Absolute Balderdash is a firm family board game favourite. As a family that favours strategy and word games, things like scrabble, and the various different Balderdashes always appear during the holidays. Absolute Balderdash transcends the ages in our family (10yrs – 76yrs) and so it was that we found ourselves playing this around the dinner table shortly after Christmas. Now, for anyone who knows the game, there is writing involved and no one else playing should be able to see what you are writing. This requires something hard to lean on and what better than the hard cover of a cookbook – of which I have many. So, we have 9 people round the table, each with a different cookbook, playing the game. Sometimes it takes people a little longer than usual to come up with their response to the round and so it was in one of these moments that I opened Good Housekeeping’s ‘The Ultimate Recipe Collection’ on pg 286 and read the following paragragh:

‘Use your fingers to gently ease the skin away from the flesh along the length of the breast. Spread half the butter mixture under the skin, making sure to work it right over the breast. Rub the remaining butter all over the bird’.

Now, I don’t know what made my brain read this in a sultry voice but I suddeny found myself helpless with giggles over the ‘porn’ I found in the recipe book. Obviously I shared this with the family. This led to everyone checking their recipe books and finding an array of saucy (pun intended) lines hidden in our recipes. Much hilarity ensued and we finally got back to the Balderdash when EEROD announced she’d found a good line in Rukmini Iyer’s ‘The Quick Roasting Tin’…… we all turned to listen as EEROD said “when in doubt, go large“! Once the laughing subsided, Balderdash continued.

While writing this, I asked ChatGPT to find lines in recipes that could be miscontrued as sexual and now I’m giggling even more as this is just some of what I got back:

“Gently massage the meat until tender”, “Handle carefully so it doesn’t get too wet”, “Beat until stiff peaks form”, “You’re looking for a soft but firm finish”, “Push the filling deep into the cavity”, “Things will get steamy”, “Finish with a generous drizzle”!

So, next time you’re looking through your recipe book, see what ‘saucy’ instructions you can find!

Christmas holidays are always filled with too much food and wine and stuff. This year was no exception although it was briliant to have family around and for the first time in years, not have to worry about juggling work and everything else. A real luxury. It meant I could actually cook again. So, I’ve done a fair bit of cooking and found a few brilliant recipes.

Clementine ice-cream

I first came across this recipe years ago when it was shared by I Know I Need to Stop Talking (IKINTST) on her Facebook blog. If you don’t follow IKINTST (Kathryn Wallace who is also a great writer of funny books), you should. I have found her wisdom in rasing kids invaluable (hers are slightly older than mine and she shares all sorts of useful things like rules for teenage parties). I have been meaning to make it for years but only just got round to it. I fear ice-cream making because I don’t have an ice-cream maker and all previous attempts have ended badly. Usually with a solid block of unscoopable something that lurks at the back of the freezer for months, if not years, unti it is finally leftto thaw and disposed of down the sink. But, IKINTST promised this was easy and required no ice-cream making machinery.

It was brilliant. Worked like a dream and my only change for next time would be to beat it a bit more for the final beating as we still had the occassional crystally bit. I had it with Adgestone chocolate liqueur and basically turned it into a Terry’s chocolate orange bowl of Christmas loveliness. Highly recommend. Interestingly, it was shared as ‘tangerine’ ice-cream. This is interesting as growing up in SA, I call these small orange citrus fruits ‘naartjies’ (pronounced nar-cheese) and of course they are also known as clementines or easy-peelers. So many names………

I 1.5’d the recipe which made about 2l of ice-cream. I also needed a lot more tangerines so will put the quantities I used in brackets.

Ingredients:

8 Medium tangerines (I used 20 +1 orange to get 3/4 pint of juice)
6 oz caster sugar (9 oz)
Half pint of water (3/4 pint)
Juice of half a lemon (1 lemon)
One egg yolk (2 egg yolks – small eggs)
Half a pint of double cream (1.5 pints)

Method:

Squeeze half pint of juice from tangerines. Boil sugar and water in pan over high heat for 10 mins to make syrup. Remove and cool. Stir the syrup into the tangerine and lemon juices.

Beat egg yolk and stir into syrup. Return to heat and cook gently for 5 mins stirring continuously.

Cool, pour into container, cover with lid and place in freezer for 1.5-2 hours.

Grate rind of remaining 2 tangerines and beat cream until stiff. Break frozen syrup into bowl and beat until even texture. Beat in cream and tangerine rind until colour is uniform. Freeze for 2.5 hours.

Take out, beat (beat really well), return to freezer.

ENJOY!

Coconut Salmon Broth

After weeks of fairly heavy eating, I wanteed to get some nutrients and veg into the kids the nightb before school went back. We all love a pho and we all love Wagamama so a perusal through Wagamama’s ‘Your Way’ led me to this recipe. As usual, I adapted it to suit our veg preferences (and what was in the fridge) and apart from using almost every bowl in the kitchen and creating more washing up than was initially anticiapted, it was delicious and everyone ate it (mostly). It’s light, fresh and super tasty. Annoyingly it isn’t online so I shall have to type it out. I’ll adapt it to include how I made it.

Ingredients (serves 7):

1 bag of baby sweetcorm, julienned
3 medium carrots, julienned
1 courgette, julienned
3 pak choi – stems sliced and leaves washed
1 rice noodle nest per person
3 x salmon tails – skin off and cut into chunks
1 bag of Tesco raw seafood mix
1 bag of tesco raw king prawns
1 tray of Tesco raw scallops
180ml coconut milk
2T fish sauce
Coriander leaves
1 red chilli finely sliced
Olive oil / veg oil

For the broth:

800ml Veg stock
6T coriander seeds
6T cuimn seeds
10 sprigs of mint
10 sprigs of coriander
2T tamarind paste
2 lemongrass stalks

Method:

First make the broth. Put all the ingredients except the lemongrass in a saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Using the back of a knife, crush the lenongrass and add it to the stock. Cook for a further 10 minutes, take off the heat, strain the broth into a container and set aside.

Prep the veg. I blanched the corn, carrots and pak choi stems in boiling water and then strained over the courgette and plunged the hot veg into ice cold water. I set this aside.

Next place a deep pan (one that is big enough to hold everything except the noodles) on the stove, add some oil and once hot, stir fry the seafood for 2-3 mins. Once the seafood has started to cook through, add the veg and broth to the pan and bring to the boil.

Pop the rice noodles in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Allow to stand for time indicated on the pack and then drain and ladle into your bowls (you will add the hot broth and fish on top so they can sit for a bit in bowls rather than overcook in the pot).

While the noodles are sitting, add the coconut milk and fish sauce and allow to simmer gently. Stir and once the fish is cooked though, remove from the heat and ladle spoonfuls on top of your noodles. Garnish with sliced red chilli and coriander leaves (test the strength of the chilli before letting your kids put loads in their bowls – just a suggestion….).

In Other news:

• LOD turned 16 this week. She had about 50 kids over for a party on Saturday night which went really well (see rules for teenage parties above) although the house stil smells weird and we cannot work out what its from. The cleaning continues.
• I cannot recommend the Tymo Curl pro plus highly enough. As a house of four ladies, there is much ‘hair’ that goes on and Santa brought the girls a Tymo Curl pro plus for Christmas. It’s brilliant. So good, that I bought one just for me. In 3 mins last night, I had a head of soft curls. I am no doubt destroying my hair but such is the price of beauty….. LOD did hers before school and pic was taken at 5pm – they hold so well!

• Over Christmas, I bought Creative Nature’s allergy-free pancake mix. I woudn’t usually buy a pancake mix but Creative Nature took part in the Big Food Redesign Challenge I led over the last few years and it was there in Tesco, so I tried it. Very light and fluffy pancakes and fab if you have any allergies or want gluten-free.

• It’s very odd not working although it seems I am off to do a few bits and bobs over the next few weeks from Zurich to Birmingham with London in between.