It’s snowing bunnies!
Now I’m not saying we’re special or anything (well, okay, I already said it yesterday) but up here in Cavan, it doesn’t just snow, it snows rabbits! Impressive eh?
Lips and Arseholes
The Disreputable One likes nice food. When we were little, we were lucky enough (although totally unappreciative, I’m sure) to eat proper food at home, produced with love by my doting Ma from scratch, and to be taken to nice restaurants. We were even allowed a little teeny soupçon of wine (diluted, natch). He was always immensely disparaging about our teenage obsession with burgers and fast food. I remember he used to wind us up and say that stuff like sausages and burgers were made up of ‘lips and arseholes’. It became a bit of a family joke.
So when I saw the The F Word the other night I thought instantly of my Dad. He’s quite like Gordon Ramsey, really. He’s a stroppy sod sometimes and he doesn’t take any prisoners, but he doesn’t give a toss what people think of him and for some reason I always reckon that’s a pretty admirable quality: being true to yourself no matter what. Anyhoo, I read somewhere that ol’ Gordo bought Tana an Audi R8 for Christmas so he’s okay in my book.
Oops, digressing. They were talking, amongst other things, about sausages. Poor J, our houseguest, had to leave the room as he likes a sausage and didn’t want to hear all the gory details. Basically, though, they tested a load of different sausages and talked about their meat content and what exactly this ‘meat’ consists of. Now I’m a realist and I’m fully aware that if you buy something from a supermarket’s ‘Value’ or ‘Economy’ range, it’s not going to have the best ingredients, but even so, the results were pretty shocking. I can’t find it anywhere on the web, but Tesco’s Value Sausage came out the worst, containing, if my memory serves me correctly, the minimum allowance of 32% meat, a quarter of which when tested was found to be sinew, connective tissue, gristle, rind and various other crap. Yum.
So who’d have thought it, after all these years it turns out that The Disreputable One was right: lips and arseholes it is!
I’m special, me.
Well, some of the longlists are out for the Irish Blog Awards 2008 and bugger me with a fish fork if I haven’t actually been picked for something! I was always picked last in games (childbearing hips – my own personal cross to bear) so this means a lot. I’m in the ‘Best Personal Blog’ category, along with some very tough competition: the wondrous Grandad, lovely Flirty, Annie, Nats and Conortje to name a few, I’m also in ‘Best Food and Wine Blog’ along with Wee Jen and Manuel the Waiter. My mates Isitjustme and 73man have been nominated for Best Newcomer, and the lovely Annie Rhiannon is in the ‘Best Designed Blog’ too! Lovely Fat Mammy Cat got about a squillion nominations in lots of different categories and is bound to clean up. Well done y’all. Go us, eh? Champers! Pass the champers!!
PS: Just seen I’m in the list for Best Blog too! (along with 135 others, but hey, at least I’m there!)
PPS: If Fat Mammy Cat’s post on fox hunting doesn’t win the Best Blog Post award, then I’m a monkey’s uncle (and I’m not. I checked.)
Pear and Custard Muffins
On Sunday, I made Bill Granger’s banana and butterscotch pudding. Okay, so I admit, I left out the ‘banana and’ bit when I was telling #2 what it was, but he sussed right away. As I was making the custard I was mulling over what gorgeous stuff custard powder is. Remember those yummy rhubarb and custard sweets? So then last night, as I was lying in bed (I know, I know…) I thought ooh, I wonder if you could make rhubarb and custard muffins? But not having any rhubarb handy, I settled on pears. And the result is pretty darn good, even if I say so myself.
So remember, as usual, the Golden Muffin Rule: get your ingredients ready before you start, and don’t over mix. If you can still see a teeny bit of flour, it’s just right.
8 oz plain flour
2 tablespoons custard powder (not instant custard!)
1 tablespoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
4 oz caster sugar
2 oz brown sugar
6 fl oz milk
½ tsp vanilla essence
1 egg, beaten
4 oz butter, melted
1 large ripe pear: peeled, cored and diced into teeny squares.
Sieve the flour, custard powder, baking powder and salt, then add the sugars (as usual you can use any sugar you like, I like the toffeeness of brown sugar in it). Just melt your butter in a jug in the microwave, then mix in the milk, vanilla and beaten egg and stir into the dry stuff. Don’t forget to add in your diced pear here (remember the GMR – a lighter hand gives a lighter result). The smell of the custard powder when you’re mixing is just gorgeous. Divide into 12 large muffin cases. It’s also quite nice if you sprinkle the tops with crunchy sugar, but I forgot.
Bake for about 15 – 20 minutes, depending on the size, at 200 degrees, then serve warm to fully appreciate the moist custardy interior studded with little pearly bits of pear….mmmmmmm.
Yummy baguette fillings (or party food)
So me Ma’s visit all passed in a happy blur. Oh, apart from the bit when Bertie disgraced himself by eating her knitting needles- sorry Ma. Oh, and that other bit where Bertie disgraced himself by hopping into her bed and frightening her silly when she returned from a nocturnal trip to the loo – sorry again Ma. And yesterday I found myself dropping her at the airport again.
Still, no point dwelling on the negatives so I took myself off to the Pavilions in Swords. It’s not huge, but I like it because of TK Maxx. What an excellent shop. It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel in the mood for trying stuff on (I was eating a Creme Egg at the time – ’tis amazing the amount of men that stare at you when you’re trying to get the last bit of gooey stuff out of the bottom of the egg) because there are all sorts of other rubbish to rummage about in: kitchen stuff, books, cushions, you name it. I came away with a lovely lime green Le Creuset jug, a Typhoon vintage pink pie dish, a pink enamel storage tin and a very handy stainless steel strainer (small enough holes to keep at least some of my rice from ending up in the sink), plus change from thirty Euro. Not bad eh? I dropped into Dunnes on the way back and got some of their nice frozen prawns and their free range chicken (well done Dunnes – excellent selection!!) along with some baguettes. Hubby’s mate, J, is still staying (Bertie’s biscuit pusher) and I thought I’d do a couple of nice things that we can bung into the baguettes with some rocket. First up will be the yummy little chicken cakes that I always do (heaven with some nice sweet chilli sauce and SO easy, and also I’ll do some tamarind prawns:
Chicken Cakes
Couple of raw chicken breasts or prawns (must be raw or you’ll get a big wet mess)
1 medium red chilli, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large spring onion, chopped
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp Coriander leaves, chopped
Pinch of salt
So basically, whiz all the ingredients in a blender. I reserve the cornflour until last so you can see how thick it is – it’s amazing how it differs between batches – you need it thick enough to stay together in hot oil. So you can either make patties or just dollop tablespoons of the mixture into a half inch of hot oil until golden. This works just as well with prawns when you can also spread it onto toast, press on some sesame seeds and fry until the prawns are pink and the sesame seeds lightly tanned.
Tamarind Prawns
1 pack prawns, defrosted, or fresh ones if you’re that lucky – the bigger the better
2 cloves garlic, grated
1 red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
Juice of ½ lime
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp brown sugar or honey
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp tamarind paste
So pop the prawns into a bowl with the rest of the ingredients so that they marinate for a while, then bung them straight into a hot wok until they’re pink and gorgeous and the sauce is reduced and sticky. Heaven sprinkled with sliced spring onion on noodles, rice, or just wodged into a baguette with some mayo a la English Towers. Excuse me while I wipe my drool from the keyboard
What a spectacle
Me Mam’s been staying for a couple of days. And when I haven’t been dwagging her through the undergwowth like some latter-day David Bellamy (remember him?) hunting our errant foster dog, we’ve been having a very pleasant time doing a touch of retail therapy and drinking champagne. Oh, and eating a lot (see, it’s in my genes, no point fighting it).
On Friday afternoon we all took #1 to the opticians for his sight test and, as it turned out his prescription had changed, to choose a new pair of glasses. We’re not a decisive family at the best of times and, after several hours, we were all losing the will to live. The conversation (you know the drill) went something like this:
#1: ‘What about these?‘ (coppery coloured metal frame, slightly square shape)
Hubby: ‘Ew. Robin Day.’
Grandma: ‘Ooh, what about these?‘ (plastic frame, orange stripe along top of sides, think Gok Wan off ‘How to Look Good Naked’)
Me: ‘Jesus. Timmy f*cking Mallet’
Grandma: ‘What? They’re lovely and cheerful!‘
#1 (sigh): ‘What about these, then?‘
#2: (rolls around on floor, crying with laughter, holding ribs): ‘Hah! Harry Potter!!!‘
#1: (bigger sigh): ‘Maybe not, then.’
Hubby: ‘These are cool’ (another metal frame, rectangular – very Fabio Capello*)
#1: ‘Hmmm…we’ll put these on the maybe shelf.’
Me: ‘Oh. Is that the ‘maybe’ pile? I thought it was the ‘absolutely not’ pile and put them all back’
*Collective sigh*
Finally, though, we found a pair that he’d probably tried on half an hour earlier when he was batting away his little brother who was walking around in a bright purple pair of Dame Edna frames, bringing him every pair of huge, ‘old fart’ glasses he could find whilst wetting himself laughing.
‘Well done,’ says the lady, now what about your free second pair?’
Aaaarrrrrgggggghhhhhh!
* Keep up, people, he’s the new England Manager.
Ohhhhh bugger.
So, my week from Crapsville then. I’ve deliberated and cogitated as to whether I should blog about this, the likelihood of a happy, quirky outcome being increasingly unlikely, but because you’re my readers and I lub you, I’ve decided to tell you. But any comments that appear even remotely along the lines of ‘you berk’ or ‘what a pillock you are’ will be severely dealt with. You’ve been warned. So last week I’d offered to help J by taking in a little blue greyhound girl (a girlfriend for Bert, thought I) as she was struggling to take in a new greyhound because of full kennels. Off I went, then, down the unfeasibly wiggly N52 to pick up this pretty, teeny little thing who was wide eyed and terrified. She panted and cried and and pinged about like a little pinball in the back of the car all the way home, but I talked reassuringly to her and by the time we got home she was laying down and seemed a bit calmer. I got her out of the car (Bert with his nose pressed against the window trying to get a better look) and took her down the garden, talking quietly to her as she was a gibbering wreck. At which stage it all went wrong. She. Freaked. She did a half twisting triple looping forward somersault with tuck back, twisting my arm in a rather unpleasant manner and – worse – breaking one of my new gel nails. The Bitch. Then with a final pirouette she slipped neatly out of her collar and before you could say Olympic gymnast was legging it at a rate of knots down the road, leaving me sitting on my bottom in the grass saying exceedingly rude things.
So I won’t bore you with the details but basically this week has been a blur of driving rain, evil, freezing wind and trudging around countless fields after the wee girl. The neighbours (and faraway-bours) have been fantastic, but every time we got near, she scarpered, only to follow us as soon as we turned away from her. No amount of whistling, blowing kisses, tapping on food bowls or anything else made any difference. The only time she came to the door was to eat the food we put out, and then rush off if she so much as smelled us there.
So far I’ve tried the Gardai Dog Unit (‘no, we don’t use tranquilliser darts, madam, sorry’), the local Gardai (‘a farmer will shoot it before you get it back’), the vet (‘well, I’ve got doping gel, but you need to put it on their tongue and it takes 15 minutes to work’), Dublin Zoo (no reply), the dog warden (can’t help and don’t own a trap) and, least helpful of all, Little C from next door who came up with the ‘tie a piece of string around a bone and leave it in the front garden, then pull the string when she picks up the bone’ scenario. Oh, and bear in mind that the likelihood of her being shot by one of the local farmers is, indeed, incredibly high – a lot of the sheep are currently in lamb. That’s if she survives the farm lorries and tractors along our little one-track lane. Ferrrrk. It’s now been a week and, more worryingly, last night she didn’t even come back to eat the food. Any suggestions (no smart arsed ones, please, I’ve had a trying week) would be gratefully received.
Eggmas
My weekend from Crapsville has decided to extend itself into the week from Crapsville (I will tell you one day, I promise, I just don’t want to jinx anything). So I was halfway through my supermarket shopping today and decided to pop a therapeutic Cadbury’s Creme Egg into my trolley (ooh, I love Creme eggs – that beautiful, gooey centre – yurmmmm). I started to ponder why Easter eggs are being sold in January (I’m not complaining, honest), but then I thought – hang on, I shouldn’t even celebrate Easter really, because I’m just not religious in any way, and it’s probably a bloody cheek. All the religious people probably look at all us heathens eating their Creme Eggs and get really annoyed.
When I say I’m not religious, I don’t mean like an atheist or anything – that’s too strong. I went to church when I was a child, sang in the choir and all that, but I don’t know, somehow it’s just not for me. I’m all for anyone else believing in anything they like: God, miracles, fairies, Santa, whatever. Don’t shoot me, but I’m just one of those people that’s not good at abstract ideas. At the risk of sounding too much like a Vulcan, it’s all too illogical for me, I’m afraid – believing in something that can’t be proved, crediting something invisible every time something goes right, and then not blaming them when it goes wrong?? Nah. Too complicated. As Charles Darwin said, ‘I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created that a cat should play with mice’. Fair point, methinks. Still, I have the utmost respect for everyone’s religion and find it all fascinating. I think if I was going to be anything, I’d be a Buddhist – they seem a nice gentle bunch. But then as a self-confessed spider murderer that’s probably not for me either.
And then I thought maybe us secular folk could celebrate something slightly different, like Eggmas or Spring Chocolate Break or something. Oh, but then does that mean I shouldn’t really celebrate Christmas either, which is a bummer? But then I got to the checkout and realised I’d forgotten my shopping bags (curse this green nation!) and then I forgot all about religion and eggs and chickens and Christmas. I’m dead fickle, me.
That’s gotta hurt
So okay, I admit it. I moved Bertie’s chair. Well, in my defence, there was a corner of the lounge that looked really bare after the Christmas tree had gone. And anyway, what sane person reserves a chair in their office just because a particularly lanky streak of greyhound doesn’t realise that he’s a dog and should sit on the floor? Okay. I feel slightly guilty. What? I put a rug down didn’t I?
What’s your soundtrack?
After a very trying weekend (I’ll tell you about it sometime) I was driving home from the school run, listening to #2’s Top Gear CD (what? Nothing wrong with a bit of soft rock) when all of a sudden, Electric Light Orchestra’s Mr Blue Sky came on. What a great track. It doesn’t matter that I’ve had the crappest weekend from crapsville, it instantly made me grin. Then I thought ooh, that’s kind of like #2. Whatever you’re doing or however miserable you are, the plain irreverence of him just makes you want to join in.
Hey there Mr Blue
We’re so pleased to be with you
Look around see what you do,
Everybody smiles at you
So then I started to think about #1. He should be something like Clocks by Coldplay, one of those tracks you always want to turn up loud: all that drama, a solid bass line, but then you’re kind of surprised by the beautiful rolling piano. That’s #1.
And of course I can’t ever listen to Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel Make Me Smile (Come up and See Me) without thinking of Hubby: complicated, deep and a bit quirky. Perfect for him.
So then what about me? I guess I’d be something a bit upbeat – nothing too profound or serious – but not too fluffy either. I’d like to think I’m a bit Ella Fitzgerald, but I’m probably more mainstream, to be honest. Ooh, I know – what about Gwen Stefani: Cool. Funky, not too complicated, but with a sweet melody.
So come on then – what’s the soundtrack to your life?
