Belated birthday picnic

[karen2205]

Cutting for boring prep stuff (including the recipe for that chocolate cake)

I went to Sainsburys late on Friday night and bought lots of easy to serve
food and some bits to do some cooking with.

My first mistake was believing that I could createe a fuit flan using jelly
to set the raspberries in the flan - when I tried this the jelly just seeped
into the flan and then leaked everywhere. I should have bought the
specialist stuff for setting fruit in flan cases. The raspberries were all
eaten (as I thought they would be) and I know have a rapberry jelly infused
flan case in my fridge and I've no idea what I'm going to do with it.

My second mistake was leaving the cooking till Saturday morning. Jelly takes
more than an hour to set. My vodka jelly is now set having spent a night in
the freezer though I'm still yet to taste it to work out if I got the
proportion of vodka to jelly right.

About the only thing that went right in terms of cooking was my version of
death by chocolate. This is an adaption of a recipe that's been in the
family for years.

Take 10oz of biscuits (the recipe says digestives, I used Hobnobs for a
rougher texture) and crush them.
Take a large tin of condensed mild, 6 oz of chocolate (I normally use cheap
'chocolate flavoured cake covering 'cos I like it - this time I used Green &
Blacks cooking chocolate which made it a much richer, chocolately taste) and
a small amount of margarine. Place all of these in a saucepan on a medium
heat and stir until the chocolate has melted.
Stir in the biscuits (I'm reminded at this point that the original receipe
suggests adding 2oz of raisins/sultanas and 2oz of nuts. I don't like nuts
and I didn't have any raisins/sultanas so I missed this bit out).
Turn out into a cake tin - the mixture is a stiff kind of sloppy but still
needs to be in a container with sides until it sets. Cake tins with separate
bases are ideal.
Leave to cool. Serve in small slices because it's *very* rich. Would
probably work well with cream - if you like cream, though I didn't see
anyone reaching for the cream to go with it yesterday.



All of this cooking meant I was running rather late on Saturday, but
everyone else (apart from arkady and Adrian) was running late
too so it wasn't too disasterous. I eventually arrived just before 2pm and
spotted Arkady instantly and we chatted while waiting for other people to
turn up. nitoda and wuluf arrived next. Adrian
phoned me at this point and we left the tube station and wandered into the
park where he found us. We colonised a nice shady corner - expecting it to
get hotter rather than colder and got the picnic things out.

Cut for organisational stuff

My organisational skills were good - throwaway tablecloths for putting the
food on are a good idea. If I end up organising more picnics I may see if my
mother still has a set of plastic dishes - it does make more sense to have
reusable plates than disposable ones. I have got some non-breakable
crockery, but that's all camp stuff and doesn't match and there wouldn't be
enough for ten people. I wonder if it would be possible to ask people to
bring their own plates & cutlery along?

[Poll #502694]

Notes for next time: More standard sized carrier bags might have been useful for containing dirty stuff/giving people food to take home. Far too much food. I should have taken less food. Loo roll when relying on public toilets. Kitchen roll would have been sensible (though I did have napkins with me that didn't get used)



IIRC, neonchameleon arrived next armed with drink - which was a good thing, since those of us who had brought food hadn't brought drink. I gave him a book I've bought intending to learn more about statistics that I've not yet had a chance to read, hopefully by the time he's read it I'll have enough time to devote to reading books for fun. Then came ewtikins with an awful lot more food! I think it was around this point when Arkady got her poi out and did a demonstration. mstevens arrived, followed by nou who I've not seen for ages. By now it was getting quite cold - everyone had come armed with sunscreen and in not a lot of clothes to avoid overheating and we were all shivering, so I got up and walked around a bit and then Arkady showed me how to use her poi - I suppose I'm not quite as incompetent with them as I might have been:-) pfy arrived from his househunting and was introduced around the group. We sat and talked and more people played with poi and we ate food and we got colder. So just before 6pm we went in search of a coffee shop - the consensus being that we didn't want to go into a smokey pub - I'm not sure how typical this is, but the entire group were non-smokers. We found a Starbucks with space a little way along Picadilly. midnightmelody came to join us and I finally got round to lending her my copy of The Ethical Slut - we both have objections to the idea that (and I'm paraphasing) everyone has needs that can only be met within relationship. This isn't at all true - I've been very happily single for 24 years:-) I have other ways of fulfilling those 'needs' (these are 'needs' I'd describe as 'wants') and even if I was in a relationship I wouldn't necessarily rely on that relationship to fulfil wants that I normally fulfil elsewhere.

I was somewhat tired by 7pm - there was a corner of sleepy people in Starbucks. My tiredness was due to not getting to sleep till 2am Saturday morning due to the heat and then getting up at 8am to start cooking. We moved to an Italian place for dinner and I was defeated by my penne bolognaise (this time I think because of the amount I'd eaten during the afternoon, not 'cos of the size of the meal). After we'd eaten the consensus was for going home - yes, at 9pm we'd all had enough and wandered off home to bed. It was shockingly early - 11pm when I went to sleep last night and I first woke at 6.30am this morning.

Comments

[midnightmelody.livejournal.com]

Thanks for organising such a fun event! Re flan, you *should* be able to use jelly if you use the quick-set stuff - though not sure whether that's vegetarian. That's how I used to make strawberry flan, with the Sainsbury's flan cases . . .

[karen2205]

Yeah - I'll have to organise another one at some point over the summer:-)

I thought I ought to be able to use jelly too - but I think the proper stuff to use is 'quick setting gel' - I've now got a packet of that, but nothing to put in the flan that's now in my fridge. If it stays there much longer it'll go off so I'm being pathetic and can't decide what to do with it.

[mstevens.livejournal.com]

I think it was nou, me, then ewtikins, but that's details.

The death by chocolate was, indeed, good.

I don't mind smokey pubs that much, although there's not much point going in them unless you want to drink. I was very amused we all went to Starbucks and came out exhausted.

[karen2205]

Yeah, you're probably right re the order.

I think a number of us object to smokey pubs - me on the grounds of cost of drink as well as smokiness. Starbucks must have something in the air that soothes everyone into that relaxed/dozy state:-)