anyway, even without those two things the salad (which was iceberg (again), red pepper, chicken and peanuts in a soy sauce, lime, chilli, ginger and sesame oil dressing) was pretty nice but not as nice as the chicken and bacon salad from yesterday, but it made a nice change.