angharad_gam

 Do you?

I made tiramisu tonight, for the first time in ages. (I made it for lunch tomorrow). There are lots of ways to make tiramisu, but I find the following generally gives pretty awesome results:

Tiramisu
500 gms mascarpone cheese 
250 mls whipping cream 
2 egg yolks
4 tblsps caster sugar
400 gm packet of savoiardi or sponge finger biscuits
2 large teacups of espresso coffee (two long blacks, basically)
6-8 tblsps of coffee liqueur (eg Tia Maria)
Cocoa or grated chocolate

Make the espresso, pour into a shallow bowl, and leave to cool. Whip the cream into stiff peaks.
In a large bowl whisk the egg yolks and sugar until pale and thick, and the sugar is mostly dissolved. Beat in the mascarpone until smooth and well-combined. Carefully fold in the whipped cream. 

Stir the liqueur into the espresso.

Take a large baking dish or flat-bottomed bowl. Dip sponge fingers lightly into the coffee mixture and lay in the bottom of the dish until they form a complete layer (you may need to  reak a couple into pieces to fill in gaps). Spread half the cheese mixture carefully over the top. Make another layer of coffee dipped sponge fingers,  and then spread the remaining cheese over this. Dust with cocoa, or sprinkle with grated chocolate. Cover the dish with cling wrap and refrigerate until serving.

These quantities make a pretty large tiramisu for occasions when you're feeding a horde. For just a handful of people half will probably be plenty.

Tiramisu is one of those things where the flavours improve if it sits for a bit. Make it the night before for a lunch, or first thing in the morning for a dinner. However, given this has raw egg in it, you cannot keep it very long (though lasting too long is usually not too much of a problem).

Some variations: whisk a tablespoon of cocoa powder into the espresso for a mocha touch. Use roughly broken amaretti instead of sponge fingers (maybe only if you're making a small tiramisu or you will bankrupt yourself on amaretti). Melt 200 gms of dark chocolate and stir in a couple of tablespoons of butter. Spread this out to form 10-12 cm diameter circles on pieces of baking paper. While the chocolate is still molten drape each piece of paper over the end of a narrow-bottomed glass. Let the chocolate set then carefully peel off the paper. Put a couple of large spoonfuls of tiramisu in each chocolate 'bowl'.

 Life has been pretty quiet lately, divided mostly between work and video games, which is not entirely unusual in summer, when I tend to bunker down against the heat. Now that Autumn is officially here I am going to try and tear myself away from the screen a bit more. The last week or so has not been a good start, delivering in approximate order - three new staff at work, a cold, and a foot injury. I don't know what I have done to  my foot, only that it hurts when I walk on it. There's no causal event I can remember , there's no bruising or other surface sign of a problem, the pain feels different from a soft tissue injury, and it's not located at any obvious joint, and I seem to have exacerbated it doing the grocery shopping yesterday. Maybe this is like the time my knee swelled up for no reason. 

The other news is that I have signed up to run the kitchen at a weekend long rapier event in September. Still very much in the planning stages at the moment.

 This morning the three clocks in my kitchen read 8:04, 8:17 and 8:25 in the same moment. Wibbly wobbly timey wimey....

Back to work tomorrow, for the first time in three weeks, although I am having trouble coming to grips with the idea. I think I could happily have another couple of weeks off, although I am getting to the point of feeling like my brain is starting to moulder, so maybe it's not such a terrible thing. What have I done with those three weeks? Not a great deal. We had my parents and nephew visiting last week, so that kept us a little bit busy, but most of the rest of the time has been lazing around and playing Mass Effect (I have gotten about 2/3rds of the way through a second play through of the original trilogy and 1/3rd of the way through a new game of Mass Effect:Andromeda). I guess I did want something to take my mind off Dragon Age.

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 I actually started writing this post earlier in the week, but I wrote half of it on the bus on the way to work one morning, and then discovered Dreamwidth had failed to save the draft *grumble* 

I thought I might write about Christmas dinner instead of complaining about coughing, or rambling on about Mass Effect (getting close to the end of it now, but it is going on hold while I spend the next few days cooking and feeding people). For mains we are having roast pork loin and turkey stuffed with figs and pecans (which stuffing I made this morning), alongside salads (lentil and beetroot, fancy coleslaw and a plain green salad), roast potatoes, asparagus and butter beans. For dessert I am making a Christmas bombe and a summer pudding. If we don't all end up in a food coma after that it will not be my fault.

I wrote up the recipe for Christmas bombe a few years ago here: https://angharad-gam.dreamwidth.org/109948.html, so I will give you the recipe for summer pudding. Summer pudding is quite an old-fashioned dessert, but it is a favourite of Andy's and relatively simple, so I often roll it out at Christmas alongside something more virtuosic. It's also largely fruit, so you can pretend it's healthy if you like (the same way I pretend parkin - a traditional northern English ginger cake - is healthy because it has oatmeal in it). The ingredients are quite simple. Assembling the pudding requires a little bit of care and creativity. 

Summer Pudding 
1kg mixed berries, fresh or frozen (cherries, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, all good)
1 double package of plain, unfilled sponge cake
Handful of sugar

Put the fruit in a saucepan, add a small amount of water and some sugar to taste,. Note, even if you think the fruit does not need sugar you should probably add a couple of tablespoons as it will help draw out the juices. If you have frozen fruit you will not need as much water as if you are using fresh. Cut up any bits of fruit that are larger than a big raspberry. Put the pan on the stove and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring until any sugar is dissolved. Cook until the fruit is juicy and soft, but still has recognisable pieces (don't boil it to a homogeneous pulp, in other words). Set aside to cool.

Take a 1.5 or 2l pudding bowl. Open your sponge cake and cut a round piece to fit the bottom of the pudding bowl. Now cut some wedge shaped pieces to fit the sides of the bowl. Squeeze them in quite snugly as you want the cake to be fairly compressed. Now cut a large circular piece for the top. The idea is that you are making a shell of cake to fit the pudding basin. 

Separate the fruit from its juices and retain both. Take each piece of cut cake, beginning with the bottom circle, and dip into the fruit juices so the 'outside' (the face that will be sitting against the bowl) soaks up some juice. Don't allow it to become completely saturated - you want the juice to penetrate 1/3rd to half way into the cake. Now place each piece in place in the bowl, juice side outwards until you now have a juicy pink cake shell for the bowl. It is a good idea to have a few spare bits of cake in case you need to plug any gaps. Before you do the top, place the fruit into the hollow inthe middle of the cake shell. Now dip the top and place it. Cover the whole thing in cling wrap, pressing the wrap over the cake (don't just stretch it over the top of the bowl). Press down firmly, giving the whole pudding a good squeeze (there's nothing like a pudding that needs a good squeeze). Now put the bowl in the fridge. If you have something that can apply a nice even pressure over the top of the pudding, like a heavy plate, put this on top. Leave for at least a couple of hours before serving, but ideally, overnight. 

Before serving, turn out onto a plate (basically, turn the pudding bowl upside down,  hold your breath, and hope). Serve with whipped cream or cold custard. Try not to let Andy eat it all.

A few notes: summer pudding is traditionally made with bread not cake, but I think the texture is better this way. If you use bread you will have to cut it from an unsliced, stale loaf so the pieces are thick enough. If you are completely mad you could make your own sponge cake, but whatever you do, don't use the sponge fingers sold for making tiramisu or trifle. You can use fresh or frozen fruit, but given you are cooking it, it doesn't matter too much if you use frozen, and it is much cheaper (unless your garden is overrun with blackberries). 

Now I am off to actually do this (I already made the bombe this morning), and to roast some turkey. I doubt I will have the time or energy to do another post later,  but I hope you all have a lovely Christmas with much excellent food, and the company of people you care about. 

 This cold has been taking ages to get over.  It has been about three weeks now and I am still not quite 100%. The 'doing my job and my boss's at the same time' thing ends in a few days, so that might help. I have got most of my Christmas shopping and mailing things done, just food to worry about now. I am looking forward to taking a long break after Christmas. 

Still playing through the Mass Effect Trilogy. I finished the second game yesterday and started the third today. The first game was good enough, but not amazing. The second really puts you through the emotional wringer. The third - I can already tell it is going to rip my heart out, chop it into little pieces and stamp all over them. I have been a lot more successful about not spoilering these games than I was with Dragon Age, but I have still picked up enough to know some of my choices in the earlier games are leading to some serious pain. And that's without the whole 'the galaxy is doomed and I don't know if we can save it' plotline. The game does a really good job of making the odds of success seem extremely low...

I can see I may be falling into a pattern of only posting here when I am sick or bored or both. But life has been fairly quiet recently. Work has been keeping me moderately busy, with a trip to Canberra and sporadic filling in for my boss. Otherwise we are on the run down to the end of the year, and starting to think seriously about what we are doing for Christmas (which will be at our place this year - definitely no last minute rushings off *crosses fingers*). Maybe I will try and get in a food post about our plans between now and then. 

But, yes, I am sick. Liam had a bit of a cough at the end of last week, and I started feeling a bit tickly in the chest on Sunday. By Sunday evening I  had a raging sore throat and had almost completely lost my voice, which persisted through most of Monday. Ashwyn was highly delighted to discover that I couldn't speak when it came time to try and tell him he needed to go to bed. 'You sound terrible, Mum,' he said. 'Maybe you shouldn't try and talk.' Getting laryngitis when I have a cold is not terribly unusual for me, but having it persist for more than a few hours is. Anyway, fortunately that has mostly settled down, but I am back to coughing quite a lot, and poor Andy is sleeping on the couch so I don't keep him awake at night. 

Aside from this, I finished my completionist, imported world-state playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition, which ended up being about 125 hours long (I had skipped some of the DLC on my first play through, and skimmed over some parts of the game). I am still completely wrapped up in this game, and I am hanging out for the next one now. That there will even be a next one is still an unconfirmed rumour, and it is unlikely to appear before the end of next year, if then. I am glad I didn't get into this series in 2014 when DA:I originally came out!  Andy has convinced me to give the original Mass Effect trilogy another go. You may recall I had trouble getting into this when it was first released, but I found it a lot easier this time round and finished the first game yesterday (it wasn't a huge game). 

Stuff I have been reading lately: Provenance by Ann Leckie (set in the same universe as her Raadch books, but not about them - I liked this a lot), The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandemeer (I only just started the second book of this - it is very weird and somewhat unsettling. Andy liked it a lot, but I am still waiting for it to grab me by the throat). Also, I thought I would try the Lord Peter Wimsey books by Dorothy Sayers, as I have been on a bit of detective fiction kick for a little while now. I have to say that as far as 1920's detectives go, I prefer Phryne Fisher, but then she has the benefit of being written by a modern author for modern readers, while the Lord Peter books are nearly 100 years old now.

The Spring glories of the garden have passed on, and it's starting to get into the kind of weather where it is too hot for gardening, but that matters less because it is also too hot for weeds to grow. 

Erin is in the middle of exams. This is the first major exam period of her schooling (they seem less keen on them than when I was in high school), and she is stressing out a bit. After that she will be done with school for the year, and then she only has one year left (I swear five minutes ago she was a baby). Liam has now just slightly edged me out in height, and given that Ashwyn is already up to my nose I am still betting on my proposition that I will be the shortest in the house by the time he is 12. I am already the person with the smallest feet. 

 I do not have whooping cough...

A brief timeline first to hopefully clarify things. Today is the last day of the South Australian school holidays, which are two weeks long. Preceding these two weeks (with no overlap) were the Queensland school holidays, also two weeks long. As I believe I mentioned last time I posted, my parents were intending to spend the last week of our school holidays visiting us  (as indeed they did and went home yesterday). Now to the drama....

Last Sunday, aka the day before they were due to fly down here, mum and dad rang up and told us my nephew had just been diagnosed with whooping cough. He was not terribly ill (he was vaccinated), but he had spent the entirety of the Qld school holidays staying with mum and dad. He had been ill while he was there (in the second week of his visit). They took him to the doctor just before he went home and it takes a week for the whooping cough test to come back, so they had only just discovered that he had it. 

We spent half the day going around on whether or not mum and dad should cancel their trip. Whooping cough is most contagious in the first few days you are ill, which meant that it was almost two weeks since mum and dad had been most exposed. Whooping cough has an incubation period of 7-10 days, although it can be longer. Neither of them were sick (although my sister, who had visited them during the relevant period, was). It seemed like if they were going to get sick, they would have by this point. In the end, we decided that they should come.

All went swimmingly for the first couple of days. Then Andy and I went off on the overnight trip we had planned to celebrate our anniversary (and which, to be honest, was a big motivator for deciding in favour of them coming - his family are much much more reluctant to kid watch, especially if it involves more than sitting around for a couple of hours). When we came back on Thursday,  mum was sick. The next day she was still sick, if not worse. On Saturday she went to the doctor to get some antibiotics. They don't help much with the illness, by all accounts,  but they do help to make you less contagious, which is probably important when you have to get on a plane. We won't know if it's actually whooping cough for another week. 

If it is, and I have caught it (and I have not been vaccinated against it - something my mother did not see the need to tell me until now) it might be two weeks before I get sick. But at least if I do get sick in the next couple of weeks I will know it is likely more than just a cold and not go randomly spreading it around. There is nothing to do now, but play the waiting game, and as Homer Simpson so sagely said "The waiting game sucks..."

 Experimenting with getting images in here. The process is a trifle cumbersome. I need to move the picture from my SD card to my phone memory, then upload to DW, then copy URL in here. All a bit tedious on a touch screen.

Hopefully, here is some proof that the garden, at least, thinks it is Spring:
( Read more... )Hmm... That was distinctly painful.