Happy Halloween!

It's that time of year again when the air gets chillier, the nights darker little ghouls come knocking on our doors and steal our sweeties...

Oh, yes I meant give some of our sweets to the trick and treaters who come to our doors and not get jealous when they take a bit handful.

I've been getting into the spirit of the season painting my mask from last year silver for the Goblin King's Masquerade  Ball...

As well as keeping warm after Saturdays snowfall by testing The Great Gatsby's new pies.

This one was lovely and warm and tasty, it has goats cheese and sweet potato in it, Paul wasn't too impressed by it but he was happy with his Classic burger so it's all good.

Now I just need to keep away from the scary monsters...

Like that one and wish you a Happy Halloween!

Recent adventures.

I've discovered that it's been a month since I last posted on this blog and it seems life managed to get in the way a bit there...  I guess I'm just an occasional blogger!

Recently I have been to see Allo Darlin play Queens Social Club on 6th September.

(Sadly my camera skills are nothing compared to the joy that is their songs!)

I caught a train down to Nottingham to watch the Hellfire Harlots battle the London Roller Girls Brawl Saints.

As well as to catch up with my sister and her boyfriend and their new house.

Later that week, on 12th September I grabbed some food in The Great Gatsby then popped into my car and headed up the Motorway to Leeds to see the rather lovely Beirut play the 02 Academy with my handsome boyfriend.

Then there was a lull as we both just worked hard and I tried to fit dance rehearsals in for The Beat around chilling out.

Near the end of September a strange construction graced Barkers Pool.

This turned out to be a Spiegeltent and part of the Festival of the Mind.  I went to an event put on by the Na Zdrove promoters on inside the Spiegeltent.  I wasn't sure what to expect but liked the look of bygone glamour and hope that extended to the inside.  Thankfully it did!  The night included an awful drag artist, three burlesque performers from Secrets of the Boudoir Burlesque, a comedian called Frank Sinazi and a band from Newcastle called The Baghdaddies.  As well as the Na Zdrove djs!

 A great night of cringing, cheering, laughing and dancing was had by all!

I also sampled the lovely food on offer at Maggie May's on 5th October whilst celebrating one of my work mates birthdays. I would've taken a picture but I ate it...

I also performed in The Beat 2012 on 6th October and danced a bollywood track and a bellydancing track.
For the weeks leading up to it I was wracked with nerves... but it all went alright on the night!  Obviously I took no pictures as I was too busy dancing. Maybe if I ever do it again I should give someone my phone to take pictures with!

Now I'm trying to get back in the swing of writing on a more regular basis, started my bellydance class again and have been debating also going to the bollywood class and maybe doing another show. Not entirely sure this is a good idea as the next one is just before Christmas though!

I've also been watching the Great British Bake off and making too many banana based foodstuffs (muffins and bread).  Now I'm just wondering what adventures lie in wait next?

Chocolate Utopia Nottingham - chocolate tasting.

In  a seemingly inconspicuous building on a main Nottingham bus route in the city centre, is the chocoholics dream Chocolate Utopia....  (The clue is in the name!)  It's a cafe, chocolate shop and chocolate factory all rolled into one. I've been lucky enough to have two trips there over the years once for their lovely hot chocolate many moons ago and more recently for a chocolate tasting session.

The first thing you notice when you enter the premises is the gorgeous aroma and of the chocolate filled cabinets.

Normally  Chocolate Utopia functions as a cafe with tables scattered around and throne like chairs available for customers to sit on; however, they prepared for their chocolate tasting session by arranging all their tables into one large table.

When  the chocolate tasting started we were offered a non-alcoholic beverage of our choice were given a chocolate menu to decide on a chocolate to accompany the drink.  Then once everyone had arrived and were comfortable the owners introduced themselves and explained the history of their business and got pictures, examples and samples out to demonstrate how chocolate is made.

As they explained this process we passed around a sample of a cocoa bean pod, crunched a smaller cocoa bean and sampled cocoa nibs and cocoa butter. Then we moved on to how chocolate is manufactured and we tried chocolate buttons with various levels of coco solids in them.

After we had tried these we had a little breather to stretch our legs then we went down stairs to see where the magic happens. (Or the place the chocolate is made to non-chocoholics!)  We gazed on the chocolate making machinery and were brought our choice of melted milk or dark chocolate in chocolate cups.  Then they brought out strawberries that had been dipped in milk chocolate and had then set.  These were lovely, I had a couple of them.

Once we were ready we ascended the stairs and had a quick breather before we were brought yet more chocolates to try! There was a variety from liquers to dark chocolates to truffles.  There were exotic flavours such as a thai food inspired chocolate and more conventional ones like milk chocolate truffles. We were even asked to try their works in progress such as the cheese chocolate which featured mature cheddar and dark chocolate.

There was lots of chocolates to sample and thankfully the owners gave us an option to save some of it and take it home with us in a doggy bag later.  We also had the option to take a few of the chocolate covered strawberries home with us which we were happy to do.

As we were leaving I tried to take a group photograph and one of the owners came out of the shop and kindly offered to take the picture for us.

It was a great night and I would recommend a visit to Chocolate Utopia to any chocoholic.

Home made tortillas!

The other day I accidentally tried a new recipe.  This recipe was a tortilla recipe in one of my cook books (Sam Stern's Real Food Real Fast) which had intrigued me for years but I never dared try... until now!  (We'll pretend that this was a moment of bravery rather than because all my local shops had run out of tortillas for some reason.)

To make them I used: 

225g plain white flour
1 tsp salt
25g butter
150ml warm water ( this is a rough estimate as I started off with the 125ml in the recipe but needed more...)
A sprinkle of herbs, I used oregano and basil.

I started off by measuring out my flour, then sifting it into my bowl and adding the salt and herbs to it.
Once I had done that I added weighed the butter and rubbed the butter into the flour mix until I couldn't see or feel it anymore. When I had rubbed the butter in I dug out my measuring jug and measured 125ml of warm water for the mix.

I then got a fork and stirred the mix with the fork as I added the water slowly until it wasn't really stirring very easily and at that point I tried to combine it all together with my hands.  It still seemed very dry and not very flexible so I added a bit more water and this made it easier to knead, however I probably put too much in and it got a bit sticky.  When I got it to a point where I was happy with it I covered it with clingfilm and left it for about 15 minutes.

After the 15 minutes were up I dusted my kitchen side with flour and got the dough out of the bowl, then I divided it into 10 uneven balls.  I took one of the balls and rolled it for what seemed like an age until it seemed the right size for a tortilla, by this point it was incredibly thin... When I had rolled out my first tortilla I got the frying pan out and heated it for a few minutes before putting the tortilla on it.

As the first tortilla cooked I set about re-dusting my side with flour and rolling out the second one.  I did my first couple of tortillas like this and they became quite crispy but didn't brown. The third one ripped as I was rolling it, which caused a bit of cursing...  this was about the point where Paul came downstairs to help. 

I tasked Paul with keeping an eye on the cooking tortillas for me which helped make them a bit less brittle but we worked out that the dough was too dry after we had done a few more.  So Paul got the last remaining balls of dough added a bit more water to them, then helped me divide them equally before I rolled them out and finished cooking them. In the end a few of them even got a bit of colour on them! (Not many mind...)

Once done we put them aside whilst Paul made a vegetable fajita mix to fill them with, the more brittle ones made large quesadillas. All in all it was very tasty and I got to take the left overs with me to work for lunch the next day!

Obviously it is a lot easier and less frustrating time consuming to buy them but making yourself them does make them that bit tastier!  I can see these being on the special meal favourites list along with home made pizza and chocolate chip cookies.

Nigella's Croque Monsieur Bake.

I tried this recipe the other week when staying at my Mum’s, she made it for me and a friend in place of a fry up.  It was just as nice! She called it a savoury bread and butter pudding but if your looking it up it’s Nigella Lawson’s Croque Monsieur  bake!

To Make this recipe you need:

6 slices of bread

3 eggs

Half a pint of milk.

About half a block of cheese.

A pack of ham

Some mustard

A sprinkle of salt and pepper

(A bit of butter if your being really bad!)

To make this I got out all my ingredients and started off buttering my bread, grating cheese on to it , popping ham on to that and then putting mustard on top of the butter on one slice of bread. After I did that I popped the two slices of bread together, then cut it in half to make two sandwiches, then put these in a casserole dish.

Now most normal people would repeat this process two times at this point  but I decided to experiment with the mustard...  I tried using less butter and more mustard on one of the sandwiches, then for the last one I decided to completely get rid of the butter altogether and use loads of mustard!

When I’d made up all the sandwiches I whisked the egg and milk together. 

Then I poured this mixture over the sandwiches and sprinkled the salt and black pepper over it.  Where the mix didn’t cover completely I spooned some of it back on to the sandwiches.

Once this was done I popped some cling film over my casserole dish and went out dancing.

On my way back from dancing I called Paul and asked him to pre-heat the oven to 200c and the pop the bake in the oven for about 25 mins. The food wasn’t quite ready when I got home but it was nearly there!  After a little wait we were able to safely say it was quite nice.

 It wasn’t as nice as my Mum’s version I think that was due to my experimenting! Mine tasted very mustardy and felt a bit soggy to me but Paul loved it and there was none left on his plate so I must have done something right! We’re currently experimenting with lower fat meals so this won’t be on the menu for a bit but with some tweaking it maybe something to add to the repertoire....

Recent rocking things!

Recently things have rocked!  There has been more dancing, which is always a great thing in my eyes!  I even danced on a stage in public on Sat 4th August...

Photo courtesy of a friend of one of the other dancers... thank you!

This was a Bollywood work out choreographed by Nisha Lall as part of

the activities of Sheftival, which promoted exercise, sport and music.

I could have stayed at Sheftival and caught a few more bands; instead I headed to Wales for a good catch up with one of my friends and watched history being made in the Olympics.

Last week also saw a return of lunch club for my team with a new venue being invaded... tried!  This month we said good bye to The Hop and hello to The Frog and Parrot! We also saw Olympic fever hitting the office culminating in the office sports day or mini Olympics as I like to think of it! It involved mishaps such as the health and safety worrying three legged race, the controversial egg & spoon relay; as well as my event the hula hoop... a good time was had by all!

Action shot!

On the podium, I came second!

The next day brought more catching up with friends and family, a bout of roller derby.

That blur is the Sheffield Steel Roller Girls All Stars vs Nottingham's Hellfire Harlots.  Good bout but we got thrashed!

Saturday also saw my first roller merby bout...

Like roller derby but with them male creatures instead of female ones... This bout featured Sheffield's Inhuman League vs Manchester's New Wheeled Order.  It was a close bout but eventually we won.

This was followed by a drive up to Leeds for my friend Deborah's flat warming at her lovely new abode! Yet more catching up with lovely friends. (I could get used to this!)  Then all too soon it was time to head back...

This week has mainly been sponsored by overtime at work, a bit more dancing, experimenting with this recipe and looking forward to Jessica Ennis's homecoming on Friday! Should be a hell of a party!

Pie Friday.

Tonight I gave in to temptation. (I know, not like me at all!) I went to The Old House for their pie Friday deal, which is more expensive than the one at The Hop down the road... Still they did serve us a couple of nice beef and moonshine pies.

I don't like peas!

Paul does though.

They're a bit more substantial than The Hop's offerings and a good deal tastier.  (We were even allowed plates and real cutlery!)

My pie wasn't quite as amazing as I had been led to believe, the verdicts given on the pies sold here a few weeks before had given me a bit of pie envy when I was eating my Salmon dish.  Maybe I have pie... I mean high expectations.  Still a pie and a pint in a nice bar was a great way to round off the week!