Paint it Black - the fiddly Halloween

Thanks to those of you who answered the cry for help in the previous post - particularly the post pointing out that filo pastry has no dairy! Brilliant!

What a face! I was trying to look all coy and 60s...

Well, cooking for the assembled vegetarians, omnivores and lactose-intolerants proved to be less of a hassle in practice than it was in theory. Once I had my menu and recipes sorted, it was all fairly plain sailing. I do love to prepare thoroughly and would much rather over-cater than under, so I made quite an array of dishes. Thankfully, all of these could be cooked in advance so I was able to enjoy the full murder mystery party. Everyone got completely into character and I'm so glad I didn't miss any of it by being stuck in the kitchen. There was one moment when I nipped to the kitchen to grab the starter and, with my hostess radar kicking in, totally disheartened to hear a complete silence from the 11 people in the other room. It turned out that they were all thoroughly engrossed reading their character low-downs! I recommend a murder mystery game if you ever have the chance to find one (I picked mine up at a car boot sale).

The menu was:

Lemon & cumin houmous (dairy-free)
Coriander pesto (vegetarian)
Flatbreads (used sheep milk yoghurt, so no cow dairy)

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Potato and spinach bureks (dairy-free)
Fattoush (dairy-free) [I call it this, because it's what I had in a restaurant once and I've recreated the recipe to taste like it did there - loads of lemon, mint, parsley, cucumber, romaine lettuce and tomatoes]
Roasted garlic and pumpkin mash (dairy-free)
Lamb, pumpkin and apricot 'tagine' (dairy-free, plenty of meat!)
Roasted veg (red peppers, courgettes, red onion, whole garlic cloves)

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Fig, apple and walnut crumble (dairy-free)
Cinnamon and Courvoisier cream (dairy-packed!)

And it was very tasty, even if I'm immodest and say so myself! At one point I mentioned that there was no need to be polite and that there was plenty for seconds - I was promptly trampled. Considering the amount I generally over-cater, there were very few leftovers. On Saturday I turned a portion of the leftover lamb tagine into a curry by cooking up some red peppers and onion, adding the lamb tagine and adding some extra cumin, garam masala and chilli. I had that with some home made naan (a recipe I've promised to some friends so that will be appearing soon, no doubt), and a heap of the fattoush. I've had roasted veg and houmous wraps for lunch, and am finally using up the last of the roasted onions and garlic in a tomato soup tonight.

The highlight of my evening was when one of my friends told me she was having a lovely time and that it was such a change for her to be able to eat nearly everything on offer. Making your friends feel at home and cared about is what it's all about, eh? *warm glow*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
p.s. Regarding the first picture of this post - well I truly have a new appreciation for the old black and white photos of my mum in the 1960s. My beehive was puny and still my scalp hurt all of the next day!

p.p.s. The second photo is of the body of Lord Michael Jagged I made out of polystyrene and TLM's clothes. I put this out some time before the party, and forgot to warn TLM. Cue being woken up at 3am by TLM shouting - having come in from a shift and found a strange man in our flat. Whoops.

Dairy Free + Vegetarian = Vegan Halloween Feast?! HELP!

So TLM and I have somehow managed to co-ordinate 12 timetables to fit for a Halloween party. We got carried away with the theming/decorating/music of the event (Swinging, Halloween Murder Party - oh yeah!) and have forgotten all about the feeding people part. Unfortunately, the 12 various dietary requirements lead to a vegan conclusion - or at least mainly vegetarian with dairy and meat dishes on the side. Add this to the fact that restricted table space means this will be a lap-affair and I'm lead to thinking finger food starter, buffet-esque main and every-bowl-pushed-into-service-pudding.

So far I've come up with flatbreads, houmous and rough pesto for dippy starters. A crowd pleaser. Pudding will be a vegan brandified fig, apple and walnut crumble (with cinnamon cream for those lactose-tolerant).

The middle is lacking. I thought about cous cous of some variety, fattoush/tabbouleh, roasted veg, pumpkin & lamb tagine for the carnivores. But suggestions are needed! PLEASE HELP!

Still Jammin'

Hello, thought I'd just check in. TLM has been working for what seems like forever, and we've got next week off together, hooray. Fingers crossed for clear bright days to continue!

The blackberry jam has gone down very well (not that I'm a fan of jam myself) and a fiery plum and apple chutney (adaptation of a Nigella recipe) was also met with approval. Got my hands on some cheap strawberries, so made 5 jars of strawberry jam. I'll get my official taster (TLM) to try it and if it's up to scratch I'll get the recipe up.

Hopefully I'll get my act together and post a bit more, but a serious of semi-calamitous events recently have left me with bigger fish to fry.

Wedding 'Photo Booth'

#Well ever since I saw this on another wedding blog, I thought it was simply one of the best wedding ideas I've ever seen. A perfect way to keep guests busy, and a good project to include TLM in (while he likes the ribbons and stationery, it's just not the same as chopping up wood).



We went to the car boot sale at the weekend and picked up this assortment of frames. The large one (£2 - bargain) will be blank for faces, as will the medium-sized frame at the top right (30p - even better bargain). I've been collecting old family wedding photos for the others. I've been scanning them in, addding dates and captions so people will know where they've come from and when, and soon I can get some printed to the right size frame! Still might be seeking a diddy frame or two...



I added a little plaque to the big frame which has our names, the date and the faux title "Symphony of silly forms, No 297". As you can see, it's had its first poser already!


I have some snazzy green wallpaper lurking at my parents' house, so a bit close to the date we'll start construction.

I love it when a plan comes together! Pondering whether to have a small bin of props/accessories (tiaras, glasses, hats) to snazz it up? We've lovefancy dress, and have quite a stock, so it would seem to fit. What do you think?

Car Birthday Cake

When you will go and make an outlandish, rainbow-coloured UN-birthday cake for your own party, it seems only polite to oblige when your beloved asks for something equally as ridiculous and time consuming for their birthday.

My brief was simple: a red car cake. With jam.

I scoured the internet for car cake tins (thought I could cut a corner - ho ho - here) but was thoroughly unimpressed at the 20-odd-quid price tag. They would also mean no jam, unless I were to start slicing it up which would sort of defeat the point of buying a cake mould. With a bit of inventiveness surely I could do it with what I had in already?

Using a remote-controlled car as a template and two slightly differently sized loaf tins I set to work. I used the same recipe as the UN-birthday cake, but only used 1/2 the sponge batter and 3/4 of the icing.

I poured 2/3 of the sponge batter into the larger loaf tin, and 1/3 into the smaller one. (Pictured below is the 'squodging' stage where I pressed the larger cake down when it was nearly cooked so it would be flatter to work with).

While I waited for my sponge to cool, I assembled my icing accessories (lights, number plates, wheels, wing mirrors, car badge), cake board with finishing line, chequered flags (made from cocktail sticks), trophy and candles (for the exhaust pipe).

I sandwiched the sponges with jam (only the top sponge needed a little cutting with a very sharp knife).

Then smothered the whole thing in a LOT of red icing, and started to add the pre-coloured roll-out icing accessories.

And TLM had three slices of it for birthday breakfast.

Get blackberry-jammin'

"big dark blobs burned like a plate of eyes"

Seamus Heaney, a poet I hugely admire and have been lucky enough to see read in person, is who I hand over to to describe this time of year in England, where blackberries and greed abound:

Blackberry-picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

by Seamus Heaney

So don't squander your blackberries (I'm hoping there will be a final flush soon, if the sun comes out again)

by doing this:

to make this:

It is REALLY REALLY EASY. TLM has had the first jar, and apparently tastes good, is the right consistency and (honour of honours) tastes "just like normal jam ... "!

Ingredients - make 7 jars (which should be sterilized beforehand - by a thorough wash with soapy water, then leave them to dry in a medium-hot oven and make sure the hot jam goes into hot jars before screwing the lid on tight tight tight!)

• 1700 g blackberries (this is about an hour's worth of picking for one person, and the most a single person can take before being prickled beyond tolerance)
  
• juice of 1 lemon
• 150 ml water
• 2 sachets of pectin (8g sachets)
• 1500 g sugar

How to make it

Put two or three saucers in the fridge. Wash the blackberries, dislodging any bugs (I try not to drown them, after all they were only being greedy too). Add the blackberries, lemon juice and water to a large pan and boil gently for 30 minutes. After this stage, add the sugar and pectin and boil rigorously for 5-8 minutes. Mine took about 8 minutes until it reached 'setting point'. This is where the cold saucers come in handy... to know when your jam is the right consistency (and not just a mushy syrup), you spoon a little jam onto the cold plate, let it cool slightly, and then draw your finger gently across the top. If the jam puckers - just a little - then you have reached setting point! You don't want full on wrinkles, just a little resistance rather than liquidity. Be warned that this is probably runnier than you think it should be for jam. Don't worry if you think it's far too runny as you spoon it into the jar, as the jam will thicken when it cools. For me, runny jam is better than jam you have to chop up with your spoon.

Try it!

It really hit home that this is a way of preserving, and so when I was using up the last of my apples in the garden and needed a bit more fruit, I bunged in some of this blackberry jam (removing some of the sugar from the crumble recipe to make up!) and it was scrummy.

The Fruit Preservation Society

Membership: 1

I'm sure I've already told you that our garden here is a veritable Garden of Eden, and now we've lived here for a year we've had the full cycle of apples, plums, strawberries, raspberries, hazelnuts and (a few rather sad) passionfruit. This time last year we were just moving in and the plums and apples had mainly fallen. This year, I was well and truly ready. I plucked the plums regularly so that if any fell, I knew that had only fallen that day and, subject to strict quality controls ;-), were good to go. As there are four plum trees, I have had hundreds of Victoria (?) plums. It took me two hours to halve and stone these that remained after giving bag after bag away to friends, family and anyone who paused long enough for me to hook a carrier bag on.

and it left my hands brown and revolting. They're still stained despite bleach, nailbrush and a Lady Macbeth-esque frenzy.

This year's apple crop wasn't as good at last year's (pictured below). They were on the whole smaller and there were a lot less of them. It could be because of the weather, but I think the apple tree may be dying. It's not too happy-looking.

As we also live a short hop from the river (as in, a 20-second walk!) I've discovered that nearly on our doorstep we have mega loads of blackberry bushes! Knowing I wanted to make blackberry jam today I was up at 8 am to harvest about 2 kg of blackberries before everyone else decided that it would be a good way to spend Saturday afternoon ... mwah ha ha ha.

So for the past few weeks we've been having (and I've been inviting people round for) lots of fruit with icecream and cream, a lot of apple and blackberry crumble, apple and plum crumble, plum pie and various other combinations. However, I've decided it's time to STOP eating the glut of fruit and start to preserve it.

So today I went to town, got a whole load of jars (will need some more...) and various ingredients and set about making blackberry jam, apple and plum chutney, plum and ginger chutney, plum jam and Chinese plum sauce - alongside stewing plums and apples to freeze in portions.

Having never made jam before, I think the blackberry jam looks promising. It seems to thicken nicely as it cools. I was worried I'd stopped cooking it too soon while it was runny as I was scared of ruining my lovely stockpot.

I've run out of jars, I'm knackered and scalded, and the house smells of sugar and vinegar. Further reports will follow.