SO MANY POSTS SO LITTLE INCLINATION.
OR AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT.
I have so much to tell you about, I've done so much and exciting things have happened recently, however it would appear my old friends procrastination and inertia have snuck in with out me noticing,
I've got a couple of really complicated posts rattling about in my head but somehow I just don't seem to be able to order my thoughts and or photos.
Oh well, it's nearly Christmas and more or less every thing is going to start to slip soon.
I never post about food. I'm not one of those bloggers who post recipes and beautiful pictures of perfect food.
Do you know why?
Well, I'll tell you.
I can't cook. Not at all. The kids groan and the Hippy gets a haunted look in his eye if it is ever mooted that I cook dinner. I can just about make a sandwich but that is it.
But like all good and bad cooks I have a few signature dishes.
And trust me when I say I do them really really well.
I think I was once quite a good cook but 16 years of living with an excellent cook scuppered that.
So tonight I am going to tell you about one of the few things I know I can do.
Admittedly it involves no cooking, but y'know who really cares?
It makes a great present.
Nigel Slater's marinaded olives.
The recipe in his "Real food" book is for a modest 250 g of olives.
I buy HUGE catering tins which involves a massive scaling up of ingredients.
Tonight I crushed 32 cloves of garlic!
I love it you just smash them up. No fussy garlic presses.
So here is the recipe:
4 cloves of fat juicy garlic (smashed up in their skins)
1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon of finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
2 table spoons of extra virgin olive oil.
half a teaspoon of crushed dried chillies
250g olives.
The recipe says to use Black olives, but I often use green and it tastes just a delicious.
Any way put the whole lot in a big bowl, mix them up and then store in a clean jar.
Leave them for at least 48 hours before eating, ours keep going for ages and the longer you leave them eventually the red wine vinegar turns the garlic purple.
After I had finished these I went on to bake literally acres of sausage rolls (another one of the signature dishes) over 50 of them.
Apologies for the crappy picture but it is really quite late. If you look closely you can even see the empty beer bottles not yet cleared away. Yes, I really am a slattern.
In my defence it's not just that I am very greedy, we are planning ahead for a Christmas for 10 for a week this year.
I hope your preparations are all going swimmingly.
Love Nora xxx
The Olive recipe sounds yummy - note to self must find that Nigel Slater book!
ReplyDeleteChristmas just happens in our house - I'll blog about it soon
Julie xxxxxxxxx
Hey, better to do one or two things really well than masses of things, I'd be very happy to eat those fantastic looking olives! (my man does 90% of the cooking in our house, I'm only really good at following recipes). Hope you have a lovely Christmas xx
ReplyDeleteCooking is just all about practice and love really like anything, I couldn't cook when I met my husband and he kind of taught me and because he was so good I thought I was a rubbish cook. Then when I got the allotment I fell in love with the whole concept of it all. Sometimes I think I'm a better cook than him now!! Those olives look yummy, love Nigel Slater x
ReplyDeleteThanks for the olive recipe - I love the blue bits in your pic (the reflections). In 2013 I did a series of quilts (small ones) on the theme of olives, but it's far better to eat yummy olives than to quilt them!
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