Sunday - photo journal

(Unfortunately it's in reverse order - anti-clockwise)

Chocolate Soup!

After my missing (gerund again! yes!) the chocolate festival in Brighton I've been wanting chocolate soup the entire week. I've searched recipes - the net has heaps - and decided to try one without cream first. I don't really like cream very much.

Turned out really well, and for once I'm also not ashamed of my photography! The bowl is on the windowsill in the kitchen.

It tastd like eating melted chocolate, as you do when you've melted some cooking chocolate and are running your finger around the bowl afterwards, but the consistency was smoother, more like a creamy punpkin soup. Really delicious! And very rich; but I wanted another bowl immediately anyway...

Here's the slightly adapted recipe I used (apart from my changes it's 1/6th of the original):

2/3 cup skim milk

75g light condensed milk

1 dessert spoon dark rum (much more than the original which also called for kahlua instead)

A line of dark bittersweet chocolate chopped up

Pinch of salt

Dash of cinammon

Whisk everything together, bring to a simmer, then turn down to low and, whisking frequently, cook for another 20mins. Then whisk through 1/3tsp vanilla extract and 1/4tsp ground coffee.

I can't say how much I adored it! But will try another recipe this week just to be adventurous.

In Brighton on a Sunday

Again, the upload has gone a little funny. I guess I need to work out how to do it properly. Doesn't matter. Anyway I went down to Brighton to attend a celebration of national chocolate week which ran from 13-19 October. Unfortunately by the time I got there I was told everything had been eaten. The best they could offer me was doughnut sticks with a chocolate dipping sauce and vodka soaked cherries. Which sounds delicious right now but then I had my heart set on truffles so didn't have it. Oh well. Still was a fun day.

Going on to the photos - the first is the view from the Brighton Pier's right hand side looking towards what they call the beachfront. As can be seen it's a rock garden!

Then the photos jump to the Royal Pavilion, built by George IV who had a fetish for all things Indian. I LOVE the architecture! Though the first thing I thought of when I saw it was how much G K Chesterton would have been enraged :)

After the RP there's Brigton Pier seen before I walked out onto it, the shore to the other side of the previous photo, and then the super remains of the old pier - I think it's the one that George IV himself used to frequent. Ruined now. It's opposite some Regency style buildings which looked like they would hae been frequented by George and his cronies. I wanted to swim out there but despite the sun in the pics it was freezing...

Finally there's Brighton Pier seen from the halfway point which on the day looked more like the sea city in Attack of the Clones than it does in the photo, the one where Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan fights Jango Fett. Oh well. Finally there's a shot back along the pier, roughly the opposite of the previous shot of the pier from the shore.

Great day though longer than expected because it turned out direct trains weren't running and half the trip was done on a bus. Even that was good in a way as I saw more of the countryside!

And now in London the weather has turned filthy, raining my entire walk home and at 5pm it was nearly dark...

Canterbury

There was so much to see in Canterbury - I think I took far too many pictures! Though it was nearly none at all. My camera had two batteries I'd bought on Tuesday and another two fresh for backup. All were flat. Fortunately in Canterbury the sights are inside the town so I could buy new ones.

The photos seem to have been uploaded quite randomly. But here's the list.

1. A view of the ruins of the keep of the Norman castle. In the nineteenth century this was briefly used by the gas company.

2. A mound which was used as a tower on the city walls. It is a Roman burial mound and was also the site of the original bailey for the first castle built there in 1066, a motte and bailey style construction.

3. Walking along the walls of the city. The mound can be seen again in the background.

4. The Northern walls with the moat protecting it.

5. The gate for the Northern walls. Quite thick as you can see.

6. The Cathedral gate. Very impressive. And on either side were various shops.

7. The Cathedral as seen through the Cathedral gate. I didn't get inside as the Canterbury Festival was on and I didn't have a ticket. Bit annoying. Still at least I saw it from there. Very impressive!

8 & 9. The ruined Abbey of St Augustine. I can't remember when or why it fell into disrepair. Clearly my history hasn't benefited from seeing the original sites...

10. An interior view of the Norman keep as I was climbing the staircase in the North-Eastern corner.

All in all it was a fantatic trip. And the weather was brilliant too which helped!

My cooking efforts - carb haters look away!

Last week one of my impulse buys was blue corn flour. I was walking out for lunch with some work colleagues to the Borough Markets and saw a chile (as they spelt it) shop. So I picked up a variety of dried chile I've never tasted and some of this flour to make real corn bread! Which last I've always wanted to do. Apart from Mint Juleps I wasn't sure what else went with corn bread so did a web search for that and came up with an easy recipe for Black Eyed Beans.


The two ingredients, Black Eyed Beans and corn flour, have been sitting in my cupboard all weekend waiting for me to have the time to use them. Last night after getting home from the Cathedral youth group I put my BEBs on to soak overnight. Then after work today I put them on to boil with a few dashes of tabasco, lots of pepper, salt, some mediterranean style herbs, anbd lots of chilli flakes. While they boiled away for a bit I sauteed an onion in some olive oil with garlic then added it to the beans, reducing the lot to a simmer. Let them simmer for about an hour and a half and at the appropriate time began the corn bread. I even used a skillet in the oven! I was that authentic!


Put the frying pan with oil in the pre-heated oven while I mixed together corn flour, milk (couldn't find butter-milk in this place; like last time I tried to find light cream - every deli and supermarket had double cream but light? Impossible!), water, some corn kernels and chile in bowl. Took the skillet from the oven, sprinkled some cornflour in the hot oil and poured in half the batter. Then time for sliced jalapenos and some grated cheese followed by the last of the mix. Back in oven for a bake...longer than I expected because when checking it 15mins later I accidentally turned off the oven...But it still turned out well, though a slightly off-putting hue thanks to the blue corn flour.


Anyway, as a meal, it was really fantastic!! I loved it! And couldn't believe a meal with so few spices could taste so good: though of course I had put a truck load of chile in everything!

(One photo is of my dinner with the salad items I had on hand. A beetroot and two mushrooms. The other is of the rest of the corn bread in the skillet to prove I cooked it the traditional Southern way, even if my recipe was a mish-mash of internet based modernisms. Also I DIDN'T use sugar. My reading had told me that was strictly for Yankees.)

My day begins with irony

Just as I begin my walk to work I go past a church - which can't be seen in this photo - the graveyad of which also holds a children's playground. Whoever the planner was, I admire them.