Feeling hot hot hot!

The rain's come in and there's steak mince in the fridge that needs using up.  That calls for one thing and one thing only...CHILLI!

Everyone knows how to make chilli so I won't bore you to death with yet another same old same old recipe.  This evening, though, I'm using a couple of scotch bonnet peppers.  Just had a taste and it still needs a lot more cooking time to let everything come together but, WOW, it's a hottie!

Scotch Bonnet (capsicum chinense) is well used in Caribbean cooking but also grows in The Maldives, Guyana and parts of West Africa.  Apparently it's so named because of its resemblance to a Tam O'Shanter hat!  They have a Scoville rating of 100 000 - 350 000 compared to the humble and well used jalapeño, which measures mere 2 500 - 8 000 on the Scoville Scale!

Iced loo roll on the morrow, methinks!

Marcel the Parcel

Permit me to introduce Marcel the parcel.  Looks like I have my work cut out before I can start putting anything in the ground!  Why Marcel?  Well it rhymes with parcel, of course!  Why parcel?  It's French for a plot of land...the nearest thing I could think of to the word 'allotment'; as the old enemy are yet to advance to the status of a plot owning nation.

Watch this space for more pics and updates.

Nock Nock Who's there? Mr and Mrs Wakeman!

An amazing afternoon and evening celebrating Mr and Mrs Phil and Becky Wakeman's wedding.  More later when I've unpacked and had a bath!
Right!  Here we go!

Worked yesterday morning and then home, shower and quick change into my charity shop Edwardian picnic clothes before getting a lift from Cathy to the venue at Whetsted Farm.  The Woo had already gone over earlier to set the tent up and sort out plotting up for food etc.  It was a gloriously sunny and warm day.  The venue was gorgeous; swings made from sofas and armchairs in the trees, a couple of tree houses and a massive teepee in the marquee field just for starters.

Me and The Woo

My gorgeous Rck Chck

Joe and me...in competition for best dressed!

A day full of laughter

A couple of beers to quench the thirst and then rare roast beef cooked yesterday by The Woo together with some horseradish cream.  This went remarkably well with some tasty cheese and onion sandwiches and home made sausage rolls.  She makes GREAT pastry as I may have mentioned before.

Horseradish cream

I make the this quite often when feeding a lot of people.  To one jar of basic cheap horseradish sauce I added a small tub of creme fraiche and then a couple of teaspoons of English Mustard.  All stirred stirred together and in the fridge to let the flavour develop - it's very tasty (and cheap!). 

A good old chinwag with some really nice people over a few more beers and then The Woo and I started (well she'd started a lot earlier!) drinking some fizz out of our bone china cups and saucers.  The theme of the day (for those who made the effort) was period summer picnic which was where the teacups came in.

Then things moved into the marquee for speeches and toasts (more fizz!).  Instead of a first dance there was a first song by The Vibes.  They then did a few more cracking numbers before the mike was opened up.  The highlight of the evening for me was a whole bunch of talent on stage doing a series of carnival (Rio not Notting Hill) tunes.  Once a couple of red wines kicked in the Woo and I were bopping for England!

The lovely Mrs Wakeman nee Nock

Mr Wakeman in full flow

Collapsed into the tent (Literally!  I managed to break two of the poles in a spectacular drunken stumble)  and up reasonably early on another sunbaked morning for coffee and a bacon sarnie cooked on the barbeque.

A seriously great night with some seriously lovely people.  Well done Phil and Becky - you make a great couple!

Backgammon

Backgammon in the garden with The Woo this evening.  The obligatory glass of wine was obviously a given...but imagine my surprise when she said that she couldn't find her dice!  Can you see what she did with them?

Yep!  The new winey dice beaker! lol

Spicy paprika chicken this evening with a few new potatoes from Arthur's garden.  With it I did a tomato and onion salad which worked really well.  A small red onion finely sliced, some heritage tomatoes from Hadlow farm shop quartered and added, Finely chooped garlic clove, salt, pepper, a good lug of decent olive oil all given a good stir and about 30 minutes in the fridge.  Job done!

Meze

Well the only cooking I did tonight was the hot prawns.  These I stir fried in garlic, scotch bonnet chilli, lemon grass and coriander.  The rest was all shop bought and made up a meze spread for The Woo, good friend Cathy and yours truly.  Washed down in a sunsoaked garden with a glass of fizz.  I'd been working until half one and the stonebaked baguette was baked by my own fair hands.  The Woo had sorted out the front and back lawns and done loads of other stuff in my absence.  We all deserved a relaxing evening and are currently winding down with another tipple and some re-runs of Friends.  A great evening but another early start tomorrow!

Lamb and ping pong

Nice dog walk in the sunshine today while The Woo got stuck in traffic taking Sam to the station.  Massive diversions due to an early hours crash in the High Street that was still causing problems late morning.  Over to see Lisa in Hildenborough as we're looking after their veggie patch whilst they're away in Turkey via the new allotment to show it off to the better half.  Found out yesterday that's it's only going to cost £7.50 a year and is free until 1st October...BARGAIN!

Bit of Olympic horsey stuff and a pile of ironing this afternoon then off to Joe's new place in Hempstead for supper.  Worked up a serious appetite playing table tennis with Matt.  I hadn't played for about 15/20 years but the old spin soon came flooding back.  It's a young man's game, though!  I was dripping after half an hour of jumping about.

A gorgeous table of food to follow.  Lamb marinated in youghurt, mint and garam masala which was baked in the oven, warm pitta bread, a well dressed green salad (Well done, Woo!), cucumber, red peppers and a yoghurty, minty dip.  Followed by a lemon cheesecake the recipe of which I am definitely going to pinch!

A great evening so well done, Joe!

Potato surprise

The Woo and I celebrated our two year anniversary today.  We were going to go out for a meal to Loch Fyne in Sevenoaks but when she came home with a couple of gorgeous looking ribeyes from Haywards we decided to cancel the reservation and have a quiet night in with a bottle of champagne and some grub.

The steaks were cooked very rare just as we like them.  Tender as anything and full of flavour.  Oiled and seasoned then pan fryed for about 90 seconds each side in a blisteringly hot, ridged frying pan.

I knocked up a quick red cabbage; purely 'cos we had half to use up and I thought it would go well with the steak.

The inspiration of the evening was the 'use up everything in the fridge' accompaniament...in a pan I softened two cloves of garlic and a sliced red chilli in about 25g of butter with a lug of olive oil.  To this was added four large mushrooms which had been quartered, half a dozen baby leeks which were topped and tailed then cut into 2cm lengths, about half a dozen of the heritage baby toms from the farm shop which were halved/quartered; depending on size, a good squeeze of tomato puree and a liberal seasoning of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  This was all cooked up and then used to dress some baby new potatoes fresh from Arthur's garden.  It worked a treat and my Rock Chick loved it.

Job done!  Here's to another year!