Gammon Steaks with Parsley

Have I ever told you that my commuter train station is located directly beside a pig slaughter house? It is. And you can imagine the horrors that I endure from that. It's bad enough seeing the truck loads of pigs going into that place. And being at the stop light beside those pigs is even worse..I have the put my hand up like a horse blinder so I don't see. Have you ever made eye contact with a pig that's 2 minutes from the slaughter house? I have. It's awful. I could see the fear in the pigs eye. Terrified from being packed on that scary big rig truck and knowing they're going some place that something very bad will happen to them. Yech! Once I was looking at a poor little piggy and it was so scared it barfed right there. Ever since then I put up the hand blinder. What may be worse is seeing the empty trucks leaving because you know there's a fresh kill going on inside that awful building. But the absolute worst thing of all is the days that you can hear the pigs squealing!!!!! I almost vomit when this happens. The first time it happened I wasn't sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing. I thought maybe it was my paranoia about this place that made my ears play tricks on me. But then it happened again and again and now I stand for the train as far from that house of horrors as possible. If I hear one more squeal I will barf all over the train platform. Honestly, to me this feels like I have to wait for a train everyday beside a fully functioning Auschwitz. I say that with 100% sincerity. Pork was the first meat I stopped eating in the past little while. Not because of taste but because of spending 10 minutes of my day beside Auschwitz 5 days a week.

Frankly, I have a really hard time coming home and even making anything pork for Husband because of this...and it's really too bad for him because he loves pork. I prefer my pigs on the farm as opposed to my plate though. But today I sucked it up for Nigella an this blog and cooked up a piece of what I'm sure was a Jewish slaughtered pig. Now I know that after my giant spiel maybe you're no longer in the mood for some swine but if even the images I just planted can't deter you from your love of the magical pig then this recipe is quick and easy. Husband really enjoyed it. This will take you about 7 minutes to make start to finish.

Because I'm being a terrible sales person for this I'm going to suggest to you some side dishes. I accompanied this with Marscapone and Truffle Infused Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans Sauteed in Butter and Garlic. The side dishes were amazing. They are not Nigella recipes - they are recipes I made up on the spot so you can't google those titles...well maybe you can but what ever comes up good luck with. I ate a veggie burger patty with my beans and mashed - I'll recommend that to you also. For those of you who have no soul or don't visit Swine Auschwitz daily try the Ham.

PS- Husband does wait for his train the same station I do..but like 98% of the people there he doesn't seem to be able to hear the pig squeals and when he sees a load of pigs pulling into Auschwitz he gets a sudden craving for bacon....Different strokes...

Nutella Pancakes

I love Nutella. It is so yummy. But I never have it. I associate Nutella with Germany and therefore don't think to buy it in Canada. You see, I did a student exchange to Germany when I was in high school and when I was there we ate Nutella all the effing time. What we did was we would dip granny smith apple into Nutella right outta the jar. If you haven't tried that - you'd best start now because you have seriously been missing out. Honestly.
But what's more decadent are these dessert pancakes. You could really knock the socks off your friends with this one. You can make these with shop bought crepes - but I decided just to make my own. Crepes are really quite simple to make. Then you spread them with Nutella and fold. Then cover with a butter and Fra Angelico concoction. But I didn't want to spend the money on another bottle of booze. So I opted to use Kahula. And this was a good substitution. Also, I couldn't find any hazelnuts (though admittedly I didn't look very hard) so I just went without. So bake in the oven for 10 minutes and while you're waiting you whip a little of the booze into some double cream (yes more double cream!!). I thought maybe this was a bit much but honestly the cream is such a compliment to the sweet, nutty, buttery crepes that I say don't go without it.

This dessert is so easy and so delicious. I urge you to try this. Let's face it crepes are not an everyday kinda treat. If you serve these to your guests or even your significant other you'll make them feel special and loved. And isn't that how we want to make the people we prepare food for feel?

Oeufs en Cocotte

With Husband being gone for the weekend that means I have to sleep by myself. Which means there's a chance I'm never going to sleep. I never thought there would be a day when I wouldn't be able to sleep in my own bed by myself because I used to LOVE sleeping by myself. I used to look over at Husband in the bed and think about all the valuable space he was taking up. Then I realized the best part about having someone beside you is you now have someone to take a bullet for you. Someone to be horribly murdered in bed while you get away. I've now got a 50/50 chance to get away if ever a serial killer enters the home. When Husband isn't home all I do is lay in bed and think what I'll do if a rapist-robber decides to strike that night. See normally, with him there, the plan is hide behind him or send him out into the trenches to battle the bad guy while I call 911 and either hide or escape to safety. I've never actually gone over this plan with him but I'm sure he's game for this approach. So what I have to do when he's not home to defend me is make myself incredibly tired so that I immediately fall asleep. As opposed to laying there for 6 hours becoming more paranoid with every minute. Oh, and I have to make sure I don't watch any CSI.

Last night was a particular challenge as there have been a couple of break-ins in my neighbourhood lately. We're all on a neighbourhood watch here currently. However I did manage to sufficiently tire myself last night and had little trouble making Zs. This morning I woke up feeling very proud of myself for not sitting up all night in a state of paranoia and deserving of a fabulous breakfast.

I'd planned that I would make this for breakfast today but I wasn't sure if I would like it or not. For one thing there's double cream in it and I feel like I've O.D'd on double cream lately.

(Ever since the margarita ice cream disaster) Secondly the eggs look a little runny in her photo and I don't like runny eggs. But I was really curious about this and I thought the addition of white truffle oil could only mean good things. So after giving myself a few minutes to wake up I started on the recipe.

It takes about 3 minutes to put it all together and then you bake in a water bath for 15 minutes. I still wasn't sure when I took these out of the oven. But then I took my first bite and oh. my. God. Flavour heaven. Maybe I should tell you that I used free range eggs because a) they're less cruel and b) they taste better. Don't chince of the quality of the egg you use for this. Nigella even specifies organic eggs. But seriously if you serve this to someone for your next brunch when they will look at you, you will have an aura of stars. You will become the God or Godess of breakfast. I don't know how to describe the flavour but it's nothing short of decadent. The white truffle oil adds layers of taste and dimensions of flavour. This is by no means a cheap breakfast but it is worth every penny you spend on it.

Jumbleberry Crumble

Husband is out of town this weekend. This means I can eat whatever I want for dinner. Tonight I had chips and dip. That's right I had chips and dip for dinner. I'm shameless. But I was a little hungry still so I thought 'hmm maybe I need some dessert'. That's when I decided to make this. I figured when you have chips and dip for dinner you should have fruit for dessert. It's crazy easy to make and it actually pretty tasty. Mine was a bit too runny - I think I should have added more cornflour. I used agave nectar instead of sugar and I should have accounted for the extra liquid when portioning the cornflour...I'll know for next time I guess. Sorry maybe I should clarify in regards to the sugar..because you use sugar twice. First you use raw sugar (Nigella calls this Demerara sugar) to make the crumble topping. Then when you put the berries in the ramekin you toss them in cornflour and sugar - this is where I used the agave. And where I should have used more cornflour though. But no matter it still tasted delish.

Make this if you want a real comfort dessert. Almost like a pie but much less work!

Festive Fusilli

Have you ever felt a little guilty for loving mac and cheese so much? For sure Kraft dinner is a gift from the God for the poor. But maybe once your over 25 you start to think...wow! Should I really still be loving this shit? Aren't I a bit old to be eating this ghetto food for kids? If you've ever even for a moment had that thought then this recipe is your way of classing up your mac and cheese. How does mac and cheese get better maybe you're thinking...I'll tell you - Vodka. Doesn't vodka make everything better?

So this is how you make this. Make some moonblush tomatoes chop 'em up then soak them in vodka, a touch of sugar (I used agave) and a wee bit of salt. Then you cook your pasta, drain and and melt in mascarpone (just like mac and cheese) then you toss in your tomatoes and add some parsley and boom! you've got yourself some classy mac and cheese. It's like changing to champagne after spending years drinking 5 dollar bottles of wine.

I totally recommend this and it definitely has a christmas vibe to it's presentation so this would be perfect to take to a christmas time potluck. It's also super easy to make so full point all around. Treat yourself to this for sure!

Grilled Venison with Pink Gin Apple Sauce and Roast Pencil Leeks

Venison...I know I told you before that beef is my arch nemesis of meats but I'm modifying that statement. Beef is my arch enemy of the typical daily non-game meats. Venison is my ultimate nemesis. I can't even remember ever having eaten a piece of venison but there is a chance my parents fed this to me when I was a kid telling me it was beef. But I can say I have never knowingly eaten venison. Let me put it in a Star Wars context for you...just because I like Star Wars...If I were Princess Leia, then beef would be Jaba the Hut and Venison would be Darth Vader. So maybe you think 'How can you hate venison so much if you've never even tried it?'. And you've got a point...but when the mere thought of putting that food in your mouth causes you to have an instant stomach cramp and you know you would just be chewing and gagging, chewing and gagging - like those people eating testicles and intestines on survivor - you really don't even want to put it in your mouth because you know you won't be able to swallow it. So venison works on me like Lord Vader with that no-name henchmen. Without even touching me I am crushed and killed.
However, Husband is perfectly happy to dine on Bambi. So I was lucky to get a small piece of venison from my sister to make this one just for hubby. I started with marinating the meat. I let the meat defrost overnight and then marinated it all day. Next I started on the leeks. I wasn't able to get pencil leeks so I just rolled with the regular leeks. Once I had the leeks prepped for the oven I then pre-heated the oven and started on the apple gin sauce. Once I got this to the point where you just cover it an let it cook I put the leeks in the oven. After 20 minutes my leeks were done and the apples were ready for the sieve. I left the leeks in the turned off oven to keep warm and covered the sauce to keep it warm. Then I put the venison in my scorching pan and tried to cook to medium well (but I'm not good at that...). Once I had some good grill marks I plated the dish and called Husband to dinner. Husband liked this meal but he said it wasn't amazing. He gives this a solid 7 out of 10. So not too shabby.

I had a plate of the leeks and I put some of the apple gin sauce on the leeks. They were pretty decent. Out of all 3 parts of this meal the Pink Gin Apple Sauce is the best. I liked it so much I drank a couple spoon fulls on it's own..then I realized that was a little gross and pathetic so I stopped. But pathetic or not it was good!

All in all if you're making some venison (for god knows what reason) I think you may want to try the gin sauce. The leeks I'd pass on, unless you have an affinity for leeks of course.

Margarita Ice Cream

I love Tequila...I mean LOVE tequila. So I was very excited about the possibilities of this being my new favourite dessert. I was terribly let down though. First off this is expensive to make. I don't know what you pay for double cream in the UK but in Canada it's 7 dollars for about 1 cup. You're supposed to have nearly 4 cups for this so I made about a half recipe of this.

What you do is you mix lime juice, tequila (yay!), triple sec, and icing sugar with your double cream. Then you freeze it. Then you wait.

Now while you're waiting you might consider exercising for the entire 6 hours because double cream is one step away from being pure lard. Speaking of which I'll take this time to tell you the tale of when my uncle thought he'd play a trick on my grandpa. My grandpa used to like to eat vanilla ice cream and one day gramps says to my uncle "go get me a bowl of ice cream son" and my practical jokster uncle gets himself a bright idea and takes out to my grandpa a bowl of lard. But it looks like ice cream because he scooped it out with the ice cream scoop. What's crazy is my grandpa ate the whole damn bowl and never knew that it wasn't ice cream!!! True story.

What's more disturbing is that this is how this ice cream made me feel when I was eating it.

This recipe was just too much for me. It's so rich and fatty. I could feel my colon swelling shut as I was eating it. I couldn't eat my 2 scoops I'd portioned out. I ate one and then dumped the other. If you do feel the need to make this. I think the only way this would be tolerable to your intestines is if you served just one tiny scoop of this on a brownie or something. I'm not going to recommend this to you..but i wouldn't deter you from it either. If you're interested give it a shot but I recommend very small portions for this.