Torrone Molle

I haven't shared a recipe for a while. Someone asked about chocolate biscuit cake being hard to cut recently, and it reminded me of this recipe from Elizabeth David's Italian Cookery which was the chocolate biscuit cake I grew up on. I can remember making it for me brother's birthday when he was maybe 8 or 9. So I made one for the weekend, since we have a friend coming over later on.

Torrone Molle
6 ounces each cocoa, butter, castor sugar, ground almonds, Marietta biscuits. 1 whole egg and 1 yolk.
Beat the butter and cocoa together till it is a soft paste, then stir in the ground almonds. Melt the sugar in a heavy-based pan over low heat with a little water - you're trying to melt it rather than dissolve it. Add to the cocoa mixture. Stir in the the egg and yolk, beating them together first, and then stir in the broken biscuits carefully.
Press into a round tin (about a 20cm diameter, I think) and chill. It is even better the day after you have made it.
According to the recipe this serves 6 people - I think it's more like 10, as it is very rich.
I'm sorry I don't have this in cup measurements - C couldn't believe how much cocoa there was as he watched me sifting it. I had to settle for regular Rich Tea biscuits - time wasn't on my side yesterday, and of the three shops I tried near work, only one of them even had Rich Tea. I am sure it will still taste good.


To go with it, I've made my chicken risotto, loosely based on a recipe from the same book. You take the skin off half a chicken and cut the flesh into thin long strips. Cook a thinly sliced onion in some olive oil and butter over a low heat till soft. Add the chicken, a thinly sliced red pepper and a couple of sliced tomatoes. Stir for a few minutes, then add a cup of white wine. Add enough water to cover everything, herbs to taste (I usually use bay and thyme, as I can pick them fresh from the garden, and peppercorns), cover and simmer over a very low heat for at least an hour. Use the liquid from this, and more water as required, to make risotto in the regular way, adding the chicken and vegetables about a quarter of an hour before the end, to give them time to warm through. For once I even had some white wine handy - often I just use some sherry instead.

Too many buttons...

The photo challenge on SCS this week was Too Many to Count. This is my sewing and knitting button box, so a lot of the buttons have memories attached to them. The ceramic ones with the cat and mice came from Paris; there are some from waistcoats I have made C; there are little pewter ones with a sheep grazing under a tree that came from a jacket of my mothers, and tiny little mother of pearl and brass ones that came from her mother. Big silver ones from my aunt - in need of a polish. A little barrel-shaped one that I loved as a child and used to have more of...a little Misha badge from the year of the Russian Olympics...Snoopy buttons from my one and only visit to the States, and all sorts of oddments.
I need to put a coat and hat on and sit and watch the feeder some sunny day - I see the little coaltit a lot these days, along with the robin and sparrows.

Quick Knit

This ladybird hat was quick to make - although I had to adapt the pattern slightly as it was probably for Aran weight wool (one of those brands/patterns that doesn't say, but going by needle size my guess is it was heavier than DK). I've knit this before for the little girl I used to mind. She lost the first one at the skating rink and I had to knit her another.

I mentioned that I had got some wool to knit a couple of things for a girl in work.
The photo challenge on SCS this week was curves. It was enormously windy on Wednesday, and pretty dull - but I was rewarded by this rainbow just as I got to work. Seen a lot of rainbows this week!!

Hot off the Needles

...not quite hot. I finished this last week, but only got the buttons when I went into town after work yesterday. I searched both my sewing and my craft button boxes, and couldn't find four matching buttons the right size. This is for my newest nephew, who is now 6 months old. It was fun to knit, because instead of having to knit the front button and buttonhole bands separately, they are cables knit along with the fronts. So, I did have to knit the cable borders for the bottom edge and the sleeves, but it was a lot more fun than knitting ribbed bands.

I picked up some wool to knit a hat and cardigan for someone in work, so there'll be more to show soon.
The weather we've been having is not conducive to outdoor photography, but here's a photo of the Spanish Chestnut tree in work, now almost totally bare. It was a pretty lousy morning, but by the time I finished work it was bright and sunny, so I walked into town instead of waiting for the bus.

Pairs

The photo challenge on SCS this week is pairs of things.
I got lucky this morning. Only thing was I didn't bring my big camera, because I was planning on doing some beading in work, so my bag was pretty packed with the stuff for that. On my way to the bus in the morning, I'd seen one go by, so I knew there was 5 minutes till the next one. That meant I was able to pause and admire one of these beautiful trees - the early morning light on it made for amazing colour. When I stepped across the road to take a picture, I realised that there were actually two trees - and two houses - so it was perfect for the challenge.
Then walking along the quays in town I saw these two painters painting the railings outside Collins Barracks. Thanks to cropping out some of the extra details, I also have two cones.

Bird in the Garden

Last Thursday I bought a tub of mealworms for our little robin, as I'd run out of all the ones I'd saved from a mixed bag of bird food. And of course, I didn't see him again till today. He'll come so close - I need to remember to have the camera ready. In fact, he was so close that I couldn't focus on him while he came to feed from beside the back step - but I snapped him sitting on the wall instead. I know - how many pictures of robins have I already got!
I thought this week was going to be busy in work, so this morning I got up early and made a start on the housework and brought the big bird-feeder in to clean. I hung up a bag of sunflower seeds to keep the birds going, but it was just lying on the ground when I came home. I think the big birds like the pigeons try to take food, and pull it off...so I'd better go and fill up the normal one and hang it out again.

Birds in the Green

On Thursday we were going down to Avoca to visit friends. So C got up early and drove to the office, and I stayed in town when I'd finished my work, and met him at 4. By 3 I had had enough shopping and too much to carry ( a kilo of coffee beans, to start with), so I went to sit in St. Stephen's Green and read. On the way to find a sunny bench I spotted these birds.
The lens of my camera must have been a bit dusty - I needed to clean up some noise in the mallard photo before I could upload it. Better clean it, I suppose!

Pecan Macaraoons

I should have brought my big camera when I went out to post some letters and get some bread and milk. When there was light, it was amazing, with the dark grey sky.
There are so many berries on the trees - hope it's not a sign of a hard winter. It certainly makes for the floors needing cleaning more often - there are so many rowan berries on the footpath that it's hard not to trek them into the house.

On the way back I saw two young starlings fighting - I presume. One of them was chasing the other all over the place round two trees.

Cleaned the fridge this morning, and needed to use some eggwhites, so I made these. The recipe came from an old magazine: Better Houses and Gardens, a Christmas issue.
Pecan Macaroons
3 egg whites
1 cup caster sugar
3 1/2 ounces desiccated coconut
1/2 cup ground pecans
1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat the egg whites and vanilla to a soft peak. Add the sugar one tablespoon at a time, beating on high speed for at least 5 minutes or till very stiff. Fold in the nuts.
Drop teaspoons onto greaseproof paper, two inches apart, and cook for 18 - 20 minutes at 325F, 160C, till the edges are lightly browned.
This makes about 45.

25 years of wind and rain...

Yesterday I went out to visit my aunt. I needed to get an earlier train, which had bad connections and left me with ten minutes in Bray station. I didn't mind too much - the last time I went through the station without having to change, I noticed that they were replacing the original murals from 1984 with mosaics. About time too, they've been getting more and more shabby as time has gone by.
1984 was the year they electrified the line and introduced the DART service. Before that it was diesel trains. We lived 5 miles beyond Bray, on a stretch which wasn't electrified till well after I had left home. So for us, Bray station was the one we used most. In fact it's still a pretty minimal service out to Greystones...
It was so dark and dismal and wet that I just had my pocket camera with me, not expecting any photo opportunities at all...
The first picture shows the diesel trains that I remember so well:


This is one of the DARTs - presumably the original 1980s version. They are now on the third or fourth upgrade - but the old ones are still the most comfortable, I think.



1870s - well, obviously I don't remember that! Where we are now, we occasionally hear steam trains run past, though, for special events.

Somewhere, but I didn't take time to unearth it, is a picture of a gang of us at the far terminus to Bray, in 1984. Me, C before we were even going out, and several others. Not quite sure I want to find it and see what 25 years has done to us.

A hotch potch of scraps.

I had to make a quiche for work last Friday. We were out on Thursday night, so I made the pastry and cooked the bacon and onion, and left myself a list of everything to remember at 6.30 on Friday morning. After I had my shower and while the quiche was still in the oven, I realised I'd forgotten the extra-mature cheese I'd specially bought. To put it bluntly, I'd forgotten to add any cheese at all. No wonder there didn't seem to be as much filling as I expected and I was left with an empty round pie shell. On Saturday I dealt with that by turning it into a Pear and Frangipane Tart. (Everyone said how lovely and moist the quiche was, and there wasn't a scrap left - I still haven't confessed!)

Which reminded me of this easy pear recipe which I used to cook as a dessert when I was catering for Wet, Wild and Windy Weekends in the Scripture Union centre around this time of the year.
Bake Pears in Caramel Syrup: for 6-8
Take 6-8 medium sized ripe pears, peel, cut in half and scoop out the cores. Roll gently around in a dish with 3 tblsp of lemon juice, to prevent discolouring.
Arrange the pears cut side down in a shallow dish just the right size to hold them. all. Drizzle any remaining lemon juice over, and then sprinkle with enough cinnamon and ginger to give a taste but not be too strong.
In a pan, heat 8 ounces / 1 cup sugar till it melts and goes pale golden brown. Pour it over the pears, making sure to keep your hands well above the dish, as the caramel will spit on contact with the pears and lemon juice.
Bake at 190C / Mark 5/ 375F for about half an hour, till pears are tender. Serve warm with some of the syrup from the pan, and vanilla icecream or thick whipped cream.
Now I want upside-down pear gingerbread - and with the weather having got as cold as it has, it's the time of year for it. I finished my sweater in perfect time.

I don't often post cards here, but I was so happy with how this one turned out, given that it was for a difficult situation - someone leaving work because of redundancy.