KEEP CALM. It's only a school holiday.

Easier said than done. Keep Calm, it's only a school holiday, who's he think he's kidding..?

 

Drawing to a close; the dying embers. Now, my offspring sprung from school some time ago so it's not an issue for me.  But it most certainly has been with the three of them.

We tried to go to the seaside a fair bit as we live not far from the east coast.  Each boy was equipped with exactly the same swimming trunks in the brightest colour we could find, pretty much in keeping with the mikegetscooking philosophy - electric lime greens, vivid bright orange and so on.  It made it much easier to keep track of them just in case one small boy decided to leg it down the beach just as my back was turned as I tried to explain to another why a recently caught crab the size of a 50pence piece with two remaining legs, now in a bucket, was almost certainly dead and unlikely to take part in any beach races. And that particularly stiff star fish that they hid in the car last time stunk to high heaven after a couple of weeks.  And no, I didn't appreciate your mother blaming me for the smell with unfounded accusations of wanton farting, so I really would prefer it if this new exceedingly dead star fish was laid to rest where you found it.

The car for weeks was almost a permanent, mobile sandpit. No matter how much vigorous shaking of shoes, clothes and boys we did, sand dunes would slowly appear in the boot.  But the boys were more than happy to spend hour after hour, digging a hole and filling it in again.  Then digging another one. Repeat until time to go home, with a small break for a sand sandwich and a melted ice cream and the periodic argument at the application of sun creams.

"Dad can't do it, he's useless...you got sunburn last time because he missed a bit. Or most of you.  He doesn't rub it in..."

Have a brew and Keep Calm...it's nearly over.

So mid afternoon it was down to the icecream booth when their mother would tell them they could have anything from the bottom lines on the ice lolly posters - mini milks etc, not the Soleros.  They still talk about that now, particularly as it was a policy enthusiastically taken up and supported by all the other mummies in the 'group'.

We did, every now and again, go to a very well known holiday resort not far away and swim in the pool there and use the rest of the facilities.  I don't want to sound ungrateful hence my reluctance to say out loud which park it was, but the pool changing rooms were always something of an experiment in whether it was possible to leave without catching something that would probably make you itch for a while. The floors of said facilities bore an uncanny resemblance to those glass plate jobs you see under microscopes. Always a potentially awkward GP-type chat.

"And where did you take the children again, you did what with them..?"

Again, the (not-so now) boys recount that when the subject is raised.

Anyway...to cooking matters.  I saw on the Facebook malarkey only recently that a mum/PChef chum was organising a Pampered Chef cooking show with her offspring.  I'm liking this.  Cook with the children, demonstrate some of the kit and how easy it is to use (childsplay etc...).

One lump, or two..?

I was never a cook by any stretch but I started venturing into the kitchen because I wanted my boys to see me cooking.  I didn't want them growing up believing cooking was exclusively 'womans work.'  We bought them a toy kitchen, I remember, and a tea set. Now not all our friends got the idea.  In fact I remember one dad being majorly dead against the concept.  But the outcome is all three do indeed now cook for themselves to varying degrees and the eldest  is probably a damn sight better than me.

Anyway I was half watching the Food Network on the tele today with Guy Fieri, and his five year old son wandered onto the set.  Accidental or a production decision, it didn't make much difference.  It gave Guy the chance to point out the importance of kids connecting with food, enjoying helping to cook and taking - as he put it - ownership of not just the food but the experience.  I'm all for that. Well...as you've heard me say on an audio post elsewhere on here, regardless of previous prejudice, the boys are coming forward in droves for food technology classes; it's the girls that are now lagging behind.

Anyway.  My aim is still to get more men involved in opportunities such as Pampered Chef.  It's ludicrous that more men are cooking than ever before and still we have yet to engage this market. I'm working on it behind the scenes with others and hopefully tangible progress will be seen soon. 

These are seriously suggested as girls school shoes on a website

That's quite enough of that for now. The point is, the school hols are almost over, a new start and the chance to keep calm and carry on with a few of the things we did with the kids over these past weeks - including cooking.

Still to finish - the collosal rows over school shoes...

'God mum, they're like well lame, you're embarrassing. I can't wear them, like a freak, I want them' cos they're dench...'

(Don't ask me, I'm just writing it down, but I suspect it's striking a chord here and there.)

That hideous experience, plus the rows over uniform is long gone for me.  Time passes. I could no longer get away with Mini Milks with my lot but at least, on the bright side, I no longer have to buy my twenty-somethings lime green swimming trunks. Or bury flippin' starfish.

BOOOOMMMM!!!! That'll be a raspberry pip and a decorator bottle, then.

 Time for the pips

 

You just can't take raspberry pips for granted.  In the wrong hands they can cause devastation.

At the very least they can kick-start a need to redecorate.  This is a cautionary tale involving the Pampered Chef  Decorator Bottle Set and a pip.  Rubus idaeus, is the red fruit we are familar with here in the UK and much of Europe.  It's the native species of Rubus to Europe and northern Asia. I didn't realise until recently that black raspberries are grown in parts of America.  Now whether this is all getting confused with what we know as blackberries, I don't know and I'll leave that bit to those that do.

I'm not a fan, to be honest.  In fact, I've never been a fan of raspberries.  Don't know why really, just don't like the taste.  I've already mentioned before that meringue is a mystery to me so raspberry pavlova is about as far off my taste-bud radar as is possible. Perhaps because the perfume taste of the raspberry is a bit lame for me.  I like munching raw gooseberries that are so tart you can actually feel your face turning inside out; the sort that push your lips back inside you mouth towards your tonsils as your eyeballs balance yet wobble on the outer edge of the sockets.  Hardcore sour. I like that.

Anyway, back to pips.  They can wedge in dental lapses and provide an unwelcome crunchy thing.  Not the exact same example, but on holiday abroad recently I was reminded how used to seedless everything we have become.  I was offered some uber-plump raisins to graze on, and duly did.  Now, I got the shock of my life when the plump fruit went crunch in my mouth.  I have to say I panicked slightly as I pondered the effects of eating a loose filling only to be relieved when I realised it was a seed.  A raisin with a seed. Well...yeah...why not?  It's just that we have become used to seedless stuff.

So maybe our concentration in these matters is not what it should be.  We've blanked pips from our memory.  We take no account of what havoc a single pip can unleash.

Will Torrent

Put this to one side for a moment as we focus on decorator bottles.  Now, I haven't got any of these and suppose it's because I generally don't decorate my food.  I might blob something or other here and there but all that fancy waving a sauce around isn't my gig.  Again, as with meringues, I've jabbered on here about jus and other sideshows.  Gravy I get and adore, but a teaspoon of blobby on my plate hardly seems worth the effort.

To get me into all this, I should perhaps give these bottles a go.  There's certainly no faffing about with bags and random nozzels.

Quote: 'Three easy-squeeze bottles and writing, basket weave and rosette tips let you decorate with different designs and colours at one time. Perfect for icing, whipped cream and soft cheese...' 

Sounds painless. Now at this time of year the PCheffers all get to hear about the new products for this season and in parallel there have been demos on how to create no-bake tarts by PChef's new guest chef, Will Torrent, using the new tart tins, decorated with the bottles.

So there's been a flurry of activity of late demonstrating how easy it is to do all this.  My chum Carolyn told me about one such cooking show.  Tart made, there was some raspberry sauce action to get sorted. So, in the bottle goes the sauce, the onlookers looking on, suitably enraptured. Squeeze. Nothing much happens, certainly not the carefully formed red trickle and at this point, of course, the penny drops.  The pip. A damned pip. The bottle has fallen foul to the stroppy pip blocking the only available exit.

Now, I've had a kidney stone.  In fact I enjoyed the mind-altering pain so much I've decided to have another.  It's been sat there for a long time now.  You don't know you've got one until it gets bored and decides to stretch its legs. When it does and you have to pass a stone larger than the exit facility, something has to give.  Likewise the damn pip. 

Someone suggested having a cheeky squeeze over a bowl to free the intrusion. Mistake. Seriously.  As I said, something has to give...

Fruit Casualty

BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!

The whole lot exploded.  It must have looked like a scene from 'Casualty'.  Screams, hysterical activity. Red splatters everywhere.  One team member was caked in it, the wallpaper splattered, all the products on the table dripping - only the ceiling escaped the explosion of seasonal fruits.

Naturally those out of the blast zone roared with laughter, but we could all do with learning from this tale.  We've become careless, lazy even.  As long as I keep myself reasonably hydrated me and the kidney stone can call a truce.  But if I let my guard down it will  head south. The thought has just made me shudder as I recall a Boxing Day never to be forgotton as the last stone blinked in the daylight.

Watch your pips, gang.   The little buggers have a mean streak when they fancy it.  

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By the way...please feel free to comment, in fact I'd like it if you did, about the bloggy stuff in general or this bit, whatever takes your fancy.  I'd quite like to know where I am with your train of thought and if you've got suggetions. then get it off your chest. Your ideas are just as valid as mine. And why not join the page on the right hand side. That would be nice and appreciated at this end.  But if you'd prefer to keep it quiet then contact me at mikegetscooking@gmail.com, also that mikegetscooking thing on facebook and twitter.  You have a nice day now.

Sweaty? I'm throwing in the towel, Juan.

 

‘I’m sweating like a fat lass in a club…’

Now, I’m not sure where I heard that, I think it might be a Peter Kay line, but I’ll stand corrected. We do like to make jokes to cover up emissions of a personal nature be they from armpits or twixt buttocks.  It’s the former that is taxing me at the moment.

 I’ve been quiet on here for a while mainly because I’m several thousand miles away in Northern Cyprus – the Turkish side.  I also had to miss the PChef annual conference which happens every year in Birmingham for various reasons, so I have no insider gossip on that front to reveal.

This isn’t to say that I am in a non PChef zone right now, because I’m not, as I shall jabber about in a minute.

The temperature here bounces around 40 degrees, give or take. We are staying at a friend’s house equipped with all the usuals – fridge, freezer, blah etc. And this is kit that really has to put its back into it to keep anything from rotting within hours of purchase.  And you want to buy.  As with some many other countries the markets are amazing.  I’ve shifted more fruit and veg in the last few days than within six months at home – water melons the size of unfurnished flats; and water, gallons of the stuff.  But we’ve been coming here for a few years now so we knew – or at least I knew – that bodily functions would be put to the test.

I’ve been cooking. Apparently that’s my job on holiday.  In 40 degree heat.  So here’s one example.  I’m (loosely) cooking a PChef recipe of chicken, chick peas, chorizo (Turkish sausage) pepper, chicken stock , tomatoes etc, all bunged into one pot and served with rice.

Dear Lord.  There are cooler blast furnaces.  The sweat after five mins or so of chopping reached crisis levels and I’d not cooked a damn thing yet. That snake-hipped lad and his kitchen towels – Juan Sheet – or whatever he’s called would  need a pack of rolls never mind one flaming sheet.  In fact I wish he’d been here because I wouldn’t mind slapping his smug little face.  Anyone who can wear trousers like that needs to be treated with caution. As the pathetic kitchen towels available to me dissolved on impact with my forehead I had to engage some serious support.

With the start of cooking in progress, fighting for oxygen and with a T shirt that now looked as though it had been taken out before a fast spin, I went to the bathroom and got a hand towel which I plonked on my head and wrapped around me ala Lawrence of Arabia. To cut a long story short, I managed the meal but needed two such towels to cope with the onslaught of moisty bits. 

Pampered Chef note:  I have been using a selection of knives, pink and green versions, stoneware etc all resident in the island.

‘A bit hot…?’ says my wife after a gruelling shower plus sit down for half an hour with a white wine and soda, as her meal is presented.

I think I mentioned something about never feeling dry at any stage and knowing now what a slug feels like.

‘You need to wipe your face,’ said wife or friend Bridget, I can’t remember, I was hallucinating I think; I’d got locked in the Lawrence zone by this stage  and I think I saw camels in the garden. Either way I plonked down in a chair looking I’d just finished the 100 meters backstroke.

‘I have been wiping my face…I’ve been using the hand towels…done it before’

‘You did WHAT!’

‘I used the hand towels to…’

‘I’VE BEEN DRYING MY HAIR ON THOSE..!’

I won’t go on, you can guess the rest.

Tensions were a little raised before because we’d not long finished a chat on Skype via this very laptop with the middle son who was about to head off to Italy for a couple of days of work.

My wife is very big on sun.  Loves the stuff.  A tan – whilst not an obsession - is a summer must-have in her book.

‘Do I look brown then Tom…?’ she asked eager for confirmation.

‘Yeah, you look like Lennox Lewis’

Now, whether it was son suggesting that his mother closely resembled a boxer or my comment about Fatima Whitbread, or my snort of laughter, I don’t know, but it set a tone for the evening that climaxed in the towel incident.

There are other tales to tell from here, but while I’m on this theme, we went to a market which sold just about anything you’d like from clothes and accessories to dodgy rip-offs.  Tucked away was a small booth-come stall that housed two young girls plus an older woman who was turning out what at first glance appeared to be pancakes or crepes – except they can’t have been. That’s because I watched the older lady roll out a ball of - I have no idea what – with what looked like an inch thick piece of dowel rod.  These now ‘pancake’ sized discs were lightly filled with potato or cheese or meat or aubergine or any combo.  They were folded and lightly rolled again with the filling inside, placed on a hot plate which the girls cooked.  Naturally these, whatever they were, were blisteringly hot and tasted fantastic.

However…on the board behind the girls, written in white chalk, that listed the options of meat, cheese etc., there was a ‘Sweat’ version.  Even in this heat it didn’t take much working out that the poor girls meant ‘Sweet’ and not the more unconventional ‘Sweat’.  Look, I’ll try most things – I like faggots and gravy and I’ve eaten snails, but sweat flavoured ‘pancakes’ are a whole new departure for me and not one I’m keen to explore.

Bridget pointed this out and had to visually explain the error by pointing at her armpits.  An urgent search for chalk and the ‘A’ became’ an ’E’.

Anyway…must dash, more later.  There are some towels to wash, apparently.  Some people are so picky. 

I need to have a go at whipping something.

 

I don't really do cream so I'm somewhat unfamiliar with stiff peaks.

 

The runny stuff, the single cream is OK up to a point, but double whisked, fluffed-up cream isn't my number one choice. This is perhaps the reason why I have few whisks at my disposal at home.  Apart from a flick around a gravy, I generally have no need for the things.

Meringue is another mystery to me.  Pavlova is a big hit in our usually male dominated house, so I can't even say it's a girly thing.  I have tried it, but it's a deeply disappointing experience.  You bite into it only to find there's nothing actually in your mouth except a blast of something that was probably very sweet.  It just seems a bit pointless. 

In fact, if I'm honest, puds don't really cut it for me at all.  I'd have a cheese board or just an ice cream if an ice cream should be available. Any flavour. Oh and fruit salad.  I make an excuse for chocolate though.  My passion for chocolate is well-documented in these pages.

Pavlova? I don't really get it.

Yet some people visibly melt at the very mention of meringue.  I've noticed it prompts the occaisional "Oooh...ooooh" with a curious accompanying satisfied or expectant facial expression from those of a female persuasion which suggests I am totally out of my depth when it comes to egg white-based confections.  

I might be wrong here but they so often appear to be the same ladies that go all peculiar when it comes to Baileys, which is another off my radar item. It tastes, to me, like the catch-all medicine that I used get rammed down me as kid that was a cure-all for whatever was ailing me at the time from chicken pox to runny nose.


But of course, it contains cream.  So maybe that's it. Or maybe it's the emulsifier containing refined vegetable-oil which stops the cream and whiskey splitting that doesn't work for me, taste-wise. Whiskey or whisky, on the other hand are big hits with me. We've had an affair for many years.

Double cream, double the fun? Pampered Chef double balloon whisk time.

Anyway.  I'm getting off the point. I would like to get into the whole whisking thing because I think there could be something quite satisfying about it and it's prompted by a couple of events. 

One squirt or two..?

One: I read some - no, quite a lot of  - sniggering from women clearly up to speed with the whole 50 Shades of Grey thing and there were whisk references going on.  It's a not a bedside reading item for me so I can only wonder what caused such sniggers or whether I had totally confused the messages. Maybe it was cream, rather than whisk thing...anyway.

And two: the Pampered Chef double balloon whisk I saw demonstrated a bit back.  It's a strange looking creature, if I'm honest.  It looks like somone started making what a whisk should look like and got a bit confused having too many whisk-type metal bits, mid way. 

Anyway the end result is maximum aeration. Loads of air after a moderate beating. It certainly made short work of the cream I looked at. After giving it a bit of a seeing-to, the female demonstrator had peaks all over the place.  And in record time.

I want to join in the fun.

Taken us a while to get there; we've had a passion for sweetened creamy stuff since the sixteenth century. Maybe my not liking frothy cream thing was also driven by the 'squirty' cream that was a pudding staple in my childhood. Press too hard, one squirt and it was all over the damned place. And it tasted of what, exactly?

I could give a batter a batter. It's a possibility. But maybe I need to get over this whole whipped aversion, get a double balloon whisk, give it a go and see if I can peak.

I might even like it.

• If you have any thoughts and theories, please feel free to comment. And repost on facebook and twitter as you so please. You can contact me on mikegetscooking on facebook or at mikegetscooking@gmail.com.

More male pampered chef surprises. Oh Hilary!

Just click on the pic to hear the latest revelation.

Look who's thinking of joining. Is that ...? No, surely not.

 Click on the picture to find out more

Guacamole? No thanks, I've just had a nuclear fallout.

The infamous MFP

Here's a question: will there be any demand for handmade guacamole after the nuclear apocolypse?

Interesting question.  I hadn't thought about it. I think it's safe to say I never would have given this the attention it deserves until I read some jabbering on Her Majesty's Facebook of late. It set me off, to be honest.  What would you fancy after the wholesale slaughter of the human race? The chippie would be closed, so that's out.

I really ought to say upfront that all this is not my thinking. My chum Carolyn was recounting a Pampered Chef cooking show she was at with a new recruit.  PChef makes this non-electrical gadget which PCheffers insist on calling the 'MFP'.  A 'manual food processor' if you like.  Now as you can see from the above pic, it looks like what a food processor looks like.  But no mains electricity is required.  You 'pump it' to quote from the blurb.  In fact  (quote) 'the more you pump, the finer the cuts.'

So if I've got this right, it could be a workout tool as well as a chopper.  Aren't you supposed to 'pump' when you workout?  I've no direct experience because I'm no friend of gyms and I've never seen this chopper - food processor - in the flesh.  I'm sure The Green Godess on Breakfast TV years ago would have found a use for it.  Anyway, to get to the point. A guest at this show suggested that the MFP would be better knowns as a Post Apocalyptic Food Processor, because it needs no power.  Then Linda, quite rightly joined the dots and suggested the demand for homemade guacamole would probably be a tad subdued, perhaps she was, by default questioning the demand for MFPs long term. Not sure if I agree completely. Guacamole is always a bit bland - no, subtle - to me in a nice way and I think I'd like that.  I mean, you wouldn't want anything spicy would you after going through a holocaust?  Enough excitement for one day.

The microplane zester

Apple, Orange and other devices

I could surround myself with other bits of non - power kit like garlic pressers, microplane zesters and so on, although what there would be left to zest is open to question.  And I couldn't ask anyone to find out because my mobile phone would have vaporised at worst or conked out at best, knackered by electrical storms.  Now that would irrate  all the hardcore mobile users wouldn't it?  I'm quite into techie bits  as a rule but the obsession with phones has left me behind.  Do you know, the fifth most popular thing to do with a mobile phone now, is make phone calls? The fifth!


In a bit of a tantrum I searched high and low until I found a phone that just makes calls.  Just calls.  That's it.  I'm happy.  I have no immediate taste for Apple, Orange, Blackberry, Chuck Berry or whatever they're called.

'Hey...can I show you the 5,000 photos from my last holiday I have on my Hokey Cokey 2000, or do you need to know the latest train times in Venezuela...?
'No, but I do strongly recommend you get a life..'

Actually this whole Apocalyptic thing is getting a little clearer to me now.  Those of us of a certain age may well remember the government's advice in the 80s when a Big Bang was a real threat.  They suggested we take all the doors off in the house, lean them against a wall, drape a curtain or two and hide inside. Or under the kitchen table.  Not sure if this was a foolproof plan.


A blast of thermal radiation to the tune of several megakelvins through your letter box would be more than a match for the deluxe kitchen wood effect suite from MFI. Safe to say the cat would be in for a hell of a shock too.

Pinot Grigio - weapon of choice

So all in all, as much as I like the idea of manual food processors and the like, I suspect I wouldn't have much of an appetite, guacamole or otherwise.

50 Shades of Threat

We don't spend much time these days worrying about nutters with warheads and fingers on buttons, well not in the way we used to, certainly.  Todays threats have a different twist. We'd booked flights to the States two days before the Twin Towers.  Friends suggested we should cancel.  Certainly not.  Out of the question.  Didn't fancy giving into that stuff really: we flew.  I certainly don't lose sleep because rightly or wrongly, I'm not scared right now of the Big Bang.

However...I do keep being asked if I'm going to the Pampered Chef Annual Conference.  A huge room packed with hundreds of excitable women armed to the teeth with well-thumbed copies of 50 Shades of Grey and unlimited cases of Pinot  Grigio.

That's a different story.  That's why I'm writing this under the kitchen table.  Move over Tiddles.


BTW  If you like what you read, feel free to repost on facebook, twitter, whatever takes your fancy.  In fact I'd like it if you did.  And PLEASE join the page - on the right hand side, it is a bit of a faff, but there we are.  You can always contact me at mikegetscooking on FB or twitter or at mikegetscooking@gmail.com.  Thanks.

Why have boys taken command of the kitchen?

TV is awash with blokes cooking.  We know that. 

It's possible to watch a man cooking most nights on terrestrial TV and certainly every night on satellite.  And it's likely that the outcome is the huge increase in the numbers of boys cooking at school and choosing food technology, over others, in options.

Equally is that also the reason why so many girls actively don't choose food technology now?  Or is there a more subtle answer to all this?   I've been speaking to food technology teacher, Anne Gamble...

(Press the orange arrow to hear the audio...)

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• If anything occurs to you or you have a point to make, please make a comment about what you've just heard. It's your page too.  Also please join the page - you can do that down the right hand side, or like my facebook page at mikegetscooking  (a work in progress).

Pampered Chef salads could be good for your ears.

Pampered Chef Mix Measure and Pour, on salads, obviously

Whatever happened to lettuce?

When I was a kid it was just lettuce. Just lettuce. That's what it was called.  And with the lettuce went cucumber, half a tomato or two and half a boiled egg.  When visitors came around the egg might be sliced. On top of that for me went a significant amount of Heinz Salad Cream.  I don't ever remember being a fan of salad, but I was - and still am - a fan of salad cream.  Unfortunately as I keep finding, there's a time and a place to admit to these things, if you read my bit about fish and brown sauce.

Not that I turn up my nose at more adventurous dressings these days.  There's a great piece of Pampered Chef kit that I suspect is somewhat overlooked.  It's a salad dressing mixer that looks like an individual caffettiera.  It goes by the name of  Measure Mix and Pour which pretty much covers what it does and what you do, for that matter.

Around the sides of the cylinder are recipes for  a range of different dressings.  We've tried a couple at home and they're very good.  So, you put in fresh ginger, top up to that line with rice vinegar, add garlic then this amount to this line of olive oil and so on. When you've added everything, up and down goes the plunger with a bout of vigorous plunging, pour it out onto your salad, in the fridge goes the remainder.  I like it because I don't have to faff about looking for a recipe, it's a one-stop shop.

Olive oil, ideal for ears

Olive Oil for Pampered Cheffers

It's a strange one isn't it, olive oil?  Again, when I was a kid, olive oil was in the medicine cabinet and used to loosen your ear wax. One of those Sunday night rituals. Bath, Sunday Night at the London Palladium on the tele, and ears brimming with salad dressing. Odd.

Speaking of the tele, I see there's a new impetus in the salad dressing ads, new ranges of tarted up sauces.  One leading brand of mayonnaise now has a hint of caramelised onion, a 'twist' of pepper, a 'spark' of chilli, a 'hint' of wasabi.  Wasabi?  Now maybe that's quite clever, that could be a winner with a particular set.

'Salad cream?  Eeeeeaaawwooooo!  Mayo with wasabi you say? Oh yar, def. Squirt away, darling'


It's a bit like a few years back when 'hint of a tint...' was suddenly huge in DIY paint situations.

'Love the magnolia walls, so retro...'
'Errr, I think you'll find that's hint of a peach, thank you (sniff)'


But then everything has to be tweaked this days  to be what it isn't and never was.  My bathroom has to smell like an alpine forest or the Chelsea Flower Show, or else.

Lettuce leaves, a fashion statement

My lettuce must comprise of a baby leaf or two. No seems to complain that such leaves have been ripped from the hearts of their loving mother lettuce.  No, they're sweet and tender, so that's OK. It's now romaine, butter lettuce, endive, lambs, escarole, rocket, so on and so forth.  There's even beetroot leaves and sliced red cabbage in there. The thought of my mum putting cabbage in a salad beggers imagination.  Cabbage in our house was only consumed when it was given a damned good boiling and taught a lesson.  Then it was boiled some more until all the green colour had come out and was down the sink where it belonged. See-through cabbage was never a favourite of mine.

Salad eating weather

Lettuce, as in lettuce, is now the unloved Cinderella.  And to be fair, I've had to put some desperately limp lettuce out of its misery today and into the kitchen bin.  I didn't like doing it, I hate throwing any food away.  But it really was at death's door, mainly because - and this won't surprise you - it's been raining of late and is right now as I type.  Again. Not salad eating weather.  I'm sure what salad eating weather is but I just don't think it's now.

So I'm going to have to keep my Measure Mix and Pour in the cupboard a while longer. If you have any dressings left over, just waiting for the sun to shine, you could always put a drop or two in your ears to see if it shifts anything stubborn.

Probably best leave it until you need to liven up a leaf.

• PS, If you'd like one of those excellant dressing mixers, just leave a comment or send me an email.  Also remember, please repost or facebook or twitter this blog and please join the site on the right hand side.  You can also find me at mikegetscooking on facebook.

Horns, flags and in the pink. Just another Pampered Chef 'Conference.' See you there..?

Feather boa time 

 

I wonder how I'd look with a pink feather boa?
Interesting thought. I can say right here, right now that not one single feather of any colour or dimension resides in my wardrobe.  That's just in case you were wondering.

Now, I wouldn't blame you for thinking that this is a random train of thought.  You know, what's suddenly make him think of feathery adornments?

Conference. It's not even called 'The' Conference.  Just Conference.  The Pampered Cheffers know all about this and there's a certain tang, a certain zip in the PChef Facebook Action at the moment because they're getting their loins girded in readiness.  I'd like to give more details and a cheeky insight into what happens at an event so eargerly anticipated.  It must be a pretty confident gig if it can ditch the 'The' willy nilly. But I can't because I've never been there. I've heard tales, obviously, but I have no first hand knowledge.

I've seen the pics from previous years and grass skirts seemed to feature heavily. I can sense you're getting a bit lost here, so I'll go back a bit.  Pampered Chef is a direct selling company - one of the most successful in fact; long established in the US, not so long here in the UK where I sit. And in common with such organisations, the selling part is essentially done by those that sign up across the country.  The vast majority are part time and fit it around existing lives, some are occasional, some are full time. And again in common with industry practice there are incentives - a fair steady stream of free products to those that sell - independent consultants - just for selling.


On top of that there are holidays and so on.  The gang are not long back from a few days in Dubai and rather good it was too, I'm told.  The next biggie is a cruise, free to those that sell enough, and that will be a a significant amount of people, let me tell you.  Tempting to think the free stuff tumbles to a select few: not so.

Anyway, now we're getting to the point, although I've something else to tell you about the Dubai trip in a bit. Very saucy. Again in line with everyone else there are conferences where the company plus consultants of various levels all get together, in this case Birmingham. It's in July. There are meetings, workshops on a range of activities including, this time social media, and so on.  Naturally, there's a knees up or two. The pics from last years knees-up suggests it was a Hawiian-inspired event that looked like one of those Elvis films from the 60s.

Getting in a Flapper

 

The main theme this year, if I remember right, is Flappers or Gangsters.  I don't know, however, if this is compulsory garb.  I do know that PChef HQ asked those attending Conference to wear something pink.  This is all in line with with Cancer charity work that PChef does which raises thousands every year.  And all credit to those involved. Next Sunday I will be there supporting my wife and her friends taking part in Run for Life which they have done for several years. We should never lose sight of how important such combined efforts are.

I can do pink. I own a few pink shirts so that's not a problem. My wife has bought me pink shirts previously. Pink is good.

However, I've already been offered (through snorts and chuckles by PC ladies) the loan of a grass skirts, coconut shells etc etc. as they recall previous years.  I've yet to be offered Flapper attire but feather boas have been mentioned. Now, I don't want to seem ungrateful, but...

Hundreds of women, the core of such direct selling, will descend on Birmingham from across Britain. Plus a few blokes. A few blokes. Is the thought of a boa, constricting the number of chaps coming forward, I wonder, not just to conference but the whole picture? I've been thinking of that of late.

Anyway. Will I be there? Don't know. I have several names on my dance card apparently, so that can't be bad.  It will be energising and just damned good fun for those there. As one PCheffer put it to me, 'I went with a hobby and came back with a business.'  And let's not lose sight of how significant that is in such times of reduced incomes.  The chance to add to, supplement, change to a more fulfilling role can't be ignored.

It's just that I'm not sure if  I'm Flapper material. Now, apart from pink, the PCheffers have also been asked to take flags to wave in an Olympics kind of groove and blast one of those vuvuzelas horn jobs that irratate the hell out of football organising committees.  It was car horns last year, apparently.  I've perked up now.  I wish I'd gone last year. A rare excuse to nip to the local scrapyard and rip the horn from an old Sierra. One of my sons has a colossal Cuban flag on his bedroom wall, but I'm guessing that wouldn't hit the right tone.

Oh yes. Before I forget. About the Dubai trip. Well...predominately women again.  And (can't reveal sources, I wasn't there, remember) but, on the plane, by the pool, shopping, one of the main topics of conversation, if not the main topic was...well it involved...how can I put it...ermm..I had no idea women talked about that stuff.

I'll stop now. I'm getting in a flap.

• Please leave a comment, offer your opinion and if you like this or anything else on here, please re-post, link to facebook, whatever takes your fancy.  I'd be very grateful.  Thanks.

A pampering fit for a Queen. And an inflatable crown.

Pic from Belinda.

Ma'amite on toast for my Jubilee breakfast?  Not for me thanks. 

Notice the witty twist on the Marmite there? The label, presumably for a short run is a union flag with the 'Ma'amite' wording.  I quite like that.  Bit of thought going on.  I like it significantly more than I like the sticky brown stuff in the jar.  Concentrated brewers yeast on toast, originally from the Bass Brewery, has never featured on my 'to-do' list.  And I would not have naturally thought of it as a likely Jubilee commemoration product.  But then I've just read about French champagne sold at Gatwick, I think it was, with a gigantic union flag all over the bottle.

Now steady on here; French champagne wrapped in our flag?  Thin end of the wedge. Jumping on a bandwagon I suspect. Stiffly worded email to the relevant embassy required.

I do wonder what Ma'am (pronounced 'mam' so I'm told) is making of all this stuff that's out there?  Mind you, when your face is all over the stamps I guess you get used to Royal merchandising.

I fancy some fancies, personally. The nations baker, Mr Kipling has a boxed set of eight 'Great British Fancies' in a suitably patriotic box.  They taste of nothing whatsoever, but I love them and I have no idea why.  What a Great British Fancy is exactly, I have no idea on that score either.

So if my Jubilee tea is to be extended beyond cake, then as an Englishman, I have to have a sandwich.  And there are actually recipes out there for classic British/English sandwiches.  Now, I didn't realise I needed instructions.  Something out the fridge between a couple of slices usually covers it.  Anyway, I nicked this from Fortnum and Masons website:

Proper sandwiches for tea should be tiny and crustless, and cut into triangles, squares or fingers.
Cucumber: Very thin-cut brown bread spread with well-peppered cream cheese, very thinly sliced cucumber and crusts removed.
Anchovy Relish: Unsalted butter and Fortnum’s Anchovy Relish sprinkled with chopped chives.
Marmite and watercress sandwiches: Use thin-cut brown bread and roll up like a miniature Turkish carpet.
Colnbrook: Shredded boiled beef, mace, butter and shredded pickled cabbage (sauerkraut).

Mace?  Mace...? In a sandwich?
And that damn Marmite again, and how exactly do you roll a sandwich  to look like a miniture Turkish carpet? What does a miniture Turkish carpet look like?  There's no call for them where I am.

Anyway, the P Cheffers have been busy across the land making gigantic trifles in vast bowls and truly spectacular cakes all decorated with 'The Flag'.  Sales of blueberries must be at near record levels. Meanwhile I've been dragged around the shops again trying to source 'novelties' for the weekend.  We have the required bunting and flagged-up cup cake paper cases.

There was one awkward moment when my wife spotted red white and blue hair extentions in Primark.
"Do you think these will look daft...?"

Naturally, I shot her a quick look for signs of irony, but there were none. Realising there was an outside chance she might be serious, I pretended to get a text and moved off.

Aside from fancies, the weekend winner for me is the £5 inflatable pink crown in a shop I can't remember. At last, a jubilee momento that makes sense.  What's not to like about an inflatable crown? And pink at that.

Got to be better than that damned marmite, ma'am.

Goggle free onion action thanks to Pampered Chef

Fancy a go with my chopper? (blush)

'Oh I'm definitely having one of  them,' she said, 'I can stop wearing goggles.'

Actually, I think from the description, it was more of a snorkel mask, but anyway. Whatever it was, it wasn't a standard kitchen utensil.

Now, you hear of this kind of thing but I never, honestly, thought it was true; resorting to goggles when chopping onions.  It's just at the far end of being plausible. I need to get the tea on, but before I do, where did the kids put the goggles after the Saturday swimming lesson?

Logically you need the Pampered Chef food chopper but anyway...back to the story.

Reeking of swimming baths you twang a pair of hideously tight goggles over your face, carefully adjusted just last week for an eight year old, which now push your eyeballs out alarmingly.  Disorientated, you now look at the world which seems smaller than it did two minutes ago with not absolutely everything in your vision and do the only sensible thing - grab a really sharp knife.  Undeterred by the fact that the only way you can see anything is to lean backwards at an angle, whilst standing as close to the kitchen bench as possible you now start onion chopping.

I mean, did  you really think this through? Half blind and machete-ing your way through root vegetables?

The goggles, perfect for a belly-flopping eight year old, have now significantly reduced blood supply to the side of your face and breathing is at best only available through your now wide open mouth.  Concentration levels are now at such a peak you've not realised that the tip of your index finger is almost certain to be part of the chilli con carne you're preparing because you failed to notice...

a) the pain in said finger
b) small river of blood
c) the fact that you can see less and less to be fair, because you hadn't accounted for the fact that the goggles would steam up in the warm kitchen.

And yet when the husband carries out his vigorous tree pruning outside you bellow at him, because 'he'll have somone's eye out, with that thing.'

Wrenching off the goggles which have left a perfect goggle-shaped outline around your face skin, you're now aware you've been dribbling ever so slightly from your gaping mouth, partly due to the heightened concentration levels. Looking down at your handiwork, you're surprised, not for the first time time, that you haven't got the finely chopped onion all the TV chefs seem to manage.  Instead you've got wierd big chunks because, of course, everything seemed so much smaller through  steamed up lenses.

Science bit:
1. When you cut the onion root it releases an enzyme.
2. That enzyme reacts in the rest of the onion to release a gas.
3. When that gas combines with water, it creates an acid.
4. If that water is in your eye, you have acid in your eye. That makes you cry.

Several ladies asked for further demonstations of my P Chef chopper at my last cooking show.  And of course, it's always incredibly amusing to ask a bloke if they can use his chopper.  It was over an hour into the demonstration, but they got there in the end. 'Oooh - shall we leave you two to it..?'  (Cue sniggering and discreet blush). Excitment over, they bought armfuls of the thing, I'm pleased to say.

It is extraordinarily efficient, even a slippery morsel of smoked salmon destined for a tartlet gave way to my chopper action (you see, you've got me started now - I'm half expecting Sid James to appear - Carry on Pampering.)

Nuts, mushrooms, cooked meats all succumb to the blades and the dishwasher does the rest.

And the woman featured at the start of this tale can now look forward to less hazzardous veg preparation and less facial disfigurement.



PS.  If your interested in finding out more, just contact me as ever at mikegetscooking@gmail.com and why not join this blog?  You can 'join' the page via a button on the right hand side or follow me at facebook.com/mikegetscooking

Men are useless with dishwashers - official.

Why are men so  totally and utterly useless at using the dishwasher?

I mean, what could be simpler?  You put the stuff in the machine and it washes it. As long as they don't put bits of double gusset angle throcket from the motorbike or the dog in there for a quick rinse, what's to argue about using the thing?

This rose its head again after I suggested in the last post, about the floppy fish finger, that I couldn't manage without a dishwasher under any circumstances.  Two points hadn't crossed my mind.  I didn't realise that dishwasher misuse was such an open sore in the female community and that I wasn't the only one who was told off on a daily basis for my crass ignornace of dishwasher protocol.

After the last post I had several 'Oh God my husband is such a ....' etc and so on.  I'll spare you the detail but fill in the gaps yourself.  To be honest I found it quite liberating on a personal level.  So I'm not the only total...... after all!

Two areas of confrontation.   Why do men think it is actually OK to only empty only half the dishwasher at a time and the direction of cutlery in the cutlery tray.

Typical rebuke in my kitchen is as follows.

"Why have you put the knives pointing down and the forks pointing down again. AGAIN! I mean how many more times!"

"Because the pointy bits are facing down and I won't stab myself."

"But they don't clean properly that way!"

"How does the direction of a stabby bit affect the cleaning of..."

"You just do, that's all!  And you don't put bowls facing that way and how do you expect that to clean when it's balanced on that, I mean...."

(Sigh...wife takes most of dishwasher content out and restacks muttering severely, you won't hear the last of this. Fast forward to later in day)

To precis this, I've just emptied the bottom half of the dishwasher, the big stuff, because we're going out in five minutes, top stuff remains.  Dishwasher spot check.

"Why have you only done half the dishwasher?"

"Because we're going to be late and at least I've got some done", I whine pathetically waiting for the gale force response.

" I can't leave the kitchen in this state...."

"But they're in the dishwasher, the door's closed..." Voice trails away knowing the argument is at best lame and unconvincing.

But at least, I'm not the only one.  I feel so much better now.

I'd go back to rubber gloves but we'd never agree on the colour.  Pink?  Pink?!

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PS Nothing to do with anything on here.  This is a personal message from me, sorry to interrupt but I was just wondering if any dear reader knew of a roomshare in  London/south of England.  Middle son seriously desperate and needs a lucky break. New job, no room. Sods Law. Short term even a floor crash so he can look for a room. I thank you.

Pampered Chef stoneware saves your fish fingers from unsightly floppiness.

Is there anything more disappointing than a limp fish finger.

Sad, floppy and minus most of its Cap'n Birdseye crumb coating, or Tesco, or ASDA, Aldi or wherever your reshaped and crumbed finger has come from.  Example: fish fingers on a metal tray. Turn after half through the cooking time and watch the underside coating stay exactly where it was, as a now semi-naked fish finger flops over. Heartbreaking.  No, seriously. Admittedly if the fingers are in a sandwich then who's to know the coating content, but you know; there are issues here.

The ice crystals from said finger, melt, form tiny puddles and leave the sodden findger just too heavy on its fragile underbelly. Flip, rip and disappointment.  If only there was an answer, if only they could be cooked on something that took care of the frozen bit.

Over the horizon like helicopters in Apocalypse Now looms...stoneware.  They shun cleansing, refuse to let anything stick to them and can handle almost anything you care to throw at them.  Weapons of Mass Cooking.

A round stone in my house, for example has been used for pizza, potatoes, bacon, sausage, pies, so on and etc. And nothing, absolutely nothing has stuck to it. The only alarming point is the marked colour change of the stone. When you take it out of the box, it has the flawless complexion of Gwyneth  Paltrow.  Mine is now more like Charles Bronson.  I have no idea why but I think of a flattened turtle shell when I look at it.  

Now, I am a strictly low maintenance washer upper. I don't do it if at all possible, is what I'm saying. It was the tradition where I came from and maybe you too - female cooks food, male immerses everything in vast quantities of suds, scrubs violently, leaves slippery pools of water everywhere, mostly on the kitchen floor as a sud-dy mess drips off the draining board, male sleeps noisely in chair, female goes back to kitchen, wipes up mess, making mental note to give male a piece of her mind later, then washes the pots herself, properly this time, returns to male and 'accidently' kicks him on the way to sitting down. Just another Sunday.

Thank the Lord for dishwashers.  If ever there was a piece of kit that I w ould rather not do without it's the dishwasher. Except emptying it, obviously, I'd rather not do that. Pampered  Chef stoneware positively dislikes suds and all things detergent.  In fact, it will have nothing to do with the stuff. No suds, bubbles or anything of the sort.  After a good workout in the oven all it requires is a light shower.  A soak if the sausage fat is particularly diagreeable, but more than often a splash or two of hot water is all it asks for. If it was a human it would probably be a bloke: minimum personal hygiene, in and out of the shower, no shampoo.

I just can't get enough of the stuff.  To prove a point I cracked an egg onto my round stone and baked it in the oven with some other bits.  You rarely if ever need any oil of any sort. Yet even that lost its grip and slid onto a plate. Horrible to eat, naturally, it was like a plastic something you might have bought from a joke shop, but the point was made.

Bin the tin, kids. Stoneware, my friends.  It's the future.

Lamb and feta meatballs with warm chickpea salad

I do happen to be a fairly serious fan of the humble meatball.  

Just for a change, here's a Pampered Chef- Greek-style version - lamb and feta meatballs witha warm chickpea salad and yogurt with pita bread.  Click on the small arrow on the soundcloud box and have a listen to how it all went...remember you can always make a comment or join the page or join me at http://www.facebook.com/mikegetscooking