Pavarotti, Mandarin, Shopping, Collapsible Cane,

How about that, I bought a DVD - Pavarotti: A Voice for the Ages. Just went to play it tonight and discovered that I not only had a documentary which is basically what I bought, but a concert by Pavarotti which took place in Barcelona. Matt is busy watching, I am listening from another room. Well don't want to be late as Karen, our cleaner, comes at 8:30.

We went to Mandarin today, first time in a loooong time. Could have had a free meal yesterday as we are Canadian Citizens but can you imagine how crowded Mandarin restaurants were. Shudder. Actually it was a lot more crowded today than I think we had ever seen it. Mr. "I can't walk" walked all round the place without even using his cane. Even went twice to the dessert counters and they are a longish walk for me. By the way, I checked my email this afternoon and found that, as I have been on a panel for Mandarin for a while, they are thanking me with a free meal. Had to send for a letter though, they are not stupid, if they emailed me a free meal I could have printed it several times and done the rounds. Not that I would have, but..... Might say, I ate myself stupid although I actually stuck to fish mainly. They had mussels in a basil sauce on the salad bar and hot mussels in another sauce, they are huge, and I had quite a few of  them. They also had maple glazed salmon. Yummy. I don't understand Matt, he gets a plate with a few Chinese items, egg rolls and pork balls feature a lot. Then he gets two dinner plates of cookies or cakes which he can get anywhere!

Went to pick up some groceries afterwards. Couldn't get a driver today and they offered me one for tomorrow but busy so no can do. They are trying for Thursday and I will make up a bigger order if they can get one. They seem to be reducing their products, maybe because of the Starbucks. That is going to annoy me if I can't get what I want because of a damned café. Maybe the chain isn't  making enough money?

I made Devilled Eggs and Salad for supper and finished up the Pavlova. Much to my surprise the Pavlova was on the website. I didn't think they would be. The last batch of eggs I got were all, or mostly all, double yolkers and some of the shells turned out to be suspect, not broken but a tad weak I think with the result when I did hard boiled eggs in the IP a couple of them cracked. They were usable though.

Forgot to mention that I had ordered a collapsible cane for when I want to use my walker part of the time and a cane the other part. Matt unpacked it and got pinched. It came folded and turned out it snapped into its slots without any help from me and tore the skin on my thumb. There were no directions at all. I finally got it assembled then could not disassemble it. Matt could but I am not strong enough. Figure there is something wrong, but who knows what, we don't. My thumb bled profusely and is as sore as you know what. I am not a very happy camper. I wrote a bad review straight away. Hope somebody at Amazon  takes notice.

If you are interested, this is my recipe for Devilled Eggs. Devilled is supposed to be spicy, very spicy, so I invented this way of doing it, but tonight they didn't taste that spicy to me at all, I will have to add more of the mustard and hot sauce. They were still pretty good mind you.

My Devilled Eggs

As a supper dish

4 eggs, hard boiled
2-3 tsp Hellman's mayonnaise
1/2-1 tsp (or to taste) Coleman's mustard powder (a good strong mustard powder if Coleman's is not available)
1 tsp white wine vinegar
6-8 drops Texas Pete (or to taste)
Salt and pepper
Paprika

Peel eggs and cut in half taking out the yolks and putting in a small bowl. Mash with a fork. Add mayonnaise and continue to stir then add all the other ingredients individually. Mashing in with each addition. Then put the resulting mixture back into the egg whites and sprinkle with paprika. This is very much a matter of taste.

Servings: 2

Have a great day
 

DVD, Baking, Pavlova,

Friday evening I was somewhat frustrated. I decided to watch the DVD of Rogue One and found that it wouldn't play on either computer or my DVD player. Don't know what's the matter with the DVD but it sure didn't work for us. I decided to try it again and despite trying twice before, this time it seemed to work. Later in the evening I put it on and started to watch and roughly half way through it started seizing up. In the end I gave up.

I was cooking a recipe for Crispy Lamb on Saturday - I have made it once before, but this time I noticed it called for scallions, but only the green and white parts!!

For dessert on Saturday I used my shop bought Pavlova shell. Not surprised but somewhat disappointed that it was cracked when I opened the box. However, I filled the centre with whipped cream and added strawberries. Not many, but served it with a bowl of macerated berries too. It was delicious. I will certainly buy one of these shells again. The centre is not very deep so more cream could be added somewhere. Made a good dessert for Canada day. Talking of which, there are presently lots of fireworks, noisy ones, being let off outside our windows. Today is the day but I imagine the main shows will be on Monday.

So then we watched The Great British Baking Show and was quite surprised that the competitors were asked to make individual Yorkshire Puddings with fillings. I had never heard of that before, some of the fillings looked quite delicious. I then looked for a picture and liked the look of these so much, I saved the recipe. I love smoked salmon almost any which way. The recipe doesn't say whether the oven temp should be C or F so I have asked R.R. Spink for clarification.  I am pretty sure they mean centigrade. Being somewhat lazy these days, I might well try this with pre-made Yorkshire puds. I would only want a few anyway so hardly worth making a whole batter.

Cold Smoked Salmon with Crushed Peas in Mini Yorkshire Puddings with Horseradish

Using delightfully British ingredients, this is one of our most imaginative smoked salmon recipes and works wonderfully for party canapés, or even as a light lunch snack.

1 packet of R.R. Spink and Sons Cold Smoked Salmon (100g)
150 g peas, fresh or frozen
1 small bunch of mint
100 ml fresh ricotta cheese
1 thumb sized piece of fresh horseradish (or 1 tbsp horseradish sauce)
Half a lemon, juice and zest
Pea shoots, to garnish

For the Yorkshire puddings

Sunflower or vegetable oil
2 large free range eggs
100 g plain flour
100 ml milk
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Pre-heat the oven to 225°

2. Place a teaspoon of oil into each cavity of a small muffin tin or cupcake tin; place in the oven to heat for 10-15 minutes until smoking hot.

3. Meanwhile, mix the milk, eggs and flour together to make a batter the consistency of double cream, season with salt and pepper.

4. Carefully, remove the muffin tray from the oven and fill each section ¾ full with the batter. Bake for 12-15 minutes until crisp and golden.

To make filling:

5. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil over a high heat, and the peas and cook for 3 minutes, then remove from the heat and drain.

6. Cool the peas in a bowl of iced water for 5 minutes, drain and leave to drip dry for a further 5 minutes.

7. Once thoroughly drained, put he peas in a food processor and pulse until you get rough puree.

8. Grate the horseradish into the pea puree, then fold in the ricotta cheese, lemon juice and zest. Season with salt and black pepper.

9. Spoon some of the pea mixture into the warm Yorkshire puddings then top with the smoked salmon. Garnish with the peas shoots and a wedge of lemon.


Source: R.R. Spink and Sons

Have a great day