Christmas Peel

A lull in festivities 
Thumbs, a paring knife and a party trick involving an egg.

Christmas has been and gone and my black 'Bah Humbug' Santa hat has been put away for another year. Now we are in that short lull in festivities before New Year. Time I think to reflect on what Christmas means.

Apart from the obvious celebration and accompanying feasting it is the time for good will to all men and a time for the giving and receiving of gifts. For me it is also the time for oranges. Not those large citrus big boys that refuse you access to their juicy flesh until you go for it with a knife, slicing off the skin and pith and leaving you no option but to cut out each fleshy wedge grapefruit segmenting style. No we are talking Mandarins and the like. The ones you can stick your thumb in and peel almost in one go leaving an intact globe of segments that can easily be pulled apart and popped straight into the mouth.

It was this seasonal fruit peeling that got me thinking about what else has peel appeal.

Wild Rabbit

A poor game

An unexplained death, dumplings, bones and butchery

A couple of evenings ago the early onset of nightness, the rain rattling against the window and a definite perception of accompanying cold I decided not to venture out but to have an evening in front of the tele. Quarter of an hour later after flicking through dozens and dozens of channels listed on the on-screen TV guide (many of which seemed to be the same but in HD, or not, or +1, or not) I was starting to wonder if I would have been better braving the elements after all. But wait, what do we have saved on the Sky box? Wedged between recordings of 'My Kitchen', 'The Good Cook', 'Rick Stein', 'Nigel Slater' and similar was 'Wrong Turn 2' – a light hearted tale of gory violence and cannibalism.

It is pure coincidence that a day or two later Peter came to dinner and never left.

The truth is, Peter was dinner... I ate him!

Piedmont Peppers

A late veggie supper

Over lunching and other confessions

One day last week for reasons I'm not sure about today. I over lunched on steak and onion sandwiches, so much so it was late evening before I was ready to eat again. The chicken thighs destined to be a 'coconutty' curry didn't really appeal after the carnivore excesses earlier in the day and were left in the fridge. A rummage in the veg rack exposed a shapely red pepper and half a dozen or so small tomatoes still clinging to their vine. Bring on the olive oil and garlic!

Piedmont style roast peppers were the order of the moment.

Hard Cheese

An Apology

Lies, deceit and a PDO

Would I lie to you, well yes. In fact if you have been round to mine and had a pasta or a risotto I probably already have. I suspect I have also broken several European laws and denied some cheese maker in Emilia–Romagna his (or her) human rights. So without any further ado I unreservedly apologise to all the friends I have lied to, the judiciary of the European Union and the good people of northern Italy.

I know it's no defence but I suspect you lie too.

Baked Potatoes

A Straight Jacket
A skewer and a karate chop

Delia's web page on how to cook jacket potatoes opens with the words 'Could there possibly be anyone in the wide world who doesn't drool at the thought of jacket potatoes with really crisp, crunchy skins and fluffy, floury insides and something lovely melted into them?', well yes, me! That is, until recently. I am now a convert, although drool may be going a bit far.

This is the story of that conversion...

Weights and Measures

Man accused of weighing his penis

A broken link and a second hand account of court proceedings.

It has been brought to my attention the page on the Edinburgh Evening News web site, linked to, at the bottom of 'More on potatoes – Yes, but is it floury', has been removed. So for those of you that can't control their curiosity I have attempted below to recreate the article from memory and snippets available elsewhere.

A Billy Evening

Baked pappardelle with porcini
First posted 6 October 2011 - https://sites.google.com/site/foodieshare/

What billy no mates evenings were made for.

This is for one serving as it makes a billy no mates supper second to none. Thick ribbons of pasta coated in a rich buttery sauce with the flavour and aroma of the king of mushrooms 'Boletus edulis' or as we know it porcini, aka the cep. Not only is the finished dish superb the creation of it has great pace, a little soaking, a little saucing and a little baking. All of which means it is ideal to make while drinking the odd glass of wine, listening to some music and dipping into a couple of chapters of your favourite foodie book.

More on Potatoes

Yes, but is it floury?
First posted 20 September 2011 - https://sites.google.com/site/foodieshare/

Knowing your onions may be clever but knowing your potatoes would impress me more.

Apparently the Food Labelling Regulations 1996 require that all potatoes sold in the UK must be 'accompanied' with an indication of their variety – having just tried to read these regulations I still can't confirm whether it does or not. However most of those gigantic plastic bags of spuds on sale in our supermarkets do have the variety printed on then somewhere, even though the potatoes will probably have sprouted before you find it. Not so sure about loose potatoes, many just seem to be labelled as new or baking. In fact a survey by the FSA in 2003 found that nearly a quarter of potatoes on sale were labelled with the incorrect variety or not named at all...

Chance for a quick moan...

Sliced Potatoes

101 things to do with sliced potatoes
First posted 8 September 2011 - https://sites.google.com/site/foodieshare/

The purchase of a bag of Desiree and excessive use of the magimix.

Why would anyone want a 101 things to do with sliced potato you may ask. Well believe me if you have over sliced and have a very large bowl of spud disks and an inclination towards thrift due to your Yorkshire upbringing you 'defo' (I like that word, hope it makes it into the dictionary soon), you defo need to know.

Let me explain how I came to be in this unfortunate situation...

Eggs and Maths

Going to work on an egg
From a blog first posted 3 September 2011 - https://sites.google.com/site/foodieshare/

Calculating the volume of an egg and the quantity required for a quiche. 

Recently in Flan tins – Does size matter I admitted that I did not know the cubic volume of an egg. Feeling this was a critical gap in my knowledge of all things ovoid I decided to investigate...

Flan Tins

Does size matter?
First posted 23 August 2011 - https://sites.google.com/site/foodieshare/

An investigation into the cubic capacity of flan tins and an explanation for a thin custard filling. 

Well dear reader with most things in life I would definitely be a 'certainly not... good things come in little packages' kind of guy (those of you that know me will understand) but when it comes to quiche, tarts, flans or to be more precise the tin they are made in, size certainly does matter. Although as we will see bigger is not necessarily better.

Let me explain...

In the beginning...

In the beginning there was a web site and on that web site were blog pages and those blog pages beget a blogspot page and that blogspot page is here.

So how did I get to be here and what can you expect...