The Friday photo: a film about Morris dancing? Yay!
So remember that every time we visit the Disreputable One we have to go and watch bloody Morris dancing? The kids love it and to be honest, it’s a bit of a craic so when I found out that a friend of a dear friend made this cracking movie about Morris dancing, I just had to have a shufty. And seriously, it looks really good fun.
Starring Greg Wise, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sophie Thompson and the lovely Richard Lumsden (left in photo – remember him in the Catherine Tate show?) it’s right laugh, and a bit reminiscent of the sort of tongue in cheek Hot Fuzz stuff that my kiddlies adore. Here’s the trailer. Go and visit the website here and sign the petition for the film to go on general release. Those Morris dancers need you.
EDIT: I’ve had to remove the trailer because, frankly, it’s driving me crackers every time I log in. But you can still see it on the website.
Oh, and for all of you who send me an email every time I don’t put Bert up as the Friday photo, here he is giving his shoe collection a quick cuddle. Enjoy!
Sour Grapes? Not likely.
So this is really clever. Lovely Lar, over at Ireland’s best wine blog, Sour Grapes , has taken different recipes from various Irish food bloggers nominated for the Irish Blog Awards, and matched them with some rather outstanding wine choices.
To accompany my Sunday lunch of beef stew with fluffy parsley dumplings. Lar suggests a Clos du Val Cabernet Sauvignon coming in at a breathtaking €27.49, but hey, as Lar points out it would be perfect for a special weekend dinner. And anyway, staying in is the new going out, don’t they say?
Read all about it here.
Bubble and squeak: step by step
All this talk of recession has done me no end of good, y’know. For one thing, I’m trying to use up all the stuff we had left over in the freezer since Christmas (I’m down to two massive bags of frozen prawns and the kids are sick of them, but needs must, eh. Green Thai prawn curry anyone?). And I’ve hardly been out shopping at all, save for a couple of trips for school essentials and the invitations for the blessing. The rest of the time I’ve stayed in as I’m too terrified of allowing my inner splurger to come to the fore. I’m even recycling in the kitchen. For instance, the other day I made this bubble and squeak for Hubby (he had a sudden urge. For bubble and squeak, you animals) with some sprouts I had hanging around in the fridge. Now before you start, I know that a lot of people can’t stomach sprouts. But this is a really nice way to eat them. Think of them as teeny, tightly packed cabbages, if you will. If you really can’t do it, then cabbage, or broccoli or anything remotely green can be bunged in with the leftover mash. Here goes, then:
Leftover mashed potato
Leftover green stuff (or fresh, simmered until tender)
1 egg, beaten
50g breadcrumbs
So just cook your sprouts or cabbage or whatever until just cooked (if it’s broccoli, put the stems in first otherwise the tops will be mushed).
Now gather your other stuff together:
Drain the veg and mash it in with the potatoes, seasoning well and then forming the mixture into little patties. It’s probably best here, if you have time, to pop them in the fridge for half an hour or so. It makes them easier to work with.
Dunk the little buggers in the beaten egg, then toss them in the breadcrumbs – all of the time building the amount of eggy breadcrumby goo on your fingers to epic proportions. Then just heat up some oil or butter in a frying pan and fry until golden.
Serve with a nice, runny egg on top (I know this one looks a bit cremated, but Hubby’s got a thing about eggs being well done on the outside and runny in the middle. Quite tricky I can tell you) and even a few rashers of crispy bacon. Serve hot with a nice green salad and Bob’s your auntie: a nice healthy meal on the cheap.
No battery required: well done, Sainsbury’s
Of all the things I really miss about home, it’s being close to a really nice, big supermarket: being able to choose from tons of lovely stuff rather than having to make do with whatever the smaller shops can squeeze onto their limited shelves. And although our closest was Tesco, there was a really nice Sainsbury’s not too far away (do you know what, I can’t even remember the name of the town, and I’ve only been gone two years. It’ll come to me, I’m sure). I really like Sainsbury’s (and no, it’s not just the Jamie Oliver connection), I like the stuff they sell and their values too (I love Waitrose, too, but seriously – who can afford to shop there?). And true to form, their latest press release is a sign that they’re way ahead of the competition.
From the 5th February, Sainsbury’s have announced that it will sell only eggs from uncaged birds. I think, to be fair, that M&S or maybe Waitrose were the first to do this, but still, Sainsbury’s is the first of the big four to ban battery eggs and hopefully it will force the other big hitters to do the same. Compassion in World Farming have called the move ‘breathtaking‘ and praised Sainsbury’s ‘genuine commitment to continuously improving life for all farm animals in their supply chain‘.
Still on the subject of welfare, there’s some cracking TV coming up over the next few weeks. I’m gutted I missed Jay Rayner’s ‘True Cost of Cheap Food’, but Channel 4′s ‘Great British Food Fight’ continues with the return of the chicken’s champion, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, as he continues to badger the hell out of poor Tesco (26 January, 9pm), and Jamie moves from chickens to pigs in Jamie Saves Our Bacon (29th January 9pm). Bring it on, I say.
Speechless. That’s a first
Wow. The long, loooong lists are out for the Irish Blog Awards 2009 and guess what: TWO nominations! One for Best Food & Drink Blog and one for Best Personal Blog. I’m dead chuffed. I’d made up my mind not to pimp myself for nominations this year and didn’t mention it (I had to sit on my hands, and everything), so I’m doubly doubly pleased. Thank you so much if you voted for me. My gob is well and truly smacked.
Edit:
AND I’m in rather good company. Some of my favouritest fellow bloggers are nominated too:
Lovely Medbh at Dante and the Lobster for Best Popculture Blog
Our own clever fellow Cavan-dweller Susan in about fifty seven different categories, including Best Blog from a Journalist, Best Arts and Culture, Best Newcomer and Best Personal Blog
Naughty ol’ Maxi has nominations for Best Newcomer, Best Humour Blog and Best Personal Blog
And don’t get me started on my fellow foodies giving me severe competition in the Best Food/Drink Blog category:
Ruth at Just Add Eggs, Cheeky Manuel at Well Done Fillet, Lar at fantastic wine blog, Sour Grapes , the very clever Lor at Italian Foodies, Spudness, Kieran at Ice Cream Ireland (who also got nominated in the Best Business Blog category along with Deb from Tast.ie), Wee Jen at Little Bird Eats and Deb at Tast.ie
The Beaut girls are up for Best Group Blog, Roy the Taxi is up for Best Specialist Blog along with dad-in-waiting Xbox, and Darragh, Darren, Glitter and Wee Tommy join Maxi and Susan in the Best Newcomer category.
Oh and half my blogroll are nominated (all deservingly) for Best Personal Blog:
Lubly Paddy, Darragh again, Red Mum, Maxi again, the delicious K8 the Gr8, Con, Manuel again (and he got nominated in Best Humour Blog – darned greedy, I reckon), Darren again, Annie, Terence McDanger (also in Best Humour Blog), Tommy again, Grandad (the leg end legend – also, also in Best Humour Blog), Medbh again, Susan again, FMC, Radge… oh and, er… Me!
Ireland’s happiest babies
Look at our little rugrat. Wasn’t he cute? Once upon a time, before his socks smelled worse that last week’s wheelie bin, and his bedroom was full of Tweenies and Mopatop not Fender Stratocasters and football boots, he was actually rather cute. Remember Mopatop’s Shop? #2 had a talking furry Mopatop that was the love of his life. #1 used to nick the voice box out of the back and hide it to wind him up – you’d sit down and the sofa would go ‘what would you like today?’ in a rather disturbing deep growly voice. His first word was ‘whassat?’ accompanied by a pointy finger. He didn’t say anything else for months and we started to get a bit worried.
Anyhoo, digressing. Cow and Gate (they of the giggly baby adverts- aren’t they the cutest?) have asked me to let you know about their lovely competition to find Ireland’s happiest babies. Does anyone actually HAVE any babies, by the way? You can win a €1500 shopping voucher and the chance for your chiseler to star in a Cow and Gate advert of their very own. Oh, and if you vote you get entered into a draw for a spa weekend at Bellinter House, which is worth it on its own. Visit happiestbabies.ie to enter. Oh, and if you win, remember your mates, eh?
Zero: a greyhound. Only smaller.
So here, as promised, is little Zero. As I said the other day, lovely Irene down the road runs a doggy rescue centre. She does all the work herself and when Zero was rehomed, then returned in disgrace after scoffing her new owner’s chickens (can you blame her?!), Irene wondered if she could stay with us just for a little while until there’s room, or a new home could be found, or until Jen works her magic with her greyhound contacts. She’s a bit thin, hence the name, a bit bald, but very sweet. She runs a mile every time anyone so much as sneezes, and she’s fast enamouring herself with Bert as she treats him like a god, lying on the floor while he’s on the sofa, and letting him go first down the stairs. The slippy floors are a bit of an issue (greyhound holiday on ice if she gets a bit of speed up) but she’s adapting to being in a house, and already knows not to get up on the sofas (they’re Bert-only sofas). The first night, we started her off in the kitchen, but loud crashing noises as she cleared everything off every work surface (well it smelt nice. She knows not to get up there now) and pitiful crying and wailing meant that we had to have a rethink. Seeing as she’s completely trustworthy in the house (aren’t greyhounds amazing? Never been inside a house in her life, and already she understands that the toilet is outside – maybe it’s the fact that she has Bert to teach her), we let her sleep on the landing with Bert last night, and she loved it. Nodded straight off, no worries.
She loved Bert’s squeaky kitty toy as well (he ignores it, or very occasionally uses it as a pillow), and had a lovely play with it:
The cutest thing is that she’s really chatty. When she sits down she goes ‘gruuuuummmmppphhhh’, and if she’s got an itchy ear, she makes a kind of ‘oh yeah, right there, that’s the spot’ growly noise which is adorable. She makes little squeaky, talky noises when you talk to her too. Bless.
All this makes me wonder why greyhounds get such bad press. They’re the laziest rug-monsters ever, and so gentle too. Want one?
I’ve had better weekends
‘Berluddy hell’, said Hubby yesterday morning, ‘it looks like the wind could reach 100mph this afternoon’
‘Shit’, said I, ’I'd better go kiss my greenhouse goodbye’.
Oh, how we laughed. Then later there was an enormous crash, and we kind of stopped laughing. Here’s the view from #2′s bedroom window.
Hubby was in the shower, cleaning our new foster dog (see below), so I called D next door in a panic: ‘quick! can you come round and help me? The greenhouse is on the move and it’s heading towards the cars!’. Bless him, he donned his waterproofs and whizzed round. Well, between us we managed to manhandle it off the oil tank, but it nearly took off with us hanging on, so in the end D held it down while I drove the front wheels of the car over it. That stopped it. Seriously, the wind was so strong it was nearly knocking D clean off his feet. Amazing.
I spent about an hour and a half picking up broken glass this morning and I’m nowhere near finished. Some of the shards are like little needles and they break as soon as you touch them. I just think we’ll have to resign ourselves to not letting Bert walk down that side of the garden. Ever. All Hubby’s hard work, too. And I was planning so many exciting things this year – sweet little baby plum tomatoes… Thrifty’s home-grown hot little chillis… peas straight out of the pod… I could cry.
Okay, so it was held down with bits of concrete slab, and buried about two inches down in the soil. I know we should have used stakes or something, but we thought it was well bedded in and to be honest, a wind strong enough to lift whole, full wheelie bins and hurl them about the garden as if they were cardboard boxes is not going to be stopped by a few stakes. Ah well, back to the drawing board, then.
In other news, we have a new little foster greyhound: a little black girl that Irene, the ISPCA lady down the road got returned to her because it ate all the new owner’s chickens (I mean, duh, greyhound? chickens? Have a word with yourself, pal). She doesn’t have a name and is currently being called ‘Zero’ as in size zero because she’s so bloody skinny. She’s very cute and well behaved, though. Bert’s not overly impressed but doesn’t mind as long as she stays off his sofa.
God, but I’m pissed off though. Bloody Cavan. Bloody weather.
Your last meal. Evereverever.
Okay, so the bad news, obviously, is that you’re just about to die a most horrible death (metaphorically speaking, natch) but the good news is that you can have anything you want for your last meal. And I mean ANYTHING. This morning we started along the ‘last spoonful’ path, which obviously wasn’t quite enough for my gang of extremely greedy commenters.
Likely suspects so far include Jennifer, Bert’s #1 fan:
Starters – hmm, Suppli or tomato, buffalo mozzerella and fresh basil leaves with a drizzle of balsamic.
Main – lamb shank with mint gravy and M&S croquet potatos (not very gourmet I know but they’re scrummy).
Dessert – Gooey, runny, warm, chocolate fudge cake, with a scoop of really good quality vanilla ice cream to break the richness of the cake.
Then Wee Jen (who’s completely to blame for all this pretend face-stuffing):
A great big mezze plate (wot?! is that cheating?)
Hubbie’s garlicky lemon roast chicken, cooked over the roast potatoes so they go all lubbly-tasty with the schmaltz. There would be token greenery too and a gloriously-risen Yorkshire pudding.
Dutch applecake, scented with cinnamon and a big dollop of cream or hazlenut icecream on the side.
I might even find room for cheese.
…and Baino:
Entree: Rare carpaccio of filet beef on watercress salad with balsamic vinegar and horseradish cream
Main: Seared green lobster tail in garlic butter, crusty baguette and warm mesclin lettuce salad with caramilised pumpkin squares and new potatoes
Dessert: Lime cheesecake on a chocolate biscuit crust.
As for me? Hmmm, tricky one. I suspect you could ask me any day and it would be something different, but right now (which is difficult because I’m completely stuffed with chilli at the moment), it would be something I really, really miss:
Starter: A cute little onion bhaji and maybe some popadums, plus some fresh onion salad and the little bowls of raita and chutney and pickle
Main: A really gorgeous chicken biryani, with buttery, spicy rice, tender chicken and that lovely vegetable curry. Ooh, although I have to admit for a very tacky craving for chicken korma too. Not had one since I left the UK *sob*
Dessert: Slightly off-course here geographically, but it would have to be steamed syrup pudding with custard AND cream AND ice cream. (What? I’m dying here).
Over to you, then. And yes, the Jens and Baino can have another go if they want, just so they don’t feel left out.
The Friday photo: a spoonful of…
I’d forgotten about this until recently, but when we were all staggering down the boat road one afternoon over Christmas, stuffed to the gunnels with ridiculously rich food, we started talking about eating teeny, tiny amounts of really, really nice food. So, you’re on death’s door, and you can only ingest one more spoonful before you die (okay, so I’m rubbish at scenarios – invent your own), your absolute favouritest, yummiest thing in the whole world – what would it be?
Me: golden syrup. Is there anything nicer? It smells absolutely delicious too. I think someone should invent a perfume with eau de golden syrup tones in it. Fahbilis.
Hubby: the middle of a Cadbury’s Creme Egg. (I agree with this too – probably my second choice)
#1: Nutella (correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the same stuff that’s in the middle of those Ferrero Rocher chocolates?)
#2: peanut butter (well thought out, it would last for ages seeing as most of it would end up on the roof of your mouth)
Over to you, then. Your last, precious spoonful on this earth. What’s it to be?
