Gosh, what a 10 days. It’s been a whirlwind of travel, COP27 and catching up on home life and cooking. My counterpart in this year’s cooking adventure just smashed through U (USA) and I am lagging behind still in the middle realms of the alphabet. So, it was catch- up weekend. I managed to get N (North Korea) in before I continent hopped off to the Sinai peninsula but O (Oman) and P (Poland) required attention.

Whether I am losing momentum, I am not as adventurous with food as I think or I have too much else on my plate (pun intended), I have struggled to get enthusiastic about N, O and P. Luckily I have a friend who is Polish so I tapped her up for her favourite Polish recipe but N and O felt like tough work. Luckily, both countries have excellent sweet options!

Before I share the recipes I must share some poetry fun I’ve been having. It’s coming up to our Christmas show at work which unleashes all sorts of talent and creativity from across our organisation and for a variety of reasons, I have been concentrating on a- saving the planet (obvs) and b- writing poems about pies. Here’s my best work…

Mince pie I thought, how hard can it be
Some pastry, some mince, then bake, yummy!
How wrong I went when I started to cook
And some fundamental ingredients got quite mistook!
I went and bought beef for this mince pie of mine
Some onion, some carrot and a good slosh of wine! 
I cooked it all up and popped it in pastry
Turned up the oven and thought man this’ll be tasty! 

The oven clock dinged, I got the pie out
It’s ready I called in an excited shout
Down they all tumbled and stared at my creation 
Mum, I think maybe there’s been deviation
Mince pies should be small, just one bite or two 
Oh dear it seems I should have made a few 
Well, try it I said, let’s all take a bite
So they did and spat it out with a fright

Oh dear mum they said, you’ve got it quite wrong
Beef in a mince pie does not belong! 
What? I asked, it just cannot be 
Yes they cried you’ll have to believe
The mince that you needed is fruit and not meat
It comes in a jar ready to reheat
Spoon it into the pastry add sugar on top 
But perhaps mum, it’s easier to buy mince pies from the shop! 

By ROD

Well, that’s enough festive pie poem nonsense! Onto the cooking…..

N is for North Korea

I feel not very much for North Korean food. It’s hard to work out what makes North Korean food distinct from South Korean and I spent ages researching something I thought we’d all eat. In the end I found this awesome recipe for Korean pancakes which Mr Google assures me are eaten both North and South of the Korean border. HOTTEOK. What a great name. These pancakes are made with a yeasted batter and filled with a syrup of brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped walnuts. They were divine and reheated brilliantly in the toaster for breakfast. Highly recommend this recipe!

O is for Oman

Omani food does not delight me but Omani sweet dumplings were a triumph. I found this recipe for LUQAIMAT before I went to Egypt and low and behold ended up eating them at an evening reception while at COP27. They are apparently common across the middle east. These crunchy balls of loveliness are flavoured with saffron and cardamon and I chose to cover mine in honey. Mine also ended up a fair bit bigger than perhaps they were meant to be.

P is for Poland

Oh, this wasn’t my finest cooking. Despite being sent some favourite home cooking recipes from my friend, a miscalculation on cabbage leaf size made this slightly impossible. Heaven only knows where one finds cabbages that produce leaves the size I needed…… So, GOLABKI is stuffed cabbage leaves. Stuffed with a tasty pork mince and rice filling, these cabbage parcels are served in an equally tasty tomato sauce. I managed to get 10 dinky parcels from the cabbage I had and so obviously had loads of mince left. I layered it with the broken cabbage leaves in the pot sort of like a moussaka, popped the parcels on top and cooked as per the instructions. Clearly the mince went a nice shade of grey and was rather unappetising but it did taste really good with the tomato sauce. The dinky parcels were also really good. So, I think the recipe is a goodie but it relies very much on finding giant cabbage leave (note, UK white cabbages are not on the whole big enough). I rescued the remaining pork by frying it off and adding in the remaining sauce. We are all looking forward to that bolognaisey goodness. Oh well, there was bound to be a total failure at some point……

In other news:

• EEROD has plans to ask for an elf on the bloody shelf. This adds a new level of stress to Christmas.
• Fly starts in the office this week – that’s going to fun for everyone*
• It’s mental to think it’s time to start planning Christmas – although I am perhaps too late already and we’re shortly to enter panic period
• It’s also coming up to school Christmas fun. The plethora of recitals, plays, fayres and general end of termitis is almost upon us and we try to navigate work through the haze of kid stuff
• And finally, while I sit here, I can hear the lovely sounds of a cat (Simba) crunching a mouse. The madness continues.

*this will be fun for no one.