A day in the kitchen

I found myself in an unusual position this morning at about 06:30 (easy now), no, I found myself wide awake and well rested, well it wasn't too unexpected seeing as I crashed and burned at midnight, considering it's the weekend and I'm at home it's very odd indeed.

Finding it very hard to concentrate at the moment as I'm listening to a re-run of "I'm sorry I'll read that again" on BBC radio 7 over the internet, very funny, aired (repeat from the 70's) on Tuesday this week. Go visit the site, it's well worth a listen to almost everything they play, no news bulletins or adverts, heaven.
They play stuff like the 'Goon Show', 'I'm sorry I haven't a clue', from times gone by to contemporary comedy in the 'Comedy Club', they also do dramatisations of books, dramatic to comedic to Si-Fi. It's all good, I love it.

Anyway, went down to Mum and Dad's for a late lunch and a chat, we had a mock fry-up, I say mock fry-up as the only thing that was fried was the egg, everything else was grilled (devilishly difficult to grill an egg, it keeps falling through the holes in the grate). I had a couple of bits of bacon (rind removed) and 2 sausages (pork) and an egg, the same as Mum, Dad on the other hand had what we had AND a Piece of black pudding, for those of you who don't know what black pudding is, consider yourself very lucky indeed (it's basically congealed blood, a scab if you will. Revolting).

We chatted about this and that, as you do. One major topic of conversation was Nephew's less than spectacular exam results one C and a handful of D's. Well it's all cobblers, he like me had a bad first outing, I'm sure if he gets accepted into the lower sixth form he'll get them to A's and B's. This rather low point in Nephew's academic career could be just what he needs to buck him up a bit, He may just suffer from the very real and often debilitating exam nerves, I know I do (still, this I know 'cause for the last twenty odd years I've done more exams than I can remember). I hope he doesn't cave in and give up and leave school with a handful of worthless results, but stays on and gives it another go, I did and I managed to get a career with relative ease doing exactly what I wanted, granted a life in the military isn't everyone's cup of tea, I was just lucky. Nephew has no intentions of joining up, too strict a regime for him and he's never shown any inclination towards a martial life anyway, but what he is good at is sport, sport of all kinds, best if it has a ball involved and football in particular, so a job in either the leisure industry or teaching (ironically) sport. Well fingers crossed that he makes the correct decision (what he wants to do not what others pressure him into).

Yes! Yes! What has all that got to do with kitchens and the like? As the title of this entry suggests, read on....

After my ablutions where completed I came down stairs and made myself a stein of instant coffee, I picked it up from Kiel during Kiel week years ago and am constantly surprised that it's still in one piece. Anyhoo, While I was drinking this I was giving serious thought about what to have for breakfast and then for supper (lunch was to be at Mum and Dad's). Breakfast was easy, strawberry jam on wholemeal toast, goes well with the coffee. That just left the evening meal, I was already half way to a meal as I have in the fridge some of my special spuds in tuppaware containers and a sort of Greek salad in another container (a leftover lot from the night before), I always make too much! Anyway I remembered that I had a couple of small(ish) smoked cod loins is the fridge, so that was settled. Ahh, but how to cook it, hmm.
I have it, I'll cut the little buggers into mini medallions, give them a light dusting of cayenne pepper, pop them into the steamer for 15 mins let them rest in the steamer for 5 more mins then into a container and into the fridge ready for consumption at about 6pm (my teatime), just drizzle a little Greek olive oil over the cod pieces add the salad and special spuds and there you have it a (healthy) meal fit for whoever wants to eat it, yummm!
I love cooking.
Late in the afternoon I decided I would make a chili, so I did, a bloody great pan of the stuff. Top tip, use only fresh jalapeno peppers, veggie mince (trust me and just try it) and the secret ingredient GOATS MILK, yes folks you heard right, goats milk, just not going to tell you how much to use and to paraphrase Sir A.C.H Melchet, "...Well we have to have some secrets Darling".
I got 3 containers worth (six meals) and a huge cup full (1 meal), the containers are in the freezer maturing for the next few months (chilies get hotter with more time as blocks of ice, trust me, the government does), not that it needs much maturing as it's already mouth and bowl blisteringly hot already. Right, here is a tip on heat in food, a good chili should not 'r' NOT weld your tongue to the roof of your mouth with the first fork full, it should be a gradual process that takes the whole meal, a meal that you can taste the tomatoes, a hint of garlic, a waft of the onions and the slap in the chops of the chilies themselves. Damn I'm good.

The up shot of all this culinary brilliance is that I have no clear space around the sink, both draining boards are full of stuff doing what comes naturally once it's been washed and placed on a draining board, that is, to dry. Yes I do own Teatowels, I got them as a present, doesn't mean I have to use them that would be too girlie for words.

So once I'd been fed and watered it was into Blogspace and an hour trawling the darker side of humanity, seriously there are people out there who make me feel more than ok about my life and my beliefs, Christ they even make that group of gorilla knitters seem normal (they're out there you know, urban wool weavers, making impossible stuff out of the simplest materials, just like the A team really). Well after an hour blogging my superiority complex was back to normal levels and it was time to update my own blog so that someone else out in blog space could feel superior. What comes around goes around, karma.

Well That's it for now, think I'll go trawl blog space a bit more, bye now.