Category Archives: Party Ideas
When life gives you lemons – make sherbet lemon vodka jelly shots
I’ve got loads of stuff to tell you, but I’m going to start with waffling on about the amazing jelly shots I made for a dinner party I had a couple of weeks ago.
If you’ve ever read my blog before, then you know how to make flavoured vodka in a dishwasher. I’m trying to remember what inspired me to make a sherbet lemon flavoured vodka, but unfortunately I’ve drunk too much lemon sherbet vodka and it’s melted that section of my brain.
I used four packs of old fashioned sherbet lemon sweets – Sainsbury’s sell the old fashioned “quarter” sweets. These are perfect, four bags of these to one bottle of Sainsbury’s basic vodka (750cl) is my recommended dose recipe
Smashy smashy
So, smash the sweets up and place them all in your kilner jar.
I love this next photo. I clearly felt at this moment that the watermelon and bare breasted statue SAID something
ART!
I think the most we can gather from this is that I was already intoxicated.
Right so – blah blah, add the vodka, stick it in the dishwasher, shake it regularly while it cools. Read the link.
This vodka did not need filtering so while it cooled, I melted four leaves of gelatin in some hot water.
Melting gelatin leaves
This was a disaster! The water was far too hot and the gelatin instantly set, I ended up with a jug of stiff horribleness.
I started again using warm water and poking at it.
Melt, Melt, Melt!
Once I had a jug of soft gelatin leaves I added half a pint of hot lemon sherbet vodka and stirred vigourously.
It's gloopy
I like my jelly shots to be quite hard *face*. Depending on your preference, you could add more vodka liquid to make a more wobbly consistency, 3/4 of a pint to 4 leaves of gelatin would be pretty good.
I poured the jelly into espresso cups. I’m a bit of a wanker, let’s face it!
Hipster
I would love to show you a picture of these babies turned out onto a plate with a dusting of lemon sherbet and a little bon-bon in the front of the shot and OH MY GOD.
I can’t though because I made these and then I tried one and then the rest of my life since is a blur.
Give it a go – or don’t *aggressive*
An Easy New Year’s Meal
The tree is starting to droop. Hoovering up the needles is an hourly chore but it’s still not over! Oh no.
The spectre of New Year’s Eve hangs over me yet and we’re all feeling a bit like this:
I feel rubbish!
If, like me, you have no plans then a quick meal that you can prepare in advance and just leave alone until serving time – with some killer puddings to see the new year in – is just the job.
I’m here to give you my menu for this this NYE.
I am going to be serving my Greek Lamb with Orzo. This is a stew with the pasta added in at the final stages of cooking and fills the house with the warming scent of an array of spices and herbs and tastes just bloody fab.
You’ll need *takes deep breath*:
A splash of olive oil
Stewing Lamb (not too lean, you need some good streaks of fat)
1 onion
2 carrots (or one big bastard) Sliced in half, lengthways
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
1 carton of creamed tomatoes (or passata)
Tomato puree
2 Cloves of garlic
Dried Thyme and Oregano
Paprika
Cinnamon, ground and a stick
Ground mace
Ground cloves
Lamb stock
Red wine
Orzo
Fresh oregano, rosemary and mint
Feta cheese.
Got all that? Sounds complicated and a bit of a pain in the arse? It’s not, honestly.
Chop your lamb up into bit size pieces
I've used shoulder steaks
and brown in the olive oil in a heavy based large casserole pan (you might need to do this in batches depending on how many you are cooking for).
While you are sealing the lamb, roughly chop the onion and peel the garlic (I’ve specified a couple of cloves but you can decide how much you want to add – it’s up to you) before blitzing to a pulp in a food processor.
Beware the fumes!
Remove the browned lamb from the pan and add the oniony pulp to the fat and gently cook until soft.
Add the spices and herbs (I’ve not given amounts as I do just tend to throw “an amount” in, with the exception of the ground cloves – I’m not terribly keen on cloves so only ever add 1/4 teaspoon) and continue frying for a couple of minutes.
Replace the lamb into the pan (and the juices which will have accumulated in the dish) and add the tomatoes (tinned, passata and a squeeze of tomato purree) stock (about a pint), a glug of wine, the carrots and the fresh herbs. Bring to the boil and then place on the lowest possible heat and leave to bubble away gently for 2-3 hours (or longer).
Simmer, Simmer, Simmer
SO, while the lamb is cooking you can get on with making some dessert.
I ummed and ahhed over which recipe to prepare, One Jug Chocolate Brownies or Ice Cream Cake and plumped for the ice cream cake as it’s stupidly easy and has a party feel to it.
Needs more chocolate
And now, I will ask for a moment of bowed heads and silence as I have some sad news to impart. This will be the final recipe in which Ken, the Kenwood Chef mixer will make an appearance. At the grand old age of 34 (we think) he has finally shuffled from his mortal coil. Which is a bit strange actually as the problem does appear to be with a spring inside him which has finally rusted to the point of no return.
Farewell Ken. You did us proud. *Bravely holds back tears*
Line a springform cake tin with clingfilm, making sure that you have enough to cover the cake at the top.
Leave your ice cream (I went for vanilla, but you could use chocolate I suppose, or cookie dough, or raspberry ripple, or anything at all!) out of the freezer to soften a little, meanwhile take a rolling pin to some bourbon biscuits and smash them into small chunks.
(place in a sealable bag first, HA HA!)
Add your ice cream to your *sobs* mixer.
Softened ice cream
And add the bourbon biscuits, chocolate drops (I used both milk and white) and honey roasted nuts before mixing. (Keep back about a third of the biscuits and a few chocolate chips for decorating later)
Delicious
Smash up a crunchie bar and add that to the mix (reserving a third of the honeycomb)
A glycemic spike approaches...
Pour the “batter” into your prepared cake tin and smooth the top a little with a spatula.
And that's it!
Wrap the overhanging cling film over the top of the cake and place into the freezer until five minutes before you’re ready to serve.
When you are ready, take the ice cream and chuck the reserved biscuits, crunchie bar and chocolate chips over the cake (and I’d definitely throw some sparklers on the top for some New Year’s Eve glitter and POP!)
This may well give you a sugar hangover. Or at least, that's what you can blame your bad head on tomorrow.
For the full recipe (and also some details about hot butterscotch and chocolate sauces to go with this beauty) check out here
Back to the lamb. After a few hours of gentle simmering the lamb should be soft and the sauce a little bit thicker.
At this point I usually turn the oven onto a low heat (gas mark 2) and add a couple of handfuls of Orzo before giving the stew a final stir and putting the pan, lid on, into the oven to cook for 30 minutes – or until the pasta is cooked.
Make a quick mix of feta cheese, fresh chopped mint and oregano to sprinkle on the top of the stew.
Sprinkle over stew
Serve with green beans and broccoli. I sometimes make some garlic and rosemary roasted new potatoes, but these aren’t really necessary as the pasta in the stew provides the carby bulk.
Kalá hristúyenna!
I wish you all a Happy 2012, may your year be full of parties and happy times!
Christmas Booze – Week Two
So week two eh? That came around a bit quickly didn’t it?
Just like Christmas will – be warned! I have already seen two houses decorated with Christmas lights and Christmas trees, admittedly these homeowners are clearly insane, but if you want some tasty, tasty booze ready to give as presents or drink yourself crying while listening to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” then you’d better get on with it.
Head over to week one to get started.
I’ve been shaking the jars everyday, and having a good sniff. Let’s have a look
Whoa there Parma Violet - what you up to then?
The Christmas Pudding Rum is coming along nicely, but as the flavouring comes from natural ingredients, this one will take the longest to mature.
Remember that this was a white rum when we first started
The Werther’s Original Vodka just smells and tastes of vodka (which is fine itself) but I want this to be really tasty, so I’m going to add some more Werther’s. A whole large bag would be good (I’ve only got three quarters of a bag left, thanks to the Werther’s pixies who sneak in once night falls and snaffle them, leaving their golden wrappers in Oliver’s bed. DAMN THEM)
The colour's looking good; now to get the taste.
The Parma Violet Vodka is looking…well, a bit grim actually, and smells of nothing but vodka.
Hmmm. FOAMY.
The bottle lid has lost it’s thread, so I’m going to transfer this mixture to a fresh bottle (sterilised) and add some more parma violets.
A whole tube of large parma violets
The Rhubarb and Custard Vodka looks, smells and tastes fantastic, and is ready for bottling.
All the rest of the drinks are heading back into the cupboard for another week of daily agitation (an almost perfect description of my working life there)
Did I mention that everything should be kept in a dark place? Well it should.
Bottling up.
You’ll need some coffee filters, a funnel, a large jug and some bottles (duh). I got mine from Jamtastic and they were delivered quickly with no problems at all.
I LOVE MY FUNNEL. *cough*
Place a coffee filter into the head (is that the right word?) of the funnel and pour vodka into filter, allow to drain through slowly.
It takes longer than you'd think for the liquid to filter through.
Now, this particular flavoured vodka only required one filtering (I think – but as this one is an experimental batch we’ll check that there’s no sediment in the finished bottle next week) but be prepared to repeat this process if your vodka still looks cloudy or any way unpleasant.
I’m looking at you Parma Violet Vodka.
I poured my finished drink of certain drunkenness into a fresh, sterilised bottle and labelled it up.
Aw. Pretty. (Potent).
I haven’t drunk half of it by the way, that’s the amount extracted; remember that I needed to pour a little vodka out when flavouring in order to put the sweets in – This can be solved by flavouring in kilner jars.
So, cheers! and here’s to next week.
Halloween Cakes
Continuing on from my last post
Many, Many cakes…
All lifting out of their cases
Why do my cupcakes lift away from their cases? I’ve done a little research and it appears that the moister the cake batter, the more likely it will be that the cases will lift away from the finished article. The choice is either delicious moist cakes or dryer more beautiful ones…
As these cakes are going to be eaten today I decided to do away with the papers.
I whipped up a batch of chocolate buttercream icing
Impressive spooky icing fog
and applied a layer of frosting to each cake…
YUM!
and then got on with creating the owl cupcakes. I halved 2 oreos and pressed a brown m&m into each half to create the eyes. I then placed an orange m&m for a beak.
Ta-DA! Oh! Isn't it CUTE?
The oreo baked into the bottom of the cakes worked really well too
Hoorah!
The fairy cakes are obviously too small for such decoration, so I improvised and used some of the broken oreo cookies as gravestones, and added some pre-made sugarpaste decorations.
Pumpkin on grave...woooOOOooooo
And so I’m done with the cakes.
So, so sweet
Various decorations
And now to get on with EVERYTHING ELSE.
Wish me luck!
Last Minute Halloween
Despite all my frownings and pronouncements to the contrary, I have decided to get into the spirit (see what I did there?) of Halloween and we have a small party planned for TOMORROW.
I’m like Ebenezer Scrooge on Halloween, and I have been visited by the ghost of Halloween Past.
That's right people. TWO boxes of Halloween stuff.
As I wrangled the boxes from the loft, one of the lids came free and my “spells” book fell out
COWER IN FEAR LOWLY READERS!
The Past showed me this book that I made, back when the children were very small (I think this dates from 2005) and needed some kind of instruction on party throwing. I remember making this book using a few sheets of black tissue paper, a blank book with lined paper and plenty of sloppy glue. I scrunched the paper up, and layered it onto the book and 6 years later it’s still here.
So the book fell open on the loft ladder at this page and reminded of me of my lovely plan to read various rhymes before playing each game. I was to be the Head Witch and would read the games out in rhyme (like some sort of FOOL) and the small children would obey me…
Touching, no?
LOOK! I put little time reminder’s in the corner of the pages…how sweet and naive I was back then. *sigh*. Of course I faltered when actually confronted by a group of 5 year olds and although I followed the top tip of dusting a tiny amount of flour on the first sheet of paper and blowing (which makes a brilliant cloud of “dust”) before I started reading, I soon found myself flicking through the book in search of something ever more exciting as the children demolished the table of food and ran a circuit of madness from the front room/kitchen/hall.
Even so, the book reminded me of the effort I have always made for Halloween and shamed me.
AND WE’RE BACK!
So first up. Pumpkin Carving. I got two fab shaped examples. One squat, one long, and part one of tonight’s plan is to carve them:
An uncomfortable duo
So first you cut a lid, simple enough. Use a sharp large knife, and I use the same large knife to make an initial cut into the fibrous centre of the squash and to ease the removal of the crappy/seedy innards. I have bothered, in the past, to remove the seeds and toast them – Total. Waste. Of. Time. They just irritated me. Don’t bother.
Cut with a knife, then scrape with a big spoon
So, then I scrape the insides with a big metal spoon (serving size if you want to be precise). Oliver got involved and took charge of the smaller, squatter pumpkin. He ended up wearing rubber gloves (THE MASSIVE GIRL) as the scrape and pull method was just not working for him. I’d recommend not being too squeamish and getting right in there.
"IT WILL TAKE FOREVER" I scream..then hand over the rubber gloves
So once we’d scraped and scraped we could start carving. I decided that the long pumpkin should be inverted to make a more realistic “head” shape. Oliver decided to draw his design in Permanent Marker pen. We’re both idiots.
Brilliant
Ah, but you see, Jack ‘O Lanterns are most effective once lit, and so it was time for our traditional “turn all the lights off, light the pumpkins” moment.
That squat one needs a bit of work to be honest.
Sod it. Let’s move onto the cakes…
Oh! so I want to make cupcakes with an oreo biscuit in the bottom and I am deeply impressed by these owl cupcakes which also uses Oreo Cookies. SCORE! I can get them in Poundland.
I line a deep muffin tray with crappy Halloween cases and add half an oreo to each case.
Yeah. OH BABY...YEAH
I make a basic chocolate cake batter and then *DUN DEEE DAH!!!!*
I see a cosmic sign. A symbol of the Goddess. A sign of something strong and feminine shining at me from my mixing bowl. Some see Dead People, some see Jesus in a piece of toast, some see Mary in a Tortilla…
I AM WOMAN. HEAR ME ROAR!
I see boobs in batter. Moving on.
So I add the Booby Batter to the cases and bake
Beautiful smooth tops
And as they bake I make a second batch of smaller cakes – fairy ones. OH YES FAIRY CAKES ARE BACK!
Aw
I still had a small amount of batter left, so I crushed up the tops of the Oreo cookies I had left over and added them to the mixture before filling a remaining three cases and baking
*drool*
I now have many cakes. MANY MANY CAKES. All of which require icing and decorating.
I’ll be back…
How to throw a tropical beach party
*whimpers*
As I write this blog, I am gazing about like a blinking owl. My left leg hurts and Oliver is still in bed (at two O’clock in the afternoon). The kitchen still looks like a hurricane of food has blown through it and the back garden…the less I say about that the better. I think we can safely say that the party was a ROARING SUCCESS.
I woke up horrifically early yesterday morning with a jolt. The night before had been spent cooking batches of cupcakes and I had completely forgotten to wrap Olly’s presents and so, I started the day in a frenzied search for some sellotape (which by the way, should be featured in Harry Potter books as an example of an amazing disappearing substance. It doesn’t matter how much of it I buy, I can never bloody find ANY OF IT when I need to) which I couldn’t locate and so ended up wrapping his gifts which craft glue. A great start to the day, I’m sure you agree.
The morning was spent icing cupcakes and cornets filled with sweets and decorating the shed/playhouse.
*cracks whip*
The beach hut (Yes, I STILL know it's a shed)
It's like we're in Hawaii
As I had decided that the food was going to comprise of burgers, hotdogs and sausages in buns the food preparation was at a minimum. This left me time to decorate the front garden and to force Tom into blowing up an inflatable banana the size of a lilo.
They look as deflated as each other.
Time then warped and suddenly people were arriving. Family members dropped by to give cards and presents to the birthday boy in advance of the party, the entertainer arrived and then the guests started flooding in. I realised that I had no idea how many people were going to descend as I hadn’t received many RSVPs (Quick note here – please respond to invitations, it makes life so much easier for the person throwing the party) and was greatly relived that more than 3 children turned up.
The entertainer was just…brilliant. 11 is a difficult age. The disparity between the more knowing and mature girls, and the boys (who spent at least half an hour wrestling and throwing plums from the tree at each other) who are in the main, still children, means that there is awkward balance to strike. Michelle (for that was her name) managed this beautifully and the kids all got really involved in the karaoke and competitions.
Every child in the universe knows the moves to cha cha slide (or whatever it's called)
God knows what song this was. It sounded like a bunch of noise to me *my mother*
So while the kids were doing the limbo, screeching Justin Bieber songs and throwing plums at each other generally having a good time, I got on with the food.
Deciding on providing hot food was just plain stupid. Why I thought that this would lessen the load on the day is now, with hindsight, completely beyond me. Am I actually mental?
WHAT WAS I THINKING?
The spread
The entertainer had to leave (BOO!) and there was still an hour to go before the party ended.
There was only one option left open to me…
Lock them in the shed...
This worked really well until they escaped and run amok with water pistols
They're out of control!
This was actually my favourite part of the whole day. To see these kids – some of whom have been coming to our parties since they were 5 – running and laughing and being children again was just…amazing and surprisingly touching.
And so, the time for it all to end was upon us.
Oliver blew out his candles…
Blowing out the candles
The children left, each and every one thanking me for a good time.
Po emerged from his hiding place…
You can come out now elderly cat
And I put my feet up, drank a glass or two of wine and fell into my bed in a messy mess.
This morning, Olly got a text from one of his friends that simply said:
“Your [sic] party was epic”
I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream (Cupcakes)
Well, I’m back from my holiday. We did NOT die in plane crash, and although I have returned to the UK slightly crispier than before, this is entirely down to the 40 plus degree heat combined with beer at lunchtime forgetting to put on sunscreen regularly, rather than some sort of fiery fireball.
(I’d like to take this opportunity to thank one of my commenters DillyTante for her comforting words on my last post. Thanks, Dilly. Thanks A LOT)
In Skiathos, I pondered on the cake I would like to make for Oliver’s upcoming Beach/Tropical party (Yes, I am THAT sad) and came to the conclusion that I’d like to make cupcakes which look like ice creams.
So, while going out to restaurants to eat delicious food:
I think I'll pass...
Or watching the sun set over the harbour:
*thinks about cupcakes*
Or just generally hanging out:
WHAT?
The idea grew and grew.
So today I decided to have a trial run. I googled about a bit and found a recipe which actually cooks the cake inside a cornet. Genius! I decided to try a few of the cornet cakes and to also try a traditional cupcake in a case.
I assembled the most important ingredients…
The bananas and plums are there for me to make rude fruit salads for my own amusement. (the chicken likes to watch)
…and got to work. The recipe calls for a pretty standard vanilla cake mixture which should then be distributed between 12 cornets (with flat bases). As this is a trial run I only made four and spooned the rest of the batter into some lovely cases which I bought from the local CakePorn shop.
Oh! Do you remember when I told you of my vast and unending love of the two local party shops Here ? Well, in news just in…one has closed down due to financial difficulties and the other BURNED DOWN. *gasp*. So I am reduced to driving to a party shop that also specialises in cake decorations and tins and cases and cake stands and and and I’ll be bankrupt by Christmas.
So I prepared the batter and shared it between the cones and the cases.
Note the large amount of batter in the cornets
I baked them for 25 minutes and got on with the buttercream ice cream icing.
Again, I used a standard buttercream recipe consisting of:
250g unsalted butter
600g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
I also added the second half of a vanilla pod’s seeds (the first half went into the cake batter) and whisked the butter and vanilla together until pale and then added the icing sugar slowly. Adding the sugar slowly made NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER and I still ended up with a kitchen which wouldn’t have looked out of place in Miss Haversham’s house. I made half of the mixture without colouring paste, and the other half a small smear of “SugarFlair” paste in primrose yellow.
The cakes came out of the oven looking pretty good…
Hmmm
…but as you can see the cakes in the cornets have risen far too high over the edge of the wafer, when I add the icing this is going to cause a problem.
I got on with decorating the cakes, adding icing, flakes and sprinkles to get an idea of what works best.
Looking pretty good
The inside of the cornet
And the traditional cupcakes looked pretty good too..
YUM!
And so onto a taste test..
The cornets, although looking much more authentic as “ice cream” were far, far too sweet (possibly due to the large amount of frosting needed to cover the overspill of cake mixture). They were pronounced “YUCK!” and “TOO MUCH” and ended up..
Make compost, make something good of yourself Ice Cream Cornet Cupcake...become one with the universe.
(they also wouldn’t sit still on my…and I’m embarrassed to confess that I own one..cupcake stand *shame* which will be necessary to make the small fairy cakes into an effective Birthday Cake for the party)
And so we have a winner!
It's an ice cream in cake form...what's not to like?
But I’ve now got 40 cornets to use up and a ridiculous amount of icing sitting in the mixing bowl, malevolently.
And so I knocked up a cone dipped in icing, rolled in hundreds and thousands and filled with Marshmallow, M&M’s and smarties:
Sugar PLUS
And Oliver and Tom pronounced it “Good” and ate it, wafer and all.
And so, to a couple of links for you if you would like to make cakes that look like ice cream.
And a link to the blog that inspired the cone filled with sweets (actually, this whole blog is filled with wonderful ideas, I would have tried the cupcakes in ice cream pots if only there had been time)
Thank God for trial runs.
Man vs Food Party-ette
If you’re a fairly regular reader of my blog, or if you actually know me, you will know that I was very poorly for seven whole days last week. (You can read some whining about it here)
I’ve been a bore. So today I decided to treat the boys and make a spectacular MAN VS FOOD dinner.
Man vs Food is a brilliantly mesemerising TV programme from the US and stars Adam Richman as he chomps his way around the States. Each episode culminates in Adam taking on a “Food Challenge” and it is just…mind boggling. I have watched him eat pounds and pounds of burgers and fries, 12 dozen oysters, enormous MANcakes (*snigger*), pizza slices bigger than a human baby.
We love, love, LOVE the show and watch it, aghast, as a family. You can find out more here. (Also I love him)
So, I got up early this morning and had a good hunt around the internet for some authentic American recipes. I landed on a site called Soul Food and Southern Cooking and plumped for a meal consisting of:
Southern Fried Chicken
Macaroni and Cheese
Cornbread
Corn on the Cob
Homemade Lemonade
and
Peach Cobbler for dessert.
I headed off to the Supermarket and filled my trolley with abandon…
Hmmmm, plenty of high fat, low nutritional items in this baby (and a chilli plant)
On the way home we listened to the radio and Oliver suddenly asked me why the woman was singing about “choking him”. I was somewhat confused as the song playing was “Jump!” by the Pointer Sisters. Although, hilariously, it really does sound as if they’re singing “Choke HIM!” during the chorus, and so then I couldn’t stop laughing and tears were spurting out my eyes a bit and I had to pull over.
When we got home I got the chicken ready, by placing it into a mixture of full fat milk, salt and buttermilk…
milky, milky, bokey, boke.
and placing it into the fridge for a few hours.
While the chicken bathed itself like Cleopatra, I got on with making the cornbread. I’ve never even tried it before, and so was quite excited.
It’s really easy to make. You just mix together the dry ingredients of cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt in one bowl, and the wet ingredients of melted butter, egg and milk in a jug and them combine them, stir well and pop into a fairy cake tray with cases.
Easy Peasy
While the cornbread cooked, I started on the macaroni cheese. Quite frankly, I was staggered at the amount of cheese and butter the recipe called for. A stick of butter (115g) and one and a half pounds of grated cheese (500g) makes this side dish a real gut buster…
Don't even look at this photo for too long or your EYES will get fat
The cornbread had cooked, and had been tasted, an essential task for the serious cook..
I pronounce it..."Tasty"
and so the macaroni cheese headed into the oven to bubble away and turn into Certain Death By Dairy.
I was starting to flag a bit by now and decided to make a jug of lemonade, just to have a couple of glasses with a little splash of vodka in to have a taste and liven me up a little.
Vodka Optional
After a drink I felt ready to tackle the peach cobbler. *childish snigger*
The recipe called for a “Baking pan” and whatever the fuck that is, I don’t own one. I do have a silicone cake tin in the right measurements though and decided that it would probably turn out OK. I’m telling you now, that it didn’t. So if you’re planning on trying any of the recipes, I strongly urge you to buy a “Baking Pan”. Good luck with that.
This doesn't look right...
I think the problem was that you’re meant to melt the butter in the “Baking Pan” and then add the batter and the peaches; instead of melting the butter in the microwave, pouring it into the cake tin and then spooning the batter on top to form an unholy alliance of fat with a thin batter which, sort of, curdled. MMMMmmmmmmmm
“Ah Screw It!” said the vodka I and bunged it into the oven with the Macaroni Cheese to cook for an hour.
And onto the chicken. I diverted a little from the recipe online and followed some advice from Nigella Lawson about poaching the chicken in it’s milky bath before coating in flour and frying.
I cannot begin to tell you how bad this smelled. All I can do is ask you to engage your imagination and think about chicken boiling in milk and buttermilk until the liquid becomes some sort of horrific cottage cheese floating on…plasma?
Dear Lord.
Once the chicken had cooked through, I let it cool down, double dipped it in seasoned flour and egg and fried in an entire block of solidified vegetable fat. *arteries weep*
There are no words. Unless the words are "Gross Obesity"
Finally everything was ready and the table groaned with a billion calories.
That's banana ketchup in the front of this shot. Yes. (and butter)
It was all…unbelievably delicious. We couldn’t finish it all, not by a long chalk as it was all so heavily fat laden that we became full very quickly, but my GOD it was good.
Yeah, shovel it in you bloody WHALE
So for the next two weeks I will be living on rice cakes.
The peach cobbler was a freaking disaster. It looks OK in the following picture, but it hadn’t cooked through and was just..ick.
Looks OK, Tastes like uncooked cake mix. And not in a good way.
If you fancy trying some authentic soul food then check out Soul Food and Southern Cooking
You can find a handy recipe converter here.
As we ate we decided that there is definitely a great party idea here. Maybe a dinner party with a good number of guests would manage to finish the food, and the “Food Challenge” could be a stupidly hot chilli laden dip served with nachos and the person who managed to eat a certain amount in a certain time could be the “winner”
*ponders*
You could rig the house up in stars and stripes and serve lager and cocktails in teacups a la the prohibition. Maybe throw the party on the 4th of July (it’s a bit late now for me to be having these sort of revelations…but hey! there’s always next year)
In conclusion…
In the fight between Man vs Food? On this occasion Food won.
*scrape* *scrape* *scrape* *scrape*
Totally Tropical Invitations.
I bow to one person asking public demand and get back onto the track of the blog MOMENTARILY give you an update on the invitations and preparations for Oliver’s beach party.
If you have no idea what I’m going on about have a look here and here.
I found a brilliant website called Party Packs and found foldable cardboard surfboards and inflatable parrots and straw skirts and and and…
So, I placed an order and it arrived very quickly.
Yeah. Look at all that LOOT
You’ll noticed that I was so excited I didn’t even clear the iron away. Yeah. That’s like, that’s an indicator of my excitement. Iron Clearage. *cough*
So we pretty much got everything out of the box and shouted at each other stuff like “LOOK! AN INFLATABLE BANANA!” “OH MY GOD. GIANT SUNGLASSES!”
Let's get everything out of the box and scatter it across the front room. Sounds like a plan.
And then I made Oliver put all the leis on
Lei down. Yeah, I went there.
And then we packed everything back into the box and put it somewhere. I think down the shed/playhouse. Or maybe in the loft. Or under the stairs. Anyway, WHATEVER, it’ll turn up.
I have started some serious work on the invitations.
It's WORK
I had a small problem with the glue (and not because I’m on it)
It looks like a disease. It's not. It's superglue. I am a relentless twat.
And have managed to finish half of them…
Check these babies out
See those fabulous little life preservers and sunglasses and palmtrees? We made those. We are totally amazing.
Only another 10 to go and I’m done
Another ten to go...
We’re getting there!
Beach Party Invitations or Oh Dear Lord the madness is upon me…
So. Oliver turns 11 in August, and he moves onto secondary school in September.
All of the parties that I have thrown for him and his primary school friends have been building towards THIS PARTY. (You can read about my angst here)
We’re going on a family holiday at the end of July, so I need to be really on top of my game to get the invitations out and get everything arranged. Bearing this in mind, I called a party entertainer today. I’ve decided that I want to enjoy this party, and the best way to do this is to get someone else to do it help. Somewhat embarrassingly, when the lovely lady asked me about the details of the party – I burst into wracking sobs. *shocked face*
Me: “It’s hu huuh hh..is eleventh birthday *WAIL* and this is th the the LAST PARTYYYY! *sniff*”
Lady: “…..”
Me: “Sorry”
I wouldn’t be surprised if she turns up on the day with a knife tucked into her socks in order to deal with me.
Moving on…
Today was also the day that I went to HobbyCraft and spent a stupid amount of money on crafty crap.
See that pen? I have many, many pens, but when you walk into HobbyCraft they squirt you with an odourless, invisible gas that turns you into a CraftZombie. One minute you’re a normal person who watches DVD’s and The Apprentice in their free time, the next moment you find yourself gazing vacantly at a cardboard mask while gently stroking a pack of feathers. I should never go in HobbyCraft. It makes me want to do knitting, crocheting, painting, jigsaws, jewellery making and..most disturbing of all, SEQUIN ART. FFS.
I also bought some sandpaper. Not from HobbyCraft, but from ASDA – Only a quid! Bargain (also I got three bottles of wine for a tenner *double thumbs up*)
So I started on the invitations..
Not bad, for the first draft
That’s a little square of sandpaper there in the middle. The card opens up and all the information about the party is on the inside. I’ve gone with a “Beach Hut” thing (Beach Hut = Shed/Playhouse)
Invite
The Beach hut at <address>
will open on <date of party> at <start time> until <end time>
Dress Code – Something summery!
RSVP details
SURF’S UP!
—————————————————————————————————————————————
There’s something missing though…As I looked through the bags of little sticky on-ny beach stuff I had bought, I realised that it’s just not colourful enough. And so…the madness begins.
On my last trip to HobbyCraft I bought a bunch of FIMO, ostensibly for Oliver, but c’mon, let’s be honest – I became a CraftZombie. I made these with it:
Don't ask...
If you don’t know what FIMO is, (and, why would you? Unless you’ve been in HobbyCraft, in which case you’ve probably got your own embarrassing collection of models) then have a click. FIMO is basically a modelling clay which you can harden in the oven.
I wonder if you can guess where I’m going with this?
Yes. I have forced my children into slave labour to help me make our own sticky on-ny things to stick on invitations. I feel shame.
He's still in his school uniform *sob*
*Doorslam*
But now we have…
Ah, aren't they wondrous?
You see?
MADNESS.
