Bugger your soul

Erg. Snot Fairy's back again, damn her eyes. It's all Bloke's fault. He got a revolting bug and generously shared it with me. Ms Fairy is proving to be like that uninvited bogan who turns up at your party, drinks all the beer, eats all the mini hamburgers and then pukes through your screen door.

So, for the snot-ridden flu sufferer in your life, here's my chicken soup recipe. It's not hard and imagine the brownie points it will earn you. Or just make it for yourself and tell whoever gave you their disease to piss off and get their own.

3 large chicken thighs bone in, skin removed (about 600-700g)
2 litres chicken stock (that liquid Campbell's stuff will do nicely)
2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
5 carrots, chopped
3 cups water
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 dessertspoons soy sauce
75g flat rice stick noodles, broken into pieces

Heat the oven to 190C. Put the chicken pieces in a roasting dish lined with foil so it's easier to wash - I'm lazy, me. Brush them with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle them with a bit of oregano. Roast for 30 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, fry the onion and garlic in a bit of olive oil over medium heat until glassy. Add the carrots and the rest of the oregano and cook for a few minutes. Add the stock and water and bring to the boil. Simmer for about half an hour. Chop the chicken and add it to the soup, along with the soy sauce and the noodles. Simmer for another 20 minutes.

There. Chicken soup not for your soul but for more practical things like your nasty nose and icky chest. You can even freeze it.

Now, anyone got a tissue?

Ask not what your fellow bloggers can do for you...

It's hot and it's just going to get hotter. Before Saturday, I mean, not in a "global warming is here and we're all going to die" sort of way, even though we probably are. Oh, Ford, who died and made me Bono?

Anyway, what does one drink in such putrid weather when one doesn't care for beer? Why, a mojito, of course.

Here's one I prepared (and drank) earlier

And it's easy. Because I lovesyouseall, and because ThirdCat once expressed a scrap of interest, I'm going to share my carefully-guarded mojito recipe. All you need is Havana Club (or any other white rum), limes, fresh mint leaves, sugar, ice and soda water. Oh, and a glass and a mouth, but those are usually fairly readily available.

Ah, all the ingredients for heaven in a glass

The only difficult part may be finding something to use as a muddler. I use my rolling pin, bequeathed by my grandmother and also very useful for making gingerbread. I believe you can also buy small lumps of wood from sniffy saucepan shops staffed by Prue and Trude lookalikes, but no-one wants to have to go there. A sturdy wooden spoon would probably do quite nicely.

Drop a few lime wedges, a few mint sprigs and a teaspoon of sugar into the bottom of the glass thusly:

Give it a good scrunching with whatever nubby wooden implement you have nearby. Smell the mint and the lime? Mmm. Knock in a healthy shot of Havana Club and a handful of ice-cubes and top it up with cold soda water. Give it a stir to distribute the sugar and finish it with another lime wedge and a mint sprig.

If you're doing these for a crowd, it makes things much easier if you make a simple syrup because you don't have to worry about crunchy bits of sugar floating about. Don't worry, it's true to its name: simple. Put a cup of sugar and a cup of water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir it until the sugar has dissolved and let it cool. About 15ml, or half a shot glass, is enough per drink.

So, go to! It goes very well with crisps.

Even Grinches make concessions

It's a week until Christmas and I've made two concessions to the season: gingerbread and the Christmas tree. Last year, the gingerbread flopped when I had a Dory moment and accidentally used cornflour instead of plain plour, and I couldn't be bothered putting up the tree. After all, you just have to take it down again, don't you?

The whole kitchen is covered in a fine film of flour and cinnamon and there are little dribbles of melted honey on the cooktop, the bench and the sink. This isn't real gingerbread, I'm afraid, but it tastes good and making it gives one that Nigella glow. See, I'm domestic, me!

Also, it's the only time I ever get out my rolling pin unless I need to muddle rum and limes for mojitos. The recipe I use is a German honey biscuit recipe that my old neighbour Trudy gave me. There isn't any ginger in it, but somehow it still tastes like gingerbread. Trudy used to make an enormous batch every Christmas and she had a big collection of cookie cutters. I'm too lazy to do lots of shapes, so I just go for hearts and minds:

Just in case you're feeling all gingerbread-enthused (or you just fancy a biscuit), here's the recipe. Sorry the measures are a bit weird - I've converted from pounds and ounces.

Trudy's honey biscuits
230g honey or golden syrup
115g white sugar
1 beaten egg
1/4 teaspoon mixed spice
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
230g plain flour plus 115g plain flour, extra
1 teaspoon bicarb soda, mixed with 3 teaspoons vinegar

Warm the honey/golden syrup and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Let it cool. Add the beaten egg and spice, then sift in the first 230g of plain flour. Stir to combine. And the bicarb soda and vinegar and stir through. Add the extra 115g flour and a little water to mix and stir to a thick dough. Let stand overnight. Roll out on a floured surface to 1.25cm thick and cut into shapes. Brush with beaten egg and bake for about 10 minutes at 180 degrees C.

It's best not to roll the dough out more than three times. If you do, it tends to make crappy biscuits. The recipe makes about four dozen hearts or stars, but I usually double it.

Putting up the Christmas tree was actually rather fun. Our tree, while made of fake piney stuff, is quite definitely as nature intended it. It is not upside-down, it is not made of purple tinsel and it wears a fairly normal collection of ornaments. I put the non-breakable decorations on the bottom and near the window sill, as Mr Furpants is rather fond of playing kitty tennis with baubles. He knocks them off and then chases them under the couch. As one would, if one were a cat.

Right. Apart from going out for a long lunch with my besties on Friday and cooking a big mofo of a turkey on Monday, Western Consumer Holiday is all sorted. Thank Ford for that.

Saucy chocolaty goodness

I have to work tomorrow, and Miss Petstarr has asked me to screw up... ahem... look after the Idol wrap-up over at Bland Canyon this Sunday, so I thought I'd best chocolate things up tonight so you can bake something yummy on the weekend. How about pudding? I like pudding. But only if yeh've eaten yeh dinner. How can yeh have any pudding if yeh haven't eaten yeh meat??

Chocolate uber pudding

1 cup SR flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup milk
45g butter, melted

Sauce:
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 1/4 cups hot water

Sift flour and cocoa into a bowl. Add caster sugar and stir to combine. Make a well in the centre and add milk and butter. Stir well to combine. Grease a 1 litre ovenproof dish and pour in the batter.

To make the sauce, combine the brown sugar and cocoa in a small bowl. Add the hot water and stir until smooth. Pour the sauce mixture over the back of a spoon onto the batter. Bake at 180 degrees C for 40 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.

Serves six. Stand pudding for five minutes before serving. Dust pudding with icing sugar and serve warm with cream or ice-cream. Mmm, pudding. (Yes, it microwaves.)

Chocolate fix

Here's this week's chocolate recipe. Enjoy!

Marble Cheesecake

180g plain chocolate biscuits, crushed in the food processor
90g butter, melted
500g cream cheese
400g can sweetened condensed milk
200g white cooking chocolate, melted
300ml thick cream
1 tablespoon gelatine
1/4 cup Cointreau, warmed
100g dark cooking chocolate, melted

Mix the biscuit crumbs and the butter (it has to be real butter, I'm afraid - if you use any other sort of spread, the base will fall apart and Ford forbid that that should happen). Press into the bottom of a greased 23cm springform tin and refrigerate until firm.

Beat the cream cheese and condensed milk with electric beaters until smooth. Beat in the melted white chocolate and then the cream. Add the gelatine to the Cointreau and stir with a fork until dissolved (zap it in the microwave for a few seconds if it is too cool). Beat in the gelatine and Cointreau and spread the mixture over the crumbs.

Drizzle the dark chocolate over the top and swirl it through using a fork or a skewer to create the marble look. You have to be quick, because the chocolate starts to set when it hits the cheesecake mixture. Refrigerate overnight. Serves 8-10.

If you're feeling tricky, you could reverse things and use 200g of dark chocolate in the mix and 100g of white chocolate on top. If you don't have any Cointreau, replace it with water. And if you want to look like a real clever clogs, serve the cheesecake with chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Psst, wanna score some brownies?

I know nobody asked for the heroin brownie recipe, but since I'll probably lose it, I'm going to post it anyway. This is for purely selfish reasons - if I want to make them again myself, I won't have to spend three hours looking for the recipe.

250g dark chocolate
125g butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup plain flour
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup white choc chips
1/2 cup dark choc chips
1/2 cup milk choc chips
3 eggs

Melt the dark chocolate and butter together in a saucepan over low heat. Beat the eggs and sugar together until thick. Add the chocolate and butter mix and beat until smooth. Sift in the plain flour and cocoa and fold them through, then add the choc chips. Grease and line a 20cm square pan, spread in the brownie mix and bake at 160 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Cool in the pan and slice into squares. Makes about 24.

Feel free to add some chopped nuts instead of some of the choc chips. I'm sure they'd be great. I'm allergic, so a handful of nuts would pretty well be a crunchy suicide pill for me, but you fill your boots.

There, now I can't lose it the damned thing! (crafty grin) Perhaps I should do the same with my marble cheesecake recipe...