Friday night was the extremely important holiday of
Burns Night, a fact of which you are already aware if you are lucky enough to be on my contacts list because I definitely texted you and demanded that you start drinking scotch. But at least I didn't demand that you start eating
cullen skink, which is what I was doing at the time.
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| "Perfect" cullen skink, according to The Guardian! Don't get any skinkier. |
I actually liked it quite a bit, since it's basically just chowder which means it involves potatoes and comes in a bowl. Good enough! Not as good as my Official Authorised Edition of The Robert Burns World Federation Blended Scotch Whisky. But good.
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| Easiest. Theme. Ever. |
I also made the
gromack for dessert, by which I mean Dan made the gromack for dessert, by which I mean he made a variation of it called
atholl brose which apparently is actually a cocktail. In fact, Wikipedia does not acknowledge the existence of gromack, or rather it does but calls it
cranachan instead. Ugh. This is all terribly befuddling and I haven't even had any atholl brose this morning. Just know that we made an oatmeal-honey-whiskey soup and it was a lot better than it had any right to be.
Best to move on to Cookbook #11 before I get confused and just start transcribing "To a Haggis."
The Essential Appetizers Cookbook (Whitecap Books, 1999). Provenance: Mom. Previous recipes on this blog: none. If I was
amused by the Britishness of Good Food Fast, I was straight delighted by the Australianhood of this sucker. The presence of "Mini Corn Dogs" in the "Tex-Mex" section, for example, is fascinating. Also the fact that the recipe includes six instances of the word "frankfurt." Skewer those frankfurts for an authentic Tex-Mex experience! I also enjoy that nachos are,
I absolutely swear to you, called "Spicy Tortilla Triangles."
But I shouldn't make fun, partly because
I'm the one who's been walking around calling cranachan "gromack" like a fool, A FOOL, and partly because there are really a lot of nice-looking recipes in here. I personally would eat the hell out of some spicy tortilla triangles. But for book club on Saturday I decided to go slightly more upscale, selecting Crostini with Pepper (or Capsicum if you are Australian and confused by the word Pepper) Roulade. I thought a roulade sounded 1) kinda fancy and 2) like something I would probably botch and I know that's secretly why you all come here.
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| You're in luck! |
Joke's on you though, schadenfreudists, as roasted peppers on toast taste perfectly good even if they aren't in nice froufy little circles.
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| I'm only ever aiming for an appearance of "more or less intentional." |
And I have to say, they were beautifully repurposed for breakfast yesterday.
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| Sometimes I am using the eggs to hide mistakes. NOW YOU KNOW. |
Verdict: lots of appetizers. I like appetizers. I am childishly amused by the language quirks of other English-speaking nations. Keeper!
Hey Anna, isn't it super nice of Cali to be reading you a story?
Well, don't take it personally, Cali. She was in kind of a mood after a recent bout of engineering failure.
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| Let's see, maybe if I can... |
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| ...just get it to... |
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| ...womp womp. |
