Showing posts with label little pleasures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label little pleasures. Show all posts

Monday, July 6, 2009

Vive Le Tour




Time speeds past and it is already July. What happened to June, how did it get so buried under pressing duties, long work hours and endless things demanding my time and energy. 


For me July heralds the start of the Tour de France, a great event that I have been following for quite a number of years now. I never really took to sport and nor can I claim to be much of a cyclist at all. Yet despite this there is something quite appealing about this particular event. The scenery itself is so spectacular and no other sport can claim such a stunningly beautiful stadium.


So it is such a pleasure to snuggle up late at night and sleepily watch the roads of France unwind before you. The photographers have a real visual eye for capturing fascinating things and so many of the people it passes are also making their little contributions to the event with their roadside decorations. 


So in the spirit of the Tour de France I have baked some bicycle cookies, they are a ginger/cinnamon flavour with a hint of lemon peel. 


Now if only the members of my Fantasy Cycling Tour will start performing so I can stop regretting the decision to omit Cancellara and Cavendish from my team. Fingers crossed and good luck to you Cadel... 

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Pumpkin for one
















I bought a rather sweet little baby pumpkin at Fratellis the other day, it was so adorable I wanted to do something interesting with it and also try to keep it whole rather than just chop it into chunks and turn it into wedges of roast pumpkin or blended into a soupy pulp. 


One thing that surprised me looking through my cookbooks was at how few references there were for pumpkins, some books didn't even have a single recipe featuring it. Jamie had some under 'squash' but my mums trusted hand me down copy of Delia's complete cookery course didn't have a single mention of pumpkins or squashes... am I missing something here? Why the unpopularity?


Anyway I had a baby eggplant which I diced into small little cubes and some tomato also diced and some chopped anchovies, (I would have added onion and rice but I'd run out of room by then) some seasoning of oregano, salt, pepper and a dash of cardamon and I squashed all this into the centre of my deseeded pumpkin... It ended up being just the right portion for one, warming without being too guiltily fattening...