Bad parking

Apparently I gave my passengers a bit of a fright when I parked the car at the Thompson wedding venue because I drove so close to the car next to me. I hold my hands up; I cannot park (and never could even in a much smaller car).

However, the very next day I witnessed a much worse example of bad parking. Our car was parked at a service station on the way home. I stayed in the car while Mark used the facilities. I saw a woman approach the spaces alongside in a Micra and simply drive into the concrete barrier in front. After the impact she gingerly reversed six inches then left the car to go into the service station without even inspecting the front of the car. In spite of my still raging hangover I had a good private laugh to myself in the dark.


But the best (or should I say worst?) bad parking incident was last April when a man came to the pub to repair the quiz machine. I was in the bungalow making myself a sandwich and all of a sudden I heard an almighty crash. Alarmed, I rushed outdoors. The pub car park was completely empty as it was before opening and ok he was in a large van but to this day neither he or we can fathom how he managed to reverse into the fence between the bungalow and the pub car park. And with such force that it was knocked over. These photos (I took as part of a set for the insurance company) still make me giggle:



Fingers crossed that I will learn from what I have witnessed!

New hair

For the first time I’ve had highlights put in with foils rather than a cap. Jade my hairdresser asked me if I wanted a shorter version of Cheryl Cole’s hairstyle because apparently I have the right kind of hair for it. What woman in her right mind would say no?

Lucy

Lucy is now six and a half years old. She’s certainly showing the signs of ferret old age, but with the help of regular steroid injections she has quite a good quality of life.

Chinese dumplings

Made some potsticker dumplings and they turned out well although they were twice the size they were supposed to be:


The recipe came from my Ken Hom book:


EDIT 21 Jan 2012

I have been making these with twice the filling specified in the recipe but the same amount of dough. So whether this means I need to roll out the wrapping to half the thickness I have been I’m not sure. It would be very fiddly though. Also I substituted lamb mince instead of pork and it didn’t work as well.

Dahl and oxtail stew

Last Friday I made a big pot of dahl (red lentils) for when my uni friends visit next weekend.

My secret ingredients are chipotle chilli (smoky and hot) and pulverised Indian pickle (hot, salty and tangy).

Yesterday I made oxtail stew using the Hairy Bikers oxtail stew recipe Was quite impressed with the result. I’ve made oxtail stew a few times but this is the best recipe yet. The only alteration I made was that I doubled the amount of red wine. But they don’t take all the bones and jellyish stuff out before serving. It’s time consuming to do that but well worth it for ease of eating. Also, they refer to it as an economical cut of meat but I paid £14 for approximately 2.4kg of oxtail (in Waitrose admittedly) and I reckon you lose about 60% in the form of visible fat, bone and jellyish stuff so it’s not that cheap.

3 Oct 2012
I used this stew recipe but substituted ox cheek for oxtail. I also added 1 tbsp mushroom ketchup. It was very good, in fact probably better than oxtail. Not only is the texture better, but you only have to cut off some tendon-y bits at the start; you don’t have to separate the meat from the bones etc after cooking.

7 Dec 2012
I made the oxtail stew but took the temperature down to 125C and cooked for 3.5 hours. Also, the HB recipe is ok for 2 oxtail rather than one.

Thai curry

I’ve found it hard to accurately recreate the food we learned how to cook at the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, mainly because it’s difficult and expensive to get hold of galangal, holy basil and the right types of aubergine. I have bought shop bought curry pastes but even the most expensive seem out of balance compared to those we made in Thailand. When I use them I tend to add more garlic and ginger, add less salty flavouring such as soy sauce and I toast and grind some fennel seeds to add aniseed flavour.