#jawgasm

Take a peek at tomorrows menu:

Tasty or what? So yes, I have been charged with the main course of "Boeuf Wellington" aka steak, pâté and pastry. In the fridge there is some most excellent mushroom and liver pâté chilling for tomorrow. It tastes sublime.

wedge of butter (70g at a guess)

3 rashers of bacon,  (probably not necessary)

5 shallots, finely chopped (or a regular onion)

2 garlic cloves (I actually used paste)

300g of mushrooms

300g of chicken livers (from the Grainger Market and cleaned myself)

thyme (err, a bit)

splash of port (I imagine martini, sherry etc would be fine too)

salt

pepper

Melt the butter in a big pan, add the bacon, shallots and garlic, cook for 3-4 min.

Add the mushrooms and livers, cook until livers are seared (about 5 min for me)

Add the thyme, booze, salt and pepper, cook the booze off. It shouldn't be totally dry, judge the juice:solids ratio based on your existing pâté experiences (about 10 min)

Leave to cool for 15, then food process that bad-boy up! YUM.

Leave in fridge overnight and devour (I read that the paste does well to be sealed with olive oil, so you probably want to do that too)

Serving suggestion: Apply to beef. Top with pastry.

I'm excited with this mornings breakfast photos so the recipe will have to wait till the end...

Fry up a buckwheat crêpe till the edges start to curl

...once curly, flip the pancake and crack an egg onto the cooked side

...add cooked bacon and mushrooms, cherry toms, spinach, cheese, salt & pepper

...fold in the edges to make a parcel, this can be a bit fiddly - I have faith in you

...flip it to make sure the egg is cooked through (I don't mind it runny tbh, but hey!)

CONSUME! DIGEST! ENJOY! You are now eating my favourite breakfast evar. It's just the job; one pancake usually does for breakfast (lunch, tea etc) unless you're a greedy bugger like me in which case you'll need two to make you groan and moan. WITH JOY.

Recipe for the Buckwheat batter (to make about 6-8 pancakes):

mix up this lot

80g of buckwheat flour

80g of chestnut (or regular wheat) flour

pinch o' salt

2 beaten eggs

then gradually stir in

160ml milk

240ml water

and finally add

a wee splash of olive oil

You can use it straight away if you like, but it's at it's best after resting in the fridge for a couple of hours. BLAMMO.

A little factoid:

Fruits pump out the Ethylene hormone when ripening

Ethylene stimulates the ripening of fruit

Fruits pump out the Ethylene hormone when ripening

Ethylene stimulates the ripening of fruit

Fruits pump out the Ethylene hormone when ripening

Ethylene stimulates the ripening of fruit

...and so on!

Armed with this knowledge I decided to turn to the humble banana, a well known purveyor of quality Ethylene to help with the ripening of my left-over Scotch Bonnets.

...these fellas were all green 2 days ago! Good work humble bananas :-)

Personally I find that a green chilli is much like eating spicy grass, a little bitter and chloroformish - whereas a brightly coloured chilli has so much more depth of flavour; akin to being kicked in the face by a fruit. This is what we should all strive for in our chillis.

I love Thursdays, I love all days really; there's always something happening to make you smile! Yesterday was no exception, after a good day's graft (I must blog about this contract soon) I popped over to the Codeworks Ignite event to have my neurons tickled and tickled they were!

The first speaker Tristan Watson (a beautiful soul) talked about how an idea is only important once it's been acted on and to my mega joy he used one of my sideprojects as an example!!!

he was so kind about it I did a little blush!

We then watched Dan Gilmore talk about immersive technologies, a new face to me but so passionate! Love it! He sparked the memory of a thought I had as a child; "what would swapping sensory inputs feel like?" - if there's another Ignite event I may ask to talk about this cause it's such a giggle of a thought experiment.

Let the truncation begin - I should be working!!

We heard about finances from Jonathan Gold I noted that I need to talk to him about a concept business plan with a super-short-term exit strategy

Peter Hirst talked about hidden gems and easter eggs in technology Sparked another weekend tinkering of an idea, maybe next month ;-)

Dan Kolodziej (pronounced ko-lod-gee) went on a MEGA-TANGENT starting with shoes, onto Wi-Fi, cruised through Africa, financial institutions, and back to shoes again. DAN'S SHOES that is. Reminded me of frontline SMS - must see how that's evolving soon

David Erasmus (what a name!!) showed us some heart-warming holiday snaps then asked us about the nature of openness and friendship and why things happen the way they do I wrote - must buy a school bus

I had to cut the event short cause to cycle home and make SUSHI!!!! Yes.

I didn't get a shot of everyone; there was no incentive to move away from the food. That's just dumb. That last sushi was named "the loneliest maki", we proceeded to make it some "friends" then eat them too. We all had to lie down and ride it out cause we made soooo much!

In roughly chronological order, the most bestest food that I photographed in the past 12 months... Advanced apologies for ensuing hunger :-)

a mega pizza, with everything as a topping

breakfast in bed with a smile, I love you woman!

coast to coast midway treat, consumed with the appetite of a wolf

a Halloween hotpot, no "after" shot cause it got eaten too quickly!

pumpkin soup - this was EPIC, we'll be redoing this as soon as I see a pumpkin in the market

a pineapple burger to fit the aussy film "Priscilla Queen of the Desert"

a tarragon / strogonoff hybrid or "tarragonoff" if you will - made this up as I went and have since lost the recipe :-(

waffles, lots of waffles. with bacon. and coffee. every other weekend

the finest soup in the world (I'm making that tonight actually, might post a recipe 2moz)

litres of stock! we don't waste round these parts!

kippers with grilled tomatoes, my god are this good

and finally a truckload of sushi, thank you Roz for the introduction, I will always treasure the sushi

In my lunch break I get to CHOP-CHOP-KNIFE-FOOD-ATTACK

which turns into some tasty Egg-Fried rice