Inactivity

Why have we not posted here for a while? A lot of stuff has been going on in the Lodge. It's definitely not the lack of great meals and the like which has caused this lapse. Laura made us a fantastic lamb-dinner for easter, and we've had a lot of good food in general. But I'm sure TGL will be updated soon. 

Guest Cook, Whiskey and Planting Lettuce

A good friend of the Lodge, Paula, had long been committed to visiting us as a guest cook. I for one was really excited, since I knew Paula to be an excellent cook from parties that she has held. Her style is usually mainly Italian; but this time she had decided to do a Scottish menu, since - well, since she's Scottish and we never get to eat this kind of stuff. So, we were treated to cauliflower and blue cheese soup, haggis stuffed chicken breast with pancetta and "rumple dithymps" (basically mashed potatoes and white cabbage), and kranachan for dessert. It was a great meal! The Lodgers ended up drinking whiskey and talking philosophy until 6 am - my own state is documented here.

The next day, I was incapable of doing anything requiring mental activity, so I decided to plant some lettuce outside in these boxes that I bought in Woolworth's for about £1.50 each. Very excited! Today, I saw the first tiny shootings, and I'm convinced that in a month's time, we'll have a load of homegrown lettuce for salads. All in all, last weekend was great!

Baking and raw meat

We're a bit behind in the posting game here, but I really wanted to post these three things before the next round of great stuff still to hit TGL. First, for Andri's farewell dinner, Laura cooked a meat-theme meal, the starter of which was this carpaccio. Elia and me (and I think the rest) agreed that it was almost perfect (except perhaps for a millilitre of too much lemon juice). We had it with the focaccia here as well.

Later that week, I rediscovered baking in tins, which is actually a great thing, although for many years I didn't do it. At this point, I still had some fresh yeast and I used a left-over of yogurt, which I always find makes the bread really nice. Andri taught me a trick of how to fold up the dough in a way so that when it gets baked in the tin it becomes really evenly shaped and gets this line at the top which one knows from the bakery shops. Great stuff, indeed.

Burns Night!

I had bought haggis in Pitlochry (I went there with a freind who was visiting Scotland) because they told us a story of them being the best haggis in Scotland. I bought them for Elia although he had promised to make me try them long time before. So he proposed to make burns night at home. The Haggis preparation in it self is quite easy- just boil them. But Elia made the best mash potatoes ever, though I persistently objected to the long and complicated process he chose. I made some onion gravy to go with it. And some honey roast parsnips. It was great!

Voro ergo sum

Just to say I have updated my food page after the season's traveling... You may find it here.

The Lodge Christmas Party

So we celebrate our Christmas party with some Mulled Wine, a cheese board with about 8 types of cheese (Among them an interesting goat blue cheese, and also manchego, reblochon, vintage cheedar, gouda, brie, smoke cheese and goat soft cheese) We also had chicken liver pate, most people's favourite apparently, since it almost dissapear; and then black olive tapenade, aubergine pate, feta cheese, walnut and herbs pate, and beetroot relish. All homemade :)
I think everybody enjoyed it a lot.

Andri's Lamb

Andri got inspired one morning (apparently, with the help of Andreas' suggestions) adn decided to cook one of the lamb recipes from the Silver Spoon book: Lamb with Mushrooms. I would have never thought a creamy sauce with lamb, but it was so good, I think I may reproduce it for Christmas.