Hot from the hob

I feel I have been neglecting the cooking aspect of my blog as advertised in my original mission statement; to redress this balance I shall impart a couple of recipes that we found in magazines and then made our own. Tonight we are having the optional extra leftover version of one of them, having already had the dinner version and the lunchbox version; we are kings of thrift!!
Okey dokey, first the afore-mentioned multi meal recipe:
Transylvanian Meatballs with yoghurt, capers and mint (a room temperature salad not a million miles from the Thai ones in theory, but less spicy)
This involves making little meatballs of lamb mince, cooked rice, cooked-off onion, cumin, thyme and paprika; we added some chilli too because we like that. Roll the little fellas up and fridge them for half an hour while you knock up a dressing of greek yoghurt, spring onion, capers and lots of fresh mint. In hindsight I might have added finely chopped cucumber as well to make it a bit more like a Raita as I am a cucumber fiend; try that next time...
Cook off the meatballs in a frying pan and leave to cool a little, then toss in loads of the dressing. We ate them for dinner with salad and warm pitta bread, for lunch cold with some rice and tonight it is sliced up in a wrap with tomato salad and rocket. Well yummy. If you are lucky enough to have a Polish bit in your supermarket there are often interesting capers to be found that are also cheaper than the ones in the other section.
Recipe two is a wee twist on a favourite; Smoked fish and coconut Kedgeree:
Fry off some curry paste (we used Thai Yellow) with some onions and garlic. Add the smoked haddock and cook on, then tip in coconut milk a dash of fish sauce and green beans. Poach for 4 mins until fish cooked then chuck in chopped spring onions and ripped up coriander and parsley.
Stir in cooked rice (to make enough for small giant if you are in our house) and serve with lime wedges. Again, chilli could be added.
There you go; recipe part of contract fulfilled for a while. Someone showed me a recipe this morning for 'Eggs in Purgatory', which sounds ace, but I didn't have time to get a look at the constituents; I was reading about Dante last night though so it must be destiny; I shall search the internet.
Dante features in my growing angel quotation bank too; the chapter I was reading last night in Umberto Eco's 'Serendipities'; he had been debating the language spoken in paradise by Adam and Dante's quest to rediscover it. The passage ends: 'If by chance Adam has joined the party (with Dante and Abulafia in heaven) only God knows what kind of language those three characters are speaking together. Perhaps the angels are providing an excellent service of simultaneous translation.'
The other quote is even better, and from a somewhat less highbrow source, although I'm sure he'd enjoy the proximity;
'There are few things as fetching as a bruised ego on a beautiful angel..'- Stuntman Mike.
(Quentin Tarantino's 'Death Proof')
I'm a happy snail tonight as I finished the big picture of the angels rampaging over the northern forests and in doing so created a new heroine; Cecilia, the gothy rock-chick Swedish angel is sure to make more appearances I feel. I also noticed that the angels are wearing more and more nighty-ish dresses which must have come from the sketches I made in Vietnam of people wearing such garments at the drop of a hat in wonderfully mismatched patterns and prints; I really thought I could get into that as a dress code for life.
The day has sped on its speedy way again and the nights are drawing in.. I am heading for my hundredth blog post and feeling better about my painting by the day. A very lovely friend called me 'brave' today for my artistic endevours, but it no longer seems that way - I am positively breaking down the walls of my comfort zone.