Saturday 19 September 2009

Quick fixes and brownies

It's been a week of rushed suppers and adjusting to working out of a new office. The bit of west London that I'm in now is a food desert: there's a mega shopping centre with an Eat in it, and a row of restaurants, but no real food shops unless you want a 20-minute hike...which I'll start to do soon. Earlier in the week, I made a carrot hummous, based on a Maria Elia recipe. Roast carrots are added to chickpeas - and very nice it was too, and soon to be added to my '100 Things That Look Like Wallpaper Paste But Taste Jolly Good' cookery book.
There was an aubergine in the veggie box, so once again I made my beloved nazuktan of aubergine, pekmez, yoghurt, lemon juice, mint and toasted almonds.
By the end of the week, there was an array of small snacky-sized left overs to eat, including the last of my pizza dough, topped with some of my Turkish dried olives, and a few gigantic beans.
I made some brownies this morning for Brian and his band: Brian is back to repoint the outside walls of the house, re-render round the windows and repaint. The front door is now a lovely plum colour. The recipe for the brownies is from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, which I picked up for a massively reduced price at a book stall, and frankly, it's not that reliable. The brownies took double the recommended time to cook, although they tasted fine. Brian immediately scoffed two in quick succession. I think I need to do some brownie recipe research.
Mouse is not at all impressed with the invasion of the builders - she's currently deep within the storage portion of the spare room bed. Here she is the other evening, taking the evening air.

3 comments:

Shaheen said...

Just my kind of food, where's my invitation Fran?
: )
Shame about the brownies, but they weren't wasted were they, there will always be someone around to scoff them down.

Sorry to read about your new office surroundings, but unfortnately that's how most places are getting. Nr my workplace I only have a 24hour supermarket.

Lickedspoon said...

And I would be first to buy that book - I share your weakness for things which don't look too promising but are, in fact, muy delicioso.

How annoying about the brownies. It's maddening when you buy the ingredients, follow the recipe to the letter and it's not perfect. I look forward to seeing the results of your brownie research though!

Poor Mouse. When we were building our kitchen, our kitties practically lived under the floorboards.

franmouse39 said...

Mango - you're welcome here any time! The brownies did disappear mighty fast despite the strange recipe. The remainder will travel to the Green Lane Food Festival later today.
Debora - Thanks for the vote of confidence in the wallpaper paste collection...it will be quite a compilation. Brownie research is ongoing.