Suburban Lush

4 Steps To Happiness

1. Google cookie recipes.

2. Go to the store and pick up necessary ingredients.

3. Follow recipe.

4. Share oven-warm cookies and a pot of tea with a friend/boyfriend.

 

Ginger Cookies (makes approx 20 cookies)

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup salted butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 3 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp. ground allspice
• 1 3/4 cups plain flour
• White sugar for rolling the cookies

Preheat the oven to 190.

In a bowl, combine the brown sugar and melted butter (we don't have a microwave so I just mixed everything up in the saucepan I melted the butter in) and stir until thoroughly combined and smooth. Add the molasses and stir to mix well. Do the same with the egg. Next, add the baking soda, spices and 1 cup of the flour and mix until no flour can be seen in the mixture.  Add the remaining flour and stir until incorporated.

Pour white sugar onto a plate or bowl. Form the dough into balls about 2 centimeters in diameter. Flatten slightly. Dip each ball in the sugar, coating the top, then place on a greased baking sheet sugar-coated side up. Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool on tray for 2 minutes. Using a wide spatula, transfer to a wire rack. Best served within a few hours of baking. Recipe liberally adapted from here.

I wish

I wish I could tell you I'm not depressed, but I can't.

I wish I could tell you that I regret my decisions, but I don't.

I wish I could tell you you're right, but you aren't.

But I can tell you that I'll be ok, I just wish I was ok now.

 

 

Today is not a good day. But I know it will pass.

Glencoe

You may have noticed over there on the left that I've been reading "Glencoe" by John Prebble. This was not just for fun - it was research. You see, I had a trip to Glencoe planned, and being the immense nerd that I am I was finding out about the famous massacre at Glencoe before visiting the place itself.

This was yet another hiking weekend - the Scottish Highlands are a beautiful place to walk, full of gorgeous valleys and high hills. And the leader of the weekend had chosen Glencoe, the most famous of the Highland valleys. Not only stunning gorgeous but with an interesting (and bloody) history.

The story of the massacre is one of politics and betrayal and well worth reading but instead of telling you about it I am simply going to rabbit on about the gorgeous hiking we did, with gorgeous sunny (very un-Scottish) weather and pints at the pub.

We started off early on Friday morning, catching the ferry from Larne to Troon and driving up to Arrochar. We stopped there for our first walk - up Ben Arthur, also known as The Cobbler. The walk starts with steep switchbacks, a shock to the legs after a morning of travelling. The path eventually flattens out somewhat, giving you a chance to catch your breath and enjoy the view back down Loch Long and up towards the three summits of The Cobbler. The final ascent is steep and long, and we had amazing views from the summit. Some were even brave enough to tackle the famous Eye and reach the true summit.

Then it was back down to the cars for the final leg of the journey to our hostel Kinlochlevin. 

We arrived for a quick unpack and shower before heading out for a pint. Most had dinner at the hostel, but a few of us headed to the local Tailrace inn for our meal. A delicious steak and ale pie and a pint of local beer hit the spot before meeting up with the others for a few pints at the hostel bar. 

The plan for Saturday was to climb Bidean Nam Bian, the highest mountain in Argyll and Glencoe at 3773ft. This was a hard walk, but immensely rewarding. Steep uphill climbs, almost vertical scree slopes, over 9 hours long, completely and utterly breathtaking views, and an incredible sense of satisfaction. Again starting with immediate uphill, the track eventually flattened out in The Lost Valley - unseen from below, this was the place where the clansmen of Glencoe hid rustled cattle from their rightful owners. After the respite of The Lost Valley, it was a steep climb and scramble to the top. No point rushing - take plenty of time to turn around and enjoy the views spreading out below as you ascend. The day was hot and we took our lunch at the saddle before tackling the final climb along a ridge to the summit of Bidean Nam Bian. Then down and around, scrambling desperately down an almost vertical scree slope, some on their feet and some on their bottoms before rejoining the well-defined path. Constant descent, most of it excruciatingly steep, reminded us how far we'd climbed.

We didn't get back to the hostel until quite late. Once showered we ordered dinner. I couldn't resist - haggis, neeps and tatties with whisky cream sauce. Surprisingly delicious!

Then, after a few pints, we headed to a pub to check out a local band and have a few more drinks.

We'd booked the ferry back to Belfast for late on Sunday, which meant we had all day to amuse ourselves. Rather than go for another walk we decided on a leisurely day out: visiting the Scottish National Trust information centre at Glencoe where they have an excellent exhibition on the history of the area, and popping in to little towns to check out the local sights.

It was a fantastic weekend, and I'm already itching to return.

Monday Morning Roundup

Food, walking and laziness. It's been hectic over here!

Over a week ago I cooked dinner for John and completed the second of 4 installments of the Weekly Food Challenge. But I have finally found my camera cord, so this time you get pics, as well! I'd gone to the markets and picked up some lovely plump and juicy steaks. So, what to accompany them. Well, I went for a simple rocket salad, and The Pioneer Woman's caprese salad. Simple and elegant, this salad goes with anything. Ripe market tomatoes, creamy mozzarella (the good kind - don't skimp on this!), aromatic basil leaves, and the simplest of dressing. As well as being dead easy to assemble, it also looks amazing. Check it out:

Caprese salad (makes 2 generous side portions)

• 3 ripe tomatoes
• 12 oz fresh mozzarella
• fresh basil leaves
• balsamic reduction
• olive oil
• sale & pepper to taste

Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella. Layer artistically in a nice dish. Tuck in basil leaves. Drizzle over the olive oil and balsamic reduction. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

If you are lucky (and lazy) it is usually possible to buy balsamic reduction pre-made. But if not, it is easy peasy to make. Simply place balsamic vinegar in a pot and bring to a boil over medium-low heat. Cook for 10 to 20 minutes, or until balsamic has reduced to a thick glaze. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Balsamic reduction is one of those awesome things to have around, so go ahead and make a whole heap - it keeps for quite some time in the fridge. I drizzle mine over salads and pizzas, or to marinade meat.

Next up was desert. Strawberries are luscious and plump at the moment, so I figured I'd give this strawberry cake a go. Sometimes dishes take my fancy despite the fact that I haven't read the description through. This was one of those dishes. And it was delicious, according to John. I wasn't quite such a fan, mostly because I had failed to read that "those strawberries turn into puddles of jam". Which is all well and good if you like jam, but I don't. Or, well, more specifically I like jam only when it comes served with clotted cream and scones. But if you like jam, as John does, then this cake is for you. I didn't fiddle with the recipe at all, so go on over to Smitten Kitchen and check it out.

You might wonder what else have I been up to, other than cooking and eating. First off, I am currently jobless, my temping position having ended. This isn't a terrible thing, as the job was pretty dire. So I've had a week off, which has meant catching up with friends and family. No complaints there.

I've been out hiking as well. Because we are insane, my hiking group decided to do a challenge. It was in two parts. The first part started at midnight and took in 3 peaks before breakfast. I don't know much about the second part because I was too lazy to do it. Friday night saw a group of us congregating in Donard Park, where we had a BBQ before driving around to Bloody Bridge carpark where we donned backpacks, head torches and glowsticks before starting up Bloody Bridge river and over Slieve Donard. Then down Slieve Donard and over Slieve Commedagh, Corrag and Bernagh as the sun came up. The plan was to see the sunrise at the top of Bernagh, but we were a little late and it was foggy. Still, we carried on down to Meelmore where our support crew and cooks extraordinaire had set up shop and were cooking up a storm - blueberry muffins, bacon and sausage baps, tea, coffee, and fruit for the health-conscious (I did not have any fruit, and I maintain that there were plenty of healthy blueberries in the muffins). Most of us had previously decided that the overnight walk was enough for us, but a handful carried on to complete the second half of the challenge.

French Onion Soup + Gooseberry Crumble

You may be wondering what happened on Sunday night, and why you haven't heard about the result of my Weekly Food Challenge. Then again you may not, as regular readers know that I have a habit of not fulfilling promises made here. The truth is, I made a delicious meal with two new dishes, and I took photos. I even had left-overs and they were delicious too. But I'm currently house-sitting, and have misplaced my cable for downloading the photos to my laptop and I was waiting to see if I could find it so that I could show you pretty pictures of food but so far I have not. However, this morning I was thinking about what to make this weekend, and figured I should probably share last weekend's results, even if there are no photos as yet.

So . . . . first up was French Onion Soup served with a green salad. I've been wanting to make French Onion soup for years, but John isn't a fan so I've always put it off. But now, with a house to myself, I figured it was time to give it a go.

I used a combination of ChristopherCina's recipe, and this recipe from Smitten Kitchen. Because the recipe is simple, with very few ingredients, I decided that it would pay to use good-quality ingredients. I picked up a bottle of decent sherry (although honestly I wouldn't know if it was decent sherry or not, but it wasn't the cheapest bottle on the shelf), quality beef stock (no veal stock in Belfast!), fresh thyme and onions from the organic grocer at the markets, and some aged gruyere, again from the markets. I spent ages caramelising my onions and the house smelt heavenly. Once the soup was done I sliced a french loaf, floated slices on top of a large bowl of soup, mounded on the grated cheese and popped it under the grill until it was bubbly and golden. Perfect!

Next, desert. The house that I am looking after has a lovely garden, overflowing with raspberries, red and black currants, and gooseberries. While the raspberries are eaten straight off the bush while I'm standing in the sunshine, I figured I'd better find a recipe for the currants and gooseberries before the laden branches broke. So, to Google I went. And found this Gooseberry Crumble. I love crumble. Apple crumble. Rhubarb Crumble. Any sort of crumble at all. So I figured gooseberry crumble would be just the ticket. I picked a bowl of the gooseberries, and then couldn't resist throwing in a few handfuls of the red currants. In to the house I went to top and tail the gooseberries, and whip them up into a delicious desert. The crumble was excellent and extremely tart - the perfect antidote to the richness of the French Onion soup. It would no doubt be fantastic with whipped cream or (better yet!) vanilla ice cream, but I am still trying to behave myself a little bit so I refrained. Don't be as disciplined as me.

French Onion Soup (serves 4)

• 2 ltrs good quality beef stock
• 3 yellow onions, sliced
• 1tbs olive oil
• 1 cup sherry
• 2 tbs fresh thyme leaves
• freshly ground black pepper
• french bread
• gruyere cheese (about 1/4 cup grated per serving)

Place the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan and heat on medium high heat. Once melted, add the onions. Caramelise the onions, stirring them about every 5 minutes, making sure each slice gets some time at the bottom of the pan. When all the onions are a lovely milk chocolate brown you are done (this takes about 30 to 40 minutes - patience is a virtue). Poor in the sherry and deglase the pan. Simmer until the sherry is reduced by half. Add the stock and thyme leaves and simmer for around 45 minutes.

Thickly slice the french bread and pre-heat the grill. Spoon a generous portion of soup into an oven proof bowl. Float the bread on top. Cover with grated gruyere cheese. Place under the grill until the cheese becomes bubbly and golden brown. Swoon with the delicious smell. Pour yourself a glass of wine. Enjoy.

Gooseberry and Red Currant Crumble (I haven't put any measurements here, because crumble is one of those dishes where amounts don't really matter, and you can make enough for 1, or enough for 8, and adjust the amount of topping to your personal preference - personally I usually go for lots of fruit, little topping, but I have friends who prefer the opposite.)

• Gooseberries, topped and tailed
• Red currants (I used a ratio of approx 1:8 of red currants and gooseberries)
• Squeeze of lemon juice
• Plain flour
• Rolled oats
• Butter
• Sugar

Preheat the oven to 200C. Spread the fruit evenly in the baking dish and sprinkle with sugar and lemon juice. Place in the warm oven. In a separate bowl, rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the oats and sugar and stirr. Spoon this mixture onto the top of the now slightly softened fruit mixture. Sprinkle with a little more sugar. Place in the oven, uncovered, and bake for around 50 minutes until the berries are soft and the topping is golden. Serve on its own, or with vanilla ice cream or cream.

And there you have a perfect Sunday night dinner.

Avenue Q

I went to see Avenue Q last night. And all I can really say is - go see it. My friend Stuart had a spare ticket and invited me to go along with him. I didn't know what to expect as we arrived at the Grand Opera House. I'd been told that the show was "like Sesame Street for adults" which, ok sure, but that doesn't really help.

As a synopsis on the website says: "Avenue Q is not the most upmarket of New York streets, and is about as far away from Park Avenue as you can get, but it is home to some lively and off the wall characters performed by an unholy comedic alliance of humans and puppets! Princeton, a bright-eyed college graduate, has just moved to this neighbourhood as he desperately tries to follow his dreams and discover his ever-elusive purpose in life. A tiny bank balance, the distraction of a busty blonde and a variety of weird and wonderful friends and neighbours lead Princeton on a hilarious story of self-discovery.

Life may suck on Avenue Q but being jobless, homeless, politically incorrect, having sex (whether hetero, homo or porno... and that’s just the puppets) are just some of the topics featured in the terrific songs of this show."

And that pretty much sums it up. A grown-up show with sex jokes and puppets. It was fantastically produced, with amazing acting, singing and puppeteering (is that a word?). Hilarious and irreverent throughout, I can't recommend it enough. Because seriously you guys, what could be more awesome than this?

Weekly Food Challenge

I haven't been writing about food much here recently. It isn't that I haven't been cooking, but more that I haven't been cooking anything interesting. Following a spate of 'leaving NZ' dinners and drinks with friends and family, 'joyous return to NI' drinks and dinners with family and friends, and recovering from a year's worth of Guinness withdrawal, I have recently had to embark on a healthy eating plan. Which means that dinners these days have mostly consisted of salads and stir-frys and there has been very little baking going on in my kitchen.

The food blogs I read keep on putting up delicious recipes, and I keep putting them in a folder for 'later'. John sighs as I put yet another low fat meal on the dinner table. And after a month of veges, my taste-buds are begging for something new. Thus the Weekly Food Challenge. For the next 4 weeks I aim to make a nice Sunday dinner using at least 2 new recipes, be they starters, side dishes, main courses or deserts. Bonus points if I try out a new drink as well! Furthermore, I will write about these meals here, giving you the recipes and letting you know whether I liked the dishes or not. While I will aim for these dinners to be on a Sunday, if for some reason I cannot make a Sunday dinner I will make the meal on some other day of the week, and if I am having people over mid-week I will allow myself to make a Challenge meal then instead of on Sunday. This is my challenge, so I get to set rules to suit me!

So now for your help. Do you have any recipes for me to try? Want to play along at home and let me know how your meals work out? Or do you live in Belfast and are you free for Sunday dinner - good food needs good company!

Restaurant Review - Rocket & Relish

I was not in the best of moods last night. My job is boring and frustrating, and I'd just had an email from a friend cancelling an evening out later in the week that I'd really been looking forward to. So I was grumpy. And instead of sitting at home all night with a grumpy girlfriend, John suggested we go out for dinner. I leapt the idea, throwing my diet aside as John mentioned Rocket & Relish - the burger bar we'd been meaning to try for so long.

I don't know why we waited as long as we did, but I can tell you that Rocket & Relish on the Lisburn Road will be one of our regular haunts from now on. I had the Goat's Cheese and Jalapeno beef burger, stacked high with generous portions of creamy goat's cheese, aioli, rocket, fresh and sun-blushed tomatoes, and just the right amount of jalapeno mayo to give the whole thing a slight tingle (perfect for me but if John had been eating the burger he would have preferred a more overwhelming spiciness). And sweet potato fries. Oh man. Those who know me well will know that one of the foods I miss so much from NZ are kumera fries. Kumera is a South Pacific variety of sweet potato. And while these sweet potato fries were no kumera fries, they came close enough to make me happy. John had a Bacon & Blue beef burger - maple cured bacon, creamy blue cheese dressing, aioli, rocket and tomato - with a side of fries, and was kind enough to let me have a bite. Excellent!

The portions were huge and John only just managed to finish his meal. There was no way I could finish mine. The establishment itself is bright and modern. It isn't licenced and caters mostly for take-away. There are a few tables inside and out, but even if you are sitting in your meal is brought to you wrapped in waxed paper - no cutlery, but who needs a knife and fork to eat a burger and fries anyway? A delicious and casual dinner for two and a perfect way to banish grumpiness!

The Crucible

Last week a friend and I went to see Arthur Millar's The Crucible at the new Lyric Theatre. It is one of those plays I'd always wanted to see performed: I'd read it, but never watched it. And it was the first show I'd seen since returning to Belfast. I'd forgotten what it is like to watch a play filled with Northern Irish accents. Now in some plays, this wouldn't matter. But in The Crucible? It kind of does. However, I am willing to concede that it is better to have a performance filled with local accents than one with badly-done fake accents. And I was probably the only person in the audience to notice the Belfast accents, whereas everyone would have noticed if there were badly done Massachusetts accents.

Despite all this, the play was a good one: well directed and with beautiful wood-panelled sets. I did find it slightly over-acted in some parts, but with a play this intense it is hard to walk the fine line between intensity and over-the top. Particular acclaim goes to Angela Phinnimore in the role of Tituba.

Some plays can be watched knowing little of the history behind them, but the viewer of The Crucible definitely benefits from a little back-ground research into the circumstances under which it was written. To the uninitiated it can appear to be a simple story of the dramatic events of the Salem witch trials, but knowing a little about the McCarthy era impartsextra layers of subtlety to the goings-on.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of what the new Lyric has to offer.

Rathlin Recki

I had another early morning on Saturday, again for hiking. When my alarm went off at 6:30 I wondered why on earth I do this for fun. Particularly since it was raining. Despite my pessimistic thoughts I dragged myself out of bed and into my hiking gear. I was off to Rathlin Island.

I had friends from NZ staying with me, but they had arrived rather unexpectedly and I had already committed myself to doing the hike. Fortunately they were keen to check out the Causeway Coast, and so were able to drop me off at Ballycastle on their way, where I was meeting up with 2 walking friends and catching the ferry. We arrived early, and the five of us (two kiwis and three intrepid hikers) stopped at a cafe for a bite of breakfast. While the others ate bacon and eggs I stuck with peppermint tea - from where we were sitting we had a great view of the bay, and the rolling swell and crashing waves did not bode well for my stomach's survival during the crossing.

It was pouring with rain by the time we were ready to board, and we had donned full waterproof gear. The ferry ride is 45 minutes, and somehow I managed it without being sick. I was delighted! By the time we arrived on the island the rain had stopped, and we headed up the road.

'Recki' is short for reconnoiter. Basically we were scoping out the island for an official group walk in a couple of weeks, figuring out which trails to take, how long the walk would be, and what sort of terrain it would be over. What this really means is that we didn't exactly know where we were going (far better to wander around lost with a group of three rather than on an official walk and in front of 30 others) but we had our trusty map. The route was mostly road-based, with a couple of off-road scouting missions.

Rathlin Island is beautifuland wild, with plenty of wildlife to see. We were even lucky enough to catch sight of a seal. We walked, chatted, and figured out the route, sheltering in an old ruined building for lunch. By mid afternoon we'd seen it all and were soaked through, so stopped at the pub where we had a cup of tea before catching the ferry back home.

It was a good day, and I'm looking forward to going back for the official walk in a few weeks. And hopefully the seas will be calmer.