Delia's Restaurant

A few of us went to Delia's restaurant Friday night, it was so nice there. They had two jazz guitar people playing, the restaurant was fairly quiet because it wasn't a match day so that was nice. 

We sat down and got some table snacks - I adore sweet potato crisps!

Then we all picked out some bread, I had tasty olive bread. 

This was my starter Thai fish cakes

Max had a manly chalice of soup!

Then for my main I had Thai green curry which was really nice, I hadn't tried it before

Then I had lemon cheesecake and completely forgot to take a photo of it (my friends and the boyfriend are used to be being weird and taking photos of food) and so here's a photo of Kiran's creme caramel 

After our meal with had tea/coffee and these mini choc ices, inside was Ronaldo's ice cream (remember Ronaldo's?)

It was really nice there and I'd definitely go again, if any of you fancy a visit all the details and the weekly menu is here http://www.canarycatering.co.uk/restaurant.php 

Frustrated

So... whilst my iphone is irrevocably damaged beyond repair I keep seeing really awesome things to blog about (by awesome, I mean awesome to me, not to normal people). The knitting vandals have attacked City Hall, my cat had his birthday, I tried a new Delia recipe, we've been invaded by ants and I've had some exciting news too and can I photographs any of this? NO! Well... I could find new batteries for my digital camera... but what a chore! If anyone presents me with a set of working AA batteries I shall present them with a glorious blog post in their honour. Sad times.

Jesus isn't the only thing rising this Easter...

I decided that after watching a Delia episode on baking bread I thought I'd try my luck at it. I hadn't ever made bread before because people with breadmakers had tricked me into thinking it'd be difficult. Also there are a lot of bread recipies online where you have to muck about with your yeast. Luckily, Delia says with her simple recipe "let's cut the crap and bake some tasty bread!"... Ok so she didn't exactly say that but I imagine that's what she would have said if she wasn't on TV.  My mum said she only made bread once, when she a was a little girl because there was a bread strike. I thought that sort of thing only happened in the reign of terror but there we are.

First I got all my ingredients - surprisingly few!

I was very interested in the yeast

I don't know exactly what it's made of but it looked rather interesting. Next I seived all my ingredients in a big bowl together and mixed them all around, no faffing about with putting the yeast one side etc etc

Then I dug a little well and added warm water

Gave it a little stir

Then I squidged it with my hands

Then I kneaded it for a bit and then left it in a bowl covered in cling film for two hours

And when I came back it had grown!

How exciting!! Then I knocked out the air and kneaded some more, then divided it into two loaf pans

Then I left these for an hour then put them in the oven for about 35 minutes... and out came my bread!

Hurrah!

Then time for a taste test

Yummerz. Here's the recipe if you fancy some of your own tasty tasty bread Take me to the bread!

Why Delia's The Best

I'm a child of the Delia Smith generation, my mum swears by her and the house was always full of her books.

I've been watching her TV version of one of her books on the good food channel recently

And I just love simple her recipes are and then you can make them a bit more fancy if you like. I can't stand recipes that have ridiculous ingredients that you have to go out and buy because no normal human being stocks them in their cupboards. Anyway, if you have the good food channel on your TV then matime to check out her 'how to cook' lessons, she's great.

Lastly - another reason Delia's awesome. She was born in Woking and loves Norwich. I'm from Woking and live in Norwich! Forget the other TV chefs, Delia's withstood the test of time and chef fads.