Pasta. Let’s talk about pasta for a moment. Pasta is awesome. Why is pasta awesome? It’s filling, easy to make, and can be shaped into anything. Seriously, this stuff’s like Play-Doh without the E-numbers.

You know how sometimes things taste better when you make them yourself? Well this, in my opinion, goes double for pasta. It better absorbs the flavours of any sauce put on it, and it’s pleasant on the palate, so why not show off in front of make some for the family? You can make a fairly big batch of it by mixing 4 eggs with 400g of flour (double fine or 00 grade is best for pasta), and kneading it until it becomes a smooth ball. Wrap it in cling film, leave for an hour, knead again, and you’re free to do whatever you’d like.

You can make thin sheets and put them through a floured pasta machine to make (lotsa) spaghetti or tagliatelle, and then hang it up to dry for half an hour (see photograph above). While you’re waiting to do that, you can prepare whatever sauce you’d like, then pop the pasta in slightly salted boiling water when it’s ready to cook. It can be boiled for about 3 minutes this way. Serve with a sauce of your choice: in the picture below, I served a heated oil with chilli and garlic over the pasta.

Be advised that the pasta expands as it absorbs the boiling water. You could end up making more than you need without knowing it. Seriously, this stuff’s like a Gremlin without the E-numbers.

If you’re feeling a little more adventurous, you could try making your own ravioli. Prepare any filling of your choice, then take spoonfuls of it and arrange them on a thin sheet of pasta. Brush the bits of pasta around the fillings with water, then place another pasta sheet on top. Make sure that there’s no air trapped around the lumps of  fillings, then cut in between these lumps to make ravioli squares. Press a fork around the edges of each square to seal the edges and make a lovely pattern, but don’t spend too long doing this, or else the ravioli could dry out altogether. After that, boil the squares in lightly salted water for around 8 minutes, and serve with an appropriate sauce of your choice.

Making ravioli is pretty tough though. The picture above shows my first attempt, which didn’t quite turn out the way it wanted, but was still a perfectly edible dish. I used a crabmeat filling, and served a tomato and cream pasta sauce with the dish (that was probably one of the best sauces I’ve ever tasted).

If you happen to have a batch of spare pasta dough left, you can freeze it and use it at a later date. When defrosted, it’ll be good as new with a bit of kneading.

So the next time you have nothing to eat, just remember: if you’ve got flour and eggs, or a batch of spare pasta dough you decided to freeze so you can use it at a later date, you’re well on your way to making one of the best things out there.

‘Change the world?‘ Sounds like Maverick talk to me.

In fact, it was so big, it needed a schedule.  And a spreadsheet.

So, I’d like to present the results of the hard work I put into making this, starting with the turkey itself:

The turkey was stuffed with a traditional pork and sage stuffing, pictured below.  Putting it onto its serving dish was the hardest part of the process.

The stuffing was left to chill in the fridge on Christmas Eve, and was cooked inside the turkey.

The roast potatoes (front) were roasted using some of the fat of the turkey (of which there was an incredible amount).  The Stir-Fried Chestnuts and Brussels were one of the easier things to make (it felt good to enter a bit of familiar territory here).

This was the Melba toast prepared for the smoked salmon starter.  Here the crusts were cut off slices of bread once they were lightly toasted.  The bread was then cut into triangluar pieces and toasted again on one side.  The crusts, meanwhile, made up a light and tasty snack.

These roasted parsnips came in two varieties: with a parmesan coating, or without.  Both kinds came out really well.

The turkey was covered with the bacon slices pictured above before it went in the oven.  Once they were ready to come off, they were further cooked in the oven with the sausages.

The Cranberry and Orange Relish (front) was prepared earlier in the week, and remained in the fridge before it was ready to serve on Christmas Day.  The gravy (back) was prepared with a homemade turkey stock, which in turn was made using the neck and giblets of the turkey.  Yum.

Making the traditional bread sauce was a 4-stage process that was carried out throughout the week.

The English Trifle was very fun to make on Christmas Eve.  The custard and fruit filling were made from scratch.  Flaked almonds decorate its creamy surface.

And then there were the Not-Pork Pies, a vegetarian treat made at the very beginning of the week:

Getting that turkey on the serving dish could not compare to the what went into these pies.  Seeing all 12 of them lined up on the rack though made it very worthwhile though.

Overall I thought this was a fantastic accomplishment.  I’m going to find it difficult to top it this year.

]]> http://www.bbldinner.co.uk/?feed=rss2&p=514 0 http://www.bbldinner.co.uk/?p=510 http://www.bbldinner.co.uk/?p=510#comments Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:02:54 +0000 Volken http://www.bbldinner.co.uk/?p=510 One can only resist those pesky birds for so long.

It’s no secret that this blog isn’t being updated as much as I’d like, with month-long gaps becoming more and more apparent.  With this in mind, I registered for a new twitter account so that any further gaps, no matter how long, won’t feel so empty.  You’ll find the latest tweets at the top of the sidebar on the left.

EDIT: Good lord this thing’s addictive.

First though, I thought I’d mention that I wanted to play some of my older games on the Wii, since I hadn’t sat down to play them in a long while.  In doing so I’ve ‘rediscovered’ Mario Kart Wii, a title that’s still going strong two years on, and one (I’m almost ashamed to admit) that I haven’t fully completed.

So, I figured that I should win any remaining GP cups I hadn’t attempted yet (probably due to the game’s fantastic online mode, as well as Uni work etc).  Almost unfortunately, the ones left were in the Mirror class.

Holy doody.  I mean I love Mario Kart to bits, but good lord, Mirror Mode.  The other classes aren’t as bad despite the game’s rubber band AI, but for whatever reason this AI becomes more apparent in Mirror Mode, often reaching levels of sadistic cruelty worthy of the AI Director him/her/itself.  Yes, Mirror Mode is to Mario Kart as Expert Mode is to Left 4 Dead.

…okay, for the most part, maybe I wouldn’t go that far – I’ve managed to win everything but the Special Cup, in which it seems like the AI gets turned up ANOTHER notch.  My only real obstacle in this cup is Rainbow Road, the place where you go when you die, according to the classic song.

Yeah, more like the place where you go TO die, no thanks to chance.  The track starts with a long drop, and here you’re completely vulnerable to the other cars banging into you, making you fall off the track, thus placing you at the top of the drop again.  From here on in, the game insists of giving you stars and mushrooms to use on some of the track’s most awkward areas – you’re going to ricochet off a barrier and fall off the track again.  From here you’ve magically lost your skills and bounce off the track simply by drifting.

You’re screwed.  You don’t have enough points to get the gold trophy by the end of the track.  You have to start the cup again.  Deal with it.

So, Mario Kart can be immensely harsh in this day and age, where there is a lack of difficult games on the Wii.  Nothing new, I suppose.  I just needed to get that off of my chest.  But one evening I’m going to get that gold trophy so I can finally join the ranks of people with licenses covered in little gold flags.

No, it doesn’t mean anything.  But getting that gold trophy is still going to feel rewarding.

Happy Belated New Year.

This recipe is a variation of a dish that’s usually served on the side, but it makes a tasty lunch on its own.

For this recipe you will need the following ingredients:

• 3 desertspoonfuls per serving of uncooked basmati rice, plus one for luck;
• As many peas as you wish, boiled or microwaved, depending on instructions;
• Likewise, as many prawns as you’d like (you can use frozen prawns and leave them to defrost);
• 2-3 large eggs, beaten;
• One clove of garlic, finely chopped;
• 1 tablespoon of oil for frying (I used Conola Oil, but Olive or Sesame is okay too);
• Soy sauce for seasoning.

You will also need:

• At least one pan to cook the rice (use another if you decide to boil peas, for example);
• One frying pan or wok;
• A bowl to whisk the eggs in;
• A whisk or fork;
• A wooden spatula.

Cook the rice following the instructions on the packet.  Use the time waiting for the rice to cook to prepare the other ingredients if you haven’t done so, and to skim off any foam off of the top of the boiling water (if the rice is being boiled as opposed to steamed).  When cooked, pour the rice into a seive and refresh under running cold water.  Lay it out on a baking tray to cool – you can fan the rice to cool it faster, but don’t leave it out for too long.

When the rice is cool, heat the oil in the frying pan.  Add the garlic and fry for thirty seconds.  Add the rice to the pan and fry for about five minutes.  Make sure to stir the rice with the spatula so it cooks evenly.

Pour the beaten eggs over the rice, continuing to stir so no major clumps are formed.  When the eggs are cooked, stir in the peas and the prawns until they have warmed through.  mix in soy sauce to taste, and serve.

The rice can be stored in the fridge for a day, and warmed up in the microwave.  Bon appetit!

A sweet main course prepared in this instance while following, and adapting to, this recipe.  In the picture above, it has been served with a Special-Fried rice.  The recipe to this side dish will be up soon.

Left 4 Dead 2 is a swell game, by the way.

Dead Center is cronologically the first of five campaigns in Left 4 Dead 2, and takes place during the day.  It begins on the ‘chocolate helicopter’ roof found in the leaked trailer/demo introduction video.  From there, the survivors need to fight they way through a small city and/or a small shopping complex, which includes a grocery, a gun shop and a toy store.  Maybe the shopping complex IS the mall.

In any case, the survivors will reach the mall’s main building.  Although a map of this building is provided in and around it, the AI Director 2.0 will block certain corridors in each playthrough.  As another example of how the mall is affected by such witchcraft, some of the escalators inside could be working (or not) as well.

In addition the mall contains a gauntlet crescendo in which at some point the survivors need to break through some shop windows.  A burglar alarm will sound as soon as the windows break, so they have to reach the alarm before they become overwhelmed.

Before/at the time of the outbreak the mall had a blue sports car (as driven by the well known Jimmy Gibbs Jr.) on display.  In Dead Center, this is the rescue vehicle – void of both driver and fuel.  It looks like the survivors will need to gather up fuel cans in a similar way to Scavenge Mode, and use them to fill the car – it would be interesting to see how this plays out.  Once they have enough fuel, they can use the car to escape the mall.  Eventually they’ll be blocked by abandoned vehicles on a highway, setting the scene for Dark Carnival.

There’s no word on what the Uncommon Common are in this campaign, but I suspect that they will be the fireproof Hazmat Zombies, who were first introduced at E3.  Also included in the campaign are, apparently, explosive ammunition and laser sights.  I don’t think these add-ons are exclusive to this campaign, but I believe this is their first appearance overall.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Left 4 Dead 2 will unleash 10 million zombies via Steam on November 17th in the USA, and on November 18th in Europe.  This may sound bad for us European folk but there’s a plus side: I think the game gets unlocked at about 5 GMT that day.  By the time this game is unlocked in America, people living there would have to think about going to sleep.  Then we get to play it while they’re still sleeping, and probably clock in more gameplay time in the process – we get to have more L4D 2 action than America.  In short, Europe gets to roll.

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!

Sources: HLPortal (a German website which I have difficulty understanding) and the Steam Forums (which I have as much difficulty understanding).