My Friday

Busy, busy, busy. I made a list of all the things I needed to do. I like making lists as there is something satisfying about crossing stuff off when you've done it isn't there? This is what is had on it

Pavlova
Quiche
Clean our room
Caravan food
Clean downstairs
Salads for raclette

So I did start at the top, I had had 3 egg whites in the fridge from the weekend and had been meaning to make meringue all week. I had some concerns as to whether they would still be ok and whip up but put them in the kitchenaid and set it going - brilliant, and when I started adding the castor sugar they immediately started to thicken, so it was onto some baking paper and in the oven. Here is the result about an hour later

All I need to do now is fill with a mixture of cream and greek yoghurt, add the rasberries and it's ready for my guests. One crossed off, now for the quiche - Minted pea and goats cheese, you can find the recipe here. I started with the pastry and thought that 6oz flour, 3oz fat would be enough all was going well till for some reason I added too much water, result very wet mixture. As far as I was concerned there was only one thing to do, add more flour and fat and make 2 quiches instead of one. This involved a quick trip to Lidl to get more goats cheese and cream whilst D kept an eye on the bases which were being baked blind. Here's how they went once I got back, first the minted pea mixture

then the cream, eggs and spring onions

finally the goats cheese

into the oven and 30 minutes later

and as we have had one for lunch today I can say it was as good as it looks. Well what about the other? that is in the freezer with a large label on which says Cornwall, Spring Bank - the first of my cooking for our 'French Sunday lunch on a Saturday' more about that another time.

I'm just going to have to leave you all briefly whilst I quickly prepare the chicken for tonight and get it in the oven - won't be long

Sorry about that, chicken in - I'll share that recipe with you at a later date, but back to my list. Cleaning our room, well I'm afraid that didn't get done and still hasn't but there's always tomorrow. Caravan food, now that did get sorted. We are very briefly going to take the van to West Stockwith, which is between Bawtry and Gainsborough. D has to take an outboard motor for servicing and pick one up at West Stockwith so combining it with a couple of nights in our van seemed a good idea. All I needed to do was to sit with a coffee and collect my thoughts together and make a list of meals and what we were going to eat, and as I have some bits in the freezer for our main meals it was easy to sort. Clean downstairs, well again that didn't get done (do you think I have an aversion to cleaning?) but I've sort of done it this afternoon. Finally salads for the raclette. I needed to make a coleslaw and waldorf salad, not very difficult till I found we didn't have any - in the words of John Clease in Fawlty Towers 'waldorfs', peacan nuts were quickly subsituted and I don't think anyone was any the wiser. Maybe I better explain what raclette is to anyone who has not come across it before. Raclette is a French cheese which is used alot for cooking in the Alps. We came across it when we were skiing and really enjoyed it. What happens is that you have a selection of cold meats, salads, pickles and hot new potatoes. The cheese is cut up into pieces about 2" square and about a £1 coin thick, these are then put on a paddle and melted under the hot element of a raclette grill, then once melted tipped on to meats and potatoes before eating. Hope that explains it, here is our raclette grill, it is plugged in. The little paddle you can just see at the left of it is what you put your cheese in. You can put stuff on the top to keep warm or you can even cook on it.

Here are D, J and F enjoying their meal

It's the kind of meal to linger over, although the cheese is quite rich so you don't need a huge amount of it. The other way to have it is in the picture below. The big slab of cheese is melted by the element and then scrapped off.

If you like cheese do try it if you get chance.

So back to the list and tomorrow before we go away I shall make an effort to cross off the cleaning bits as I know I'll feel better about it when I do. 

Still lots to tell and show you so bye till the next time. A x