Today was such a horrible day, weather wise anyway. Really dreich, as they would say back home. The only thing for it was to make a stew or soup. As I hadn’t taken the beef out of the freezer to defrost, soup it was.
I tend to make soups out of whatever I have in the fridge or cupboards. Today, I had some chorizo and sweet potato and here is the recipe I came up with.
Ingredients:
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled & diced
1 ring of chorizo, sliced
2 carrots, peeled & sliced
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, grated or crushed
1 parsnip,peeled & sliced (not essential, I just had one that needed used)
2 handfuls red lentils
2 litres (or thereabouts) or chicken/vegetable stock
Method:
Put your chopped onion, garlic, carrots, parsnips & sweet potatoes into a large pot with some olive oil over a medium heat
Cook for around 10 minutes, stirring occasionally until the onions are soft
Add the chorizo and cook for a further 5 minutes
Add the lentils and the stock and give a good stir. Season with salt and pepper
Simmer over a low heat for 20-25 minutes
Take off the heat and blend with a hand blender in the pot. If you don’t have a hand blender then let the mixture cool a bit and blend in a food processor
You have your soup!
I think that this would taste nice with some finely chopped chilli ir chilli flakes in it and a dollop of creme fraiche. I may try this tomorrow but was making it child friendly to start. Serve with crusty bread & butter. Yummers
I thought I’d follow on from last week’s Portugal post with some more from that weekend.
To explain, the company that I worked for at the time, took the office away on a Summer Event every year. In 2006 it was to Cascais in Portugal. There was obviously the usual team building and office meeting, but there was also a GREAT BIG PARTY and the theme was 80s. Brilliant!
There now follows some very drunk photos of me in my 80s garb, dancing the night away. To explain the wine bottle, it seemed sensible to me to just drink out of that as there would be less spillage when dancing, less trips to the bar and doubles nicely as a microphone.
Oh dear...oh dear oh dear oh dear
Yes, she is holding my boob.
Good old wine bottle, good old ra-ra skirt (thanks ebay) good old neon hair bow
Next week, some more drunken photos from my past. I know you love them!
This week I am dedicated my Mumra Playlist post to Miss Francina Mendoza. My partner in crime for a few years in London and generally just a brilliant person who I miss lots, don’t speak to enough and share the “cry at everything” hormone with.
We share a love of things that light up
All glammed up
There are quite a few songs that will forever remind me of our Clapham flatshare days, but I think that this one tops them all. Her being an American and me being a Brit and us always singing this very loudly and very badly.
Today I am taking you back to May 2007. Back to when I was wild. In fact, possibly to the peak of my wild times. I’ve figured that there may be more “wild” flashback friday’s so I’ve entitled this the 1st Edition.
I think I must have thought that this was attractive in some way
Partners in Crime
If I could remember I'd totally tell you what this is...
Dear God!
This night was to celebrate the 30th birthday’s of 2 girls that I worked with. We started the evening at South London Pacific which is a fantastic cocktail bar in Kennington. Lots and lots of people were there and the cocktails were most definitely flowing. There was much stupid dancing (mainly from me) lots of photos being taken to document the night too.
As the evening progressed talk started of going to Infernos, a less than glamorous cheesy dancing venue in Clapham ( don’t tell anyone, but I LOVE it) so a few of us piled into a taxi to continue our dreadful dancing, most likely to the Baywatch theme. As per usual, we fell out of there at around 4am and as I lived literally around the corner from Clapham High Street, we decided to continue the party back at mine. A Maccy D’s and a stop at the offy later and we continued the party…then it was suddenly 9am, we’re all still drinking in my living room and one of the guys hasn’t informed his wife where he is….needless to say, the party was stopped then and I thought it would be a good plan to nip to the local Sainsburys, where, of course, I bumped into my ex. GREAT! All in all, an absolute belter of a night and what became the start of many “Random Fridays” amongst my friends.
TOP TIP: To any men reading this. If you stay out partying one Friday night, telling your wife when she calls that you’re at the receptionist from work’s house is never a good plan.
Today I am going to share photos from the best trip ever. After Christmas 2007 I flew out to San Francisco to visit my friend Jonathan who was on a work transfer there. We then got a plane to Canada and went to spend New Year with my friend Rachel who was doing a ski season. We were staying with her and what seemed like about a million other people. We ended up at the most random house party I’ve ever been to. There were hundreds of people in this chalet and we all paid $5 to get in and had to leave our shoes in the garage. Thinking about it now I think I was lucky to get them back. When I say shoes, I mean great big boots as it took 45 minutes of walking through mounds of snow to get there (seriously, you think the snow here recently has been bad!)
I tried to teach myself to ski and snowboard there. I don’t recommend it and will take lessons in future!
From Whistler I went back to San Fran for a few days before flying across country to Boston to visit another friend who was on transfer there ( I know, how jammy am I?) I had a couple of days there and then Verity and I went to have a few days in New York where we met up with a load of her friends too.
It was a fantastic trip, saw so many things, had so much fun and spent too much money.
Here are a few of my trip photos.
Under the stone man at the top of Whistler mountain
Best Snowman Ever - Whistler village
A street like my name - I was deeelighted!
New York Nicks game, can't not get a foam finger!
Sophisticated Seasonal Sweater anyone? Verity showing off the goods
