Delectable Delights

As anyone who has talked to me for 5 minutes knows, I. Love. Food. And as anyone reading this blog knows, I especially love making it myself! A request for care packages from home starts out with “Oh man, I’d really love some Ghirardelli chocolate chips…” and increases up to “having my mixer would be AWESOME” and ends up with me in a bakeshop purchasing a silicone muffin tin to supplement everything Mom and Dad graciously mailed me (thanks, by the way!).

I simply love cooking and baking.

I’ll admit to being frustrated here when it comes to this—I can’t justify purchasing everything required for a recipe when a little is called for I know I have little cause to use it again (see: apple cider vinegar), and on top of that I also would probably need to purchase additional kitchen equipment. It’s been hard to pick and choose what is worth shelling out for and what isn’t. I’ve done okay, but my actual cooking has suffered a bit.

What hasn’t suffered as much is my ability to make do and enjoy some variety! I’ve become a big fan of soups and salads and sandwiches 

Did I ever stop being a fan?

wonderful pasta combos, and HUMMUS. 

Look, Uri, I finally bought pita bread for making chips!

I’ve opted for some quite interesting soup combos that I’d never really run into before—my new fave is carrot and coriander. I’ve set my sights on making that one on my own if it’s possible…I think I’ll try that at home where I have a properly equipped kitchen, haha. From there it’ll be easier to figure out if I can make it with what I have here. But I digress!

The lovely Waitrose is pretty much my favourite place ever to buy ready-made soups. Personal favourite (aside from carrot and coriander) is the Moroccan tagine. As I hope my father can recall, I’ve attempted to make it in some rudimentary form back home, but it sadly did not taste as good as this one! It’s perfect over a bed of long grain rice or couscous with a dollop of crème fraiche. I’m drooling a little just thinking about it. This is seriously making me want to buy a proper tagine when I come home!

Tagine in a tagine!

Let’s be honest here: what you’re really interested in is WHAT HAVE I COOKED AND BAKED?! I know, I know, you all miss me and my cooking…prepare to miss me MOAR. ;)

First up, we have an excellent pasta bake that was so simple it hurts. In this situation, I’m getting over the “GOTTA MAKE EVERYTHING MYSELF FROM SCRATCH!” thing I had going on at home (because, well, I could!). Instead of a standard pasta sauce, I found one better: pasta BAKE sauce. Judgment? With a little garlic, onion, and fresh basil added, it’s easy and divine!

Happy after-rowing-practice dinner! 

Second, my cookies. Oh yes, I wasn’t joking when I said I asked Mom and Dad to ship me chocolate chips—and they did! As everyone in The Programme now knows, I can bake and it. Is. Delicious. Full stop, y’all.

I love stacking them on a plate!

This bears talking about because of the difficulties I ran into rather unexpectedly. And y’know what, let’s get into the difficulties of measurements and how I had to use math (can you feel my bitterness?!) to manipulate recipes to work at all.

The cookies, as I used an American recipe and have my trusty American collapsible measuring devices, were less a problem of “how much” and more a matter of “WHAT BOWL IS BIG ENOUGH FOR MIXING?!”. These are trufax and truprobs. Solution? Divide it all in half.

I should probably move my laptop further away from the flour explosions and workspace...

Oh yeah, and don’t toss in the brown sugar with the flour mixture. :P

However, that still left me with the problem of the butter (cue doom music). Unlike the US, the UK apparently operates on grams and as such, their butter basically comes in 250 gram chunks. Blessedly, the type of baking I tend to do is less precise than, say , pastry-making, so I ended up all right guesstimating and converting cups to grams (and then halving that).

Here’s the ensuing mess that I know Mother is all too familiar with…

I didn't even show you the stove...

And here are my cookies again!

Still looking AWESOME.

Yesterday, I met Sim’s lovely girlfriend Charlotte. Half-jokingly, he mentioned that I should make welcoming cookies and that got me thinking about muffins (I think it’s because I was itching to use my new silicone muffin tray OHOHOHO). Blueberry muffins, to be more precise!

New problem: I got the recipe off the BBC website…and they like grams. And ounces. And I have no internet to save me (don’t ask about that drama) and my phone does not convert ounces to cups (hm, wonder why? Weight to volume issues much? Haha!). After angsting about it for a few minutes, I remembered Mom sent me my (FAMOUS AND DELICIOUS) cranberry walnut biscotti recipe from Williams-Sonoma, and they happen to be pretentious when it comes to cooking…meaning they actually have conversions for this stuff! With my notepad handy [don’t diss, Sim and Mikko], I managed to convert into approximate cup measurements and got some really nice results in the batter!

Ugh...math.

I neglected to learn my lesson from the last go-round of baking. See: laptop in the same place...

No lie—Williams Sonoma makes my life and saves my baking.

Aside from the issues of the recipe being pretty basic and needing a couple tweaks, it made only eight muffins, and I should’ve sprinkled some sugar on top of the muffins, they came out pretty freaking well. Those fresh blueberries were totally worth the extra amount I paid (and go wonderfully in morning porridge!).

Look at those oozing blueberries! Or should I say Ouse-ing...? Laugh at my pun, Buckinghammers! Lordy, I crack myself up...

But now, to my absolute favourite cooking adventure yet: butternut squash carbonara.

I’ve shared this with pitifully few people, but I discovered the most wonderful blog (woot woot!) about cooking in a closet-sized kitchen: link here. I have found SO many recipes that are at worst edible and pretty good and at best knock-your-socks-off uh-MAY-zingly delish. I found one of the latter. ;)

Very clearly, HERE IS DAS LINK: Butternut Squash Carbonara!

I had my fair share of issues making this, but lordy, was it a blast! After I finished butchering a butternut squash with a citrus knife...

For this, just enjoy the pictures, but a warning: make sure to clean up your drool. 

I'll admit to never having cooked/baked/used butternut squash before. Clearly it didn't occur to me that I could really use a chef's knife to cut this cookie...

My feelings on the matter after a good half hour of hacking away mercilessly at the freaking squash (it owned me LIKE A BOSS).

BACON. BACONBACONBACONBACON.

Butternut squash, bacon, and sage. And a little butter. ;)

Did I mention parmesan cheese is kind of ridiculously cheap here? BE JEALOUS.

Creamy mixture of creamy goodness

Find of the night!

Mkay, NOW drool.

...and the finale. :D

Cheers!

Oxjamming

A few years ago, a daring girl from Leeds decided to ditch the chill of England and head for the sun of Miami…and a few years later, a pasty girl from Tampa decided to ditch the sauna-like climate of Miami and head for England! [WHAT WAS I THINKING?!]

In short, OHAI AGAIN, EMMA!

I was invited to Leicester (that’s pronounced effectively as “Lester”) by the lovely Emma who mentioned that there would be a really cool music festival going on featuring bands from the area sponsored by Oxfam. Name? OXJAM. (C wat they did thar?) Anyway, it was all of £10 and she knew one of the bands playing. Off I went for my first weekend trip!

I arrived (late) Friday night to delicious (and cheap!) Indian food---that’s right, parents and Nikki, INDIAN FOOD. I will admit to steering clear of the curry that once infested my clothes and going for a lamb and fruit dish whose name I can’t remember but whose taste I surely won’t forget! Emma resides with some gents whose Warhammer goods and assorted geekery remind me an awful lot of these four brothers I know…

Forget Friday night, though—Saturday was the main attraction. Emma woke me up with porridge (read: oatmeal…but better because it has an English name), honey, and fresh banana and we set to walking. [Side note: that’s the other thing we did an awful lot of—walking! It really is remarkable how you can get away with not owning a car in most areas in the UK.]

Leicester felt somewhere in between the charming and tiny Buckingham and the large and sprawling London. It still possessed charm in most places we went, but it just didn’t feel as HUGE and impersonal as London did. It was a nice change for a weekend! I got to see the University of Leicester (with all its mismatched menagerie of architecture), walked past a well creepy graveyard with some remarkable monuments, and made it into town to buy our Oxjam tickets.

Grand Hotel IS grand!

View down from the Grand Hotel

OHAI MAP IN THE SIDEWALK

I are thar.

Since Polaris wasn’t on until 3:30, Emma took me to the mall for some shopping! [EXCITEMENT!!] The Brits have also decided that even though it’s not yet Halloween, it’s time to decorate and sell Christmas things anyway!

For once in my life, I’m not arguing. I picked up some a-dorable presents and marked some stores to be hit for more Christmas presents that I can just buy in Milton Keynes.

Emma also introduced me to a chain of kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi restaurants in the UK—I haven’t had this stuff since La-La Garden (say it with me, DK House residents: RA-RA GARUDEN)! The £1 glass of water aside, the food was yummy [すしはおいしかった]! I also got my mochi fix which pleased me sooooooooooo much.  For those unfamiliar, here’s the breakdown on how kaiten sushi works:

Polaris, though not my normal cup of tea (HAR HAR), turned out to be really good! They reminded me a little bit of Therion but they still maintained their own style. Great show, guys!

Our next stop was a completely different style singer named Elizabeth Cornish. I thought she was really, really great! I can’t say I minded the switch from thrash metal to an acoustic folk singer, haha.

After that, we putzed around the venues checking out the awesome street art 

...some works in progress...

In progress!

A little while later...

Just before the sun went down.

...and listening to various artists. By far, the highlight of the night was this (just watch):

Just…think on that for a while. :P

In more news of the strange... 

Just be confused with me.

...I finally saw that that Top Gear episode featuring a road trip through the South. My response: “Oh dear lord…”

And now, to more food talk! Emma introduced me to my very first scones (with jam! NOM NOM NOM), blue (yes, that’s right) eggs, and made me the most delish bacon and egg sandwich. I’m drooling just thinking about it…

Thank you so much for a great, great weekend, Emma! Now you come to Buckingham! J

 

And the carnival comes to town!

Last weekend, the carnival came to town.

That’s right, ladies and gents, the freaking carnival. The ones you probably haven’t been to since high school. Game stands 

carried such prizes as stuffed dogs with “I love you” hearts, 

See Sim. See Sim shoot. See Sim shoot seven shots. Now that I'm done with pretentious and condescending alliteration/references to poorly written reading books, everybody say "aww" because all he wanted was to come away with was a carnival present to give his girlfriend when she comes to visit. "Awwwwwwwwwwwww!" 

goldfish, and Daleks (EXTERMINATE!); rides bore names like MIAMI TRIP 3

...and not one celebrity on here (save for the lone Miami Dolphin  who isn't even Dan Marino) is actually associated with Miami. I almost took over the announcing job from the staggeringly British guy because even a gringa like me does it better. ;)

Buzzin,

OHAI. I C U THAR.

and Meteorite; 

I really get the feeling your little belts are there for your sanity and not your protection.

and food stands came complete with hot dogs, 

FRESH ONIONS, Y'ALL!

candy floss,

Not the Wilco song anymore

fresh donuts,

and TEA [not pictured]! And a token Gypsy fortuneteller.

Not at a food stand. Don't be silly. You don't eat Gypsies.

At any rate, I wanted to ride almost everything I saw. I could care less that all of these rides are raised in a day and taken down in a night...THEY MUST BE CONQUERED. Thankfully for my wallet, I deemed many rides unworthy of my pluck (as I happen to have ridden most of them before in one capacity or another). See below:

Courtesy of HRHFLMKeltanen.

Courtesy of HRHFLMKeltanen.

I'm still not man enough for the spinning teacups. I think I got a headache just looking at them, in fact. But never fear! I opted for a much, much better dig: BUZZIN. 

Being on the ground was never fun enough...
Courtesy of HRHFLMKeltanen.

After Sim joined, I realized it was quite late and I need to ride this NOW! I cannot wait any longer! It was also quite convenient to have a riding buddy and someone to be Mom and hold everything (did we thank you properly for not running off and selling it, Sim?). 

I forget how scary heights can be. As loud as I screamed, there were times the fear was suffocating and I reverted into my silent scream phase. IT WAS GLORIOUS. I have to agree with Mikko that unquestionably the hardest part was waiting to get off the ride...you just don't know how long you'll be stuck up there or when they're pulling you down! I discovered the world ends just outside Buckingham (because obviously no lights means the world ends there. Trust me, I'm a geographer).

For the record, I am my granny's grandchild. :)

As the carnival drew to a close, we wandered towards the Wool Pack (again...) to sit on amazingly epic couches, look stupidly intelligent, and discuss how bummed we all were that we didn't see the free LEGO coupon in the paper sooner! I'm afraid to say I think we're more hip than hipsters.

And now, enjoy some of the shots from the night. I'm hoping to try to get a video together if I can enlist the help of someone who knows what they're doing and happen to be quite talented at video editing---I'm looking at you, boyfriend! ;)

Yes, I was that happy for my first bite of pure and filling junk food.

Bumper cars

I found a windmill for my baby! :D

THAR B NAZIS. LET'S GET 'EM!

This about sums up my 10GBP night. Sheer and utter childish glee, captured my nomming down on a warm, sugary donut.