snowleopard

Managed to go to sleep without taking my contact lenses out _{I wasn’t even drunk} so it’s eye-gunk central here this morning!

Have One More Chance going through my head so that can be breakfast music today.

• coffee, leisurely surf, see if next ep of The Thick of It is on iplayer
• gym
• fun afternoon doing fun things: piano, drawing, reading
• call AB in Sweden
• weekly review
• cheery dinner with G to stave off the Sunday night blues
• remember that I don’t hate my job as much as some people hate theirs

I’m grateful:

• for feeling exceptionally cheery this morning as I walked round town
• for G returning from kittenville earlier than expected, which meant I got to spend a couple of hours with him this afternoon
• for Waitrose having 25% off their booze at the moment – I helped G stock up on vintage Madeira which at that price is cheaper than he can get it in Madeira! :)
• for having a clean flat – sprang into action this afternoon and just did it, which means I don’t have to do it tomorrow hurrah
• for seeing D and M again. As I’d hoped, it was easier this time, we seem to be beginning to feel more relaxed in each other’s company, and the restaurant we went to in St Albans was lovely. A good evening was had!

Warning: vegetarians look away now! :)

I’ve been wanting to make a terrine for ages but didn’t have a suitable dish. So I asked my dear mama for one for my birthday, which was back in July, and then periodically she’d ask me if I’d made one yet, and the whole thing turned into a dreadful guilt trip so eventually I thought the best way to overcome that was actually to make the damned thing!

The problem facing me was that although everyone (= Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall) says that terrines are dead easy to make, the list of ingredients in all the recipes I could find was lengthy and full of things that would be difficult to get hold of and that I felt somewhat squeamish about, not having grown up in the sort of household that plucked its own pheasants.

But eventually I worked out an ingredients list that I could cope with, and made the terrine, and it was considered to be a great success by my advisor in all matters gastronomic, G. So I’m making another one today. NB it’s the sort of thing you need to make a day in advance.

Ingredients

• 2 duck breasts
• sausagemeat – best to buy sausages and take the skins off. Today I think I had about 450g of sausages
• streaky bacon, about 16 rashers
• prunes, soaked ovenight in armagnac :)
• last time I included duck livers, this time I forgot to get them, duh! Never mind!
• this time I am including pistachio nuts though!

Method

1. heat oven to 160C
2. chop up prunes, and duck livers if using, and combine with sausagemeat and pistachios if using. And anything else you feel like chucking in at this stage e.g. spices
3. cut the duck breasts up into chunks and brown them in a frying pan
4. line terrine dish with streaky bacon
5. layer the sausagemeat mixture and the duck until all used up
6. put lid on terrine dish, put it in a roasting tray and fill up to about half way with hot water, then bung in the oven for an hour and a half to two hours.
7. take it out, take the lid off, weight it down – I covered it with foil and then used some tin cans last time.

Allow to cool and put it in the fridge overnight. When ready to serve, the exciting bit is prising it out of the terrine dish – ta da!

It’s supposed to serve 8-10, and it probably would if you were serving it as a starter. Wonderful hearty rustic fare, excellent with salad, cornichons and a smidgeon of fig chutney. And a bottle of red wine, bien sur ;)